Page:What will he do with it.djvu/235

Rh specially wise. But to take in that Lamb! And it was not only the Mayor's heart that was wounded, but his pride, his self-esteem, his sense of dignity, were terribly humiliated. For as we know, though all the world considered Mr. Hartopp the very man born to be taken in, and therefore combined to protect him, yet in his secret soul Mr. Hartopp considered that no man less needed such protection; that he was never taken in, unless he meant to be so. Thus the cruelty and ingratitude of the base action under which his crest was so fallen, jarred on his whole system. Nay, more, he could not but feel that the event would long affect his personal comfort and independence; he would be more than ever under the affectionate tyranny of Mr. Williams—more than ever be an object of universal surveillance and espionage. There would be one thought paramount throughout Gatesboro'. "The Mayor, God bless him! has been taken in—this must not occur again! or Gatesboro' is dishonored, and Virtue indeed a name!" Mr. Hartopp felt not only mortified but subjugated—he who had hitherto been the soft subjugator of the hardest. He felt not only subjugated, but indignant at the consciousness of being so. He was too meekly convinced of Heaven's unerring justice not to feel assured that the man who had taken him in would come to a tragic end. He would not have hanged that man with his own hands—he was too mild for vengeance. But if he had seen the man hanging, he would have said, piously, "Fitting retribution!" and passed on his way soothed and comforted. Taken in!—taken in at last!—he, Josiah Hartopp, taken in by a fellow with one eye!

without—a kind of howl—a kind of hoot. Mr. Williams, the warehouse-men, the tanners, Mike Callaghan, share between them the howl and the hoot. The Mayor started—is it possible! His door is burst open, and, scattering all who sought to hold him back—scattering them to the right and left from his massive torso, in rushed the man who had taken in the Mayor—the fellow with one eye, and with that fellow, shaggy and travel-soiled, the other dog!

"What have you done with the charge I intrusted to you? My child—my child—where is she?"