We have seen that John Eames was prepared to start on his journey in search of the Arabins, and have seen him after he had taken farewell of his office and of his master there, previous to his departure; but that matter of his departure had not been arranged altogether with comfort as far as his official interests were concerned. He had been perhaps a little abrupt in his mode of informing Sir Raffle Buffle, that there was a pressing cause for his official absence, and Sir Raffle had replied to him that no private pressure could be allowed to interfere with his public duties. 'I must go, Sir Raffle, at any rate,' Johnny had said;'it is a matter affecting my family and must not be neglected.' 'If you intend to go without leave,' said Sir Raffle, 'I presume you will first put your resignation into the hands of Mr Kissing.' Now Mr Kissing was the secretary to the Board. This had been serious undoubtedly. John Eames was not specially anxious to keep his present position as private secretary to Sir Raffle, but he certainly had no desire to give up his profession altogether. He said nothing more to the great man on that occasion, but before he left the office he wrote a private note to the chairman expressing the extreme importance of the business, and begging that he might be given leave of absence. On the next morning he received it back with a very few words written across it. 'It can't be done,' were the few words which Sir Raffle Buffle had written across the note from his private secretary. Here was a difficulty which Johnny had not anticipated, and which seemed to be insuperable. Sir Raffle would not have answered him in that strain if he had not been very much in earnest.
'I should send him a medical certificate,' said Cordell, his friend of old.
'Nonsense,' said Eames.
'I don't see that it is nonsense at all. They can't get over a medical certificate from a respectable man; and everybody has got something the matter with him of some kind.'
'I should go and let him do his worst,' said Fisher, who was another clerk. 'It wouldn't be more than putting you down a place or two. As to losing your present berth you don't mind that, and they would never think of dismissing you.'
'But I do mind being put down a place or two,' said Johnny, who could not forget that were he so put down his friend Fisher would gain the step which he would lose.
'I should give him a barrel of oysters, and talk to him about the Chancellor of the Exchequer,' said Fit Howard, who had been private secretary before Eames, and might therefore be supposed to know the man.
'That might have done very well if I had not asked him, and been refused first,' said John Eames. 'I'll tell what I'll do. I'll write a long letter on a sheet of foolscap paper, with a regular margin, so that it must come before the Board, and perhaps that will frighten him.'
When he mentioned his difficulty on that evening to Mr Toogood, the lawyer begged him to give up his journey. 'It will only be sending a clerk, and it won't cost so very much after all,' said Toogood. But Johnny's pride could not allow him to give way. 'I'm not going to be done about it,' said he. 'I'm not going to resign, but I will go even though he may dismiss me. I don't think it will come to that, but if it does it must.' His uncle begged him not to think of such an alternative;but this discussion took place after dinner, and away from the office, and Eames would not submit to bow his neck to authority. 'If it comes to that,' said he, 'a fellow might as well be a slave at once. And what is the use of a fellow having a little money if it does not make him independent? You may be sure of one thing, I shall go;' and that on the day fixed.
On the next morning John Eames was very silent when he went into Sir Raffle's room at the office. There was now only this day and another before that fixed for his departure, and it was of course very necessary that matters should be arranged. But he said nothing to Sir Raffle during the morning. The great man himself was condescending and endeavouring to be kind. He knew that his stern refusal had greatly irritated his private secretary, and was anxious to show that, though in the cause of public duty he was obliged to be stern, he was quite willing to forget his sternness when the necessity for it had passed away. On this morning, therefore, he was very cheery. But in the afternoon, when most of the men had left the office, Johnny appeared before the chairman for the last time that day with a very long face. He was dressed in black, and had changed his ordinary morning coat for a frock, which gave him an appearance altogether unlike that which was customary to him. And he spoke almost in a whisper, very slowly; and when Sir Raffle joked--and Sir Raffle often would joke--he not only did not laugh, but he absolutely sighed. 'Is there anything the matter with you, Eames?' asked Sir Raffle.
'I am in great trouble,' said John Eames.
'And what is your trouble?'
'It is essential for the honour of one of my family that I should be at Florence by this day week. I cannot make up my mind what I ought to do.
I do not wish to lose my position in the public service, to which, as you know, I am warmly attached; but I cannot submit to see the honour of my family sacrificed!'
'Eames,' said Sir Raffle, 'that must be nonsense;--that must be nonsense. There can be no reason why you should always expect to have your own way in everything.'
'Of course if I go without leave I shall be dismissed.'
'Of course you will. It is out of the question that a young man should take the bit between his teeth in that way.'
'As for taking the bit between his teeth, Sir Raffle, I do not think that any man was ever more obedient, perhaps I should say more submissive, than I have been. But there must be a limit to everything.'