h, indeed," said Mr Optimist, very gravely; for he had heard all
about the row at the railway station.

"They've made a monstrous show of him."

"I am very sorry to hear it. It's so--so--so-- If it were one of the
younger clerks, you know, we should tell him that it was
discreditable to the department."

"If a man gets a blow in the eye, he can't help it, you know. He
didn't do it himself, I suppose," said Major Fiasco.

"I am well aware that he didn't do it himself," continued Mr
Optimist; "but I really think that, in his position, he should have
kept himself out of any such encounter."

"He would have done so if he could, with all his heart," said the
major. "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.

"Not half so sorry as I have been," said Crosbie, with a laugh. "It's
an uncommon nuisance to have a black eye, and to go about looking
like a prize-fighter."

"And like a prize-fighter that didn't win his battle, too," said
Fiasco.

"I don't know that there's much difference as to that," said Crosbie.
"But the whole thing is a nuisance, and, if you please, we won't say
anything more about it."

Mr Optimist almost entertained an opinion that it was his duty to say
something more about it. Was not he the chief Commissioner, and was
not Mr Crosbie secretary to the Board? Ought he, looking at their
respective positions, to pass over without a word of notice such a
manifest impropriety as this? Would not Sir Raffle Buffle have said
something had Mr Butterwell, when secretary, come to the office with
a black eye? He wished to exercise all the full rights of a chairman;
but, nevertheless, as he looked at the secretary he felt embarrassed,
and was unable to find the proper words. "H-m, ha, well; we'll go to
business now, if you please," he said, as though reserving to himself
the right of returning to the secretary's black eye when the more
usual business of the Board should be completed. But when the more
usual business of the Board had been completed, the secretary left
the room without any further reference to his eye.

Crosbie, when he got back to his own apartment, found Mor