Chapter Thirteen.
The new Secretary takes the Reins.
It is high time to return to Reginald, whom we left in a somewhat dismal fashion, straining his eyes for a last sight of his mother and brother as they waved farewell to him on the Euston platform.
If the reader expects me to tell him that on finding himself alone our hero burst into tears, or broke out into repentant lamentations, or wished himself under the wheels of the carriage, I’m afraid he will be disappointed.
Reginald spent the first half-hour of his solitary journey in speculating how the oil in the lamp got round at the wick. He considered the matter most attentively, and kept his eyes fixed on the dim light until London was miles behind him, and the hedges and grey autumn fields on either hand proclaimed the country. Then his mind abandoned its problems, and for another half-hour he tried with all his might to prevent the beat of the engine taking up the rhythm of one of the old Wilderham cricket songs. That too he gave up eventually, and let his imagination wander at large over those happy school days, when all was merry, when every friend was a brick, and every exertion a sport, when the future beckoned him forward with coaxing hand. What grand times they were! Should he ever forget the last cricket match of the summer term, when he bowled three men in one over, and made the hardest catch on record in the Wilderham Close? He and Blandford—
Ah, Blandford! His mind swerved on the points here, and branched off into the recollection of that ill-starred dinner at the Shades, and the unhealthy bloated face of the cad Pillans. How he would have liked to knock the idiot down, just as he had knocked Durfy down that night when young Gedge—
Ah, another point here and another swerve. Would Horace be sure and keep his eye on the young ’un, and was there any chance of getting him down to Liverpool?
Once more a swerve, and this time into a straight reach of meditation for miles and miles ahead. He thought of everything. He pictured his own little office and living-room. He drew a mental portrait of the housekeeper, and the cups and saucers he would use at his well-earned meals. He made up his mind the board-room would be furnished in green leather, and that the Bishop of S— would be a jolly sort of fellow and fond of his joke. He even imagined what the directors would say among themselves respecting himself after he had been introduced and made his first impression. At any rate they should not say he lacked in interest for their affairs, and when he wrote home—
Ah! this was the last of all the points, and his thoughts after that ran on the same lines till the train plunged into the smoke and gloom of the great city which was henceforth to extend to him its tender mercies.
If Reginald had reckoned on a deputation of directors of the Select Agency Corporation to meet their new secretary at the station, he was destined to be disappointed. There were plenty of people there, but none concerning themselves with him as he dragged his carpet-bag from under the seat and set foot on the platform.