“Don’t mention it, Dodson.”
Upon the conclusion of this exchange of courtesies, which an impartial observer might have considered as a trifle elaborated on both sides, Mr. Dodson knocked smartly and boldly, yet withal respectfully, upon the portals of Mr. Octavius Crumpett. Mr. Dodson entered the august presence briskly, but closed the door after him with delicacy and with self-possession.
Mr. Octavius Crumpett was seated at the table in close proximity to the fire. Every letter and document, every book, every small article was arranged upon it with scrupulous nicety. The head of the firm was enjoying the academic pleasure of running a paper-knife through the close-pressed leaves, within a chaste and scholarly binding, of his personal translation of the Odyssey, which was to be issued to an expectant world upon the following Monday.
Mr. Octavius Crumpett looked up urbanely from his insidious and alluring occupation. A slight frown of perplexity almost seemed to cloud for a moment that serene brow. In his boundless conscientiousness Mr. Octavius Crumpett conceived it to be his duty to be able to remember the name of each individual member of his staff, however lowly or obscure his station. For an instant he almost feared that he had forgotten the name of the individual before him. But this moment of doubt, of almost tremulous perplexity, which did him such credit as a man, as the head of a house of eminent publishers, as an enlightened patron of labour, passed almost as soon as it appeared, for a weak wet glint of the afternoon sun suddenly illumined the wizened countenance of the young gentleman who stood before him; and as if touched by inspiration Mr. Octavius Crumpett remembered that the name of the young gentleman was Matthew Arnold Dodson.
“Well, Mr. Dodson?” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, in that tone and manner which were ever the despair and admiration of his staff.
Mr. M. A. Dodson, who had already shown his consummate breeding by waiting for his chief to speak first, as though he were a royalty incarnate, bowed slightly from his full height, which was hardly more than four feet ten inches, and said in a very carefully modulated voice, “I apologize, sir, for my intrusion, but I learn that your personal translation of the Odyssey is to be issued to the Trade on Monday next.”
“That is in accord with existing arrangements, I believe,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a masterly implication that his well-cut diction dealt merely with human nature’s daily food.
“Well now, sir,” said Mr. M. A. Dodson, whose mellifluous accent might have sounded a little ingratiating had it been used by a less able practitioner, “I am taking the freedom of asking you, sir, whether I might purchase my own private copy this evening. The fact is, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson added, in a burst of humble yet half-whimsical self-revelation, “I can hardly possess my soul in patience until Monday next. May I ask, sir, would it be infra dignitatem if I were to obtain my own copy this evening? I am particularly anxious to have the opportunity of studying the entire achievement—I feel sure, sir, I am justified in applying beforehand that much-abused word—before the journals of professional criticism, which are very excellent in their way, which I needn’t tell you, sir, I read every week, have had the opportunity of swaying my private judgment.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett paused, with his solid silver paper-knife suspended in the air, to listen to this masterful piece of elocution on the part of Mr. M. A. Dodson. As the delicately enunciated phrases fell from those gently simpering lips, quite as they would have proceeded from those of the listener himself, an emotion of pleasure and gratitude percolated through the entire being of this good and benign gentleman. That portion of his being which was arrayed in a waistcoat of immaculate whiteness rose and fell in visible accord with the internal harmony. The traditions of the house of Crumpett and Hawker were never so secure as in the keeping of even one of the latest additions to its clerical staff. By some mysterious means the rarefied air of that establishment had wrought already upon one of the least considerable of its members.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, speaking with obvious emotion, “it will—ah, give me immense pleasure if you will accept the first copy of my—ah, little book.”