Though I have not the honour of any acquaintance with you, I take the liberty of writing to you as to the condition of one of the clerks in your office. I am perfectly aware that should I receive a reprimand from your hands, I shall have deserved it by my unjustifiable interference.

Mr. Crocker represents to me that he is to be dismissed because of some act of which you as his superior officer highly disapprove. He asks me to appeal to you on his behalf because we have been acquainted with each other.

His father is agent to my uncle Lord Persiflage, and we have met at my uncle's house. I do not dare to put this forward as a plea for mercy. But I understand that Mr. Crocker is about to be married almost immediately, and, perhaps, you will feel with me that a period in a man's life which should beyond all others be one of satisfaction, of joy, and of perfect contentment, may be regarded with a feeling of mercy which would be prejudicial if used more generally.

Your faithful servant,

HAMPSTEAD.

When he wrote those words as to the period of joy and satisfaction his own heart was sore, sore, sore almost to breaking. There could never be such joy, never be such satisfaction for him.

CHAPTER XV.

"DISMISSAL. B. B."

By return of post Lord Hampstead received the following answer to his letter;--

MY DEAR LORD HAMPSTEAD,--

Mr. Crocker's case is _a very bad one_; but the Postmaster General shall see your appeal, and his lordship will, I am sure, sympathize with your humanity--as do I also.

I cannot take upon myself to say what his lordship will think it right to do, and it will be better, therefore, that you should abstain for the present from communicating with Mr. Crocker.

I am, Your lordship's very faithful servant,

BOREAS BODKIN.

Any excuse was sufficient to our aeolus to save him from the horror of dismissing a man. He knew well that Crocker, as a public servant, was not worth his salt. Sir Boreas was blessed,--or cursed,--with a conscience, but the stings of his conscience, though they were painful, did not hurt him so much as those of his feelings. He had owned to himself on this occasion that Crocker must go. Crocker was in every way distasteful to him. He was not only untrustworthy and incapable, but audacious also, and occasionally impudent. He was a clerk of whom he had repeatedly said that it would be much better to pay him his salary and let him have perpetual leave of absence, than keep him even if there were no salary to be paid. Now there had come a case on which it was agreed by all the office that the man must go.

Destroy a bundle of official papers! Mr. Jerningham had been heard to declare that the law was in fault in not having provided that a man should be at once sent to Newgate for doing such a thing. "The stupid old fool's letters weren't really worth anything," Sir Boreas had said, as though attempting to palliate the crime! Mr. Jerningham had only shaken his head. What else could he do? It was not for him to dispute any matter with Sir Boreas. But to his thinking the old gentleman's letters had become precious doc.u.ments, priceless records, as soon as they had once been bound by the red tape of the Government, and enveloped by the security of an official pigeon-hole.

To stay away without leave,--to be drunk,--to be obstinately idle,--to be impudent, were great official sins; but Mr. Jerningham was used to them, and knew that as they had often occurred before, so would they re-occur. Clerks are mortal men, and will be idle, will be reckless, will sometimes get into disreputable rows. A little added severity, Mr. Jerningham thought, would improve his branch of the department, but, knowing the nature of men, the nature especially of Sir Boreas, he could make excuses. Here, however, was a case in which no superior Civil Servant could entertain a doubt. And yet Sir Boreas palliated even this crime! Mr. Jerningham shook his head, and Sir Boreas shoved on one side, so as to avoid for a day the pain of thinking about them, the new bundle of papers which had already formed itself on the great Crocker case. If some one would tear up that, what a blessing it would be!

In this way there was delay, during which Crocker was not allowed to show his face at the office, and during this delay Clara Demijohn became quite confirmed in her determination to throw over her engagement. Tribbledale with his 120 would be much better than Crocker with nothing. And then it was agreed generally in Paradise Row that there was something romantic in Tribbledale's constancy.

Tribbledale was in the Row every day,--or perhaps rather every night;--seeking counsel from Mrs. Grimley, and comforting himself with hot gin-and-water. Mrs. Grimley was good-natured, and impartial to both the young men. She liked customers, and she liked marriages generally. "If he ain't got no income of course he's out of the running," Mrs. Grimley said to Tribbledale, greatly comforting the young man's heart. "You go in and win," said Mrs. Grimley, indicating by that her opinion that the ardent suitor would probably be successful if he urged his love at the present moment. "Strike while the iron is hot," she said, alluding probably to the heat to which Clara's anger would be warmed by the feeling that the other lover had lost his situation just when he was most bound to be careful in maintaining it.

Tribbledale went in and pleaded his case. It is probable that just at this time Clara herself was made acquainted with Tribbledale's frequent visits to The d.u.c.h.ess, and though she may not have been pleased with the special rendezvous selected, she was gratified by the devotion shown. When Mrs. Grimley advised Tribbledale to "go in and win," she was, perhaps, in Clara's confidence. When a girl has told all her friends that she is going to be married, and has already expended a considerable portion of the sum of money allowed for her wedding garments, she cannot sink back into the simple position of an unengaged young woman without pangs of conscience and qualms of remorse. Paradise Row knew that her young man was to be dismissed from his office, and condoled with her frequently and most unpleasantly. Mrs. Duffer was so unbearable in the matter that the two ladies had quarrelled dreadfully. Clara from the first moment of her engagement with Crocker had been proud of the second string to her bow, and now perceived that the time had come in which it might be conveniently used.

It was near eleven when Tribbledale knocked at the door of No. 10, but nevertheless Clara was up, as was also the servant girl, who opened the door for the sake of discretion. "Oh, Daniel, what hours you do keep!" said Clara, when the young gentleman was shown into the parlour. "What on earth brings you here at such a time as this?"

Tribbledale was never slow to declare that he was brought thither by the overwhelming ardour of his pa.s.sion. His love for Clara was so old a story, and had been told so often, that the repeating of it required no circ.u.mlocution. Had he chanced to meet her in the High Street on a Sunday morning, he would have begun with it at once.

"Clara," he said, "will you have me? I know that that other scoundrel is a ruined man."

"Oh, Daniel, you shouldn't hit those as are down."

"Hasn't he been hitting me all the time that I was down? Hasn't he triumphed? Haven't you been in his arms?"

"Laws; no."

"And wasn't that hitting me when I was down, do you think?"

"It never did you any harm."

"Oh, Clara;--if you knew the nature of my love you'd understand the harm. Every time he has pressed your lips I have heard it, though I was in King's Head Court all the time."

"That must be a crammer, Daniel."

"I did;--not with the ears of my head, but with the fibres of my breast."

"Oh;--ah. But, Daniel, you and Sam used to be such friends at the first go off."

"Go off of what?"

"When he first took to coming after me. You remember the tea-party, when Marion Fay was here."

"I tried it on just then;--I did. I thought that, maybe, I might come not to care about it so much."

"I'm sure you acted it very well."

"And I thought that perhaps it might be the best way of touching that cold heart of yours."

"Cold! I don't know as my heart is colder than anybody else's heart."

"Would that you would make it warm once more for me."

"Poor Sam!" said Clara, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes.

"Why is he any poorer than me? I was first. At any rate I was before him."

"I don't know anything about firsts or lasts," said Clara, as the ghosts of various Banquos flitted before her eyes.

"And as for him, what right has he to think of any girl? He's a poor mean creature, without the means of getting so much as a bed for a wife to lie on. He used to talk so proud of Her Majesty's Civil Service. Her Majesty's Civil Service has sent him away packing."

"Not yet, Daniel."

"They have. I've made it my business to find out, and Sir Boreas Bodkin has written the order to-day. 'Dismissal--B. B.' I know those who have seen the very words written in the punishment book of the Post Office."

"Poor Sam!"

"Destroying papers of the utmost importance about Her Majesty's Mail Service! What else was he to expect? And now he's penniless."

"A hundred and twenty isn't so very much, Daniel."

"Mr. Fay was saying only the other day that if I was married and settled they'd make it better for me."

"You're too fond of The d.u.c.h.ess, Daniel."