The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his
escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain
the cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun
was extinguished. There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a
hundred severally; and two fifties. And all had come to him through the
mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!
It was enough to make one in love with civilization. Money, when it is
once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have
worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find
it there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth--the
typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above
the conditions of earth.
He knew the very features of the notes. That gallant old Five Hundred,
who might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into
centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation
like a grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in
court-ruffles--say, Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent. The
Hundreds were his Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one
was possessed of unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable
regiments, at the call of his lord, Algernon.
He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the
largest sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his
pleasure, he did confess it for half an instant. Five Hundred in the
bulk he had never attained to. He felt it as a fortification against
every mishap in life.
To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his
cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation
imparted by the sum was intoxicating. But, thinking too much of the
Five Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such
insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect. So, Algernon,
pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that
he had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he
endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating
from the night at the theatre. Algernon had stopped his mouth on
that point, as well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by
immediately attempting to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way
for a word in private. A one-pound creditor had no particular terrors
for him, and he manoeuvred the old man neatly, saying, as previously,
“Really, I don't know the young person you allude to: I happened to
meet her, or some one like her, casually,” and dropping his voice, “I'm
rather short--what do you think? Could you?--a trifling accommodation?”
from which Anthony fled.
But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to
follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had
just heard of Dahlia.
“Oh,” said Anthony, “I've seen her.”
“I haven't,” said Algernon, “upon my honour.”
“Yes, I've seen her, sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit
low.” Anthony touched his pocket. “What they calls 'nip' tides, ain't
it?”
Algernon sprang a compliment under him, which sent the vain old fellow
up, whether he would or not, to the effect that Anthony's tides were not
subject to lunar influence.
“Now, Mr. Blancove, you must change them notions o' me. I don't say I
shouldn't be richer if I'd got what's owing to me.”
“You'd have to be protected; you'd be Bullion on two legs,” said
Algernon, always shrewd in detecting a weakness. “You'd have to go about
with sentries on each side, and sleep in an iron safe!”
The end of the interview was a visit to the public-house, and the
transferring of another legal instrument from Algernon to Anthony. The
latter departed moaning over his five pounds ten shillings in paper; the
former rejoicing at his five pounds in gold. That day was Saturday. On
Monday, only a few shillings of the five pounds remained; but they were
sufficient to command a cab, and, if modesty in dining was among the
prescriptions for the day, a dinner. Algernon was driven to the West.
He remembered when he had plunged in the midst of the fashionable
whirlpool, having felt reckless there formerly, but he had become
remarkably sedate when he stepped along the walks. A certain equipage,
or horse, was to his taste, and once he would have said: “That's the
thing for me;” being penniless. Now, on the contrary, he reckoned the
possible cost, grudgingly, saying “Eh?” to himself, and responding “No,”
faintly, and then more positively, “Won't do.”
He was by no means acting as one on a footing of equality with the
people he beholds. A man who is ready to wager a thousand pounds that no
other man present has that amount in his pocket, can hardly feel unequal
to his company.
Charming ladies on horseback cantered past. “Let them go,” he thought.
Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand
alliances. When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise.
Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell! She was talking more
earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the
man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box.
“Poor old Ned!” said Algernon; “I must put him on his guard.” But, even
the lifting of a finger--a hint on paper--would bring Edward over from
Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only determined
to write to his cousin.
A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park.
“The glory of this place,” Algernon said to himself, “is, that you're
sure of meeting none but gentlemen here;” and he contrasted it with
Epsom Downs.
A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he
perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups--as discordant a figure as
could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step
nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way;
but Sedgett had long sight.
“I'd heard of London”--Algernon soon had the hated voice in his
ears,--“and I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink
at the fash'nables--hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot. It's
worth a walk up and down for a hour or more. D' you come heer often,
sir?”
“Eh? Who are you? Oh!” said Algernon, half mad with rage. “Excuse me;”
and he walked faster.
“Fifty times over,” Sedgett responded cheerfully. “I'd pace you for a
match up and down this place if you liked. Ain't the horses a spectacle?
I'd rather be heer than there at they Races. As for the ladies, I'll
tell you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her
hair to grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine
against e'er a one--smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't! So she shall!
Australia'll see. I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never
fear my not remembering.”
Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by
threading his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to
merciless exposure, and he flew before eyes that his imagination
exaggerated to a stretch of supernatural astonishment. The tips of
his fingers, the roots of his hair, pricked with vexation, and still,
manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett followed him.
“Call at my chambers,” he said sternly.
“You're never at home, sir.”
“Call to-morrow morning, at ten.”
“And see a great big black door, and kick at it till my toe comes
through my boot. Thank ye.”
“I tell you, I won't have you annoying me in public; once for all.”
“Why, sir; I thought we parted friends, last time. Didn't you shake my
hand, now, didn't you shake my hand, sir? I ask you, whether you shook
my hand, or whether you didn't? A plain answer. We had a bit of a
scrimmage, coming home. I admit we had; but shaking hands, means
'friends again we are.' I know you're a gentleman, and a man like me
shouldn't be so bold as fur to strike his betters. Only, don't you see,
sir, Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap, and up in a minute; and he's sorry for
it after.”
Algernon conceived a brilliant notion. Drawing five shillings from his
pocket, he held them over to Sedgett, and told him to drive down to his
chambers, and await his coming. Sedgett took the money; but it was five
shillings lost. He made no exhibition of receiving orders, and it was
impossible to address him imperiously without provoking observations of
an animated kind from the elegant groups parading and sitting.
Young Harry Latters caught Algernon's eye; never was youth more joyfully
greeted. Harry spoke of the Friday's race, and the defection of the
horse Tenpenny Nail. A man passed with a nod and “How d' ye do?” for
which he received in reply a cool stare.
“Who's that?” Algernon asked.
“The son of a high dignitary,” said Harry.
“You cut him.”
“I can do the thing, you see, when it's a public duty.”
“What's the matter with him?”
“Merely a black-leg, a grec, a cheat, swindler, or whatever name you
like,” said Harry. “We none of us nod to the professionals in this line;
and I won't exchange salutes with an amateur. I'm peculiar. He chose to
be absent on the right day last year; so from that date; I consider
him absent in toto; 'none of your rrrrr--m reckonings, let's have the
rrrrr--m toto;'--you remember Suckling's story of the Yankee fellow?
Bye-bye; shall see you the day after to-morrow. You dine with me and
Suckling at the club.”
Latters was hailed by other friends. Algernon was forced to let him
go. He dipped under the iron rail, and crossed the row at a run; an
indecorous proceeding; he could not help it. The hope was that Sedgett
would not have the like audacity, or might be stopped, and Algernon's
reward for so just a calculation was, that on looking round, he found
himself free. He slipped with all haste out of the Park. Sedgett's
presence had the deadening power of the torpedo on the thousand pounds.
For the last quarter of an hour, Algernon had not felt a motion of it. A
cab, to make his escape certain, was suggested to his mind; and he would
have called a cab, had not the novel apparition of economy, which now
haunted him, suggested that he had recently tossed five shillings into
the gutter. A man might dine on four shillings and sixpence, enjoying
a modest half-pint of wine, and he possessed that sum. To pinch himself
and deserve well of Providence, he resolved not to drink wine, but beer,
that day. He named the beverage; a pint-bottle of ale; and laughed, as a
royal economist may, who punishes himself to please himself.
“Mighty jolly, ain't it, sir?” said Sedgett, at his elbow.
Algernon faced about, and swore an oath from his boots upward; so
vehement was his disgust, and all-pervading his amazement.
“I'll wallop you at that game,” said Sedgett.
“You infernal scoundrel!”
“If you begin swearing,” Sedgett warned him.
“What do you want with me?”
“I'll tell you, sir. I don't want to go to ne'er a cock-fight, nor
betting hole.”
“Here, come up this street,” said Algernon, leading the way into a
dusky defile from a main parade of fashion. “Now, what's your business,
confound you!”
“Well, sir, I ain't goin' to be confounded: that, I'll--I'll swear to.
The long and the short is, I must have some money 'fore the week's out.”
“You won't have a penny from me.”
“That's blunt, though it ain't in my pocket,” said Sedgett, grinning.
“I say, sir, respectful as you like, I must. I've got to pay for
passengerin' over the sea, self and wife; and quick it must be. There's
things to buy on both sides. A small advance and you won't be bothered.
Say, fifty. Fifty, and you don't see me till Saturday, when, accordin'
to agreement, you hand to me the cash, outside the church door; and then
we parts to meet no more. Oh! let us be joyful--I'll sing.”
Algernon's loathing of the coarseness and profanity of villany increased
almost to the depth of a sentiment as he listened to Sedgett.
“I do nothing of the sort,” he said. “You shall not have a farthing. Be
off. If you follow me, I give you into custody of a policeman.”
“You durst n't.” Sedgett eyed him warily.
He could spy a physical weakness, by affinity of cowardice, as quickly
as Algernon a moral weakness, by the same sort of relationship to it.
“You don't dare,” Sedgett pursued. “And why should you, sir? there's
ne'er a reason why. I'm civil. I asks for my own: no more 'n my own, it
ain't. I call the bargain good: why sh'd I want fur to break it? I want
the money bad. I'm sick o' this country. I'd like to be off in the first
ship that sails. Can't you let me have ten till to-morrow? then t' other
forty. I've got a mortal need for it, that I have. Come, it's no use
your walking at that rate; my legs are's good as yours.”
Algernon had turned back to the great thoroughfare. He was afraid that
ten pounds must be forfeited to this worrying demon in the flesh, and
sought the countenance of his well-dressed fellows to encourage him in
resisting. He could think of no subterfuge; menace was clearly useless:
and yet the idea of changeing one of the notes and for so infamous a
creature, caused pangs that helped him further to endure his dogging
feet and filthy tongue. This continued until he saw a woman's hand
waving from a cab. Presuming that such a signal, objectionable as it
was, must be addressed to himself, he considered whether he should lift
his hat, or simply smile as a favoured, but not too deeply flattered,
man. The cab drew up, and the woman said, “Sedgett.” She was a
well-looking woman, strongly coloured, brown-eyed, and hearty in
appearance.
“What a brute you are, Sedgett, not to be at home when you brought me up
to London with all the boxes and bedding--my goodness! It's a Providence
I caught you in my eye, or I should have been driving down to the docks,
and seeing about the ship. You are a brute. Come in, at once.”
“If you're up to calling names, I've got one or two for you,” Sedgett
growled.
Algernon had heard enough. Sure that he had left Sedgett in hands not
likely to relinquish him, he passed on with elastic step. Wine was
greatly desired, after his torments. Where was credit to be had? True,
he looked contemptuously on the blooming land of credit now, but an
entry to it by one of the back doors would have been convenient, so that
he might be nourished and restored by a benevolent dinner, while he kept
his Thousand intact. However, he dismissed the contemplation of credit
and its transient charms. “I won't dine at all,” he said.
A beggar woman stretched out her hand--he dropped a shilling in it.
“Hang me, if I shall be able to,” was his next reflection; and with
the remaining three and sixpence, he crossed the threshold of a
tobacconist's shop and bought cigars, to save himself from excesses
in charity. After gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing
costliness of cigars, he came into the air, feeling extraordinarily
empty. Of this he soon understood the cause, and it amused him.
Accustomed to the smell of tobacco always when he came from his dinner,
it seemed, as the fumes of the shop took his nostril, that demands were
being made within him by an inquisitive spirit, and dissatisfaction
expressed at the vacancy there.
“What's the use? I can't dine,” he uttered argumentatively. “I'm not
going to change a note, and I won't dine. I've no Club. There's not a
fellow I can see who'll ask me to dine. I'll lounge along home. There is
some Sherry there.”
But Algernon bore vividly in mind that he did not approve of that
Sherry.
“I've heard of fellows frying sausages at home, and living on something
like two shillings a day,” he remarked in meditation; and then it struck
him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of
his drawers at home--that is, if the laundress had left the parcel
untouched.
In an agony of alarm, he called a cab, and drove hotly to the Temple.
Finding the packet safe, he put a couple of rings and the necklace with
the opal in his waistcoat pocket. The cabman must be paid, of course;
so a jewel must be pawned. Which shall it be? diamond or opal? Change a
dozen times and let it be the trinket in the right hand--the opal; let
it be the opal. How much would the opal fetch? The pawnbroker can best
inform us upon that point. So he drove to the pawnbroker; one whom he
knew. The pawnbroker offered him five-and-twenty pounds on the security
of the opal.
“What on earth is it that people think disgraceful in your entering a
pawnbroker's shop?” Algernon asked himself when, taking his ticket and
the five-and-twenty pounds, he repelled the stare of a man behind a
neighbouring partition.
“There are not many of that sort in the kingdom,” he said to the
pawnbroker, who was loftily fondling the unlucky opal.
“Well--h'm; perhaps there's not;” the pawnbroker was ready to admit it,
now that the arrangement had been settled.
“I shan't be able to let you keep it long.”
“As quick back as you like, sir.”
Algernon noticed as he turned away that the man behind the partition,
who had more the look of a dapper young shopman than of a needy
petitioner for loans or securities, stretched over the counter to look
at the opal; and he certainly heard his name pronounced. It enraged
him; but policy counselled a quiet behaviour in this place, and no
quarrelling with his pawnbroker. Besides, his whole nature cried out for
dinner. He dined and had his wine; as good, he ventured to assert,
as any man could get for the money; for he knew the hotels with the
venerable cellars.
“I should have made a first-rate courier to a millionaire,” he said,
with scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things
which had ordered his being a gentleman. Subsequently, from his having
sat so long over his wine without moving a leg, he indulged in the
belief that he had reflected profoundly; out of which depths he started,
very much like a man who has dozed, and felt a discomfort in his limbs
and head.
“I must forget myself,” he said. Nor was any grave mentor by, to assure
him that his tragic state was the issue of an evil digestion of his
dinner and wine. “I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it
now. Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was born
under a bad star. My fate's written.” Following his youthful wisdom,
this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and
song.
One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the
fool, though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He is naked in
his simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. My excuse for
dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of my story. Where fools
are numerous, one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious
narration. There comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being
always clean to the discreeter touch.
Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he
received his customary reprimand with submission. This day was after the
pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the
night likewise.
On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no
place for him to dwell in. What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of
the colonies? The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from
the moment that he had possessed the Thousand. Could she not make butter
and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space? She was
a strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife.
“I'll marry her,” he said; and hesitated. “Yes, I'll marry her.” But it
must be done immediately.
He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of
love, astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain
with hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little
more than a week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of
civilization about him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he
projected to smoke on the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world
he left behind.
He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a
straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose
of it. While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord
Suckling, and the folly of his dining with men in his present position.
Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed
to know anything of those arrangements. One of his fellow-clerks
reminded him of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name
written under obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing
out one of his fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper.
“You don't want me to change this, do you?” said Algernon; and heard a
tale of domestic needs--and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly:
“Odd that I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!” The note was
changed; the debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to
lunch, old Anthony waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in
demanding his one pound three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid
the sums, ready to believe that there was a suspicion abroad of his
intention to become a colonist.
He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office,
and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door. The woman who
had hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett's company, but Sedgett saw
no one. His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily. Algernon
escaped from observation. His first inquiry at the office was as to the
business of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that
Sedgett wanted berths for himself and wife.
“Who's the woman, I wonder!” Algernon thought, and forgot her.
He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank,
was called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a
contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this
sort of thing no longer. In consequence, he promised Sir William that
he would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir
William had ever heard from him.
Algernon's design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society,
so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him
he was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with
his uncle, or anybody. When he reached the door of his chambers, a man
was standing there, who said,--
“Mr. Algernon Blancove?”
“Yes,” Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it
might inspire, if possible.
“May I speak with you, sir?”
Algernon told him to follow in. The man was tall and large-featured,
with an immense blank expression of face.
“I've come from Mr. Samuels, sir,” he said, deferentially.
Mr. Samuels was Algernon's chief jeweller.
“Oh,” Algernon remarked. “Well, I don't want anything; and let me say,
I don't approve of this touting for custom. I thought Mr. Samuels was
above it.”
The man bowed. “My business is not that, sir. Ahem! I dare say you
remember an opal you had from our house. It was set in a necklace.”
“All right; I remember it, perfectly,” said Algernon; cool, but not of
the collected colour.
“The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir.”
“Was it? Well, I've forgotten.”
“We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty.”
“A little less than half,” said Algernon. “Pawnbrokers are simply
cheats.”
“They mayn't be worse than others,” the man observed.
Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper
weapon, if not the sole resource. He flushed, but was not sure of his
opportunity for the explosion. The man read the flush.
“May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir? I'm obliged to ask the question.”
“I?--I really don't--I don't choose to answer impudent questions. What
do you mean by coming here?”
“I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings. One
of the young men was present when you pawned it. He saw the thing done.”
“Suppose he did?”
“He would be a witness.”
“Against me? I've dealt with Samuels for three-four years.”
“Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am
right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from
our house that has been pledged--I can't say you did it on the other
occasions.”
“You had better not,” rejoined Algernon.
He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, “What further?”
“My master has sent you his bill.”
Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures.
“Five hun--!” he gasped, recoiling; and added, “Well, I can't pay it on
the spot.”
“Let me tell you, you're liable to proceedings you'd better avoid, sir,
for the sake of your relations.”
“You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?” Algernon said
haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was
a clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so,
showed his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a
threat.
“Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is
illegal, and subject to penalties. No tradesman likes it; they can't
allow it. I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels--”
“There, stop!” cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily. “Mr.
Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn't seem to understand
dealing with gentlemen. Pressure comes;” he waved his hand swimmingly;
“one wants money, and gets it how one can. Mr. Samuels shall not go to
bed thinking he has been defrauded. I will teach Mr. Samuels to think
better of us Gentiles. Write me a receipt.”
“For what amount, sir?” said the man, briskly.
“For the value of the opal--that is to say, for the value put upon it by
Mr. Samuels. Con! hang! never mind. Write the receipt.”
He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and
pushed paper to the man for a receipt.
The man reflected, and refused to take them.
“I don't think, sir,” he said, “that less than two-thirds of the bill
will make Mr. Samuels easy. You see, this opal was in a necklace. It
wasn't like a ring you might have taken off your finger. It's a lady's
ornament; and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by
turning it into cash. It's a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for
the sake of your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn't willingly bring on.
The criminal box is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his
own. His mind is not easy. I shouldn't like, sir, to call a policeman.”
“Hey!” shouted Algernon; “you'd have to get a warrant.”
“It's out, sir.”
Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and
judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man's impassive
face, Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs
of summons.
He tightened his muscles. In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition;
but this was hot experience. He and the man measured the force of their
eyes. Algernon let his chest fall.
“Do you mean?” he murmured.
“Why, sir, it's no use doing things by halves. When a tradesman says he
must have his money, he takes his precautions.”
“Are you in Mr. Samuels' shop?”
“Not exactly, sir.”
“You're a detective?”
“I have been in the service, sir.”
“Ah! now I understand.” Algernon raised his head with a strain
at haughtiness. “If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have
discharged the debt: It's only fair that I should insist upon having a
receipt from him personally, and for the whole amount.”
With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five
hundred.
His glow of victory was short. The impassive man likewise had something
to exhibit.
“I assure you, sir,” he said, “Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with
gentlemen. If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr.
Samuels' shop? Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is
his receipt to the bill.”
Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note.
“Samuels?” ejaculated the unhappy fellow. “Why, my mother dealt with
Samuels. My aunt dealt with Samuels. All my family have dealt with him
for years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because--upon my
soul, it's too absurd! Sending a policeman, too! I'll tell you what--the
exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially. Of course, my
father would have to settle the matter; but Mister--Mister Samuels would
not recover so easily. He'd be glad to refund the five hundred--what is
it?--and twenty-five--why not, 'and sixpence three farthings?' I tell
you, I shall let my father pay. Mr. Samuels had better serve me with
a common writ. I tell you, I'm not going to denude myself of money
altogether. I haven't examined the bill. Leave it here. You can tear off
the receipt. Leave it here.”
The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent.
“No, sir, that won't do.”
“Half the bill,” roared Algernon; “half the bill, I wouldn't mind
paying.”
“About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he'll stop,
and go on as before.”
“He'll stop and he'll go on, will he? Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one
of his own watches,” Algernon sneered vehemently. “Well,” he pursued, in
fancied security, “I'll pay two-thirds.”
“Three hundred, sir.”
“Ay, three hundred. Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred,
and he shall have it. As to my entering his shop again, that I shall
have to think over.”
“That's what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels' position have to run risk of,
sir,” said the man.
Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling
at his breast-pocket. The action resulted in an exhibition of a second
bill, with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds.
“Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir. It isn't
the full sum he wants; it's a portion. He thought you might prefer to
discharge a portion.”
After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there
was no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous “Faugh!” of uttermost
disgust.
He examined the bill and receipt in the man's hand with great apparent
scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable.
“Take it and change it,” he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered
it from the enemy's grasp; and with a “one, two, three,” banged his
hundreds on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to
him.
“How,” he asked, chokingly, “did Mr. Samuels know I could--I had money?”
“Why, sir, you see,” the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled
cordially, after buttoning up the notes; “credit 'd soon give up the
ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say. This is only a feeler
on Mr. Samuels' part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa!
he sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with
gentlemen, in most cases. Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels'
pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his
money, if he's got any. Sending of a bill receipted's a good trying
touch. It's a compliment to him to suppose he can pay. Mr. Samuels, sir,
wouldn't go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn't. You named a
warrant; that set me up to it. I shouldn't have dreamed of a gentleman
supposing it otherwise. Didn't you notice me show a wall of a face?
I shouldn't ha' dared to have tried that on an old hand--begging your
pardon; I mean a real--a scoundrel. The regular ones must see features:
we mustn't be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they're
keen as animals; they are. Good afternoon to you, sir.”
Algernon heard the door shut. He reeled into a chair, and muffling his
head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself
very distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly. Daylight
became undesireable to him. He went to bed.
A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to
his pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will
befriend his nerves. Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious
sensation of hunger. He jumped up. Six hundred and fifty pounds of the
money remained intact; and he was joyful. He struck a light to look at
his watch: the watch had stopped;--that was a bad sign. He could not
forget it. Why had his watch stopped? A chilling thought as to whether
predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind.
He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid
gulfs between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward
midnight. “Not late,” he said.
“Who'd have thought it?” cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as
he went forth.
It was Sedgett.
Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the
wretch.
“Why, sir, I've been lurking heer for your return from your larks. Never
guessed you was in.”
“It's no use,” Algernon began.
“Ay; but it is, though,” said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room.
“Now, just listen. I've got a young woman I want to pack out o' the
country. I must do it, while I'm a--a bachelor boy. She must go, or we
shall be having shindies. You saw how she caught me out of a cab. She's
sure to be in the place where she ain't wanted. She goes to America.
I've got to pay her passage, and mine too. Here's the truth: she thinks
I'm off with her. She knows I'm bankrup' at home. So I am. All the more
reason for her thinking me her companion. I get her away by train to the
vessel, and on board, and there I give her the slip.
“Ship's steaming away by this time t'morrow night. I've paid for
her--and myself too, she thinks. Leave it to me. I'll manage all that
neatly enough. But heer's the truth: I'm stumped. I must, and I will
have fifty; I don't want to utter ne'er a threat. I want the money, and
if you don't give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you
don't come off s' easy, if I do break off, mind. I know all about your
relations, and by--! I'll let 'em know all about you. Why, you're as
quiet heer, sir, as if you was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne'er
a dog near.”
So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the
square, moreover.
They wrangled for an hour. When Algernon went forth a second time, he
was by fifty pounds poorer. He consoled himself by thinking that the
money had only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a
partial gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid
so much of the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it.
And what were to be his proceedings? They were so manifestly in the
hands of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head.
Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper
from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought. In a postscript, he
asked: “Are there, on your oath, no letters for me? If there are, send
them immediately--every one, bills as well. Don't fail. I must have
them.”
Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia's letters, saying:
“I suppose they can't do any harm now.” The expense of the postage
afflicted him; but “women always cost a dozen to our one,” he remarked.
On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the
Bank, or take the train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course,
until, feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he
said to himself, “No! duty first;” and postponed the expedition for the
day following.