'
'We have much in common--many things--all that the Almighty gave us,'
said Mr Haredale; 'and common charity, not to say common sense and
common decency, should teach you to refrain from these proceedings. If
every one of those men had arms in their hands at this moment, as they
have them in their heads, I would not leave this place without telling
you that you disgrace your station.'
'I don't hear you, sir,' he replied in the same manner as before; 'I
can't hear you. It is indifferent to me what you say. Don't retort,
Gashford,' for the secretary had made a show of wishing to do so; 'I can
hold no communion with the worshippers of idols.'
As he said this, he glanced at Sir John, who lifted his hands and
eyebrows, as if deploring the intemperate conduct of Mr Haredale, and
smiled in admiration of the crowd and of their leader.
'HE retort!' cried Haredale. 'Look you here, my lord. Do you know this
man?'
Lord George replied by laying his hand upon the shoulder of his cringing
secretary, and viewing him with a smile of confidence.
'This man,' said Mr Haredale, eyeing him from top to toe, 'who in his
boyhood was a thief, and has been from that time to this, a servile,
false, and truckling knave: this man, who has crawled and crept through
life, wounding the hands he licked, and biting those he fawned upon:
this sycophant, who never knew what honour, truth, or courage meant; who
robbed his benefactor's daughter of her virtue, and married her to break
her heart, and did it, with stripes and cruelty: this creature, who has
whined at kitchen windows for the broken food, and begged for halfpence
at our chapel doors: this apostle of the faith, whose tender conscience
cannot bear the altars where his vicious life was publicly denounced--Do
you know this man?'
'Oh, really--you are very, very hard upon our friend!' exclaimed Sir
John.
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