THE PRIME MINISTER (32 page)

‘Then he would be unreasonable.’

‘Not at all, if he thought you would injure your professional prospects. It is a d— piece of folly; that’s the long and the short of it.’

This certainly was very uncivil, and it almost made Lopez angry. But he had made up his mind that his friend was a little the worse for the
wine he had drunk, and therefore he did not resent even this. ‘Never mind politics and Parliament now,’ he said, ‘but let us get home. I am beginning to be sick of this. It’s so awfully dark, and whenever I do hear a step, I think somebody is coming to rob us. Let us get on a bit.’

‘What the deuce are you afraid of?’ said Everett. They had then come up the greater part of the length of the Birdcage
Walk, and the lights at Storey’s Gate were just visible, but the road on which they were then walking was very dark. The trees were black over their heads, and not a step was heard near them. At this time it was just midnight Now, certainly, among the faults which might be justly attributed to Lopez, personal cowardice could not be reckoned. On this evening he had twice spoken of being afraid,
but the fear had simply been that which ordinary caution indicates; and his object had been that of hindering Wharton in the first place from coming into the park, and then of getting him out of it as quickly as possible.

‘Come along,’ said Lopez.

‘By George, you are in a blue funk,’ said the other. ‘I can hear your teeth chattering.’ Lopez, who was beginning to be angry,
walked on and said
nothing. It was too absurd, he thought, for real anger, but he kept a little in front of Wharton, intending to show that he was displeased. ‘You had better run away at once,’ said Wharton.

‘Upon my word, I shall begin to think that you’re tipsy,’ said Lopez.

‘Tipsy!’ said the other. ‘How dare you say such a thing to me? You never in your life saw me in the least altered by anything I had drunk.’

Lopez knew that at any rate this was untrue. ‘I’ve seen you as drunk as Cloe
³
before now,’ said he.

‘That’s a lie,’ said Everett Wharton.

‘Come, Wharton,’ said the other, ‘do not disgrace yourself by conduct such as that. Something has put you out, and you do not know what you are saying. I can hardly imagine that you should wish to insult me.’

‘It was you who insulted me. You said I was drunk.
When you said it you knew it was untrue.’

Lopez walked on a little way in silence, thinking over this most absurd quarrel. Then he turned round and spoke. ‘This is all the greatest nonsense I ever heard in the world. I’ll go on and go to bed, and to-morrow morning you’ll think better of it. But pray remember that under no circumstances should you call a man a liar, unless on cool consideration
you are determined to quarrel with him for lying, and determined also to see the quarrel out.’

‘I am quite ready to see this quarrel out.’

‘Good night,’ said Lopez, starting off at a quick pace. They were then close to the turn in the park, and Lopez went on till he had nearly reached the park front of the new offices. As he had walked he had listened to the footfall of his friend, and after
a while had perceived, or had thought that he perceived that the sound was discontinued. It seemed to him that Wharton had altogether lost his senses; – the insult to himself had been so determined and so absolutely groundless! He had striven his best to conquer the man’s ill-humour by good-natured forbearance, and had only suggested that Wharton was perhaps tipsy in order to give him some excuse.
But if his companion were really drunk, as he now began to think, could it be right to leave him unprotected in the park? The man’s
manner had been strange the whole evening, but there had been no sign of the effect of wine till after they had left the club. But Lopez had heard of men who had been apparently sober, becoming drunk as soon as they got out into the air. It might have been so in this
case, though Wharton’s voice and gait had not been those of a drunken man. At any rate, he would turn back and look after him; and as he did turn back, he resolved that whatever Wharton might say to him on this night he would not notice. He was too wise to raise a further impediment to his marriage by quarrelling with Emily’s brother.

As soon as he paused he was sure that he heard footsteps behind
him which were not those of Everett Wharton. Indeed, he was sure that he heard the footsteps of more than one person. He stood still for a moment to listen, and then he distinctly heard a rush and a scuffle. He ran back to the spot at which he had left his friend, and at first thought that he perceived a mob of people in the dusk. But as he got nearer, he saw that there were a man and two women.
Wharton was on the ground on his back, and the man was apparently kneeling on his neck and head while the women were rifling his pockets. Lopez, hardly knowing how he was acting, was upon them in a moment, flying in the first place at the man, who had jumped up to meet him as he came. He received at once a heavy blow on his head from some weapon, which, however, his hat so far stopped as to save
him from being felled or stunned, and then he felt another blow from behind on the ear, which he afterwards conceived to have been given him by one of the women. But before he could well look about him, or well know how the whole thing had happened, the man and the two women had taken to their legs, and Wharton was standing on his feet leaning against the iron railings.

The whole thing had occupied
a very short space of time, and yet the effects were very grave. At the first moment Lopez looked round and endeavoured to listen, hoping that some assistance might be near, – some policeman, or, if not that, some wanderer by night who might be honest enough to help him. But he could hear or see no one. In this condition of things it was not possible for him to pursue the ruffians, as he could
not leave his friend leaning against the park rails. It was at once manifest to him that Wharton had been much hurt, or at any rate incapacitated for immediate exertion, by the blows he had received; – and as he put his hand up to his own head,
from which in the scuffle his hat had fallen, he was not certain that he was not severely hurt himself. Lopez could see that Wharton was very pale, that
his cravat had been almost wrenched from his neck by pressure, that his waistcoat was torn open and the front of his shirt soiled, – and he could see also that a fragment of the watch-chain was hanging loose, showing that the watch was gone. ‘Are you hurt much?’ he said, coming close up and taking a tender hold of his friend’s arm. Wharton smiled and shook his head, but spoke not a word. He was
in truth more shaken, stunned, and bewildered than actually injured. The ruffian’s fist had been at his throat, twisting his cravat, and for half a minute he had felt that he was choked. As he had struggled while one woman pulled at his watch and the other searched for his purse, – struggling, alas! unsuccessfully, – the man had endeavoured to quiet him by kneeling on his chest, strangling him with
his own necktie, and pressing hard on his gullet. It is a treatment which, after a few seconds of vigorous practice, is apt to leave the patient for a while disconcerted and unwilling to speak. ‘Say a word if you can,’ whispered Lopez, looking into the other man’s face with anxious eyes.

At the moment there came across Wharton’s mind a remembrance that he had behaved very badly to his friend,
and some sort of vague misty doubt whether all this evil had not befallen him because of his misconduct. But he knew at the same time that Lopez was not responsible for the evil, and dismayed as he had been, still he recalled enough of the nature of the struggle in which he had been engaged, to be aware that Lopez had befriended him gallantly. He could not even yet speak; but he saw the blood trickling
down his friend’s temple and forehead, and lifting up his hand, touched the spot with his fingers. Lopez also put his hand up, and drew it away covered with blood. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘that does not signify in the least. I got a knock, I know, and I am afraid I have lost my hat, but I’m not hurt.’

‘Oh, dear!’ The word was uttered with a low sigh. Then there was a pause, during which Lopez supported
the sufferer. ‘I thought that it was all over with me at one moment.’

‘You will be better now.’

‘Oh, yes. My watch is gone!’

‘I fear it is,’ said Lopez.

‘And my purse,’ said Wharton, collecting his strength together sufficiently to search for his- treasures. ‘I had eight £5 notes in it.’

‘Never mind your money or your watch if your bones are not broken.’

‘It’s a bore all the same to lose
every shilling that one has.’ Then they walked very slowly away towards the steps at the Duke of York’s column, Wharton regaining his strength as he went, but still able to progress but leisurely. Lopez had not found his hat, and, being covered with blood, was, as far as appearances went, in a worse plight than the other. At the foot of the steps they met a policeman, to whom they told their story,
and who, as a matter of course, was filled with an immediate desire to arrest them both. To the policeman’s mind it was most distressing that a bloody-faced man without a hat, with a companion almost too weak to walk, should not be conveyed to a police-station. But after ten minutes’ parley, during which Wharton sat on the bottom step and Lopez explained all the circumstances, he consented to get
them a cab, to take their address, and then to go alone to the station and make his report That the thieves had got off with their plunder was only too manifest. Lopez took the injured man home to the house in Manchester Square, and then returned in the same cab, hatless, to his own lodgings.

As he returned he applied his mind to think how he could turn the events of the evening to his own use.
He did not believe that Everett Wharton was severely hurt. Indeed there might be a question whether in the morning his own injury would not be the most severe. But the immediate effect on the flustered and despoiled unfortunate one had been great enough to justify Lopez in taking strong steps if strong steps could in any way benefit himself. Would it be best to publish this affair on the house-tops,
or to bury it in the shade, as nearly as it might be buried? He had determined in his own mind that his friend certainly had been tipsy. In no other way could his conduct be understood. And a row with a tipsy man at midnight in the park is not, at first sight, creditable. But it could be made to have a better appearance if told by himself, than if published from other quarters. The old housekeeper
at Manchester Square must know something about it, and would, of course, tell what she knew,
and the loss of the money and the watch must in all probability be made known. Before he had reached his own door he had quite made up his mind that he himself would tell the story after his own fashion.

And he told it, before he went to bed that night. He washed the blood from his face and head, and
cut away a part of the clotted hair, and then wrote a letter to old Mr Wharton at Wharton Hall. And between three and four o’clock in the morning he went out and posted his letter in the nearest pillar, so that it might go down by the day mail and certainly be preceded by no other written tidings. The letter which he sent was as follows:

DEAR MR WHARTON
,

I regret to have to send you an account
of a rather serious accident which has happened to Everett. I am now writing at 3
A.M
., having just taken him home, and it occurred at about midnight. You may be quite sure that there is no danger or I should have advertised you by telegram.

There is nothing doing in town, and therefore, as the night was fine, we, very foolishly, agreed to walk round St James’s Park late after dinner. It is a
kind of thing that nobody does; – but we did it. When we had nearly got round I was in a hurry, whereas Everett was for strolling slowly, and so I went on before him. But I was hardly two hundred yards in front of him before he was attacked by three persons, a man and two women. The man I presume came upon him from behind, but he has not sufficiently collected his thoughts to remember exactly what
occurred. I heard the scuffle and of course turned back, – and was luckily in time to get up before he was seriously hurt. I think the man would otherwise have strangled him. I am sorry to say that he lost both his watch and purse.

He undoubtedly has been very much shaken, and altogether ‘knocked out of time’, as people say. Excuse the phrase, because I think it will best explain what I want
you to understand. The man’s hand at his throat must have stopped his breathing for some seconds. He certainly has received no permanent injury, but I should not wonder if he should be unwell for some days. I tell you all exactly as it occurred, as it strikes me that you may like to run up to town for a day just to look at him. But you need not do so on the score of any danger. Of course he will see
a doctor to-morrow. There did not seem to be any necessity for calling one up to-night We did give notice to the police as we were
coming home, but I fear the ruffians had ample time for escape. He was too weak, and I was too fully employed with him, to think of pursuing them at the time.

Of course he is at Manchester Square.

Most faithfully yours,

FERDINAND LOPEZ.

He did not say a word about
Emily, but he knew that Emily would see the letter and would perceive that he had been the means of preserving her brother, and, in regard to the old barrister himself, Lopez thought that the old man could not but feel grateful for his conduct. He had in truth behaved very well to Everett. He had received a heavy blow on the head in young Wharton’s defence, – of which he was determined to make
good use, though he had thought it expedient to say nothing about the blow in his letter. Surely it would all help. Surely the paternal mind would be softened towards him when the father should be made to understand how great had been his service to the son. That Everett would make little of what had been done for him he did not in the least fear. Everett Wharton was sometimes silly but was never
ungenerous.

In spite of his night’s work Lopez was in Manchester Square before nine on the following morning, and on the side of his brow he bore a great patch of black plaster. ‘My head is very thick,’ he said laughing, when Everett asked after his wound. ‘But it would have gone badly with me if the ruffian had struck an inch lower. I suppose my hat saved me, though I remember very little. Yes,
old fellow, I have written to your father, and I think he will come up. It was better that it should be so.’