THE WRONG BOX

 

 

 

PREFACE

 

'Nothing like a little judicious levity,' says Michael Finsbury in the

text: nor can any better excuse be found for the volume in the reader's

hand. The authors can but add that one of them is old enough to be

ashamed of himself, and the other young enough to learn better.

 

R. L. S. L. O.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I. In Which Morris Suspects

 

How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend

the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the

surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours

of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian,

correspondence with learned and illegible Germans--in one word, the vast

scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away

an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with

a biography of Tonti--birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited

from his mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc--and a complete

treatise on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The material

is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious.

Tonti is dead, and I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him;

and, as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes

of this unvarnished narrative.

 

A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) put up a certain sum

of money, which is then funded in a pool under trustees; coming on for

a century later, the proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of

the last survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot even hear of

his success--and who is certainly dying, so that he might just as well

have lost. The peculiar poetry and even humour of the scheme is now

apparent, since it is one by which nobody concerned can possibly profit;

but its fine, sportsmanlike character endeared it to our grandparents.

 

When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman were little lads

in white-frilled trousers, their father--a well-to-do merchant

in Cheapside--caused them to join a small but rich tontine of

seven-and-thirty lives. A thousand pounds was the entrance fee; and

Joseph Finsbury can remember to this day the visit to the lawyer's,

where the members of the tontine--all children like himself--were

assembled together, and sat in turn in the big office chair, and signed

their names with the assistance of a kind old gentleman in spectacles

and Wellington boots. He remembers playing with the children afterwards

on the lawn at the back of the lawyer's house, and a battle-royal that

he had with a brother tontiner who had kicked his shins. The sound of

war called forth the lawyer from where he was dispensing cake and

wine to the assembled parents in the office, and the combatants were

separated, and Joseph's spirit (for he was the smaller of the two)

commended by the gentleman in the Wellington boots, who vowed he had

been just such another at the same age. Joseph wondered to himself if

he had worn at that time little Wellingtons and a little bald head,

and when, in bed at night, he grew tired of telling himself stories

of sea-fights, he used to dress himself up as the old gentleman, and

entertain other little boys and girls with cake and wine.

 

In the year 1840 the thirty-seven were all alive; in 1850 their number

had decreased by six; in 1856 and 1857 business was more lively, for the

Crimea and the Mutiny carried off no less than nine. There remained

in 1870 but five of the original members, and at the date of my story,

including the two Finsburys, but three.

 

By this time Masterman was in his seventy-third year; he had long

complained of the effects of age, had long since retired from business,

and now lived in absolute seclusion under the roof of his son Michael,

the well-known solicitor. Joseph, on the other hand, was still up and

about, and still presented but a semi-venerable figure on the streets

in which he loved to wander. This was the more to be deplored because

Masterman had led (even to the least particular) a model British life.

Industry, regularity, respectability, and a preference for the four per

cents are understood to be the very foundations of a green old age. All

these Masterman had eminently displayed, and here he was, ab agendo, at

seventy-three; while Joseph, barely two years younger, and in the most

excellent preservation, had disgraced himself through life by idleness

and eccentricity. Embarked in the leather trade, he had early wearied

of business, for which he was supposed to have small parts. A taste for

general information, not promptly checked, had soon begun to sap his

manhood. There is no passion more debilitating to the mind, unless,

perhaps, it be that itch of public speaking which it not infrequently

accompanies or begets. The two were conjoined in the case of Joseph; the

acute stage of this double malady, that in which the patient delivers

gratuitous lectures, soon declared itself with severity, and not many

years had passed over his head before he would have travelled thirty

miles to address an infant school. He was no student; his reading was

confined to elementary textbooks and the daily papers; he did not even

fly as high as cyclopedias; life, he would say, was his volume. His

lectures were not meant, he would declare, for college professors; they

were addressed direct to 'the great heart of the people', and the

heart of the people must certainly be sounder than its head, for his

lucubrations were received with favour. That entitled 'How to Live

Cheerfully on Forty Pounds a Year', created a sensation among the

unemployed. 'Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability',

gained him the respect of the shallow-minded. As for his celebrated

essay on 'Life Insurance Regarded in its Relation to the Masses', read

before the Working Men's Mutual Improvement Society, Isle of Dogs, it

was received with a 'literal ovation' by an unintelligent audience of

both sexes, and so marked was the effect that he was next year elected

honorary president of the institution, an office of less than

no emolument--since the holder was expected to come down with a

donation--but one which highly satisfied his self-esteem.

 

While Joseph was thus building himself up a reputation among the more

cultivated portion of the ignorant, his domestic life was suddenly

overwhelmed by orphans. The death of his younger brother Jacob saddled

him with the charge of two boys, Morris and John; and in the course of

the same year his family was still further swelled by the addition of a

little girl, the daughter of John Henry Hazeltine, Esq., a gentleman

of small property and fewer friends. He had met Joseph only once, at a

lecture-hall in Holloway; but from that formative experience he returned

home to make a new will, and consign his daughter and her fortune to the

lecturer. Joseph had a kindly disposition; and yet it was not without

reluctance that he accepted this new responsibility, advertised for a

nurse, and purchased a second-hand perambulator. Morris and John he made

more readily welcome; not so much because of the tie of consanguinity

as because the leather business (in which he hastened to invest their

fortune of thirty thousand pounds) had recently exhibited inexplicable

symptoms of decline. A young but capable Scot was chosen as manager to

the enterprise, and the cares of business never again afflicted Joseph

Finsbury. Leaving his charges in the hands of the capable Scot (who was

married), he began his extensive travels on the Continent and in Asia

Minor.

 

With a polyglot Testament in one hand and a phrase-book in the other,

he groped his way among the speakers of eleven European languages.

The first of these guides is hardly applicable to the purposes of the

philosophic traveller, and even the second is designed more expressly

for the tourist than for the expert in life. But he pressed interpreters

into his service--whenever he could get their services for nothing--and

by one means and another filled many notebooks with the results of his

researches.

 

In these wanderings he spent several years, and only returned to England

when the increasing age of his charges needed his attention. The two

lads had been placed in a good but economical school, where they had

received a sound commercial education; which was somewhat awkward, as

the leather business was by no means in a state to court enquiry. In

fact, when Joseph went over his accounts preparatory to surrendering his

trust, he was dismayed to discover that his brother's fortune had not

increased by his stewardship; even by making over to his two wards

every penny he had in the world, there would still be a deficit of seven

thousand eight hundred pounds. When these facts were communicated to the

two brothers in the presence of a lawyer, Morris Finsbury threatened

his uncle with all the terrors of the law, and was only prevented from

taking extreme steps by the advice of the professional man. 'You cannot

get blood from a stone,' observed the lawyer.

 

And Morris saw the point and came to terms with his uncle. On the one

side, Joseph gave up all that he possessed, and assigned to his

nephew his contingent interest in the tontine, already quite a hopeful

speculation. On the other, Morris agreed to harbour his uncle and Miss

Hazeltine (who had come to grief with the rest), and to pay to each

of them one pound a month as pocket-money. The allowance was amply

sufficient for the old man; it scarce appears how Miss Hazeltine

contrived to dress upon it; but she did, and, what is more, she never

complained. She was, indeed, sincerely attached to her incompetent

guardian. He had never been unkind; his age spoke for him loudly; there

was something appealing in his whole-souled quest of knowledge and

innocent delight in the smallest mark of admiration; and, though the

lawyer had warned her she was being sacrificed, Julia had refused to add

to the perplexities of Uncle Joseph.

 

In a large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, these four dwelt

together; a family in appearance, in reality a financial association.

Julia and Uncle Joseph were, of course, slaves; John, a gentle man with

a taste for the banjo, the music-hall, the Gaiety bar, and the sporting

papers, must have been anywhere a secondary figure; and the cares

and delights of empire devolved entirely upon Morris. That these are

inextricably intermixed is one of the commonplaces with which the bland

essayist consoles the incompetent and the obscure, but in the case of

Morris the bitter must have largely outweighed the sweet. He grudged no

trouble to himself, he spared none to others; he called the servants

in the morning, he served out the stores with his own hand, he took

soundings of the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits; painful

scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was frequently

impeached, and the tradespeople came and hectored with him in the back

parlour upon a question of three farthings. The superficial might have

deemed him a miser; in his own eyes he was simply a man who had been

defrauded; the world owed him seven thousand eight hundred pounds, and

he intended that the world should pay.

 

But it was in his dealings with Joseph that Morris's character

particularly shone. His uncle was a rather gambling stock in which he

had invested heavily; and he spared no pains in nursing the security.

The old man was seen monthly by a physician, whether he was well or ill.

His diet, his raiment, his occasional outings, now to Brighton, now to

Bournemouth, were doled out to him like pap to infants. In bad weather

he must keep the house. In good weather, by half-past nine, he must

be ready in the hall; Morris would see that he had gloves and that his

shoes were sound; and the pair would start for the leather business

arm in arm. The way there was probably dreary enough, for there was no

pretence of friendly feeling; Morris had never ceased to upbraid

his guardian with his defalcation and to lament the burthen of Miss

Hazeltine; and Joseph, though he was a mild enough soul, regarded his

nephew with something very near akin to hatred. But the way there

was nothing to the journey back; for the mere sight of the place of

business, as well as every detail of its transactions, was enough to

poison life for any Finsbury.

 

Joseph's name was still over the door; it was he who still signed the

cheques; but this was only policy on the part of Morris, and designed

to discourage other members of the tontine. In reality the business was

entirely his; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried to

sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. He tried to

extend it, and it was only the liabilities he succeeded in extending; to

restrict it, and it was only the profits he managed to restrict. Nobody

had ever made money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who

retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff and built a

castle with his profits. The memory of this fallacious Caledonian Morris

would revile daily, as he sat in the private office opening his mail,

with old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or savagely

affixing signatures to he knew not what. And when the man of the heather

pushed cynicism so far as to send him the announcement of his second

marriage (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Revd. Alexander McCraw), it

was really supposed that Morris would have had a fit.

 

Business hours, in the Finsbury leather trade, had been cut to the

quick; even Morris's strong sense of duty to himself was not strong

enough to dally within those walls and under the shadow of that

bankruptcy; and presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long

breath, and compose themselves for another day of procrastination. Raw

Haste, on the authority of my Lord Tennyson, is half-sister to Delay;

but the Business Habits are certainly her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather

merchant would lead his living investment back to John Street like a

puppy dog; and, having there immured him in the hall, would depart for

the day on the quest of seal rings, the only passion of his life. Joseph

had more than the vanity of man, he had that of lecturers. He owned he

was in fault, although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than

sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not

deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit

a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained

with mortifying comments on his whole career--to have his costume

examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified,

and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with

a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with venom, and he

would make haste to hang up his hat and coat and the detested mittens,

and slink upstairs to Julia and his notebooks. The drawing-room at least

was sacred from Morris; it belonged to the old man and the young girl;

it was there that she made her dresses; it was there that he inked

his spectacles over the registration of disconnected facts and the

calculation of insignificant statistics.

 

Here he would sometimes lament his connection with the tontine. 'If it

were not for that,' he cried one afternoon, 'he would not care to keep

me. I might be a free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself

by giving lectures.'

 

'To be sure you could,' said she; 'and I think it one of the meanest

things he ever did to deprive you of that amusement. There were those

nice people at the Isle of Cats (wasn't it?) who wrote and asked you so

very kindly to give them an address. I did think he might have let you

go to the Isle of Cats.'

 

'He is a man of no intelligence,' cried Joseph. 'He lives here literally

surrounded by the absorbing spectacle of life, and for all the good

it does him, he might just as well be in his coffin. Think of his

opportunities! The heart of any other young man would burn within him

at the chance. The amount of information that I have it in my power

to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing that beggars language,

Julia.'

 

'Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn't excite yourself,' said Julia;

'for you know, if you look at all ill, the doctor will be sent for.'

 

'That is very true,' returned the old man humbly, 'I will compose myself

with a little study.' He thumbed his gallery of notebooks. 'I wonder,'

he said, 'I wonder (since I see your hands are occupied) whether it

might not interest you--'

 

'Why, of course it would,' cried Julia. 'Read me one of your nice

stories, there's a dear.'

 

He had the volume down and his spectacles upon his nose instanter, as

though to forestall some possible retractation. 'What I propose to read

to you,' said he, skimming through the pages, 'is the notes of a highly

important conversation with a Dutch courier of the name of David Abbas,

which is the Latin for abbot. Its results are well worth the money

it cost me, for, as Abbas at first appeared somewhat impatient, I was

induced to (what is, I believe, singularly called) stand him drink. It

runs only to about five-and-twenty pages. Yes, here it is.' He cleared

his throat, and began to read.

 

Mr Finsbury (according to his own report) contributed about four hundred

and ninety-nine five-hundredths of the interview, and elicited from

Abbas literally nothing. It was dull for Julia, who did not require to

listen; for the Dutch courier, who had to answer, it must have been

a perfect nightmare. It would seem as if he had consoled himself by

frequent appliances to the bottle; it would even seem that (toward the

end) he had ceased to depend on Joseph's frugal generosity and called

for the flagon on his own account. The effect, at least, of some

mellowing influence was visible in the record: Abbas became suddenly a

willing witness; he began to volunteer disclosures; and Julia had just

looked up from her seam with something like a smile, when Morris burst

into the house, eagerly calling for his uncle, and the next instant

plunged into the room, waving in the air the evening paper.

 

It was indeed with great news that he came charged. The demise was

announced of Lieutenant-General Sir Glasgow Biggar, KCSI, KCMG, etc.,

and the prize of the tontine now lay between the Finsbury brothers. Here

was Morris's opportunity at last. The brothers had never, it is true,

been cordial. When word came that Joseph was in Asia Minor, Masterman

had expressed himself with irritation. 'I call it simply indecent,' he

had said. 'Mark my words--we shall hear of him next at the North Pole.'

And these bitter expressions had been reported to the traveller on his

return. What was worse, Masterman had refused to attend the lecture on

'Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability', although

invited to the platform. Since then the brothers had not met. On the

other hand, they never had openly quarrelled; Joseph (by Morris's

orders) was prepared to waive the advantage of his juniority; Masterman

had enjoyed all through life the reputation of a man neither greedy nor

unfair. Here, then, were all the elements of compromise assembled;

and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven thousand eight hundred pounds

restored to him, and himself dismissed from the vicissitudes of the

leather trade, hastened the next morning to the office of his cousin

Michael.

 

Michael was something of a public character. Launched upon the law at a

very early age, and quite without protectors, he had become a trafficker

in shady affairs. He was known to be the man for a lost cause; it was

known he could extract testimony from a stone, and interest from a

gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that

numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and

find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have

made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising

correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In

private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire

experience at the office had gone far to sober him, and it was known

that (in the matter of investments) he preferred the solid to the

brilliant. What was yet more to the purpose, he had been all his life a

consistent scoffer at the Finsbury tontine.

 

It was therefore with little fear for the result that Morris presented

himself before his cousin, and proceeded feverishly to set forth his

scheme. For near upon a quarter of an hour the lawyer suffered him to

dwell upon its manifest advantages uninterrupted. Then Michael rose from

his seat, and, ringing for his clerk, uttered a single clause: 'It won't

do, Morris.'

 

It was in vain that the leather merchant pleaded and reasoned, and

returned day after day to plead and reason. It was in vain that he

offered a bonus of one thousand, of two thousand, of three thousand

pounds; in vain that he offered, in Joseph's name, to be content with

only one-third of the pool. Still there came the same answer: 'It won't

do.'

 

'I can't see the bottom of this,' he said at last. 'You answer none of

my arguments; you haven't a word to say. For my part, I believe it's

malice.'

 

The lawyer smiled at him benignly. 'You may believe one thing,' said he.

'Whatever else I do, I am not going to gratify any of your curiosity.

You see I am a trifle more communicative today, because this is our last

interview upon the subject.'

 

'Our last interview!' cried Morris.

 

'The stirrup-cup, dear boy,' returned Michael. 'I can't have my business

hours encroached upon. And, by the by, have you no business of your own?

Are there no convulsions in the leather trade?'

 

'I believe it to be malice,' repeated Morris doggedly. 'You always hated

and despised me from a boy.'

 

'No, no--not hated,' returned Michael soothingly. 'I rather like you

than otherwise; there's such a permanent surprise about you, you look so

dark and attractive from a distance. Do you know that to the naked

eye you look romantic?--like what they call a man with a history? And

indeed, from all that I can hear, the history of the leather trade is

full of incident.'

 

'Yes,' said Morris, disregarding these remarks, 'it's no use coming

here. I shall see your father.'

 

'O no, you won't,' said Michael. 'Nobody shall see my father.'

 

'I should like to know why,' cried his cousin.

 

'I never make any secret of that,' replied the lawyer. 'He is too ill.'

 

'If he is as ill as you say,' cried the other, 'the more reason for

accepting my proposal. I will see him.'

 

'Will you?' said Michael, and he rose and rang for his clerk.

 

It was now time, according to Sir Faraday Bond, the medical baronet

whose name is so familiar at the foot of bulletins, that Joseph (the

poor Golden Goose) should be removed into the purer air of Bournemouth;

and for that uncharted wilderness of villas the family now shook off

the dust of Bloomsbury; Julia delighted, because at Bournemouth she

sometimes made acquaintances; John in despair, for he was a man of city

tastes; Joseph indifferent where he was, so long as there was pen and

ink and daily papers, and he could avoid martyrdom at the office; Morris

himself, perhaps, not displeased to pretermit these visits to the city,

and have a quiet time for thought. He was prepared for any sacrifice;

all he desired was to get his money again and clear his feet of leather;

and it would be strange, since he was so modest in his desires, and the

pool amounted to upward of a hundred and sixteen thousand pounds--it

would be strange indeed if he could find no way of influencing Michael.

'If I could only guess his reason,' he repeated to himself; and by day,

as he walked in Branksome Woods, and by night, as he turned upon his

bed, and at meal-times, when he forgot to eat, and in the bathing

machine, when he forgot to dress himself, that problem was constantly

before him: Why had Michael refused?

 

At last, one night, he burst into his brother's room and woke him.

 

'What's all this?' asked John.

 

'Julia leaves this place tomorrow,' replied Morris. 'She must go up to

town and get the house ready, and find servants. We shall all follow in

three days.'

 

'Oh, brayvo!' cried John. 'But why?'

 

'I've found it out, John,' returned his brother gently.

 

'It? What?' enquired John.

 

'Why Michael won't compromise,' said Morris. 'It's because he can't.

It's because Masterman's dead, and he's keeping it dark.'

 

'Golly!' cried the impressionable John. 'But what's the use? Why does he

do it, anyway?'

 

'To defraud us of the tontine,' said his brother.

 

'He couldn't; you have to have a doctor's certificate,' objected John.

 

'Did you never hear of venal doctors?' enquired Morris. 'They're as

common as blackberries: you can pick 'em up for three-pound-ten a head.'

 

'I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sawbones,' ejaculated John.

 

'And then Michael,' continued Morris, 'is in the very thick of it. All

his clients have come to grief; his whole business is rotten eggs. If

any man could arrange it, he could; and depend upon it, he has his plan

all straight; and depend upon it, it's a good one, for he's clever, and

be damned to him! But I'm clever too; and I'm desperate. I lost seven

thousand eight hundred pounds when I was an orphan at school.'

 

'O, don't be tedious,' interrupted John. 'You've lost far more already

trying to get it back.'

 

 

 

CHAPTER II. In Which Morris takes Action

 

Some days later, accordingly, the three males of this depressing family

might have been observed (by a reader of G. P. R. James) taking their

departure from the East Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw

and changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence according to the

principles of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no less strict (as is well known)

on costume than on diet. There are few polite invalids who have not

lived, or tried to live, by that punctilious physician's orders. 'Avoid

tea, madam,' the reader has doubtless heard him say, 'avoid tea, fried

liver, antimonial wine, and bakers' bread. Retire nightly at 10.45;

and clothe yourself (if you please) throughout in hygienic flannel.

Externally, the fur of the marten is indicated. Do not forget to

procure a pair of health boots at Messrs Dail and Crumbie's.' And he has

probably called you back, even after you have paid your fee, to add

with stentorian emphasis: 'I had forgotten one caution: avoid kippered

sturgeon as you would the very devil.' The unfortunate Joseph was cut to

the pattern of Sir Faraday in every button; he was shod with the health

boot; his suit was of genuine ventilating cloth; his shirt of hygienic

flannel, a somewhat dingy fabric; and he was draped to the knees in

the inevitable greatcoat of marten's fur. The very railway porters at

Bournemouth (which was a favourite station of the doctor's) marked the

old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence

of personal taste, a vizarded forage cap; from this form of headpiece,

since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and

weathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing could divorce our traveller.

 

The three Finsburys mounted into their compartment, and fell immediately

to quarrelling, a step unseemly in itself and (in this case) highly

unfortunate for Morris. Had he lingered a moment longer by the window,

this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed

(as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a second passenger in

the uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand, which

he judged (God knows how erroneously) to be more important.

 

'I never heard of such a thing,' he cried, resuming a discussion which

had scarcely ceased all morning. 'The bill is not yours; it is mine.'

 

'It is payable to me,' returned the old gentleman, with an air of bitter

obstinacy. 'I will do what I please with my own property.'

 

The bill was one for eight hundred pounds, which had been given him at

breakfast to endorse, and which he had simply pocketed.

 

'Hear him, Johnny!' cried Morris. 'His property! the very clothes upon

his back belong to me.'

 

'Let him alone,' said John. 'I am sick of both of you.'

 

'That is no way to speak of your uncle, sir,' cried Joseph. 'I will not

endure this disrespect. You are a pair of exceedingly forward, impudent,

and ignorant young men, and I have quite made up my mind to put an end

to the whole business.'.

 

'O skittles!' said the graceful John.

 

But Morris was not so easy in his mind. This unusual act of

insubordination had already troubled him; and these mutinous words now

sounded ominously in his ears. He looked at the old gentleman uneasily.

Upon one occasion, many years before, when Joseph was delivering a

lecture, the audience had revolted in a body; finding their entertainer

somewhat dry, they had taken the question of amusement into their own

hands; and the lecturer (along with the board schoolmaster, the Baptist

clergyman, and a working-man's candidate, who made up his bodyguard) was

ultimately driven from the scene. Morris had not been present on that

fatal day; if he had, he would have recognized a certain fighting

glitter in his uncle's eye, and a certain chewing movement of his lips,

as old acquaintances. But even to the inexpert these symptoms breathed

of something dangerous.

 

'Well, well,' said Morris. 'I have no wish to bother you further till we

get to London.'

 

Joseph did not so much as look at him in answer; with tremulous hands

he produced a copy of the British Mechanic, and ostentatiously buried

himself in its perusal.

 

'I wonder what can make him so cantankerous?' reflected the nephew. 'I

don't like the look of it at all.' And he dubiously scratched his nose.

 

The train travelled forth into the world, bearing along with it the

customary freight of obliterated voyagers, and along with these old

Joseph, affecting immersion in his paper, and John slumbering over

the columns of the Pink Un, and Morris revolving in his mind a dozen

grudges, and suspicions, and alarms. It passed Christchurch by the sea,

Herne with its pinewoods, Ringwood on its mazy river. A little behind

time, but not much for the South-Western, it drew up at the platform of

a station, in the midst of the New Forest, the real name of which (in

case the railway company 'might have the law of me') I shall veil under

the alias of Browndean.

 

Many passengers put their heads to the window, and among the rest an old

gentleman on whom I willingly dwell, for I am nearly done with him now,

and (in the whole course of the present narrative) I am not in the least

likely to meet another character so decent. His name is immaterial, not

so his habits. He had passed his life wandering in a tweed suit on the

continent of Europe; and years of Galignani's Messenger having at length

undermined his eyesight, he suddenly remembered the rivers of Assyria

and came to London to consult an oculist. From the oculist to the

dentist, and from both to the physician, the step appears inevitable;

presently he was in the hands of Sir Faraday, robed in ventilating cloth

and sent to Bournemouth; and to that domineering baronet (who was his

only friend upon his native soil) he was now returning to report. The

case of these tweedsuited wanderers is unique. We have all seen them

entering the table d'hote (at Spezzia, or Grdtz, or Venice) with a

genteel melancholy and a faint appearance of having been to India and

not succeeded. In the offices of many hundred hotels they are known by

name; and yet, if the whole of this wandering cohort were to disappear

tomorrow, their absence would be wholly unremarked. How much more, if

only one--say this one in the ventilating cloth--should vanish! He had

paid his bills at Bournemouth; his worldly effects were all in the van

in two portmanteaux, and these after the proper interval would be

sold as unclaimed baggage to a Jew; Sir Faraday's butler would be a

half-crown poorer at the year's end, and the hotelkeepers of Europe

about the same date would be mourning a small but quite observable

decline in profits. And that would be literally all. Perhaps the old

gentleman thought something of the sort, for he looked melancholy enough

as he pulled his bare, grey head back into the carriage, and the train

smoked under the bridge, and forth, with ever quickening speed, across

the mingled heaths and woods of the New Forest.

 

Not many hundred yards beyond Browndean, however, a sudden jarring of

brakes set everybody's teeth on edge, and there was a brutal stoppage.

Morris Finsbury was aware of a confused uproar of voices, and sprang to

the window. Women were screaming, men were tumbling from the windows on

the track, the guard was crying to them to stay where they were; at the

same time the train began to gather way and move very slowly backward

toward Browndean; and the next moment--, all these various sounds were

blotted out in the apocalyptic whistle and the thundering onslaught of

the down express.

 

The actual collision Morris did not hear. Perhaps he fainted. He had a

wild dream of having seen the carriage double up and fall to pieces

like a pantomime trick; and sure enough, when he came to himself, he was

lying on the bare earth and under the open sky. His head ached savagely;

he carried his hand to his brow, and was not surprised to see it red

with blood. The air was filled with an intolerable, throbbing roar,

which he expected to find die away with the return of consciousness; and

instead of that it seemed but to swell the louder and to pierce the more

cruelly through his ears. It was a raging, bellowing thunder, like a

boiler-riveting factory.

 

And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and looked about him. The

track at this point ran in a sharp curve about a wooded hillock; all

of the near side was heaped with the wreckage of the Bournemouth train;

that of the express was mostly hidden by the trees; and just at the

turn, under clouds of vomiting steam and piled about with cairns of

living coal, lay what remained of the two engines, one upon the other.

On the heathy margin of the line were many people running to and fro,

and crying aloud as they ran, and many others lying motionless like

sleeping tramps.

 

Morris suddenly drew an inference. 'There has been an accident' thought

he, and was elated at his perspicacity. Almost at the same time his eye

lighted on John, who lay close by as white as paper. 'Poor old John!

poor old cove!' he thought, the schoolboy expression popping forth from

some forgotten treasury, and he took his brother's hand in his with

childish tenderness. It was perhaps the touch that recalled him;

at least John opened his eyes, sat suddenly up, and after several

ineffectual movements of his lips, 'What's the row?' said he, in a

phantom voice.

 

The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their ears. 'Let us

get away from that,' Morris cried, and pointed to the vomit of steam

that still spouted from the broken engines. And the pair helped each

other up, and stood and quaked and wavered and stared about them at the

scene of death.

 

Just then they were approached by a party of men who had already

organized themselves for the purposes of rescue.

 

'Are you hurt?' cried one of these, a young fellow with the sweat

streaming down his pallid face, and who, by the way he was treated, was

evidently the doctor.

 

Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding grimly, handed him a

bottle of some spirit.

 

'Take a drink of that,' he said; 'your friend looks as if he needed it

badly. We want every man we can get,' he added; 'there's terrible work

before us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you can carry

a stretcher.'

 

The doctor was hardly gone before Morris, under the spur of the dram,

awoke to the full possession of his wits.

 

'My God!' he cried. 'Uncle Joseph!'

 

'Yes,' said John, 'where can he be? He can't be far off. I hope the old

party isn't damaged.'

 

'Come and help me to look,' said Morris, with a snap of savage

determination strangely foreign to his ordinary bearing; and then, for

one moment, he broke forth. 'If he's dead!' he cried, and shook his fist

at heaven.

 

To and fro the brothers hurried, staring in the faces of the wounded,

or turning the dead upon their backs. They must have thus examined forty

people, and still there was no word of Uncle Joseph. But now the course

of their search brought them near the centre of the collision, where the

boilers were still blowing off steam with a deafening clamour. It was

a part of the field not yet gleaned by the rescuing party. The ground,

especially on the margin of the wood, was full of inequalities--here

a pit, there a hillock surmounted with a bush of furze. It was a place

where many bodies might lie concealed, and they beat it like pointers

after game. Suddenly Morris, who was leading, paused and reached forth

his index with a tragic gesture. John followed the direction of his

brother's hand.

 

In the bottom of a sandy hole lay something that had once been human.

The face had suffered severely, and it was unrecognizable; but that was

not required. The snowy hair, the coat of marten, the ventilating cloth,

the hygienic flannel--everything down to the health boots from Messrs

Dail and Crumbie's, identified the body as that of Uncle Joseph. Only

the forage cap must have been lost in the convulsion, for the dead man

was bareheaded.

 

'The poor old beggar!' said John, with a touch of natural feeling; 'I

would give ten pounds if we hadn't chivvied him in the train!'

 

But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he gazed upon the

dead. Gnawing his nails, with introverted eyes, his brow marked with

the stamp of tragic indignation and tragic intellectual effort, he stood

there silent. Here was a last injustice; he had been robbed while he was

an orphan at school, he had been lashed to a decadent leather business,

he had been saddled with Miss Hazeltine, his cousin had been defrauding

him of the tontine, and he had borne all this, we might almost say, with

dignity, and now they had gone and killed his uncle!

 

'Here!' he said suddenly, 'take his heels, we must get him into the

woods. I'm not going to have anybody find this.'

 

'O, fudge!' said John, 'where's the use?'

 

'Do what I tell you,' spirted Morris, as he took the corpse by the

shoulders. 'Am I to carry him myself?'

 

They were close upon the borders of the wood; in ten or twelve paces

they were under cover; and a little further back, in a sandy clearing of

the trees, they laid their burthen down, and stood and looked at it with

loathing.

 

'What do you mean to do?' whispered John.

 

'Bury him, to be sure,' responded Morris, and he opened his pocket-knife

and began feverishly to dig.

 

'You'll never make a hand of it with that,' objected the other.

 

'If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk,' screamed Morris, 'you can go

to the devil!'

 

'It's the childishest folly,' said John; 'but no man shall call me a

coward,' and he began to help his brother grudgingly.

 

The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the roots of the

surrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands; and as they baled the sand

from the grave, it was often discoloured with their blood. An hour

passed of unremitting energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm help

on that of John; and still the trench was barely nine inches in depth.

Into this the body was rudely flung: sand was piled upon it, and then

more sand must be dug, and gorse had to be cut to pile on that; and

still from one end of the sordid mound a pair of feet projected and

caught the light upon their patent-leather toes. But by this time the

nerves of both were shaken; even Morris had enough of his grisly task;

and they skulked off like animals into the thickest of the neighbouring

covert.

 

'It's the best that we can do,' said Morris, sitting down.

 

'And now,' said John, 'perhaps you'll have the politeness to tell me

what it's all about.'

 

'Upon my word,' cried Morris, 'if you do not understand for yourself, I

almost despair of telling you.'

 

'O, of course it's some rot about the tontine,' returned the other. 'But

it's the merest nonsense. We've lost it, and there's an end.'

 

'I tell you,' said Morris, 'Uncle Masterman is dead. I know it, there's

a voice that tells me so.'

 

'Well, and so is Uncle Joseph,' said John.

 

'He's not dead, unless I choose,' returned Morris.

 

'And come to that,' cried John, 'if you're right, and Uncle Masterman's

been dead ever so long, all we have to do is to tell the truth and

expose Michael.'

 

'You seem to think Michael is a fool,' sneered Morris. 'Can't you

understand he's been preparing this fraud for years? He has the whole

thing ready: the nurse, the doctor, the undertaker, all bought, the

certificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business,

and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be

buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do.

If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for

ever, by God, so shall my uncle!'

 

'It's illegal, ain't it?' said John.

 

'A man must have SOME moral courage,' replied Morris with dignity.

 

'And then suppose you're wrong? Suppose Uncle Masterman's alive and

kicking?'

 

'Well, even then,' responded the plotter, 'we are no worse off than we

were before; in fact, we're better. Uncle Masterman must die some day;

as long as Uncle Joseph was alive, he might have died any day; but we're

out of all that trouble now: there's no sort of limit to the game that I

propose--it can be kept up till Kingdom Come.'

 

'If I could only see how you meant to set about it' sighed John. 'But

you know, Morris, you always were such a bungler.'

 

'I'd like to know what I ever bungled,' cried Morris; 'I have the best

collection of signet rings in London.'

 

'Well, you know, there's the leather business,' suggested the other.

'That's considered rather a hash.'

 

It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris that he suffered this

to pass unchallenged, and even unresented.

 

'About the business in hand,' said he, 'once we can get him up to

Bloomsbury, there's no sort of trouble. We bury him in the cellar, which

seems made for it; and then all I have to do is to start out and find a

venal doctor.'

 

'Why can't we leave him where he is?' asked John.

 

'Because we know nothing about the country,' retorted Morris. 'This wood

may be a regular lovers' walk. Turn your mind to the real difficulty.

How are we to get him up to Bloomsbury?'

 

Various schemes were mooted and rejected. The railway station at

Browndean was, of course, out of the question, for it would now be a

centre of curiosity and gossip, and (of all things) they would be

least able to dispatch a dead body without remark. John feebly proposed

getting an ale-cask and sending it as beer, but the objections to this

course were so overwhelming that Morris scorned to answer. The purchase

of a packing-case seemed equally hopeless, for why should two gentlemen

without baggage of any kind require a packing-case? They would be more

likely to require clean linen.

 

'We are working on wrong lines,' cried Morris at last. 'The thing must

be gone about more carefully. Suppose now,' he added excitedly, speaking

by fits and starts, as if he were thinking aloud, 'suppose we rent

a cottage by the month. A householder can buy a packing-case without

remark. Then suppose we clear the people out today, get the packing-case

tonight, and tomorrow I hire a carriage or a cart that we could

drive ourselves--and take the box, or whatever we get, to Ringwood or

Lyndhurst or somewhere; we could label it "specimens", don't you see?

Johnny, I believe I've hit the nail at last.'

 

'Well, it sounds more feasible,' admitted John.

 

'Of course we must take assumed names,' continued Morris. 'It would

never do to keep our own. What do you say to "Masterman" itself? It

sounds quiet and dignified.'

 

'I will NOT take the name of Masterman,' returned his brother; 'you may,

if you like. I shall call myself Vance--the Great Vance; positively the

last six nights. There's some go in a name like that.'

 

'Vance?' cried Morris. 'Do you think we are playing a pantomime for our

amusement? There was never anybody named Vance who wasn't a music-hall

singer.'

 

'That's the beauty of it,' returned John; 'it gives you some standing at

once. You may call yourself Fortescue till all's blue, and nobody cares;

but to be Vance gives a man a natural nobility.'

 

'But there's lots of other theatrical names,' cried Morris. 'Leybourne,

Irving, Brough, Toole--'

 

'Devil a one will I take!' returned his brother. 'I am going to have my

little lark out of this as well as you.'

 

'Very well,' said Morris, who perceived that John was determined to

carry his point, 'I shall be Robert Vance.'

 

'And I shall be George Vance,' cried John, 'the only original George

Vance! Rally round the only original!'

 

Repairing as well as they were able the disorder of their clothes, the

Finsbury brothers returned to Browndean by a circuitous route in quest

of luncheon and a suitable cottage. It is not always easy to drop at

a moment's notice on a furnished residence in a retired locality; but

fortune presently introduced our adventurers to a deaf carpenter, a man

rich in cottages of the required description, and unaffectedly eager to

supply their wants. The second place they visited, standing, as it did,

about a mile and a half from any neighbours, caused them to exchange a

glance of hope. On a nearer view, the place was not without depressing

features. It stood in a marshy-looking hollow of a heath; tall trees

obscured its windows; the thatch visibly rotted on the rafters; and the

walls were stained with splashes of unwholesome green. The rooms were

small, the ceilings low, the furniture merely nominal; a strange chill

and a haunting smell of damp pervaded the kitchen; and the bedroom

boasted only of one bed.

 

Morris, with a view to cheapening the place, remarked on this defect.

 

'Well,' returned the man; 'if you can't sleep two abed, you'd better

take a villa residence.'

 

'And then,' pursued Morris, 'there's no water. How do you get your

water?'

 

'We fill THAT from the spring,' replied the carpenter, pointing to a big

barrel that stood beside the door. 'The spring ain't so VERY far off,

after all, and it's easy brought in buckets. There's a bucket there.'

 

Morris nudged his brother as they examined the water-butt. It was

new, and very solidly constructed for its office. If anything had been

wanting to decide them, this eminently practical barrel would have

turned the scale. A bargain was promptly struck, the month's rent was

paid upon the nail, and about an hour later the Finsbury brothers might

have been observed returning to the blighted cottage, having along with

them the key, which was the symbol of their tenancy, a spirit-lamp, with

which they fondly told themselves they would be able to cook, a pork pie

of suitable dimensions, and a quart of the worst whisky in Hampshire.

Nor was this all they had effected; already (under the plea that they

were landscape-painters) they had hired for dawn on the morrow a light

but solid two-wheeled cart; so that when they entered in their new

character, they were able to tell themselves that the back of the

business was already broken.

 

John proceeded to get tea; while Morris, foraging about the house, was

presently delighted by discovering the lid of the water-butt upon the

kitchen shelf. Here, then, was the packing-case complete; in the absence

of straw, the blankets (which he himself, at least, had not the smallest

intention of using for their present purpose) would exactly take the

place of packing; and Morris, as the difficulties began to vanish from

his path, rose almost to the brink of exultation. There was, however,

one difficulty not yet faced, one upon which his whole scheme depended.

Would John consent to remain alone in the cottage? He had not yet dared

to put the question.

 

It was with high good-humour that the pair sat down to the deal table,

and proceeded to fall-to on the pork pie. Morris retailed the discovery

of the lid, and the Great Vance was pleased to applaud by beating on the

table with his fork in true music-hall style.

 

'That's the dodge,' he cried. 'I always said a water-butt was what you

wanted for this business.'

 

'Of course,' said Morris, thinking this a favourable opportunity to

prepare his brother, 'of course you must stay on in this place till I

give the word; I'll give out that uncle is resting in the New Forest. It

would not do for both of us to appear in London; we could never conceal

the absence of the old man.'

 

John's jaw dropped.

 

'O, come!' he cried. 'You can stay in this hole yourself. I won't.'

 

The colour came into Morris's cheeks. He saw that he must win his

brother at any cost.

 

'You must please remember, Johnny,' he said, 'the amount of the tontine.

If I succeed, we shall have each fifty thousand to place to our bank

account; ay, and nearer sixty.'

 

'But if you fail,' returned John, 'what then? What'll be the colour of

our bank account in that case?'

 

'I will pay all expenses,' said Morris, with an inward struggle; 'you

shall lose nothing.'

 

'Well,' said John, with a laugh, 'if the ex-s are yours, and

half-profits mine, I don't mind remaining here for a couple of days.'

 

'A couple of days!' cried Morris, who was beginning to get angry and

controlled himself with difficulty; 'why, you would do more to win five

pounds on a horse-race!'

 

'Perhaps I would,' returned the Great Vance; 'it's the artistic

temperament.'

 

'This is monstrous!' burst out Morris. 'I take all risks; I pay all

expenses; I divide profits; and you won't take the slightest pains to

help me. It's not decent; it's not honest; it's not even kind.'

 

'But suppose,' objected John, who was considerably impressed by his

brother's vehemence, 'suppose that Uncle Masterman is alive after all,

and lives ten years longer; must I rot here all that time?'

 

'Of course not,' responded Morris, in a more conciliatory tone; 'I only

ask a month at the outside; and if Uncle Masterman is not dead by that

time you can go abroad.'

 

'Go abroad?' repeated John eagerly. 'Why shouldn't I go at once? Tell

'em that Joseph and I are seeing life in Paris.'

 

'Nonsense,' said Morris.

 

'Well, but look here,' said John; 'it's this house, it's such a pig-sty,

it's so dreary and damp. You said yourself that it was damp.'

 

'Only to the carpenter,' Morris distinguished, 'and that was to reduce

the rent. But really, you know, now we're in it, I've seen worse.'

 

'And what am I to do?' complained the victim. 'How can I entertain a

friend?'

 

'My dear Johnny, if you don't think the tontine worth a little trouble,

say so, and I'll give the business up.'

 

'You're dead certain of the figures, I suppose?' asked John.

'Well'--with a deep sigh--'send me the Pink Un and all the comic papers

regularly. I'll face the music.'

 

As afternoon drew on, the cottage breathed more thrillingly of its

native marsh; a creeping chill inhabited its chambers; the fire smoked,

and a shower of rain, coming up from the channel on a slant of wind,

tingled on the window-panes. At intervals, when the gloom deepened

toward despair, Morris would produce the whisky-bottle, and at first

John welcomed the diversion--not for long. It has been said this spirit

was the worst in Hampshire; only those acquainted with the county can

appreciate the force of that superlative; and at length even the Great

Vance (who was no connoisseur) waved the decoction from his lips. The

approach of dusk, feebly combated with a single tallow candle, added

a touch of tragedy; and John suddenly stopped whistling through his

fingers--an art to the practice of which he had been reduced--and

bitterly lamented his concessions.

 

'I can't stay here a month,' he cried. 'No one could. The thing's

nonsense, Morris. The parties that lived in the Bastille would rise

against a place like this.'

 

With an admirable affectation of indifference, Morris proposed a game

of pitch-and-toss. To what will not the diplomatist condescend! It was

John's favourite game; indeed his only game--he had found all the rest

too intellectual--and he played it with equal skill and good fortune. To

Morris himself, on the other hand, the whole business was detestable;

he was a bad pitcher, he had no luck in tossing, and he was one who

suffered torments when he lost. But John was in a dangerous humour, and

his brother was prepared for any sacrifice.

 

By seven o'clock, Morris, with incredible agony, had lost a couple of

half-crowns. Even with the tontine before his eyes, this was as much as

he could bear; and, remarking that he would take his revenge some other

time, he proposed a bit of supper and a grog.

 

Before they had made an end of this refreshment it was time to be at

work. A bucket of water for present necessities was withdrawn from the

water-butt, which was then emptied and rolled before the kitchen fire to

dry; and the two brothers set forth on their adventure under a starless

heaven.

 

 

 

CHAPTER III. The Lecturer at Large

 

Whether mankind is really partial to happiness is an open question.

Not a month passes by but some cherished son runs off into the merchant

service, or some valued husband decamps to Texas with a lady help;

clergymen have fled from their parishioners; and even judges have been

known to retire. To an open mind, it will appear (upon the whole) less

strange that Joseph Finsbury should have been led to entertain ideas of

escape. His lot (I think we may say) was not a happy one. My friend, Mr

Morris, with whom I travel up twice or thrice a week from Snaresbrook

Park, is certainly a gentleman whom I esteem; but he was scarce a model

nephew. As for John, he is of course an excellent fellow; but if he was

the only link that bound one to a home, I think the most of us would

vote for foreign travel. In the case of Joseph, John (if he were a link

at all) was not the only one; endearing bonds had long enchained the old

gentleman to Bloomsbury; and by these expressions I do not in the least

refer to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, however, he was fond enough), but to

that collection of manuscript notebooks in which his life lay buried.

That he should ever have made up his mind to separate himself from these

collections, and go forth upon the world with no other resources than

his memory supplied, is a circumstance highly pathetic in itself, and

but little creditable to the wisdom of his nephews.

 

The design, or at least the temptation, was already some months old; and

when a bill for eight hundred pounds, payable to himself, was suddenly

placed in Joseph's hand, it brought matters to an issue. He retained

that bill, which, to one of his frugality, meant wealth; and he promised

himself to disappear among the crowds at Waterloo, or (if that should

prove impossible) to slink out of the house in the course of the

evening and melt like a dream into the millions of London. By a peculiar

interposition of Providence and railway mismanagement he had not so long

to wait.

 

He was one of the first to come to himself and scramble to his feet

after the Browndean catastrophe, and he had no sooner remarked his

prostrate nephews than he understood his opportunity and fled. A man of

upwards of seventy, who has just met with a railway accident, and who is

cumbered besides with the full uniform of Sir Faraday Bond, is not

very likely to flee far, but the wood was close at hand and offered the

fugitive at least a temporary covert. Hither, then, the old gentleman

skipped with extraordinary expedition, and, being somewhat winded and

a good deal shaken, here he lay down in a convenient grove and was

presently overwhelmed by slumber. The way of fate is often highly

entertaining to the looker-on, and it is certainly a pleasant

circumstance, that while Morris and John were delving in the sand to

conceal the body of a total stranger, their uncle lay in dreamless sleep

a few hundred yards deeper in the wood.

 

He was awakened by the jolly note of a bugle from the neighbouring high

road, where a char-a-banc was bowling by with some belated tourists. The

sound cheered his old heart, it directed his steps into the bargain, and

soon he was on the highway, looking east and west from under his vizor,

and doubtfully revolving what he ought to do. A deliberate sound of

wheels arose in the distance, and then a cart was seen approaching, well

filled with parcels, driven by a good-natured looking man on a double

bench, and displaying on a board the legend, 'I Chandler, carrier'. In

the infamously prosaic mind of Mr Finsbury, certain streaks of poetry

survived and were still efficient; they had carried him to Asia Minor

as a giddy youth of forty, and now, in the first hours of his recovered

freedom, they suggested to him the idea of continuing his flight in Mr

Chandler's cart. It would be cheap; properly broached, it might even

cost nothing, and, after years of mittens and hygienic flannel, his

heart leaped out to meet the notion of exposure.

 

Mr Chandler was perhaps a little puzzled to find so old a gentleman, so

strangely clothed, and begging for a lift on so retired a roadside.

But he was a good-natured man, glad to do a service, and so he took the

stranger up; and he had his own idea of civility, and so he asked no

questions. Silence, in fact, was quite good enough for Mr Chandler;

but the cart had scarcely begun to move forward ere he found himself

involved in a one-sided conversation.

 

'I can see,' began Mr Finsbury, 'by the mixture of parcels and boxes

that are contained in your cart, each marked with its individual label,

and by the good Flemish mare you drive, that you occupy the post of

carrier in that great English system of transport which, with all its

defects, is the pride of our country.'

 

'Yes, sir,' returned Mr Chandler vaguely, for he hardly knew what to

reply; 'them parcels posts has done us carriers a world of harm.'

'I am not a prejudiced man,' continued Joseph Finsbury. 'As a young

man I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to

acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots

employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples,

I would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of

making candied fruit. I never went to the opera without first buying the

book of the piece, and making myself acquainted with the principal airs

by picking them out on the piano with one finger.'

 

'You must have seen a deal, sir,' remarked the carrier, touching up his

horse; 'I wish I could have had your advantages.'

 

'Do you know how often the word whip occurs in the Old Testament?'

continued the old gentleman. 'One hundred and (if I remember exactly)

forty-seven times.'

 

'Do it indeed, sir?' said Mr Chandler. 'I never should have thought it.'

 

'The Bible contains three million five hundred and one thousand two

hundred and forty-nine letters. Of verses I believe there are upward of

eighteen thousand. There have been many editions of the Bible; Wycliff

was the first to introduce it into England about the year 1300. The

"Paragraph Bible", as it is called, is a well-known edition, and is so

called because it is divided into paragraphs. The "Breeches Bible" is

another well-known instance, and gets its name either because it was

printed by one Breeches, or because the place of publication bore that

name.'

 

The carrier remarked drily that he thought that was only natural, and

turned his attention to the more congenial task of passing a cart of

hay; it was a matter of some difficulty, for the road was narrow, and

there was a ditch on either hand.

 

'I perceive,' began Mr Finsbury, when they had successfully passed the

cart, 'that you hold your reins with one hand; you should employ two.'

 

'Well, I like that!' cried the carrier contemptuously. 'Why?'

 

'You do not understand,' continued Mr Finsbury. 'What I tell you is a

scientific fact, and reposes on the theory of the lever, a branch of

mechanics. There are some very interesting little shilling books upon

the field of study, which I should think a man in your station would

take a pleasure to read. But I am afraid you have not cultivated the art

of observation; at least we have now driven together for some time, and

I cannot remember that you have contributed a single fact. This is a

very false principle, my good man. For instance, I do not know if you

observed that (as you passed the hay-cart man) you took your left?'

 

'Of course I did,' cried the carrier, who was now getting belligerent;

'he'd have the law on me if I hadn't.'

 

'In France, now,' resumed the old man, 'and also, I believe, in the

 

United States of America, you would have taken the right.'

 

'I would not,' cried Mr Chandler indignantly. 'I would have taken the

left.'

 

'I observe again,' continued Mr Finsbury, scorning to reply, 'that you

mend the dilapidated parts of your harness with string. I have always

protested against this carelessness and slovenliness of the English

poor. In an essay that I once read before an appreciative audience--'

 

'It ain't string,' said the carrier sullenly, 'it's pack-thread.'

 

'I have always protested,' resumed the old man, 'that in their private

and domestic life, as well as in their labouring career, the lower

classes of this country are improvident, thriftless, and extravagant. A

stitch in time--'

 

'Who the devil ARE the lower classes?' cried the carrier. 'You are the

lower classes yourself! If I thought you were a blooming aristocrat, I

shouldn't have given you a lift.'

 

The words were uttered with undisguised ill-feeling; it was plain the

pair were not congenial, and further conversation, even to one of Mr

Finsbury's pathetic loquacity, was out of the question. With an angry

gesture, he pulled down the brim of the forage-cap over his eyes,

and, producing a notebook and a blue pencil from one of his innermost

pockets, soon became absorbed in calculations.

 

On his part the carrier fell to whistling with fresh zest; and if (now

and again) he glanced at the companion of his drive, it was with mingled

feelings of triumph and alarm--triumph because he had succeeded in

arresting that prodigy of speech, and alarm lest (by any accident) it

should begin again. Even the shower, which presently overtook and passed

them, was endured by both in silence; and it was still in silence that

they drove at length into Southampton.

 

Dusk had fallen; the shop windows glimmered forth into the streets of

the old seaport; in private houses lights were kindled for the evening

meal; and Mr Finsbury began to think complacently of his night's

lodging. He put his papers by, cleared his throat, and looked doubtfully

at Mr Chandler.

 

'Will you be civil enough,' said he, 'to recommend me to an inn?' Mr

Chandler pondered for a moment.

 

'Well,' he said at last, 'I wonder how about the "Tregonwell Arms".'

 

'The "Tregonwell Arms" will do very well,' returned the old man, 'if

it's clean and cheap, and the people civil.'

 

'I wasn't thinking so much of you,' returned Mr Chandler thoughtfully.

'I was thinking of my friend Watts as keeps the 'ouse; he's a friend of

mine, you see, and he helped me through my trouble last year. And I was

thinking, would it be fair-like on Watts to saddle him with an old party

like you, who might be the death of him with general information. Would

it be fair to the 'ouse?' enquired Mr Chandler, with an air of candid

appeal.

 

'Mark me,' cried the old gentleman with spirit. 'It was kind in you to

bring me here for nothing, but it gives you no right to address me

in such terms. Here's a shilling for your trouble; and, if you do

not choose to set me down at the "Tregonwell Arms", I can find it for

myself.'

 

Chandler was surprised and a little startled; muttering something

apologetic, he returned the shilling, drove in silence through several

intricate lanes and small streets, drew up at length before the bright

windows of an inn, and called loudly for Mr Watts.

 

'Is that you, Jem?' cried a hearty voice from the stableyard. 'Come in

and warm yourself.'

 

'I only stopped here,' Mr Chandler explained, 'to let down an old gent

that wants food and lodging. Mind, I warn you agin him; he's worse nor a

temperance lecturer.'

 

Mr Finsbury dismounted with difficulty, for he was cramped with his long

drive, and the shaking he had received in the accident. The friendly Mr

Watts, in spite of the carter's scarcely agreeable introduction, treated

the old gentleman with the utmost courtesy, and led him into the back

parlour, where there was a big fire burning in the grate. Presently a

table was spread in the same room, and he was invited to seat himself

before a stewed fowl--somewhat the worse for having seen service

before--and a big pewter mug of ale from the tap.

 

He rose from supper a giant refreshed; and, changing his seat to one

nearer the fire, began to examine the other guests with an eye to the

delights of oratory. There were near a dozen present, all men, and (as

Joseph exulted to perceive) all working men. Often already had he seen

cause to bless that appetite for disconnected fact and rotatory argument

which is so marked a character of the mechanic. But even an audience of

working men has to be courted, and there was no man more deeply versed

in the necessary arts than Joseph Finsbury. He placed his glasses on his

nose, drew from his pocket a bundle of papers, and spread them before

him on a table. He crumpled them, he smoothed them out; now he skimmed

them over, apparently well pleased with their contents; now, with

tapping pencil and contracted brows, he seemed maturely to consider some

particular statement. A stealthy glance about the room assured him of

the success of his manoeuvres; all eyes were turned on the performer,

mouths were open, pipes hung suspended; the birds were charmed. At the

same moment the entrance of Mr Watts afforded him an opportunity.

 

'I observe,' said he, addressing the landlord, but taking at the same

time the whole room into his confidence with an encouraging look, 'I

observe that some of these gentlemen are looking with curiosity in

my direction; and certainly it is unusual to see anyone immersed in

literary and scientific labours in the public apartment of an inn. I

have here some calculations I made this morning upon the cost of living

in this and other countries--a subject, I need scarcely say, highly

interesting to the working classes. I have calculated a scale of living

for incomes of eighty, one hundred and sixty, two hundred, and two

hundred and forty pounds a year. I must confess that the income of

eighty pounds has somewhat baffled me, and the others are not so exact

as I could wish; for the price of washing varies largely in foreign

countries, and the different cokes, coals and firewoods fluctuate

surprisingly. I will read my researches, and I hope you won't scruple to

point out to me any little errors that I may have committed either from

oversight or ignorance. I will begin, gentlemen, with the income of

eighty pounds a year.'

 

Whereupon the old gentleman, with less compassion than he would have had

for brute beasts, delivered himself of all his tedious calculations.

As he occasionally gave nine versions of a single income, placing

the imaginary person in London, Paris, Bagdad, Spitzbergen,

Bassorah, Heligoland, the Scilly Islands, Brighton, Cincinnati, and

Nijni-Novgorod, with an appropriate outfit for each locality, it is no

wonder that his hearers look back on that evening as the most tiresome

they ever spent.

 

Long before Mr Finsbury had reached Nijni-Novgorod with the income of

one hundred and sixty pounds, the company had dwindled and faded away to

a few old topers and the bored but affable Watts. There was a constant

stream of customers from the outer world, but so soon as they were

served they drank their liquor quickly and departed with the utmost

celerity for the next public-house.

 

By the time the young man with two hundred a year was vegetating in the

Scilly Islands, Mr Watts was left alone with the economist; and that

imaginary person had scarce commenced life at Brighton before the last

of his pursuers desisted from the chase.

 

Mr Finsbury slept soundly after the manifold fatigues of the day. He

rose late, and, after a good breakfast, ordered the bill. Then it was

that he made a discovery which has been made by many others, both before

and since: that it is one thing to order your bill, and another to

discharge it. The items were moderate and (what does not always follow)

the total small; but, after the most sedulous review of all his pockets,

one and nine pence halfpenny appeared to be the total of the old

gentleman's available assets. He asked to see Mr Watts.

 

'Here is a bill on London for eight hundred pounds,' said Mr Finsbury,

as that worthy appeared. 'I am afraid, unless you choose to discount it

yourself, it may detain me a day or two till I can get it cashed.'

 

Mr Watts looked at the bill, turned it over, and dogs-eared it with his

fingers. 'It will keep you a day or two?' he said, repeating the old

man's words. 'You have no other money with you?'

 

'Some trifling change,' responded Joseph. 'Nothing to speak of.'

 

'Then you can send it me; I should be pleased to trust you.'

 

'To tell the truth,' answered the old gentleman, 'I am more than half

inclined to stay; I am in need of funds.'

 

'If a loan of ten shillings would help you, it is at your service,'

responded Watts, with eagerness.

 

'No, I think I would rather stay,' said the old man, 'and get my bill

discounted.'

 

'You shall not stay in my house,' cried Mr Watts. 'This is the last time

you shall have a bed at the "Tregonwell Arms".'

 

'I insist upon remaining,' replied Mr Finsbury, with spirit; 'I remain

by Act of Parliament; turn me out if you dare.'

 

'Then pay your bill,' said Mr Watts.

 

'Take that,' cried the old man, tossing him the negotiable bill.

 

'It is not legal tender,' replied Mr Watts. 'You must leave my house at

once.'

 

'You cannot appreciate the contempt I feel for you, Mr Watts,' said the

old gentleman, resigning himself to circumstances. 'But you shall feel

it in one way: I refuse to pay my bill.'

 

'I don't care for your bill,' responded Mr Watts. 'What I want is your

absence.'

 

'That you shall have!' said the old gentleman, and, taking up his

forage cap as he spoke, he crammed it on his head. 'Perhaps you are

too insolent,' he added, 'to inform me of the time of the next London

train?'

 

'It leaves in three-quarters of an hour,' returned the innkeeper with

alacrity. 'You can easily catch it.'

 

Joseph's position was one of considerable weakness. On the one hand, it

would have been well to avoid the direct line of railway, since it was

there he might expect his nephews to lie in wait for his recapture; on

the other, it was highly desirable, it was even strictly needful, to get

the bill discounted ere it should be stopped. To London, therefore, he

decided to proceed on the first train; and there remained but one point

to be considered, how to pay his fare.

 

Joseph's nails were never clean; he ate almost entirely with his knife.

I doubt if you could say he had the manners of a gentleman; but he had

better than that, a touch of genuine dignity. Was it from his stay in

Asia Minor? Was it from a strain in the Finsbury blood sometimes

alluded to by customers? At least, when he presented himself before the

station-master, his salaam was truly Oriental, palm-trees appeared to

crowd about the little office, and the simoom or the bulbul--but I leave

this image to persons better acquainted with the East. His appearance,

besides, was highly in his favour; the uniform of Sir Faraday, however

inconvenient and conspicuous, was, at least, a costume in which no

swindler could have hoped to prosper; and the exhibition of a valuable

watch and a bill for eight hundred pounds completed what deportment had

begun. A quarter of an hour later, when the train came up, Mr Finsbury

was introduced to the guard and installed in a first-class compartment,

the station-master smilingly assuming all responsibility.

 

As the old gentleman sat waiting the moment of departure, he was the

witness of an incident strangely connected with the fortunes of his

house. A packing-case of cyclopean bulk was borne along the platform

by some dozen of tottering porters, and ultimately, to the delight of a

considerable crowd, hoisted on board the van. It is often the cheering

task of the historian to direct attention to the designs and (if it may

be reverently said) the artifices of Providence. In the luggage van, as

Joseph was borne out of the station of Southampton East upon his way

to London, the egg of his romance lay (so to speak) unhatched. The

huge packing-case was directed to lie at Waterloo till called for, and

addressed to one 'William Dent Pitman'; and the very next article,

a goodly barrel jammed into the corner of the van, bore the

superscription, 'M. Finsbury, 16 John Street, Bloomsbury. Carriage

paid.'

 

In this juxtaposition, the train of powder was prepared; and there was

now wanting only an idle hand to fire it off.

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV. The Magistrate in the Luggage Van

 

The city of Winchester is famed for a cathedral, a bishop--but he was

unfortunately killed some years ago while riding--a public school, a

considerable assortment of the military, and the deliberate passage of

the trains of the London and South-Western line. These and many

similar associations would have doubtless crowded on the mind of Joseph

Finsbury; but his spirit had at that time flitted from the railway

compartment to a heaven of populous lecture-halls and endless oratory.

His body, in the meanwhile, lay doubled on the cushions, the forage-cap

rakishly tilted back after the fashion of those that lie in wait for

nursery-maids, the poor old face quiescent, one arm clutching to his

heart Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper.

 

To him, thus unconscious, enter and exeunt again a pair of voyagers.

These two had saved the train and no more. A tandem urged to its last

speed, an act of something closely bordering on brigandage at the ticket

office, and a spasm of running, had brought them on the platform just

as the engine uttered its departing snort. There was but one carriage

easily within their reach; and they had sprung into it, and the leader

and elder already had his feet upon the floor, when he observed Mr

Finsbury.

 

'Good God!' he cried. 'Uncle Joseph! This'll never do.'

 

And he backed out, almost upsetting his companion, and once more closed

the door upon the sleeping patriarch.

 

The next moment the pair had jumped into the baggage van.

 

'What's the row about your Uncle Joseph?' enquired the younger

traveller, mopping his brow. 'Does he object to smoking?'

 

'I don't know that there's anything the row with him,' returned the

other. 'He's by no means the first comer, my Uncle Joseph, I can tell

you! Very respectable old gentleman; interested in leather; been to Asia

Minor; no family, no assets--and a tongue, my dear Wickham, sharper than

a serpent's tooth.'

 

'Cantankerous old party, eh?' suggested Wickham.

 

'Not in the least,' cried the other; 'only a man with a solid talent

for being a bore; rather cheery I dare say, on a desert island, but on

a railway journey insupportable. You should hear him on Tonti, the ass

that started tontines. He's incredible on Tonti.'

 

'By Jove!' cried Wickham, 'then you're one of these Finsbury tontine

fellows. I hadn't a guess of that.'

 

'Ah!' said the other, 'do you know that old boy in the carriage is worth

a hundred thousand pounds to me? There he was asleep, and nobody there

but you! But I spared him, because I'm a Conservative in politics.'

 

Mr Wickham, pleased to be in a luggage van, was flitting to and fro like

a gentlemanly butterfly.

 

'By Jingo!' he cried, 'here's something for you! "M. Finsbury, 16 John

Street, Bloomsbury, London." M. stands for Michael, you sly dog; you

keep two establishments, do you?'

 

'O, that's Morris,' responded Michael from the other end of the van,

where he had found a comfortable seat upon some sacks. 'He's a little

cousin of mine. I like him myself, because he's afraid of me. He's

one of the ornaments of Bloomsbury, and has a collection of some

kind--birds' eggs or something that's supposed to be curious. I bet it's

nothing to my clients!'

 

'What a lark it would be to play billy with the labels!' chuckled Mr

Wickham. 'By George, here's a tack-hammer! We might send all these

things skipping about the premises like what's-his-name!'

 

At this moment, the guard, surprised by the sound of voices, opened the

door of his little cabin.

 

'You had best step in here, gentlemen,' said he, when he had heard their

story.

 

'Won't you come, Wickham?' asked Michael.

 

'Catch me--I want to travel in a van,' replied the youth.

 

And so the door of communication was closed; and for the rest of the run

Mr Wickham was left alone over his diversions on the one side, and on

the other Michael and the guard were closeted together in familiar talk.

 

'I can get you a compartment here, sir,' observed the official, as the

train began to slacken speed before Bishopstoke station. 'You had best

get out at my door, and I can bring your friend.'

 

Mr Wickham, whom we left (as the reader has shrewdly suspected)

beginning to 'play billy' with the labels in the van, was a young

gentleman of much wealth, a pleasing but sandy exterior, and a highly

vacant mind. Not many months before, he had contrived to get himself

blackmailed by the family of a Wallachian Hospodar, resident for

political reasons in the gay city of Paris. A common friend (to whom he

had confided his distress) recommended him to Michael; and the lawyer

was no sooner in possession of the facts than he instantly assumed

the offensive, fell on the flank of the Wallachian forces, and, in the

inside of three days, had the satisfaction to behold them routed and

fleeing for the Danube. It is no business of ours to follow them on

this retreat, over which the police were so obliging as to preside

paternally. Thus relieved from what he loved to refer to as the

Bulgarian Atrocity, Mr Wickham returned to London with the most

unbounded and embarrassing gratitude and admiration for his saviour.

These sentiments were not repaid either in kind or degree; indeed,

Michael was a trifle ashamed of his new client's friendship; it had

taken many invitations to get him to Winchester and Wickham Manor; but

he had gone at last, and was now returning. It has been remarked by some

judicious thinker (possibly J. F. Smith) that Providence despises to

employ no instrument, however humble; and it is now plain to the dullest

that both Mr Wickham and the Wallachian Hospodar were liquid lead and

wedges in the hand of Destiny.

 

Smitten with the desire to shine in Michael's eyes and show himself a

person of original humour and resources, the young gentleman (who was a

magistrate, more by token, in his native county) was no sooner alone in

the van than he fell upon the labels with all the zeal of a reformer;

and, when he rejoined the lawyer at Bishopstoke, his face was flushed

with his exertions, and his cigar, which he had suffered to go out was

almost bitten in two.

 

'By George, but this has been a lark!' he cried. 'I've sent the

wrong thing to everybody in England. These cousins of yours have a

packing-case as big as a house. I've muddled the whole business up to

that extent, Finsbury, that if it were to get out it's my belief we

should get lynched.'

 

It was useless to be serious with Mr Wickham. 'Take care,' said

Michael. 'I am getting tired of your perpetual scrapes; my reputation is

beginning to suffer.'

 

'Your reputation will be all gone before you finish with me,' replied

his companion with a grin. 'Clap it in the bill, my boy. "For total loss

of reputation, six and eightpence." But,' continued Mr Wickham with more

seriousness, 'could I be bowled out of the Commission for this

little jest? I know it's small, but I like to be a JP. Speaking as a

professional man, do you think there's any risk?'

 

'What does it matter?' responded Michael, 'they'll chuck you out sooner

or later. Somehow you don't give the effect of being a good magistrate.'

 

'I only wish I was a solicitor,' retorted his companion, 'instead of a

poor devil of a country gentleman. Suppose we start one of those tontine

affairs ourselves; I to pay five hundred a year, and you to guarantee me

against every misfortune except illness or marriage.'

 

'It strikes me,' remarked the lawyer with a meditative laugh, as he

lighted a cigar, 'it strikes me that you must be a cursed nuisance in

this world of ours.'

 

'Do you really think so, Finsbury?' responded the magistrate, leaning

back in his cushions, delighted with the compliment. 'Yes, I suppose

I am a nuisance. But, mind you, I have a stake in the country: don't

forget that, dear boy.'

 

 

 

CHAPTER V.  Mr Gideon Forsyth and the Gigantic Box

 

It has been mentioned that at Bournemouth Julia sometimes made

acquaintances; it is true she had but a glimpse of them before the

doors of John Street closed again upon its captives, but the glimpse

was sometimes exhilarating, and the consequent regret was tempered

with hope. Among those whom she had thus met a year before was a young

barrister of the name of Gideon Forsyth.

 

About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magistrate tampered

with the labels, a somewhat moody and distempered ramble had carried

Mr Forsyth to the corner of John Street; and about the same moment Miss

Hazeltine was called to the door of No. 16 by a thundering double knock.

 

Mr Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man; he would have been

happier if he had had more money and less uncle. One hundred and

twenty pounds a year was all his store; but his uncle, Mr Edward Hugh

Bloomfield, supplemented this with a handsome allowance and a great

deal of advice, couched in language that would probably have been judged

intemperate on board a pirate ship. Mr Bloomfield was indeed a figure

quite peculiar to the days of Mr Gladstone; what we may call (for the

lack of an accepted expression) a Squirradical. Having acquired years

without experience, he carried into the Radical side of politics those

noisy, after-dinner-table passions, which we are more accustomed to

connect with Toryism in its severe and senile aspects. To the opinions

of Mr Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the temper and the sympathies of that

extinct animal, the Squire; he admired pugilism, he carried a formidable

oaken staff, he was a reverent churchman, and it was hard to know which

would have more volcanically stirred his choler--a person who should

have defended the established church, or one who should have neglected

to attend its celebrations. He had besides some levelling catchwords,

justly dreaded in the family circle; and when he could not go so far

as to declare a step un-English, he might still (and with hardly less

effect) denounce it as unpractical. It was under the ban of this lesser

excommunication that Gideon had fallen. His views on the study of law

had been pronounced unpractical; and it had been intimated to him, in

a vociferous interview punctuated with the oaken staff, that he must

either take a new start and get a brief or two, or prepare to live on

his own money.

 

No wonder if Gideon was moody. He had not the slightest wish to modify

his present habits; but he would not stand on that, since the recall of

Mr Bloomfield's allowance would revolutionize them still more radically.

He had not the least desire to acquaint himself with law; he had looked

into it already, and it seemed not to repay attention; but upon this

also he was ready to give way. In fact, he would go as far as he could

to meet the views of his uncle, the Squirradical. But there was one part

of the programme that appeared independent of his will. How to get

a brief? there was the question. And there was another and a worse.

Suppose he got one, should he prove the better man?

 

Suddenly he found his way barred by a crowd. A garishly illuminated van

was backed against the kerb; from its open stern, half resting on the

street, half supported by some glistening athletes, the end of the

largest packing-case in the county of Middlesex might have been seen

protruding; while, on the steps of the house, the burly person of

the driver and the slim figure of a young girl stood as upon a stage,

disputing.

 

'It is not for us,' the girl was saying. 'I beg you to take it away; it

couldn't get into the house, even if you managed to get it out of the

van.'

 

'I shall leave it on the pavement, then, and M. Finsbury can arrange

with the Vestry as he likes,' said the vanman.

 

'But I am not M. Finsbury,' expostulated the girl.

 

'It doesn't matter who you are,' said the vanman.

 

'You must allow me to help you, Miss Hazeltine,' said Gideon, putting

out his hand.

 

Julia gave a little cry of pleasure. 'O, Mr Forsyth,' she cried, 'I am

so glad to see you; we must get this horrid thing, which can only have

come here by mistake, into the house. The man says we'll have to take

off the door, or knock two of our windows into one, or be fined by

the Vestry or Custom House or something for leaving our parcels on the

pavement.'

 

The men by this time had successfully removed the box from the van, had

plumped it down on the pavement, and now stood leaning against it, or

gazing at the door of No. 16, in visible physical distress and mental

embarrassment. The windows of the whole street had filled, as if by

magic, with interested and entertained spectators.

 

With as thoughtful and scientific an expression as he could assume,

Gideon measured the doorway with his cane, while Julia entered his

observations in a drawing-book. He then measured the box, and, upon

comparing his data, found that there was just enough space for it to

enter. Next, throwing off his coat and waistcoat, he assisted the men to

take the door from its hinges. And lastly, all bystanders being pressed

into the service, the packing-case mounted the steps upon some

fifteen pairs of wavering legs--scraped, loudly grinding, through the

doorway--and was deposited at length, with a formidable convulsion, in

the far end of the lobby, which it almost blocked. The artisans of this

victory smiled upon each other as the dust subsided. It was true they

had smashed a bust of Apollo and ploughed the wall into deep ruts; but,

at least, they were no longer one of the public spectacles of London.

 

'Well, sir,' said the vanman, 'I never see such a job.'

 

Gideon eloquently expressed his concurrence in this sentiment by

pressing a couple of sovereigns in the man's hand.

 

'Make it three, sir, and I'll stand Sam to everybody here!' cried the

latter, and, this having been done, the whole body of volunteer porters

swarmed into the van, which drove off in the direction of the nearest

reliable public-house. Gideon closed the door on their departure, and

turned to Julia; their eyes met; the most uncontrollable mirth seized

upon them both, and they made the house ring with their laughter. Then

curiosity awoke in Julia's mind, and she went and examined the box, and

more especially the label.

 

'This is the strangest thing that ever happened,' she said, with another

burst of laughter. 'It is certainly Morris's handwriting, and I had a

letter from him only this morning, telling me to expect a barrel. Is

there a barrel coming too, do you think, Mr Forsyth?'

 

"'Statuary with Care, Fragile,'" read Gideon aloud from the painted

warning on the box. 'Then you were told nothing about this?'

 

'No,' responded Julia. 'O, Mr Forsyth, don't you think we might take a

peep at it?'

 

'Yes, indeed,' cried Gideon. 'Just let me have a hammer.'

 

'Come down, and I'll show you where it is,' cried Julia. 'The shelf is

too high for me to reach'; and, opening the door of the kitchen stair,

she bade Gideon follow her. They found both the hammer and a chisel;

but Gideon was surprised to see no sign of a servant. He also discovered

that Miss Hazeltine had a very pretty little foot and ankle; and the

discovery embarrassed him so much that he was glad to fall at once upon

the packing-case.

 

He worked hard and earnestly, and dealt his blows with the precision

of a blacksmith; Julia the while standing silently by his side, and

regarding rather the workman than the work. He was a handsome fellow;

she told herself she had never seen such beautiful arms. And suddenly,

as though he had overheard these thoughts, Gideon turned and smiled to

her. She, too, smiled and coloured; and the double change became her

so prettily that Gideon forgot to turn away his eyes, and, swinging the

hammer with a will, discharged a smashing blow on his own knuckles. With

admirable presence of mind he crushed down an oath and substituted the

harmless comment, 'Butter fingers!' But the pain was sharp, his nerve

was shaken, and after an abortive trial he found he must desist from

further operations.

 

In a moment Julia was off to the pantry; in a moment she was back again

with a basin of water and a sponge, and had begun to bathe his wounded

hand.

 

'I am dreadfully sorry!' said Gideon apologetically. 'If I had had

any manners I should have opened the box first and smashed my hand

afterward. It feels much better,' he added. 'I assure you it does.'

 

'And now I think you are well enough to direct operations,' said she.

'Tell me what to do, and I'll be your workman.'

 

'A very pretty workman,' said Gideon, rather forgetting himself.

She turned and looked at him, with a suspicion of a frown; and

the indiscreet young man was glad to direct her attention to the

packing-case. The bulk of the work had been accomplished; and presently

Julia had burst through the last barrier and disclosed a zone of straw.

in a moment they were kneeling side by side, engaged like haymakers; the

next they were rewarded with a glimpse of something white and polished;

and the next again laid bare an unmistakable marble leg.

 

'He is surely a very athletic person,' said Julia.

 

'I never saw anything like it,' responded Gideon. 'His muscles stand out

like penny rolls.'

 

Another leg was soon disclosed, and then what seemed to be a third. This

resolved itself, however, into a knotted club resting upon a pedestal.

 

'It is a Hercules,' cried Gideon; 'I might have guessed that from his

calf. I'm supposed to be rather partial to statuary, but when it comes

to Hercules, the police should interfere. I should say,' he added,

glancing with disaffection at the swollen leg, 'that this was about the

biggest and the worst in Europe. What in heaven's name can have induced

him to come here?'

 

'I suppose nobody else would have a gift of him,' said Julia. 'And for

that matter, I think we could have done without the monster very well.'

 

'O, don't say that,' returned Gideon. 'This has been one of the most

amusing experiences of my life.'

 

'I don't think you'll forget it very soon,' said Julia. 'Your hand will

remind you.'

 

'Well, I suppose I must be going,' said Gideon reluctantly. 'No,'

pleaded Julia. 'Why should you? Stay and have tea with me.'

 

'If I thought you really wished me to stay,' said Gideon, looking at his

hat, 'of course I should only be too delighted.'

 

'What a silly person you must take me for!' returned the girl. 'Why, of

course I do; and, besides, I want some cakes for tea, and I've nobody to

send. Here is the latchkey.'

 

Gideon put on his hat with alacrity, and casting one look at Miss

Hazeltine, and another at the legs of Hercules, threw open the door and

departed on his errand.

 

He returned with a large bag of the choicest and most tempting of cakes

and tartlets, and found Julia in the act of spreading a small tea-table

in the lobby.

 

'The rooms are all in such a state,' she cried, 'that I thought we

should be more cosy and comfortable in our own lobby, and under our own

vine and statuary.'

 

'Ever so much better,' cried Gideon delightedly.

 

'O what adorable cream tarts!' said Julia, opening the bag, 'and the

dearest little cherry tartlets, with all the cherries spilled out into

the cream!'

 

'Yes,' said Gideon, concealing his dismay, 'I knew they would mix

beautifully; the woman behind the counter told me so.'

 

'Now,' said Julia, as they began their little festival, 'I am going

to show you Morris's letter; read it aloud, please; perhaps there's

something I have missed.'

 

Gideon took the letter, and spreading it out on his knee, read as

follows:

 

 

DEAR JULIA, I write you from Browndean, where we are stopping over for

a few days. Uncle was much shaken in that dreadful accident, of which,

I dare say, you have seen the account. Tomorrow I leave him here with

John, and come up alone; but before that, you will have received a

barrel CONTAINING SPECIMENS FOR A FRIEND. Do not open it on any account,

but leave it in the lobby till I come.

 

Yours in haste,

 

M. FINSBURY.

 

P.S.--Be sure and leave the barrel in the lobby.

 

 

'No,' said Gideon, 'there seems to be nothing about the monument,'

and he nodded, as he spoke, at the marble legs. 'Miss Hazeltine,' he

continued, 'would you mind me asking a few questions?'

 

'Certainly not,' replied Julia; 'and if you can make me understand why

Morris has sent a statue of Hercules instead of a barrel containing

specimens for a friend, I shall be grateful till my dying day. And what

are specimens for a friend?'

 

'I haven't a guess,' said Gideon. 'Specimens are usually bits of stone,

but rather smaller than our friend the monument. Still, that is not the

point. Are you quite alone in this big house?'

 

'Yes, I am at present,' returned Julia. 'I came up before them to

prepare the house, and get another servant. But I couldn't get one I

liked.'

 

'Then you are utterly alone,' said Gideon in amazement. 'Are you not

afraid?'

 

'No,' responded Julia stoutly. 'I don't see why I should be more afraid

than you would be; I am weaker, of course, but when I found I must sleep

alone in the house I bought a revolver wonderfully cheap, and made the

man show me how to use it.'

 

'And how do you use it?' demanded Gideon, much amused at her courage.

 

'Why,' said she, with a smile, 'you pull the little trigger thing on

top, and then pointing it very low, for it springs up as you fire, you

pull the underneath little trigger thing, and it goes off as well as if

a man had done it.'

 

'And how often have you used it?' asked Gideon.

 

'O, I have not used it yet,' said the determined young lady; 'but I

know how, and that makes me wonderfully courageous, especially when I

barricade my door with a chest of drawers.'

 

'I'm awfully glad they are coming back soon,' said Gideon. 'This

business strikes me as excessively unsafe; if it goes on much longer,

I could provide you with a maiden aunt of mine, or my landlady if you

preferred.'

 

'Lend me an aunt!' cried Julia. 'O, what generosity! I begin to think it

must have been you that sent the Hercules.'

 

'Believe me,' cried the young man, 'I admire you too much to send you

such an infamous work of art..'

 

Julia was beginning to reply, when they were both startled by a knocking

at the door.

 

'O, Mr Forsyth!'

 

'Don't be afraid, my dear girl,' said Gideon, laying his hand tenderly

on her arm.

 

'I know it's the police,' she whispered. 'They are coming to complain

about the statue.'

 

The knock was repeated. It was louder than before, and more impatient.

 

'It's Morris,' cried Julia, in a startled voice, and she ran to the door

and opened it.

 

It was indeed Morris that stood before them; not the Morris of ordinary

days, but a wild-looking fellow, pale and haggard, with bloodshot eyes,

and a two-days' beard upon his chin.

 

'The barrel!' he cried. 'Where's the barrel that came this morning?'

And he stared about the lobby, his eyes, as they fell upon the legs of

Hercules, literally goggling in his head. 'What is that?' he screamed.

'What is that waxwork? Speak, you fool! What is that? And where's the

barrel--the water-butt?'

 

'No barrel came, Morris,' responded Julia coldly. 'This is the only

thing that has arrived.'

 

'This!' shrieked the miserable man. 'I never heard of it!'

 

'It came addressed in your hand,' replied Julia; 'we had nearly to pull

the house down to get it in, that is all that I can tell you.'

 

Morris gazed at her in utter bewilderment. He passed his hand over his

forehead; he leaned against the wall like a man about to faint. Then his

tongue was loosed, and he overwhelmed the girl with torrents of abuse.

Such fire, such directness, such a choice of ungentlemanly language,

none had ever before suspected Morris to possess; and the girl trembled

and shrank before his fury.

 

'You shall not speak to Miss Hazeltine in that way,' said Gideon

sternly. 'It is what I will not suffer.'

 

'I shall speak to the girl as I like,' returned Morris, with a fresh

outburst of anger. 'I'll speak to the hussy as she deserves.'

 

'Not a word more, sir, not one word,' cried Gideon. 'Miss Hazeltine,' he

continued, addressing the young girl, 'you cannot stay a moment longer

in the same house with this unmanly fellow. Here is my arm; let me take

you where you will be secure from insult.'

 

'Mr Forsyth,' returned Julia, 'you are right; I cannot stay here longer,

and I am sure I trust myself to an honourable gentleman.'

 

Pale and resolute, Gideon offered her his arm, and the pair descended

the steps, followed by Morris clamouring for the latchkey.

 

Julia had scarcely handed the key to Morris before an empty hansom drove

smartly into John Street. It was hailed by both men, and as the cabman

drew up his restive horse, Morris made a dash into the vehicle.

 

'Sixpence above fare,' he cried recklessly. 'Waterloo Station for your

life. Sixpence for yourself!'

 

'Make it a shilling, guv'ner,' said the man, with a grin; 'the other

parties were first.'

 

'A shilling then,' cried Morris, with the inward reflection that he

would reconsider it at Waterloo. The man whipped up his horse, and the

hansom vanished from John Street.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI. The Tribulations of Morris: Part the First

 

As the hansom span through the streets of London, Morris sought to

rally the forces of his mind. The water-butt with the dead body had

miscarried, and it was essential to recover it. So much was clear; and

if, by some blest good fortune, it was still at the station, all might

be well. If it had been sent out, however, if it were already in the

hands of some wrong person, matters looked more ominous. People who

receive unexplained packages are usually keen to have them open; the

example of Miss Hazeltine (whom he cursed again) was there to remind him

of the circumstance; and if anyone had opened the water-butt--'O Lord!'

cried Morris at the thought, and carried his hand to his damp forehead.

The private conception of any breach of law is apt to be inspiriting,

for the scheme (while yet inchoate) wears dashing and attractive

colours. Not so in the least that part of the criminal's later

reflections which deal with the police. That useful corps (as Morris

now began to think) had scarce been kept sufficiently in view when

he embarked upon his enterprise. 'I must play devilish close,' he

reflected, and he was aware of an exquisite thrill of fear in the region

of the spine.

 

'Main line or loop?' enquired the cabman, through the scuttle.

                                              

'Main line,' replied Morris, and mentally decided that the man should

have his shilling after all. 'It would be madness to attract attention,'

thought he. 'But what this thing will cost me, first and last, begins to

be a nightmare!'

 

He passed through the booking-office and wandered disconsolately on the

platform. It was a breathing-space in the day's traffic. There were

few people there, and these for the most part quiescent on the benches.

Morris seemed to attract no remark, which was a good thing; but, on the

other hand, he was making no progress in his quest. Something must be

done, something must be risked. Every passing instant only added to his

dangers. Summoning all his courage, he stopped a porter, and asked him

if he remembered receiving a barrel by the morning train. He was anxious

to get information, for the barrel belonged to a friend. 'It is a matter

of some moment,' he added, 'for it contains specimens.'

 

'I was not here this morning, sir,' responded the porter, somewhat

reluctantly, 'but I'll ask Bill. Do you recollect, Bill, to have got a

barrel from Bournemouth this morning containing specimens?'

 

'I don't know about specimens,' replied Bill; 'but the party as received

the barrel I mean raised a sight of trouble.'

 

'What's that?' cried Morris, in the agitation of the moment pressing a

penny into the man's hand.

 

'You see, sir, the barrel arrived at one-thirty. No one claimed it till

about three, when a small, sickly--looking gentleman (probably a curate)

came up, and sez he, "Have you got anything for Pitman?" or "Wili'm Bent

Pitman," if I recollect right. "I don't exactly know," sez I, "but I

rather fancy that there barrel bears that name." The little man went

up to the barrel, and seemed regularly all took aback when he saw the

address, and then he pitched into us for not having brought what he

wanted. "I don't care a damn what you want," sez I to him, "but if you

are Will'm Bent Pitman, there's your barrel."'

 

'Well, and did he take it?' cried the breathless Morris.

 

'Well, sir,' returned Bill, 'it appears it was a packing-case he was

after. The packing-case came; that's sure enough, because it was about

the biggest packing-case ever I clapped eyes on. And this Pitman he

seemed a good deal cut up, and he had the superintendent out, and

they got hold of the vanman--him as took the packing-case. Well, sir,'

continued Bill, with a smile, 'I never see a man in such a state.

Everybody about that van was mortal, bar the horses. Some gen'leman (as

well as I could make out) had given the vanman a sov.; and so that was

where the trouble come in, you see.'

 

'But what did he say?' gasped Morris.

 

'I don't know as he SAID much, sir,' said Bill. 'But he offered to

fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. He had lost his book, too, and the

receipts, and his men were all as mortal as himself. O, they were all

like'--and Bill paused for a simile--'like lords! The superintendent

sacked them on the spot.'

 

'O, come, but that's not so bad,' said Morris, with a bursting sigh. 'He

couldn't tell where he took the packing-case, then?'

 

'Not he,' said Bill, 'nor yet nothink else.'

 

'And what--what did Pitman do?' asked Morris.

 

'O, he went off with the barrel in a four-wheeler, very trembling like,'

replied Bill. 'I don't believe he's a gentleman as has good health.'

 

'Well, so the barrel's gone,' said Morris, half to himself.

 

'You may depend on that, sir,' returned the porter. 'But you had better

see the superintendent.'

 

'Not in the least; it's of no account,' said Morris. 'It only contained

specimens.' And he walked hastily away.

 

Ensconced once more in a hansom, he proceeded to reconsider his

position. Suppose (he thought), suppose he should accept defeat and

declare his uncle's death at once? He should lose the tontine, and with

that the last hope of his seven thousand eight hundred pounds. But on

the other hand, since the shilling to the hansom cabman, he had begun to

see that crime was expensive in its course, and, since the loss of the

water-butt, that it was uncertain in its consequences. Quietly at first,

and then with growing heat, he reviewed the advantages of backing out.

It involved a loss; but (come to think of it) no such great loss after

all; only that of the tontine, which had been always a toss-up, which

at bottom he had never really expected. He reminded himself of that

eagerly; he congratulated himself upon his constant moderation. He had

never really expected the tontine; he had never even very definitely

hoped to recover his seven thousand eight hundred pounds; he had been

hurried into the whole thing by Michael's obvious dishonesty. Yes, it

would probably be better to draw back from this high-flying venture,

settle back on the leather business--

 

'Great God!' cried Morris, bounding in the hansom like a Jack-in-a-box.

'I have not only not gained the tontine--I have lost the leather

business!'

 

Such was the monstrous fact. He had no power to sign; he could not draw

a cheque for thirty shillings. Until he could produce legal evidence

of his uncle's death, he was a penniless outcast--and as soon as he

produced it he had lost the tontine! There was no hesitation on the part

of Morris; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, to concentrate

all his forces on the leather business and the rest of his small but

legitimate inheritance, was the decision of a single instant. And the

next, the full extent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him.

Declare his uncle's death? He couldn't! Since the body was lost Joseph

had (in a legal sense) become immortal.

 

There was no created vehicle big enough to contain Morris and his woes.

He paid the hansom off and walked on he knew not whither.

 

'I seem to have gone into this business with too much precipitation,'

he reflected, with a deadly sigh. 'I fear it seems too ramified for a

person of my powers of mind.'

 

And then a remark of his uncle's flashed into his memory: If you want to

think clearly, put it all down on paper. 'Well, the old boy knew a thing

or two,' said Morris. 'I will try; but I don't believe the paper was

ever made that will clear my mind.'

 

He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered bread and cheese,

and writing materials, and sat down before them heavily. He tried the

pen. It was an excellent pen, but what was he to write? 'I have it,'

cried Morris. 'Robinson Crusoe and the double columns!' He prepared his

paper after that classic model, and began as follows:

 

     Bad. ---- Good.

 

     1. I have lost my uncle's body.

 

     1. But then Pitman has found it.

 

'Stop a bit,' said Morris. 'I am letting the spirit of antithesis run

away with me. Let's start again.'

 

     Bad. ---- Good.

 

     1. I have lost my uncle's body.

 

     1. But then I no longer require to bury it.

 

 

     2. I have lost the tontine.

 

     2.But I may still save that if Pitman disposes of the body, and

     if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.

 

 

     3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's

     succession.

 

     3. But not if Pitman gives the body up to the police.

 

'O, but in that case I go to gaol; I had forgot that,' thought Morris.

'Indeed, I don't know that I had better dwell on that hypothesis at all;

it's all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this

kind a man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No.

3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must

be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business?

And--by George, I have it!' he exclaimed; 'it's exactly the same as the

last!' And he hastily re-wrote the passage:

 

     Bad. ---- Good.

 

     3. I have lost the leather business and the rest of my uncle's

     succession.

 

     3. But not if I can find a physician who will stick at nothing.

 

'This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum,' he reflected. 'I want him

first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get

the leather business; and then that he's alive--but here we are again at

the incompatible interests!' And he returned to his tabulation:

 

     Bad. ---- Good.

 

     4. I have almost no money.

 

     4. But there is plenty in the bank.

 

 

     5. Yes, but I can't get the money in the bank.

 

     5. But--well, that seems unhappily to be the case.

 

 

     6. I have left the bill for eight hundred pounds in Uncle

     Joseph's pocket.

 

     6. But if Pitman is only a dishonest man, the presence of this

     bill may lead him to keep the whole thing dark and throw the body

     into the New Cut.

 

 

     7. Yes, but if Pitman is dishonest and finds the bill, he will

     know who Joseph is, and he may blackmail me.

 

     7. Yes, but if I am right about Uncle Masterman, I can blackmail

     Michael.

 

 

     8. But I can't blackmail Michael (which is, besides, a very

     dangerous thing to do) until I find out.

 

     8. Worse luck!

 

 

     9. The leather business will soon want money for current

     expenses, and I have none to give.

 

     9. But the leather business is a sinking ship.

 

 

     10. Yes, but it's all the ship I have.

 

     10. A fact.

 

 

     11. John will soon want money, and I have none to give.

 

     11.

 

 

     12. And the venal doctor will want money down.

 

     12.

 

 

     13. And if Pitman is dishonest and don't send me to gaol, he will

     want a fortune.

 

     13.

 

'O, this seems to be a very one-sided business,' exclaimed Morris.

'There's not so much in this method as I was led to think.' He crumpled

the paper up and threw it down; and then, the next moment, picked it

up again and ran it over. 'It seems it's on the financial point that

my position is weakest,' he reflected. 'Is there positively no way of

raising the wind? In a vast city like this, and surrounded by all the

resources of civilization, it seems not to be conceived! Let us have

no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? My collection of

signet--' But at the thought of scattering these loved treasures the

blood leaped into Morris's check. 'I would rather die!' he exclaimed,

and, cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into the streets.

 

'I MUST raise funds,' he thought. 'My uncle being dead, the money in

the bank is mine, or would be mine but for the cursed injustice that has

pursued me ever since I was an orphan in a commercial academy. I know

what any other man would do; any other man in Christendom would forge;

although I don't know why I call it forging, either, when Joseph's dead,

and the funds are my own. When I think of that, when I think that my

uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I can't prove it, my gorge

rises at the injustice of the whole affair. I used to feel bitterly

about that seven thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now!

Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was comparatively happy.'

 

And Morris stood on the sidewalk and heaved another sobbing sigh.

 

'Then there's another thing,' he resumed; 'can I? Am I able? Why didn't

I practise different handwritings while I was young? How a fellow

regrets those lost opportunities when he grows up! But there's

one comfort: it's not morally wrong; I can try it on with a

clear conscience, and even if I was found out, I wouldn't greatly

care--morally, I mean. And then, if I succeed, and if Pitman is staunch,

there's nothing to do but find a venal doctor; and that ought to be

simple enough in a place like London. By all accounts the town's

alive with them. It wouldn't do, of course, to advertise for a corrupt

physician; that would be impolitic. No, I suppose a fellow has simply to

spot along the streets for a red lamp and herbs in the window, and

then you go in and--and--and put it to him plainly; though it seems a

delicate step.'

 

He was near home now, after many devious wanderings, and turned up

John Street. As he thrust his latchkey in the lock, another mortifying

reflection struck him to the heart.

 

'Not even this house is mine till I can prove him dead,' he snarled, and

slammed the door behind him so that the windows in the attic rattled.

 

Night had long fallen; long ago the lamps and the shop-fronts had begun

to glitter down the endless streets; the lobby was pitch--dark; and, as

the devil would have it, Morris barked his shins and sprawled all his

length over the pedestal of Hercules. The pain was sharp; his temper was

already thoroughly undermined; by a last misfortune his hand closed on

the hammer as he fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned

and struck at the offending statue. There was a splintering crash.

 

'O Lord, what have I done next?' wailed Morris; and he groped his way

to find a candle. 'Yes,' he reflected, as he stood with the light in

his hand and looked upon the mutilated leg, from which about a pound of

muscle was detached. 'Yes, I have destroyed a genuine antique; I may be

in for thousands!' And then there sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry

hope. 'Let me see,' he thought. 'Julia's got rid of--, there's nothing

to connect me with that beast Forsyth; the men were all drunk, and

(what's better) they've been all discharged. O, come, I think this is

another case of moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the thing.'

 

A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips sternly

compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his arm. The next,

he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously

undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few well-directed blows, and

it already quaked and gaped; yet a few more, and it fell about Morris in

a shower of boards followed by an avalanche of straw.

 

And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task: and at

the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no more ambitious a

task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills

of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous

experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that

bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered:

on the one side, bulk--on the other, genuine heroic fire.

 

'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris aloud,

with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the

walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this night. I'll have none

of you in my lobby.'

 

The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated the

zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his

operations. The great height of the demigod--for he stood a fathom

and half in his stocking-feet--offered a preliminary obstacle to this

attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already

began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library steps,

the injured householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great

swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.

 

Two hours later, what had been the erect image of a gigantic coal-porter

turned miraculously white, was now no more than a medley of disjected

members; the quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal; the

lascivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair; the legs, the

arms, the hands, and even the fingers, scattered broadcast on the lobby

floor. Half an hour more, and all the debris had been laboriously carted

to the kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked

round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could deny all

knowledge of it now: the lobby, beyond the fact that it was partly

ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But it was a

weary Morris that crept up to bed; his arms and shoulders ached, the

palms of his hands burned from the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and

there was one smarting finger that stole continually to his mouth. Sleep

long delayed to visit the dilapidated hero, and with the first peep of

day it had again deserted him.

 

The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes, dawned

inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain

angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris dressed, the draught from

the fireplace vividly played about his legs.

 

'I think,' he could not help observing bitterly, 'that with all I have

to bear, they might have given me decent weather.'

 

There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all women left

to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But some of this was

found, and (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold water)

made up a semblance of a morning meal, and then down he sat undauntedly

to his delicate task.

 

Nothing can be more interesting than the study of signatures,

written (as they are) before meals and after, during indigestion and

intoxication; written when the signer is trembling for the life of his

child or has come from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's office, or

under the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these seem never

the same; but to the expert, the bank clerk, or the lithographer, they

are constant quantities, and as recognizable as the North Star to the

night-watch on deck.

 

To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that graceful art in

which he was now embarking, our spirited leather-merchant was beyond

all reproach. But, happily for the investor, forgery is an affair

of practice. And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's

signature and of his own incompetence, insidious depression stole upon

his spirits. From time to time the wind wuthered in the chimney at his

back; from time to time there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark

that he must rise and light the gas; about him was the chill and the

mean disorder of a house out of commission--the floor bare, the sofa

heaped with books and accounts enveloped in a dirty table-cloth, the

pens rusted, the paper glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these

were but adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression lay

round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten forgeries.

 

'It's one of the strangest things I ever heard of,' he complained. 'It

almost seems as if it was a talent that I didn't possess.' He went once

more minutely through his proofs. 'A clerk would simply gibe at them,'

said he. 'Well, there's nothing else but tracing possible.'

 

He waited till a squall had passed and there came a blink of scowling

daylight. Then he went to the window, and in the face of all John Street

traced his uncle's signature. It was a poor thing at the best. 'But it

must do,' said he, as he stood gazing woefully on his handiwork. 'He's

dead, anyway.' And he filled up the cheque for a couple of hundred and

sallied forth for the Anglo-Patagonian Bank.

 

There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to transact business,

and with as much indifference as he could assume, Morris presented the

forged cheque to the big, red-bearded Scots teller. The teller seemed to

view it with surprise; and as he turned it this way and that, and even

scrutinized the signature with a magnifying-glass, his surprise appeared

to warm into disfavour. Begging to be excused for a moment, he

passed away into the rearmost quarters of the bank; whence, after an

appreciable interval, he returned again in earnest talk with a superior,

an oldish and a baldish, but a very gentlemanly man.

 

'Mr Morris Finsbury, I believe,' said the gentlemanly man, fixing Morris

with a pair of double eye-glasses.

 

'That is my name,' said Morris, quavering. 'Is there anything wrong.

 

'Well, the fact is, Mr Finsbury, you see we are rather surprised at

receiving this,' said the other, flicking at the cheque. 'There are no

effects.'

 

'No effects?' cried Morris. 'Why, I know myself there must be

eight-and-twenty hundred pounds, if there's a penny.'

 

'Two seven six four, I think,' replied the gentlemanly man; 'but it was

drawn yesterday.'

 

'Drawn!' cried Morris.

 

'By your uncle himself, sir,' continued the other. 'Not only that, but

we discounted a bill for him for--let me see--how much was it for, Mr

Bell?'

 

'Eight hundred, Mr Judkin,' replied the teller.

 

'Bent Pitman!' cried Morris, staggering back.

 

'I beg your pardon,' said Mr Judkin.

 

'It's--it's only an expletive,' said Morris.

 

'I hope there's nothing wrong, Mr Finsbury,' said Mr Bell.

 

'All I can tell you,' said Morris, with a harsh laugh,' is that the

whole thing's impossible. My uncle is at Bournemouth, unable to move.'

 

'Really!' cried Mr Bell, and he recovered the cheque from Mr Judkin.

'But this cheque is dated in London, and today,' he observed. 'How d'ye

account for that, sir?'

 

'O, that was a mistake,' said Morris, and a deep tide of colour dyed his

face and neck.

 

'No doubt, no doubt,' said Mr Judkin, but he looked at his customer

enquiringly.

 

'And--and--' resumed Morris, 'even if there were no effects--this is a

very trifling sum to overdraw--our firm--the name of Finsbury, is surely

good enough for such a wretched sum as this.'

 

'No doubt, Mr Finsbury,' returned Mr Judkin; 'and if you insist I will

take it into consideration; but I hardly think--in short, Mr Finsbury,

if there had been nothing else, the signature seems hardly all that we

could wish.'

 

'That's of no consequence,' replied Morris nervously. 'I'll get my uncle

to sign another. The fact is,' he went on, with a bold stroke, 'my uncle

is so far from well at present that he was unable to sign this cheque

without assistance, and I fear that my holding the pen for him may have

made the difference in the signature.'

 

Mr Judkin shot a keen glance into Morris's face; and then turned and

looked at Mr Bell.

 

'Well,' he said, 'it seems as if we had been victimized by a swindler.

Pray tell Mr Finsbury we shall put detectives on at once. As for this

cheque of yours, I regret that, owing to the way it was signed, the

bank can hardly consider it--what shall I say?--businesslike,' and he

returned the cheque across the counter.

 

Morris took it up mechanically; he was thinking of something very

different.

 

'In a--case of this kind,' he began, 'I believe the loss falls on us; I

mean upon my uncle and myself.'

 

'It does not, sir,' replied Mr Bell; 'the bank is responsible, and

the bank will either recover the money or refund it, you may depend on

that.'

 

Morris's face fell; then it was visited by another gleam of hope.

 

'I'll tell you what,' he said, 'you leave this entirely in my hands.

I'll sift the matter. I've an idea, at any rate; and detectives,' he

added appealingly, 'are so expensive.'

 

'The bank would not hear of it,' returned Mr Judkin. 'The bank stands to

lose between three and four thousand pounds; it will spend as much more

if necessary. An undiscovered forger is a permanent danger. We shall

clear it up to the bottom, Mr Finsbury; set your mind at rest on that.'

 

'Then I'll stand the loss,' said Morris boldly. 'I order you to abandon

the search.' He was determined that no enquiry should be made.

 

'I beg your pardon,' returned Mr Judkin, 'but we have nothing to do with

you in this matter, which is one between your uncle and ourselves. If

he should take this opinion, and will either come here himself or let me

see him in his sick-room--'

 

'Quite impossible,' cried Morris.

 

'Well, then, you see,' said Mr Judkin, 'how my hands are tied. The whole

affair must go at once into the hands of the police.'

 

Morris mechanically folded the cheque and restored it to his

pocket--book.

 

'Good--morning,' said he, and scrambled somehow out of the bank.

 

'I don't know what they suspect,' he reflected; 'I can't make them

out, their whole behaviour is thoroughly unbusinesslike. But it doesn't

matter; all's up with everything. The money has been paid; the police

are on the scent; in two hours that idiot Pitman will be nabbed--and the

whole story of the dead body in the evening papers.'

 

If he could have heard what passed in the bank after his departure he

would have been less alarmed, perhaps more mortified.

 

'That was a curious affair, Mr Bell,' said Mr Judkin.

 

'Yes, sir,' said Mr Bell, 'but I think we have given him a fright.'

 

'O, we shall hear no more of Mr Morris Finsbury,' returned the other;

'it was a first attempt, and the house have dealt with us so long that

I was anxious to deal gently. But I suppose, Mr Bell, there can be no

mistake about yesterday? It was old Mr Finsbury himself?'

 

'There could be no possible doubt of that,' said Mr Bell with a chuckle.

'He explained to me the principles of banking.'

 

'Well, well,' said Mr Judkin. 'The next time he calls ask him to step

into my room. It is only proper he should be warned.'

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII. In Which William Dent Pitman takes Legal Advice

 

Norfolk Street, King's Road--jocularly known among Mr Pitman's lodgers

as 'Norfolk Island'--is neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing

thoroughfare. Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in

pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of

love. The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. An occasional organ-grinder

wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. In holiday-time the

street is the arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and

the householders have an opportunity of studying the manly art of

self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street has one claim to be respectable,

for it contains not a single shop--unless you count the public-house at

the corner, which is really in the King's Road.

 

The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with the legend 'W. D.

Pitman, Artist'. It was not a particularly clean brass plate, nor was

No. 7 itself a particularly inviting place of residence. And yet it

had a character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of

the reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an artist--and a

distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success--which

had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated

magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced 'a corner in the back

drawing-room' or 'the studio mantelpiece' of No. 7; no young lady author

had ever commented on 'the unaffected simplicity' with which Mr Pitman

received her in the midst of his 'treasures'. It is an omission I would

gladly supply, but our business is only with the backward parts and

'abject rear' of this aesthetic dwelling.

 

Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that never played) in the

centre, a few grimy-looking flowers in pots, two or three newly

planted trees which the spring of Chelsea visited without noticeable

consequence, and two or three statues after the antique, representing

satyrs and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculptured art. On one

side the garden was overshadowed by a pair of crazy studios, usually

hired out to the more obscure and youthful practitioners of British

art. Opposite these another lofty out-building, somewhat more carefully

finished, and boasting of a communication with the house and a private

door on the back lane, enshrined the multifarious industry of Mr Pitman.

All day, it is true, he was engaged in the work of education at a

seminary for young ladies; but the evenings at least were his own, and

these he would prolong far into the night, now dashing off 'A landscape

with waterfall' in oil, now a volunteer bust ('in marble', as he would

gently but proudly observe) of some public character, now stooping

his chisel to a mere 'nymph' for a gasbracket on a stair, sir', or a

life-size 'Infant Samuel' for a religious nursery. Mr Pitman had studied

in Paris, and he had studied in Rome, supplied with funds by a fond

parent who went subsequently bankrupt in consequence of a fall in

corsets; and though he was never thought to have the smallest modicum

of talent, it was at one time supposed that he had learned his business.

Eighteen years of what is called 'tuition' had relieved him of the

dangerous knowledge. His artist lodgers would sometimes reason with him;

they would point out to him how impossible it was to paint by gaslight,

or to sculpture life-sized nymphs without a model.

 

'I know that,' he would reply. 'No one in Norfolk Street knows it

better; and if I were rich I should certainly employ the best models

in London; but, being poor, I have taught myself to do without them. An

occasional model would only disturb my ideal conception of the figure,

and be a positive impediment in my career. As for painting by an

artificial light,' he would continue, 'that is simply a knack I have

found it necessary to acquire, my days being engrossed in the work of

tuition.'

 

At the moment when we must present him to our readers, Pitman was in his

studio alone, by the dying light of the October day. He sat (sure enough

with 'unaffected simplicity') in a Windsor chair, his low-crowned black

felt hat by his side; a dark, weak, harmless, pathetic little man, clad

in the hue of mourning, his coat longer than is usual with the laity,

his neck enclosed in a collar without a parting, his neckcloth pale in

hue and simply tied; the whole outward man, except for a pointed beard,

tentatively clerical. There was a thinning on the top of Pitman's head,

there were silver hairs at Pitman's temple. Poor gentleman, he was no

longer young; and years, and poverty, and humble ambition thwarted, make

a cheerless lot.

 

In front of him, in the corner by the door, there stood a portly barrel;

and let him turn them where he might, it was always to the barrel that

his eyes and his thoughts returned.

 

'Should I open it? Should I return it? Should I communicate with Mr

Sernitopolis at once?' he wondered. 'No,' he concluded finally, 'nothing

without Mr Finsbury's advice.' And he arose and produced a shabby

leathern desk. It opened without the formality of unlocking, and

displayed the thick cream-coloured notepaper on which Mr Pitman was

in the habit of communicating with the proprietors of schools and the

parents of his pupils. He placed the desk on the table by the window,

and taking a saucer of Indian ink from the chimney-piece, laboriously

composed the following letter:

 

'My dear Mr Finsbury,' it ran, 'would it be presuming on your kindness

if I asked you to pay me a visit here this evening? It is in no trifling

matter that I invoke your valuable assistance, for need I say more than

it concerns the welfare of Mr Semitopolis's statue of Hercules? I write

you in great agitation of mind; for I have made all enquiries, and

greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. I labour

besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the first. Pray

excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours in haste,

William D. Pitman.'

 

Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 233 King's Road,

the private residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a

time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of

humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed

the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into

a contemptuous kind of friendship. By this time, which was four years

after the first meeting, Pitman was the lawyer's dog.

 

'No,' said the elderly housekeeper, who opened the door in person, 'Mr

Michael's not in yet. But ye're looking terribly poorly, Mr Pitman. Take

a glass of sherry, sir, to cheer ye up.'

 

'No, I thank you, ma'am,' replied the artist. 'It is very good in you,

but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits for sherry. Just give Mr

Finsbury this note, and ask him to look round--to the door in the lane,

you will please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening.'

 

And he turned again into the street and walked slowly homeward. A

hairdresser's window caught his attention, and he stared long and

earnestly at the proud, high--born, waxen lady in evening dress, who

circulated in the centre of the show. The artist woke in him, in spite

of his troubles.

 

'It is all very well to run down the men who make these things,'

he cried, 'but there's a something--there's a haughty, indefinable

something about that figure. It's what I tried for in my "Empress

Eugenie",' he added, with a sigh.

 

And he went home reflecting on the quality. 'They don't teach you that

direct appeal in Paris,' he thought. 'It's British. Come, I am going to

sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher--aim higher,' cried the little

artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving

his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his

troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at

liberty than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio.

 

Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him down. He flung

himself with rising zest into his work--a bust of Mr Gladstone from a

photograph; turned (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of

the back of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a hazy

recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself by his treatment

of the collar; and was only recalled to the cares of life by Michael

Finsbury's rattle at the door.

 

'Well, what's wrong?' said Michael, advancing to the grate, where,

knowing his friend's delight in a bright fire, Mr Pitman had not spared

the fuel. 'I suppose you have come to grief somehow.'

 

'There is no expression strong enough,' said the artist. 'Mr

Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, and I am afraid I shall be

answerable for the money; but I think nothing of that--what I fear, my

dear Mr Finsbury, what I fear--alas that I should have to say it!

is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of Italy; a thing

positively wrong, a thing of which a man of my principles and in my

responsible position should have taken (as I now see too late) no part

whatever.'

 

'This sounds like very serious work,' said the lawyer. 'It will require

a great deal of drink, Pitman.'

 

'I took the liberty of--in short, of being prepared for you,' replied

the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle of gin, a lemon, and glasses.

Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a cigar.

 

'No, thank you,' said Pitman. 'I used occasionally to be rather partial

to it, but the smell is so disagreeable about the clothes.'

 

'All right,' said the lawyer. 'I am comfortable now. Unfold your tale.'

 

At some length Pitman set forth his sorrows. He had gone today to

Waterloo, expecting to receive the colossal Hercules, and he had

received instead a barrel not big enough to hold Discobolus; yet

the barrel was addressed in the hand (with which he was perfectly

acquainted) of his Roman correspondent. What was stranger still, a case

had arrived by the same train, large enough and heavy enough to

contain the Hercules; and this case had been taken to an address now

undiscoverable. 'The vanman (I regret to say it) had been drinking, and

his language was such as I could never bring myself to repeat.

 

He was at once discharged by the superintendent of the line, who behaved

most properly throughout, and is to make enquiries at Southampton.

In the meanwhile, what was I to do? I left my address and brought the

barrel home; but, remembering an old adage, I determined not to open it

except in the presence of my lawyer.'

 

'Is that all?' asked Michael. 'I don't see any cause to worry. The

Hercules has stuck upon the road. It will drop in tomorrow or the day

after; and as for the barrel, depend upon it, it's a testimonial from

one of your young ladies, and probably contains oysters.'

 

'O, don't speak so loud!' cried the little artist. 'It would cost me my

place if I were heard to speak lightly of the young ladies; and besides,

why oysters from Italy? and why should they come to me addressed in

Signor Ricardi's hand?'

 

'Well, let's have a look at it,' said Michael. 'Let's roll it forward to

the light.'

 

The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and stood it on end

before the fire.

 

'It's heavy enough to be oysters,' remarked Michael judiciously.

 

'Shall we open it at once?' enquired the artist, who had grown decidedly

cheerful under the combined effects of company and gin; and without

waiting for a reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed

his clerical collar in the wastepaper basket, hung his clerical coat

upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other,

struck the first blow of the evening.

 

'That's the style, William Dent' cried Michael. 'There's fire for--your

money! It may be a romantic visit from one of the young ladies--a sort

of Cleopatra business. Have a care and don't stave in Cleopatra's head.'

 

But the sight of Pitman's alacrity was infectious. The lawyer could

sit still no longer. Tossing his cigar into the fire, he snatched the

instrument from the unwilling hands of the artist, and fell to himself.

Soon the sweat stood in beads upon his large, fair brow; his stylish

trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of his chisel

testified to misdirected energies.

 

A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you set about it in the

right way; when you set about it wrongly, the whole structure must be

resolved into its elements. Such was the course pursued alike by the

artist and the lawyer. Presently the last hoop had been removed--a

couple of smart blows tumbled the staves upon the ground--and what

had once been a barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken and

distorted boards.

 

In the midst of these, a certain dismal something, swathed in blankets,

remained for an instant upright, and then toppled to one side and

heavily collapsed before the fire. Even as the thing subsided, an

eye-glass tingled to the floor and rolled toward the screaming Pitman.

 

'Hold your tongue!' said Michael. He dashed to the house door and locked

it; then, with a pale face and bitten lip, he drew near, pulled aside

a corner of the swathing blanket, and recoiled, shuddering. There was a

long silence in the studio.

 

'Now tell me,' said Michael, in a low voice: 'Had you any hand in it?'

and he pointed to the body.

 

The little artist could only utter broken and disjointed sounds.

 

Michael poured some gin into a glass. 'Drink that,' he said. 'Don't be

afraid of me. I'm your friend through thick and thin.'

 

Pitman put the liquor down untasted.

 

'I swear before God,' he said, 'this is another mystery to me. In my

worst fears I never dreamed of such a thing. I would not lay a finger on

a sucking infant.'

 

'That's all square,' said Michael, with a sigh of huge relief. 'I

believe you, old boy.' And he shook the artist warmly by the hand. 'I

thought for a moment,' he added with rather a ghastly smile, 'I thought

for a moment you might have made away with Mr Semitopolis.'

 

'It would make no difference if I had,' groaned Pitman. 'All is at an

end for me. There's the writing on the wall.'

 

'To begin with,' said Michael, 'let's get him out of sight; for to be

quite plain with you, Pitman, I don't like your friend's appearance.'

And with that the lawyer shuddered. 'Where can we put it?'

 

'You might put it in the closet there--if you could bear to touch it,'

answered the artist.

 

'Somebody has to do it, Pitman,' returned the lawyer; 'and it seems as

if it had to be me. You go over to the table, turn your back, and mix me

a grog; that's a fair division of labour.'

 

About ninety seconds later the closet-door was heard to shut.

 

'There,' observed Michael, 'that's more homelike. You can turn now, my

pallid Pitman. Is this the grog?' he ran on. 'Heaven forgive you, it's a

lemonade.'

 

'But, O, Finsbury, what are we to do with it?' walled the artist, laying

a clutching hand upon the lawyer's arm.

 

'Do with it?' repeated Michael. 'Bury it in one of your flowerbeds, and

erect one of your own statues for a monument. I tell you we should look

devilish romantic shovelling out the sod by the moon's pale ray. Here,

put some gin in this.'

 

'I beg of you, Mr Finsbury, do not trifle with my misery,' cried Pitman.

'You see before you a man who has been all his life--I do not hesitate

to say it--imminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my

hand upon my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling point

of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that I now humbly repent),

my life has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the

light,' cried the little man; 'and now--now--!'

 

'Cheer up, old boy,' said Michael. 'I assure you we should count this

little contretemps a trifle at the office; it's the sort of thing that

may occur to any one; and if you're perfectly sure you had no hand in

it--'

 

'What language am I to find--' began Pitman.

 

'O, I'll do that part of it,' interrupted Michael, 'you have no

experience.' But the point is this: If--or rather since--you know

nothing of the crime, since the--the party in the closet--is

neither your father, nor your brother, nor your creditor, nor your

mother-in-law, nor what they call an injured husband--'

 

'O, my dear sir!' interjected Pitman, horrified.

 

'Since, in short,' continued the lawyer, 'you had no possible interest

in the crime, we have a perfectly free field before us and a safe game

to play. Indeed, the problem is really entertaining; it is one I have

long contemplated in the light of an A. B. case; here it is at last

under my hand in specie; and I mean to pull you through. Do you hear

that?--I mean to pull you through. Let me see: it's a long time since I

have had what I call a genuine holiday; I'll send an excuse tomorrow to

the office. We had best be lively,' he added significantly; 'for we must

not spoil the market for the other man.'

 

'What do you mean?' enquired Pitman. 'What other man? The inspector of

police?'

 

'Damn the inspector of police!' remarked his companion. 'If you won't

take the short cut and bury this in your back garden, we must find some

one who will bury it in his. We must place the affair, in short, in the

hands of some one with fewer scruples and more resources.'

 

'A private detective, perhaps?' suggested Pitman.

 

'There are times when you fill me with pity,' observed the lawyer. 'By

the way, Pitman,' he added in another key, 'I have always regretted that

you have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don't play yourself,

your friends might like to entertain themselves with a little music

while you were mudding.'

 

'I shall get one at once if you like,' said Pitman nervously, anxious to

please. 'I play the fiddle a little as it is.'

 

'I know you do,' said Michael; 'but what's the fiddle--above all as you

play it? What you want is polyphonic music. And I'll tell you what it

is--since it's too late for you to buy a piano I'll give you mine.'

 

'Thank you,' said the artist blankly. 'You will give me yours? I am sure

it's very good in you.'

 

'Yes, I'll give you mine,' continued Michael, 'for the inspector of

police to play on while his men are digging up your back garden.' Pitman

stared at him in pained amazement.

 

'No, I'm not insane,' Michael went on. 'I'm playful, but quite coherent.

See here, Pitman: follow me one half minute. I mean to profit by the

refreshing fact that we are really and truly innocent; nothing but the

presence of the--you know what--connects us with the crime; once let us

get rid of it, no matter how, and there is no possible clue to trace

us by. Well, I give you my piano; we'll bring it round this very night.

Tomorrow we rip the fittings out, deposit the--our friend--inside, plump

the whole on a cart, and carry it to the chambers of a young gentleman

whom I know by sight.'

 

'Whom do you know by sight?' repeated Pitman.

 

'And what is more to the purpose,' continued Michael, 'whose chambers I

know better than he does himself. A friend of mine--I call him my friend

for brevity; he is now, I understand, in Demerara and (most likely)

in gaol--was the previous occupant. I defended him, and I got him off

too--all saved but honour; his assets were nil, but he gave me what he

had, poor gentleman, and along with the rest--the key of his chambers.

It's there that I propose to leave the piano and, shall we say,

Cleopatra?'

 

'It seems very wild,' said Pitman. 'And what will become of the poor

young gentleman whom you know by sight?'

 

'It will do him good,'--said Michael cheerily. 'Just what he wants to

steady him.'

 

'But, my dear sit, he might be involved in a charge of--a charge of

murder,' gulped the artist.

 

'Well, he'll be just where we are,' returned the lawyer. 'He's

innocent, you see. What hangs people, my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate

circumstance of guilt.'

 

'But indeed, indeed,' pleaded Pitman, 'the whole scheme appears to me so

wild. Would it not be safer, after all, just to send for the police?'

 

'And make a scandal?' enquired Michael. '"The Chelsea Mystery; alleged

innocence of Pitman"? How would that do at the Seminary?'

 

'It would imply my discharge,' admitted the drawing--master. 'I cannot

deny that.'

 

'And besides,' said Michael, 'I am not going to embark in such a

business and have no fun for my money.'

 

'O my dear sir, is that a proper spirit?' cried Pitman.

 

'O, I only said that to cheer you up,' said the unabashed Michael.

'Nothing like a little judicious levity. But it's quite needless to

discuss. If you mean to follow my advice, come on, and let us get the

piano at once. If you don't, just drop me the word, and I'll leave you

to deal with the whole thing according to your better judgement.'

 

'You know perfectly well that I depend on you entirely,' returned

Pitman. 'But O, what a night is before me with that--horror in my

studio! How am I to think of it on my pillow?'

 

'Well, you know, my piano will be there too,' said Michael. 'That'll

raise the average.'

 

An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the lawyer's piano--a

momentous Broadwood grand--was deposited in Mr Pitman's studio.

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII. In Which Michael Finsbury Enjoys a Holiday

 

Punctually at eight o'clock next morning the lawyer rattled (according

to previous appointment) on the studio door. He found the artist sadly

altered for the worse--bleached, bloodshot, and chalky--a man upon

wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the closet. Nor

was the professor of drawing less inclined to wonder at his friend.

Michael was usually attired in the height of fashion, with a certain

mercantile brilliancy best described perhaps as stylish; nor could

anything be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle

too like a wedding guest to be quite a gentleman. Today he had fallen

altogether from these heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out

shepherd's tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour known to

tailors as 'heather mixture'; his neckcloth was black, and tied loosely

in a sailor's knot; a rusty ulster partly concealed these advantages;

and his feet were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was an old soft

felt, which he removed with a flourish as he entered.

                                                          

'Here I am, William Dent!' he cried, and drawing from his pocket

two little wisps of reddish hair, he held them to his cheeks like

sidewhiskers and danced about the studio with the filmy graces of a

ballet-girl.

 

Pitman laughed sadly. 'I should never have known you,' said he.

 

'Nor were you intended to,' returned Michael, replacing his false

whiskers in his pocket. 'Now we must overhaul you and your wardrobe, and

disguise you up to the nines.'

 

'Disguise!' cried the artist. 'Must I indeed disguise myself. Has it

come to that?'

'My dear creature,' returned his companion, 'disguise is the spice of

life. What is life, passionately exclaimed a French philosopher, without

the pleasures of disguise? I don't say it's always good taste, and

I know it's unprofessional; but what's the odds, downhearted

drawing-master? It has to be. We have to leave a false impression on

the minds of many persons, and in particular on the mind of Mr Gideon

Forsyth--the young gentleman I know by sight--if he should have the bad

taste to be at home.'

 

'If he be at home?' faltered the artist. 'That would be the end of all.'

 

'Won't matter a d--,' returned Michael airily. 'Let me see your clothes,

and I'll make a new man of you in a jiffy.'

 

In the bedroom, to which he was at once conducted, Michael examined

Pitman's poor and scanty wardrobe with a humorous eye, picked out a

short jacket of black alpaca, and presently added to that a pair of

summer trousers which somehow took his fancy as incongruous. Then, with

the garments in his hand, he scrutinized the artist closely.

 

'I don't like that clerical collar,' he remarked. 'Have you nothing

else?'

 

The professor of drawing pondered for a moment, and then brightened;

'I have a pair of low-necked shirts,' he said, 'that I used to wear in

Paris as a student. They are rather loud.'

 

'The very thing!' ejaculated Michael. 'You'll look perfectly beastly.

Here are spats, too,' he continued, drawing forth a pair of those

offensive little gaiters. 'Must have spats! And now you jump into these,

and whistle a tune at the window for (say) three-quarters of an hour.

After that you can rejoin me on the field of glory.'

 

So saying, Michael returned to the studio. It was the morning of the

easterly gale; the wind blew shrilly among the statues in the garden,

and drove the rain upon the skylight in the studio ceiling; and at about

the same moment of the time when Morris attacked the hundredth version

of his uncle's signature in Bloomsbury, Michael, in Chelsea, began to

rip the wires out of the Broadwood grand.

 

Three-quarters of an hour later Pitman was admitted, to find the

closet-door standing open, the closet untenanted, and the piano

discreetly shut.

 

'It's a remarkably heavy instrument,' observed Michael, and turned

to consider his friend's disguise. 'You must shave off that beard of

yours,' he said.

 

'My beard!' cried Pitman. 'I cannot shave my beard. I cannot tamper with

my appearance--my principals would object. They hold very strong views

as to the appearance of the professors--young ladies are considered so

romantic. My beard was regarded as quite a feature when I went about the

place. It was regarded,' said the artist, with rising colour, 'it was

regarded as unbecoming.'

 

'You can let it grow again,' returned Michael, 'and then you'll be so

precious ugly that they'll raise your salary.'

 

'But I don't want to be ugly,' cried the artist.

 

'Don't be an ass,' said Michael, who hated beards and was delighted to

destroy one. 'Off with it like a man!'

 

'Of course, if you insist,' said Pitman; and then he sighed, fetched

some hot water from the kitchen, and setting a glass upon his easel,

first clipped his beard with scissors and then shaved his chin. He

could not conceal from himself, as he regarded the result, that his last

claims to manhood had been sacrificed, but Michael seemed delighted.

 

'A new man, I declare!' he cried. 'When I give you the windowglass

spectacles I have in my pocket, you'll be the beau-ideal of a French

commercial traveller.'

 

Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze disconsolately on his image

in the glass.

 

'Do you know,' asked Michael, 'what the Governor of South Carolina said

to the Governor of North Carolina? "It's a long time between drinks,"

observed that powerful thinker; and if you will put your hand into the

top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I have an impression you will find a

flask of brandy. Thank you, Pitman,' he added, as he filled out a glass

for each. 'Now you will give me news of this.'

 

The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but Michael arrested

the movement.

 

'Not if you went upon your knees!' he cried. 'This is the finest liqueur

brandy in Great Britain.'

 

Pitman put his lips to it, set it down again, and sighed.

 

'Well, I must say you're the poorest companion for a holiday!' cried

Michael. 'If that's all you know of brandy, you shall have no more of

it; and while I finish the flask, you may as well begin business. Come

to think of it,' he broke off, 'I have made an abominable error: you

should have ordered the cart before you were disguised. Why, Pitman,

what the devil's the use of you? why couldn't you have reminded me of

that?'

 

'I never even knew there was a cart to be ordered,' said the artist.

'But I can take off the disguise again,' he suggested eagerly.

 

'You would find it rather a bother to put on your beard,' observed the

lawyer. 'No, it's a false step; the sort of thing that hangs people,' he

continued, with eminent cheerfulness, as he sipped his brandy; 'and

it can't be retraced now. Off to the mews with you, make all the

arrangements; they're to take the piano from here, cart it to Victoria,

and dispatch it thence by rail to Cannon Street, to lie till called for

in the name of Fortune du Boisgobey.'

 

'Isn't that rather an awkward name?' pleaded Pitman.

 

'Awkward?' cried Michael scornfully. 'It would hang us both! Brown is

both safer and easier to pronounce. Call it Brown.'

 

'I wish,' said Pitman, 'for my sake, I wish you wouldn't talk so much of

hanging.'

 

'Talking about it's nothing, my boy!' returned Michael. 'But take your

hat and be off, and mind and pay everything beforehand.'

 

Left to himself, the lawyer turned his attention for some time

exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, which had been

pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust

his whiskers finally before the glass. 'Devilish rich,' he remarked, as

he contemplated his reflection. 'I look like a purser's mate.' And at

that moment the window-glass spectacles (which he had hitherto destined

for Pitman) flashed into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with

the effect. 'Just what I required,' he said. 'I wonder what I look like

now? A humorous novelist, I should think,' and he began to practise

divers characters of walk, naming them to himself as--he proceeded.

'Walk of a humorous novelist--but that would require an umbrella. Walk

of a purser's mate. Walk of an Australian colonist revisiting the scenes

of childhood. Walk of Sepoy colonel, ditto, ditto. And in the midst

of the Sepoy colonel (which was an excellent assumption, although

inconsistent with the style of his make-up), his eye lighted on the

piano. This instrument was made to lock both at the top and at the

keyboard, but the key of the latter had been mislaid. Michael opened

it and ran his fingers over the dumb keys. 'Fine instrument--full, rich

tone,' he observed, and he drew in a seat.

 

When Mr Pitman returned to the studio, he was appalled to observe his

guide, philosopher, and friend performing miracles of execution on the

silent grand.

 

'Heaven help me!' thought the little man, 'I fear he has been drinking!

Mr Finsbury,' he said aloud; and Michael, without rising, turned upon

him a countenance somewhat flushed, encircled with the bush of the red

whiskers, and bestridden by the spectacles. 'Capriccio in B-flat on the

departure of a friend,' said he, continuing his noiseless evolutions.

 

Indignation awoke in the mind of Pitman. 'Those spectacles were to be

mine,' he cried. 'They are an essential part of my disguise.'

 

'I am going to wear them myself,' replied Michael; and he added, with

some show of truth, 'There would be a devil of a lot of suspicion

aroused if we both wore spectacles.'

 

'O, well,' said the assenting Pitman, 'I rather counted on them; but of

course, if you insist. And at any rate, here is the cart at the door.'

 

While the men were at work, Michael concealed himself in the closet

among the debris of the barrel and the wires of the piano; and as soon

as the coast was clear the pair sallied forth by the lane, jumped into

a hansom in the King's Road, and were driven rapidly toward town. It

was still cold and raw and boisterous; the rain beat strongly in their

faces, but Michael refused to have the glass let down; he had now

suddenly donned the character of cicerone, and pointed out and lucidly

commented on the sights of London, as they drove. 'My dear fellow,' he

said, 'you don't seem to know anything of your native city. Suppose we

visited the Tower? No? Well, perhaps it's a trifle out of our way.

But, anyway--Here, cabby, drive round by Trafalgar Square!' And on that

historic battlefield he insisted on drawing up, while he criticized the

statues and gave the artist many curious details (quite new to history)

of the lives of the celebrated men they represented.

 

It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered in the cab: cold,

wet, terror in the capital degree, a grounded distrust of the commander

under whom he served, a sense of imprudency in the matter of the

low-necked shirt, a bitter sense of the decline and fall involved in the

deprivation of his beard, all these were among the ingredients of the

bowl. To reach the restaurant, for which they were deviously steering,

was the first relief. To hear Michael bespeak a private room was a

second and a still greater. Nor, as they mounted the stair under the

guidance of an unintelligible alien, did he fail to note with gratitude

the fewness of the persons present, or the still more cheering fact that

the greater part of these were exiles from the land of France. It was

thus a blessed thought that none of them would be connected with the

Seminary; for even the French professor, though admittedly a Papist, he

could scarce imagine frequenting so rakish an establishment.

 

The alien introduced them into a small bare room with a single table,

a sofa, and a dwarfish fire; and Michael called promptly for more coals

and a couple of brandies and sodas.

 

'O, no,' said Pitman, 'surely not--no more to drink.'

 

'I don't know what you would be at,' said Michael plaintively. 'It's

positively necessary to do something; and one shouldn't smoke before

meals I thought that was understood. You seem to have no idea

of hygiene.' And he compared his watch with the clock upon the

chimney-piece.

 

Pitman fell into bitter musing; here he was, ridiculously shorn,

absurdly disguised, in the company of a drunken man in spectacles, and

waiting for a champagne luncheon in a restaurant painfully foreign. What

would his principals think, if they could see him? What if they knew his

tragic and deceitful errand?

 

From these reflections he was aroused by the entrance of the alien with

the brandies and sodas. Michael took one and bade the waiter pass the

other to his friend.

 

Pitman waved it from him with his hand. 'Don't let me lose all

self-respect,' he said.

 

'Anything to oblige a friend,' returned Michael. 'But I'm not going to

drink alone. Here,' he added to the waiter, 'you take it.' And, then,

touching glasses, 'The health of Mr Gideon Forsyth,' said he.

 

'Meestare Gidden Borsye,' replied the waiter, and he tossed off the

liquor in four gulps.

 

'Have another?' said Michael, with undisguised interest. 'I never saw a

man drink faster. It restores one's confidence in the human race.

 

But the waiter excused himself politely, and, assisted by some one from

without, began to bring in lunch.

 

Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed down with a bottle of

Heidsieck's dry monopole. As for the artist, he was far too uneasy to

eat, and his companion flatly refused to let him share in the champagne

unless he did.

 

'One of us must stay sober,' remarked the lawyer, 'and I won't give you

champagne on the strength of a leg of grouse. I have to be cautious,' he

added confidentially. 'One drunken man, excellent business--two drunken

men, all my eye.'

 

On the production of coffee and departure of the waiter, Michael might

have been observed to make portentous efforts after gravity of mien.

He looked his friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and

addressed him thickly but severely.

 

'Enough of this fooling,' was his not inappropriate exordium. 'To

business. Mark me closely. I am an Australian. My name is John Dickson,

though you mightn't think it from my unassuming appearance. You will be

relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. You can't go into this

sort of thing too thoroughly, Pitman; the whole secret is preparation,

and I can get up my biography from the beginning, and I could tell it

you now, only I have forgotten it.'

 

'Perhaps I'm stupid--' began Pitman.

 

'That's it!' cried Michael. 'Very stupid; but rich too--richer than I

am. I thought you would enjoy it, Pitman, so I've arranged that you were

to be literally wallowing in wealth. But then, on the other hand, you're

only an American, and a maker of india-rubber overshoes at that. And the

worst of it is--why should I conceal it from you?--the worst of it

is that you're called Ezra Thomas. Now,' said Michael, with a really

appalling seriousness of manner, 'tell me who we are.'

 

The unfortunate little man was cross-examined till he knew these facts

by heart.

 

'There!' cried the lawyer. 'Our plans are laid. Thoroughly

consistent--that's the great thing.'

 

'But I don't understand,' objected Pitman.

 

'O, you'll understand right enough when it comes to the point,' said

Michael, rising.

 

'There doesn't seem any story to it,' said the artist.

 

'We can invent one as we go along,' returned the lawyer.

 

'But I can't invent,' protested Pitman. 'I never could invent in all my

life.'

 

'You'll find you'll have to, my boy,' was Michael's easy comment, and he

began calling for the waiter, with whom he at once resumed a sparkling

conversation.

 

It was a downcast little man that followed him. 'Of course he is very

clever, but can I trust him in such a state?' he asked himself. And when

they were once more in a hansom, he took heart of grace.

 

'Don't you think,' he faltered, 'it would be wiser, considering all

things, to put this business off?'

 

'Put off till tomorrow what can be done today?' cried Michael, with

indignation. 'Never heard of such a thing! Cheer up, it's all right, go

in and win--there's a lion-hearted Pitman!'

 

At Cannon Street they enquired for Mr Brown's piano, which had duly

arrived, drove thence to a neighbouring mews, where they contracted

for a cart, and while that was being got ready, took shelter in the

harness-room beside the stove. Here the lawyer presently toppled against

the wall and fell into a gentle slumber; so that Pitman found himself

launched on his own resources in the midst of several staring loafers,

such as love to spend unprofitable days about a stable. 'Rough day,

sir,' observed one. 'Do you go far?'

 

'Yes, it's a--rather a rough day,' said the artist; and then, feeling

that he must change the conversation, 'My friend is an Australian; he is

very impulsive,' he added.

 

'An Australian?' said another. 'I've a brother myself in Melbourne. Does

your friend come from that way at all?'

 

'No, not exactly,' replied the artist, whose ideas of the geography of

New Holland were a little scattered. 'He lives immensely far inland, and

is very rich.'

 

The loafers gazed with great respect upon the slumbering colonist.

 

'Well,' remarked the second speaker, 'it's a mighty big place, is

Australia. Do you come from thereaway too?'

 

'No, I do not,' said Pitman. 'I do not, and I don't want to,' he added

irritably. And then, feeling some diversion needful, he fell upon

Michael and shook him up.

 

'Hullo,' said the lawyer, 'what's wrong?'

 

'The cart is nearly ready,' said Pitman sternly. 'I will not allow you

to sleep.'

 

'All right--no offence, old man,' replied Michael, yawning. 'A little

sleep never did anybody any harm; I feel comparatively sober now. But

what's all the hurry?' he added, looking round him glassily. 'I don't

see the cart, and I've forgotten where we left the piano.'

 

What more the lawyer might have said, in the confidence of the moment,

is with Pitman a matter of tremulous conjecture to this day; but by the

most blessed circumstance the cart was then announced, and Michael must

bend the forces of his mind to the more difficult task of rising.

 

'Of course you'll drive,' he remarked to his companion, as he clambered

on the vehicle.

 

'I drive!' cried Pitman. 'I never did such a thing in my life. I cannot

drive.'

 

'Very well,' responded Michael with entire composure, 'neither can I

see. But just as you like. Anything to oblige a friend.'

 

A glimpse of the ostler's darkening countenance decided Pitman. 'All

right,' he said desperately, 'you drive. I'll tell you where to go.'

 

On Michael in the character of charioteer (since this is not intended

to be a novel of adventure) it would be superfluous to dwell at length.

Pitman, as he sat holding on and gasping counsels, sole witness of this

singular feat, knew not whether most to admire the driver's valour or

his undeserved good fortune. But the latter at least prevailed, the

cart reached Cannon Street without disaster; and Mr Brown's piano was

speedily and cleverly got on board.

 

'Well, sir,' said the leading porter, smiling as he mentally reckoned up

a handful of loose silver, 'that's a mortal heavy piano.'

 

'It's the richness of the tone,' returned Michael, as he drove away.

 

It was but a little distance in the rain, which now fell thick and

quiet, to the neighbourhood of Mr Gideon Forsyth's chambers in the

Temple. There, in a deserted by-street, Michael drew up the horses and

gave them in charge to a blighted shoe-black; and the pair descending

from the cart, whereon they had figured so incongruously, set forth

on foot for the decisive scene of their adventure. For the first time

Michael displayed a shadow of uneasiness.

 

'Are my whiskers right?' he asked. 'It would be the devil and all if I

was spotted.'

 

'They are perfectly in their place,' returned Pitman, with scant

attention. 'But is my disguise equally effective? There is nothing more

likely than that I should meet some of my patrons.'

 

'O, nobody could tell you without your beard,' said Michael. 'All you

have to do is to remember to speak slow; you speak through your nose

already.'

 

'I only hope the young man won't be at home,' sighed Pitman.

 

'And I only hope he'll be alone,' returned the lawyer. 'It will save a

precious sight of manoeuvring.'

 

And sure enough, when they had knocked at the door, Gideon admitted them

in person to a room, warmed by a moderate fire, framed nearly to the

roof in works connected with the bench of British Themis, and offering,

except in one particular, eloquent testimony to the legal zeal of the

proprietor. The one particular was the chimney-piece, which displayed

a varied assortment of pipes, tobacco, cigar-boxes, and yellow-backed

French novels.

 

'Mr Forsyth, I believe?' It was Michael who thus opened the engagement.

'We have come to trouble you with a piece of business. I fear it's

scarcely professional--'

 

'I am afraid I ought to be instructed through a solicitor,' replied

Gideon.

 

'Well, well, you shall name your own, and the whole affair can be put

on a more regular footing tomorrow,' replied Michael, taking a chair

and motioning Pitman to do the same. 'But you see we didn't know any

solicitors; we did happen to know of you, and time presses.'

 

'May I enquire, gentlemen,' asked Gideon, 'to whom it was I am indebted

for a recommendation?'

 

'You may enquire,' returned the lawyer, with a foolish laugh; 'but I was

invited not to tell you--till the thing was done.'

 

'My uncle, no doubt,' was the barrister's conclusion.

 

'My name is John Dickson,' continued Michael; 'a pretty well-known name

in Ballarat; and my friend here is Mr Ezra Thomas, of the United States

of America, a wealthy manufacturer of india-rubber overshoes.'

 

'Stop one moment till I make a note of that,' said Gideon; any one might

have supposed he was an old practitioner.

 

'Perhaps you wouldn't mind my smoking a cigar?' asked Michael. He had

pulled himself together for the entrance; now again there began to

settle on his mind clouds of irresponsible humour and incipient slumber;

and he hoped (as so many have hoped in the like case) that a cigar would

clear him.

 

'Oh, certainly,' cried Gideon blandly. 'Try one of mine; I can

confidently recommend them.' And he handed the box to his client.

 

'In case I don't make myself perfectly clear,' observed the Australian,

'it's perhaps best to tell you candidly that I've been lunching. It's a

thing that may happen to any one.'

 

'O, certainly,' replied the affable barrister. 'But please be under no

sense of hurry. I can give you,' he added, thoughtfully consulting his

watch--'yes, I can give you the whole afternoon.'

 

'The business that brings me here,' resumed the Australian with gusto,

'is devilish delicate, I can tell you. My friend Mr Thomas, being an

American of Portuguese extraction, unacquainted with our habits, and a

wealthy manufacturer of Broadwood pianos--'

 

'Broadwood pianos?' cried Gideon, with some surprise. 'Dear me, do I

understand Mr Thomas to be a member of the firm?'

 

'O, pirated Broadwoods,' returned Michael. 'My friend's the American

Broadwood.'

 

'But I understood you to say,' objected Gideon, 'I certainly have it

so in my notes--that your friend was a manufacturer of india--rubber

overshoes.'

 

'I know it's confusing at first,' said the Australian, with a beaming

smile. 'But he--in short, he combines the two professions. And many

others besides--many, many, many others,' repeated Mr Dickson, with

drunken solemnity. 'Mr Thomas's cotton-mills are one of the sights of

Tallahassee; Mr Thomas's tobacco-mills are the pride of Richmond, Va.;

in short, he's one of my oldest friends, Mr Forsyth, and I lay his case

before you with emotion.'

 

The barrister looked at Mr Thomas and was agreeably prepossessed by his

open although nervous countenance, and the simplicity and timidity of

his manner. 'What a people are these Americans!' he thought. 'Look at

this nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a lownecked shirt, and

think of him wielding and directing interests so extended and seemingly

incongruous! 'But had we not better,' he observed aloud, 'had we not

perhaps better approach the facts?'

 

'Man of business, I perceive, sir!' said the Australian. 'Let's approach

the facts. It's a breach of promise case.'

 

The unhappy artist was so unprepared for this view of his position that

he could scarce suppress a cry.

 

'Dear me,' said Gideon, 'they are apt to be very troublesome. Tell me

everything about it,' he added kindly; 'if you require my assistance,

conceal nothing.'

 

'You tell him,' said Michael, feeling, apparently, that he had done his

share. 'My friend will tell you all about it,' he added to Gideon, with

a yawn. 'Excuse my closing my eyes a moment; I've been sitting up with a

sick friend.'

 

Pitman gazed blankly about the room; rage and despair seethed in his

innocent spirit; thoughts of flight, thoughts even of suicide, came and

went before him; and still the barrister patiently waited, and still the

artist groped in vain for any form of words, however insignificant.

 

'It's a breach of promise case,' he said at last, in a low voice. 'I--I

am threatened with a breach of promise case.' Here, in desperate quest

of inspiration, he made a clutch at his beard; his fingers closed upon

the unfamiliar smoothness of a shaven chin; and with that, hope and

courage (if such expressions could ever have been appropriate in the

case of Pitman) conjointly fled. He shook Michael roughly. 'Wake up!'

he cried, with genuine irritation in his tones. 'I cannot do it, and you

know I can't.'

 

'You must excuse my friend,' said Michael; 'he's no hand as a narrator

of stirring incident. The case is simple,' he went on. 'My friend is

a man of very strong passions, and accustomed to a simple, patriarchal

style of life. You see the thing from here: unfortunate visit to Europe,

followed by unfortunate acquaintance with sham foreign count, who has a

lovely daughter. Mr Thomas was quite carried away; he proposed, he was

accepted, and he wrote--wrote in a style which I am sure he must

regret today. If these letters are produced in court, sir, Mr Thomas's

character is gone.'

 

'Am I to understand--' began Gideon.

 

'My dear sir,' said the Australian emphatically, 'it isn't possible to

understand unless you saw them.'

 

'That is a painful circumstance,' said Gideon; he glanced pityingly in

the direction of the culprit, and, observing on his countenance every

mark of confusion, pityingly withdrew his eyes.

 

'And that would be nothing,' continued Mr Dickson sternly, 'but I

wish--I wish from my heart, sir, I could say that Mr Thomas's hands were

clean. He has no excuse; for he was engaged at the time--and is still

engaged--to the belle of Constantinople, Ga. My friend's conduct was

unworthy of the brutes that perish.'

 

'Ga.?' repeated Gideon enquiringly.

 

'A contraction in current use,' said Michael. 'Ga. for Georgia, in The

same way as Co. for Company.'

 

'I was aware it was sometimes so written,' returned the barrister, 'but

not that it was so pronounced.'

 

'Fact, I assure you,' said Michael. 'You now see for yourself, sir, that

if this unhappy person is to be saved, some devilish sharp practice will

be needed. There's money, and no desire to spare it. Mr Thomas could

write a cheque tomorrow for a hundred thousand. And, Mr Forsyth,

there's better than money. The foreign count--Count Tarnow, he calls

himself--was formerly a tobacconist in Bayswater, and passed under

the humble but expressive name of Schmidt; his daughter--if she is his

daughter--there's another point--make a note of that, Mr Forsyth--his

daughter at that time actually served in the shop--and she now proposes

to marry a man of the eminence of Mr Thomas! Now do you see our game? We

know they contemplate a move; and we wish to forestall 'em. Down you

go to Hampton Court, where they live, and threaten, or bribe, or both,

until you get the letters; if you can't, God help us, we must go to

court and Thomas must be exposed. I'll be done with him for one,' added

the unchivalrous friend.

 

'There seem some elements of success,' said Gideon. 'Was Schmidt at all

known to the police?'

 

'We hope so,' said Michael. 'We have every ground to think so. Mark

the neighbourhood--Bayswater! Doesn't Bayswater occur to you as very

suggestive?'

 

For perhaps the sixth time during this remarkable interview, Gideon

wondered if he were not becoming light-headed. 'I suppose it's just

because he has been lunching,' he thought; and then added aloud, 'To

what figure may I go?'

 

'Perhaps five thousand would be enough for today,' said Michael. 'And

now, sir, do not let me detain you any longer; the afternoon wears

on; there are plenty of trains to Hampton Court; and I needn't try to

describe to you the impatience of my friend. Here is a five-pound note

for current expenses; and here is the address.' And Michael began to

write, paused, tore up the paper, and put the pieces in his pocket. 'I

will dictate,' he said, 'my writing is so uncertain.'

 

Gideon took down the address, 'Count Tarnow, Kurnaul Villa, Hampton

Court.' Then he wrote something else on a sheet of paper. 'You said you

had not chosen a solicitor,' he said. 'For a case of this sort, here is

the best man in London.' And he handed the paper to Michael.

 

'God bless me!' ejaculated Michael, as he read his own address.

 

'O, I daresay you have seen his name connected with some rather painful

cases,' said Gideon. 'But he is himself a perfectly honest man, and his

capacity is recognized. And now, gentlemen, it only remains for me to

ask where I shall communicate with you.'

 

'The Langham, of course,' returned Michael. 'Till tonight.'

 

'Till tonight,' replied Gideon, smiling. 'I suppose I may knock you up

at a late hour?'

 

'Any hour, any hour,' cried the vanishing solicitor.

 

'Now there's a young fellow with a head upon his shoulders,' he said to

Pitman, as soon as they were in the street.

 

Pitman was indistinctly heard to murmur, 'Perfect fool.'

 

'Not a bit of him,' returned Michael. 'He knows who's the best solicitor

in London, and it's not every man can say the same. But, I say, didn't I

pitch it in hot?'

 

Pitman returned no answer.

 

'Hullo!' said the lawyer, pausing, 'what's wrong with the long-suffering

Pitman?'

 

'You had no right to speak of me as you did,' the artist broke out;

'your language was perfectly unjustifiable; you have wounded me deeply.'

 

'I never said a word about you,' replied Michael. 'I spoke of Ezra

Thomas; and do please remember that there's no such party.'

 

'It's just as hard to bear,' said the artist.

 

But by this time they had reached the corner of the by-street; and

there was the faithful shoeblack, standing by the horses' heads with

a splendid assumption of dignity; and there was the piano, figuring

forlorn upon the cart, while the rain beat upon its unprotected sides

and trickled down its elegantly varnished legs.

 

The shoeblack was again put in requisition to bring five or six strong

fellows from the neighbouring public-house; and the last battle of the

campaign opened. It is probable that Mr Gideon Forsyth had not yet taken

his seat in the train for Hampton Court, before Michael opened the door

of the chambers, and the grunting porters deposited the Broadwood grand

in the middle of the floor.

 

'And now,' said the lawyer, after he had sent the men about their

business, 'one more precaution. We must leave him the key of the piano,

and we must contrive that he shall find it. Let me see.' And he built a

square tower of cigars upon the top of the instrument, and dropped the

key into the middle.

 

'Poor young man,' said the artist, as they descended the stairs.

 

'He is in a devil of a position,' assented Michael drily. 'It'll brace

him up.'

 

'And that reminds me,' observed the excellent Pitman, 'that I fear I

displayed a most ungrateful temper. I had no right, I see, to resent

expressions, wounding as they were, which were in no sense directed.'

 

'That's all right,' cried Michael, getting on the cart. 'Not a word

more, Pitman. Very proper feeling on your part; no man of self-respect

can stand by and hear his alias insulted.'

 

The rain had now ceased, Michael was fairly sober, the body had been

disposed of, and the friends were reconciled. The return to the mews was

therefore (in comparison with previous stages of the day's adventures)

quite a holiday outing; and when they had returned the cart and walked

forth again from the stable-yard, unchallenged, and even unsuspected,

Pitman drew a deep breath of joy. 'And now,' he said, 'we can go home.'

 

'Pitman,' said the lawyer, stopping short, 'your recklessness fills me

with concern. What! we have been wet through the greater part of the

day, and you propose, in cold blood, to go home! No, sir--hot Scotch.'

 

And taking his friend's arm he led him sternly towards the nearest

public-house. Nor was Pitman (I regret to say) wholly unwilling.

Now that peace was restored and the body gone, a certain innocent

skittishness began to appear in the manners of the artist; and when

he touched his steaming glass to Michael's, he giggled aloud like a

venturesome schoolgirl at a picnic.

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX. Glorious Conclusion of Michael Finsbury's Holiday

 

I know Michael Finsbury personally; my business--I know the awkwardness

of having such a man for a lawyer--still it's an old story now, and

there is such a thing as gratitude, and, in short, my legal business,

although now (I am thankful to say) of quite a placid character, remains

entirely in Michael's hands. But the trouble is I have no natural talent

for addresses; I learn one for every man--that is friendship's offering;

and the friend who subsequently changes his residence is dead to me,

memory refusing to pursue him. Thus it comes about that, as I always

write to Michael at his office, I cannot swear to his number in the

King's Road. Of course (like my neighbours), I have been to dinner

there. Of late years, since his accession to wealth, neglect of

business, and election to the club, these little festivals have become

common. He picks up a few fellows in the smoking-room--all men of Attic

wit--myself, for instance, if he has the luck to find me disengaged; a

string of hansoms may be observed (by Her Majesty) bowling gaily through

St James's Park; and in a quarter of an hour the party surrounds one of

the best appointed boards in London.

 

But at the time of which we write the house in the King's Road (let us

still continue to call it No. 233) was kept very quiet; when Michael

entertained guests it was at the halls of Nichol or Verrey that he would

convene them, and the door of his private residence remained closed

against his friends. The upper storey, which was sunny, was set apart

for his father; the drawing-room was never opened; the dining-room was

the scene of Michael's life. It is in this pleasant apartment,

sheltered from the curiosity of King's Road by wire blinds, and entirely

surrounded by the lawyer's unrivalled library of poetry and criminal

trials, that we find him sitting down to his dinner after his holiday

with Pitman. A spare old lady, with very bright eyes and a mouth

humorously compressed, waited upon the lawyer's needs; in every line of

her countenance she betrayed the fact that she was an old retainer;

in every word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious

circumstance of a Scottish origin; and the fear with which this powerful

combination fills the boldest was obviously no stranger to the bosom of

our friend. The hot Scotch having somewhat warmed up the embers of the

Heidsieck, It was touching to observe the master's eagerness to pull

himself together under the servant's eye; and when he remarked, 'I

think, Teena, I'll take a brandy and soda,' he spoke like a man doubtful

of his elocution, and not half certain of obedience.

 

'No such a thing, Mr Michael,' was the prompt return. 'Clar't and

water.'

 

'Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best,' said the master. 'Very

fatiguing day at the office, though.'

 

'What?' said the retainer, 'ye never were near the office!'

 

'O yes, I was though; I was repeatedly along Fleet Street,' returned

Michael.

 

'Pretty pliskies ye've been at this day!' cried the old lady, with

humorous alacrity; and then, 'Take care--don't break my crystal!' she

cried, as the lawyer came within an ace of knocking the glasses off the

table.

 

'And how is he keeping?' asked Michael.

 

'O, just the same, Mr Michael, just the way he'll be till the end,

worthy man!' was the reply. 'But ye'll not be the first that's asked me

that the day.'

 

'No?' said the lawyer. 'Who else?'

 

'Ay, that's a joke, too,' said Teena grimly. 'A friend of yours: Mr

Morris.'

 

'Morris! What was the little beggar wanting here?' enquired Michael.

 

'Wantin'? To see him,' replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning

by a movement of the thumb toward the upper storey. 'That's by his way

of it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr Michael.

Bribe--me!' she repeated, with inimitable scorn. 'That's no' kind of a

young gentleman.'

 

'Did he so?' said Michael. 'I bet he didn't offer much.'

 

'No more he did,' replied Teena; nor could any subsequent questioning

elicit from her the sum with which the thrifty leather merchant had

attempted to corrupt her. 'But I sent him about his business,' she said

gallantly. 'He'll not come here again in a hurry.'

 

'He mustn't see my father, you know; mind that!' said Michael. 'I'm not

going to have any public exhibition to a little beast like him.'

 

'No fear of me lettin' him,' replied the trusty one. 'But the joke

is this, Mr Michael--see, ye're upsettin' the sauce, that's a clean

tablecloth--the best of the joke is that he thinks your father's dead

and you're keepin' it dark.'

 

Michael whistled. 'Set a thief to catch a thief,' said he.

 

'Exac'ly what I told him!' cried the delighted dame.

 

'I'll make him dance for that,' said Michael.

 

'Couldn't ye get the law of him some way?' suggested Teena truculently.

 

'No, I don't think I could, and I'm quite sure I don't want to,'

replied Michael. 'But I say, Teena, I really don't believe this claret's

wholesome; it's not a sound, reliable wine. Give us a brandy and soda,

there's a good soul.' Teena's face became like adamant. 'Well, then,'

said the lawyer fretfully, 'I won't eat any more dinner.'

 

'Ye can please yourself about that, Mr Michael,' said Teena, and began

composedly to take away.

 

'I do wish Teena wasn't a faithful servant!' sighed the lawyer, as he

issued into Kings's Road.

 

The rain had ceased; the wind still blew, but only with a pleasant

freshness; the town, in the clear darkness of the night, glittered with

street-lamps and shone with glancing rain-pools. 'Come, this is better,'

thought the lawyer to himself, and he walked on eastward, lending a

pleased ear to the wheels and the million footfalls of the city.

 

Near the end of the King's Road he remembered his brandy and soda, and

entered a flaunting public-house. A good many persons were present, a

waterman from a cab-stand, half a dozen of the chronically unemployed, a

gentleman (in one corner) trying to sell aesthetic photographs out of

a leather case to another and very youthful gentleman with a yellow

goatee, and a pair of lovers debating some fine shade (in the other).

But the centre-piece and great attraction was a little old man, in a

black, ready-made surtout, which was obviously a recent purchase. On

the marble table in front of him, beside a sandwich and a glass of

beer, there lay a battered forage cap. His hand fluttered abroad with

oratorical gestures; his voice, naturally shrill, was plainly tuned to

the pitch of the lecture room; and by arts, comparable to those of

the Ancient Mariner, he was now holding spellbound the barmaid, the

waterman, and four of the unemployed.

 

'I have examined all the theatres in London,' he was saying; 'and pacing

the principal entrances, I have ascertained them to be ridiculously

disproportionate to the requirements of their audiences. The doors

opened the wrong way--I forget at this moment which it is, but have a

note of it at home; they were frequently locked during the performance,

and when the auditorium was literally thronged with English people. You

have probably not had my opportunities of comparing distant lands; but

I can assure you this has been long ago recognized as a mark

of aristocratic government. Do you suppose, in a country really

self-governed, such abuses could exist? Your own intelligence, however

uncultivated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country even

possibly more enslaved than England. I have myself conversed with one of

the survivors of the Ring Theatre, and though his colloquial German

was not very good, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his

opinion of the case. But, what will perhaps interest you still more,

here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will

now read to you, translating as I go. You can see for yourselves; it

is printed in the German character.' And he held the cutting out for

verification, much as a conjuror passes a trick orange along the front

bench.

 

'Hullo, old gentleman! Is this you?' said Michael, laying his hand upon

the orator's shoulder.

 

The figure turned with a convulsion of alarm, and showed the countenance

of Mr Joseph Finsbury. 'You, Michael!' he cried. 'There's no one with

you, is there?'

 

'No,' replied Michael, ordering a brandy and soda, 'there's nobody with

me; whom do you expect?'

 

'I thought of Morris or John,' said the old gentleman, evidently greatly

relieved.

 

'What the devil would I be doing with Morris or John?' cried the nephew.

 

'There is something in that,' returned Joseph. 'And I believe I can

trust you. I believe you will stand by me.'

 

'I hardly know what you mean,' said the lawyer, 'but if you are in need

of money I am flush.'

 

'It's not that, my dear boy,' said the uncle, shaking him by the hand.

'I'll tell you all about it afterwards.'

 

'All right,' responded the nephew. 'I stand treat, Uncle Joseph; what

will you have?'

 

'In that case,' replied the old gentleman, 'I'll take another

sandwich. I daresay I surprise you,' he went on, 'with my presence in

a public-house; but the fact is, I act on a sound but little-known

principle of my own--'

 

'O, it's better known than you suppose,' said Michael sipping his brandy

and soda. 'I always act on it myself when I want a drink.'

 

The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a

cheerless laugh. 'You have such a flow of spirits,' said he, 'I am sure

I often find it quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which

I was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one's-self to the

manners of any land (however humble) in which our lot may be cast. Now,

in France, for instance, every one goes to a cafe for his meals; in

America, to what is called a "two-bit house"; in England the people

resort to such an institution as the present for refreshment. With

sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a man can live

luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum.'

 

'Yes, I know,' returned Michael, 'but that's not including clothes,

washing, or boots. The whole thing, with cigars and occasional sprees,

costs me over seven hundred a year.'

 

But this was Michael's last interruption. He listened in good-humoured

silence to the remainder of his uncle's lecture, which speedily branched

to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an

illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best

manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and-dumb; and with that, the

sandwich being then no more, explicuit valde feliciter. A moment later

the pair issued forth on the King's Road.

 

'Michael, I said his uncle, 'the reason that I am here is because I

cannot endure those nephews of mine. I find them intolerable.'

 

'I daresay you do,' assented Michael, 'I never could stand them for a

moment.'

 

'They wouldn't let me speak,' continued the old gentleman bitterly; 'I

never was allowed to get a word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with

some impertinent remark. They kept me on short allowance of pencils,

when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing interest; the daily

newspaper was guarded from me like a young baby from a gorilla. Now, you

know me, Michael. I live for my calculations; I live for my manifold and

ever-changing views of life; pens and paper and the productions of the

popular press are to me as important as food and drink; and my life

was growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion of that fortunate

railway accident at Browndean, I made my escape. They must think

me dead, and are trying to deceive the world for the chance of the

tontine.'

 

'By the way, how do you stand for money?' asked Michael kindly.

 

'Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich,' returned the old man with

cheerfulness. 'I am living at present at the rate of one hundred a year,

with unlimited pens and paper; the British Museum at which to get books;

and all the newspapers I choose to read. But it's extraordinary how

little a man of intellectual interest requires to bother with books in a

progressive age. The newspapers supply all the conclusions.'

 

'I'll tell you what,' said Michael, 'come and stay with me.'

 

'Michael,' said the old gentleman, 'it's very kind of you, but you

scarcely understand what a peculiar position I occupy. There are some

little financial complications; as a guardian, my efforts were not

altogether blessed; and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, I

am absolutely in the power of that vile fellow, Morris.'

 

'You should be disguised,' cried Michael eagerly; 'I will lend you a

pair of window-glass spectacles and some red side-whiskers.'

 

'I had already canvassed that idea,' replied the old gentleman, 'but

feared to awaken remark in my unpretentious lodgings. The aristocracy, I

am well aware--'

 

'But see here,' interrupted Michael, 'how do you come to have any money

at all? Don't make a stranger of me, Uncle Joseph; I know all about the

trust, and the hash you made of it, and the assignment you were forced

to make to Morris.'

 

Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank.

 

'O, but I say, this won't do,' cried the lawyer. 'You've put your foot

in it. You had no right to do what you did.'

 

'The whole thing is mine, Michael,' protested the old gentleman. 'I

founded and nursed that business on principles entirely of my own.'

 

'That's all very fine,' said the lawyer; 'but you made an assignment,

you were forced to make it, too; even then your position was extremely

shaky; but now, my dear sir, it means the dock.'

 

'It isn't possible,' cried Joseph; 'the law cannot be so unjust as

that?'

 

'And the cream of the thing,' interrupted Michael, with a sudden shout

of laughter, 'the cream of the thing is this, that of course you've

downed the leather business! I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange

ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour.'

 

'I see nothing to laugh at,' observed Mr Finsbury tartly.

 

'And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for the firm?' asked

Michael.

 

'No one but myself,' replied Joseph.

 

'Poor devil of a Morris! O, poor devil of a Morris!' cried the lawyer in

delight. 'And his keeping up the farce that you're at home! O, Morris,

the Lord has delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what

do you suppose the leather business worth?'

 

'It was worth a hundred thousand,' said Joseph bitterly, 'when it was

in my hands. But then there came a Scotsman--it is supposed he had a

certain talent--it was entirely directed to bookkeeping--no accountant

in London could understand a word of any of his books; and then there

was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent. And now it is worth very

little. Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram and Jarris offered

only four thousand.'

 

'I shall turn my attention to leather,' said Michael with decision.

 

'You?' asked Joseph. 'I advise you not. There is nothing in the whole

field of commerce more surprising than the fluctuations of the leather

market. Its sensitiveness may be described as morbid.'

 

'And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with all that money?' asked

the lawyer.

 

'Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds,' answered Mr Finsbury

promptly. 'Why?'

 

'Very well,' said Michael. 'Tomorrow I shall send down a clerk with a

cheque for a hundred, and he'll draw out the original sum and return it

to the Anglo-Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try

to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as Morris can't touch

a penny of it without forgery, it will do no harm to my little scheme.'

 

'But what am I to do?' asked Joseph; 'I cannot live upon nothing.'

 

'Don't you hear?' returned Michael. 'I send you a cheque for a hundred;

which leaves you eighty to go along upon; and when that's done, apply to

me again.'

 

'I would rather not be beholden to your bounty all the same,' said

Joseph, biting at his white moustache. 'I would rather live on my own

money, since I have it.'

 

Michael grasped his arm. 'Will nothing make you believe,' he cried,

'that I am trying to save you from Dartmoor?'

 

His earnestness staggered the old man. 'I must turn my attention

to law,' he said; 'it will be a new field; for though, of course, I

understand its general principles, I have never really applied my

mind to the details, and this view of yours, for example, comes on me

entirely by surprise. But you may be right, and of course at my time

of life--for I am no longer young--any really long term of imprisonment

would be highly prejudicial. But, my dear nephew, I have no claim on

you; you have no call to support me.'

 

'That's all right,' said Michael; 'I'll probably get it out of the

leather business.'

 

And having taken down the old gentleman's address, Michael left him at

the corner of a street.

 

'What a wonderful old muddler!' he reflected, 'and what a singular thing

is life! I seem to be condemned to be the instrument of Providence. Let

me see; what have I done today? Disposed of a dead body, saved Pitman,

saved my Uncle Joseph, brightened up Forsyth, and drunk a devil of a lot

of most indifferent liquor. Let's top off with a visit to my cousins,

and be the instrument of Providence in earnest. Tomorrow I can turn

my attention to leather; tonight I'll just make it lively for 'em in a

friendly spirit.'

 

About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were striking eleven,

the instrument of Providence descended from a hansom, and, bidding the

driver wait, rapped at the door of No. 16 John Street.

 

It was promptly opened by Morris.

 

'O, it's you, Michael,' he said, carefully blocking up the narrow

opening: 'it's very late.'

 

Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris warmly by the hand,

and gave it so extreme a squeeze that the sullen householder fell back.

Profiting by this movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby

and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at his heels.

 

'Where's my Uncle Joseph?' demanded Michael, sitting down in the most

comfortable chair.

 

'He's not been very well lately,' replied Morris; 'he's staying at

Browndean; John is nursing him; and I am alone, as you see.'

 

Michael smiled to himself. 'I want to see him on particular business,'

he said.

 

'You can't expect to see my uncle when you won't let me see your

father,' returned Morris.

 

'Fiddlestick,' said Michael. 'My father is my father; but Joseph is just

as much my uncle as he's yours; and you have no right to sequestrate his

person.'

 

'I do no such thing,' said Morris doggedly. 'He is not well, he is

dangerously ill and nobody can see him.'

 

'I'll tell you what, then,' said Michael. 'I'll make a clean breast

of it. I have come down like the opossum, Morris; I have come to

compromise.'

 

Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush of wrath against

the injustice of man's destiny dyed his very temples. 'What do you

mean?' he cried, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And when Michael had

assured him of his seriousness, 'Well, then,' he cried, with another

deep flush, 'I won't; so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.'

 

'Oho!' said Michael queerly. 'You say your uncle is dangerously ill, and

you won't compromise? There's something very fishy about that.'

 

'What do you mean?' cried Morris hoarsely.

 

'I only say it's fishy,' returned Michael, 'that is, pertaining to the

finny tribe.'

 

'Do you mean to insinuate anything?' cried Morris stormily, trying the

high hand.

 

'Insinuate?' repeated Michael. 'O, don't let's begin to use awkward

expressions! Let us drown our differences in a bottle, like two affable

kinsmen. The Two Affable Kinsmen, sometimes attributed to Shakespeare,'

he added.

 

Morris's mind was labouring like a mill. 'Does he suspect? or is this

chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap,' he concluded.

'It gains time.' 'Well,' said he aloud, and with rather a painful

affectation of heartiness, 'it's long since we have had an evening

together, Michael; and though my habits (as you know) are very

temperate, I may as well make an exception. Excuse me one moment till I

fetch a bottle of whisky from the cellar.'

 

'No whisky for me,' said Michael; 'a little of the old still champagne

or nothing.'

 

For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was very valuable:

the next he had quitted the room without a word. His quick mind had

perceived his advantage; in thus dunning him for the cream of the

cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. 'One bottle?' he thought. 'By

George, I'll give him two! this is no moment for economy; and once the

beast is drunk, it's strange if I don't wring his secret out of him.'

 

With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses were produced, and

Morris filled them with hospitable grace.

 

'I drink to you, cousin!' he cried gaily. 'Don't spare the wine-cup in

my house.'

 

Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the table; filled it

again, and returned to his chair, carrying the bottle along with him.

 

'The spoils of war!' he said apologetically. 'The weakest goes to the

wall. Science, Morris, science.' Morris could think of no reply, and for

an appreciable interval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still

champagne produced a rapid change in Michael.

 

'There's a want of vivacity about you, Morris,' he observed. 'You may be

deep; but I'll be hanged if you're vivacious!'

 

'What makes you think me deep?' asked Morris with an air of pleased

simplicity.

 

'Because you won't compromise,' said the lawyer. 'You're deep dog,

Morris, very deep dog, not t' compromise--remarkable deep dog. And

a very good glass of wine; it's the only respectable feature in the

Finsbury family, this wine; rarer thing than a title--much rarer. Now a

man with glass wine like this in cellar, I wonder why won't compromise?'

 

'Well, YOU wouldn't compromise before, you know,' said the smiling

Morris. 'Turn about is fair play.'

 

'I wonder why _I_ wouldn' compromise? I wonder why YOU wouldn'?'

enquired Michael. 'I wonder why we each think the other wouldn'? 'S

quite a remarrable--remarkable problem,' he added, triumphing over oral

obstacles, not without obvious pride. 'Wonder what we each think--don't

you?'

 

'What do you suppose to have been my reason?' asked Morris adroitly.

 

Michael looked at him and winked. 'That's cool,' said he. 'Next thing,

you'll ask me to help you out of the muddle. I know I'm emissary of

Providence, but not that kind! You get out of it yourself, like Aesop

and the other fellow. Must be dreadful muddle for young orphan o' forty;

leather business and all!'

 

'I am sure I don't know what you mean,' said Morris.

 

'Not sure I know myself,' said Michael. 'This is exc'lent vintage,

sir--exc'lent vintage. Nothing against the tipple. Only thing: here's a

valuable uncle disappeared. Now, what I want to know: where's valuable

uncle?'

 

'I have told you: he is at Browndean,' answered Morris, furtively wiping

his brow, for these repeated hints began to tell upon him cruelly.

 

'Very easy say Brown--Browndee--no' so easy after all!' cried Michael.

'Easy say; anything's easy say, when you can say it. What I don' like's

total disappearance of an uncle. Not businesslike.' And he wagged his

head.

 

'It is all perfectly simple,' returned Morris, with laborious calm.

'There is no mystery. He stays at Browndean, where he got a shake in the

accident.'

 

'Ah!' said Michael, 'got devil of a shake!'

 

'Why do you say that?' cried Morris sharply.

 

'Best possible authority. Told me so yourself,' said the lawyer. 'But if

you tell me contrary now, of course I'm bound to believe either the one

story or the other. Point is I've upset this bottle, still champagne's

exc'lent thing carpet--point is, is valuable uncle dead--an'--bury?'

 

Morris sprang from his seat. 'What's that you say?' he gasped.

 

'I say it's exc'lent thing carpet,' replied Michael, rising. 'Exc'lent

thing promote healthy action of the skin. Well, it's all one, anyway.

Give my love to Uncle Champagne.'

 

'You're not going away?' said Morris.

 

'Awf'ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend,' said the wavering

Michael.

 

'You shall not go till you have explained your hints,' returned Morris

fiercely. 'What do you mean? What brought you here?'

 

'No offence, I trust,' said the lawyer, turning round as he opened the

door; 'only doing my duty as shemishery of Providence.'

 

Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with some difficulty,

and descended the steps to the hansom. The tired driver looked up as he

approached, and asked where he was to go next.

 

Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the steps; a brilliant

inspiration came to him. 'Anything t' give pain,' he reflected. . . .

'Drive Shcotlan' Yard,' he added aloud, holding to the wheel to steady

himself; 'there's something devilish fishy, cabby, about those cousins.

Mush' be cleared up! Drive Shcotlan' Yard.'

 

'You don't mean that, sir,' said the man, with the ready sympathy of the

lower orders for an intoxicated gentleman. 'I had better take you home,

sir; you can go to Scotland Yard tomorrow.'

 

'Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me not to go

Shcotlan' Yard t'night?' enquired Michael. 'All righ', never min'

Shcotlan' Yard, drive Gaiety bar.'

 

'The Gaiety bar is closed,' said the man.

 

'Then home,' said Michael, with the same cheerfulness.

 

'Where to, sir?'

 

'I don't remember, I'm sure,' said Michael, entering the vehicle, 'drive

Shcotlan' Yard and ask.'

 

'But you'll have a card,' said the man, through the little aperture in

the top, 'give me your card-case.'

 

'What imagi--imagination in a cabby!' cried the lawyer, producing his

card-case, and handing it to the driver.

 

The man read it by the light of the lamp. 'Mr Michael Finsbury, 233

King's Road, Chelsea. Is that it, sir?'

 

'Right you are,' cried Michael, 'drive there if you can see way.'

 

 

 

CHAPTER X. Gideon Forsyth and the Broadwood Grand

 

The reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, Who Put Back the

Clock? by E. H. B., which appeared for several days upon the railway

bookstalls and then vanished entirely from the face of the earth.

Whether eating Time makes the chief of his diet out of old editions;

whether Providence has passed a special enactment on behalf of authors;

or whether these last have taken the law into their own hand, bound

themselves into a dark conspiracy with a password, which I would

die rather than reveal, and night after night sally forth under some

vigorous leader, such as Mr James Payn or Mr Walter Besant, on their

task of secret spoliation--certain it is, at least, that the old

editions pass, giving place to new. To the proof, it is believed there

are now only three copies extant of Who Put Back the Clock? one in

the British Museum, successfully concealed by a wrong entry in the

catalogue; another in one of the cellars (the cellar where the music

accumulates) of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh; and a third, bound

in morocco, in the possession of Gideon Forsyth. To account for the very

different fate attending this third exemplar, the readiest theory is

to suppose that Gideon admired the tale. How to explain that admiration

might appear (to those who have perused the work) more difficult; but

the weakness of a parent is extreme, and Gideon (and not his uncle,

whose initials he had humorously borrowed) was the author of Who Put

Back the Clock? He had never acknowledged it, or only to some intimate

friends while it was still in proof; after its appearance and alarming

failure, the modesty of the novelist had become more pressing, and the

secret was now likely to be better kept than that of the authorship of

Waverley.

 

A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already yesterday) still

figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall at Waterloo; and Gideon, as

he passed with his ticket for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously at

the creature of his thoughts. What an idle ambition was the author's!

How far beneath him was the practice of that childish art! With his hand

closing on his first brief, he felt himself a man at last; and the

muse who presides over the police romance, a lady presumably of French

extraction, fled his neighbourhood, and returned to join the dance round

the springs of Helicon, among her Grecian sisters.

 

Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young barrister upon his

journey. Again and again he selected the little country-house in its

islet of great oaks, which he was to make his future home. Like a

prudent householder, he projected improvements as he passed; to one he

added a stable, to another a tennis-court, a third he supplied with a

becoming rustic boat-house.

 

'How little a while ago,' he could not but reflect, 'I was a careless

young dog with no thought but to be comfortable! I cared for nothing

but boating and detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned

country-house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat-house, and

spacious offices, without so much as a look, and certainly would have

made no enquiry as to the drains. How a man ripens with the years!'

 

The intelligent reader will perceive the ravages of Miss Hazeltine.

Gideon had carried Julia straight to Mr Bloomfield's house; and

that gentleman, having been led to understand she was the victim of

oppression, had noisily espoused her cause. He worked himself into

a fine breathing heat; in which, to a man of his temperament, action

became needful.

 

'I do not know which is the worse,' he cried, 'the fraudulent old

villain or the unmanly young cub. I will write to the Pall Mall and

expose them. Nonsense, sir; they must be exposed! It's a public duty.

Did you not tell me the fellow was a Tory? O, the uncle is a Radical

lecturer, is he? No doubt the uncle has been grossly wronged. But of

course, as you say, that makes a change; it becomes scarce so much a

public duty.'

 

And he sought and instantly found a fresh outlet for his alacrity. Miss

Hazeltine (he now perceived) must be kept out of the way; his houseboat

was lying ready--he had returned but a day or two before from his usual

cruise; there was no place like a houseboat for concealment; and that

very morning, in the teeth of the easterly gale, Mr and Mrs Bloomfield

and Miss Julia Hazeltine had started forth on their untimely voyage.

Gideon pled in vain to be allowed to join the party. 'No, Gid,' said his

uncle. 'You will be watched; you must keep away from us.' Nor had the

barrister ventured to contest this strange illusion; for he feared if

he rubbed off any of the romance, that Mr Bloomfield might weary of the

whole affair. And his discretion was rewarded; for the Squirradical,

laying a heavy hand upon his nephew's shoulder, had added these notable

expressions: 'I see what you are after, Gid. But if you're going to get

the girl, you have to work, sir.'

 

These pleasing sounds had cheered the barrister all day, as he sat

reading in chambers; they continued to form the ground-base of his manly

musings as he was whirled to Hampton Court; even when he landed at the

station, and began to pull himself together for his delicate interview,

the voice of Uncle Ned and the eyes of Julia were not forgotten.

 

But now it began to rain surprises: in all Hampton Court there was no

Kurnaul Villa, no Count Tarnow, and no count. This was strange; but,

viewed in the light of the incoherency of his instructions, not perhaps

inexplicable; Mr Dickson had been lunching, and he might have made some

fatal oversight in the address. What was the thoroughly prompt, manly,

and businesslike step? thought Gideon; and he answered himself at

once: 'A telegram, very laconic.' Speedily the wires were flashing the

following very important missive: 'Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and

persons both unknown here, suppose erroneous address; follow self next

train.--Forsyth.' And at the Langham Hotel, sure enough, with a brow

expressive of dispatch and intellectual effort, Gideon descended not

long after from a smoking hansom.

 

I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel. No

Count Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite

another. How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; from

every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruous

messages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite

subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for his

chambers. There was at least a cave of refuge; it was at least a place

to think in; and he climbed the stair, put his key in the lock and

opened the door, with some approach to hope.

 

It was all dark within, for the night had some time fallen; but Gideon

knew his room, he knew where the matches stood on the end of the

chimney-piece; and he advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himself

against a heavy body; where (slightly altering the expressions of the

song) no heavy body should have been. There had been nothing there when

Gideon went out; he had locked the door behind him, he had found it

locked on his return, no one could have entered, the furniture could not

have changed its own position. And yet undeniably there was a something

there. He thrust out his hands in the darkness. Yes, there was

something, something large, something smooth, something cold.

 

'Heaven forgive me!' said Gideon, 'it feels like a piano.'

 

And the next moment he remembered the vestas in his waistcoat pocket and

had struck a light.

 

It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze; a vast and costly

instrument, stained with the rains of the afternoon and defaced

with recent scratches. The light of the vesta was reflected from the

varnished sides, like a staice in quiet water; and in the farther end of

the room the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and wavered

on the wall.

 

Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the darkness closed once

more on his bewilderment. Then with trembling hands he lit the lamp and

drew near. Near or far, there was no doubt of the fact: the thing was

a piano. There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossible

that it should be--there the thing impudently stood. Gideon threw open

the keyboard and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the

room. 'Is there anything wrong with me?' he thought, with a pang; and

drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravish

silence, now with sparkling arpeggios, now with a sonata of Beethoven's

which (in happier days) he knew to be one of the loudest pieces of that

powerful composer. Still not a sound. He gave the Broadwood two great

bangs with his clenched first. All was still as the grave. The young

barrister started to his feet.

 

'I am stark-staring mad,' he cried aloud, 'and no one knows it but

myself. God's worst curse has fallen on me.'

 

His fingers encountered his watch-chain; instantly he had plucked forth

his watch and held it to his ear. He could hear it ticking.

 

'I am not deaf,' he said aloud. 'I am only insane. My mind has quitted

me for ever.'

 

He looked uneasily about the room, and--gazed with lacklustre eyes at

the chair in which Mr Dickson had installed himself. The end of a cigar

lay near on the fender.

 

'No,' he thought, 'I don't believe that was a dream; but God knows

my mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be hungry, for instance; it's

probably another hallucination. Still I might try. I shall have one more