The Three Clerks eBook

Various propositions were made by the members among themselves, and various amendments moved.  The balance of the different parties had been nearly preserved.  A decided victory was not to be expected on either side.  At last the resolution to which the committee came was this:  ’That this committee is not prepared, under existing circumstances, to recommend a grant of public money for the purpose of erecting a bridge at Limehouse; but that the committee consider that the matter is still open to consideration should further evidence be adduced.’

Mr. Vigil was perfectly satisfied.  He did not wish to acerbate the member for Mile End, and was quite willing to give him a lift towards keeping his seat for the borough, if able to do so without cost to the public exchequer.  At Limehouse the report of the committee was declared by certain persons to be as good as a decision in their favour; it was only postponing the matter for another session.  But Mr. Vigil knew that he had carried his point, and the world soon agreed with him.  He at least did his work successfully, and, considering the circumstances of his position, he did it with credit to himself.

A huge blue volume was then published, containing, among other things, all Mr. Nogo’s 2,250 questions and their answers; and so the Limehouse and Rotherhithe bridge dropped into oblivion and was forgotten.

CHAPTER XXXIII

TO STAND, OR NOT TO STAND

Sir Gregory Hardlines had been somewhat startled by Alaric’s announcement of his parliamentary intentions.  It not unnaturally occurred to that great man that should Mr. Tudor succeed at Strathbogy, and should he also succeed in being allowed to hold his office and seat together, he, Tudor, would very soon become first fiddle at the Civil Service Examination Board.  This was a view of the matter which was by no means agreeable to Sir Gregory.  Not for this had he devoted his time, his energy, and the best powers of his mind to the office of which he was at present the chief; not for this had he taken by the hand a young clerk, and brought him forward, and pushed him up, and seated him in high places.  To have kept Mr. Jobbles would have been better than this; he, at any rate, would not have aspired to parliamentary honours.

And when Sir Gregory came to look into it, he hardly knew whether those bugbears with which he had tried to frighten Tudor were good serviceable bugbears, such as would stand the strain of such a man’s logic and reason.  Was there really any reason why one of the commissioners should not sit in Parliament?  Would his doing so be subversive of the constitution?  Or would the ministers of the day object to an additional certain vote?  This last point of view was one in which it did not at all delight Sir Gregory to look at the subject in question.  He determined that he would not speak on the matter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or to any of the Government wigs who might be considered to be bigger wigs than himself.