“Nothing, sir. But to resume my narrative of explanation—”
“Come to dinner, Paynter; we dine at six,” said he, rising hastily; and, opening a glass door into a conservatory, walked away, leaving me in a mingled state of shame, anger, humiliation, and, I will state, of ludicrous embarrassment, which I have no words to express.
“Dinner! No,” exclaimed I, “if the alternative were a hard crust and a glass of spring water I not if I were to fast till this time to-morrow! Dine with a man who will not condescend to acknowledge even my identity, who will not deign to call me by my name, but only consents to regard me as a pebble on the seashore, a blade of grass in a wide meadow! Dine with him, to be addressed as Mr. Paynter, and to see Pierre, and Jacob, and the rest of them looking on me as one of themselves! By what prescriptive right does this man dare to insult those who, for aught he can tell, are more than his equals in ability? Does the accident—and what other can it be than accident?—of his station confer this privilege? How would he look if one were to retort with his own impertinence? What, for instance, if I were to say, 'I always call small diplomatists Bluebottles! You 'll not be offended if, just for memory's sake, I address you as Bluebottle,—Mr. Bluebottle, of course'?”
I was in ecstasies at this thought. It seemed to vindicate all my insulted personality, all my outraged and injured identity. “Yes,” said I, “I will dine with him; six o'clock shall see me punctual to the minute, and determined to avenge the whole insulted family of the Paynters. I defy him to assert that the provocation came not from his side. I dare him to show cause why I should be the butt of his humor, any more than he of mine, I will be prepared to make use of his own exact words in repelling my impertinence, and say, 'Sir, you have exactly embodied my meaning; you have to the letter expressed what this morning I felt on being called Mr. Paynter; you have, besides this, had the opportunity of experiencing the sort of pain such an impertinence inflicts, and you are now in a position to guide you as to how far you will persist in it for the future.'”
I actually revelled in the thought of this reprisal, and longed for the moment to come in which, indolently thrown back in my chair, I should say, “Bluebottle, pass the Madeira,” with some comment on the advantage all the Bluebottles have in getting their wine duty free. Then, with what sarcastic irony I should condole with him over his wearisome, dull career, eternally writing home platitudes for blue-books, making Grotius into bad grammar, and vamping up old Puffendorf for popular reading. “Ain't you sick of it all, B. B.?” I should say, familiarly; “is not the unreality of the whole thing offensive? Don't you feel that a despatch is a sort of formula in which Madrid might be inserted for Moscow, and what was said of Naples might be predicated for Norway?” I disputed a long time with myself at what precise period of the entertainment I should unmask my battery and open fire. Should it be in the drawing-room, before dinner? Should it be immediately after the soup, with the first glass of sherry? Ought I to wait till the dessert, and that time when a sort of easy intimacy had been established which might be supposed to prompt candor and frankness? Would it not be in better taste to defer it till the servants had left the room? To expose him to his household seemed scarcely fair.
These were all knotty points, and I revolved them long and carefully, as I came back to my hotel, through the same silent street.
CHAPTER XIV. SHAMEFUL NEGLECT OF A PUBLIC SERVANT.
“Don't keep a place for me at the table d'hôte to-day, Kramm,” said I, in an easy carelessness; “I dine with his Excellency. I could n't well get off the first day, but tomorrow I promise you to pronounce upon your good cheer.”
I suppose I am not the first man who has derived consequence from the invitation it had cost him misery to accept. How many in this world of snobbery have felt that the one sole recompense for long nights of ennui was the fact that their names figured amongst the distinguished guests in the next day's “Post”?