MIDDLEMARCH (Completed)

Chapter 71

Clown. . . . 'Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed,

you have a delight to sit, have you not?

Froth. I have so: because it is an open room, and good for winter.

Clo. Why, very well then: I hope here be truths.

--Measure for Measure.

Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge was standing

at his leisure under the large archway leading into the yard of the

Green Dragon. He was not fond of solitary contemplation, but he

had only just come out of the house, and any human figure standing

at ease under the archway in the early afternoon was as certain

to attract companionship as a pigeon which has found something worth

peeking at. In this case there was no material object to feed upon,

but the eye of reason saw a probability of mental sustenance in the

shape of gossip. Mr. Hopkins, the meek-mannered draper opposite,

was the first to act on this inward vision, being the more ambitious

of a little masculine talk because his customers were chiefly women.

Mr. Bambridge was rather curt to the draper, feeling that Hopkins

was of course glad to talk to _him_, but that he was not going

to waste much of his talk on Hopkins. Soon, however, there was

a small cluster of more important listeners, who were either

deposited from the passers-by, or had sauntered to the spot expressly

to see if there were anything going on at the Green Dragon;

and Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while to say many

impressive things about the fine studs he had been seeing and the

purchases he had made on a journey in the north from which he had

just returned. Gentlemen present were assured that when they could

show him anything to cut out a blood mare, a bay, rising four,

which was to be seen at Doncaster if they chose to go and look

at it, Mr. Bambridge would gratify them by being shot "from here

to Hereford." Also, a pair of blacks which he was going to put

into the break recalled vividly to his mind a pair which he had sold

to Faulkner in '19, for a hundred guineas, and which Faulkner had

sold for a hundred and sixty two months later--any gent who could

disprove this statement being offered the privilege of calling

Mr. Bambridge by a very ugly name until the exercise made his throat dry.

When the discourse was at this point of animation, came up Mr. Frank

Hawley. He was not a man to compromise his dignity by lounging at

the Green Dragon, but happening to pass along the High Street and