“I had a distant cousin, who was imprisoned for about a year in the fortress of Peter and Paul; he was mixed up with ... you understand. Excuse me, but I think you are still angry, and I take it to heart. I am used to army discipline; I began serving when I was seventeen. I have a hot temper, but it all passes in a moment. I won’t trouble your man any further, deuce take him!”
My keeper now came in and reported that it would take an hour to drive in the horses from the fields.
The chief constable told him that he was pardoned at my intercession; then he turned to me and added:
“To show that you are not angry, I do hope you will come and take pot-luck with me—I live two doors away; please don’t refuse.”
This turn to our interview seemed to me so amusing that I went to his house, where I ate his pickled sturgeon and caviare and drank his brandy and Madeira.
He grew so friendly that he told me all his private affairs, including the details of an illness from which his wife had suffered for seven years. After our meal, with pride and satisfaction he took a letter from a jar on the table and let me read a “poem” which his son had written at school and recited on Speech-day. After these flattering proofs of confidence, he neatly changed the conversation and enquired indirectly about my offence; and this time I gratified his curiosity to some extent.
This man reminded me of a justice’s clerk whom my friend S. used to speak about. Though his chief had been changed a dozen times, the clerk never lost his place and was the real ruler of the district.
“How do you manage to get on with them all?” my friend asked.
“All right, thank you; one manages to rub on somehow. You do sometimes get a gentleman who is very awkward at first, kicks with fore legs and hind legs, shouts abuse at you, and threatens to complain at head-quarters and get you turned out. Well, you know, the likes of us have to put up with that. One holds one’s tongue and thinks—‘Oh, he’ll wear himself out in time; he’s only just getting into harness.’ And so it turns out: once started, he goes along first-rate.”