On the evening of the following day Kingsley arrived at his father's
house in London. It was situated in the centre of fashion, and had
been built by the rich contractor himself upon part of a freehold
which he had purchased upon terms so advantageous that, as he was in
the habit of boasting, his own mansion "stood him in next to nothing,"
occasionally adding that he could find a purchaser for it at a day's
notice for seventy-five thousand pounds. He was fond of dealing in
large sums even in figures of speech, and he was to some extent
justified in this habit by the circumstances of his career.
It was a wonderful career, commencing with nothing and marching into
millions. A poor boy, doubly orphaned and thrown upon the world before
he could stand upright, without a friend, without a penny, without
shoes to his feet, he had grown somehow into a sturdy manhood, and
when he was twenty years of age he stood six feet two in his
stockings, and could fell an ox with his fist. Therefore, even at that
humble period in his career, he was renowned among his fellows, and
held a distinguished position. No man could equal him in strength;
many tried and were laid low; giants travelled from afar to try
conclusions with Val Manners, and all met with the same fate. Had he
cared he might have developed into the greatest prizefighter the world
had ever known, and have worn diamonded belts and jewelled stars, and
become as a king among men. Newspapers would have heralded his doings
in large type; he could have travelled in state like an ambassador; he
might have exhibited himself and earned a princely income; the
aristocracy would have patted his broad back, and titled ladies would
have cast admiring glances at him. For this is the age of muscle as
well as intellect, and a bully may take rank with Homer.
But Val Manners was not a bully, and his tastes were not for the
prize-ring. He was proud of his great strength, because it gave him
the mastery, and he used it upon needed occasions to maintain his
position; but he did not love fighting for fighting's sake. In his
early life he knew that he had biceps of steel and a constitution
which defied wind and weather; but he did not know that he had a
subtle brain and a talent for administration which were to lead him to
eminence and enormous wealth. This knowledge dawned upon him
afterwards, when he began to make successes, when he began to gauge
men and understand them.
He commenced life as a bricklayer, and even as a boy his strength and
fearlessness were quoted, and he found himself in demand. He did not
seem to know what fear was; he could climb the shakiest and tallest of
ladders, carrying wonderful weights; he could stand upon dizzy heights
and look smilingly down. His possession of these qualities caused him
to be selected for dangerous tasks, and he was never known to shrink
from one, however perilous. All this time he earned barely sufficient
to appease his enormous appetite. He received no education, but he had
a native gift of figures. It was not till he reached his third decade
that he could read and write. Long before that, however, his
arithmetical talents had laid the foundation of his fortune. It was a
fortune made partly out of stone and metal, but chiefly out of other
men's labor.
Chance threw into his way a small contract. A retired pawnbroker
wanted a house built in North Islington, and was not satisfied with
the estimates he received from established firms. "It ought to be done
for seven and a half per cent. less," said he, and he called Val
Manners to his aid, having had occasion to observe the calm and
skilful manner in which the young artisan went about his work. "He
does the work of two men," said the pawnbroker, "and is probably paid
for the work of one." He ascertained, upon inquiry, that this was the
case; Val Manners, working so many hours a day, was paid so much a
week. It was not that, out of boastfulness, he desired to do more work
in a given time than comrades less strong and capable than himself, it
was simply that he did his work honestly without regard to
comparisons. The pawnbroker discovered in his first interview with Val
Manners that the huge, common-looking man had a head for figures. He
put the matter of his house before Val Manners, and asked him to
prepare an estimate. The result was that Val Manners threw up his
situation, and became a master builder in a small way; the result also
was that the pawnbroker got his house built for twelve per cent, less
than the lowest of the estimates submitted to him by old-established
firms.
In this first operation the brain power of Val Manners made itself
manifest. He worked himself, of course, and thereby saved one man's
labor; this went into his own pocket. Indeed, being stirred and
excited by this higher flight into life's struggles, he worked harder
than had been his usual habit, and may be said to have done the work
of at least two men and a half in the building of the pawnbroker's
house; and this extra money also went into his pocket. Then, again, in
the selection of men but of work who applied to be taken on, he chose
the strongest, and, being always on the spot, saw that he was not
cheated out of a quarter of an hour by one and ten minutes by another.
Thus, when the contract was finished, he was a great many days to the
good, and he found that he was richer by sixty pounds than he would
have been had he continued to be a servant. This set him thinking.
The pawnbroker was so satisfied with the bargain that he proposed the
building of a row of houses in a poor locality. Val Manners was ready
and glad, and pursued the same tactics as before, and worked harder
than ever. The second contract being finished to everybody's
satisfaction, Val Manners reckoned up his gains. He was master of a
capital of three hundred pounds.
From this point his career was a succession of triumphs, until his
capital amounted to a hundred thousand pounds. It was wonderful how
his money accumulated; it grew while he slept, for he often had relays
of men working for him by night as well as by day. He was a hard
taskmaster, perfectly just in his dealings, keeping to his word and
his engagements with unerring fidelity, but exacting from those in his
employ an absolute faithfulness, the least infringement of which meant
instant dismissal. It was no longer Val Manners, but Mr. Manners, the
great Mr. Manners, who had plumped into the very richest part of a Tom
Tiddler's ground open to every enterprising man, and picked and
pocketed the plums growing therein. He did not allow himself to become
bewildered by his success, but pursued his way calmly and masterfully
as regarded his own undertakings, and with a vigilant watchfulness
which frequently turned a probable loss into a certain profit. He
undertook no more small contracts; all his business dealings were now
on a vast scale, and no project was too stupendous for him to grapple
with. It was not England alone that supplied his master mind with
material to expend its energies upon; he sought abroad for contracts,
and laid railways in deserts, built huge bridges touching the clouds,
and made wonderful waterways for facilities of commerce. He became
world-renowned, and the name of Manners, the great contractor, was a
passport in every part of the globe.
It was to his advantage that he married young, his partner being no
other than the daughter of his first patron, the pawnbroker. She was
not in any sense a remarkable person, but she had an ambition to shine
in society, and it was from her that Mr. Manners received the limited
education which enabled him, at thirty years of age, to read and
write. His ideal as to social position also grew with his wealth; but
he had tact enough to understand that it was not possible for him to
occupy a foremost position as a public leader. This, however, did not
prevent him from building a grand house in the heart of fashionable
London, nor from mixing among the best. He was not out of place there,
for he had the rare wisdom of being able to hold his tongue, and never
to speak assertively except upon the business with which he was
familiar. On those occasions he was listened to with respect and
deference, and his words had weight; he trod upon no man's corns by
expressing opinions upon matters of which he had not made himself
master; he was content that his works should speak for him. Eloquent,
indeed, was the record which, so far as he himself was concerned, he
bore about him in silence. The railroads he had constructed in savage
countries, the seas he had joined, were not these matters of history?
And he, whose constructive and administrative talents had compassed
these difficulties, became in a sense historical. Stories were related
of his great courage, of his amazing strength, of his daring and skill
in moments of difficulty, putting his own shoulders to the wheel and
showing his workmen how a thing was to be done. Women love the
personification of strength in a man; it means power, manliness,
nobility, in their eyes; and numbers gazed in admiration upon the
massive frame of the great contractor for whom no undertaking was too
vast. He was a striking figure in fashionable assemblies, towering
above all, and moving like a mountain through the packed crowd of male
and female exquisites. He only moved when he had occasion; he had not
within him that restless, fretful spirit which weakens the character
of many men; as he knew the value of silence, so also did he know the
value of repose. In all gatherings of men and women the art of
standing still with dignity and without self-consciousness is
invaluable. This art Mr. Manners possessed, so that, taking him for
all in all, he was no charlatan, trading upon false pretences.
The day previous to that upon which Kingsley entered his father's
house, with the intention of making a clean breast of it with respect
to Nansie, Mr. Manners himself had returned from Russia where he had
been for five months superintending a railway contract for the Russian
government, which he had brought to a successful conclusion.