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Updated: June 23, 2025
Mr Butterwell said this with some considerable amount of decision in his voice, as though he did not intend to mince matters, or in any way to hide his opinion. Crosbie had got into a way of condemning himself in this matter of his marriage, but was very anxious that others, on hearing such condemnation from him, should say something in the way of palliating his fault.
Oh, Butterwell, if you could but know it all." "Are you free from the De Courcys now?" "I owe Gazebee, the man who married the other woman, over a thousand pounds. But I pay that off at two hundred a year, and he has a policy on my life." "What do you owe that for?" "Don't ask me. Not that I mind telling you; furniture, and the lease of a house, and his bill for the marriage settlement, d him."
He had not even thought of Butterwell as a possible fountain of supply, till his mind had been brought back to the affairs of his office, by the voice of Sir Raffle Buffle at the corner of the street. The idea that his bill would be dishonoured, and that tidings of his insolvency would be conveyed to the Commissioners at his Board, had been dreadful to him.
I want you to lend me five hundred pounds." Mr Butterwell, when he heard the words, dropped the paper which he was reading from his hand, and stared at Crosbie over his spectacles. "Five hundred pounds," he said. "Dear me, Crosbie; that's a large sum of money." "Yes, it is, a very large sum. Half that is what I want at once; but I shall want the other half in a month."
"I never saw a man so little elated by good fortune in my life," said Mr Optimist. "Ah, he's got something on his mind," said Butterwell. "He's going to be married, I believe." "If that's the case, it's no wonder he shouldn't be elated," said Major Fiasco, who was himself a bachelor.
"God bless me. They seem to have been very hard upon you." "A man doesn't marry an earl's daughter for nothing, Butterwell. And then to think what I lost! It can't be helped now, you know. As a man makes his bed he must lie on it. I am sometimes so mad with myself when I think over it all, that I should like to blow my brains out." "You must not talk in that way, Crosbie.
He had heard from an indubitable source that Crosbie had engaged himself to a niece of a squire with whom he had been staying near Guestwick, a girl without any money; and Mr Butterwell, in his wisdom, had thought his friend Crosbie to be rather a fool for his pains. But now he was going to marry one of the de Courcys! Mr Butterwell was rather at his wits' ends.
"Oh! very well," said Butterwell, rising from his chair. "I can only, under such circumstances, speak to the Chairman, and he will tell you what he thinks at the Board. I think you're foolish; I do, indeed. As for myself, I have only meant to act kindly by you." After that, Mr Butterwell took himself off.
At eleven Mr Butterwell came into Crosbie's room, and the new secretary was forced to clothe himself in smiles. Mr Butterwell was a pleasant, handsome man of about fifty, who had never yet set the Thames on fire, and had never attempted to do so. He was perhaps a little more civil to great men and a little more patronising to those below him than he would have been had he been perfect.
Nevertheless, for the sake of official decency, and from certain wise remembrances of the sources of official comfort and official discomfort, Mr Butterwell had always maintained a show of outward friendship with the secretary. They smiled and were gracious, called each other Butterwell and Crosbie, and abstained from all cat-and-dog absurdities.
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