‘I have no explanation,’ he said shortly; ‘ask your nephew for his version. I dare say it will be more to your taste than mine would be.’
Mr Phogg gave a sort of gasp—that is, he opened his mouth like a fish suddenly taken from the water, but he made no sound. Astonishment kept him silent. Had he heard aright? Had John Blair, the junior clerk, the youth who was dependent on his bounty, the ungrateful being whom he fed and lodged and paid—had he dared to be impudent to him, Anthony Phogg, senior partner of the firm of Phogg and Cheetham?
He paused for a moment; then a kind of painful smile crossed his features. ‘Very well, Silvester,’ he said, ‘very well; proceed with your narrative. Relate the facts;’ and he sat on the edge of the high stool Blair had just vacated, folding his arms and stretching out his long legs before him.
‘That young brute of a Mallinson’—— began Jenkins.
‘Nothing libellous, please,’ said Mr Phogg, holding up one lean, yellow hand; ‘plain facts only. I will draw my own conclusions.’
‘Well, sir, Mallinson then, crossing the office just now, deliberately upset an inkpot on my trousers, completely spoiling them.’
‘We can recover the value if we find motive,’ said Mr Phogg, making a pencil note on a scrap of paper lying on Blair’s desk. ‘Proceed.’
‘I was just showing Mallinson what he had done, and was telling him to be more careful another time, when he began cheeking me’——
‘Being insolent, say,’ corrected Mr Phogg.
‘He has been most insolent ever since he got that new job and gave us notice. I was checking him for being chee—insolent, when that bully Blair seized his ruler, rushed at me, and attacked me like a mad-man. I struggled to get the ruler from him, when he threw it at me and smashed the window, afterwards punching me about the face like a prize-fighter. Just look at me.’ And indeed Mr Jenkins did look in a pretty plight, with one eye nearly closed, his nose swollen, his mouth cut, and his hands smeared with blacklead and soot off the grate.