The excitement
soothed Jemima. There was something to do. It was she who planned
with the upholsterer; it was she who soothed Betsy into angry
silence; it was she who persuaded her mother to lie down and
rest, while she herself went out to buy the heterogeneous things
required to make the family and house presentable to Mr. Donne
and his precursor--the friend of the parliamentary agent. This
latter gentleman never appeared himself on the scene of action,
but pulled all the strings notwithstanding. The friend was a Mr.
Hickson, a lawyer--a briefless barrister, some people called him;
but he himself professed a great disgust to the law, as a "great
sham," which involved an immensity of underhand action, and
truckling, and time-serving, and was perfectly encumbered by
useless forms and ceremonies, and dead obsolete words. So,
instead of putting his shoulder to the wheel to reform the law,
he talked eloquently against it, in such a high-priest style,
that it was occasionally a matter of surprise how ho could ever
have made a friend of the parliamentary agent before mentioned.
But, as Mr. Hickson himself said, it was the very corruptness of
the law which he was fighting against, in doing all he could to
effect the return of certain members to Parliament; these certain
members being pledged to effect a reform in the law, according to
Mr. Hickson. And, as he once observed confidentially, "If you had
to destroy a hydra-headed monster, would you measure swords with
the demon as if he were a gentleman? Would you not rather seize
the first weapon that came to hand? And so do I.
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