“Tant mieux,” Raymond

“They seem inclined to take up all the good works in hand,” said Jenny.  “By the bye, what is all this story about Raymond affronting Wil’sbro’ by stirring up their gutters?  Papa has been quite in a state of mind for fear they should take offence and bring in Mr. Moy.”

“Julius only thinks I have not stirred the gutters enough,” said Raymond.  “And after all, it is not I, but Whitlock.  I was in hopes that matters might have been properly looked after if Whitlock had been chosen mayor this year; but, somehow, a cry was got up that he was going to bring down a sanitary commission, and put the town to great expense; and actually, this town-council have been elected because they are opposed to drainage.”

“And Truelove, the grocer, is mayor?”

“Yes; one of the most impracticable men I ever encountered.  One can’t get him so much as to understand anything.  Now Briggs does understand, only he goes by pounds s. d.”

“Posterity has done nothing for me, and I will do nothing for posterity, is his principle,” said Julius.  “Moreover, he is a Baptist.”

“No chance for the Church in his time,” said Jenny.

“There’s the less harm in that,” said Raymond, “that the plan is intolerable.  Briggs’s nephew took the plan of what he calls a German Rat-house, for the town-hall, made in gilt gingerbread; and then adapted the church to a beautiful similarity.  If that could be staved off by waiting for the bazaar, or by any other means, there might be a chance of something better.  So poor Fuller thinks, though he is not man enough to speak out at once.”

“Then the bazaar is really fixed?”

“So far as the resolution goes of the lady population, though Julius is sanguine, and hopes to avert it.  After all, I believe the greatest obstructive to improvement is Moy.”

“Old Mr. Proudfoot’s son-in-law?” said Jenny.  “I know he has blossomed out in great splendour on our side of the county, and his daughter is the general wonder.  Papa is always declaring he will set up in opposition to you.”

“Not much fear of that,” said Raymond.  “But the man provokes me, he has so much apparent seriousness.”

“Even to the persecution of Dr. Easterby,” put in Julius.  “And yet he is the great supporter of that abominable public-house in Water Lane, the Three Pigeons—­which, unluckily, escaped the fire.  He owns it, and all those miserable tenements beyond it, and nothing will move him an inch towards doing any good there!”

“I remember,” said Jenny, “papa came home very angry on the licensing day; the police had complained of the Three Pigeons, and the magistrates would have taken away the license, but that Mr. Moy made such a personal matter of it.”

“You don’t mean that he is a magistrate!” exclaimed Julius.

“Yes,” said Raymond.  “He got the ear of the Lord-Lieutenant.”