It may be
guessed, therefore, that the receipt of the circular had for a
moment an almost paralysing effect on those to whom it was
addressed, owing to the astonishment which it occasioned them. It
certainly was a daring surprise, but like so many deformed people,
Badcock was forward and hard to check; he was a pushing fellow to whom
the present was just the opportunity he wanted for carrying war into
the enemy's quarters.
Ernest and his friends consulted. Moved by the feeling that as
they were now preparing to be clergymen they ought not to stand so
stiffly on social dignity as heretofore, and also perhaps by the
desire to have a good private view of a preacher who was then much
upon the lips of men, they decided to accept the invitation. When
the appointed time came they went with some confusion and
self-abasement to the rooms of this man, on whom they had looked
down hitherto as from an immeasurable height, and with whom nothing
would have made them believe a few weeks earlier that they could
ever come to be on speaking terms.
Mr. Hawke was a very different-looking person from Badcock. He was
remarkably handsome, or rather would have been but for the thinness of
his lips, and a look of too great firmness and inflexibility.
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