“Well, I’m not settled. I’m
at the Great Western Railway Hotel at this moment.”
“Capital house, very; only it’s expensive
if you stay there the whole season.” Johnny
had no idea of remaining there beyond one night, but
he said nothing as to this. “By-the-by,
you might as well come and dine with us to-morrow.
Lady Buffle is most anxious to know you. There’ll
be one or two with us. I did ask my friend Dumbello,
but there’s some nonsense going on in the House,
and he thinks that he can’t get away.”
Johnny was more gracious than Lord Dumbello, and accepted
the invitation. “I wonder what Lady Buffle
will be like?” he said to himself, as he walked
away from the office.
He had turned into the Great Western Hotel, not as
yet knowing where to look for a home; and there we
will leave him, eating his solitary mutton-chop at
one of those tables which are so comfortable to the
eye, but which are so comfortless in reality.
I speak not now with reference to the excellent establishment
which has been named, but to the nature of such tables
in general. A solitary mutton-chop in an hotel
coffee-room is not a banquet to be envied by any god;
and if the mutton-chop be converted into soup, fish,
little dishes, big dishes, and the rest, the matter
becomes worse and not better. What comfort are
you to have, seated alone on that horsehair chair,
staring into the room and watching the waiters as they
whisk about their towels? No one but an Englishman
has ever yet thought of subjecting himself to such
a position as that! But here we will leave John
Eames, and in doing so I must be allowed to declare
that only now, at this moment, has he entered on his
manhood. Hitherto he has been a hobbledehoy,—a
calf, as it were, who had carried his calfishness
later into life than is common with calves; but who
did not, perhaps, on that account, give promise of
making a worse ox than the rest of them. His
life hitherto, as recorded in these pages, had afforded
him no brilliant success, had hardly qualified him
for the role of hero which he has been made to play.
I feel that I have been in fault in giving such prominence
to a hobbledehoy, and that I should have told my story
better had I brought Mr Crosbie more conspicuously
forward on my canvas. He at any rate has gotten
to himself a wife—as a hero always should
do; whereas I must leave my poor friend Johnny without
any matrimonial prospects.
It was thus that he thought of himself as he sat moping
over his solitary table in the hotel coffee-room.
He acknowledged to himself that he had not hitherto
been a man; but at the same time he made some resolution
which, I trust, may assist him in commencing his manhood
from this date.
It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle
at the Great House, pleading for Hopkins,—pleading
that to Hopkins might be restored all the privileges
of head gardener at the Great House. There was
some absurdity in this, seeing that he had never really
relinquished his privileges; but the manner of the
quarrel had been in this wise.
