At last he came to Robinson's cell.
“In here there is a sulky chap.”
“Oh! then let us go on to the next.”
“But this is one his reverence is uncommon fond of,” said Fry, with a sneer and a chuckle; so he flung open the door, and if the man had not hung his head Susan would hardly have recognized in his uniform corduroy and close-cropped hair the vulgar Adonis who had sat glittering opposite her at table the last time they met.
After the interview which I have described, Susan gratified Fry by praising the beautiful cleanliness of the prison, and returned, leaving a pleasant impression even on this rough hide and “Uncle Tom” behind her.
When she got home she found her patient calm but languid.
While she was relating her encounter with Robinson, and her previous acquaintance with him, the knock of a born fool at a sick man's door made them all start. It was Rutila, with a long letter bearing an ample seal.
Mr. Eden took it with brightening eye, read it, and ground it almost convulsively in his hand. “Asses!” cried he; but the next moment he groaned and bowed his head. Her majesty's secretary's secretary's secretary had written to tell him that his appeal for an inquiry had traveled out of the regular course; it ought to have been made in the first instance to the visiting justices, whose business it was to conduct such inquiries, and that it lay with these visiting justices to apply to the Home Office for an extraordinary inquiry if they found they could not deal with the facts in the usual way. The office, therefore, had sent copies of his memorial to each of the visiting justices, who at their next inspection of the jail would examine into the alleged facts, and had been requested to insert the results in their periodical report.
Mr. Eden sat up in bed, his eye glittering. “Bring me my writing-desk.”
It was put on the bed before him, but with many kind injunctions not to worry himself. He promised faithfully. He wrote to the Home Office in this style: