|TOM Branstone had drawn a wage of a pound a week, and tips may have
averaged ten shillings but more probably did not; your sixpenny tipper
is a rare bird in Manchester.
Yet Anne had saved steadily, and she had not allowed a life-long habit
to be interrupted by a little thing like the necessity of providing
Sam with Grammar School books and clothes. I do not say that it was
admirable in her, but merely that it was heroic. It was an incredible
feat, but it can be done: it is done every day by people for whom the
word “thrift” has meaning. Perhaps they are often unlovely in their
lives or perhaps they have the robust satisfaction of those who live for
an idea: opinion has always differed as to whether what they do is worth
doing, and modern opinion inclines strongly to the belief that it is
not. Life to these iconoclasts seems more important than the means of
life.
To Anne it seemed abundantly worth while, and the proof was here now
when she found that the interest on her savings amounted to three and
four-pence weekly. They could live on Sam’s earnings and Anne’s “means”
without pinching. Her forethought made all the difference now between
too little and enough.
It was, of course, only to Anne that this seemed enough: Sam took a
larger view, but found his vision cramped for some time to come by the
conditions he met with in Mr. Travers’ office. Certainly that generous
soul did not mean to humiliate Sam; he did not mean Sam to begin as
office-boy; but, whatever his intentions, the clerks in his office
defeated them. Sam was a newcomer, the latest arrival, in a minority of
one against the old inhabitants; was there, moreover, obviously to do
as he was told. He was told to sweep the floor in the morning, to copy
letters and to lick stamps. He did these things rebelliously, bitter at
heart that such menial service should be required of an ex-member of the
Classical Transitus, certain that there was some mistake, that he had
only to catch Mr. Travers’ eye when he was so shamefully occupied for
that gentleman to take instant and drastic measures with the clerks who
misemployed him.
Mr. Travers’ eye, even though caught at what Sam thought an opportune
moment, While Sam copied letters, unexpectedly failed to disapprove. He
seemed less preoccupied with Sam’s affairs than Sam was. As a matter of
fact, he took a long distance view of Sam, and took it, unfortunately,
rather muggily. Travers had the defect of his quality. A generous man,
he was generous in the worst way to himself, and Sam soon learnt the
meaning of a euphemism, current in the office, “Mr. Travers is attending
a property auction.” Property auctions are, it is true, usually held on
licensed premises, and whether Mr. Travers was or was not attending an
auction he was certainly on licensed premises more often than was good
for either his business or himself.
And it was bad for Sam, not because it left him to find his own feet in
the office and to fight unbacked with his superiors (wherein, indeed,
it was good), but because he had figured Travers from afar as a princely
gentleman, without reproach, and the discovery of his failing took Sam
a long way on the road to cynicism. In youth one’s faith dies hard, and,
being dead, turns rapidly corrupt.
The business was an excellent one, rotting slowly from the top, and Sam
found the office a notable place in which to pick up knowledge of the
world; especially, since he lacked good direction, of the shadier
ways of the world. He felt that he had declined in status: his
school-friends, there his equals, had gone either to the Universities
or, with influence behind them, to the professions. If they went to
business, it was as their fathers’ sons. They were not scratch men, and
Sam felt that he was starting at the scratch-line.
Travers had really no intentions that Sam should feel himself misprized.
The boy had to learn the business, and the way to understanding lay
from the bottom upwards. But Sam contrasted himself bitterly with Lance,
first at school and then at Cambridge. In that, indeed, he found a
minimum of consolation. It wasn’t rational, but to Anne and consequently
to Sam, university had meant Oxford, and he won a hardy solace from the
thought that Lance was, after all, “only” at Cambridge.
Meantime, he grew in knowledge of his world, and education came to Sam,
not in the cloistered freedom of the Isis, but where, in Manchester,
he went collecting rents: in country courts where hard laws operated
hardly: and in the office, where men did not greet each other with a
friendly smile, but gave instead the “competition glare.” It was not a
kindly school in which he spent the developing years, but one where it
was taught that self’s the man, and magnanimity is a mistake. “Get on
or get out,” and Sam got on with a sort of choleric zeal which gave no
quarter and expected none.
But he did not get on fast enough to please himself. He had, he thought,
stepped down from the days of the Grammar School where he belonged with
the caste that rules or, at any rate, administers, the caste that sits
on velvet and overlooks the mob. Now he was in the cockpit, with the mob
that struggles to ascend, and, to Sam, a wage of thirty shillings a
week at the age of twenty was a derisory ascension. Anne thought it
satisfying, and it was her contentment with his rate of progress which
first made him begin to think of her as, after all, a limited person.
You didn’t bribe Sam Branstone to be meekly satisfied with thirty
shillings a week.
“The trouble is,” he said to the only man in the office with whom he was
in the least confidential, “that you don’t begin to get on till you’ve
got a bit of capital together. Money breeds money.”
His friend suggested betting as a means to affluence, and offered to
tell him of a dead certainty.
Sam assumed his cunningest air of a superman of the world. “The best row
of houses where I go for the rents,” he said, “belongs to Jack Elsworth,
the bookie. I don’t see why I should help him to buy another house.”
“Bookies don’t always win,” said the optimist.
“No,” said Sam. “It’s possible to make money out of betting and it’s
possible to get a baby by a harlot, but that isn’t what the harlot’s
for, and it isn’t what the bookie’s for.”
At this time, harlots were the pegs on which Sam hung his wit. He had no
other use for them, but had discovered that a coarse turn of phrase was
an asset in his world and therefore wielded it. But the effect of this
little conversation was to crystallize his aim. He wanted that “bit of
capital” badly, and did not intend that, if opportunity presented, a
nice regard for scruple should hold him back from taking anything the
gods might send. He had no ultimate design, but fortune came to
the fortunate and money to the moneyed, so that the first move was,
obviously, to get money. He wanted a jumping-off place; then he would
soar.
Opportunity walked into the office in the person of Joseph of Arimathea
Minnifie. That was his full baptismal name: analogous with the styles of
certain limited companies, such as John Smith ( of Newcastle) Limited,
to distinguish that Smith from other Smiths. Minnifie’s mother had
explained to the parson that she was a New Testament woman. To her
intimates she had put it that she chose the name Joseph because she
liked it, but she also liked a man to be a man. It was deduced that she
supposed the third Joseph in the Bible would have acted differently from
the first in the affair of Potiphar’s wife.
Sam’s accent had degenerated since the days of Shylock and the reading
prize. It had kept bad company, and might be known by the company it
kept to-day rather than by that which it used to keep at school; but he
could still, without too great an effort, assume a well-bred speech and
was often sent with a prospective buyer to show off any likely houses on
Mr. Travers’ list. Because it was usual for him to go on such errands,
and not because anyone supposed that niceties of speech could or would
have any effect on Mr. Minnifie, he was sent with him in a cab to tour
the suburbs where Travers had property in charge.
A coarse accent was not likely to offend Joseph Minnifie, who a
fortnight earlier had been a market porter at Shude Hill, but had now
come into money, well invested in the best Brewery securities, from his
uncle, a publican. Minnifie had sold out some of the shares because
he could now satisfy a long ambition and live in his own house. He
proposed, he told Mr. Travers, to retire to the country.
“The country?” asked Travers, whose practice was suburban.
“Well,” said Minnifie, “summat quiet and homely. I’d like a change from
Rochdale Road. I thought,” he went on rather shyly, “of Whalley Range.
It’s a good neighbourhood.”
Travers refrained from pointing out that Whalley Range was not usually
regarded as the country, but was, in fact, of the inner ring of
suburbs, a penny tram fare from the centre of Manchester. “Oh, yes, Mr.
Minnifie,” he said. “I think I can satisfy you in W’halley Range. I have
several available houses on my books in that district.”
“I’ll pay three hundred pound for what I like,” said Minnifie, quite
fiercely. “I’ve got it in my pocket now.” He was fierce because he was
not yet quite sure that his legacy was not phantom gold, and he pulled
out a bundle of notes as much to assure himself that they were still
where he had put them as with the idea of proving his good faith to
Travers.
Travers concealed a smile. After all, commission on three hundred pounds
is not to be sneezed at, but neither was this the sort of client for
whom Traver’s disturbed his habits. “I have myself,” he said, “a large
property auction to attend in the city, but Mr. Branstone will go with
you to inspect the houses.” He smiled kindly on Sam, and added, lest
Minnifie should think his affair, so important to him, underrated by the
agent: “Mr. Branstone is my confidential man. When Mr. Branstone tells
you anything about the houses you are going to see, it is as if I spoke
myself.”
“I see,” said Minnifie. “He’s your foreman, and you needn’t tell me
you’ll back him up. I know foremen.”
“Well, his word is certainly as good as mine. I leave you in safe hands,
Mr. Minnifie.” And Travers went out to attend his first auction of the
day, which usually happened at eleven o’clock in the morning.
Sam and the client took a cab to Whalley Range, where Minnifie inspected
several houses which were to be had at about his price. But he was hard
to satisfy, and, what was worse, apparently unable to define his
reasons for dissatisfaction. As Sam praised this and that about a house,
Minnifie admitted that such things were praiseworthy, but he would,
please, see another house. Sam was a little piqued and tried his best
to be genial, suspecting that Minnifie resented being fobbed off with a
“foreman”; and Sam’s best was very good, so that presently the ice was
thawed.
Minnifle stood at the bow-window of a dining-room and looked up and down
the street. It was empty save for a tradesman’s boy. From somewhere
round the corner came the diminished rattle of a milk-cart. Minnifle
shook his head sadly.
“It’s quiet,” he said. “See that road. Nothing stirring. What is there
for the missus to look at when she sits in the window?”
“It’s morning,” said Sam. “Things will be brisker in the afternoon.” But
his tone lacked conviction, and he could not resist the temptation to
add: “There’s a cat crossing the road now.”
“Come out,” said Minnifle. “This’ull none do,” and when they stood upon
the door-step he sniffed the air of Whalley Range with disapproval.
“I don’t like it and it’s no use pretending that I do. It’s got a cold
smell to me. It isn’t homely.”
“I know what you mean,” said Sam, diagnosing the trouble. “Wait a bit.”
He gave the cabman an address and was careful to leave the window open.
They came to other streets where the scent of yesterday’s fried fish
still lingered in the air and the nose of Mr. Minnifle inhaled it
greedily. “This is better,” he pronounced.
They had come to Greenheys, which, when De Quincey’s father built a
country house there in 1791, was “separated from the last outskirts of
Manchester by an entire mile.” It is by no means separated now, and good
houses of the mid-Victorian period are to be had cheaply because good
tenants dislike bad neighbours. Travers had one of these survivals from
an urbane past on his books and Sam hugged himself for thinking of it
now: that house had proved itself the whitest of white elephants.
Mr. Minnifie, exhilarated by the spicy smells of Greenheys, was no
longer a timid excursionist looking only where his guide bade him, but
a house hunter hot upon the trail, with eyes that spied on each side of
their route.
“Ah!” he called suddenly. “Stop!”
The cabman stopped. “But we’re not there,” said Sam, rather blankly.
“I think we are,” said Minnifie, and got out of the cab.
Sam followed, in that leaden state of mind which often precedes
inspiration. What had attracted Minnifie was a semi-detached house at
a corner, which the trams passed. Opposite were shops, and there was a
lively stir in the street. Certainly, Mrs. Minnifie would have something
to see here when she looked out of the window.
Sam knew that pair of houses, and what he knew made him fear that he
would not, this time, rid Mr. Travers of the white elephant on his
books. They were good houses enough, but the people who had furniture to
fill them were not the sort of people who welcomed shops opposite their
windows and trams past their gate, so that both had been long empty.
Now, however, they were for sale, under a will, and a quick sale was
wanted that the estate might be wound up. They would certainly go
cheaply on that account, and the more so since two attempted auctions
had proved abortive. There had been no offers.
And here was Mr. Minnilie plainly delighted, and those houses not in
Travers’ charge, but in that of a rival agency! Sam felt depressed, then
as dawn follows darkness, lie thought of what Travers had said,
that Sam’s word was as good as his own. It was going to be, and Mr.
Minnifie’s money as good in Sam’s hands as in those of Calverts’, the
legitimate agents for this pair of houses. He stepped out briskly now,
the ardent salesman.
“One moment, Mr. Minnifie. I haven’t the key of this house with me, but
it is at the shop opposite. I will get it.” His quick eye had read so
much on Calverts’ notice board, but by the time he returned, Minnifie
had also seen that rival name on the board and mentioned the fact.
“I know,” said Sam. “The board has not been altered, but this property
is in my hands now.”
Which was true.
The house enchanted Minnifie, who had made up his mind in advance to be
enchanted. And, of course, rooms may be in need of decoration, but good
proportions tell, even on a Mr. Minnifie. This house was very different
from the jerry-built villas of Whalley Range.
“What’s price?” he asked.
“Three hundred and fifteen pounds,” said Sam.
“I said three hundred and I’ll none budge.”
“If you will come to the office at six, I shall be able to tell
you,” said Sam, naming a queer hour, seeing that the office closed at
half-past five.
“All right,” said Minnifie. “It’s a firm offer at three hundred, and I’m
a man of my word.”
Sam devoutly hoped so. He was taking a considerable gamble on it. They
parted, and Sam, as usual, went home for lunch, but, not as usual,
returned with his cheque-book in his pocket. His accumulated savings
were five pounds, but he possessed a cheque-book. He waited rather
carefully until the banks had closed, then he walked into Calverts’
offices and offered them two hundred and fifty pounds for the pair
of semi-detached houses in Greenheys. They accepted two hundred and
seventy-five; and Sam drew a cheque for that amount, and received the
title-deeds in exchange. Then he palpitated, but it was, in any case,
safely after banking hours. Calverts could not present his cheque that
day.
He was busy at five-thirty, when the clerks left, and proposed to
work late for a while, “to clear things up,” he said. At six Minnifie
arrived, true to his word, and Sam could have kissed him. He had spent
the longest half hour of his life. He took Minnifie by the private
door into Travers’ office, so that he should not see the empty general
office, and put him in the client’s chair, himself usurping Travers’
seat.
“Well, Mr. Minnifie,” he said, “suppose I told you that the price is
still three fifteen, what would you say?”
“I’d say ‘Good-day,’” and Minnifie showed that he meant it by rising to
his feet. Sam went on hurriedly.
“Ah! Then it’s as well that I’ve succeeded. It has been an infinitude of
trouble---”
“I reckon,” said Minnifie, “that you’re here to take trouble. Leastways,
if it’s easy money in your line, it’s the only line that’s made that
way.”
“Oh, we have our troubles, like everybody else. This document,” he went
on, “conveys the house to you. The price is three hundred pounds.”
“It’s a bargain,” said Mr. Minnifie, producing his notes, “count’em.”
Sam counted feverishly, then made out a receipt. Nothing short of murder
would have induced him to part with that money now.
“If you will meet me to-morrow at twelve at that address--a lawyer’s--we
will have the conveyance put in proper form.”
“I’ve seen a bit of lawyers lately over this brass of mine,” said
Minnifie, “and I don’t like’em. They eat money.”
“But in this case,” said Sam magnanimously, “I pay the lawyer’s fees.”
“Then I’ll be there,” said Minnifie.
Sam was waiting next day for the doors of his bank to open, and breathed
colossal relief when his three hundred pounds were safely in to meet his
cheque. He had a net profit of some twenty pounds, after settling for
the conveyancing, and he had a house to sell. Not long afterwards, he
sold it for one hundred and seventy-five pounds.
The fact that one of the pair had been thought desirable by somebody
caused somebody else to desire the other: and Sam could only hope that
the new neighbours would not compare notes. If they did, it did not
matter; he had only obeyed the axiom of commerce, “Buy cheap, sell
dear,” and it was not his fault that in the one case he had had to sell
less dearly than in the other.
His bank credit was two hundred pounds.