"
"I have remonstrated with him myself, but he is cynically indifferent to
public opinion," said Mr. Forbes.
"The public opinion that condemns a man and dines with him is not of
much account," said Mr. Oliver Smith, with a glance at Mr. Chiverton,
the obnoxious Gifford's very good friend.
"Would you have him cut?" demanded Mr. Chiverton. "I grant you that it
is a necessary precaution to have his words in black and white if he is
to be bound by them--"
"You could not well say worse of a gentleman than that, Chiverton--eh?"
suggested Mr. Fairfax.
There was a minute's silence, and then Mr. Forbes spoke: "I should like
our legal appointments to include advocates of the poor, men of
integrity whose business it would be to watch over the rights and listen
to the grievances of those classes who live by laborious work and are
helpless to resist powerful wrong. Old truth bears repeating: these are
the classes who maintain the state of the world--the laborer that holds
the plough and whose talk is of bullocks, the carpenter, the smith, and
the potter. All these trust to their hands, and are wise in their work,
and when oppression comes they must seek to some one of leisure for
justice. It is a pitiful thing to hear a poor man plead, 'Sir, what can
I do?' when his heart burns with a sense of intolerable wrong, and to
feel that the best advice you can give him is that he should bear it
patiently.
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