What, in short, was the use of being called a secretary if he was armed with no greater authority than a common junior clerk?
He opened the letter he had just written to Mr Medlock, and sat down to write another, more aggrieved in its tone and more urgent in its request that Mr Medlock would come down to Liverpool at once to arrange matters on a more satisfactory footing. It was difficult to write a letter which altogether pleased him; but at last he managed to do it, and for fear his warmth should evaporate he went out to post it, locking the office up behind him.
He took a walk before returning—the first he had taken for a week. It was a beautiful crisp December day, when, even through the murky atmosphere of Liverpool, the sun looked down joyously, and the blue sky, flecked with little fleecy clouds, seemed to challenge the smoke and steam of a thousand chimneys to touch its purity. Reginald’s steps turned away from the city, through a quiet suburb towards the country. He would have to walk too far, he knew, to reach real open fields and green lanes, but there was at least a suggestion of the country here which to his weary mind was refreshing.
His walk took him past a large public school, in the playground of which an exciting football match was in active progress. Like an old war horse, Reginald gazed through the palings and snorted as the cry of battle rose in the air.
“Hack it through, sir!” “Well run!” “Collar him there!”
As he heard those old familiar cries it seemed to him as if the old life had come back to him with a sudden rush. He was no longer a poor baited secretary, but a joyous school-boy, head of his form, lord and master of half a dozen fags, and a caution and example to the whole junior school. He had chums by the score; his study was always crowded with fellows wanting him to do this or help them in that. How jolly to be popular! How jolly, when the ball came out of the scrimmage, to hear every one shout, “Let Cruden have it!” How jolly, as he snatched it up and rushed, cleaving his way to the enemy’s goal, to hear that roar behind him, “Run indeed, sir!”
“Back him up!”
“Well played!” Yes, he heard them still, like music; and as he watched the shifting fortunes of this game he felt the blood course through his veins with a strange, familiar ardour.
Ah, here came the ball out of the scrimmage straight towards him! Oh, the thrill of such a moment! Who does not know it? A second more and he would have it—
Alas! poor Reginald awoke as suddenly as he had dreamed. A hideous paling stood between him and the ball. He was not in the game at all. Nothing but a lonely, friendless drudge, whom nobody wanted, nobody cared about.