“Well, I’m not settled.  I’m at the Great Western Railway Hotel at this moment.”

“Capital house, very; only it’s expensive if you stay there the whole season.”  Johnny had no idea of remaining there beyond one night, but he said nothing as to this.  “By-the-by, you might as well come and dine with us to-morrow.  Lady Buffle is most anxious to know you.  There’ll be one or two with us.  I did ask my friend Dumbello, but there’s some nonsense going on in the House, and he thinks that he can’t get away.”  Johnny was more gracious than Lord Dumbello, and accepted the invitation.  “I wonder what Lady Buffle will be like?” he said to himself, as he walked away from the office.

He had turned into the Great Western Hotel, not as yet knowing where to look for a home; and there we will leave him, eating his solitary mutton-chop at one of those tables which are so comfortable to the eye, but which are so comfortless in reality.  I speak not now with reference to the excellent establishment which has been named, but to the nature of such tables in general.  A solitary mutton-chop in an hotel coffee-room is not a banquet to be envied by any god; and if the mutton-chop be converted into soup, fish, little dishes, big dishes, and the rest, the matter becomes worse and not better.  What comfort are you to have, seated alone on that horsehair chair, staring into the room and watching the waiters as they whisk about their towels?  No one but an Englishman has ever yet thought of subjecting himself to such a position as that!  But here we will leave John Eames, and in doing so I must be allowed to declare that only now, at this moment, has he entered on his manhood.  Hitherto he has been a hobbledehoy,—­a calf, as it were, who had carried his calfishness later into life than is common with calves; but who did not, perhaps, on that account, give promise of making a worse ox than the rest of them.  His life hitherto, as recorded in these pages, had afforded him no brilliant success, had hardly qualified him for the role of hero which he has been made to play.  I feel that I have been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy, and that I should have told my story better had I brought Mr Crosbie more conspicuously forward on my canvas.  He at any rate has gotten to himself a wife—­as a hero always should do; whereas I must leave my poor friend Johnny without any matrimonial prospects.

It was thus that he thought of himself as he sat moping over his solitary table in the hotel coffee-room.  He acknowledged to himself that he had not hitherto been a man; but at the same time he made some resolution which, I trust, may assist him in commencing his manhood from this date.

CHAPTER LX

Conclusion

It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle at the Great House, pleading for Hopkins,—­pleading that to Hopkins might be restored all the privileges of head gardener at the Great House.  There was some absurdity in this, seeing that he had never really relinquished his privileges; but the manner of the quarrel had been in this wise.