Der Praefekt

won’t want it sooner;—and as for the interest
    during my lifetime, it isn’t worth talking about.  I have more than
    enough.”
     
    With much difficulty and heartfelt sorrow, Mr Harding refused also
    this offer.  No; his wish was to support himself, however poorly,—not
    to be supported on the charity of anyone.  It was hard to make the
    bishop understand this; it was hard to make him comprehend that
    the only real favour he could confer was the continuation of his
    independent friendship; but at last even this was done. Jedenfalls
    thought the bishop, he will come and dine with me from time to time,
    and if he be absolutely starving I shall see it.
     
    Touching the precentorship, the bishop was clearly of opinion that it
    could be held without the other situation,—an opinion from which no
    one differed; and it was therefore soon settled among all the parties
    concerned, that Mr Harding should still be the precentor of the
    Kathedrale.
     
    On the day following Mr Harding’s return, the archdeacon reached
    Plumstead full of Mr Cummins’s scheme regarding Puddingdale and Mr
    Quiverful.  On the very next morning he drove over to Puddingdale,
    and obtained the full consent of the wretched clerical Priam, who was
    endeavouring to feed his poor Hecuba and a dozen of Hectors on the
    small proceeds of his ecclesiastical kingdom.  Mr Quiverful had no
    doubts as to the legal rights of the warden; his conscience would be
    quite clear as to accepting the income; and as to _The Jupiter_, he
    begged to assure the archdeacon that he was quite indifferent to any
    emanations from the profane portion of the periodical press.
     
    Having so far succeeded, he next sounded the bishop; but here he was
    astonished by most unexpected resistance.  The bishop did not think
    it would do.  “Not do, why not?” and seeing that his father was not
    shaken, he repeated the question in a severer form: “Why not do, my
    lord?”
     
    His lordship looked very unhappy, and shuffled about in his chair,
    but still didn’t give way; he thought Puddingdale wouldn’t do for Mr
    Harding; it was too far from Barchester.
     
    “Oh! of course he’ll have a curate.”
     
    The bishop also thought that Mr Quiverful wouldn’t do for the
    hospital; such an exchange wouldn’t look well at such a time; and,
    when pressed harder, he declared he didn’t think Mr Harding would
    accept of Puddingdale under any circumstances.
     
    “How is he to live?” demanded the archdeacon.
     
    The bishop, with tears in his eyes, declared that he had not the
    slightest conception how life was to be sustained within him at all.
     
    The archdeacon then left his father, and went down to the hospital;
    but Mr Harding wouldn’t listen at all to the Puddingdale scheme. Um
    his eyes it had no attraction; it savoured of simony, and was likely
    to bring down upon him harder and more deserved strictures than any he
    had yet received: he positively declined to become vicar of
    Puddingdale under any circumstances.
     
    The archdeacon waxed wroth, talked big, and looked bigger; he said
    something about dependence and beggary, spoke of the duty every man
    was under to earn his bread, made passing allusions to the follies of
    youth and waywardness of age, as though Mr Harding were afflicted by
    both, and ended by declaring that he had done.  He felt that he had
    left no stone unturned to arrange matters on the best and easiest
    footing; that he had, in fact, so arranged them, that he had so
    managed that there was no further need of any anxiety in the matter.
    And how had he been paid?  His advice had been systematically
    rejected; he had been not only slighted, but distrusted and avoided;
    he and his measures had been utterly thrown over, as had been Sir
    Abraham, who, he had reason to know, was much pained at what had
    occurred.  He now found it was useless to interfere any further, and
    he should retire.  If any further assistance were required from him,
    he would probably be called on, and should be again happy to come
    nach vorn. And so he left the hospital, and has not since entered it
    from that day to this.
     
    And here we must take leave of Archdeacon Grantly.  We fear that he is
    represented in these pages as being worse than he is; but we have had
    to do with his foibles, and not with his virtues.  We have seen only
    the weak side of the man, and have lacked the opportunity of bringing
    him forward on his strong ground.  That he is a man somewhat