Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. I, 1871.djvu/344

330 charities. Put forty pounds in his pocket and you'll do no harm. He's a good fellow, is Farebrother, with as little of the parson about him as will serve to carry orders."

"Ho, ho! Doctor," said old Mr Powderell, a retired ironmonger of some standing—his interjection being something between a laugh and a Parliamentary disapproval; "we must let you have your say. But what we have to consider is not anybody's income—it's the souls of the poor sick people"—here Mr Powderell's voice and face had a sincere pathos in them. "He is a real Gospel preacher, is Mr Tyke. I should vote against my conscience if I voted against Mr Tyke—I should indeed."

"Mr Tyke's opponents have not asked any one to vote against his conscience, I believe," said Mr Hackbutt, a rich tanner of fluent speech, whose glittering spectacles and erect hair were turned with some severity towards innocent Mr Powderell. "But in my judgment it behoves us, as Directors, to consider whether we will regard it as our whole business to carry out propositions emanating from a single quarter. Will any member of the committee aver that he would have entertained the idea of displacing the gentleman who has always discharged the function of chaplain here, if it had not been suggested to him by parties whose dis-