Lord Kilgobbin Part 86

[Ill.u.s.tration: Walpole looked keenly at the other's face as he read the paper]

'Don't know, my lord.'

'Don't know! How came you acquainted with him?'

'Met him at a country-house, where I happened to break my arm, and took advantage of this young fellow's skill in surgery to engage his services to carry me to town. There's the whole of it.'

'Is he a surgeon?'

'No, my lord, any more than he is fifty other things, of which he has a smattering.'

'Has he any means--any private fortune?'

'I suspect not.'

'Who and what are his family? Are there Atlees in Ireland?'

'There may be, my lord. There was an Atlee, a college porter, in Dublin; but I heard our friend say that they were only distantly related.'

He could not help watching Lady Maude as he said this, and was rejoiced to see a sudden twitch of her lower lip as if in pain.

'You evidently sent him over to me, then, on a very meagre knowledge of the man,' said his lordship rebukingly.

'I believe, my lord, I said at the time that I had by me a clever fellow, who wrote a good hand, could copy correctly, and was sufficient of a gentleman in his manners to make intercourse with him easy, and not disagreeable.'

'A very guarded recommendation,' said Lady Maude, with a smile.

'Was it not, Maude?' continued he, his eyes flashing with triumphant insolence.

'_I_ found he could do more than copy a despatch--I found he could write one. He replied to an article in the _Edinburgh_ on Turkey, and I saw him write it as I did not know there was another man but myself in England could have done.'

'Perhaps your lordship had talked over the subject in his presence, or with him?'

'And if I had, sir? and if all his knowledge on a complex question was such as he could carry away from a random conversation, what a gifted dog he must be to sift the wheat from the chaff--to strip a question of what were mere accidental elements, and to test a difficulty by its real qualities.

Atlee is a clever fellow, an able fellow, I a.s.sure you. That very telegram before us is a proof how he can deal with a matter on which instruction would be impossible.'

'Indeed, my lord!' said Walpole, with well-a.s.sumed innocence.

'I am right glad to know he is coming home. He must demolish that writer in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ at once--some unprincipled French blackguard, who has been put up to attack me by Thouvenel!'

Would it have appeased his lordship's wrath to know that the writer of this defamatory article was no other than Joe Atlee himself, and that the reply which was to 'demolish it' was more than half-written in his desk at that moment?

'I shall ask,' continued my lord, 'I shall ask him, besides, to write a paper on Ireland, and that fiasco of yours, Cecil.'

'Much obliged, my lord!'

'Don't be angry or indignant! A fellow with a neat, light hand like Atlee can, even under the guise of allegation, do more to clear you than scores of vulgar apologists. He can, at least, show that what our distinguished head of the Cabinet calls "the flesh-and-blood argument," has its full weight with us in our government of Ireland, and that our bitterest enemies cannot say we have no sympathies with the nation we rule over.'

'I suspect, my lord, that what you have so graciously called _my_ fiasco is well-nigh forgotten by this time, and wiser policy would say, "Do not revive it."'

'There's a great policy in saying in "an article" all that could be said in "a debate," and showing, after all, how little it comes to. Even the feeble grievance-mongers grow ashamed at retailing the review and the newspapers; but, what is better still, if the article be smartly written, they are sure to mistake the peculiarities of style for points in the argument. I have seen some splendid blunders of that kind when I sat in the Lower House! I wish Atlee was in Parliament.'

'I am not aware that he can speak, my lord.'

'Neither am I; but I should risk a small bet on it. He is a ready fellow, and the ready fellows are many-sided--eh, Maude?' Now, though his lordship only asked for his niece's concurrence in his own sage remark, Walpole affected to understand it as a direct appeal to her opinion of Atlee, and said, 'Is that your judgment of this gentleman, Maude?'

'I have no prescription to measure the abilities of such men as Mr. Atlee.'

'You find him pleasant, witty, and agreeable, I hope?' said he, with a touch of sarcasm.

'Yes, I think so.'

'With an admirable memory and great readiness for an _apropos_?'

'Perhaps he has.'

'As a retailer of an incident they tell me he has no rival.'

'I cannot say.'

'Of course not. I take it the fellow has tact enough not to tell stories here.'

'What is all that you are saying there?' cried his lordship, to whom these few sentences were an 'aside.'

'Cecil is praising Mr. Atlee, my lord,' said Maude bluntly.

'I did not know I had been, my lord,' said he. 'He belongs to that cla.s.s of men who interest me very little.'

'What cla.s.s may that be?'

'The adventurers, my lord. The fellows who make the campaign of life on the faith that they shall find their rations in some other man's knapsack.'

'Ha! indeed. Is that our friend's line?'

'Most undoubtedly, my lord. I am ashamed to say that it was entirely my own fault if you are saddled with the fellow at all.'

'I do not see the infliction--'

'I mean, my lord, that, in a measure, I put him on you without very well knowing what it was that I did.'

'Have you heard--do you know anything of the man that should inspire caution or distrust?'

'Well, these are strong words,' muttered he hesitatingly.

But Lady Maude broke in with a pa.s.sionate tone, 'Don't you see, my lord, that he does not know anything to this person's disadvantage; that it is only my cousin's diplomatic reserve--that commendable caution of his order--suggests his careful conduct? Cecil knows no more of Atlee than we do.'

'Perhaps not so much,' said Walpole, with an impertinent simper.

'_I_ know,' said his lordship, 'that he is a monstrous clever fellow. He can find you the pa.s.sage you want or the authority you are seeking for at a moment; and when he writes, he can be rapid and concise too.'