It _is_ something when one has been wandering for hour
after hour in the wet and melancholy night, suddenly to see the fair dawn
breaking and burning overhead, and to know that the worst is over, for
now there will be light whereby to set our feet. It is something, too, to
the most Christian soul, to utterly and completely triumph over one who
had done all in his power to crush and destroy you; whose grasping greed
has indirectly been the cause of the death of the person you loved best
in the whole world round. And she did triumph. As Mr. Meeson's conduct to
her got about, the little society of the ship--which was, after all a
very fair example of all society in miniature--fell away from this
publishing Prince, and not even the jingling of his money-bags could lure
it back. He the great, the practically omnipotent, the owner of two
millions, and the hard master of hundreds upon whose toil he battened,
was practically _cut_. Even the clerk, who was going out on a chance of
getting a place in a New Zealand bank, would have nothing to say to him.
And what is more, he felt it more even than an ordinary individual would
have done. He, the "Printer-devil," as poor little Jeannie used to call
him, he to be slighted and flouted by a pack of people whom he could buy
up three times over, and all on account of a wretched authoress--an
authoress, if you please! It made Mr. Meeson very wild--a state of
affairs which was brought to a climax when one morning Lord Holmhurst,
who had for several days been showing a growing dislike to his society,
actually almost cut him dead; that is, he did not notice his outstretched
hand, and passed him with a slight bow.

"Never mind, my Lord--never mind!" muttered Mr. Meeson after that
somewhat pompous but amiable nobleman's retreating form. "We'll see if I
can't come square with you. I'm a dog who can pull a string or two in the
English press, I am! Those who have the money and have got a hold of
people, so that they must write what they tell them, ain't people to be
cut by any Colonial Governor, my Lord!" And in his anger he fairly shook
his fist at the unconscious Peer.

"Seem to be a little out of temper, Mr. Meeson," said a voice at
his elbow, the owner of which was a big young man with hard but
kindly features and a large moustache. "What has the Governor been
doing to you?"

"Doing, Mr. Tombey? He's been cutting me, that's all--me,
Meeson!--cutting me as dead as offal, or something like it