Der Praefekt

extremely
    zufriedenstellend.
     
    “I should like to see the opinion,” said the warden; “that is, a copy
    davon. “
     
    “Well, I suppose you can if you make a point of it; but I don’t see
    the use myself; of course it is essential that the purport of it
    should not be known, and it is therefore unadvisable to multiply
    copies.”
     
    “Why should it not be known?” asked the warden.
     
    “What a question for a man to ask!” said the archdeacon, throwing up
    his hands in token of his surprise; “but it is like you:—a child is
    not more innocent than you are in matters of business.  Can’t you see
    that if we tell them that no action will lie against you, but that one
    may possibly lie against some other person or persons, that we shall
    be putting weapons into their hands, and be teaching them how to cut
    our own throats?”
     
    The warden again sat silent, and the bishop again looked at him
    wistfully.  “The only thing we have now to do,” continued the
    archdeacon, “is to remain quiet, hold our peace, and let them play
    their own game as they please.”
     
    “We are not to make known then,” said the warden, “that we have
    consulted the attorney-general, and that we are advised by him that
    the founder’s will is fully and fairly carried out.”
     
    “God bless my soul!” said the archdeacon, “how odd it is that you will
    not see that all we are to do is to do nothing: why should we say
    anything about the founder’s will?  We are in possession; and we know
    that they are not in a position to put us out; surely that is enough
    for the present.”
     
    Mr Harding rose from his seat and paced thoughtfully up and down the
    library, the bishop the while watching him painfully at every turn,
    and the archdeacon continuing to pour forth his convictions that the
    affair was in a state to satisfy any prudent mind.
     
    “And _The Jupiter_?” said the warden, stopping suddenly.
     
    “Oh! _The Jupiter_,” answered the other.  “_The Jupiter_ can break no
    Knochen. You must bear with that; there is much, of course, which it
    is our bounden duty to bear; it cannot be all roses for us here,” and
    the archdeacon looked exceedingly moral; “besides, the matter is too
    trivial, of too little general interest to be mentioned again in _The
    Jupiter_, unless we stir up the subject.”  And the archdeacon again
    looked exceedingly knowing and worldly wise.
     
    The warden continued his walk; the hard and stinging words of that
    newspaper article, each one of which had thrust a thorn as it were
    into his inmost soul, were fresh in his memory; he had read it more
    than once, word by word, and what was worse, he fancied it was as well
    known to everyone as to himself.  Was he to be looked on as the unjust
    griping priest he had been there described?  Was he to be pointed at
    as the consumer of the bread of the poor, and to be allowed no means
    of refuting such charges, of clearing his begrimed name, of standing
    innocent in the world, as hitherto he had stood?  Was he to bear all
    this, to receive as usual his now hated income, and be known as one
    of those greedy priests who by their rapacity have brought disgrace
    on their church? Und warum? Why should he bear all this? Why should
    he die, for he felt that he could not live, under such a weight of
    obloquy?  As he paced up and down the room he resolved in his misery
    and enthusiasm that he could with pleasure, if he were allowed, give
    up his place, abandon his pleasant home, leave the hospital, and live
    poorly, happily, and with an unsullied name, on the small remainder of
    his means.
     
    He was a man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before those
    who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it burst
    forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he declared that
    he could not, would not, bear this misery any longer.
     
    “If it can be proved,” said he at last, “that I have a just and honest
    right to this, as God well knows I always deemed I had; if this salary
    or stipend be really my due, I am not less anxious than another to
    retain it.  I have the well-being of my child to look to.  I am too
    old to miss without some pain the comforts to which I have been used;
    and I am, as others are, anxious to prove to the world that I have
    been right, and to uphold the place I have held; but I cannot do it
    at such a cost as this.  I cannot bear this.  Could you tell me to do
    so?”  And he