The next afternoon, when he paid his promised visit to the ‘Blue Boar,’ a circumstance occurred which caused him increased annoyance.
‘I say, my astute young friend,’ were Talbot’s first words, delivered in that half morose, half bantering way which was habitual to him when ready primed for a quarrel, ‘where have you been to these last three hours?’
‘To the Temple. Did I not tell you that I generally went there in the afternoon? As to the exact locality, you must perceive the impropriety of my mentioning it even to you.’
‘Still you might speak the truth about other matters. Why did you not tell me that old Bingley had dismissed his second clerk?’
‘What possible interest could the circumstance have for you?’
‘Only that you allowed me to conclude that he was still there, in order that I should not come to New Inn.’
Mr. Reginald Talbot grew very red, and his stout frame grew visibly stouter. William Henry, however, though more slightly built, was not his inferior (as he had more than once had the opportunity of discovering) either in courage or in the art of self-defence.
‘After behaving in so false a manner to me, sir,’ said Talbot, pointing to a very considerable heap of MSS. written in parallel lines, ‘I shall not read you my poems.’
‘Thank you; that is returning good for evil,’ said William Henry coolly. ‘Read them to yourself and not aloud, or you will set the cats a caterwauling,’ and with that he clapped his hat on and marched out of his friend’s apartments.
It was not one of those quarrels described as the renewal of love; it was a deadly feud. A woman, even if she is not as fair as Venus, may forgive an imputation on her good looks, but a poet, conscious of an inferiority to Shakespeare, does not forgive a slight inflicted on his muse.
WHETHER William Henry’s short method with Mr. Reginald Talbot was to be satisfactory or not remains to be seen, but for the present it had all the effect intended. The inmate of the ‘Blue Boar’ confined himself to his own quarters, or, at all events, did not take advantage of the general invitation given to him by Mr. Samuel Erin to visit Norfolk Street. Nor did that gentleman make any inquiry into the cause of his absence. He had done his best to pleasure his son and encourage him in his discoveries, but was well content that ‘the popinjay’ kept away. With William Henry—and this was, perhaps, even a greater proof of the change in the old man than his more active kindnesses—he was very patient and unimportunate. He would cast one look of earnest inquiry on the young fellow as he came home every evening, and, receiving a shake of the head by way of reply, would abstain from further questioning. Such was his admiration for the nameless inmate of the Temple that he respected his wish for silence, even as it were at second hand. This behaviour was most acceptable to its object, and the more so, since the reticence Mr. Erin thus observed in his own case he imposed upon his visitors, who would have otherwise subjected William Henry to the question, _forte et dure_, half a dozen times a day. He had persuaded himself that if once the mysterious visitor should get to know that a fuss was being made about that note of hand, he would withdraw his favours from his protégé altogether.