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to say, really had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow)
would make every exertion in his power, would employ all the little
eloquence in his possession to--to--to--soften down, as much as he could
conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly
perplexing piece of business."
Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain,
very much to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your
warm-hearted people are seldom apposite in their observations--they run
into all sorts of blunders, contre-temps and mal apropos-isms, in the
hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend--thus, often with the
kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice his
cause than to advance it.
So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of
"Old Charley"; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the
suspected, yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he
uttered of which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the
speaker in the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen
the suspicion already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded,
and to arouse against him the fury of the mob.
One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator was his
allusion to the suspected as "the heir of the worthy old gentleman Mr.
Shuttleworthy." The people had really never thought of this before. They
had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered a year
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