"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:—
Income-tax Office, December 29, 186—.My Lord,—
He thought a good deal about the style in which he ought to address the peer, never having hitherto written to him. He began, "My dear Lord," on one sheet of paper, and then put it aside, thinking that it looked over-bold.
My Lord,— As you have been so very kind to me, I feel that I ought to tell you what happened the other morning at the railway station, as I was coming back from Guestwick. That scoundrel Crosbie got into the same carriage with me at the Barchester Junction, and sat opposite to me all the way up to London. I did not speak a word to him, or he to me; but when he got out at the
