I suppose we all
know whom we mean to vote for. Any man who wants to do justice does
not wait till the last minute to hear both sides of the question. I
have no time to lose, and I propose that the matter be put to the vote
at once."

A brief but still hot discussion followed before each person wrote
"Tyke" or "Farebrother" on a piece of paper and slipped it into a glass
tumbler; and in the mean time Mr. Bulstrode saw Lydgate enter.

"I perceive that the votes are equally divided at present," said Mr.
Bulstrode, in a clear biting voice. Then, looking up at Lydgate--

"There is a casting-vote still to be given. It is yours, Mr. Lydgate:
will you be good enough to write?"

"The thing is settled now," said Mr. Wrench, rising. "We all know how
Mr. Lydgate will vote."

"You seem to speak with some peculiar meaning, sir," said Lydgate,
rather defiantly, and keeping his pencil suspended.

"I merely mean that you are expected to vote with Mr. Bulstrode. Do
you regard that meaning as offensive?"

"It may be offensive to others. But I shall not desist from voting
with him on that account." Lydgate immediately wrote down "Tyke."

So the Rev. Walter Tyke became chaplain to the Infirmary, and Lydgate
continued to work with Mr. Bulstrode. He was really uncertain whether
Tyke were not the more suitable candidate, and yet his consciousness
told him that if he had been quite free from indirect bias he should
have voted for Mr. Farebrother. The affair of the chaplaincy remained
a sore point in his memory as a case in which this petty medium of
Middlemarch had been too strong for him. How could a man be satisfied
with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances?
No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he has chosen from
among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at
best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

But Mr. Farebrother met him with the same friendliness as before. The
character of the publican and sinner is not always practically
incompatible with that of the modern Pharisee, for the majority of us
scarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than the
faultiness of our own arguments, or the dulness of our own jokes. But
the Vicar of St. Botolph's had certainly escaped the slightest tincture
of the Pharisee, and by dint of admitting to himself that he was too
much as other men were, he had become remarkably u