Der Praefekt

Mr Warden the madness of the deed he was
    about to do.
     
    “Eight hundred a year!” said Mr Cox.
     
    “And nothing whatever to do!” said Mr Cummins, who had joined the
    Konferenz.
     
    “No private fortune, I believe,” said Mr Cox.
     
    “Not a shilling,” said Mr Cummins, in a very low voice, shaking his
    Kopf.
     
    “I never heard of such a case in all my experience,” said Mr Cox.
     
    “Eight hundred a year, and as nice a house as any gentleman could wish
    to hang up his hat in,” said Mr Cummins.
     
    “And an unmarried daughter, I believe,” said Mr Cox, with much moral
    seriousness in his tone.  The archdeacon only sighed as each separate
    wail was uttered, and shook his head, signifying that the fatuity of
    some people was past belief.
     
    “I’ll tell you what he might do,” said Mr Cummins, brightening up.
    “I’ll tell you how you might save it:—let him exchange.”
     
    “Exchange where?” said the archdeacon.
     
    “Exchange for a living.  There’s Quiverful, of Puddingdale;—he has
    twelve children, and would be delighted to get the hospital. Um
    be sure Puddingdale is only four hundred, but that would be saving
    something out of the fire: Mr Harding would have a curate, and still
    keep three hundred or three hundred and fifty.”
     
    The archdeacon opened his ears and listened; he really thought the
    scheme might do.
     
    “The newspapers,” continued Mr Cummins, “might hammer away at
    Quiverful every day for the next six months without his minding
    sie. “
     
    The archdeacon took up his hat, and returned to his hotel, thinking
    the matter over deeply.  At any rate he would sound Quiverful.  A man
    with twelve children would do much to double his income.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter XX
     
    FAREWELL
     
     
    On the morning after Mr Harding’s return home he received a note from
    the bishop full of affection, condolence, and praise.  “Pray come to
    me at once,” wrote the bishop, “that we may see what had better be
    done; as to the hospital, I will not say a word to dissuade you; but I
    don’t like your going to Crabtree: at any rate, come to me at once.”
     
    Mr Harding did go to him at once; and long and confidential was the
    consultation between the two old friends.  There they sat together
    the whole long day, plotting to get the better of the archdeacon, and
    to carry out little schemes of their own, which they knew would be
    opposed by the whole weight of his authority.
     
    The bishop’s first idea was, that Mr Harding, if left to himself,
    would certainly starve,—not in the figurative sense in which so many
    of our ladies and gentlemen do starve on incomes from one to five
    hundred a year; not that he would be starved as regarded dress coats,
    port wine, and pocket-money; but that he would positively perish of
    inanition for want of bread.
     
    “How is a man to live, when he gives up all his income?” sagte der
    bishop to himself.  And then the good-natured little man began to
    consider how his friend might be best rescued from a death so horrid
    and painful.
     
    His first proposition to Mr Harding was, that they should live
    together at the palace.  He, the bishop, positively assured Mr Harding
    that he wanted another resident chaplain,—not a young working
    chaplain, but a steady, middle-aged chaplain; one who would dine and
    drink a glass of wine with him, talk about the archdeacon, and poke
    das Feuer. The bishop did not positively name all these duties, but
    he gave Mr Harding to understand that such would be the nature of the
    service required.
     
    It was not without much difficulty that Mr Harding made his friend see
    that this would not suit him; that he could not throw up the bishop’s
    preferment, and then come and hang on at the bishop’s table; that he
    could not allow people to say of him that it was an easy matter to
    abandon his own income, as he was able to sponge on that of another
    Person. He succeeded, however, in explaining that the plan would not
    do, and then the bishop brought forward another which he had in his
    sleeve.  He, the bishop, had in his will left certain moneys to Mr
    Harding’s two daughters, imagining that Mr Harding would himself want
    no such assistance during his own lifetime.  This legacy amounted to
    three thousand pounds each, duty free; and he now pressed it as a gift
    on his friend.
     
    “The girls, you know,” said he, “will have it just the same when
    you’re gone,—and they