"And then a clerk in the Income-tax Office! It's such a poor thing."
"The other fellow was only a clerk in another office."
The earl living down at Guestwick did not understand that the Income-tax Office in the city, and the General Committee Office at Whitehall, were as far apart as Dives and Lazarus, and separated by as impassable a gulf.
"Oh, yes," said Johnny; "but his office is another kind of thing, and then he was a swell himself."
"By George, I don't see it," said the earl.
"I don't wonder a bit at her accepting a fellow like that. I hated him the first moment I saw him; but that's no reason she should hate him. He had that sort of manner, you know. He was a swell, and girls like that kind of thing. I never felt angry with her, but I could have eaten him." As he spoke he looked as though he would have made some such attempt had Crosbie been present.
"Did you ever ask her to have you?" said the earl.
"No; how could I ask her, when I hadn't bread to give her?"
"And you never told her—that you were in love with her, I mean, and all that kind of thing."
"She knows it now," said Johnny; "I went to say good-by to her the other day,—when I thought she was going to be married. I could not help telling her then."