'
'Fancy bishops not having made up their minds,' exclaimed Tancred: 'the
only persons who ought never to doubt.'
'Except when they are offered a bishopric,' said Lord Marney.
'Why I like this Maynooth project,' said Tancred, 'though otherwise it
little interests me, is, that all the shopkeepers are against it.'
'Don't tell that to the minister,' said Coningsby, 'or he will give up
the measure.'
'Well, that is the very reason,' said Vavasour, 'why, though otherwise
inclined to the grant, I hesitate as to my vote. I have the highest
opinion of the shopkeepers; I sympathise even with their prejudices.
They are the class of the age; they represent its order, its decency,
its industry.'
'And you represent them,' said Coningsby. 'Vavasour is the quintessence
of order, decency, and industry.'
'You may jest,' said Vavasour, shaking his head with a spice of solemn
drollery; 'but public opinion must and ought to be respected, right or
wrong.'
'What do you mean by public opinion?' said Tancred.
'The opinion of the reflecting majority,' said Vavasour.
'Those who don't read your poems,' said Coningsby.
'Boy, boy!' said Vavasour, who could endure raillery from one he
had been at college with, but who was not over-pleased at Coningsby
selecting the present occasion to claim his franchise, when a new man
was present like Lord Montacute, on whom Vavasour naturally wished to
produce an impression.
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