Der Praefekt

understand you, Sir Abraham.”
     
    “Don’t you know that their attorneys have noticed us that they have
    withdrawn the suit?”
     
    Mr Harding explained to the lawyer that he knew nothing of this,
    although he had heard in a roundabout way that such an intention had
    been talked of; and he also at length succeeded in making Sir Abraham
    understand that even this did not satisfy him.  The attorney-general
    stood up, put his hands into his breeches’ pockets, and raised his
    eyebrows, as Mr Harding proceeded to detail the grievance from which
    he now wished to rid himself.
     
    “I know I have no right to trouble you personally with this matter,
    but as it is of most vital importance to me, as all my happiness is
    concerned in it, I thought I might venture to seek your advice.”
     
    Sir Abraham bowed, and declared his clients were entitled to the best
    advice he could give them; particularly a client so respectable in
    every way as the Warden of Barchester Hospital.
     
    “A spoken word, Sir Abraham, is often of more value than volumes of
    written advice.  The truth is, I am ill-satisfied with this matter
    as it stands at present.  I do see—I cannot help seeing, that the
    affairs of the hospital are not arranged according to the will of the
    founder.”
     
    “None of such institutions are, Mr Harding, nor can they be; the
    altered circumstances in which we live do not admit of it.”
     
    “Quite true—that is quite true; but I can’t see that those altered
    circumstances give me a right to eight hundred a year. Ich weiß nicht,
    whether I ever read John Hiram’s will, but were I to read it now I
    could not understand it.  What I want you, Sir Abraham, to tell me,
    is this:—am I, as warden, legally and distinctly entitled to the
    proceeds of the property, after the due maintenance of the twelve
    bedesmen?”
     
    Sir Abraham declared that he couldn’t exactly say in so many words
    that Mr Harding was legally entitled to, &c., &c., &c., and ended in
    expressing a strong opinion that it would be madness to raise any
    further question on the matter, as the suit was to be,—nay, was,
    abandoned.
     
    Mr Harding, seated in his chair, began to play a slow tune on an
    imaginary violoncello.
     
    “Nay, my dear sir,” continued the attorney-general, “there is no
    further ground for any question; I don’t see that you have the power
    of raising it.”
     
    “I can resign,” said Mr Harding, slowly playing away with his right
    hand, as though the bow were beneath the chair in which he was
    sitzen.
     
    “What! throw it up altogether?” said the attorney-general, gazing with
    utter astonishment at his client.
     
    “Did you see those articles in _The Jupiter_?” said Mr Harding,
    piteously, appealing to the sympathy of the lawyer.
     
    Sir Abraham said he had seen them.  This poor little clergyman, cowed
    into such an act of extreme weakness by a newspaper article, was to
    Sir Abraham so contemptible an object, that he hardly knew how to talk
    to him as to a rational being.
     
    “Hadn’t you better wait,” said he, “till Dr Grantly is in town with
    Sie? Wouldn’t it be better to postpone any serious step till you can
    consult with him?”
     
    Mr Harding declared vehemently that he could not wait, and Sir Abraham
    began seriously to doubt his sanity.
     
    “Of course,” said the latter, “if you have private means sufficient
    for your wants, and if this—”
     
    “I haven’t a sixpence, Sir Abraham,” said the warden.
     
    “God bless me!  Why, Mr Harding, how do you mean to live?”
     
    Mr Harding proceeded to explain to the man of law that he meant to
    keep his precentorship,—that was eighty pounds a year; and, also,
    that he meant to fall back upon his own little living of Crabtree,
    which was another eighty pounds.  That, to be sure, the duties of the
    two were hardly compatible; but perhaps he might effect an exchange.
    And then, recollecting that the attorney-general would hardly care to
    hear how the service of a cathedral church is divided among the minor
    canons, stopped short in his explanations.
     
    Sir Abraham listened in pitying wonder.  “I really think, Mr Harding,
    you had better wait for the archdeacon.  This is a most serious
    step,—one for which, in my opinion, there is not the slightest
    necessity; and, as you have done me the honour of asking my advice, I
    must implore you to do nothing without the approval of your friends.
    A man is never the