It was impossible that Mr. Clutterbuck's wife should not know; her brother also knew, of course, though perhaps he did wrong to write a long letter of congratulation: he had a claim to be told. And the Rev. Isaac Fowle as the spiritual, Dr. Hutchinson as the medical, adviser of the merchant, were naturally soon informed. Mr. Clutterbuck and his wife were far too well-bred to speak of the honour which was advancing upon them with every day that slipped from the old year; they mentioned it to none but the nearest of their friends. But a wide outer ring could not but hear the news, and a still more extended radius received it with some little exaggeration. In Oxted, Limpsfield, and Red Hill it was a peerage; and in the remoter villages where Mr. Clutterbuck's motor-cars were familiar, it was a place in the Cabinet as well; but to all, and to no one more than the Clutterbucks, there was one thing certain, that the date was the New Year. The Press alone--and that was a large exception--had kept silent upon the rumour. From one day to another Charlie Fitzgerald laid siege, but Bozzy was first obdurate, then tired, then angry, and the Prime Minister he could not see again. Whether Fitzgerald were right or not in what he next did it is for posterity to judge; his first duty, he thought, was to the man whose bread and salt he ate, and three days before Christmas he got the paragraph about Mr. Clutterbuck into half the daily papers of London; every one was away from Peter Street, and the usual contradiction did not follow by return. On Christmas Eve, during the delightful old-world party which Mrs. Clutterbuck gave to the children of the neighbourhood, their parents very openly congratulated her husband. Upon Boxing Day the savour of his triumph remained in his mouth. It was not until Wednesday the 27th that the official protest came from the office of the patronage secretary. It would have been better for every one concerned had that protest been plain. "It is better to use the surgeon's knife than to let the cancer grow."[6] But Mr. Clutterbuck had been most generous. To be too harsh would be, perhaps, to close the door upon future action, and all that appeared was a line or two in very small type, to the effect that the representative of the paper (and every paper in London had it) had called at the head office in Peter Street with regard to the rumour recently published, and "had official authority to say that the officials were prepared to say officially that little more could for the moment at least be said upon the matter." The lines were few, I say, the print was small and the prose bad, but such as they were they did but confirm the rumour which meant so much to two simple hearts, and might have meant more to the public as an indication of the coming policy of the Government in the matter of Fishmonger and Another. Charlie Fitzgerald sat tight, and the old year waned.