MR. BLACK’S TARTAR.
Peter Black, Esquire, of Stanley Crescent, sat in the Secretary’s room
at the temporary offices of the Protector Bread and Flour Company,
Limited, 220, Dowgate Hill, looking as much like a thrashed hound as it
was possible for so pompous, and prosperous, and self-sufficient a
gentleman to look.
As a rule, wherever he went, and with whatsoever manner of person he
came in contact, Mr. Black comported himself as if, so Mr. Ormson
familiarly said, “he was cock of the walk;” but now Mr. Black had met
with a bigger and stronger, and more arrogant cock than himself; a bird
whose beak was strong and spurs sharp—who was accustomed to lording it
over creatures of his own species—who would have been immensely
astonished had Mr. Black flown at him, and disputed his supremacy; but
who, had such an affront been offered, would soon have cowed and
discomforted his adversary.
Mr. Black, however, mindful perhaps of his victories on other fields,
was content to rest on his laurels, and refrained from striving to wrest
any from the crown that bound in City circles the brow of Allan Stewart,
Esquire, of Walsey Manor, Layford; Careyby Castle, Perthshire; Hyde Park
Gardens, London; and 92, King’s Arms Yard, Moorgate Street.
With a man who gave himself airs, Mr. Black might perhaps have tried to
get the mastery with success. He might have deferred, and flattered, and
listened with apparent earnestness, while all the time he was winding
his opponent round his finger; but Mr. Stewart gave himself no airs; he
did not aw—aw like the half-pay majors and poor middle-aged,
dilapidated, disreputable swells with whom Mr. Black had so often come
in contact. He did not quote Latin, and talk of his great friends, like
the patientless doctors and surgeons, and the parishless parsons and the
clientless lawyers, who also had been unto Mr. Black’s eyes familiar as
the breath of life in his nostrils.
He was not recklessly indifferent to results, shamelessly greedy
concerning money, openly careless as to whether a scheme floated or not,
so long as he got out safe and netted a few hundreds, after the fashion
of the insolvent esquires and bankrupt merchants, who would not—so Mr.
Stewart declared—have scrupled to put their names on the direction of a
railway to the infernal regions, if only such statistics with regard to
fares had been procurable as would have enabled them to show
shareholders a prospect of a large dividend.
“They would glibly tell the British public what Charon clears per annum,
and state that great inconvenience was felt by passengers when the Styx
was rough and the winds contrary. They would sell their names to
anything on the earth, or in the waters under the earth; in land, or
sea, or sky; in this world or the next, if only promoters’ and
directors’ fees were to be had out of the scheme. Those are the kind of
men you have been accustomed to deal with, Mr. Black. It may save us,
therefore, a vast amount of trouble hereafter if you clearly understand
now that I am a different sort of man altogether.”
Mr. Black inclined his head, and observed, somewhat confusedly, that he
did not doubt it in the least.
“Excuse me,” said Mr. Stewart, “but you did doubt it. You thought when
you paid me that money, and promised me so many shares, and I gave you
leave to use my name, and said I should go into the thing with you, that
there was an end of me. You thought, when you heard I was abroad in the
autumn, and at Walsey since my return, that I meant to leave the company
in your hands, and meddle no further in the matter; but, pray, do not
think so any longer. I intend to take an active part in this business. I
mean that it shall succeed; and I have not the slightest scruple in
informing you that it shall not be made a refuge for the destitute by
anybody.”
“I am at a loss to follow your meaning, Mr. Stewart,” said Mr. Black, in
answer.
“I will try to explain myself more clearly,” went on the great man.
“When you came to me, and I said I could not entertain your proposal
without a retainer, do you know what my object was? No! Well, then, I
took your five hundred pounds as a guarantee for your honesty. The sum
was nothing to me; but I had no intention of having my time taken up
about a company, the shares in which might never be worth _that_!” and
Mr. Stewart snapped his fingers contemptuously. “I am perfectly plain,
you see. I knew you had been connected with company after company. I
knew, in fact, you were by profession a promoter of very bad schemes;
but I knew, also, you had plenty of push, and that, if you saw it was
worth your while to make a company succeed, you stood a fair chance of
forcing it to do so.”
Mr. Black bowed. These were the first civil words Mr. Stewart had
addressed to him during the interview; and, although the amount of
compliment they contained might not be excessive, still there was a
certain recognition of his executive and imaginative talents conveyed in
them.
For which reason Mr. Black bowed.
“Now, if the thing be to succeed, it must not be swamped with sinecures
and a multitude of ground landlords.”
Well enough Mr. Black knew all Mr. Stewart implied by that sentence;
but, nevertheless, he asked him for further information.
“By ground landlords, I understand a number of persons who, considering
the newly-discovered land their own, want to make off it as much as they
can before anybody else touches a farthing—for instance, you are a
ground landlord. Quite as well as I you know that Crossenhams’ mills are
not worth the name of the price you have put upon them.”
“I assure you it is the very lowest price the Messrs. Crossenham would
take.”
“And that lowest price you share with them. I am not quarrelling with
such an arrangement. The prospectus could not have been put forth
without some mills being secured—and, perhaps, those mills are as good
for the purpose of advertising from as any other; but still I happen to
know all the ins and outs of that transaction,—that your paper has been
keeping Crossenham afloat, that the machinery is very old, that the
buildings are very dilapidated, and that, in fact, if you had not rushed
to the rescue, Messrs. Bailey and Robert Crossenham must have been
gazetted ere this, and that, in the event of such a calamity happening
to them, the premises could have been bought for an old song.”
“What has that to do with me?” asked Mr. Black. “A man must live; and,
like you, I cannot afford to spend all my time, and strength, and
thought, and money, only to receive payment in shares.”
“True,” said Mr. Stewart, with a dubious smile, which, however,
encouraged the promoter to remark further—
“The labourer is worthy of his hire.”
“Humph! that depends,” observed Mr. Stewart.
“On what?” asked Mr. Black.
“On how much work the labourer does, and on the extent of his hire.”
“Oh!” murmured the promoter.
“Your hire has not been excessive, as hire goes,” went on Mr. Stewart,
“_so far_; but I think you have run about the length of your just
tether. I suppose, Mr. Black, you are now satisfied, and mean for the
future to rest content, with your extremely moderate supply of paid-up
shares?”
“Did you think I was going to _give_ the public this company?” demanded
the promoter.
“If I had ever entertained such an idea—which I never did—you would
speedily have disabused me of it,” answered Mr. Stewart; “but the point
on which I now desire information is this: Are you going to be content
with your promoter’s fees, with your shares, with your profits on the
Stangate mills, with your commission on printing, advertising,
travelling, and the Lord knows what besides, or are you not?”
“I desire to make no further claim,” answered Mr. Black.
“Then what is the English of this item—‘Lease of premises in Lincoln’s
Inn Fields?’” demanded Mr. Stewart, referring to a paper in his hand.
“What the devil do you mean by even proposing that the offices of the
company should be stuck up there? We shall next be paying for the
goodwills of depôts in Highbury New Park and Camden Square.”
“I do not see why the offices should not be in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,”
observed Mr. Black.
“And I do not see why they should be in any such graveyard,” answered
Mr. Stewart. “Deuce a thing there is in Lincoln’s Inn except lawyers’
offices, and one or two places where they insure lives, and preserve
skeletons, and grant licences to kill. What connection has Lincoln’s Inn
with bread-making? I must bring this matter before the board, but
thought, in the first instance, I would give you a chance of explaining
yourself to me.”
Mr. Black looked at the speaker, and turned the last clause of his
sentence over before replying. Meanwhile, Mr. Stewart stood on the
hearth-rug, with his coat-tails tucked up over his arms, airing himself
in true British fashion in front of the fire. In this attitude he looked
a man of whom no person would have cared to solicit a cheque—to whom no
defaulting debtor would have cared to prefer a petition for time in
which to pay.
A gentlemanly-looking individual, no doubt, who could have handed Lady
Grace down to dinner in an aristocratic and suitable manner—who could
have received one of the blood royal after the fashion which is
popularly supposed to obtain at Court ceremonials; a very charming
personage, doubtless, when complimenting young ladies on their singing,
or asking materfamilias if all those velvet-tuniced lads were hers; but
not a nice man with whom to discuss money matters, not a pleasant man to
try to take in—to strive to wind round your finger—to endeavour to make
use of.
Vaguely, Mr. Black, looking up at his grey-haired, hard-featured,
plain-spoken visitor, grasped all this ere he answered:
“Lincoln’s Inn Fields is as good a place as any other in which to have
our permanent offices. The address reads well. It implies to the country
imaginative lawyers; and lawyers, it pleases country people to think,
know what they are about. Further, it is central. Gentlemen will not get
their broughams knocked to pieces coming there, as they would do if they
ventured with West End coachmen into the city. Moreover, if strangers
staying at an hotel ask for Lincoln’s Inn Fields, any idiot of a waiter
can direct them to the place. There is something about the sound of
Lincoln’s Inn Fields which recommends itself to me. I cannot think why
you object to the situation, Mr. Stewart.”
“I object,” answered Mr. Stewart, “on two grounds: first, that I
consider Lincoln’s Inn Fields an unsuitable position; and secondly, that
I consider the whole affair a job.”
“A job!” repeated Mr. Black, reddening.
“Yes, sir, a job,” was the reply. “Who is this Mr. Dudley? How does he
chance to be the owner of that desirable leasehold property which you
are trying to get the company to buy? I see his name on the direction.
Who is he?—what is he? Is there such a person as Arthur Dudley, Esquire?
Is there such a place as Berrie Down Hollow at all?”
“What have I done, Mr. Stewart, to justify such suspicion?” the promoter
virtuously demanded. “Have I tried to deceive you; have I made any false
representations; did I enlist you in our ranks by any undue means? If
you are not satisfied with the company and with me, why not resign; why
not disassociate yourself from us _in toto_?”
Mr. Stewart laughed. “How long would your company live without me?” he
asked; “how long would your other directors remain on the board, if I
withdrew my name from it? Rather, Mr. Black, I might say, if you do not
relish my interference, why do you not resign, why do you not take your
shares and your promoter’s fees, and your various little perquisites,
and devote yourself to those other companies which have very decidedly
been neglected while you were employed in dry-nursing the Protector
Bread and Flour Company, Limited?”
“That, then, is what you want me to do?” said Mr. Black.
“No; I only, following your lead, suggested a course which I thought you
might find it advisable to pursue. I mean to interfere in this company.
I mean that it shall pay, and I do not mean that it shall expend
enormous sums on the purchase of freehold, copyhold, or leasehold
property, when renting offices and shops will serve our purpose equally
well, or better. That house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields shall not be
bought—at that point I take my stand. The proposal is ridiculous; the
situation is undesirable; the price asked preposterous. Mr. Dudley seems
not to be overwhelmed with modesty, or he never would have even thought
of mentioning such a sum.”
“He knows nothing on earth of the value of property,” Mr. Black
declared.
“Oh, then it is your price. I thought as much; and you are to share the
profit with him?”
“No,” the promoter eagerly replied; glad, at last, perhaps, to find some
point where he could contradict Mr. Stewart with advantage. “No, Mr.
Dudley is the person who found the capital to work this company. So far,
he has not derived one shilling benefit from it. He is not a business
man; he has gone into this scheme solely on my recommendation.”
“Is he an idiot?” asked Mr. Stewart.
“I have not associated much with idiots,” was the reply, “and am
therefore less competent to decide that question than you might be. But
I should say, no. Considering he is a gentleman, and apt to believe what
people tell him, I never saw any especial weakness of intellect about
him. He is not rich, and yet he has, as I said, found the money to carry
this matter through. When those premises in Lincoln’s Inn were for sale,
I advised him to buy them, and promised that they should be purchased by
the company at a considerable advance on the price he paid. I consider
the sum asked a fair sum; whether he make a profit or not, is no concern
of ours.”
“Of mine, you mean,” amended Mr. Stewart. “It may be very much of your
concern.”
“I am not to have a penny piece out of the transaction, if that be what
you would imply,” Mr. Black replied.
“That was what I intended to imply,” said the other; “and if it be a
fair question, Mr. Black, how did you chance to meet with this _rara
avis_, who found the money to start your company and believed all you
told him?”
Many a time in his life Mr. Black had been bullied, and rebuffed, and
snubbed, and irritated, but never before, never, had he been so coolly
insulted—so insolently addressed, as by the very ordinary-looking,
elderly individual, who, still airing himself at the fire, looked the
promoter over—turned him inside out, as calmly as though Mr. Black had
been a bale of inferior goods submitted to his inspection.
There was an offensive superiority in Mr. Stewart’s manner which was
very gall and wormwood to the person he addressed. Mr. Black would have
liked to order him out of the office, and to have enforced that order
with a due administration of boot leather; but, recollecting that
kicking Mr. Stewart out would not help him personally along the road to
fortune, he wisely restrained his feelings, and answered—
“I do not consider your question a fair one at all, sir. I never before
came in contact with a gentleman who would not have hesitated about
inquiring into such private particulars; but I have no objection to
telling you how Mr. Dudley and I became acquainted. My wife is his aunt
by marriage; that is how I came to know anything of Squire Dudley, of
Berrie Down.”
“Now what the deuce does that mean?” said Mr. Stewart, reflectively;
“aunt by marriage. You are not Mr. Dudley’s uncle, I presume?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then is Mrs. Black’s sister Mrs. Dudley?”
“She was until after her husband’s death, when she married a second
time. There were four sisters,” glibly proceeded Mr. Black, “all
daughters of Alderman Cuthbert; one died young, unmarried.”
“The gods loved her, then, we may conclude,” said Mr. Stewart, grimly.
“The eldest daughter married Mr. Ormson, of Cushion Court, with whose
name, I dare say, you are well acquainted.”
“Yes, as that of a very honest, respectable man,” acquiesced Mr.
Stewart, in a tone which implied that he never expected to hear one-half
so much good of the person he addressed.
“The second did me the honour of linking her fortunes with mine,” went
on Mr. Black, at which speech his auditor smiled again, not pleasantly.
“The youngest married Major Dudley, of Berrie Down, and——”
“Is, consequently, this Squire Dudley’s mother,” suggested Mr. Stewart.
“No, his mother-in-law,” amended the promoter.
“Stepmother, you would say, I presume,” corrected Mr. Stewart. “So that
is the relationship, is it?” and apparently he constructed a
genealogical tree for his own edification on the instant, where hung
prominently a matrimonial excrescence, with a pretty face and vulgar
manners, sister-in-law to Peter Black, Esquire, of Stanley Crescent.
“Major Dudley’s first wife, the present Squire Dudley’s mother, was a
daughter of Arthur Hope, Esquire, of Copt Hall, Essex.”
“Indeed!”
“You may have observed Mr. Walter Hope’s name on our direction?”
“I believe I did notice it.”
“You can make what inquiries you please about Squire Dudley,” went on
Mr. Black; “indeed, the more inquiries you make, the better I shall be
pleased. His position is perfectly unimpeachable. Excepting that he has
not so much money as his friends could wish, I am not aware that there
is a fault to be found with him or his surroundings.”
“For a man short of money, the purchase of a house in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields was surely a venture,” remarked Mr. Stewart.
“He bought it, as I have said, on my advice,” answered Mr. Black, who
could be brave on occasion; brave as well as self-asserting. “I thought,
considering that with me originated the idea of this company; with me
rested its very existence; on me devolved the organizing, carrying out,
and perfecting of this scheme; I thought, I say, considering all these
things, that when the concern came to be floated, a few of my
suggestions would be received, and that I might do, at once, a good
stroke of business for the company with which I was connected, and for
the man who had stood by me and backed me up through thick and thin.”
“Your imagination outran your discretion, then,” remarked Mr. Stewart.
“It is a dangerous thing for a man to try to benefit other people.
Observe, the financial field has been reaped almost bare before he
thinks of his acquaintances. You reaped and gleaned, Mr. Black, and then
you wanted a second crop for your friend. We allow your claims, but the
claims of your acquaintances and relations must go to the wall.”
“I will give up three hundred of my claim on the mills, Mr. Stewart, if
you do not oppose the purchase of those premises in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields,” said the promoter, earnestly.
“Then the affair is serious?” suggested Mr. Stewart.
“It is very serious,” answered Mr. Black. “Here is a man with property,
worth, at the outside, ten thousand pounds, shall we say, and he
advances money for advertising, and backs us up in every possible way
with money, influence, connections. As a douceur for that, I advise him
to buy that damned place in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, fully intending that
he should receive a good price for it from our company; and now you
come, Mr. Stewart, and put your foot in it; you come interfering, and
meddling, and——”
“Mr. Black, do you know how many shares I hold in this company?” asked
Mr. Stewart.
“A couple of hundred,” was the reply.
“Exactly two thousand,” answered Mr. Stewart, “and I mean them to repay
me. They will not do so, as I said before, if we commence by making this
company a refuge for the destitute; and although, no doubt, your friend
Dudley is a delightful fellow and a confounded fool, still, with him I
take my stand. Those premises may be rented if you will, but never
purchased. Please to remember what I say, Mr. Black—never purchased.”
Utterly crestfallen the promoter looked—utterly like a thrashed hound or
a disappointed pickpocket. Stronger and stronger grew the inclination to
kick Mr. Stewart off the premises; feebler and feebler grew his hopes of
controlling the operations of the Protector Bread Company, Limited; and
through all there was an awful sense of injustice—of it being a sin for
him not to be able to do what he liked with “his own;” with the baby he
had conceived and brought into the world, and nursed into a great
prosperous creature, the shares in which were already being eagerly
inquired for.
“Then, what is Dudley to do?” he asked, feebly and impotently.
“Sell the place again as soon as possible,” advised Mr. Stewart.
“That is all very well; but if he cannot sell?”
“In that case he must let.”
“And if he do not let?”
“In that case he must make the best he can of a bad bargain,”—and Mr.
Stewart shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, “If a man will be a
simpleton, he must bear the consequences.”
“The matter shall come before the board,” remarked Mr. Black.
“There is nothing to prevent its doing so, is there?” inquired Mr.
Stewart.
“And I wish to Heaven, sir—I wish to Heaven—I had been content to abide
by good advice, and never asked you for your name, or influence, or—or
anything,” finished Mr. Black, in a fine frenzy. “I could have carried
the company through without your help; I should have been better without
your interference; I should have had the management, to a certain
extent, in my own power, instead——”
“Instead of having some one on the direction with an interest in the
well-being of the concern,” finished Mr. Stewart, who had by this time
changed his position, and stood with one arm resting on the
chimney-piece, staring into the fire. “Look here, sir,” he went on,
suddenly altering the tone in which he had hitherto spoken, “it is as
much your interest as mine that this company shall succeed. It may make
a rich man of you if it do—it will certainly ease me of a considerable
sum of money if it do not. Our hopes, therefore, are, or should be,
identical. Is it to be peace or war between us? Will you work with me,
or will you work against me? Are you going to make posts and give
salaries to all the men you ever knew since you started in business? Do
you mean to show Squire This and Captain That where a good stroke of
business is to be done—where a snug nest-egg is to be obtained? Are you
going to advance the well-being of the company, or make it subservient
to the well-being of Jack, Tom, and Harry? How is this to be, sir?—let
us clearly understand one another at once.”
“Is all this tirade merely because I advised Squire Dudley to purchase
that house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields?” asked Mr. Black, sneeringly.
“No, sir; all this tirade, as you are pleased to call it, originates not
at the doings in Lincoln’s Inn, but at the various other doings in
Dowgate Hill. Here, for example, who the deuce is this fellow Harcourt,
solicitor? Nobody knows who he may be, except that he is some friend or
relative of yours. Then, again, there is Bayley Crossenham, Esquire,
manager; Robert Crossenham, Esquire, secretary _pro tem._ It shall not
be _pro tem._ long, believe me. Then the bankers are your own; the
auditors are the same whose names were appended to that most rotten
scheme of yours, the City and Suburban Gas Company; the brokers are men
of comparatively no standing whatever; not a soul on the direction but
has been “qualified” by the gift of paid-up shares. I do not quarrel
with that latter arrangement, for, with one exception, I think you have,
so far as I can see, got a list of very good names—names that, perhaps,
were worth paying for. By the way, I perceive Lord Kemms is on the
Direction.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Black, wincing, however, a little at the implied
question; “he is next neighbour almost to Squire Dudley.”
“Indeed, what a delightful person this Squire Dudley must be! And so,
because Lord Kemms chances to be near neighbour to Squire Dudley, he
allows his name to grace our prospectus? I should not have thought it.”
“Why should you not?” asked Mr. Black, sullenly.
“Well, for one reason, because he has been at Vienna for the last four
months.”
“I saw him, at any rate, in Squire Dudley’s house, when I was down in
Hertfordshire last summer,” answered Mr. Black.
“And he gave you permission to use his name?”
“Certainly. Do you think I should put it on the direction if he had
not?” asked Mr. Black.
“Have you any letter from him to that effect—any written authority to do
so?”
“Even in the City we think a man’s word sufficient authority,” was the
reply. “I do not know what code of honour may be observed among your
relations, Mr. Stewart.”
“It is best not to depend too much on honour,” answered that gentleman,
coolly. “If Lord Kemms took it into his head, on his return home, to
repudiate the transaction, do you know what would be the result?”
“Our company would probably find itself in Queer Street,” replied Mr.
Black; “but I am not afraid of that. Lord Kemms is not a man to back out
of a promise, particularly if it can be made worth his while to keep
it,” added the promoter, _sotto voce_.
“I did not quite catch the last portion of your sentence,” remarked Mr.
Stewart.
“It was of no consequence—merely a passing reflection,” said Mr. Black.
“I can show you Mr. Hope’s authority, and that of your nephew, Mr.
Croft, if the sight would afford you any gratification.”
“Thank you—they are of no consequence,” was the reply. “I should have
liked to see Lord Kemms’, because, from ‘information I have received,’ I
did not think his lordship would join us.”
“He would not have joined us had Mr. Raidsford’s persuasion carried much
weight.”
“Indeed! Who is Mr. Raidsford—his confessor?”
“Come, come, Mr. Stewart, do you think I am quite a simpleton?” demanded
Mr. Black. “Do you imagine that piece of acting can take me in? I know
who has been setting you against me—I know who has been putting you up
to ask if the names are genuine—if permission to use them have really
been given. You have not so long left Mr. Raidsford’s office as to have
forgotten who and what he is; and I know who and what he is—a sneak and
a toady, who has worked himself up from nothing with a smooth tongue and
a spying nature. It was through tale-bearing he got on—perhaps it will
be through tale-bearing he may get down.”
“He is rich, then?”—this was interrogative.
“Mr. Stewart,” said the promoter, desperately, “don’t you know all about
Compton Raidsford, as well as I know about you? Don’t you know he is
very rich—so rich that he would not touch shares in the Bank of England?
Don’t you know he hates all companies—that having grubbed his own way
up, he believes anybody else can grub up unassisted also? Don’t you know
he is a prying, meddling, conceited, cursed upstart?” finished Mr.
Black.
“I cannot say that I do—in fact, I cannot say that I know the man at
all,” answered Mr. Stewart.
“Well, you need not say, but I may think,” snapped up Mr. Black; “and,
with regard to the question you put to me some time since, all I have
got to remark is this—I will work with you, and for you and myself, if
you will let me; but there is a limit to all things. I cannot stand
being bullied and interfered with. Let me work the company my own way,
and I will take what amount of advice you choose to give, and act on it
if I can. I am a good servant, if I am let alone—interfere with this,
that, and the other, and I am apt to turn restive. If you take the right
way with me, you will not find me unreasonable; but I tell you fairly to
begin with, that though a child might lead, the devil himself should not
drive me.”
“I must advertise for an intelligent three-year-old, then,” laughed Mr.
Stewart, “for I shall certainly not attempt driving you. Only, I mean to
have my way in some things, remember. I am a little like you, Mr.
Black—averse to being crossed; so it will be better for us to agree to
go the same road, rather than always be pulling contrary ways. You will
bear in mind what I said about our company being made a refuge, and not
repeat such a mistake. I shall look in again after Christmas; meantime,
allow me to wish you the compliments of the season.”
“Thank you; same to you, sir,” answered Mr. Black, forced to accept the
civility, but by no means mollified by it.
“I hope the new year may prove a prosperous one to us all,” said Mr.
Stewart, meditatively, looking into his hat.
“I hope so too,” the promoter agreed; “it shall not be for want of any
exertions on my part if the company fail.”
“Fail,” repeated Mr. Stewart; “fail! it shall not fail! Conducted with
ordinary prudence, it should be a perfect mine of wealth. There is
scarcely a public bakery in England which has not paid the most enormous
dividends; and what is the field in any county or provincial town in
comparison to that which is open for us in London? Three millions of
bread-eaters, and not a large bakery to supply them!”
“You may remember that I make a somewhat similar observation in the
prospectus,” remarked Mr. Black, not sorry to have an opportunity of
indirectly accusing Mr. Stewart of plagiarism.
“Did you? How very singular! Is it copyright? If so, I will not infringe
again. And that reminds me what induces you to stick the Mount Cashell
motto at the heads of each advertisement.”
“I suppose the motto was in existence before the Mount Cashells were
thought of,” retorted Mr. Black. “It is none the worse for their having
used it, is it?”
“It is none the better,” was the reply; “still,” went on Mr. Stewart,
“the prospectus, as a whole, does you credit. It is very moderate in its
tone—a great matter in these days of bounce and swagger; and that
allusion to the ‘Give us bread and the games’ is rather neat. I like the
stamp motto also, ‘Sweet and wholesome.’ Altogether, that Latin of yours
is a good idea.”
“The idea was mine, but not the Latin,” answered Mr. Black, frankly. “I
do not pretend to be much of a scholar myself; I had something else to
do when I was young than pore over any book, unless, indeed, it might be
a day-book; but I know even the appearance of learning has an effect on
the general public, and so I begged Dudley to look me up one or two
appropriate quotations. He is a gentleman, you know—been to college, and
all that sort of thing.”
“They do not sell brains at college, it appears, however, though they
may learning,” remarked Mr. Stewart, drily; after which speech,
intended, evidently, as a delicate compliment to Arthur Dudley’s
understanding, the great director put his hat on his head, and said
“Good afternoon” to Mr. Black, and, walking out of the office, took his
way westward through Cloak and Trinity Lanes, thinking as he went, “That
is a sharp, clever fellow. Now I wonder if he can and will be honest,
even to answer his own purpose.”
Meanwhile, the subject of this speculation stood shaking his clenched
fist after Mr. Stewart.
“I wish to God I dare have kicked the old humbug up Cannon Street,” he
said in his rage, quite out loud. “I should not mind paying a hundred
pounds to have the pleasure of telling the cursed upstart that I don’t
care a damn for him, or his connection, or his standing, or anything
about him. Here have I had all the trouble, all the anxiety, all the
work, while my gentleman was amusing himself doing the grand in foreign
countries; and then, when I, after having stood the racket, began to
hope the rest would be smooth sailing, down he comes with his capital,
and sweeps away all chance of profit. Capital, indeed; damn capital, say
I!”
Thus the man whose life had been one long struggle to gain capital, who
was never weary of writing prospectus after prospectus in order to prove
that without capital nothing good or great ever had been, or ever would
be, accomplished; the ostensible object of whose existence it was to
demonstrate that individual exertion was useless; that it was only the
united wealth of a number of individuals which could hope to effect
large results; the actual end of whose labours—could those labours have
been carried out according to the programme he had arranged—was to
exterminate all small tradesmen, all struggling merchants—almost
unconsciously paraphrased the sense of Mr. Raidsford’s lamentation.
Great wits and little wits, we are assured, oftentimes jump together,
and on this occasion, certainly, the man of large resources and the man
of none expressed nearly identical opinions.
“The concentration of capital will be the ruin of England,” said Mr.
Raidsford, who felt how such a concentration might have neutralized his
own efforts to rise in the world.
“Damn capital!” said Mr. Black, smarting under Mr. Stewart’s insolence;
“it is capital, and nothing but capital, which enables these fellows to
give themselves such airs.”
“But the game is not finished yet,” added the promoter, next instant;
“when it is, Mr. Stewart, you will perhaps find out to your cost which
of us rises the winner.”