As for his judgment upon any of the great complexities of modern life, no worse judge could have been discovered than this utterly simple, obstinate, loud-voiced man. His judgment upon such an adventure as Mr Barnett’s could hardly for a moment be in doubt. Mr Burden had felt it instinctively, and, for all these weeks, had carefully avoided that familiar room. Now at last he entered; but the very sight of Mr Abbott’s face roused in him a kind of warning that a severe difference of opinion might arise. It will not surprise my readers to be told that Mr Abbott’s greeting was emphatic and commonplace, full of “eh’s?” and “Lord love me’s,” and “all this long time’s”; but there lay in it a kind of hint that Mr Abbott knew well enough the cause which had so prolonged that interval. Natural as was hesitation to such a man upon such a subject, Mr Burden looking first in his friend’s eyes, and then away from them to a vile oil painting of the _Arethusa_, said: “Abbott, I have come to ask your advice upon a matter ... or perhaps I should say, I want to hear what you think of a matter....” Mr Abbott replied that Mr Burden might “ask away,” and “whatever you’re going to do,” he continued, with a facile joviality, “take my advice and don’t.” He laughed boisterously, as is the fashion of such men, at his own wit, blew his nose in a resounding way, took out a pipe, filled it with an astonishing black tobacco, lit it and said: “Fire it out, my lad. Out with her!” It was some time since Mr Burden had suffered this kind of approach; and it cannot be denied that he was more than a little nettled. Perhaps he showed it in his tone. At anyrate he said shortly enough: “I have come to ask you what you think of the M’Korio?” “It stinks,” said Mr Abbott, decisively. He shut his mouth upon the words like a gin; put his hands firmly upon the desk, as does a man upon a rudder bar, and looked up at Mr Burden. “Whole country stinks. You’ve known places that stink. Barking Level stinks. Out _there_, by God, the whole place stinks. Big as Yorkshire—I’ve been there, mind you, and you haven’t. Not a square yard but stinks!” Indeed, Mr Abbott, in company with many who declaim against the corruption of our public life, would have done well to consider whether his language was not a greater offence against true morality than the actions and motives which he so recklessly ascribed to others. “I came for advice, Abbott: not for abuse,” said Mr Burden. He was thoroughly annoyed, and the whole purpose of his visit receded from him. He was annoyed by the self-satisfaction of his friend’s tone, by the excessive coarseness of his language, though it came from lips to which, I fear, coarseness was habitual. And he was, above all, annoyed to have thrust into the delicacy of his slight scruples this roaring objurgation. “Who’s abusing you, man alive?” said Mr Abbott, in his great loud voice, staring in harmony with his tone.