nderstruck by this
self-betrayal. They could not have understood it. They were acquainted
with his passions, and with his moments of good temper. They knew when
he was amiable, and when he was angry, by instinct, by the gleam of his
eye, by the way in which he shut the door; but this was something
totally unknown to them. The truth was that Mr. May, like many other
people, having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when he
pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited him to use
it, without being suspected by anybody. A bad temper is a possession
like another, and may be made skilful use of like other things which,
perhaps, in themselves, are not desirable. He could work himself up into
fury, and launch the doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and
fizzing thunder-bolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all
excited; and like most other people who possess such an unrevealed
power, it pleased him very much when he persuaded his surroundings that
it was an impulse of rage which moved him. He had been at the Meeting at
the Music Hall, "to hear what those fellows had to say for themselves."
Contempt, unbounded but wrathful, was the feeling in his mind towards
"those fellows;" but he felt that young Northcote's eloquence, reported
in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for ever all hopes of
his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he walked home as fast as his
legs would carry him, and burst into his house, as we have seen, with a
semblance of passion so perfect as to deceive his entire family and
fill the place with anger and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the
scene of conflict, he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled,
recovering his composure by slow degrees.

When, however, this private indulgence was over, Mr. May's face grew
dark enough. He pushed his writing away from him, and pulling out a
drawer in his writing-table, which was full of papers of a very
unliterary aspect, betook himself to the consideration of them, with
anything but laughter in his looks, or in his mind. Letters upon blue
paper in straight up and down handwriting--other papers, also blue, with
ruled lines and numerals, for which Mr. May was more frightened than he
would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very
unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three of them
out in a bundle and read them over, one after another, with contracted
brows. Debt is an i