In whatsoever depths a man may be, to have his work or his invention praised will make his heart jump. Suddenly it seemed to John as if a great cloud, which had enveloped the world, opened and rolled aside, and out from behind it, in all the splendour of day, appeared for a moment the smiling blue. He thought that cloud and darkness had been the shadow of his father; but that it was not this alone was evident suddenly now—if only for a moment. He did not say anything in reply, but drew a long breath.
‘Spender & Diggs,’ continued Mr. William Barrett, ‘like idiots as they are, tell Prince that they can’t make head or tale of it: that it’s mixed up with clever things and nonsense; and that they have sent it back.’
‘The man,’ said John, with a stammering in his voice which his late masters thought was due to some sense of delinquency; ‘the man who copied my papers, and who took them without my knowledge, went for them yesterday and demanded them back.’
‘Ah, that explains—! Well, Sandford, most likely we were wrong altogether. I find a great deal that is admirable in your scheme. We see business in it,’ said Mr. William, rubbing his hands. ‘We see money in it. We see our way to making a great thing of it; that’s the fact, Sandford. We never meant you to take our remonstrance as bitterly as you did, you know: never. Things looked bad. It looked like an ugly piece of business—it looked like——’
‘Put it in plain words,’ said John, roused to all his old indignation, and using involuntarily the words his navvies might have used. ‘You thought it as mean a dirty trick as ever was played?’
Mr. William Barrett paused a little and then he burst into a laugh which carried off a good deal of annoyance and something like shame.
‘We needn’t quarrel about words,’ he said, ‘but I never believed it in my heart. I looked for some explanation from you that would clear it up at once, for I knew you were not the man to do a dirty trick. But I could get nothing out of you, not even when I went to your rooms that time, and found you involved deeper and deeper.’
‘When did you come to my rooms?’ said John, looking at him blankly.
‘Sandford,’ said the younger Barrett, ‘look here, my good fellow, you’re young and you must be careful. Whatever you have been doing, it must have been worse than an ordinary spree.’
John stared at him for a moment without comprehending: and then he answered; with a kind of smile,