FAR ABOVE RUBIES.
A Novel.
BY
MRS. J. H. RIDDELL,
AUTHOR OF “GEORGE GEITH,” “CITY AND SUBURB,” “TOO MUCH ALONE,” “THE RACE
FOR WEALTH,” ETC., ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1867.
[_The Right of Translation and Reproduction reserved._]
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING
CROSS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
MR. BLACK WRITES HIS PROSPECTUS 1
CHAPTER II.
MRS. PIGGOTT’S ASSISTANT 29
CHAPTER III.
HEATHER’S DARLING 51
CHAPTER IV.
POOR LALLY 78
CHAPTER V.
MR. BLACK’S TARTAR 101
CHAPTER VI.
HOLLY BERRIES 132
CHAPTER VII.
GONE 155
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. STEWART’S PROPOSAL 180
CHAPTER IX.
A FEW BILLS 201
CHAPTER X.
HOW HEATHER TOOK IT 231
CHAPTER XI.
LEAVING BERRIE DOWN 265
CHAPTER XII.
NOT QUITE SATISFIED 291
FAR ABOVE RUBIES
CHAPTER I.
MR. BLACK WRITES HIS PROSPECTUS.
Amidst the anxieties of making salads, the desire to convert Heather
from the evils and dangers of English cookery, skirmishes with Mrs.
Ormson, criticisms on Bessie, and the personal enjoyment of such
luxuries as ripe fruit, coffee of her own manufacture, chocolate and
claret _ad libitum_, Miss Hope by no means forgot Mr. Black’s commercial
scheme, and the efforts she felt confident he was making to induce
Arthur to embark in it with him.
A woman sharp and clever enough in her generation, she was yet no match,
either in sharpness or cleverness, for Mr. Black. If she knew a few
things about him, he “was up,” so he phrased it, “to two or three of her
moves,” and could turn the tables on her, when she tried his temper, as
is often the wise fashion of her sex, a little too much.
The very first morning she opened fire upon him, the promoter informed
Arthur, he “knew what the old lady was up to.”
This was the peculiarly diplomatic manner in which Miss Hope, finding
that Heather inclined to do nothing, commenced her operations.
The time was breakfast; scene, the dining-room at Berrie Down, with all
the windows open; actors, Miss Hope and Mr. Black: interested
spectators, the family and visitors generally.
“Pray,” began the spinster, coquetting, as she spoke, with a peach which
might have been grown in Eden, it looked so fresh and tempting; “pray,
Mr. Black, can you tell me of a good investment for a small sum of
money?”
Across the table Mr. Black looked at her, with a merry twinkle in his
eyes; then he answered,—
“Yes, the Three per Cents.”
“But my friend would not be satisfied with three per cent.,” said Miss
Hope.
“A mortgage, or some good freehold estate, might suit her then,”
suggested Mr. Black.
“I did not say it was a lady, so far as I am aware,” remarked Miss Hope.
“No; but I concluded no man would ask a lady friend to make such
inquiries for him,” explained her antagonist. “She might get four, or
even four and a half, and still be safe enough.”
“But what is four and a half?” observed Miss Hope.
“Four pounds ten shillings per cent. per annum,” answered Mr. Black, at
which reply Arthur laughed.
“You won’t make much of him, aunt,” he said; “you cannot get him to
advise an unsafe investment.”
For a moment Miss Hope turned towards her nephew, evidently meditating
an attack on him. Changing her mind, however, she addressed herself to
Mr. Black once more.
“But there is more surely than four and a half per cent. to be had
now-a-days, is there not; in some of those great companies, for
instance?”
“All swindles, ma’am,” declared the promoter. “Should not advise you, or
at least your friend, to have anything to do with them. In the companies
that are _bona fide_, all the shares are snapped up before the project
is well before the public. Whenever you hear of shares going a-begging,
depend upon it the whole concern is rotten.”
“You are an authority in such matters?” she suggested.
“Not a better authority than Miss Hope,” replied Mr. Black, gallantly.
“What do you mean; do you think I know anything about investments?” she
asked.
“I have heard that either you or some friend of yours does,” he
answered. “I have heard of very good ventures you have made,—of shares
sold in the nick of time, and bought wisely, and at a very low figure.”
“I assure you, Mr. Black, you have been misinformed,” said the spinster,
eagerly; “all my money is sunk in a life annuity.”
“Which, no doubt, ma’am, you purchased on as favourable terms as those
shares in the Great Britain and Ireland Canal Company.”
“Then you _had_ to do with that!” exclaimed Miss Hope, setting down her
claret-glass with most unladylike vehemence, and looking at the promoter
as though he were a culprit caught in the very act. “I always thought
that was one of your schemes; but never felt sure of it till now.”
“It is not wise to be too sure of anything,” Mr. Black answered. “I had
nothing, as it happened, to do with the Great Britain and Ireland Canal
Company. If I had, perhaps you might not have lost by your shares; but a
man I know, a confoundedly clever fellow, got rid of his the day before
the smash came, and it was he who told me you had got your fingers
burnt. Your friend, Mr. Pembroke, did not advise you with his customary
caution there, Miss Hope.”
“Mr. Pembroke had nothing to do with the matter,” said Miss Hope,
angrily; “and how you happen to be so well acquainted with my private
affairs is a mystery to me. I do not consider such prying gentlemanly. I
do not know what may be thought of such conduct among business people,
Mr. Black, but in a different circle——”
“I thought it was of business we were talking,” interrupted the
promoter, “of affairs which were strictly commercial! The moment any one
goes on the market, Miss Hope, either personally or by deputy, that
moment he or she becomes public property. I never pretended to be a
gentleman; but I do not think I would go prying into my neighbour’s
secret concerns for all that, any more than you would do,” he added,
significantly.
Almost involuntarily Heather’s eyes sought Miss Hope’s face at this
statement, and under Mrs. Dudley’s look the spinster turned redder even
than she had done at the conclusion of Mr. Black’s speech.
“I am perfectly incapable of impertinent or undue meddling in any
person’s concerns,” she said. “Thank God, curiosity is a feeling that I
was born without.”
“Then you ought to be sent to the South Kensington Museum,” remarked Mr.
Black.
“Don’t you think, aunt, that is going a little too far?” inquired
Arthur.
“Miss Hope only meant that she had no curiosity about indifferent
subjects,” put in Mrs. Black, as usual making matters worse by trying to
mend them.
“Miss Hope meant no such thing,” snapped that lady. “I meant precisely
what I said; that I have no curiosity, and that I never had any.”
“Not even to see unfinished pictures and statues in course of
chiselling,” suggested Mrs. Ormson.
“I do not think Miss Hope has any undue curiosity,” said Heather; “at
least, I know she has not nearly so much as I. It interests me to know
the name, and occupation, and worldly means, even, of Dora Scrotter’s
lover down at the mill. In the country one learns to be inquisitive
about one’s neighbours. There is so little excitement or amusement, that
every piece of gossip is seized on eagerly.”
“You dear Heather, as if you were a gossip!” exclaimed Bessie.
“That is just what I say about the country,” remarked Mr. Black; “life
stagnates here; you should come to London, Mrs. Dudley; come and bring
the girls, and we will take you about. There are lots of rooms in
Stanley Crescent crying out for some one to come and occupy them.
Persuade your husband to give himself a holiday whenever the crops are
in; you have never paid us a visit yet, and I call it mean.”
“We should be only too delighted if you would come,” murmured Mrs.
Black.
“Well, all _I_ can say is,” remarked Miss Hope, “that if I had such a
place as Berrie Down, I would never leave it.”
“Not even to go abroad?” asked Mrs. Ormson.
“Not even to go abroad,” answered Miss Hope, deliberately—an assertion
which took every one so much by surprise, that no person disputed its
truthfulness; not even Arthur, who, feeling his aunt’s words were
intended as a useful moral lesson for him, longed to argue the matter
out with her, and say he should go to London, or stay at Berrie Down, or
take a still longer journey if it pleased him to do so, without
consulting any one in the matter.
“You would like greatly to have my nephew staying in Stanley Crescent?”
Miss Hope said to Mrs. Black later on in the course of the same day.
“I should _greatly_,” answered the promoter, and thus war was declared
between them; and from that day forth Miss Hope began unintentionally
playing into her enemy’s hands.
“Take care what you are about with that man, Arthur,” she entreated.
“My dear aunt, I am much obliged to you for your kindness, but I believe
I can manage my own affairs,” he returned.
“Heather, you must speak to Arthur,” she then declared; “if you do not
speak, you will one day repent your weakness.”
“But I am afraid of vexing him,” Mrs. Dudley objected.
“Vex, nonsense; better vex him than lose every sixpence you have in the
world.”
“Do you think my speaking likely to do any good?”
“It cannot do any harm;” and thus exhorted, Heather inquired,—
“Have you any intention, Arthur, of—of going into business?”
“Business,” he repeated; “what in the world put such an idea as that
into your mind?”
“You and Mr. Black are always talking together.”
“And you object to our talking?”
“No; only I love Berrie Down, Arthur.”
“Which my aunt thinks I am in danger of losing; is that it, Heather? No,
I won’t lose Berrie Down, nor beggar you and the children. Does that
content you?”
“Yes, Arthur;” and she put her arm round his neck, and kissed him; and
he, in return, kissed her, grateful, perhaps, for a wife whom so little
confidence satisfied, or at least silenced; and who was as grateful for
a kind word, for a loving look, as many a woman for the devotion of a
life.
In those days, Arthur Dudley was a much more agreeable individual than
he had seemed for many a year previously.
He was gayer, brighter, kindlier. He refrained from grumbling, and
ceased to recite the benefits he had conferred upon his family.
There had come a summer to his winter, and in the bright sunshine all
the good plants that were formerly hidden under the snows of adversity,
put forth and blossomed into flower.
For such a change, could Heather be otherwise than thankful? Did not
every creature about the house—every man, woman, and child, and even the
very dumb animals—feel happier and better because the head of the
family, believing fortune was coming towards him, looked out over the
world with different eyes, and thought there was at last good to be
found in it?
The labourers worked more willingly; the very cattle seemed to thrive
better; the dogs, forgivingly forgetful that their master had been wont
to repulse their demonstrations of affections with an angry, “Get off,
will you!” came bounding towards him over the meadows and across the
yard. They were so pleased with the notice he took of them in those
days, that they lost their heads and made themselves perfectly
ridiculous with their rejoicings and gambolings. They rolled each other
over on the grass, and barked and worried each his companion in the
friendliest manner possible. When Arthur entered the room, Muff, Lally’s
dearly beloved and much-enduring kitten, now kept her position, instead
of walking off gravely shaking her hind legs at him as she went. He had
been wont to kick her also out of the way, but now he did not disdain to
look when Bessie held the saucer of milk for which she had taught Muff
to beg.
Even Jinny, the ill-conditioned goat, came in for her share of the
universal sunshine; while as for Heather, she basked in it. Had it not
been for Miss Hope’s eternal warnings, she would have forgotten her
anxieties; ay, even the unpromising page of her own life which had been
suddenly opened for her inspection.
Arthur was happy; and she is but a poor wife to whom the sight of her
husband’s happiness does not bring rejoicing also! As for Lally, a new
leaf in her book also was turned over. One day she came in to her
mother—hot, breathless, excited—exclaiming, “Lally’s been to the mill,
and Mr. Scrotter gave her two—beau—ful bantams!”
“Who went with you to the mill, my pet?” asked Heather; little
expecting, however, to hear Lally say in reply,—
“Pa tooked me; and pa says, when Lally’s a big girl she shall have a
nicer pony than Jack to ride, and that he’ll go out with her. Pa says
it!” and Lally stood and looked at her mother as though expecting
Heather to make an immediate memorandum of these remarkable words.
Ah! Heaven, how the poor Squire built his castles and furnished them in
that glorious summer weather; in what a fairy edifice he lived; through
what rose-coloured glass he surveyed his future life! How different
everything looked; how changed he felt; how swiftly the stream of his
existence flowed by! He was galloping on to fortune, and he never
thought of the chance of fall or accident by the way. He believed in his
steed, and the idea of stumbling or breaking down never occurred to him.
He was in for it now; he had—as Mr. Black said to himself at the
conclusion of their first actual conversation on the subject—“tasted
blood;” and till the game was hunted down, Arthur was never likely to
look back.
Besides, there was such perpetual excitement about the matter. Letters
arrived, letters were answered, advertisements were drawn up, a
prospectus had to be written. Post time became a longed-for hour at
Berrie Down.
There was something to do, something to expect; the monotony of that
country existence was broken up. Life at the Hollow, all at once, ceased
to be mere vegetation. For himself the Squire never could have made an
object and a purpose; but here, constantly at his right hand, was a man
full of energy and expedients—a man who had confidence both in himself
and in his project; who, pulling away with might and main towards
opulence and success, was kind enough to take Arthur Dudley as a
passenger in the same boat, and amuse him, as they rowed along, with
descriptions of that fair land whither they were journeying.
Many a wiser person than Arthur Dudley has been led away by much more
delusive prospects of fortune than those concerning which Mr. Black
waxed daily more and more eloquent.
Besides, the mere fact of having anything actually to do—“anything to
get up for,” so Mr. Black put the matter—proved an agreeable variety to
the Squire.
He was not yet old enough to prefer repose to action, to dislike change,
to distrust novelties; and there can be no question but that the brisk
confidence of Mr. Black’s ideas—the sharp decision of Mr. Black’s
manner, seemed a pleasant variety to a man who had for years and years
been droning through life, wandering over the fields with his hands in
his pockets, grumbling at his labourers, lamenting concerning his
inferior crops, and his cattle that would not grow beef fast enough.
Other trifles also conspired to gratify him at this time; such trifles
as a man must have lived very quietly and very economically even to
notice. But then it was many a long day since Arthur had lived otherwise
than quietly and economically, and for that reason one or two journeys
taken to town about this period with Mr. Black—when the pair went about
London regardless of expense, rushed from one end of town to the other
in hansoms, kept cabs waiting for them without a thought of the ultimate
cost; tipped footmen, porters, watermen; took trains from all parts of
London for all suburbs and country districts that could be mentioned;
treated subordinates to wonderful luncheons, or else had them up for
dinner to Stanley Crescent, and went with them afterwards to the
play—made a curious impression on the mind of a man who had hitherto
looked conscientiously at a sovereign before spending it; who had almost
ever since he left college travelled second-class, affected omnibuses,
shunned staying in great houses on account of needful gratuities, and
generally pinched himself as much as an honest gentleman, left but with
a small property and many incumbrances, was likely to do.
Of course, this recital of scraping, careful, unexciting poverty must
prove as wearisome and unendurable in a book as the reality does, when
your neighbour (a person to be shunned) says he has to count his
sixpences carefully and walk to the station for the sake of his family.
The least said is soonest mended in such cases, no doubt; and the
terrible economics poor Squire Dudley had been guilty of are now
reluctantly named only to render intelligible the reason why rattling
about London, in company with Mr. Black, seemed to him pleasant by
contrast.
To be sure—and this is really the singular part of the business—what was
spent came out of Arthur’s pocket. Various heads of cattle speedily
followed Nellie, and the money they yielded was distributed by Mr. Black
with no niggardly hand.
He knew the means by which to float a company; he believed that the way
to every man’s heart was through the palm of his right hand.
Mesmerism, he said, was a round-about way of putting yourself _en
rapport_ with any one, in comparison to slipping a sovereign between his
fingers.
Further, to get up other people’s steam, it is necessary, first, to
raise your own; and Mr. Black held, and held truly, that there is no
easier way of doing this than to rush from office to office, from
station to bank, from bank to private house, all at express speed.
“This is how we live,” he was wont to say to Arthur Dudley; and, on the
whole, the Squire thought such a way of living far from disagreeable.
They did not ask or want money from anyone, I pray you recollect. The
great ship was still on the stocks; there had not occurred a single
hitch in the business; it was all fair weather work, so far, at least,
as Arthur could see; all like ordering goods and writing cheques; giving
employment and paying cash; and it never occurred to the Squire that
there could be another side to the picture; that sometimes business
assumed the form of selling goods, and asking for payment. He was but a
novice, and believed implicitly their ship would glide smoothly into the
water; that she would carry a good cargo; that the profits on her
freight would be enormous; that the passengers would all have a fair
voyage, and agree well by the way; that there would be plenty, and to
spare, for everybody; and that he should never have any harder work to
do than running up to town with Mr. Black, and holding interviews with
all sorts and conditions of men.
They saw printers and got estimates; they ticked off the best
advertising media in “Mitchell’s Newspaper Guide;” they looked at
offices in the City, they had long and confidential discourses with
auctioneers and house-agents; they drove to Stangate and went over the
mills, which were in full work, and in and out of which went and came
men covered with flour, and of a generally white and dusty appearance;
they dined at Wandsworth with Mr. Bailey Crossenham, and at Sydenham
with Mr. Robert Crossenham.
They netted their thousands and their tens of thousands easily enough,
after the ladies left the room, over wine which could not have been
better. Capital, the Messrs. Crossenham agreed, was all that any
business needed to ensure success. They made fortunes by the aid of pen
and ink. Hundreds of tons of wheat—millions upon millions of loaves; the
merest gains, the slightest margin of profit, swelled up to something
almost incredible per annum. The Messrs. Crossenham were in the highest
spirits about the new undertaking; but then certainly one fact
concerning those worthy brothers must be borne in mind, namely, that
they had been tottering on the very verge of bankruptcy when Mr. Black
rushed to the rescue. This, which of course remained a secret amongst
the trio, accounted for much that even in those early days puzzled
Arthur Dudley—as, for instance, the intense respect wherewith these
apparently well-to-do men treated Mr. Peter Black; the deference they
paid to his opinions; the readiness with which they fell into all his
views; the rapidity with which they seized and acted on his suggestions.
There was not that independence of manner about the brothers which
Arthur considered their means and position might have warranted them in
assuming; but the conclusion he drew from all this was that, clever as
he thought Mr. Black to be, people who ought to know much more about the
promoter than it was possible for him to do, thought him cleverer still;
and, had anything been wanting to increase Squire Dudley’s confidence in
his leader, the manner in which that individual was treated by those
with whom they came into actual contact, must have raised Mr. Black
considerably in his kinsman’s esteem.
To the men amongst whom they mixed freely, the promoter, in fact, stood
precisely in the same enviable position as that dog who has got a good
bone, down to other curs.
With a certain envious deference they followed him, hoping to get a
portion of the spoil, or the reversion, perhaps, of the bone itself,
should Mr. Black by any accident drop it; whilst as for Arthur, the
promoter had told and hinted such falsehoods concerning his position,
his wealth, his tremendous pluck, his untiring energy, his determination
to make the “Protector” a success, that the Squire was welcomed in the
City with open arms, and became all of a sudden a person of consequence.
“Lord Kemms walks in and out of his house just as I might do in and out
of yours,” remarked Mr. Black, with calm impertinence, to a man who,
though worth a hundred thousand pounds, and the owner of a fine place
twenty miles from town, had utterly failed in all his attempts to get
grander people to dine with him than Miller, a tallow-chandler, who
dropped his Hs, and then following the universal law of compensation
picked them up, and stuck them in where they had no business to make
their appearance; who was for ever inverting his personal pronouns, and
vexing the soul of the rich man’s daughter with reminiscences which,
though possibly faithful, were by no means pleasant to hear related in
the presence of a limp young curate the lady hoped to fascinate.
It would have amazed Arthur to know that any human being held him in
high esteem, because a lord was, truly or untruly, reported to be
running loose about his house; and it might have annoyed him still more
to know that the cool insolence of Mr. Black’s words brought the man who
was worth a “plum” on to the direction, where certainly no politeness or
entreaty on the part of the promoter could have compassed such an end.
Behind the scenes Squire Dudley was never, however, permitted to peep.
He saw the play go on, and was fascinated by its variety, its
excitement, its rapid dialogue, its sunshiny hopefulness. How it was
really got up, he had not a suspicion. That it was all tinsel and paint,
and hollowness and sham, he had not a ghost of an idea.
It made a good show, and promised fair to draw a full house. Was not
that the only thing which concerned him? Mr. Black was of this opinion,
at any rate, and took very good care he should see none of the dirty
work in course of execution. The unpleasantnesses and difficulties,
present and to come, were all kept studiously out of view. The king was
never beheld without crown and sceptre; if the queen ate bread and
honey, it was partaken of with locked doors, and in a decorous privacy.
No fairy met Arthur’s view destitute of gauze; unadorned with spangles,
rouge, and pearl powder. The back of the canvas had no existence for
him. If disagreeable letters arrived, Mr. Black did not show them to his
coadjutor, but stated generally these private epistles concerned his
other ventures. If a man’s consent were doubtful, the promoter saw him
first alone. On insecure ground he knew better than to let Arthur step;
and if the Squire returned to his country home, thinking the new company
had hitherto not met with a check, who can feel surprised?
Whenever there was the faintest chance of a gale, his clever captain got
him into the cabin, and kept him there till the storm had blown by, or
the danger was over.
He saw the life and the fun of the voyage, but none of the peril; and so
he went back to Berrie Down brighter and more cheerful than ever, and
Heather seeing him happy could not brace up her courage for the
explanation Miss Hope assured her was essential, if she would save
herself and the children from beggary.
Perhaps the part of the business which Arthur enjoyed most was that of
assisting to write the prospectus.
On that document, Mr. Black asserted, hung the fate of the “Protector
Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” and the mutual talents of Arthur
Dudley and Peter Black, Esquires, were employed for one entire fortnight
in writing, correcting, and revising the production which ultimately
went forth to the world, like many another great and good work,
anonymously.
“It may seem an easy thing to write a prospectus,” remarked Mr. Black.
“The fellows that do histories, and novels, and newspaper articles, I
dare say imagine there can be no trouble about drawing up an attractive
advertisement; but let one of them try to do it—that is all I say. Why,
a prospectus combines within itself every literary difficulty you could
mention: it has to be got up to suit the tastes of all readers; it must
contain something to tickle the palate of each man and woman who looks
at it. Who is to check history, and say whether it is right or wrong?
but any fool can check statistics. I had a hack once, who used to do
some of this kind of work for me, and he said it was all very fine for
Macaulay and Alison, who could write just what they liked, and were not
compelled to stick to facts, which are such stubborn things there is
sometimes no dressing them up attractively or even decently; but he
declared there was a heap of dry bones flung to us, and we have to
compose out of those promising materials brilliant pictures, exciting
romances, perfect blue-hooks full of sound statistical information. And
what he said was true. Our style must be at once brief and persuasive.
We must be eloquent in order to draw shareholders, and yet mindful that
each word costs money. We must say nothing we are not prepared to
verify. We must be as well up in grammar as in the price of shares. We
must not slander our neighbour, nor unduly exalt ourselves; and yet we
are bound to show that, since the beginning of time, the heart of man
never imagined, and the brain of man never conceived, such a project as
that which we have the honour of submitting to the consideration of the
intelligent and discriminating British public.”
“You should write a pamphlet on the subject,” suggested Arthur,
laughing.
“I wish I could—I wish I dare. It would be a comfort and a satisfaction
to me to tell that same enlightened British public what I think of its
sense. Upon my honour, Dudley, the worse your company is, the easier it
is to write a prospectus about it. If you only want to float a thing,
not to carry it through, why, you can say whatever you please about the
matter, and the more you say the better the shares sell.”
“And why do you not put down whatever you please about the ‘Protector’?”
asked his companion.
“Just because it is _bona fide_—because I must stick to facts and
figures—figures that will satisfy not country simpletons, and ambitious
widows, and discontented governesses, but sound commercial men. It is a
serious matter, my friend, and must be wisely concocted and wisely
executed. That is why I put in merely a preliminary advertisement
hitherto. I knew the _grand coup_ would require both time and thought.
We must have a little of the moral, the philanthropic, the hygienic, the
scientific, the statistical, and the profitable; and we ought to put a
Latin quotation at the top: it will look classical, and complimentary to
the attainments of the people to whom it is addressed. Greek might be
better, or Hebrew; but I suppose you do not understand Hebrew?”
To which accusation Arthur pleading guilty, Mr. Black urged upon him the
immediate necessity of “rubbing up” his Latin, and finding an
appropriate heading for the prospectus.
“We shall want one to go round the stamp also,” proceeded the promoter;
“but that is not immediately required. Yes, it is, though,” he added,
“for I must mention the stamp at the end of the prospectus. Now, Dudley,
look alive; if I do the composing, the compiling, and the inventing,
surely I may depend on you for the Latin and correct English!”
After fourteen years, the Squire’s classical education had the dust thus
brushed off it, in order to furnish a plausible swindler with a couple
of Latin mottoes.
For twice seven years he had kept this thing by him, that it might serve
Mr. Black’s turn at last.
“Dudley’s!” said that individual, in frank explanation to his City
friends. “Devilish neat and taking, ain’t it? Bring in the parsons;
they’ll think the whole thing has been drawn up by some Oxford man, as
the Latin was, for that matter, out of a well which has not had any
water pumped from it for Heaven knows how long. If you have any
suggestion to make on the subject make it, or else hereafter hold your
tongues, for I am going to have the prospectus printed off to-morrow.”
“Could not be better!” answered his friends in chorus; and the programme
of the “Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” was accordingly
sent down to Harp Lane, where it was printed (on credit) by a protégé of
Mr. Black’s, on a very superior satin paper, procured on credit
likewise.
Next day after delivery, proof was duly forwarded, and the day
afterwards the prospectus was returned—pressed, folded, multiplied a
thousand-fold—to Peter Black, Esq., at the Temporary Offices of the
Company, 220, Dowgate Hill. The bundle, containing programmes of the
“Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” was flung down on the
counter in the outer office of 220, Dowgate Hill, at five to five
precisely, and, at three minutes to six, four hundred and twenty-five
prospectuses were wrapped up, directed, stamped, and posted at the chief
office, Lombard Street.
“She’s off the stocks at last, thank God!” said Mr. Black to Squire
Dudley, who stood beside him; “she’s off the stocks and afloat!”