in general on Lydgate as a coadjutor, but made no special
recurrence to the coming decision between Tyke and Farebrother. When
the General Board of the Infirmary had met, however, and Lydgate had
notice that the question of the chaplaincy was thrown on a council of
the directors and medical men, to meet on the following Friday, he had
a vexed sense that he must make up his mind on this trivial Middlemarch
business. He could not help hearing within him the distinct
declaration that Bulstrode was prime minister, and that the Tyke affair
was a question of office or no office; and he could not help an equally
pronounced dislike to giving up the prospect of office. For his
observation was constantly confirming Mr. Farebrother's assurance that
the banker would not overlook opposition. "Confound their petty
politics!" was one of his thoughts for three mornings in the meditative
process of shaving, when he had begun to feel that he must really hold
a court of conscience on this matter. Certainly there were valid
things to be said against the election of Mr. Farebrother: he had too
much on his hands already, especially considering how much time he
spent on non-clerical occupations. Then again it was a continually
repeated shock, disturbing Lydgate's esteem, that the Vicar should
obviously play for the sake of money, liking the play indeed, but
evidently liking some end which it served. Mr. Farebrother contended
on theory for the desirability of all games, and said that Englishmen's
wit was stagnant for want of them; but Lydgate felt certain that he
would have played very much less but for the money. There was a
billiard-room at the Green Dragon, which some anxious mothers and wives
regarded as the chief temptation in Middlemarch. The Vicar was a
first-rate billiard-player, and though he did not frequent the Green
Dragon, there were reports that he had sometimes been there in the
daytime and had won money. And as to the chaplaincy, he did not
pretend that he cared for it, except for the sake of the forty pounds.
Lydgate was no Puritan, but he did not care for play, and winning money
at it had always seemed a meanness to him; besides, he had an ideal of
life which made this subservience of conduct to the gaining of small
sums thoroughly hateful to him. Hitherto in his own life his wants had
been supplied without any trouble to himself, and his first impulse was
always to be liberal with half-crowns as matters of no import