The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XLIII

MR CROS­BIE GOES IN­TO THE CITY

‘I’ve known the City now for more than ten years, Mr Cros­bie, and I nev­er knew mon­ey to be so tight as it is at the mo­ment. The best com­mer­cial bills go­ing can’t be done un­der nine, and any oth­er kind of pa­per can’t so much as get it­self looked at.’ Thus spoke Mr Mus­sel­boro. He was seat­ed in Dobbs Broughton’s arm-​chair in Dobbs Broughton’s room in Hook Court, on the hind legs of which he was bal­anc­ing him­self com­fort­ably; and he was com­mu­ni­cat­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence in City mat­ters to our old friend Adol­phus Cros­bie–of whom we may sur­mise that he would not have been there, at that mo­ment, in Hook Court, if things had been go­ing well with him. It was now past eleven o’clock, and he should have been at his of­fice at the West End. His po­si­tion in his of­fice was no doubt high enough to place him be­yond the reach of any spe­cial in­quiry as to such ab­sences; but it is gen­er­al­ly felt that when the Cros­bies of the West End have calls in­to the City about noon, things in the world are not go­ing well with them. The man who goes in­to the City to look for mon­ey is gen­er­al­ly one who does not know where to get the mon­ey when he wants it. Mr Mus­sel­boro on this oc­ca­sion kept his hat on his head, and there was some­thing in the way in which he bal­anced his chair which was in it­self an of­fence to Mr Cros­bie’s per­son­al dig­ni­ty. It was hard­ly as yet two months since Mr Dobbs Broughton had as­sured him in that very room that there need not be the slight­est anx­iety about his bill. Of course it could be re­newed–the com­mis­sion be­ing du­ly paid. As Mr Dobbs Broughton ex­plained on that oc­ca­sion, that was his busi­ness. There was noth­ing he liked so much as re­new­ing bills for such cus­tomers as Mr Cros­bie; and he was very can­did at that meet­ing, ex­plain­ing how he did this branch of his busi­ness, rais­ing mon­ey on his own cred­it at four or five per cent., and lend­ing it on his own judg­ment at eight or nine. Mr Cros­bie did not feel him­self then called up­on to ex­claim that what he was called up­on to pay was about twelve, per­fect­ly un­der­stand­ing the com­fort and grace of eu­pho­ny; but he had turned it over in his mind, con­sid­er­ing whether twelve per cent. was not more than ought to be mulct­ed for the ac­com­mo­da­tion he want­ed. Now, at the mo­ment, he would have been glad to get it from Mr Mus­sel­boro, with­out fur­ther words, for twen­ty.

Things had much changed with Adol­phus Cros­bie when he was driv­en to make morn­ing vis­its to such a one as Mr Mus­sel­boro with the view of hav­ing a bill re­newed for two hun­dred and fifty pounds. In his ear­ly life he had al­ways had the mer­it of be­ing a care­ful man as to mon­ey. In some oth­er re­spects he had gone astray very fool­ish­ly–as has been part­ly ex­plained in our ear­li­er chap­ters; but up to the date of his mar­riage with La­dy Alexan­dri­na De Cour­cy he had nev­er had deal­ings in Hook Court or in any such lo­cal­ity. Mon­ey trou­bles had then come up­on him. La­dy Alexan­dri­na, be­ing the daugh­ter of a count­ess, had high ideas; and when, very short­ly af­ter his mar­riage, he had sub­mit­ted to a sep­ara­tion from his no­ble wife, he had found him­self and his in­come to be tied up in­ex­tri­ca­bly in the hands of Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee, a lawyer who had mar­ried one of his wife’s sis­ters. It was not that Mr Gaze­bee was dis­hon­est; nor did Cros­bie sus­pect him of dis­hon­esty; but the lawyer was so wed­ded to the in­ter­est of the no­ble fam­ily with which he was con­nect­ed, that he worked for them all as an in­fe­ri­or spi­der might be sup­posed to work, which, from the in­fir­mi­ty of its na­ture, was com­pelled by in­stincts to be catch­ing flies for su­pe­ri­or spi­ders. Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee had in this way en­tan­gled Mr Cros­bie in his web on be­half of those no­ble spi­ders, the De Cour­cys, and our poor friend, in his en­deav­our to fight his way through the web, had fall­en in­to the hands of the Hook Court firm of Mrs Van Siev­er, Dobbs Broughton, and Mus­sel­boro.

‘Mr Broughton told me when I was last here,’ said Cros­bie, ‘that there would be no dif­fi­cul­ty about it.’

‘And it was re­newed then; wasn’t it?’

‘Of course it was–for two months. But he was speak­ing of a con­tin­ua­tion of re­new­al.’

‘I’m afraid we can’t do it, Mr Cros­bie. I’m afraid we can’t, in­deed. Mon­ey is so aw­ful tight.’

‘Of course I must pay what you choose to charge me.’

‘It isn’t that, Mr Cros­bie. The bill is out for col­lec­tion, and must be col­lect­ed. In times like these we must draw our­selves in a lit­tle, you know. Two hun­dred and fifty pounds isn’t a great deal of mon­ey, you will say; but ev­ery lit­tle helps, you know; and, be­sides, of course we go up­on a sys­tem. Busi­ness is busi­ness, and must not be made plea­sure of. I should have a great deal of plea­sure in do­ing this for you, but it can’t be done in the way of busi­ness.’

‘When will Broughton be here?’

‘He may be in at any time–I can’t say when. I sup­pose he’s down at the court now.’

‘What court?’

‘Capel Court.’

‘I sup­pose I can see him there?’ said Cros­bie.

‘If you catch him you can see him, of course. But what good will that do you, Mr Cros­bie? I tell you we can’t do it for you. If Broughton was here at this mo­ment, it couldn’t make the slight­est dif­fer­ence.’

Now Mr Cros­bie had an idea that Mr Mus­sel­boro, though he sat in Dobbs Broughton’s seat and kept on his hat, and bal­anced his chair on two legs, was in truth noth­ing more than a clerk. He did not quite un­der­stand the man­ner in which the af­fairs of the es­tab­lish­ment were worked, though he had been in­formed that Mrs Van Siev­er was one of the part­ners. That Dobbs Broughton was the man­ag­ing man, who re­al­ly did the busi­ness, he was con­vinced; and he did not there­fore like to be an­swered peremp­to­ri­ly by such a one as Mus­sel­boro. ‘I should wish to see Mr Broughton,’ he said.

‘You can call again–or you can go down to the court if you like it. But you may take this as an an­swer from me that the bill can’t be re­newed by us.’ At this mo­ment the door of the room was opened and Dobbs Broughton him­self came in­to it. His face was not at all pleas­ant, and any­one might have seen with half an eye that the mon­ey-​mar­ket was a great deal tighter than he liked it to be. ‘Here is Mr Cros­bie here–about his bill,’ said Mus­sel­boro.

‘Mr Cros­bie must take up his bill; that’s all,’ said Dobbs Broughton.

‘But it doesn’t suit me to take it up,’ said Cros­bie.

‘Then you must take it up with­out suit­ing you,’ said Dobbs Broughton.

It might have been seen, I said, with half an eye, that Mr Broughton did not like the state of the mon­ey-​mar­ket; and it might al­so be seen with the oth­er half that he had been en­deav­our­ing to mit­igate the bit­ter­ness of his dis­like by al­co­holic aid. Mus­sel­boro at once per­ceived that his pa­tron and part­ner was half drunk, and Cros­bie was aware that he had been drink­ing. But, nev­er­the­less, it was nec­es­sary that some­thing more should be said. The bill would be due to­mor­row–was payable at Cros­bie’s bankers; and, as Mr Cros­bie too well knew, there were no funds there for that pur­pose. And there were oth­er pur­pos­es, very need­ful, for which Mr Cros­bie’s funds were at the present mo­ment un­for­tu­nate­ly by no means suf­fi­cient. He stood for a few mo­ments think­ing what he would do;–whether he would leave the drunk­en man and his of­fice and let the bill take its chance or whether he would make one more ef­fort for an ar­range­ment. He did not for a mo­ment be­lieve that Broughton him­self was sub­ject to any pe­cu­niary dif­fi­cul­ty. Broughton lived in a big house, as rich men live, and had a name for com­mer­cial suc­cess. It nev­er oc­curred to Cros­bie that it was a mat­ter of great mo­ment to Dobbs Broughton him­self that the bill should be tak­en up. Cros­bie still thought that Mus­sel­boro was his spe­cial en­emy, and that Broughton had joined Mus­sel­boro in his hos­til­ity sim­ply be­cause he was too drunk to know bet­ter. ‘You might, at any rate, an­swer me civil­ly, Mr Broughton,’ he said.

‘I know noth­ing of ci­vil­ity with things as they are at present,’ said Broughton. ‘Civ­il by—-! There’s noth­ing so civ­il as pay­ing mon­ey when you owe it. Mus­sel­boro, reach me down the de­canter and some glass­es. Per­haps Mr Cros­bie will wet his whis­tle.’

‘He don’t want any wine–nor you ei­ther,’ said Mus­sel­boro.

‘What’s up now?’ said Broughton, stag­ger­ing across the room to­wards a cup­board, in which it was his cus­tom to keep a pro­vi­sion of that com­fort which he need­ed at the present mo­ment. ‘I sup­pose I may stand a glass of wine to a fel­low in my own room, if I like it.’

‘I will take no wine, thank you,’ said Cros­bie.

‘Then you can to do the oth­er thing. When I ask a gen­tle­man to take a glass of wine, there is no com­pul­sion. But about the bill there is com­pul­sion. Do you un­der­stand that? You may drink, or let it alone; but pay you must. Why, Mussy, what d’ye think?–there’s Carter, Rick­etts and Carter;–I’m blessed if Carter just now didn’t beg for two months, as though two months would be all the world to him, and that for a trumpery five hun­dred pounds. I nev­er saw mon­ey like it is now; nev­er.’ To this ap­peal, Mus­sel­boro made no re­ply, not car­ing, per­haps, at the present mo­ment to sus­tain his part­ner. He still bal­anced him­self in his chair, and still kept his hat on his head. Even Mr Cros­bie be­gan to per­ceive that Mr Mus­sel­boro’s ge­nius was in the as­cen­dant in Hook Court.

‘I can hard­ly be­lieve,’ said Cros­bie, ‘that things can be so bad that I can­not have a bill for two hun­dred and fifty pounds re­newed when I am will­ing to pay for the ac­com­mo­da­tion. I have not done much in the way of bills, but I nev­er had one dis­hon­oured yet.’

‘Don’t let this be the first,’ said Dobbs Broughton.

‘Not if I can pre­vent it,’ said Cros­bie. ‘But to tell you the truth, Mr Broughton, my bill will be dis­hon­oured un­less I can have it re­newed. If it does not suit you to do it, I sup­pose you can rec­om­mend me to some­one who can make it con­ve­nient.’

‘Why don’t you go to your bankers?’ said Mus­sel­boro.

‘I nev­er did ask my bankers for any­thing of the kind.’

‘Then you should try what your cred­it with them is worth,’ said Broughton. ‘It isn’t worth much here, as you can per­ceive, Mr Cros­bie.’

Cros­bie, when he heard this, be­came very an­gry; and Mus­sel­boro, per­ceiv­ing this, got out of his chair, so that he might be in readi­ness to pre­vent any vi­olence, if vi­olence were at­tempt­ed. ‘It re­al­ly is no good your stay­ing here,’ he said. ‘You see that Broughton has been drink­ing. There is no know­ing what he may say or do.’

‘You be blowed,’ said Broughton, who had tak­en the arm-​chair as soon as Mus­sel­boro had left it.

‘But you may be­lieve me in the way of busi­ness,’ con­tin­ued Mus­sel­boro, ‘when I tell you that it re­al­ly does not suit us to re­new the bill. We’re pressed our­selves, and we must press oth­ers.’

‘And who will do it for me?’ said Cros­bie, al­most in de­spair.

‘There are Bur­ton and Ban­gles there, the wine-​mer­chants down in the yard; per­haps they may ac­com­mo­date you. It’s all in their line; but I’m told they charge un­com­mon dear.’

‘I don’t know Messrs Bur­ton and Ban­gles,’ said Cros­bie.

‘That needn’t stand in your way. You tell them where you come from, and they’ll make in­quiry. If they think it’s about right, they’ll give you the mon­ey; and if they don’t, they won’t.’

Mr Cros­bie then left the of­fice with­out ex­chang­ing an­oth­er word with Dobbs Broughton, and went down in­to Hook Court. As he de­scend­ed the stairs he turned over in his mind the pro­pri­ety of go­ing to Messrs Bur­ton and Ban­gles with the view of re­liev­ing him­self from his present dif­fi­cul­ty. He knew that it was ru­inous. Deal­ing even with such men as Dobbs Broughton and Mus­sel­boro, whom he pre­sumed to milder in their greed than Bur­ton and Ban­gles, were, all of them, steps on the road to ru­in. But what was he to do? If his bill were dis­hon­oured, the fact would cer­tain­ly be­come known at his of­fice, and he might even ul­ti­mate­ly be ar­rest­ed. In the door­way at the bot­tom of the stairs he stood for some mo­ments, look­ing over at Bur­ton and Ban­gles’, and he did not at all like the as­pect of the es­tab­lish­ment. In­side the of­fice he could see a man stand­ing with a cigar in his mouth, very re­splen­dent in his new hat–with a hat re­mark­able for the bold up­ward curve of its rim, and this man was co­pi­ous­ly dec­orat­ed with a chain and seals hang­ing about wide­ly over his waist­coat. He was lean­ing with his back against the counter and was talk­ing to some­one on the oth­er side of it. There was some­thing in the man’s look and man­ner which was ut­ter­ly re­pul­sive to Cros­bie. He was more vul­gar to the eye even than Mus­sel­boro, and his voice, which Cros­bie could hear as he stood in the oth­er door­way, was al­most as de­testable as that of Dobbs Broughton in his drunk­en­ness. Cros­bie did not doubt that this was ei­ther Bur­ton or Ban­gles, and that the man stand­ing in­side was ei­ther Ban­gles or Bur­ton. He could not bring him­self to ac­cost these men and tell them of his ne­ces­si­ties, and pro­pose to them that they should re­lieve him. In spite of what Mus­sel­boro had just said to him, he could not be­lieve it pos­si­ble that he should suc­ceed, were he to do so with­out some in­tro­duc­tion. So he left Hook Court and went out in­to the lane, hear­ing as he went the loud voice of the man with the turned-​up hat and the chain.

But what was he to do? At the out­set of his pe­cu­niary trou­bles, when he first found it nec­es­sary to lit­igate some ques­tion with the De Cour­cy peo­ple, and with­stand the web which Mor­timer Gaze­bee wove so as­sid­uous­ly, his own at­tor­ney had in­tro­duced him to Dobbs Broughton, and the as­sis­tance which he had need­ed had come to him, at any rate, with­out trou­ble. He did not es­pe­cial­ly like Mr Broughton; and when Mr Broughton first in­vit­ed him to come and eat a lit­tle bit of din­ner, he had told him­self with painful re­morse that in his ear­ly days he had been ac­cus­tomed to eat his lit­tle bits of din­ner with peo­ple of a dif­fer­ent kind. But there had been noth­ing re­al­ly painful in this. Since his mar­riage with a daugh­ter of the De Cour­cys–by which mar­riage he had in­tend­ed to climb the high­est pin­na­cle of so­cial eat­ing and drink­ing–he had grad­ual­ly found him­self to be falling in the scale of such mat­ters, and could bring him­self to dine with Dobbs Broughton with­out any vi­olent pain. But now he had fall­en so low that Dobbs Broughton had in­sult­ed him, and he was in such dis­tress that he did not know where to turn for ten pounds. Mr Gaze­bee had beat­en him at lit­iga­tion, and his own lawyer had ad­vised him that it would be fool­ish to try the mat­ter fur­ther. In his mar­riage with the no­ble daugh­ter of the De Cour­cys he had al­lowed the framers of the De Cour­cy set­tle­ment to tie him up in such a way that now, even when chance had done so much for him in free­ing him from his wife, he was still bound to the De Cour­cy fac­tion. Mon­ey had been paid away–on his be­half, as al­leged by Mr Gaze­bee–like run­ning wa­ter; mon­ey for fur­ni­ture, mon­ey for the lease of a house, mon­ey when he had been sep­arat­ed from his wife, mon­ey while she was still liv­ing abroad. It had seemed to him that he had been made to pay for the en­tire sup­port of the fe­male moi­ety of the De Cour­cy fam­ily which had set­tled it­self at Baden-​Baden, from the day, and in some re­spects from be­fore the day, on which his wife had joined that moi­ety. He had done all in his pow­er to strug­gle against these pay­ments, but ev­ery such strug­gle had on­ly cost him more mon­ey. Mr Gaze­bee had writ­ten to him the most civ­il notes; but ev­ery note seemed to cost him mon­ey–ev­ery word of each note seemed to find its way in­to some bill. His wife had died and her body had been brought back, with all the pomp be­fit­ting the body of an earl’s daugh­ter, that it might be laid with the De Cour­cy dust–at his ex­pense. The em­balm­ing of her dear re­mains had cost a won­drous sum, and was a ter­ri­ble blow up­on him. All these items were show­ered up­on him by Mr Gaze­bee with the most cour­te­ous­ly word­ed de­mands for set­tle­ment as soon as con­ve­nient. And then, when he ap­plied that La­dy Alexan­dri­na’s small for­tune should be made over to him–ac­cord­ing to a cer­tain agree­ment un­der which he had made over all his pos­ses­sions to his wife, should she have sur­vived him–Mr Gaze­bee ex­pressed a mild opin­ion that he was wrong in his law, and bland­ly rec­om­mend­ed an am­ica­ble law­suit. The am­ica­ble law­suit car­ried on. His own lawyer seemed to throw him over. Mr Gaze­bee was suc­cess­ful in ev­ery­thing. No mon­ey came to him. Mon­ey was de­mand­ed from him on old scores and on new scores–and all that he re­ceived to con­sole him for what he had lost was a mourn­ing ring with his wife’s hair–for which, with sundry oth­er mourn­ing rings, he had to pay–and an in­tro­duc­tion to Mr Dobbs Broughton. To Mr Dobbs Broughton he owed five hun­dred pounds; and as re­gard­ed a bill for the one-​half of that sum which was due to­mor­row, Mr Dobbs Broughton had re­fused to grant him re­new­al for a sin­gle month!

I know no more un­com­fort­able walk­ing than that which falls to the lot of men who go in­to the City to look for mon­ey, and who find none. Of all the lost steps trod­den by men, sure­ly the steps lost af­ter that fash­ion are the most melan­choly. It is not on­ly that they are so vain, but that they are ac­com­pa­nied by so killing a sense of shame! To wait about in dingy rooms, which look on to bare walls, and are ap­proached through some Hook Court; or to keep ap­point­ments at a low cof­fee-​house, to which tryst­ings the mon­ey-​lender will not trou­ble him­self to come un­less it pleas­es him; to be civ­il, al­most sup­pli­ant, to a cun­ning knave whom the bor­row­er loathes; to be re­fused thrice, and then cheat­ed with his eyes open on the fourth at­tempt; to sub­mit him­self to vul­gar­ity of the foulest kind, and to have to seem to like it; to be bad­gered, re­viled, and at last ac­cused of want of hon­esty by the most fraud­ulent of mankind; and at the same time to be clear­ly con­scious of the ru­in that is com­ing–this is the fate of him who goes in­to the City to find mon­ey, not know­ing where it is to be found!

Cros­bie went along the lane in­to Lom­bard Street, and then he stood still for a mo­ment to think. Though he knew a good deal of af­fairs in gen­er­al, he did not quite know what would hap­pen to him of his bill should be dis­hon­oured. That some­body would bring it to him not­ed, and re­quire him in­stant­ly to put his hand in­to his pock­et and bring out the amount of the bill, plus the amount of cer­tain ex­pens­es, he thought that he did know. And he knew that were he in trade he would be­come a bankrupt; and he was well aware that such an oc­cur­rence would prove him to be in­sol­vent. But he did not know what his cred­itors would im­me­di­ate­ly have the pow­er of do­ing. That the fact of the bill hav­ing been dis­hon­oured would reach the Board un­der which he served–and, there­fore, al­so the fact that he had had re­course to such bill trans­ac­tions–this alone was enough to fill him with dis­may. In ear­ly life he had car­ried his head so high, he had been so much more than a mere Gov­ern­ment clerk, that the idea of the com­ing dis­grace al­most killed him. Would it not be well that he should put an end to him­self, and thus es­cape? What was there in the world now for which it was worth his while to live? Lily, whom he had once gained, and by that gain had placed him­self high in all hopes of hap­pi­ness and rich­es–whom he had thrown away from him, and who had again seemed to be al­most with­in his reach–Lily had so re­fused him that he knew not how to ap­proach her with a fur­ther prayer. And, had she not re­fused him, how could he have told her of his load of debt? As he stood at the cor­ner where the lane runs in Lom­bard Street, he came for a while to think al­most more of Lily than of his re­ject­ed bill. Then, as he thought of both his mis­for­tunes to­geth­er, he asked him­self whether a pis­tol would not con­ve­nient­ly put an end to them to­geth­er.

At that mo­ment a loud harsh voice greet­ed his ear. ‘Hal­lo, Cros­bie, what brings you so far east? One does not of­ten see you in the City.’ It was the voice of Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle, which in for­mer days had been very odi­ous to Cros­bie’s ears;–for Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle had once been the pre­sid­ing ge­nius of the of­fice to which Cros­bie still be­longed.

‘No, in­deed, not very of­ten,’ said Cros­bie, smil­ing. Who can tell who has not felt it, the pain that goes with the forc­ing of such smiles? But Sir Raf­fle was not an acute­ly ob­ser­vant per­son, and did not see that any­thing was wrong.

‘I sup­pose you’re do­ing a lit­tle busi­ness?’ said Sir Raf­fle. ‘If a man has kept a tri­fle of mon­ey by him, this cer­tain­ly is the time for turn­ing it. You have al­ways been wide awake about such things.’

‘No, in­deed,’ said Cros­bie. If he could on­ly make up his mind that he would shoot him­self, would it not be a pleas­ant thing to in­flict some condign pun­ish­ment on this odi­ous man be­fore he left the world? But Cros­bie knew that he was not go­ing to shoot him­self, and he knew al­so that he had no pow­er of in­flict­ing condign pun­ish­ment on Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle. He could on­ly hate the man, and curse him in­ward­ly.

‘Ah, ha!’ said Sir Raf­fle. ‘You wouldn’t be here un­less you knew where a good thing is to be picked up. But I must be off. I’m on the Rocky Moun­tain Canal Com­pa­ny Di­rec­to­ry. I’m not above tak­ing my two guineas a day. Good-​bye, my boy. Re­mem­ber me to old Op­ti­mist.’ And so Sir Raf­fle passed on, leav­ing Cros­bie still stand­ing at the cor­ner of the lane.

What was he to do? This in­ter­rup­tion had at least seemed to drive Lily from his mind, and to send his ideas back to the con­sid­er­ation of his pe­cu­niary dif­fi­cul­ties. He thought of his own bank, a West-​End es­tab­lish­ment at which he was per­son­al­ly known to many of the clerks, and where he had been hereto­fore treat­ed, with great con­sid­er­ation. But of late his bal­ances had been very low, and more than once he had been re­mind­ed that he had over­drawn his ac­count. He knew well that the dis­tin­guished firm of Bounce, Bounce, and Bounce would not cash a bill for him or lend him mon­ey with­out se­cu­ri­ty. He did not even dare to ask them to do so.

On a sud­den he jumped in­to a cab, and was driv­en back to his of­fice. A thought had come up­on him. He would throw him­self up­on the kind­ness of a friend there. Hith­er­to he had con­trived to hold his head high above the clerks be­low him, so high be­fore the Com­mis­sion­ers who were above him, that none there sus­pect­ed him to be a man in dif­fi­cul­ty. It not sel­dom hap­pens that a man’s char­ac­ter stands too high for his in­ter­est–so high that it can­not be main­tained, and so high that any fall will be dan­ger­ous. And so it was with Cros­bie and his char­ac­ter at the Gen­er­al Com­mit­ted Of­fice. The man to whom he was now think­ing of ap­ply­ing as his friend was a cer­tain Mr But­ter­well, who had been his pre­de­ces­sor in the sec­re­tary’s chair, and who now filled the less oner­ous but more dig­ni­fied po­si­tion of a Com­mis­sion­er. Mr Cros­bie had some­what de­spised Mr But­ter­well, and had of late years not been averse to show­ing that he did so. He had snubbed Mr But­ter­well, and Mr But­ter­well, driv­en to his wits’ ends, had tried a fall or two with him. In all these strug­gles Cros­bie had had the best of it, and But­ter­well had gone to the wall. Nev­er­the­less, for the sake of of­fi­cial de­cen­cy, and from cer­tain wise re­mem­brances of the sources of of­fi­cial com­fort and of­fi­cial dis­com­fort, Mr But­ter­wall had al­ways main­tained a show of out­ward friend­ship with the sec­re­tary. They smiled and were gra­cious, called each oth­er But­ter­well and Cros­bie, and ab­stained from all cat-​and-​dog ab­sur­di­ties. Nev­er­the­less, it was the fre­quent­ly ex­pressed opin­ion of ev­ery clerk in the of­fice that Mr But­ter­well hat­ed Mr Cros­bie like poi­son. This was the man to whom Cros­bie sud­den­ly made up his mind that he would have re­course.

As he was driv­en back to the of­fice he re­solved that he would make a plunge at once at the dif­fi­cul­ty. He knew that But­ter­well was fair­ly rich, and he knew al­so that he was good-​na­tured–with that sort of sleepy good-​na­ture which is not ac­tive for phil­an­thropic pur­pos­es, but which dis­likes to in­cur the pain of re­fus­ing. And then Mr But­ter­well was ner­vous, and if the thing was man­aged well, he might be cheat­ed out of an as­sent, be­fore time had been giv­en him in which to pluck up courage for re­fus­ing. But Cros­bie doubt­ed his own courage al­so–fear­ing that if he gave him­self time for hes­ita­tion he would hes­itate, and that, hes­itat­ing, he would feel the ter­ri­ble dis­grace of the thing and not do it. So, with­out go­ing to his own desk, or rid­ding him­self of his hat, he went at once to But­ter­well’s room. When he opened the door, he found Mr But­ter­well alone, read­ing The Times. ‘But­ter­well,’ said he, be­gin­ning to speak be­fore he had even closed the door, ‘I have come to you in great dis­tress. I won­der whether you can help me; I want you to lend me five hun­dred pounds? It must be for not less than three months.’

Mr But­ter­well dropped the pa­per from his hands, and stared at the sec­re­tary over his spec­ta­cles.