The austere Protestant was a friend of the Duke's man, Ned Coleman, and used to meet him at Colonel Weldon's house.

This hinted at blackmailable stuff in the magistrate, so Lovel took to haunting his premises in Hartshorn Lane by Charing Cross, but found no evidence which pointed to anything but a prosperous trade in wood and sea-coal.
Faggots, but not the treasonable kind! Try as he might, he could-get no farther with that pillar of the magistracy, my Lord Danly's friend, the beloved of Aldermen.

He hated his solemn face, his prim mouth, his condescending stoop.

Such a man was encased in proof armour of public esteem, and he heeded Mr.Lovel no more than the rats in the gutter.
But the day before had come a rude awakening.

All this talk of a Popish plot, discovered by the Salamanca Doctor, promised a good harvest to Mr.Lovel.He himself had much to tell and more to invent.