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Though he had no enemies, yet he had a friend or two; and we may therefore say of Mr Butterwell that he had walked his path in life discreetly. At the age of thirty-five he had married a lady with some little fortune, and now he lived a pleasant, easy, smiling life in a villa at Putney.
As for Butterwell, Butterwell the incompetent, Butterwell the vapid, for Butterwell, who in every little official difficulty had for years past come to him, he would let Butterwell know what it was to be thus disloyal to one who had condescended to be his friend. He would show them all at the Board that he scorned them, and could be their master.
He knew too well that a pistol-bullet could not be the be-all and the end-all here, and there was too much manliness in him for so cowardly an escape. The burden must be borne. But how was he to bear it? There he sat till it was two o'clock, neglecting Mr Butterwell and his office papers, and not stirring from his seat till a messenger summoned him before the Board.
His sharp ear had told him that all Butterwell's respect and cordiality were gone, at any rate for the time. Butterwell, though holding the higher official rank, had always been accustomed to treat him as though he, the inferior, were to be courted.
"Oh, by-the-by, Crosbie," said Butterwell, coming into his room, soon after his arrival at his office on that day of his solitary breakfast, "I want to say just a few words to you." And Butterwell turned round and closed the door, the lock of which had not previously been fastened. Crosbie, without much thinking, immediately foretold himself the nature of the coming conversation.
"I don't suppose he liked being thrashed any better than I should." "Nobody gives me a black eye," said Mr Optimist. "Nobody has as yet," said the major. "I hope they never will," said Mr Butterwell. Then, the hour for their meeting having come round, Mr Crosbie came into the Board-room. "We have been very sorry to hear of this misfortune," said Mr Optimist, very gravely.
His Putney villa first, with all its attendant comforts, and then his duty to the public afterwards. It was thus that Mr Butterwell regulated his conduct; and as he was solicitous that the villa should be as comfortable a home to his wife as to himself, and that it should be specially comfortable to his friends, I do not think that we need quarrel with his creed.
He had no satisfaction in any man other than that which he found when some event would show to him that this or that other compeer of his own had proved himself to be self-interested, false, or fraudulent. "Don't tell me, Butterwell," he would say for with Mr Butterwell he maintained some semi-official intimacy, and he would take that gentleman by the button-hole, holding him close.
Mr Butterwell got out of his chair, and walked about the room with his hands in his pockets. He was thinking at the moment of what Mrs Butterwell would say to him. "Will an answer do to-morrow morning?" he said. "I would much rather have it to-day," said Crosbie. Then Mr Butterwell took another turn about the room. "I suppose I must let you have it," he said.
He had possessed, and had known himself to possess, in his office as well as in the outside world, a sort of rank much higher than that which from his position he could claim legitimately. Now he was being deposed. There could be no better touchstone in such a matter than Butterwell. He would go as the world went, but he would perceive almost intuitively how the world intended to go.
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