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I tried the smoking-room. Usually the talk there is entertaining, but on that occasion it was so frivolous that I did not remain five minutes. In the card-room a member told me excitedly that a policeman had spoken rudely to him; and my strange comment was:

“After all, it is a small matter.”

In the library, where I had not been for years, I found two members asleep, and, to my surprise, William on a ladder dusting books.

“You have not heard, sir?” he said, in answer to my raised eyebrows. Descending the ladder, he whispered tragically: “It was last evening, sir. I–I lost my head, and I–swore at a member.”

I stepped back from William, and glanced apprehensively at the two members. They still slept.

“I hardly knew,” William went on, “what I was doing all day yesterday, for I had left my wife so weakly that–“

I stamped my foot.

“I beg your pardon for speaking of her,” he had the grace to say, “but I couldn’t help slipping up to the window often yesterday to look for Jenny, and when she did come, and I saw she was crying, it–it sort of confused me, and I didn’t know right, sir, what I was doing. I hit against a member, Mr. Myddleton Finch, and he–he jumped and swore at me. Well, sir, I had just touched him after all, and I was so miserable, it a kind of stung me to be treated like–like that, and me a man as well as him; and I lost my senses, and–and I swore back.”

William’s shamed head sank on his chest, but I even let pass his insolence in likening himself to a member of the club, so afraid was I of the sleepers waking and detecting me in talk with a waiter.

“For the love of God,” William cried, with coarse emotion, “don’t let them dismiss me!”

“Speak lower!” I said. “Who sent you here?”

“I was turned out of the dining-room at once, and told to attend to the library until they had decided what to do with me. Oh, sir, I’ll lose my place!”

He was blubbering, as if a change of waiters, was a matter of importance.

“This is very bad, William,” I said. “I fear I can do nothing for you.”

“Have mercy on a distracted man!” he entreated. “I’ll go on my knees to Mr. Myddleton Finch.”

How could I but despise a fellow who would be thus abject for a pound a week?

“I dare not tell her,” he continued, “that I have lost my place. She would just fall back and die.”

“I forbade your speaking of your wife,” I said, sharply, “unless you can speak pleasantly of her.”

“But she may be worse now, sir, and I cannot even see Jenny from here. The library windows look to the back.”

“If she dies,” I said, “it will be a warning to you to marry a stronger woman next time.”

Now every one knows that there is little real affection among the lower orders. As soon as they have lost one mate they take another. Yet William, forgetting our relative positions, drew himself up and raised his fist, and if I had not stepped back I swear he would have struck me.

The highly improper words William used I will omit, out of consideration for him. Even while he was apologising for them I retired to the smoking-room, where I found the cigarettes so badly rolled that they would not keep alight. After a little I remembered that I wanted to see Myddleton Finch about an improved saddle of which a friend of his has the patent. He was in the newsroom, and, having questioned him about the saddle, I said:

“By the way, what is this story about your swearing at one of the waiters?”

“You mean about his swearing at me,” Myddleton Finch replied, reddening.

“I am glad that was it,” I said; “for I could not believe you guilty of such bad form.”