Peeping Tom of Wallingford

To be an attorney-at-law, avid of practice and getting none; to be
called Peeping Tom of Wallingford, in the place where you would fain
trot about busy and respected; to be the sole support of an old mother,
and to be come almost to the toe of the stocking--these circumstances
might seem to indicate an existence and prospects bare, not to say arid.

Eventually they presented themselves in that light to the person most
nearly concerned--by name Mr. Peter Fishwick; and moving him to grasp at
the forlorn hope presented by a vacant stewardship at one of the
colleges, brought him by coach to Oxford. There he spent three days and
his penultimate guineas in canvassing, begging, bowing, and smirking;
and on the fourth, which happened to be the very day of Sir George's
arrival in the city, was duly and handsomely defeated without the honour
of a vote.

Mr. Fishwick had expected no other result; and so far all was well. But
he had a mother, and that mother entertained a fond belief that local
jealousy and nothing else kept down her son in the place of his birth.
She had built high hopes on this expedition; she had thought that the
Oxford gentlemen would be prompt to recognise his merit; and for her
sake the sharp-featured lawyer went back to the Mitre a rueful man. He
had taken a lodging there with intent to dazzle the town, and not
because his means were equal to it; and already the bill weighed upon
him.