"
"I think it would be as well for gentlemen not to give their
remarks a personal bearing," said Mr. Plymdale. "I shall vote
for the appointment of Mr. Tyke, but I should not have known,
if Mr. Hackbutt hadn't hinted it, that I was a Servile Crawler."
"I disclaim any personalities. I expressly said, if I may be
allowed to repeat, or even to conclude what I was about to say--"
"Ah, here's Minchin!" said Mr. Frank Hawley; at which everybody
turned away from Mr. Hackbutt, leaving him to feel the uselessness
of superior gifts in Middlemarch. "Come, Doctor, I must have you
on the right side, eh?"
"I hope so," said Dr. Minchin, nodding and shaking hands here and there;
"at whatever cost to my feelings."
"If there's any feeling here, it should be feeling for the man
who is turned out, I think," said Mr. Frank Hawley.
"I confess I have feelings on the other side also. I have a
divided esteem," said Dr. Minchin, rubbing his hands. "I consider
Mr. Tyke an exemplary man--none more so--and I believe him to be
proposed from unimpeachable motives. I, for my part, wish that I
could give him my vote. But I am constrained to take a view of the
case which gives the preponderance to Mr. Farebrother's claims.
He is an amiable man, an able preacher, and has been longer among us."
Old Mr. Powderell looked on, sad and silent.
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