The Small House at Allington, Anthony Trollope [best ebook reader for chromebook .txt] 📗

shuffling in his office slippers, looking on each occasion as though there were some cause to fear that the whole Civil Service were coming to an abrupt termination, and would lay about him with hard words, which some of those in the big room did not find it very easy to bear. His hair was always brushed straight up, his eyes were always very wide open⁠—and he usually carried a big letter-book with him, keeping in it a certain place with his finger. This book was almost too much for his strength, and he would flop it down, now on this man’s desk and now on that man’s, and in a long career of such floppings had made himself to be very much hated. On the score of some old grudge he and Mr. Love did not speak to each other; and for this reason, on all occasions of faultfinding, the blown-up young man would refer Mr. Kissing to his enemy.

“I know nothing about it,” Mr. Love would say, not lifting his face from his desk for a moment.

“I shall certainly lay the matter before the Board,” Mr. Kissing would reply, and would then shuffle out of the room with the big book.

Sometimes Mr. Kissing would lay the matter before the Board, and then he, and Mr. Love, and two or three delinquent clerks would be summoned thither. It seldom led to much. The delinquent clerks would be cautioned. One Commissioner would say a word in private to Mr. Love, and another a word in private to Mr. Kissing. Then, when left alone, the Commissioners would have their little jokes, saying that Kissing, they feared, went by favour; and that Love should still be lord of all. But these things were done in the mild days, before Sir Raffle Buffle came to the Board.

There had been some fun in this at first; but of late John Eames had become tired of it. He disliked Mr. Kissing, and the big book out of which Mr. Kissing was always endeavouring to convict him of some official sin, and had got tired of that joke of setting Kissing and Love by the ears together. When the Assistant Secretary first suggested to him that Sir Raffle had an idea of selecting him as private secretary, and when he remembered the cosy little room, all carpeted, with a leathern armchair and a separate washing-stand, which in such case would be devoted to his use, and remembered also that he would be put into receipt of an additional hundred a year, and would stand in the way of still better promotion, he was overjoyed. But there were certain drawbacks. The present private secretary⁠—who had been private secretary also to the late First Commissioner⁠—was giving up his Elysium because he could not endure the tones of Sir Raffle’s voice. It was understood that Sir Raffle required rather more of a private secretary, in the way of obsequious attendance, than was desirable, and Eames almost doubted his own fitness for the place.

“And why should he choose me?” he had asked the Assistant Secretary.

“Well, we have talked it over together, and I think that he prefers you to any other that has been named.”

“But he was so very hard upon me about the affair at the railway station.”

“I think he has heard more about that since; I think that some message has reached him from your friend, Earl De Guest.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Johnny, beginning to comprehend what it was to have an earl for his friend. Since his acquaintance with the nobleman had commenced, he had studiously avoided all mention of the earl’s name at his office; and yet he received almost daily intimation that the fact was well known there, and not a little considered.

“But he is so very rough,” said Johnny.

“You can put up with that,” said his friend the Assistant Secretary. “His bark is worse than his bite, as you know; and then a hundred a year is worth having.” Eames was at that moment inclined to take a gloomy view of life in general, and was disposed to refuse the place, should it be offered to him. He had not then received the earl’s letter; but now, as he sat with that letter open before him, lying in the drawer beneath his desk so that he could still read it as he leaned back in his chair, he was enabled to look at things in general through a different atmosphere. In the first place, Lilian Dale’s husband ought to have a room to himself, with a carpet and an armchair; and then that additional hundred a year would raise his income at once to the sum as to which the earl had made some sort of stipulation. But could he get that leave of absence at Easter? If he consented to be Sir Raffle’s private secretary, he would make that a part of the bargain.

At this moment the door of the big room was opened, and Mr. Kissing shuffled in with very quick little steps. He shuffled in, and coming direct up to John’s desk, flopped his ledger down upon it before its owner had had time to close the drawer which contained the precious letter.

“What have you got in that drawer, Mr. Eames?”

“A private letter, Mr. Kissing.”

“Oh;⁠—a private letter!” said Mr. Kissing, feeling strongly convinced there was a novel hidden there, but not daring to express his belief. “I have been half the morning, Mr. Eames, looking for this letter to the Admiralty, and you’ve put it under S!” A bystander listening to Mr. Kissing’s tone would have been led to believe that the whole Income-tax Office was jeopardized by the terrible iniquity thus disclosed.

“Somerset House,” pleaded Johnny.

“Psha;⁠—Somerset House! Half the offices in London⁠—”

“You’d better ask Mr. Love,” said Eames. “It’s all done under his special instructions.” Mr. Kissing looked at Mr. Love, and Mr. Love looked steadfastly at his desk. “Mr. Love knows all about the indexing,” continued Johnny. “He’s index master general to the department.”

“No, I’m not, Mr. Eames,” said Mr. Love, who rather liked John Eames, and hated Mr. Kissing with his whole heart. “But