Part 26 (1/2)

'Enough, sir,' said Mr. Warren. 'I am a man of principle. Had you not done your duty in this matter by your country, I should have been compelled to seek some other pract.i.tioner in your line.'

'I was not aware that my firm had any compet.i.tors in our line of business,' said Merton. 'But perhaps you have come here under some misapprehension. There is a firm of family solicitors on the floor above, and next them are the offices of a company interested in a patent explosive. If your affairs, or your political ideas, demand a legal opinion, or an outlet in an explosive which is widely recommended by the Continental Press--'

'For what do you take me, sir?' asked Mr. Warren.

'For a Temperance Anarchist,' Merton would have liked to reply, 'judging by your colours'; but he repressed this retort, and mildly answered, 'Perhaps it would be as much to the purpose to ask, for what do you take _me_?'

'For the representative of Messrs. Gray & Graham, the specialists in matrimonial affairs,' answered the client; and Merton said that he would be happy if Mr. Warren would enter into the details of his business.

'I am the ex-Mayor of Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren, 'and, as I told you, a man of principle. My attachment to the Temperance cause'--and he fingered his blue ribbon--'procured for me the honour of a defeat at the last general election, but endeared me to the consciences of the Nonconformist element in the const.i.tuency. Yet, sir, I am at this moment the most unpopular man in Bulcester; but I shall fight it out--I shall fight it to my latest breath.'

'Is Bulcester, then, such an intemperate const.i.tuency? I had understood that the Nonconformist interest was strong there,' said Merton.

'So it is, sir, so it is; but the interest is now bound to the chariot wheels of the truckling Toryism of our time--to the sycophants who basely made vaccination permissive, and paltered with the Conscientious Objector. These badges, sir'--the client pointed to his own crimson decorations--'proclaim that I have been vaccinated on _both_ arms, as a testimony to the immortal though, in Bulcester, maligned discovery of the great Jenner. Sir, I am hooted in the public streets of my native town, where Anti-vaccinationism is a frenzy. Mr. Rider Haggard, the author of _Dr. Therne_, has been burned in effigy for his thrilling and manly protest to which I owe my own conversion.'

'Then the conversion is relatively recent?' asked Merton.

'It dates since my reading of that powerful argument, sir; that appeal to reason which overcame my prejudice, for I was a prominent A. V.'

'_Ave_?' asked Merton.

'A. V., sir--Anti-Vaccinationist. A. C. D. A. too, and always,' he added proudly; but Merton did not think it prudent to ask for further explanations.

'An A. V. I was, an A. V. I am no longer; and I defy popular clamour, accompanied by brickbats, to shake my principles.'

'_Justum et tinacem propositi virum_,' murmured Merton, adding, 'All that is very interesting, but, my dear sir, while I admire the tenacity of your principles, will you permit me to ask, what has vaccination to do with the special business of our firm?'

'Why, sir, I have a family, and my eldest son--'

'Does he decline to be vaccinated?' asked Merton, in a sympathetic voice.

'No, sir, or he would never darken my doorway,' exclaimed this more than Roman father. 'But he is engaged, and I can never give my consent; and if he marries that girl, the firm ceases to be ”Warren & Son, wax-cloth manufacturers.” That's all, sir--that's all.'

Mr. Warren again applied his red handkerchief to his glowing features.

'And what, may I ask, are the grounds of your objection to this engagement? Social inequality?' asked Merton.

'No, the young lady is the daughter of one of our leading ministers, Mr.

Truman--author of _The Bishops to the Block_--but principles are concerned.'

'You cannot mean that the young lady is excessively addicted to the--wine cup?' asked Merton gravely. 'In melancholy cases of that kind Mr. Hall Caine, in a romance, has recommended hypnotic treatment, but we do not venture to interfere.'

'You misunderstand me, sir,' replied Mr. Warren, frowning. 'The young woman, on principle, as they call it, has never been vaccinated. Like most of our prominent citizens, her father (otherwise an excellent man) objects to what he calls ”The Wors.h.i.+p of the Calf” on grounds of conscience.'

'Conscience! It is a hard thing to constrain the conscience,' murmured Merton, quoting a remark of Queen Mary to John Knox.

'What is conscience without knowledge, sir?' asked the client, using--without knowing it--the very argument of Mr. Knox to the Queen.

'You have no other objections to the alliance?' asked Merton.

'None whatever, sir. She is a good and good-looking girl. On most important points we are thoroughly agreed. She won a prize essay on Bacon's authors.h.i.+p of Shakespeare's plays. Of course Shakespeare could not have written them--a thoroughly uneducated man, who never could have pa.s.sed the fourth standard. But look at the plays! There are things in them that, with all our modern advantages, are beyond me. I admit they are beyond me. ”To be, and to do, and to suffer,”' declaimed Mr. Warren, apparently under the impression that this is part of Hamlet's soliloquy--'Shakespeare could never have written _that_. Where did _he_ learn grammar?'