years of age, ill-dressed in seedy black clothes and a flaming red tie,
with a fat, pale face, a pugnacious mouth, and a bald head, on the top
of which isolated hairs stood up stiffly. I knew him by sight, for once
he had argued with me at a lecture I gave on sanitary matters, when I
was told that he was a draper by trade, and, although his shop was by
no means among the most important, that he was believed to be one of the
richest men in Dunchester. Also he was a fierce faddist and a pillar of
strength to the advanced wing of the Radical party.

"What is your name?" asked a clerk.

"Look you here, young man," he answered, "don't have the impertinence
to try your airs and graces on with me. Seeing that you've owed me 24
pounds 3s. 6d. for the last three years for goods supplied, you know
well enough what my name is, or if you don't I will show it to you at
the bottom of a county court summons."

"It is my duty to ask you your name," responded the disconcerted clerk
when the laughter which this sally provoked had subsided.

"Oh, very well. Stephen Strong is my name, and I may tell you that it is
good at the bottom of a cheque for any reasonable amount. Well, I'm here
to go bail for that young man. I know nothing of him except that I put
him on his back in a ditch in an argument we had one night last winter
in the reading-room yonder. I don't know whether he infected the lady
or whether he didn't, but I do know, that like most of the poisoning
calf-worshipping crowd who call themselves Vaccinators, this Bell is a
liar, and that if he did, it wasn't his fault because it was God's will
that she should die, and he'd a been wrong to try and interfere with
Him. So name your sum and I'll stand the shot."