Words for the Wise

Everton had felt some interest in this man, who possessed considerable ability as a writer; he saw that he had a heavy weight upon him, and often noticed that he looked anxious and dejected. On the very day previous to the appearance of the article above referred to, he had been thinking of him with more than usual interest, and had actually meditated an increase of salary as a compensation for more extended services. But that was out of the question now. The wanton and injurious attack which had just appeared shut up all his bowels of compassion, and so far from meditating the conferring of a benefit upon Ayres, he rather inclined to a dismissal of the young man from his establishment. The longer he dwelt upon it, the more inclined was he to pursue this course, and, finally, he made up his mind to take some one else in his place. One day, after some struggles with himself, he said, "Mr. Ayres, if you can suit yourself in a place, I wish you would do so in the course of the next week or two."

The young man looked surprised, and the blood instantly suffused his face.

"Have I not given you satisfaction?" inquired Ayres.

"Yes—yes—I have no fault to find with you," replied Mr. Everton, with some embarrassment in his air. "But I wish to bring in another person who has some claims on me."

In this, Mr. Everton rather exceeded the truth. His equivocation was not manly, and Ayres was deceived by it into the inference of a reason for his dismissal foreign to the true one.

"Oh, very well," he replied, coldly. "If you wish another to take my place, I will give it up immediately."

Mr. Everton bowed with a formal air, and the young man, who felt hurt at his manner, and partly stunned by the unexpected announcement that he must give up his situation, retired at once.

On the next day, the Gazette contained another article, in which there was even a plainer reference to Mr. Everton than before, and it exhibited a bitterness of spirit that was vindictive. He was no longer in doubt as to the origin of these attacks, if he had been previously. In various parts of this last article, he could detect the particular style of Ayres.

"I see that fellow is at work on you again," said the person with whom he had before conversed on the subject.

"Yes; but, like the viper, I think he is by this time aware that he is biting on a file."

"Ah! Have you dismissed him from your service?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have served him right. No man who attempted to injure me should eat my bread. What did he say?"

"Nothing. What could he say? When I told him to find himself another place as quickly as possible, his guilt wrote itself in his countenance."

"Has he obtained a situation?"

"I don't know; and, what is more, don't care."

"I hope he has, for the sake of his family. It's a pity that they should suffer for his evil deeds."

"I didn't think of them, or I might not have dismissed him; but it is done now, and there the matter rests."

And there Mr. Everton let it rest, so far as Ayres was concerned. The individual obtained in his place had been, for some years, connected with the press as news collector and paragraph writer. His name was Tompkins. He was not a general favourite, and had never been very highly regarded by Mr. Everton; but he must have some one to fill the place made vacant by the removal of Ayres, and Tompkins was the most available person to be had. There was a difference in the Journal after Tompkins took the place of assistant editor, and a very perceptible difference; it was not for the better.

About three months after Mr. Everton had dismissed Ayres from his establishment, a gentleman said to him,

"I am told that the young man who formerly assisted in your paper is in very destitute circumstances."

"Ayres?"

"Yes. That is his name."

"I am sorry to hear it. I wish him no ill; though he tried to do me all the harm he could."

"I am sorry to hear that. I always had a good opinion of him; and come, now, to see if I can't interest you in his favour."

Everton shook his head.

"I don't wish to have any thing to do with him."

"It pains me to hear you speak so. What has he done to cause you to feel so unkindly towards him?"

"He attacked me in another newspaper, wantonly, at the very time he was employed in my office."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, and in a way to do me a serious injury."

"That is bad. Where did the attack appear?"

"In the Gazette."

"Did you trace it to him?"

"Yes; or, rather, it bore internal evidence that enabled me to fix it upon him unequivocally."

"Did you charge it upon him?"

"No. I wished to have no quarrel with him, although he evidently tried to get up one with me. I settled the matter by notifying him to leave my employment."

"You are certain that he wrote the article?"

"Oh, yes; positive."

And yet the very pertinence of the question threw a doubt into the mind of Mr. Everton.

The gentleman with whom he was conversing on retiring went to the office of the Gazette, with the editor of which he was well acquainted.

"Do you remember," said he, "an attack on Mr. Everton, which, some time ago, appeared in your paper?"

The editor reflected a few moments, and then replied:

"A few months since, two or three articles were published in the Gazette that did refer to Everton in not a very kind manner."

"Do you know the author?"

"Yes."

"Have you any reasons for wishing to conceal his name?"

"None at all. They were written by a young man who was then in my office, named Tompkins."

"You are certain of this?"

"I am certain that he brought them to me in his own manuscript."