“Yes, sir, it is,” said the superintendent;
“and I shall know how to represent the matter
to your superiors, young man.”
“You don’t know all about it,” said
Eames; “and I don’t suppose you ever will.
I had made up my mind what I’d do the first time
I saw that scoundrel there; and now I’ve done
it. He’d have got much worse in the railway
carriage, only there was a lady there.”
“Mr Crosbie, I really think we had better take
him before the magistrates.”
To this, however, Crosbie objected. He assured
the superintendent that he would himself know how
to deal with the matter—which, however,
was exactly what he did not know. Would the superintendent
allow one of the railway servants to get a cab for
him, and to find his luggage? He was very anxious
to get home without being subjected to any more of
Mr Eames’s insolence.
“You haven’t done with Mr Eames’s
insolence yet, I can tell you. All London shall
hear of it, and shall know why. If you have any
shame in you, you shall be ashamed to show your face.”
Unfortunate man! Who can say that punishment,—adequate
punishment,—had not overtaken him?
For the present, he had to sneak home with a black
eye, with the knowledge inside him that he had been
whipped by a clerk in the Income-tax Office; and for
the future—he was bound over to marry Lady
Alexandrina de Courcy!
He got himself smuggled off in a cab, without being
forced to go again upon the platform—his
luggage being brought to him by two assiduous porters.
But in all this there was very little balm for his
hurt pride. As he ordered the cabman to drive
to Mount Street, he felt that he had ruined himself
by that step in life which he had taken at Courcy
Castle. Whichever way he looked he had no comfort.
“D—— the fellow!” he
said, almost out loud in the cab; but though he did
with his outward voice allude to Eames, the curse in
his inner thoughts was uttered against himself.
Johnny was allowed to make his way down to the platform,
and there find his own carpet-bag. One young
porter, however, came up and fraternised with him.
“You guve it him tidy just at that last moment,
sir. But, laws, sir, you should have let out
at him at fust. What’s the use of clawing
a man’s neck-collar?”
It was then a quarter past eleven, but, nevertheless,
Eames appeared at his office precisely at twelve.
Vae Victis
Crosbie had two engagements for that day; one being
his natural engagement to do his work at his office,
and the other an engagement, which was now very often
becoming as natural, to dine at St. John’s Wood
with Lady Amelia Gazebee. It was manifest to him
when he looked at himself in the glass hat he could
keep neither of these engagements. “Oh,
laws, Mr Crosbie,” the woman of the house exclaimed
when she saw him.
“Yes, I know,” said he. “I’ve
had an accident and got a black eye. What’s
a good thing for it?”
