The Three Clerks eBook

Mr. Nogo, the member for Mile End, was the parent of this committee.  He asserted that the matter was one of such vital importance not only to the whole metropolis, but to the country at large, that the Government were bound in the first place to give a large subsidy towards building the bridge, and afterwards to pay a heavy annual sum towards the amount which it would be necessary to raise by tolls.  Mr. Whip Vigil, on the other hand, declared on the part of Government that the bridge was wholly unnecessary; that if it were built it ought to be pulled down again; and that not a stiver could be given out of the public purse with such an object.

On this they joined issue.  Mr. Nogo prayed for a committee, and Mr. Vigil, having duly consulted his higher brethren in the Government, conceded this point.  It may easily be conceived how high were now the hopes both of Undy Scott and Alaric Tudor.  It was not at all necessary for them that the bridge should ever be built; that, probably, was out of the question; that, very likely, neither of them regarded as a possibility.  But if a committee of the House of Commons could be got to say that it ought to be built, they might safely calculate on selling out at a large profit.

But who were to sit on the committee?  That was now the all-momentous question.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE

There is a sport prevalent among the downs in Hampshire to which, though not of a high degree, much interest is attached.  Men and boys, with social glee and happy boyish shouts, congregate together on a hill-side, at the mouth of a narrow hole, and proceed, with the aid of a well-trained bull-dog, to draw a badger.  If the badger be at all commendable in his class this is by no means an easy thing to do.  He is a sturdy animal, and well fortified with sharp and practised teeth; his hide is of the toughest; his paws of the strongest, and his dead power of resistance so great as to give him more than an equal chance with the bull-dog.  The delighted sportsmen stand round listening to the growls and snarls, the tearings, gnawings, and bloody struggles of the combatants within.—­’Well done, badger!—­Well done, bull-dog!—­Draw him, bulldog!—­Bite him, badger!’ Each has his friends, and the interest of the moment is intense.  The badger, it is true, has done no harm.  He has been doing as it was appointed for him to do, poor badger, in that hole of his.  But then, why were badgers created but to be drawn?  Why, indeed, but to be drawn, or not to be drawn, as the case may be?  See! the bull-dog returns minus an ear, with an eye hanging loose, his nether lip torn off, and one paw bitten through and through.  Limping, dejected, beaten, glaring fearfully from his one remaining eye, the dog comes out; and the badger within rolls himself up with affected ease, hiding his bloody wounds from the public eye.