into a kind of police, for the purpose of protecting Jos. Hartopp's pence
and person from the fists and fingers of each other. He was evidently so
anxious to please his master, not from fear of the rod, but the desire to
spare that worthy man the pain of inflicting it, that he had more trouble
taken with his education than was bestowed on the brightest intellect
that school ever reared; and where other boys were roughly flogged, Jos.
Hartopp was soothingly patted on the head, and told not to be cast down,
but try again. The same even-handed justice returned the sugared chalice
to his lips in his apprenticeship to an austere leather-seller, who, not
bearing the thought to lose sight of so mild a face, raised him into
partnership, and ultimately made him his son-in-law and residuary
legatee. Then Mr. Hartopp yielded to the advice of friends who desired
his exaltation, and from a leather-seller became a tanner. Hides
themselves softened their asperity to that gentle dealer, and melted into
golden fleeces. He became rich enough to hire a farm for health and
recreation. He knew little of husbandry, but he won the heart of a
bailiff who might have reared a turnip from a deal table. Gradually the
farm became his fee-simple, and the farmhouse expanded into a villa.
Wealth and honours flowed in from a brimmed horn. The surliest man in
the town would have been ashamed of saying a rude thing to Jos. Hartopp.
If he spoke in public, though he hummed and hawed lamentably, no one was
so respectfully listened to. As for the parliamentary representation of
the town, he could have returned himself for one seat and Mike Callaghan
for the other, had he been so disposed. But he was too full of the milk
of humanity to admit into his veins a drop from the gall of party. He
suffered others to legislate for his native land, and (except on one
occasion when he had been persuaded to assist in canvassing, not indeed
the electors of Gatesboro', but those of a distant town in which he
possessed some influence, on behalf of a certain eminent orator) Jos.
Hartopp was only visible in politics whenever Parliament was to be