§ 12
For some moments after the unceremonious departure of Captain Douglas from the presence of Lord Moggeridge, it did not occur to anyone, it did not occur even to Bealby, that the Captain had left his witness behind him. The general and the Lord Chancellor moved into the hall, and Bealby, under the sway of a swift compelling gesture from Candler, followed modestly. The same current swept them all out into the portico, and while the under-butler whistled up a hansom for the General, the Lord Chancellor, with a dignity that was at once polite and rapid, and Candler gravely protective and little reproving, departed. Bealby, slowly apprehending their desertion, regarded the world of London with perplexity and dismay. Candler had gone. The last of the gentlemen was going. The under-butler, Bealby felt, was no friend. Under-butlers never are.
Lord Chickney in the very act of entering his cab had his coat-tail tugged. He looked enquiringly.
“Please, sir, there’s me,” said Bealby.
Lord Chickney reflected. “Well?” he said.
The spirit of Bealby was now greatly abased. His face and voice betrayed him on the verge of tears. “I want to go ’ome to Shonts, sir.”
“Well, my boy, go ’ome—go home, I mean, to Shonts.”
“’E’s gone, sir,” said Bealby....
Lord Chickney was a good-hearted man, and he knew that a certain public kindliness and disregard of appearances looks far better and is infinitely more popular than a punctilious dignity. He took Bealby to Waterloo in his hansom, got him a third class ticket to Chelsome, tipped a porter to see him safely into his train and dismissed him in the most fatherly manner.