Butterworth's hand in it. Evidently, Mr. Belcher was not the only man
who had been honored by a call from that philanthropic woman. As he
thought the matter over, he regretted that, for the sake of giving form
and force to his spite against her, he should be obliged to relinquish
the popularity he might have won by favoring a reformative measure. He
saw something in it, also, that might be made to add to Tom Buffum's
profits, but even this consideration weighed nothing against his desire
for personal revenge, to be exhibited in the form of triumphant personal
power.

He rose from his chair, walked his room, swinging his hands backward and
forward, casting furtive glances into his mirror, and then rang his
bell. He had arrived at a conclusion. He had fixed upon his scheme, and
was ready for work.

"Tell Phipps to come here," he said to the maid who responded to the
summons.

Phipps was his coachman, body-servant, table-waiter, pet, butt for his
jests, tool, man of all occasions. He considered himself a part of Mr.
Belcher's personal property. To be the object of his clumsy badinage,
when visitors were present and his master was particularly amiable, was
equivalent to an honorable public notice. He took Mr. Belcher's cast-off
clothes, and had them reduced in their dimensions for his own wearing,
and was thus always able to be nearly as well dressed and foppish as the
man for whom they were originally made. He was as insolent to others as
he was obsequious to his master--a flunky by nature and long education.

Phipps appeared.