so the look spoke plainly enough. "Are you going to bring up my own
signature against me, when you know very well that I shouldn't have
got a shilling at all for the next twelve months if I hadn't given
it? Oh Mr Scruby!" That's what Mr Grimes' look said, and both Mr
Scruby and Mr Vavasor understood it perfectly.

"In full of all demands," said Mr Scruby, with a slight tone of
triumph in his voice, as though to show that Grimes' appeal had no
effect at all upon his conscience. "If you were to go into a court
of law, Grimes, you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon."

"A court of law? Who's a going to law with the governor, I should
like to know? not I; not if he didn't pay me them ninety-two pounds
thirteen and fourpence for the next five years."

"Five years or fifteen would make no difference," said Scruby. "You
couldn't do it."

"And I ain't a going to try. That's not the ticket I've come here
about, Mr Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed!
But Mr Scruby, I've got a family."

"Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope," said George.

"They is at the 'Handsome Man' in the Brompton Road, Mr Vavasor; and
I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don't work
for his family, what do he work for?"

"Come, come, Grimes," said Mr Scruby. "What is it you're at? Out with
it, and don't keep us here all day."

"What is it I'm at, Mr Scruby? As if you didn't know very well
what I'm at. There's my house;--in all them Chelsea districts it's
the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of
election purposes. That's given up to it."

"And what next?" said Scruby.

"The next is, I myself. There isn't one of the lot of 'em can work
them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr Scruby
knows that. Why I've been a getting of them up with a view to this
very job ever since;--why ever since they was a talking of the
Chelsea districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county
on the religious dodge, he couldn't have worked them fellows anyhow,
only for me. Mr Scruby knows that."

"Let's take it all for granted, Mr Grimes," said Vavasor. "What comes
next?"

"Well;--them Bunratty people; it is they as has come next. They know
which side their bread is likely to be buttered; they do. They're a
bidding for the 'Handsome Man' already; they are."

"And you'd let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!" said Mr Scruby,
in a tone in which disgust and anger were blen