‘Murder!’ proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, in a kind of boisterous reverie, with his platform folding of his arms, and his platform nod of abhorrent reflection after each short sentiment of a word. ‘Bloodshed! Abel! Cain! I hold no terms with Cain. I repudiate with a shudder the red hand when it is offered me.’

Instead of instantly leaping into his chair and cheering himself hoarse, as the Brotherhood in public meeting assembled would infallibly have done on this cue, Mr. Crisparkle merely reversed the quiet crossing of his legs, and said mildly: ‘Don’t let me interrupt your explanation—when you begin it.’

‘The Commandments say, no murder. NO murder, sir!’ proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, platformally pausing as if he took Mr. Crisparkle to task for having distinctly asserted that they said: You may do a little murder, and then leave off.

‘And they also say, you shall bear no false witness,’ observed Mr. Crisparkle.

‘Enough!’ bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a solemnity and severity that would have brought the house down at a meeting, ‘E-e-nough! My late wards being now of age, and I being released from a trust which I cannot contemplate without a thrill of horror, there are the accounts which you have undertaken to accept on their behalf, and there is a statement of the balance which you have undertaken to receive, and which you cannot receive too soon. And let me tell you, sir, I wish that, as a man and a Minor Canon, you were better employed,’ with a nod. ‘Better employed,’ with another nod. ‘Bet-ter em-ployed!’ with another and the three nods added up.

Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with perfect command of himself.

‘Mr. Honeythunder,’ he said, taking up the papers referred to: ‘my being better or worse employed than I am at present is a matter of taste and opinion. You might think me better employed in enrolling myself a member of your Society.’

‘Ay, indeed, sir!’ retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head in a threatening manner. ‘It would have been better for you if you had done that long ago!’

‘I think otherwise.’

‘Or,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, ‘I might think one of your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discovery and punishment of guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by a layman.’

‘I may regard my profession from a point of view which teaches me that its first duty is towards those who are in necessity and tribulation, who are desolate and oppressed,’ said Mr. Crisparkle. ‘However, as I have quite clearly satisfied myself that it is no part of my profession to make professions, I say no more of that. But I owe it to Mr. Neville, and to Mr. Neville’s sister (and in a much lower degree to myself), to say to you that I know I was in the full possession and understanding of Mr. Neville’s mind and heart at the time of this occurrence; and that, without in the least colouring or concealing what was to be deplored in him and required to be corrected, I feel certain that his tale is true. Feeling that certainty, I befriend him. As long as that certainty shall last, I will befriend him. And if any consideration could shake me in this resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself for my meanness, that no man’s good opinion—no, nor no woman’s—so gained, could compensate me for the loss of my own.’