sn't half
so bad as this fellow;" and Johnny kicked the newspaper across the
room.

"Indict him for a libel," said Fisher.

"Particularly for saying you wanted to marry a countess's daughter,"
said another clerk.

"I never heard such a scandal in my life," declared a third; "and
then to say that the girl wouldn't look at you."

But not the less was it felt by all in the office that Johnny Eames
was becoming a leading man among them, and that he was one with whom
each of them would be pleased to be intimate. And even among the
grandees this affair of the railway station did him no real harm. It
was known that Crosbie had deserved to be thrashed and known that
Eames had thrashed him. It was all very well for Sir Raffle Buffle to
talk of police magistrates and misdemeanours, but all the world at
the Income-tax Office knew very well that Eames had come out from
that affair with his head upright and his right foot foremost.

"Never mind about the newspaper," a thoughtful old senior clerk said
to him. "As he did get the licking and you didn't, you can afford to
laugh at the newspaper."

"And you wouldn't write to the editor?"

"No, no; certainly not. No one thinks of defending himself to a
newspaper except an ass;--unless it be some fellow who wants to have
his name puffed. You may write what's as true as the gospel, but
they'll know how to make fun of it."

Johnny, therefore, gave up his idea of an indignant letter to the
editor, but he felt that he was bound to give some explanation of
the whole matter to Lord De Guest. The affair had happened as he was
coming from the earl's house, and all his own concerns had now been
made so much a matter of interest to his kind friend, that he thought
that he could not with propriety leave the earl to learn from the
newspapers either the facts or the falsehoods. And, therefore, before
he left his office he wrote the following letter:--

INCOME-TAX OFFICE, December 29, 186--.

MY LORD,--

He thought a good deal about the style in which he ought to address
the peer, never having hitherto written to him. He began, "My dear
Lord," on one sheet of paper, and then put it aside, thinking that it
looked over-bold.

MY LORD,--

As you have been so very kind to me, I feel that I ought
to tell you what happened the other morning at the railway
station, as I was coming back from Guestwick. That
scoundrel Crosbie got into the same carriage with me at the