"There's Johnny been sent for by old Scuffles," said one clerk.
"That's about his row with Crosbie," said another. "The Board can't do anything to him for that."
"Can't it?" said the first. "Didn't young Outonites have to resign because of that row at the Cider Cellars though his cousin, Sir Constant Outonites, did all that he could for him?"
"But he was regularly up the spout with accommodation bills."
"I tell you that I wouldn't be in Eames's shoes for a trifle. Crosbie is secretary at the Committee Office where Scuffles was chairman before he came here; and of course they're as thick as thieves. I shouldn't wonder if they didn't make him go down and apologise."
"Johnny won't do that," said the other.
In the meantime John Eames was standing in the august presence. Sir Raffle Buffle was throned in his great oak arm-chair at the head of a long table in a very large room; and by him, at the corner of the table, was seated one of the assistant secretaries of the office. Another member of the Board was also at work upon the long table; but he was reading and signing papers at some distance from Sir Raffle, and paid no heed whatever to the scene. The assistant secretary, looking on, could see that Sir Raffle was annoyed by this want of attention on the part of his colleague, but all this was lost upon Eames.
"Mr Eames?" said Sir Raffle, speaking with a peculiarly harsh voice, and looking at the culprit through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, which he perched for the occasion upon his big nose. "Isn't that Mr Eames?"
"Yes," said the assistant secretary, "this is Eames."
"Ah!"—and then there was a pause. "Come a little nearer, Mr Eames, will you?" and Johnny drew nearer, advancing noiselessly over the Turkey carpet.
"Let me see; in the second class, isn't he? Ah! Do you know, Mr Eames, that I have received a letter from the secretary to the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company, detailing circumstances which,—if truly stated in that letter,—redound very much to your discredit?"
"I did get into a row there yesterday, sir."
"Got into a row! It seems to me that you have got into a very serious row, and that I must tell the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company that the law must be allowed to take its course."
"I shan't mind that, sir, in the least," said Eames, brightening up a little under this view of the case.
"Not mind that, sir!" said Sir Raffle—or rather, he shouted out the words at the offender before him. I am inclined to think that he overdid it, missing the effect which a milder tone might have attained. Perhaps there was lacking to him some of that majesty of demeanour and dramatic propriety of voice which had been so efficacious in the little story as to the King's bag of letters. As it was, Johnny gave a slight jump, but after his jump he felt better than he had been before. "Not mind, sir, being dragged before the criminal tribunals of your country, and being punished as a felon,—or rather as a misdemeanour,—for an outrage committed on a public platform! Not mind it! What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean, that I don't think the magistrate would say very much about it, sir. And I don't think Mr Crosbie would come forward."
"But Mr Crosbie must come forward, young man. Do you suppose that an outrage against the peace of the Metropolis is to go unpunished because he may not wish to pursue the matter? I'm afraid you must be very ignorant, young man."
"Perhaps I am," said Johnny.
"Very ignorant indeed,—very ignorant indeed. And are you aware, sir, that it would become a question with the Commissioners of this Board whether you could be retained in the service of this department if you were publicly punished by a police magistrate for such a disgraceful outrage as that?"
Johnny looked round at the other Commissioner, but that gentleman did not raise his face from his papers.
"Mr Eames is a very good clerk," whispered the assistant secretary, but in a voice which made his words audible to Eames; "one of the best young men we have," he added in a voice which was not audible.
"Oh,—ah; very well. Now, I'll tell you what, Mr Eames. I hope this will be a lesson to you,—a very serious lesson."
The assistant secretary, leaning in his chair so as to be a little behind the head of Sir Raffle, did manage to catch the eye of the other Commissioner. The other Commissioner, barely looking round, smiled a little and then the assistant secretary smiled also. Eames saw this, and he smiled too.
"Whether any ulterior consequences may still await the breach of the peace of which you have been guilty, I am not yet prepared to say," continued Sir Raffle. "You may go now."
And Johnny returned to his own place, with no increased reverence for the dignity of the chairman.
On the following morning one of his colleagues showed him with great glee the passage in the newspaper which informed the world that he had been so desperately beaten by Crosbie that he was obliged to keep his bed at this present time in consequence of the flogging that he had received. Then his anger was aroused, and he bounced about the big room of the Income-tax Office, regardless of assistant-secretaries, head-clerks, and all other official grandees whatsoever, denouncing the iniquities of the public press, and declaring his opinion that it would be better to live in Russia than in a country which allowed such audacious falsehoods to be propagated.
"He never touched me, Fisher; I don't think he ever tried; but, upon my honour, he never touched me."
"But, Johnny, it was bold in you to make up to Lord de Courcy's daughter," said Fisher.
"I never saw one of them in my life."
"He's going it altogether among the aristocracy, now," said another; "I suppose you wouldn't look at anybody under a viscount?"
"Can I help what that thief of an editor puts into his paper? Flogged! Huffle Scuffle told me I was a felon, but that wasn't half so bad as this fellow;" and Johnny kicked the newspaper across the room.
"Indict him for a libel," said Fisher.
"Particularly for saying you wanted to marry a countess's daughter," said another clerk.
"I never heard such a scandal in my life," declared a third; "and then to say that the girl wouldn't look at you."
But not the less was it felt by all in the office that Johnny Eames was becoming a leading man among them, and that he was one with whom each of them would be pleased to be intimate. And even among the grandees this affair of the railway station did him no real harm. It was known that Crosbie had deserved to be thrashed and known that Eames had thrashed him. It was all very well for Sir Raffle Buffle to talk of police magistrates and misdemeanours, but all the world at the Income-tax Office knew very well that Eames had come out from that affair with his head upright and his right foot foremost.
"Never mind about the newspaper," a thoughtful old senior clerk said to him. "As he did get the licking and you didn't, you can afford to laugh at the newspaper."
"And you wouldn't write to the editor?"
"No, no; certainly not. No one thinks of defending himself to a newspaper except an ass;—unless it be some fellow who wants to have his name puffed. You may write what's as true as the gospel, but they'll know how to make fun of it."
Johnny, therefore, gave up his idea of an indignant letter to the editor, but he felt that he was bound to give some explanation of the whole matter to Lord De Guest. The affair had happened as he was coming from the earl's house, and all his own concerns had now been made so much a matter of interest to his kind friend, that he thought that he could not with propriety leave the earl to learn from the newspapers either the facts or the falsehoods. And, therefore, before he left his office he wrote the following letter:—