“This soured the organist, and he developed unsound opinions about the Close. His enemies even said that he voted for the Whig candidate at a Parliamentary election: but this was before the days of ballot voting, and the base slander was easily disproved. He was a freeholder under the old statutes of the cathedral, and neither dean nor bishop could touch him.” “_Quamdiu bene se gessisset_,” I interposed, knowing the Rector’s affection for an easy bit of Latin. “Just so,” he answered, rather uncertainly, and continued. “Pedler’s special aversion was the Irish canon; partly because he had led the laughter that slew Sennacherib, and had even asked why Sims Reeves had not a Jews’ harp to accompany him: partly because it was known to Pedler that the Canon spoke of him as the ‘great and marvellous’ one, in allusion to the anthem above mentioned: but chiefly because by the statutes of the cathedral his enemy was precentor, and got £600 a year for his office.[31] “‘Paddy Windbags,’ he would say--for by that opprobrious name he designated his enemy--‘doesn’t know the difference between the Cruiskeen Lawn and Winchester New; and with his canonry, and what he gets by letting furnished apartments here, when he is on the stump in Mudborough, he gets as much as all the men and boys on the _Cantoris_ side put together.’ “‘And there’s that Cockney chap,’ he would go on, ‘got a living in London worth goodness knows what; population 15,000; takes a holiday in September, because he is so hard worked, and _then_ comes down here for three solid months with thirteen old sermons in his pocket to fire at the cathedral congregation. Three months with two hours’ work a day! Yah!’ “All gone now,” Chaunters sighed; and there was a pause.