Part 22 (2/2)

Presently, hearing the clock strike, he started. He was due at the office, and Joseph Leveridge had always made a point of punctuality.

He now went to the office, and learned from his fellow-clerk that Mr.

Stork had not returned; he had been there, and then had gone away to seek Leveridge at his lodgings. Joseph considered it inc.u.mbent on him to resume his hat and go in quest of his ”boss.”

On his way it occurred to him that there was monotony in bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning, and he would like a change. Moreover, he was hungry; he had left the house of Mrs. Baker without taking a mouthful, and if he returned now for a snack the eggs and the bacon would be cold. So he stepped into the shop of Mr. Box, the grocer, for a tin of sardines in oil.

When the grocer saw him he said: ”Will you favour me with a word, sir, in the back shop?”

”I am pressed for time,” replied Leveridge nervously.

”But one word; I will not detain you,” said Mr. Box, and led the way.

Joseph walked after him.

”Sir,” said the grocer, shutting the gla.s.s door, ”you have done me a prodigious wrong. You have deprived me of what I would not have lost for a thousand pounds. You have put me into your book. How my business will get on without me--I mean my intellect, my powers of organisation, my trade instincts, in a word, myself--I do not know. You have taken them from me and put them into your book. I am consigned to a novel, when I want all my powers behind the counter. Possibly my affairs for a while will go on by the weight of their own momentum, but it cannot be for long without my controlling brain. Sir, you have brought me and my family to ruin--_you have used me up_.”

Leveridge could bear this no more; he seized the handle of the door, rushed through the outer shop, precipitated himself into the street, carrying the sardine tin in his hand, and hurried to his lodgings.

But there new trouble awaited him. On the doorstep still sat the three gentlemen.

When they saw him they rose to their feet.

”I know, I know what you have to say,” gasped Joseph. ”In pity do not attack me all together. One at a time. With your leave, Mr. Vicar, will you step up first into my humble little sanctum, and I will receive the others later. I believe that the smell of bacon and eggs is gone from the room. I left the window open.”

”I will most certainly follow you,” said the Vicar of Swanton. ”This is a most serious matter.”

”Excuse me, will you take a chair?”

”No, thank you; I can speak best when on my legs. I lose impressiveness when seated. But I fear, alas! that gift has been taken from me. Sir!

sir! you have put me into your book. My earthly tabernacle may be here, standing on your--or Mrs. Baker's drugget--but all my great oratorical powers have gone. I have been despoiled of what was in me my highest, n.o.blest, most spiritual parts. What my preaching henceforth will be I fear to contemplate. I may be able to string together a number of texts, and tack on an application, but that is mere mechanical work. I used to dredge in much florid eloquence, to stick in the flowers of elocution between every joint. And now!--I am despoiled of all. I, the Vicar of Swanton, shall be as a mere stick; I shall no more be a power in the pulpit, a force on the platform. My prospects in the diocese are put an end to. Miserable, miserable young man, you might have pumped others, but why me? I know but too surely that _you have used me up_.” The vicar had taken off his hat, his bald forehead was beaded, his bristling grey whiskers drooped, his unctuous expression had faded away. His eyes, usually bearing the look as though turned inward in ecstatic contemplation of his personal piety, with only a watery stare on the world without, were now dull.

He turned to the door. ”I will send up Stork,” he said.

”Do so by all means, sir,” was all that Joseph could say.

When the solicitor entered his red hair had a.s.sumed a darker dye, through the moisture that exuded from his head.

”Mr. Leveridge,” said he, ”this is a scurvy trick you have played me.

You have put me into your book.”

”I only sketched a not over-scrupulous lawyer,” protested Joseph. ”Why should you put the cap on your own head?”

”Because it fits. It is myself you have put into your book, and by no legal process can I get out of it. I shall not be competent to advise the magistrates on the bench, and, good heavens! what a mess they will get into. I do not know whether your fellow-clerk can carry on the business. _I have been used up._ I'll tell you what. You go away; I want you no more at the office. Whenever you revisit Swanton you will see only the ruins of the respected firm of Stork. It cannot go on when I am not in it, but in your book.”

The last to arrive was Mr. Wotherspoon. He was in a most depressed condition. ”There was not much in me,” said he, ”not at any time. You might have spared such a trifle as me, and not put me also into your book and _used me up_. Oh, dear, dear! what will my poor mother do! And how Sarah and Jane will bully me.”

That same day Mr. Leveridge packed up his traps and departed from Swanton for his mother's house.

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