Tony Butler. Lever Charles James
through the extended newspaper, but with so vigorous a spring as to alight on the floor a considerable distance in advance of the cushions, so that he arose with a bump on his forehead, and his nose bleeding.
“Admirably done! splendidly done!” cried Tony, anxious to cover the disaster by a well-timed applause.
“I never got so much as a scratch before,” said Darner, as be proceeded to sponge his face. “I ‘ve done the clock and the coach-window at the Adelphi, and they all thought it was Salter. I could have five pounds a night and a free benefit. Is it growing black around the eye? I hope it’s not growing black around the eye?”
“Let me bathe it for you. By the way, have you any one here could manage to get you a little newly baked dough? That’s the boxer’s remedy for a bruise. If I knew where to go, I ‘d fetch it myself.”
Darner looked up from his bathing proceedings, and stared at the good-natured readiness of one so willing to oblige as not to think of the ridicule that might attach to his kindness. “My servant will go for it,” said he; “just pull that bell, will you, and I ‘ll send him. Is not it strange how I could have done this?” continued he, still bent on explaining away his failure; “what a nose I shall have to-morrow! Eh! what’s that? It’s Sir Harry’s bell ringing away furiously! Was there ever the like of this! The only day he should have come for the last eight months!” The bell now continued to ring violently, and Damer had nothing for it but to huddle on his coat and rush away to answer the summons.
Though not more than ten minutes absent, Tony thought the time very long; in reality be felt anxious about the poor fellow, and eager to know that his disaster had not led to disgrace.
“Never so much as noticed it,” said Darner, – “was so full of other matters. I suspect,” added he, in a lower tone, – “I suspect we are going out.”
“Out where?” asked Tony, with simplicity.
“Out of office, out of power,” replied the other, half testily; then added in a more conciliatory voice, “I ‘ll tell you why I think so. He began filling up all the things that are vacant. I have just named two colonial secretaries, a chief justice, an auditor-general, and an inspector of convicts. I thought of that for you, and handed him your letter; but before he broke the seal he had filled up the place.”
“So then he has read the letter?”
“Yes, he read it twice; and when I told him you were here in waiting, he said, ‘Tell him not to go; I ‘ll see him.’”
The thought of presenting himself bodily before the great man made Tony feel nervous and uncomfortable; and after a few moments of fidgety uneasiness, he said, “What sort of person is he, – what is he like?”
“Well,” said Damer, who now stood over a basin, sponging his eye with cold water, “he’s shy – very shy – but you ‘d never guess it; for he has a bold, abrupt sort of way with him; and he constantly answers his own questions, and if the replies displease him, he grows irritable. You ‘ve seen men like that?”
“I cannot say that I have.”
“Then it’s downright impossible to say when he’s in good humor with one, for he ‘ll stop short in a laugh and give you such a pull up!”
“That is dreadful!” exclaimed Tony.
“I can manage him! They say in the office I ‘m the only fellow that ever could manage him. There goes his bell, – that’s for you; wait here, however, till I come back.”
Darner hurried away, but was back in a moment, and beckoned to Tony to follow him, which he did in a state of flurry and anxiety that a real peril would never have caused him.
Tony found himself standing in the Minister’s presence, where he remained for full a couple of minutes before the great man lifted his head and ceased writing. “Sit down,” was the first salutation; and as he took a chair, he had time to remark the stern but handsome features of a large man, somewhat past the prime of life, and showing in the lines of his face traces of dissipation as well as of labor.
“Are you the son of Watty Butler?” asked he, as he wheeled his chair from the table and confronted Tony.
“My father’s name was Walter, sir,” replied Tony, not altogether without resenting this tone of alluding to him.
“Walter! nothing of the kind; nobody ever called him anything but Watty, or Wat Tartar, in the regiment. Poor Watty! you are very like him, – not so large, – not so tall.” “The same height to a hair, sir.”
“Don’t tell me; Watty was an inch and a half over you, and much broader in the chest. I think I ought to know; he has thrown me scores of times wrestling, and I suspect it would puzzle you to do it.” Tony’s face flushed; he made no answer, but in his heart of hearts he ‘d like to have had a trial.
Perhaps the great man expected some confirmation of his opinion, or perhaps he had his own doubts about its soundness; but, whatever the reason, his voice was more peevish as he said: “I have read your mother’s note, but for the life of me I cannot see what it points to. What has become of your father’s fortune? He had something, surely.”
“Yes, sir, he had a younger son’s portion, but he risked it in a speculation – some mines in Canada – and lost it.”
“Ay, and dipped it too by extravagance! There’s no need to tell me how he lived; there wasn’t so wasteful a fellow in the regiment; he ‘d have exactly what he pleased, and spend how he liked. And what has it come to? ay, that’s what I ask, – what has it come to? His wife comes here with this petition – for it is a petition – asking – I ‘ll be shot if I know what she asks.”
“Then I ‘ll tell you,” burst in Tony; “she asks the old brother-officer of her husband – the man who in his letters called himself his brother – to befriend his son, and there’s nothing like a petition in the whole of it.”
“What! what! what! This is something I ‘m not accustomed to! You want to make friends, young man, and you must not begin by outraging the very few who might chance to be well disposed towards you.”
Tony stood abashed and overwhelmed, his cheeks on fire with shame, but he never uttered a word.
“I have very little patronage,” said Sir Harry, drawing himself up and speaking in a cold, measured tone; “the colonies appoint their own officials, with a very few exceptions. I could make you a bishop or an attorney-general, but I could n’t make you a tide-waiter! What can you do? Do you write a good hand?”
“No, sir; it is legible, – that’s all.”
“And of course you know nothing of French or German?”
“A little French; not a word of German, sir.”
“I’d be surprised if you did. It is always when a fellow has utterly neglected his education that he comes to a Government for a place. The belief apparently is that the State supports a large institution of incapables, eh?”
“Perhaps there is that impression abroad,” said Tony, defiantly.
“Well, sir, the impression, as you phrase it, is unfounded, I can affirm. I have already declared it in the House, that there is not a government in Europe more ably, more honestly, or more zealously served than our own. We may not have the spirit of discipline of the French, or the bureaucracy of the Prussian; but we have a class of officials proud of the departments they administer; and, let me tell you, – it’s no small matter, – very keen after retiring pensions.”
Either Sir Harry thought he had said a smart thing, or that the theme suggested something that tickled his fancy, for he smiled pleasantly now on Tony, and looked far better tempered than before. Indeed, Tony laughed at the abrupt peroration, and that laugh did him no disservice.
“Well, now, Butler, what are we to do with you?” resumed the Minister, good-humoredly. “It’s not easy to find the right thing, but I ‘ll talk it over with Darner. Give him your address, and drop in upon him occasionally, – not too often,