One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
vilely filthy stuff Morality thought it, however pleasing it
might be to a palate corrupted by indulgence of the sensual
appetites.
But the glass had been handed to him by the lady he respected,
who looked angelical in offering it, divinely other
than ugly; and to her he could not be discourteous; not even
to pay his homage to the representative of a principle. He
bowed to Miss Graves, and drank, and rushed forth; hearing
shouts behind him.
His master had a packet of papers ready, easy for the pocket.
‘By the way, Skepsey,’ he said, ‘if a man named Jarniman
should call at the office, I will see him.’
Skepsey’s grey eyes came out.
Or was it Journeyman, that his master would not see; and
Jarniman that he would?
His habit of obedience, pride of apprehension, and the
time to catch the train, forbade inquiry. Besides he knew of
himself of old, that his puzzles were best unriddled running.
The quick of pace are soon in the quick of thoughts.
Jarniman, then, was a man whom his master, not wanting
to see, one day, and wanting to see, on another day, might
wish to conciliate: a case of policy. Let Jarniman go. Journeyman,
on the other hand, was nobody at all, a ghost of the
fancy. Yet this Journeyman was as important an individual,
he was a dread reality; more important to Skepsey in the
light of patriot: and only in that light was he permitted of a
scrupulous conscience and modest mind to think upon himself
when the immediate subject was his master’s interests.
For this Journeyman had not an excuse for existence in Mr.
Radnor’s pronunciation: he was born of the buzz of a troubled
ear, coming of a disordered brain, consequent necessarily
upon a disorderly stomach, that might protest a degree of
comparative innocence, but would be shamed utterly under
inspection of the eye of a lady of principle.
What, then, was the value to his country of a servant who
could not accurately recollect his master’s words! Miss Graves
within him asked the rapid little man, whether indeed his
ideas were his own after draughts of champagne.
The ideas, excited to an urgent animation by his racing
trot, were a quiverful in flight over an England terrible to the
foe and dancing on the green. Right so: but would we keep
up the dance, we must be red iron to touch: and the fighter
80