One Of Them. Lever Charles James
of a Government commission. Very different would have been the result if the diploma of certain recognized educational establishments had been required as qualification to serve the State; if the law ran, ‘You shall be a graduate of this university, or that college, or possess the licentiate degree of that school.’”
“Your observations seem, then, rather directed against certain commissioners than the system they practise?” said Odgen, sarcastically.
“Scarcely, sir. My experience is very limited. I never met but one of them!”
The Colonel laughed heartily at this speech, – he could n’t help it; and even the host, mortified as he was, gave a half-smile. As for Ogden, his pale face grew a shade sicklier, and his green eyes more fishy.
“To question the post-office clerk or the landing waiter,” continued Layton, with fresh warmth, – for when excited he could rarely control himself, – “to test some poor aspirant for eighty pounds per annum in his knowledge of mathematics or his skill in physical geography, while you make governors that cannot speak correctly, and vice-governors whose despatches are the scorn of Downing Street; to proclaim that you want your tide-waiter to be a moral philosopher, but that the highest offices in the State may be held by any political partisan active enough, troublesome enough, and noisy enough to make himself worth purchase; you demand logarithms and special geometry from a clerk in the Customs, while you make a mill-owner a cabinet minister on the simple showing of his persevering; and your commissioners, too, – ‘Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes!’”
“You probably, however, submitted to be examined, once on a time, for your medical degree?” asked Ogden.
“Yes, sir; and that ordeal once passed, I had ample leisure to unlearn the mass of useless rubbish required of me, and to address myself to the real cares of my profession. But do you suppose that if it were demanded of me to subject myself to another examination to hold the humble post I now fill, that I should have accepted it?”
“I really cannot answer that question,” said Ogden, superciliously.
“Then I will, sir. I would not have done so. Eighty pounds a year is a very attractive bribe, but it may require too costly a sacrifice to win it.”
“The neighborhood is a very poor one,” struck in Millar, “and, indeed, if it had not been for the strenuous exertions of my friend Colonel Karstairs here, we should never have raised the forty pounds which gives us the claim for as much more in the presentments.”
“And yet you got two hundred and thirty for a regatta in June last!” said Layton, with a quiet smile.
“The way of the world, doctor; the way of the world! Men are never stingy in what regards their own amusements!”
“That is the port, doctor; the other is Lafitte,” said the rector, as he saw Layton hesitate about a choice.
And now the talk took a capricious turn, as it will do occasionally, in those companies where people are old-fashioned enough to “sit” after dinner, and let the decanter circulate. Even here, however, conversation could not run smoothly. Ogden launched into the manufacture of wines, the chemistry of adulterations, and the grape disease, on every one of which Layton found something to correct him, – some slip or error to set right, – an annoyance all the more poignant that Karstairs seemed to enjoy it heartily. From fabricated wines to poisons the transition was easy, and they began to talk of certain curious trials wherein the medical testimony formed the turning-point of conviction. Here, again, Layton was his superior in information, and made the superiority felt. Of what the most subtle tests consisted, and wherein their fallacy lay, he was thoroughly master, while his retentive memory supplied a vast variety of curious and interesting illustration.
Has our reader ever “assisted” at a scene where the great talker of a company has unexpectedly found himself confronted by some unknown, undistinguished competitor, who, with the pertinacity of an actual persecution, will follow him through all the devious windings of an evening’s conversation, ever present to correct, contradict, amend, or refute? In vain the hunted martyr seeks out some new line of country, or starts new game; his tormentor is ever close behind him. Ogden wandered from law to literature. He tried art, scientific discovery, religious controversy, agriculture, foreign travel, the drama, and field sports; and Layton followed him through all, – always able to take up the theme and carry it beyond where the other had halted. If Millar underwent all the tortures of an unhappy host at this, Karstairs was in ecstasy. He had been spending a week at the Rectory in Ogden’s company, and it seemed a sort of just retribution now that this dictatorial personage should have met his persecutor. Layton, always drinking deeply as the wine came to him, and excited by a sort of conflict which for years back he had never known, grew more and more daring in his contradictions, less deferential, and less fearful of offending. Whatever little reserve he had felt at first, oozed away as the evening advanced. The law of physics is the rule of morals, and as the swing of the pendulum is greater in proportion to the retraction, so the bashful man, once emancipated from his reserve, becomes the most daringly aggressive to mortals. Not content with refuting, he now ridiculed; his vein of banter was his richest, and he indulged it in all the easy freedom of one who defied reprisals. Millar tried once or twice to interpose, and was at last fain to suggest that, as the decanters came round untouched, they should adjourn to coffee.
Ogden rose abruptly at the intimation, and, muttering something inaudible, led the way into the drawing-room.
“You have been too hard upon him, doctor,” whispered Karstairs, as he walked along at Layton’s side. “You should be more careful; he is a man of note on the other side of the Channel; he was a Treasury Lord for some six months once, and is always in office somewhere. I see you are rather sorry for this yourself.”
“Sorry! I ‘m sorry to leave that glorious Madeira, which I know I shall never taste again,” said Layton, sternly.
“Are you a smoker, Dr. Layton?” said the host. “If so, don’t forget this house gives all a bachelor’s privileges. Try these cheroots.”
“Liberty Hall!” chimed in the Colonel, with a vacant laugh.
“Not a bad name for your dining-room, Millar,” said Ogden, bitterly.
A slight shrug was the parson’s answer.
“Is this man a frequent guest here?” he asked again, in a low whisper.
“It is his first time. I need scarcely say, it shall be his last,” replied Millar, as cautiously.
“I felt for you, Millar. I felt what pain he must have been giving you, though, for myself, I pledge you my word it was most amusing; his violence, his presumption, the dictatorial tone in which he affirmed his opinions, were high comedy. I was half sorry when you proposed coffee.”
Under pretence of admiring some curiously carved chessmen, Karstairs had withdrawn the doctor into a small room adjoining; but, in reality, his object was the friendly one of suggesting greater caution and more reserve on his part.
“I don’t say,” whispered he, – “I don’t say that you were n’t right, and he wrong in everything. I know nothing about false quantities in Latin, or German metaphysics, or early Christian art. You may be an authority in all of them. All I say is, he is a great Government official, and you are a village doctor.”
“That was exactly why I couldn’t let slip the opportunity,” broke in Layton. “Let me tell you an incident I once witnessed in my old days of coach travelling. I was going up from Liverpool to London in the ‘Umpire,’ that wonderful fast coach that astonished the world by making the journey in thirty-six hours. I sat behind the coachman, and was struck by the appearance of the man on the box-seat, who, though it was the depth of winter, and the day one of cutting sleet and cold wind, wore no upper coat, or any protection against the weather. He was, as you may imagine, speedily wet through, and presented in his dripping and soaked habiliments as sorry a spectacle as need be. In fact, if any man’s external could proclaim want and privation, his did. The signs of poverty, however, could not screen him from the application of ‘Won’t you remember the coachman, sir?’ He, with no small difficulty, – for he was nearly benumbed with cold, – extricated