The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories of the Four Million — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories of the Four Million
John Stuart Mill · en
The runaway team was tugged to an inglorious halt by Remsen’s tough
muscles. The driver released his hands from the wrapped reins, jumped
from his seat and stood at the heads of the team. The chestnut,
approving his new rider, danced and pranced, reviling equinely the
subdued bays. Remsen, lingering, was dimly conscious of a vague,
impossible, unnecessary old gentleman in a Scotch cap who talked
incessantly about something. And he was acutely conscious of a pair of
violet eyes that would have drawn Saint Pyrites from his iron pillar—or
whatever the allusion is—and of the lady’s smile and look—a little
frightened, but a look that, with the ever coward heart of a true
lover, he could not yet construe. They were asking his name and
bestowing upon him wellbred thanks for his heroic deed, and the Scotch
cap was especially babbling and insistent. But the eloquent appeal was
in the eyes of the lady.
A little thrill of satisfaction ran through Remsen, because he had a
name to give which, without undue pride, was worthy of being spoken in
high places, and a small fortune which, with due pride, he could leave
at his end without disgrace.
He opened his lips to speak and closed them again.
Who was he? Mounted Policeman O’Roon. The badge and the honor of his
comrade were in his hands. If Ellsworth Remsen, ten-millionaire and
Knickerbocker, had just rescued pomegranate blossoms and Scotch cap
from possible death, where was Policeman O’Roon? Off his beat, exposed,
disgraced, discharged. Love had come, but before that there had been
something that demanded precedence—the fellowship of men on
battlefields fighting an alien foe.
Remsen touched his cap, looked between the chestnut’s ears, and took
refuge in vernacularity.
“Don’t mention it,” he said stolidly. “We policemen are paid to do
these things. It’s our duty.”
And he rode away—rode away cursing _noblesse oblige_, but knowing he
could never have done anything else.
At the end of the day Remsen sent the chestnut to his stable and went
to O’Roon’s room. The policeman was again a well set up, affable, cool
young man who sat by the window smoking cigars.
“I wish you and the rest of the police force and all badges, horses,
brass buttons and men who can’t drink two glasses of _brut_ without
getting upset were at the devil,” said Remsen feelingly.
O’Roon smiled with evident satisfaction.