"
As Ben Toner and his friends in the kitchen would have said, Mr. Lamb
was paralyzed. While the lawyer had spoken with animation, there was
something quite judicial in his manner. Miss Carmichael looked up at him
from under her long lashes with an admiration it would have done him
good to see, and a hum of approving remarks went all round the table.
Then, in an evil moment, the young lady felt it her duty to comfort the
heart of poor Orther Lom, whom everybody else regarded with something
akin to contempt. She talked to him of old times, until the man's
inflated English was forgotten, as well as his by no means reputable
errand. The young man was quite incapable of any deep-laid scheme of
wrong-doing, as he was of any high or generous impulse. He was a mere
machine, educated up to a certain point, able to write a good hand, and
express himself grammatically, but thinking more of his dress and his
spurious English than of any learning or accomplishment, and the
unreasoning tool of his official superiors. He had been checkmated by
Coristine, and felt terribly disappointed at the failure of his mission;
but the thought that he had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did
not trouble him in the least.
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