Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/73

Rh say for himself," was the predominant feeling among them; "he'll have something funny to say, I'll bet a penny."

It was only Lawyer Labron's young clerks and their hangers-on who were sufficiently dead to Trebian traditions to assail the parson with various sharp-edged interjections, such as broken shells, and cries of "Cock-a-doodle-doo."

"Come now, my lads," he began, in his full, pompous, yet jovial tones, thrusting his hands into the stuffed-out pockets of his greatcoat, "I'll tell you what; I'm a parson, you know; I ought to return good for evil. So here are some good nuts for you to crack in return for your shells."

There was a roar of laughter and cheering as he threw handfuls of nuts and filberts among the crowd.

"Come, now, you'll say I used to be a Tory; and some of you, whose faces I know as well as I know the head of my own crab-stick, will say that's why I'm a good fellow. But now I'll tell you something else. It's for that very reason—that I used to be a Tory, and am a good fellow—that I go along with my nephew here, who is a thoroughgoing Liberal. For will anybody here come forward and say, 'A good fellow has no need to tack about and change