"There is one question I should like to ask if I might," said Mr. Bragg, lingering at the door on his way out. "You and me can trust each other. And, if you feel at liberty to tell me, I should like to know whether the—the party you alluded to in your letter is Mr. Theodore Bransby."
"Certainly not!"
"Well, I'm glad of it. There was a talk of his paying Miss C. a great deal of attention in town. In fact, I did hear she had refused him. Understand, I'm not fishing as to that. It's no matter to me one way or the other, so long as he is not the party. I can't say that I know any harm of the young man; but he's what you might call a poor sort of metal: not pleasant to handle, and, I should fear, brittle in the working. I really am relieved in my mind to know that he is not the party. Thank ye."
The news of Owen's engagement to Mr. Bragg was variously received by his various acquaintances in Oldchester. Some laughed good-naturedly, some ill-naturedly; some said it was a good thing the young man had at last seen the necessity for exerting himself; some wondered why on earth he had accepted such a position; and some—a good many those—wondered why Mr. Bragg had accepted him. Mrs. Hadlow did not feel unmixed satisfaction by any means.
"It's just like Owen," she said to her husband. "There is such a singular perversity about him! He has thrown away one straight stick after the other, and now all of a sudden he clutches at this crooked one, as eagerly as though his life depended on getting hold of it."
Canon Hadlow, for his part, was well pleased enough. The sentiment at the bottom of his wife's heart was that to employ a Rivers in any such base mechanic business as writing commercial letters was like harnessing a thoroughbred Arab to the dust-cart. But the canon could not, in the nature of things, fully share that feeling. Nevertheless, he had a strong regard for Owen, and spoke of him in high terms to Mr. Bragg.
But the testimony in Owen's favour which chiefly impressed Mr. Bragg was the testimony which Owen gave himself—by deeds, not words.
Being moved by a certain energetic simplicity which belonged to him, to perform the duties he had undertaken with the most complete thoroughness he could command, he got a clerk who conducted the foreign correspondence of a great Oldchester manufacturer to give him lessons after business hours. He worked away evening after evening at the composition of mercantile letters in Spanish until he succeeded in producing epistles so surprisingly technical that his instructor declared he went far beyond what was necessary in that line, and would do well to mitigate his business style with a little good Spanish! He studied, also, to improve his handwriting. It was a legible hand already, since he wrote with the single-minded aim of being read. But he strove to make it distinctly commercial in character, and succeeded.
All this became known to Mr. Bragg, who said nothing. But, when it got wind among the little circle of persons who frequented Garnet Lodge, it was the subject of some raillery from Owen's friends. So long as the raillery proceeded from such persons as Dr. Hatch or Major Mitten, there was no offence in it; but with Theodore Bransby the case was different.
Theodore was, in truth, delighted: first of all, because Rivers had, as he phrased it, "entered Mr. Bragg's service" (a step which must for ever disqualify him for aspiring to ally himself with the Cheffingtons, supposing he were not disqualified already); and, secondly, because his engagement would take him out of England for three months. So delighted was Theodore, that his spirits rose to the unwonted pitch of attempting some pleasantries. Now, there is nothing which more surely reveals the quality, if not the quantity, of a man's mind than his notion of a joke. Laughter, like wine, is a great betrayer of secrets; and for incurable coarseness of feeling a stout cloak of gravity is "your only wear."