“Beale’s wife, sir, called this morning—you know Beale?—the man you put into Whitecross Street prison, and whose wife and children have been starving ever since——”
“Really, Mr. Green,” interrupted Heathcote, fixing a stern look upon his clerk, “it would appear that you are purposely entering into minute details this afternoon in order to annoy me. Of course I know who Beale is——”
“Was, sir, if you please,” said Green, with difficulty concealing the savage delight that he took in thus torturing—or, at least, endeavouring to torture, his master.
“What do you mean, sir?” demanded Heathcote, savagely.
“That Beale died in the infirmary at Whitecross Street last night, sir,” responded Green, his tone and manner becoming more abjectly obsequious in proportion as his internal joy augmented at the increasing excitement and irritation of his master.
“The man was doubtless a drunkard, Green,” observed Heathcote, roughly: “and therefore, when no longer able to get liquor, the reaction carried him off.”
“I dare say, sir, that you know best—and I am sure you must be right,” returned the clerk, with a low bow: “but the man’s friends do say that a more sober, hard-working, and deserving fellow did not exist.”
“And therefore I suppose that his death will be laid at my door!” exclaimed Heathcote, now for the first time in his life glancing timidly—almost appealing, at his clerk, as if to implore him to devise some excuse or start some palliation that might ease his troubled conscience.
But Green, whose very obsequiousness and servility afforded him the means of venting his spite on his hated master, pretended to take the observation as an assertion and not an interrogatory, and replied in a humble tone, “Your foresight and knowledge of the world, sir, are beyond all dispute; and, as you say, Beale’s death is certain to be laid at your door. But of course you are perfectly indifferent to the tittle-tattle of scandalous tongues.”