The Devils Garden | Page 4

And all at once the soldier, who was well versed in the code, began to recite the message aloud. The postmaster peremptorily ordered him to stand away from the counter. An altercation ensued, and the soldier became so impudent that the postmaster threatened to put him outside the door. "Oh," said the soldier, "it'd take a many such as you to put me out."
"Did he say so? Really now!" And Mr. Ridgett looked at Dale critically. "I take it he was a heavyweight, eh?"
"He gave me my work," said Dale; "and I was all three minutes at it. But out he went."
"Really now!" and Mr. Ridgett smiled.
"I had stopped Miss Yorke from operating. And I started her again within four minutes. That was the time, and no more, the message was delayed. That was the time it took me to renew the service with the confidence and secrecy provided by Her Majesty's Regulations. And I ask you, how else could I have acted? Was I to allow a telegram consigned to my care to be blabbed out word for word to all the world?"
"Were there many people in the office just then?"
"Two. But that makes no difference. If it had been only one--or half a one--it couldn't be permitted."
"And was the message itself of a particularly private or important nature?"
"Not as it happens. But the principle was the same."
"Just so."
As it appeared from Dale's narration, the soldier was at first willing to accept his licking in a sportsmanlike spirit, was indeed quite ready to admit that he had been the offending party; but injudicious friends--secret enemies of Dale perhaps--had egged him on to take out a summons for assault. When, however, Dale appeared before the magistrates, the soldier had changed his mind again--he did not appear, he allowed the charge to fall to the ground. And there the matter might have ended, ought to have ended, but for the fact that the local Member of Parliament suddenly made a ridiculous fuss--said it was a monstrous and intolerable state of affairs that soldiers of the Queen should be knocked about by her civil servants--wrote letters to other Members of Parliament, to Government secretaries, to newspapers. Then the excitement that had been smoldering burst forth with explosive force, shaking the village, the county, the universe.
Dale, at handy grips with his superior officers, stood firm, declined to budge an inch from his position; he was right, and nothing would ever make him say he was wrong.
"Ah, well," said Mr. Ridgett, "if that's the way you looked at it. But I don't quite follow how it got lifted out of their hands at Rodhaven, and brought before us."
"I demanded it," said Dale proudly. "I wasn't going to be messed about any further by a pack of funking old women--for that's what they are, at Rodhaven. And I wasn't going to have it hushed over--nor write any such letter as they asked."
"Oh, they suggested--"
"They suggested," said Dale, swelling with indignation, "that I should write regret that I had perhaps acted indiscreet but only through over-zeal."
"Oh! And you didn't see your way to--"
"Not me. Take a black mark, and let my record go. No, thank you. I sent up my formal request to be heard at headquarters. I appealed to C?sar."
Mr. Ridgett smiled good-naturedly. "Why, you're quite a classical scholar, Mr. Dale. You have your Latin quotations all pat."
"I'm a self-educated man," said Dale. "I begun at the bottom, and I've been trying to improve myself all the way to where I've risen to."
Once or twice he sought tentatively to obtain from Mr. Ridgett the moral support that even the strongest people derive from being assured that they are entirely in the right. But Mr. Ridgett, who had been sympathetic from the moment of his arrival, and who throughout the hours had been becoming more and more friendly, did not entirely respond to these hinted invitations.
"If you tell me to speak frankly," he said at last, "I should have a doubt that you've made this one false step. You haven't kept everything in proportion."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I mean it strikes me--quite unbiased, you know--that you've let Number One overshadow the situation. You've drawn it all too personal to yourself."
"I don't see that," said Dale, forcibly, almost hotly. "It's the principle I stand for--pretty near as much as for myself."
"Ah, yes, just so," said Mr. Ridgett. "And now I'm going to ask you to help me find a bedroom somewhere handy, and put me up to knowing where I'd best get my meals;" and he laughed cheerfully. "Don't think I'm establishing myself--but one may as well be comfortable, if one can. And I do give you this tip. You're in for what we used to call the devil's dance up there. C?sar is a slow mover.