Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man and boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a little more than five minutes’ time Mr. Bommaney’s bell rang, he himself ushered the visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew below stairs, lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and then stole out upon the landing and listened. He was the more prompted to this because the visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was very talkative, had told him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself were old friends and schoolfellows, and had been in each other’s confidence for years.
‘I am afraid, sir,’ Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first presented himself, ‘that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at present. He gave orders not to be disturbed.’
‘Not see me?’ said the visitor with a laugh. ‘I’ll engage he will.’ And then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr. Hornett’s employer.
If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that this visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer’s disturbance, but heard most that passed between the two.
Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the traces of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and water, and was something like his own man again. He received his visitor cordially, and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a little more boisterous than common.
‘I’m busy, you see,’ he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered on the desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the last, ‘but I can spare you a minute or two, old man. What brings you up to town?’
‘I’ve come here to settle,’ said the visitor. He was a florid man with crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon the town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so countrified a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman than Bommaney.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve come to settle.’ He rubbed his hands and laughed here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his thoughts, but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney, still distrustful of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat opposite to him with bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly pretending to arrange them.
‘To settle,’ he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, ‘I thought you hated London?’
‘Ah, my boy,’ said his visitor, ‘when you’re in the shafts with a whip behind you, you’ve got to go where you are driven.’