y orders."

"Ho, ho! Doctor," said old Mr. Powderell, a retired iron-monger of
some standing--his interjection being something between a laugh and a
Parliamentary disapproval; "we must let you have your say. But what we
have to consider is not anybody's income--it's the souls of the poor
sick people"--here Mr. Powderell's voice and face had a sincere pathos
in them. "He is a real Gospel preacher, is Mr. Tyke. I should vote
against my conscience if I voted against Mr. Tyke--I should indeed."

"Mr. Tyke's opponents have not asked any one to vote against his
conscience, I believe," said Mr. Hackbutt, a rich tanner of fluent
speech, whose glittering spectacles and erect hair were turned with
some severity towards innocent Mr. Powderell. "But in my judgment it
behoves us, as Directors, to consider whether we will regard it as our
whole business to carry out propositions emanating from a single
quarter. Will any member of the committee aver that he would have
entertained the idea of displacing the gentleman who has always
discharged the function of chaplain here, if it had not been suggested
to him by parties whose disposition it is to regard every institution
of this town as a machinery for carrying out their own views? I tax no
man's motives: let them lie between himself and a higher Power; but I
do say, that there are influences at work here which are incompatible
with genuine independence, and that a crawling servility is usually
dictated by circumstances which gentlemen so conducting themselves
could not afford either morally or financially to avow. I myself am a
layman, but I have given no inconsiderable attention to the divisions
in the Church and--"

"Oh, damn the divisions!" burst in Mr. Frank Hawley, lawyer and
town-clerk, who rarely presented himself at the board, but now looked
in hurriedly, whip in hand. "We have nothing to do with them here.
Farebrother has been doing the work--what there was--without pay, and
if pay is to be given, it should be given to him. I call it a
confounded job to take the thing away from Farebrother."

"I think it would be as well for gentlemen not to give their remarks a
personal bearing," said Mr. Plymdale. "I shall vote for the
appointment of Mr. Tyke, but I should not have known, if Mr. Hackbutt
hadn't hinted it, that I was a Servile Crawler."

"I disclaim any personalities. I expressly said, if I may be allowed
to repeat, or even to conclude what I was about to say