Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/566

 had no idea that the slim grey-haired gentleman whom they saw pottering about in his garden on summer afternoons, or lying on the grass under the shade of a big tree playing with his children, was the lightning-compeller and the thunder-creator of the Comet. Though most earnest while engaged in his work, it was his greatest delight to leave every trace of it behind him at his office, and to be entirely free from its influence when at home with his wife and children. Occasionally, of course, the few old friends who dined with him would start a political or literary discussion, in which he would bear his part, but he was never happy until the conversation found its way back into the ordinary social channels, or until a demand was made for music, of which he was passionately fond. It was a lucky thing for Walter Joyce to make the acquaintance and to win the regard of such a man as Terence O'Connor, who had a wonderfully quick eye for character, and who, having noticed Walter's readiness of appreciation and bright incisive style in the few articles which he wrote on the occasion of his first introduction by Mr. Byrne, suggested that the post at Berlin should be offered to him. The more they were thrown together the better they liked each other. Walter had the greatest admiration for O'Connor's talent and power of work, while the elder man looked kindly on his young friend's eagerness and enthusiasm, his desire for distinction, and his delight at laudation, perhaps as somewhat reflecting his own feelings before he had become settled down to the mill-horse grind—ah, how many years ago!

After the conference had broken up, Joyce, to whom, perhaps, a subject had been given to treat, would go back to his chambers and work at it for two or three hours, or he would remain at the office discussing the matter in detail with Terence O'Connor, and taking his friend's advice as to the manner of treatment. Or, if he were free, he would lounge in the Park, and stare at the equipages, and the toilettes, and the London panorama of luxury there constantly going by, all new to the country-bred young man, to whom, until he went to Lord Hetherington's, the old rumbling chariot of Sir Thomas Churchill, with its worsted-epauletted coachman and footmen, was a miracle of comfort and a triumph of taste. Or he would ramble out with Shimmer, or Forrest, or some other of his colleagues, to the suburbs, over the breezy heights of Hampstead, or through the green Willesden lanes, and get the city dust and smoke blown out of them. When he was not on duty at the office at night, Walter would sometimes take the newspaper admission and visit the theatre, but he had little taste for the drama, or rather, perhaps, for such dramatic representations as were then in vogue, and it pleased him much more to attend the meetings of the Forum, a club constituted for the purpose of discussing the principal political and social questions of the day, and composed of young barristers, and newspaper writers, with a sprinkling of public-office men, who met in the large room of a tavern situated in one of the quiet streets leading from Fleet-street to the river. The leaders of the different political parties, and others whose deeds or works had given them celebrity or notoriety, were happy in their ignorance of the existence of the Forum, or they must have been rendered uncomfortable by finding themselves the objects of so much wild denunciation. The members of the Forum were not in the habit of concealing their opinions, or of moderating the language in which those opinions were expressed, and the debate in which the then holders of office were not denounced as effete and useless nincompoops, bound by degrading ties of subserviency to a policy which, while originally dangerous, was now degrading, or in which the leaders of the Opposition were not stigmatised as base-bred ruffians, linked together by the common bond of ignorance with the common hope of rapine—was considered dull and spiritless indeed. As Mr. Byrne had intimated, Walter Joyce was one of the most prominent members of this debating club; he had a clear resonant voice, capable of excellent modulation, and spoke with fluency. His speeches, which were tinged with a far more pronounced radicalism—the effect of the teaching of Jack Byrne—than had previously been promulgated at the meetings of the Forum, soon became widely talked of among the members and their friends, and Walter's rising was eagerly looked forward to, and warmly hailed, not merely for the novelty of his doctrine, but for the boldness and the humour with which he sought to inculcate it. His success was so great that the heads of the Tory party in the club became alarmed, and thought it necessary to send off for Alister Portcullis, who was formerly the great speaker on their side, but who had recently become editor of a