CHAPTER XIX
THE WHISPER OF CALUMNY
Whispered words are ever more potent than words proclaimed aloud upon the house-top. If the envious man from the house-top denounces a man of reputation as a thief, a gambler, a patricide, a sororicide, amicocide, no man regardeth his voice, though he call out with the voice of Stentor: people only stare: these are the words of a madman or a malignant. But whisper these charges in the ear of your neighbour: whisper them with bated breath: say that, as yet, the thing is a profound secret. Then that rumour swiftly flies abroad, until every burgess in the town regards that man askance; and when the time for voting comes, he votes for another man, and will not have him as beadle, sexton, verger, schoolmaster, turncock, policeman, parish doctor, workhouse chaplain, common-councilman, alderman, Mayor, or Member of Parliament. And all for a whisper.
It was Checkley who set going the whisper, which at this moment was running up and down the office, agitating all hearts, occupying all minds, the basis of all conversation.
King Midas's servant, when he was irresistibly impelled to whisper, dug a hole in the ground and placed his whisper at the bottom of that hole. But the grasses grew up and sighed the words to the passing breeze, so that the market women heard them on their way: 'The King's ears are the ears of an Ass—the ears of an Ass—the ears of an Ass.' The old and trusty servant of Dering and Son buried his secret in the leaves of his Copying-book. Here it was found by the boy who worked the Copying-press. As he turned over the pages, he became conscious of a sibilant, malignant, revengeful murmur: 'Who stole the bonds? The new Partner.—Who forged the letters? The new Partner.—Who robbed the safe? The new Partner.' Here was a pretty thing for a pretty innocent office boy to hear! Naturally, his very soul became aflame: when the dinner hour arrived, he told another boy as a profound secret what he had heard. That boy told an older boy, who told another still older, who told another, and so up the long official ladder, until everybody in the place knew that the new Partner—actually the new Partner—the most fortunate of all young men that ever passed his Exam.—who had stepped at a bound from two hundred to a thousand, at least—this young man, of all young men in the world, had forged his partner's name, robbed his partner's safe, made away with his partner's property. Who after this can trust anybody?
But others there were who refused to believe this thing. They pointed out that the new Partner continued—apparently—on the best of terms with the old Partner: they argued that when such things are done, friendships are killed and partnerships are dissolved. They even went so far, though members of the great profession which believes in no man's goodness, as to declare their belief that the new Partner could not possibly by any temptation do such things. And there were others who pointed to the fact that the whisper came from the boy of the Copying-press: that he heard it whispered by the fluttering leaves: and that it was imparted to those leaves by Checkley—old Checkley—whose hatred towards the new Partner was notorious to all men: not on account of any personal qualities or private injuries, but out of the jealousy which made him regard the Chief as his own property: and because he had been deprived of his power in the office—the power of appointment and disappointment and the raising of screw, which he had previously possessed. Checkley was dethroned. Therefore, Checkley spread this rumour. Others, again, said that if the rumour was really started by Checkley, which could not be proved, seeing that, like all whispers or rumours, the origin was unknown, and perhaps supernatural, then Checkley must have very strong grounds for starting such a thing.
Thus divided in opinion, the office looked on, expectant. Expectancy is a thing which gets into the air: it fills every room with whispers: it makes a conspirator or a partisan or a confederate of every one: it divides a peaceful office into camps: it is the cause of inventions, lies, and exaggerations. There were two parties in this office—one which whispered accusations, and the other which whispered denials. Between these hovered the wobblers or mugwumps, who whispered that while on the one hand—on the other hand—and that while they readily admitted—so they were free to confess——Everybody knows the wobbler. He is really, if he knew it, the master of the situation; but, because he is a wobbler, he cannot use his strength. When he is called upon to act, he falls into two pieces, each of which begins to wobble and to fall into other two pieces of its own accord. The whole process of a Presidential Election—except the final voting—was going on in that office of half-a-dozen rooms, but in whispers, without a single procession, and not one German band. And all unconscious of the tumult that raged about him—a tumult in whispers—a civil war in silence—the object of this was going on his way unconscious and undisturbed.
Now, however, having learned that the old clerk was actually seeking to fix this charge upon him, George perceived the whispering and understood the charge. When he passed through the first or outer office in the morning, he perceived that the clerks all looked at him curiously, and that they pretended not to be looking at him, and plied their pens with zeal. On the stairs he met an articled clerk, who blushed a rosy red with consciousness of the thing: on his way to his own room through his own clerks' room, he felt them looking after him curiously as he passed; and he felt them, when his own door was closed, whispering about him. This made him extremely angry. Yet, for a whisper, one cannot suffer wrath to become visible. That would only please the whisperers. There is only one thing worse than to be suspected rightly; it is to be suspected wrongly; for the latter makes a man mad. What? That he—even he—the man of principle and rule, should be suspected! Does nothing, then—no amount of character, no blamelessness of record, avail? Is the world coming to an end?
George then shut his door and sat down to his table in a very wrathful and savage frame of mind. And while he was just beginning to nurse and nourish this wrath, coaxing it from a red glow to a roaring flame, a card was brought to him.
'I will see Sir Samuel at once,' he said.