I don't think any Home Ruler's relative ought to be allowed into the service. Do you, Mr. Jerningham?"
"I think Mr. Geraghty, if he will only be a little more careful, will do great credit to the service," said Mr. Jerningham.
"I hope that Æolus may think the same." Æolus was the name by which a certain pundit was known at the office;—a violent and imperious Secretary, but not in the main ill-natured. "Æolus, when last I heard of his opinion, seemed to have his doubts about poor Paddy." This was a disagreeable subject, and it was felt by them all that it might better be left in silence. From that time the work of the day was continued with no more than moderate interruptions till the hour of luncheon, when the usual attendant entered with the usual mutton-chops. "I wonder if Lord Hampstead has mutton-chops for luncheon?" asked Crocker.
"Why should he not?" asked Mr. Jerningham, foolishly.
"There must be some kind of gilded cutlet, upon which the higher members of the aristocracy regale themselves. I suppose, Roden, you must have seen his lordship at lunch."
"I dare say I have," said Roden, angrily. He knew that he was annoyed, and was angry with himself at his own annoyance.
"Are they golden or only gilded?" asked Crocker.
"I believe you mean to make yourself disagreeable," said the other.
"Quite the reverse. I mean to make myself agreeable;—only you have soared so high of late that ordinary conversation has no charms for you. Is there any reason why Lord Hampstead's lunch should not be mentioned?"
"Certainly there is," said Roden.
"Then, upon my life, I cannot see it. If you talked of my mid-day chop I should not take it amiss."
"I don't think a fellow should ever talk about another fellow's eating unless he knows the fellow." This came from Bobbin, who intended it well, meaning to fight the battle for Roden as well as he knew how.
"Most sapient Bobb," said Crocker, "you seem to be unaware that one young fellow, who is Roden, happens to be the peculiarly intimate friend of the other fellow, who is the Earl of Hampstead. Therefore the law, as so clearly laid down by yourself, has not been infringed. To return to our muttons, as the Frenchman says, what sort of lunch does his lordship eat?"
"You are determined to make yourself disagreeable," said Roden.
"I appeal to Mr. Jerningham whether I have said anything unbecoming."
"If you appeal to me, I think you have," said Mr. Jerningham.
"You have, at any rate, been so successful in doing it," continued Roden, "that I must ask you to hold your tongue about Lord Hampstead. It has not been by anything I have said that you have heard of my acquaintance with him. The joke is a bad one, and will become vulgar if repeated."
"Vulgar!" cried Crocker, pushing away his plate, and rising from his chair.
"I mean ungentlemanlike. I don't want to use hard words, but I will not allow myself to be annoyed."
"Hoity, toity," said Crocker, "here's a row because I made a chance allusion to a noble lord. I am to be called vulgar because I mentioned his name." Then he began to whistle.
"Mr. Crocker, I will not have it," said Mr. Jerningham, assuming his most angry tone. "You make more noise in the room than all the others put together."
"Nevertheless, I do wonder what Lord Hampstead has had for his lunch." This was the last shot, and after that the five gentlemen did in truth settle down to their afternoon's work.
When four o'clock came Mr. Jerningham with praiseworthy punctuality took his hat and departed. His wife and three unmarried daughters were waiting for him at Islington, and as he was always in his seat punctually at ten, he was justified in leaving it punctually at four. Crocker swaggered about the room for a minute or two with his hat on, desirous of showing that he was by no means affected by the rebukes which he had received. But he, too, soon went, not having summoned courage to recur to the name of Roden's noble friend. The two lads remained for the sake of saying a word of comfort to Roden, who still sat writing at his desk. "I thought it was very low form," said Bobbin; "Crocker going on like that."
"Crocker's a baist," said Geraghty.
"What was it to him what anybody eats for his lunch?" continued Bobbin.
"Only he likes to have a nobleman's name in his mouth," said Geraghty. "I think it's the hoighth of bad manners talking about anybody's friends unless you happen to know them yourself."
"I think it is," said Roden, looking up from his desk. "But I'll tell you what shows worse manners;—that is, a desire to annoy anybody. Crocker likes to be funny, and he thinks there is no fun so good as what he calls taking a rise. I don't know that I'm very fond of Crocker, but it may be as well that we should all think no more about it." Upon this the young men promised that they, at least, would think no more about it, and then took their departure. George Roden soon followed them, for it was not the practice of anybody in that department to remain at work long after four o'clock.
Roden as he walked home did think more of the little affair than it deserved—more at least than he would acknowledge that it deserved. He was angry with himself for bearing it in mind, and yet he did bear it in mind. Could it be that a creature so insignificant as Crocker could annoy him by a mere word or two? But he was annoyed, and did not know how such annoyance could be made to cease. If the man would continue to talk about Lord Hampstead there was nothing by which he could be made to hold his tongue. He could not be kicked, or beaten, or turned out of the room. For any purpose of real assistance Mr. Jerningham was useless. As to complaining to the Æolus of the office that a certain clerk would talk about Lord Hampstead, that of course was out of the question. He had already used strong language, calling the man vulgar and ungentlemanlike, but if a man does not regard strong language what further can an angry victim do to him?
Then his thoughts passed on to his connexion with the Marquis of Kingsbury's family generally. Had he not done wrong, at any rate, done foolishly, in thus moving himself out of his own sphere? At the present moment Lady Frances was nearer to him even than Lord Hampstead—was more important to him and more in his thoughts. Was it not certain that he would give rise to misery rather than to happiness by what had occurred between him and Lady Frances? Was it not probable that he had embittered for her all the life of the lady whom he loved? He had assumed an assured face and a confident smile while declaring to his mother that no power on earth should stand between him and his promised wife—that she would be able to walk out from her father's hall and marry him as certainly as might the housemaid or the ploughman's daughter go to her lover. But what would be achieved by that if she were to walk out only to encounter misery? The country was so constituted that he and these Traffords were in truth of a different race; as much so as the negro is different from the white man. The Post Office clerk may, indeed, possibly become a Duke; whereas the negro's skin cannot be washed white. But while he and Lady Frances were as they were, the distance between them was so great that no approach could be made between them without disruption. The world might be wrong in this. To his thinking the world was wrong. But while the facts existed they were too strong to be set aside. He could do his duty to the world by struggling to propagate his own opinions, so that the distance might be a little lessened in his own time. He was sure that the distance was being lessened, and with this he thought that he ought to have been contented. The jeering of such a one as Crocker was unimportant though disagreeable, but it sufficed to show the feeling. Such a friendship as his with Lord Hampstead had appeared to Crocker to be ridiculous. Crocker would not have seen the absurdity unless others had seen it also. Even his own mother saw it. Here in England it was accounted so foolish a thing that he, a Post Office clerk, should be hand and glove with such a one as Lord Hampstead, that even a Crocker could raise a laugh against him! What would the world say when it should have become known that he intended to lead Lady Frances to the "hymeneal altar?" As he repeated the words to himself there was something ridiculous even to himself in the idea that the hymeneal altar should ever be mentioned in reference to the adventures of such a person as George Roden, the Post Office clerk. Thinking of all this, he was not in a happy frame of mind when