FOR THE BIRTHDAY LIST.
Mr. Theodore Shelf was a _gourmand_ of the first water. He preached most
violently against all people who drank to excess, and seemed scarcely to
discriminate between these and other people who were decorously moderate.
He included them all in one sweeping anathema, and rammed home his
charges with countless texts always once a Sunday, and usually on several
weekdays as well. He was a powerful exhorter in his own particular narrow
groove, was Mr. Theodore Shelf, and a vast number of people believed in
him, and put out their savings to usury under his directions.
But he was, as I say, a _gourmand_ of note. He paid his _chef_ £300 a
year, and would have thought himself permanently injured in constitution
if his truffles by accident happened to be English, and not from Perigord
Forest. He over-ate himself habitually, and made no particular disguise
about it. There is no influential society to make a national sin of
bestial over-feeding, or otherwise Mr. Theodore Shelf would doubtless
have posed as an ascetic in public, and—kept biscuits and a jar of _foie
gras_ beside the brandy-bottle in the safe. There wasn’t a man in England
who knew better how to get the votes of his clique, and their influence,
and the handling of their money. There was not a man in Europe less
inclined to mortify the flesh or undergo exertion without adequate return.
He was not a vastly clever man, if one came to add him up. He had climbed
from a humble clerkship to a very giddy eminence by the nice exercise
of three strong faculties. He had great discrimination, he was a quick
thinker, and he was brilliantly unscrupulous.
When he saw a move that would eventually pay him, he had the wit to
single it out in an instant from a thousand others, and decide on the
road which led to his own personal profit. Then he disregarded the sneers
of the well-dressed crowd—rather courted them, in fact, when they enabled
him to pose as a martyr—and went in for the project heart, tongue, and
soul. He could put such beautiful unction into the performance that
even the most bigoted of the enemy never thought of questioning his own
personal sanctity; and meanwhile the great earnest mob of his followers
were chorusing the man’s praises with fervor and fanatical zeal.
It has been stated that Mr. Theodore Shelf was a man entirely wanting
the saving salt of humor. But this I think is wrong. When he was alone he
would take George on his knee, and whisper in that small animal’s ear,
and call up a sardonic expression amongst the smug, sanctimonious lines
of his face that was not carried there in outer life. At times, too, he
would even laugh—a new, gleeful laugh; far different from the saintly
reproving smile which was the only sign of mirth that ever illuminated
his features before a more talkative confidant. But then George was
taciturn; he could express whole pages by one quick pucker of the nose
and half a tail-wag; and he was never known to gossip. Perhaps it was
because he made such a prodigiously safe confidant that Mr. Theodore
Shelf was so fond of George.
In social standing George was not a gentleman. Nature had intended him
for the professional extinction of rats, and given him a preternatural
gutter cleverness. Fate had him surrounded with affluence and regular
meals. The pursuit of rats was forbidden him; battles with canine
acquaintances were discouraged; and his one dissipation was sneaking
away from his residence and making love to the barmaid in an adjacent
public-house in return for biscuits and sugar. As a general result he
waxed portly, and could look upon most kinds of rascality with a lenient
eye, and perfectly understood why Mr. Shelf’s private brandy-bottle
lodged in retirement from the public view.
Now, Mr. Theodore Shelf’s dinner parties—as sent up by the inventive
and excellent _chef_ aforesaid—were celebrated all over London, which,
despite all the charges laid against it by Continental neighbors, is
a city which does contain some people who appreciate the exquisite in
food. Shelf, who despised no means of furthering his material interests,
naturally traded upon his celebrity in this matter, and distributed his
dinner invitations with a keen eye to some adequate return. But he was
usually content to leave the actual making-up of all parties to his wife.
He could quite trust her in this matter. She was not likely to expend a
single cover uselessly. She had a wonderfully nice appreciation of the
main chance. A clever woman, Mrs. Shelf.
On the night of the day that the Brothers Steamship Company was floated
she had arranged a dinner-table at her house which is destined to live
down through time. There was a great Cabinet Minister present, who, as
the chief guest, took her down to dinner; and there was also in the room
the Ambassador from one of the greater Continental Courts, with whom the
Minister had, after dinner, ten minutes of quiet, informal talk in the
corner of the drawing-room. That talk laid the groundwork of a certain
international agreement, afterwards elaborated, which has never yet been
made public. But some day it will be sprung upon Europe with a crash, and
a whirlwind of wonder; and then the papers will refer to Mrs. Theodore
Shelf’s dinner-table as a manufactory of history.
Be it confessed, however, that Mrs. Shelf had not asked the two to meet
through any high-minded wish to better the Empire. She was singularly
untrammeled by patriotism of that variety. The principal Power whose
betterment she had at heart was the House of Shelf, as consisting of
husband and self; and when she sat down at the head of her table, and
watched the great Minister next her unfold his napkin, she made up her
mind to do great deeds that night.
She did not rush headlong to the attack. She had prepared her ground
skilfully, and knew how to play her game with due deliberation. On the
other side of the Minister was Amy Rivers—a bright, sprightly personage,
of whom he was extremely fond, and to whose conversation his hostess
cleverly dismissed him before they were halfway through the _hors
d’œuvres_.
Oysters _à la Sibérienne_ followed, and as the great man was selecting
the plump natives he fancied from their tray of ice, he turned round to
Mrs. Shelf, as though to engage in talk with her. But her time was not
yet ripe. The Minister was a professed _gourmet_, and the wines that
night were the best the world could produce. Theodore Shelf made no
objection to these. He professed to abstain from wines himself, but he
provided them for others, as he did billiards. And Mrs. Shelf trusted
that the glorious vintages would sweep the austerity from the Minister’s
soul.
The Minister sipped his Chablis, and his eye kindled.
“I shouldn’t like,” he said to Amy Rivers, “to be a poor man, and not
know people, and not go out anywhere. The sweets of life are its pleasant
surprises. That’s the best wine of its name in England this minute.”
“I am not,” replied Miss Rivers, “going to talk food with you. If you
want that, you must shout down the table at Mr. Shelf.”
“Oh, youth, youth!” said the Minister, “how much you miss! At one time I
thought Dublin porter an excellent tipple to drink with my oysters; and
as for you, my dear, you don’t trouble your head about it at all. I used
to think I’d like to marry you, supposing Heaven made me single again.
But now——”
“Now, I suppose, I shall have to put up with Hamilton Fairfax, as
arranged. Well, there are worse fates.”
“You seem to bear up under it wonderfully.”
“Don’t I? You can come to the wedding, if you’ll promise not to look too
woebegone.”
“I sha’n’t come. I shall send you an inexpensive present with black edges
to it.”
“So long as it isn’t _entrée_ dishes. We’ve tons of them already. I
thought I’d mention it, because one knows how your tastes lie.”
The great man squeezed lemon on to the last of his oysters, and ate it
with a satisfied nod of the head.
“Date fixed?” he asked. “If it is, break the sad news to me gently. Don’t
be too cruel.”
“The date’s fixed within limits. We’ve bought a place to live in: and, if
it’s ready, we shall be married the day I come of age.”
“Bought a place, have you? Come, this looks like business. Where is it?
Got a good cook? Any shooting? Going to ask me down? Because, if you do,
I’ll come and teach you how to make me comfortable.”
“Yes, I believe you could do that last. Those papers which don’t call you
the Pope of Politics every morning, say you’re the most incapable man in
Britain in most matters; but I never heard that the most vicious of them
ever accused you of living in discomfort. You’ve a wonderful knack of
looking after yourself.”
“Haven’t I? Don’t spoil your health with salted almonds; nibble one of
these Riviera olives. Life is made for suiting your own tastes as much
as possible, and, where practical, making your neighbors pay for them.
Why isn’t Fairfax here to-night? Are we all too big for him?”
“Hamilton is away on business, looking after the place we’re going
to buy in Kent. I shall see him later. But just now I’m having a
holiday,” said Miss Rivers. “I wanted to flirt with you. You’re safe and
amusing—amusing, that is, when you keep off the _menu_. Where are you
going to after here to-night?”
“Oh, to a horrible political thing, where we shall all be good, and talk
humbug, and be bored to death. If I hadn’t chanced to be in the Cabinet,
I should probably have gone to see a prize-fight.” His eye traveled down
the table to where Theodore Shelf was looking saintly, with his head on
one side, and washing his large white hands with invisible soap. “I’d
chance it, my dear, and go, if I thought I could manage to meet——”
Amy Rivers had followed his glance. She turned to him with a demure smile.
“Well,” she said, “who?”
“Oh, just one or two of my colleagues on the same side of the House. Hang
it all, Amy, the fellows can’t always be what they set up for in front of
their clients.”
Miss Rivers laughed.
“You’re a bold, bad lot,” she said. “I know I shall see you in the
police-court one of these days for breaking lamp-posts, or running away
with a hansom cab. There’s a vein of wickedness in you that’s completely
thrown away in a Cabinet Minister.”
His lordship grinned, and turned to Mrs. Shelf. He admired Mrs. Shelf
because she was an extremely handsome woman. He rather dreaded her just
now, because he knew she wanted something out of him. And he had to talk
to her because it was policy to do so.
* * * * *
The complete Art of Spreading Butter is not one to be mastered by
everybody. In the lower grades it is easy: any one can tickle a fool. But
when the subject has wallowed in all the cleverest kinds of flattery for
many years of his life, then it is a different matter. If you set about
your work in a clumsy way, he begins at once to mildly hate you. If you
only half do it, the man is resentful because he has not received his due.
Mrs. Shelf avoided the pitfalls. The great Minister stayed suspicious—she
could not alter that—but she put him in a most excellent humor with
himself; and the dinner was surpassing good. He took kümmel and cognac
for his liqueur, and she watched an ecstasy flicker to his face as he
drained the little glass. The hum of the talk rose high in the room, and
her voice met his ear alone. He heard her asking that Theodore Shelf
might be elevated to the House of Lords.
He put the glass to the table, still holding the stem between his
fingers. He looked at it thoughtfully, shaking his head the while.
“My husband is a power you can’t neglect,” she continued. “He always
votes straight for your party.”
“Yes, he is _one_ of us,” the Minister admitted softly, with a gentle
emphasis on the numeral.
“So far. But he has his principles to consider. He might find it
necessary, from the dictates of his conscience, to separate himself from
you on one or two matters in the next session. I’m afraid his following
would go with him. You know he has vast influence with a certain class.”
The Minister stretched out lazy fingers, and took a saltspoon, and
made two little neat heaps of salt on the table-cloth; and, after
consideration, added a third.
“Pooh!” said Mrs. Shelf, “there are five certain, and I could tell you
their names if you didn’t know them already. My husband makes six. That
counts twelve votes on a division. But, of course, the Government is
strong enough to stand it.”
The Minister thoughtfully built four salted almonds into an arch, and
piled two more at the back of them. “Cave!” he murmured, and then with
a tap of the finger sprawled them on the table-cloth. “There’s nothing
certain in this life,” he said.
“There are caves and caves; and some bring down Governments. My husband
and his followers are extreme men, and, as I have heard you say yourself,
there is no class of creature so resolute and bigoted as a fanatic. If
once an extreme man makes up his mind, all the argument on earth will not
change him. But perhaps you don’t mind a dissolution? Perhaps you’ve done
so well, and passed so many popular measures since you’ve been in power,
that you’d like to meet the country at once?”
The Minister grinned like a man in pain. “A knighthood,” he said, “is a
very fascinating thing. It is the reward of the faithful. I think—I say I
think—I could lay my hands upon one spare knighthood, and might give it
away if I saw an adequate return.”
Mrs. Shelf smiled amusedly at the diamonds on her comely wrist.
“A knighthood? That’s the thing City men have, isn’t it, when they make
money by selling patent mousetraps, or happen to be Lord Mayors, or
something like that? Unfortunately, my husband would not qualify for a
knighthood. He is not a small pedler. His—what shall I say?”
“Operations are more extensive?”
“Precisely. He does things on a fine scale. For instance, he has, as I
said, at this very moment twelve votes at his command, which might make
a very considerable difference on a division. You see, conscience is a
great thing with him. He could never neglect it. But if he was in the
Upper House....”
The great Minister could comfortably have shuddered. He was a peer
himself, and was jealous for his caste. But, as it was, he repressed
this piece of outward emotion, and contented himself with saying
“No,” quietly, softly, and with entire decision. Then, with a swirl
of brilliant talk there was no arresting, he deliberately changed the
conversation. Mrs. Shelf submitted. She had another card still to play.
And until she picked up the ladies with her glance, and led them away
up-stairs, they two spoke of oranges from many points of view. They
agreed that the large tangerines of Majorca were the only oranges fit to
eat in England, and discussed the various means of getting them imported
_viâ_ Marseilles without suffering them to lose more than a fraction of
their flavor.
The Minister, fatuous man, thought that she had given in to him, and
chuckled inwardly at his victory, and when the ladies had gone, he
turned to his next-door neighbor and talked on the ethics of Irish
cock shooting with a light and easy mind. But for the next move in the
drawing-room he was frankly unprepared. He had come to Park Lane on the
clear understanding that a _tête-à-tête_ was to be contrived for him with
the Ambassador; for it is in this way that the great treaties which dally
with the fate of nations receive their birth-push. I do not say that
the matter of peace or war depended upon that interview; but sufficient
hung on it to make the great Minister very anxious, because he had been
deputed by his colleagues in the Cabinet to bring this thing about, and
had solemnly undertaken the charge.
And, lo! the chance of this momentous minute’s chat was to be withheld.
Mrs. Shelf, calm, clever, magnificent, came to his elbow the moment
he entered the drawing-room, and stayed there. He was frosty, he was
inattentive, he was almost rude, but he could not shake her off. She was
cool, insistent, fluent. She made him sit on a sofa by her side, and
laughed almost openly at the attempts he made to shake loose from his
bondage.
At last he broke off in the middle of an aimless sentence, and looked
her between the eyes. She returned the glance most squarely. There was a
pause between them, and then—
“By the way, baronetcy?” he murmured.
It was nothing on earth to do with what they had been speaking about the
minute previously, but the sentence did not require a footnote to explain
it further.
“H’m!” she said. “When?”
“In the next Birthday List.”
“Thanks. Now you go into the further drawing-room and talk to the
Ambassador, and I will clear the people away. I suppose ten minutes will
be enough?”
“Ample,” said the great Minister, rising. Then he added: “By Jove! you
are a clever woman. You’re cleverer than your husband.”
“I know I am,” said Mrs. Shelf.