Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

17. CHAPTER XVII: WHO SHALL BE COCK OF THE WALK? (continued)

'Certainly not, my dear. Nothing I can assure you is less probable. But still Mr Slope may be useful in finding how the wind blows, and I really thought that if we could give something good to Mr Quiverful--'

'Nonsense,' said Mrs Proudie; 'it would be years before you could give them anything else that could suit them half as well, and as for the press and the public, and all that, remember there are two ways of telling a story. If Mr Harding is fool enough to tell his tale, we can also tell ours. The place was offered to him, and he refused it. It has now been given to someone else, and there's an end of it. At least, I should think so.'

'Well, my dear, I rather believe you are right;' said the bishop, and sneaking out of the room, he went down stairs, troubled in his mind as to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself not very well just at present; and began to consider that he might, not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject to bilious annoyances.

'Mr Slope, indeed! I'll Slope him,' said the indignant matron to her listening progeny. 'I don't know what has come to Mr Slope. I believe he thinks he is to be Bishop of Barchester himself, because I have taken him by the hand, and got your father to make him his domestic chaplain.'

'He was always full of impudence,' said Olivia; 'I told you so once before, mamma.' Olivia, however, had not thought him too impudent when once before he had proposed to make her Mrs Slope.

'Well, Olivia, I always thought you liked him,' said Augusta, who at that moment had some grudge against her sister. 'I always disliked the man because I think him thoroughly vulgar.'

'There you're wrong,' said Mrs Proudie; 'he's not vulgar at all; and what is more, he is a soul-stirring, eloquent preacher; but he must be taught to know his place if he is to remain in this house.'