Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/224

214[January 30, 1869] conflagration would break out in the night and engulf their gaudy salons des jeux, their tables, rakes, devilish engines—and above all their ill-gotten pillage—their heaps of notes and stores of gold.

Of course a sharp friend, or the smooth dean, if he heard me, would remind me about those few bits of silver won the other night. There are people always ready with a "tu quoque." I have not the slightest scruple about that now. I may say I did it to show my power. I did it of my own motion. I take it, Mr. Dean, the distinction is this, and it would do you no harm for your next sermon. One is tempted and yields—that is a fall. One does the same action, not from temptation or yielding, but purposely, with one's eyes open—that is another matter, Mr. Dean. I can indeed smile at myself when in that little trouble the other night; very natural and excusable. The poor, at all events, will be able to congratulate themselves.

A letter from my darling Dora, to whom I shall write about my little despoiling of the Philistines. Of course she will look grave at first, like some of the soi-disant "good people;" but she could not be expected to understand the matter. She is good indeed; nor will I use the vulgar comparison, significant of a covetous mind, "as good as gold." My sweet Dora! I have half a mind to buy her a trinket out of a few florins of "the winnings," and not tell her at first until it is round her pretty neck. No. I suppose I had better let the poor have every florin that I promised to them.

How prettily she turns her letters. There's where a woman's strength is, if they knew it—nature, simplicity. A little bunch of violets tumbles out. It has travelled all the way from Datchley. "I send it to you," she says, "to show you that my cough and cold are quite gone, for I gathered them myself." Sir Richard Steele could not have put it more prettily.

There is also an official letter, with the seal of our bank, which I know very well. When you are at a long distance from home, in the midst of a little carnival, home news are received for the first moment with joy—then with mistrust. You know what is coming. It is like the moment before the ball leaps into its cell. (How these odious associations cling to me!) It is from Maxwell, the manager—I know his cruel cold hand. He writes as stiffly as if he did not know me. He tells "Dear Sir" that he is instructed by the Board to require my return, at furthest, within a week from the receipt of this note, as they understand I am now perfectly restored to health. He was directed to say the Board were a little surprised at my not showing more alacrity in corresponding to the very great indulgence with which I had been treated—an indulgence which was intended for an urgent case of sickness, and not to promote amusement. They must peremptorily insist on my return by the day named.

Upon my word this is quite a new tone! And what have I done to merit such language—the language almost of a Russian to his serf—language which none of them, if I were in my old situation of a gentleman, none of them dare to address to me? In these offices they are always glad to be "down" on the gentleman. But there is something behind this. . .. To be sure. Did not the dean say he had a nephew or cousin in the bank whom he hoped I would be kind to? Ah, this gentleman wants my place, and the dean has written to him about me. I have a good mind to throw up the whole thing, write them back a resignation, and have done with them and their bank. What right have they to assume I am staying here for pleasure? And the fallacy of it, into which their dull minds have fallen! They do not see that this very amusement was the cure prescribed, and which I came officially to seek. I have a good mind to let them have their beggarly place. One hundred and thirty pounds a year! Why, only yesterday, I saw four times that sum earned in one minute! and it will take me just four long weary years of life to earn that beggarly sum. That villain Maxwell—this is his work. He has plotted this; he has never forgiven my foiling him that time, and getting away in spite of him. And now I have to return to submit to his tyranny and slavery. It was that, I solemnly believe, that helped to make me ill before. Well, this is all folly; I must submit and suffer. After all, how much have I to be thankful for! . .. I shall start to-morrow evening; pack up in the morning. It will be a relief to get away, for I am getting nervous and excited in presence of these temptations. And yet I feel not a little pride, for I have steered my little bark successfully, on the whole, and have defied Satan and his works. As for those few pieces of silver, I can smile at that now. I shall enjoy myself to-night.

I go in among them once more this evening, and own to my pet, that so far