After a while the warden pulled his Bradshaw out of his pocket, and began laboriously to consult it. There was a train for Barchester at 10 A.M. That was out of the question, for it was nearly ten already. Another at 3 P.M.; another, the night-mail train, at 9 P.M. The three o'clock train would take him home to tea, and would suit very well. "My dear," said he, "I think I shall go back home at three o'clock to-day. I shall get home at half-past eight. I don't think there's anything to keep me in London." "The archdeacon and I return by the early train to-morrow, papa; won't you wait and go back with us?" "Why, Eleanor will expect me tonight; and I've so much to do; and--" "Much to do!" said the archdeacon sotto voce; but the warden heard him. "You'd better wait for us, papa." "Thank ye, my dear! I think I'll go this afternoon." The tamest animal will turn when driven too hard, and even Mr Harding was beginning to fight for his own way. "I suppose you won't be back before three?" said the lady, addressing her husband. "I must leave this at two," said the warden. "Quite out of the question," said the archdeacon, answering his wife, and still reading the shopkeepers' names; "I don't suppose I shall be back till five." There was another long pause, during which Mr Harding continued to study his Bradshaw. "I must go to Cox and Cummins," said the archdeacon at last. "Oh, to Cox and Cummins," said the warden. It was quite a matter of indifference to him where his son-in-law went. The names of Cox and Cummins had now no interest in his ears. What had he to do with Cox and Cummins further, having already had his suit finally adjudicated upon in a court of conscience, a judgment without power of appeal fully registered, and the matter settled so that all the lawyers in London could not disturb it. The archdeacon could go to Cox and Cummins, could remain there all day in anxious discussion; but what might be said there was no longer matter of interest to him, who was so soon to lay aside the name of warden of Barchester Hospital. The archdeacon took up his shining new clerical hat, and put on his black new clerical gloves, and looked heavy, respectable, decorous, and opulent, a decided clergyman of the Church of England, every inch of him. "I suppose I shall see you at Barchester the day after to-morrow," said he. The warden supposed he would. "I must once more beseech you to take no further steps till you see my father; if you owe me nothing," and the archdeacon looked as though he thought a great deal were due to him, "at least you owe so much to my father;" and, without waiting for a reply, Dr Grantly wended his way to Cox and Cummins. Mrs Grantly waited till the last fall of her husband's foot was heard, as he turned out of the court into St Paul's Churchyard, and then commenced her task of talking her father over. "Papa," she began, "this is a most serious business." "Indeed it is," said the warden, ringing the bell.