The Devil's Garden. W. B. Maxwell

frowned, then laughed. "Mav, trust your old boy, and don't fret." He came round the table, and laid his hand on his wife's shoulder. "My sweetheart, I'm sorry, for your sake, that this little upset should have occurred. But don't you fret. I'm coming out on top. Maybe, this is like touch-and-go. I don't say it isn't. But I know my vaarlue—and I mean to let them know it, if they don't know it already. Look at my record! Who's goin' to pick a hole in it?"

      "No, but—"

      "There's times when a man's got to show pluck—to stan' to's guns, and assert hisself for what he's worth. And that's what I'm going to do in the General Post Office of all England." As he said this the blood showed redly, and every line of his face deepened and hardened. "You keep a stout heart. This isn't going to shake William Dale off of his perch."

      "No?" And she looked up at him with widely-opened eyes.

      "No." He gave her shoulder a final pat, and laughed noisily. "No, it'll set me firmer on the road to promotion than what I've ever been. When I get back here again, I shall be like the monkey—best part up the palm-tree, and nothing dangerous between him and the nuts."

      All that day Dale was busy installing the deputy.

      "You find us fairly in order," he said, with a pride that did not pretend to conceal itself. "Nothing you wouldn't call shipshape?"

      "Apple-pie order," said Mr. Ridgett. "Absolutely O.K."

      Mr. Ridgett was a small sandy man of fifty, who obviously wished to make himself as agreeable as might be possible in rather difficult circumstances. During the afternoon he listened with an air of interested attention while Dale told him at considerable length the series of events that had led up to this crisis.

      "For your proper understanding," said the postmaster, "I'll ask you once more to cast your eye over the position of the instruments;" and he marched Mr. Ridgett from the sorting-room to the public office, and showed him the gross error that had been committed in placing the whole telegraphic apparatus right at the front, close to the window, merely screened from the public eye and the public ear by glass partition-work, instead of placing it all at the back, out of everybody's way. "I told them it was wrong from the first—when they were refitting the office, at the time of the extensions. My experience at Portsmouth had taught me the danger."

      It seemed that one evening, about three weeks ago, a certain soldier on leave had been lounging against the counter, close to the glass screen. On the other side of the screen the apparatus was clicking merrily while Miss Yorke, the telegraph clerk, despatched a message. And all at once the soldier, who was well versed in the code, began to recite the message aloud. The postmaster peremptorily ordered him to stand away from the counter. An altercation ensued, and the soldier became so impudent that the postmaster threatened to put him outside the door. "Oh," said the soldier, "it'd take a many such as you to put me out."

      "Did he say so? Really now!" And Mr. Ridgett looked at Dale critically. "I take it he was a heavyweight, eh?"

      "He gave me my work," said Dale; "and I was all three minutes at it. But out he went."

      "Really now!" and Mr. Ridgett smiled.

      "I had stopped Miss Yorke from operating. And I started her again within four minutes. That was the time, and no more, the message was delayed. That was the time it took me to renew the service with the confidence and secrecy provided by Her Majesty's Regulations. And I ask you, how else could I have acted? Was I to allow a telegram consigned to my care to be blabbed out word for word to all the world?"

      "Were there many people in the office just then?"

      "Two. But that makes no difference. If it had been only one—or half a one—it couldn't be permitted."

      "And was the message itself of a particularly private or important nature?"

      "Not as it happens. But the principle was the same."

      "Just so."

      As it appeared from Dale's narration, the soldier was at first willing to accept his licking in a sportsmanlike spirit, was indeed quite ready to admit that he had been the offending party; but injudicious friends—secret enemies of Dale perhaps—had egged him on to take out a summons for assault. When, however, Dale appeared before the magistrates, the soldier had changed his mind again—he did not appear, he allowed the charge to fall to the ground. And there the matter might have ended, ought to have ended, but for the fact that the local Member of Parliament suddenly made a ridiculous fuss—said it was a monstrous and intolerable state of affairs that soldiers of the Queen should be knocked about by her civil servants—wrote letters to other Members of Parliament, to Government secretaries, to newspapers. Then the excitement that had been smoldering burst forth with explosive force, shaking the village, the county, the universe.

      Dale, at handy grips with his superior officers, stood firm, declined to budge an inch from his position; he was right, and nothing would ever make him say he was wrong.

      "Ah, well," said Mr. Ridgett, "if that's the way you looked at it. But I don't quite follow how it got lifted out of their hands at Rodhaven, and brought before us."

      "I demanded it," said Dale proudly. "I wasn't going to be messed about any further by a pack of funking old women—for that's what they are, at Rodhaven. And I wasn't going to have it hushed over—nor write any such letter as they asked."

      "Oh, they suggested—"

      "They suggested," said Dale, swelling with indignation, "that I should write regret that I had perhaps acted indiscreet but only through over-zeal."

      "Oh! And you didn't see your way to—"

      "Not me. Take a black mark, and let my record go. No, thank you. I sent up my formal request to be heard at headquarters. I appealed to Cæsar."

      Mr. Ridgett smiled good-naturedly. "Why, you're quite a classical scholar, Mr. Dale. You have your Latin quotations all pat."

      "I'm a self-educated man," said Dale. "I begun at the bottom, and I've been trying to improve myself all the way to where I've risen to."

      Once or twice he sought tentatively to obtain from Mr. Ridgett the moral support that even the strongest people derive from being assured that they are entirely in the right. But Mr. Ridgett, who had been sympathetic from the moment of his arrival, and who throughout the hours had been becoming more and more friendly, did not entirely respond to these hinted invitations.

      "If you tell me to speak frankly," he said at last, "I should have a doubt that you've made this one false step. You haven't kept everything in proportion."

      "How do you mean?"

      "Well, I mean it strikes me—quite unbiased, you know—that you've let Number One overshadow the situation. You've drawn it all too personal to yourself."

      "I don't see that," said Dale, forcibly, almost hotly. "It's the principle I stand for—pretty near as much as for myself."

      "Ah, yes, just so," said Mr. Ridgett. "And now I'm going to ask you to help me find a bedroom somewhere handy, and put me up to knowing where I'd best get my meals;" and he laughed cheerfully. "Don't think I'm establishing myself—but one may as well be comfortable, if one can. And I do give you this tip. You're in for what we used to call the devil's dance up there. Cæsar is a slow mover. I mean, it won't be 'Step this way, Mr. Dale. Walk in this minute.' They'll keep you on the dance. I should take all you're likely to want for a week—at the least."

      Dale made arrangements for the future comfort of the visitor, and hospitably insisted that he should take his first substantial meal up-stairs.

      "It's served at seven sharp," said Dale; "and we make it a meat tea; but you aren't restricted to non-alcolic bev'rages."

      "Oh, tea is more than good enough for me, thank you."

      "Mavis," said Dale, introducing his guest, "this is Mr. Ridgett, who is so kind as to honor us without ceremony." And, as if to demonstrate the absence of ceremony, he put his arm round his wife's waist