Lord Lackington was not much of a letter-writer; correspondence was not
amongst the habits of his day. The society in which he moved, and of
which, to some extent, he was a type, cared more for conversational than
epistolary graces. They kept their good things for their dinner-parties,
and hoarded their smart remarks on life for occasions where the success
was a personal triumph. Twice or thrice, however, every year, he was
obliged to write. His man of business required to be reminded of this
or that necessity for money, and his brother Annesley should also
be admonished, or reproved, or remonstrated with, in that tone of
superiority and influence so well befitting one who pays an annuity to
him who is the recipient. In fact, around this one circumstance were
grouped all the fraternal feelings and brotherly interest of these
two men. One hundred and twenty-five pounds sterling every half-year
represented the ties of blood that united them; and while it offered to
the donor the proud reflection of a generous self-sacrifice, it gave to
him who received the almost as agreeable occasion for sarcastic allusion
to the other's miserly habits and sordid nature, with a contrast of what
he himself had done were their places in life reversed.
It was strange enough that the one same incident should have begotten
such very opposite emotions; and yet the two phrases, “If you knew all I
have done for him,” and the rejoinder, “You 'd not believe the beggarly
pittance he allows me,” were correct exponents of their several
feelings.
Not impossible is it that each might have made out a good case against
the other. Indeed, it was a theme whereon, in their several spheres,
they were eloquent; and few admitted to the confidence of either had not
heard of the utter impossibility of doing anything for Annesley,--his
reckless folly, his profligacy, and his waste; and, on the other hand,
“the incredible meanness of Lackington, with at least twelve thousand a
year, and no children to provide for, giving me the salary of an upper
butler.” Each said far too much in his own praise not to have felt, at
least, strong misgivings in his conscience. Each knew far too well that
the other had good reason in many things he said; but so long had their
plausibilities been repeated, that each ended by satisfying himself he
was a paragon of fraternal affection, and, stranger still, had obtained
for this opinion a distinct credence in their several sets in society;
so that every peer praised the Viscount, and every hard-up younger son
pitied poor Annesley, and condemned the “infamous conduct of the old
coxcomb his brother.”
“That scampish fellow's conduct is killing poor Lackington,” would say a
noble lord.
“Annesley can't stand old Lackington's treatment much longer,” was the
commentary of half-pay captains of dragoons.
Had you but listened to Lord Lackington, he would have told you of at
least fifty distinct schemes he had contrived for his brother's worldly
success, all marred and spoiled by that confounded recklessness, “that
utter disregard, sir, of the commonest rules of conduct that every man
in life is bound to observe.” He might have been, by this time, colonel
of the Fifty-something; he might have been governor of some fortunate
island in the Pacific; consul-general at Sunstroke Town, in Africa,
where, after three years, you retire with a full pension. If he 'd have
gone into the Church,--and there was no reason why he should n't,--there
was the living of St. Cuthbert-in-the-Vale, eight hundred a year, ready
for him. Every Administration for years back had been entreated in his
favor; and from Ordnance clerkships to Commissions in Lunacy he had been
offered places in abundance. Sinecures in India and jobs in Ireland had
been found out in his behalf, and deputy-somethings created in Bermuda
just to provide for him.
The concessions he had made, the proxies he had given, “just for
Annesley's sake,” formed a serious charge against the noble Lord's
political consistency; and he quoted them as the most stunning evidences
of fraternal love, and pointed out where he had gone against his
conscience and his party as to a kind of martyrdom that made a man
illustrious forever.
As for Annesley, his indictment had, to the full, as many counts. What
he might have been,--not in a mere worldly sense, not as regards place,
pension, or emolument, but what in integrity, what in fair fame, what
in honorable conduct and unblemished character, if Lackington had only
dealt fairly with him,--“there was really no saying.” The noble motives
which might have prompted, the high aspirations that might have
moved him, all the generous impulses of a splendid nature were there,
thwarted, baffled, and destroyed by Lackington's confounded stupidity.
What the Viscount ought to have done, what precise species of culture
he should have devoted to these budding virtues, how he ought to have
trained and trellised these tender shoots of aspiring goodness, he never
exactly detailed. It was only clear that, whatever the road, he had
never taken it; and it was really heart-breaking to hear what the world
had lost in public and private virtues, all for Lackington's indolence
and folly.
“He never gave me a chance, sir,--not one chance,” would he say. “Why,
he knows Palmerston just as well as I know you; he can talk to Lord
Derby as freely as I am speaking at this minute; and, would you believe
it? he wouldn't say, 'There's Annesley--my brother Annesley--wants
that commissionership or that secretary's place. Annesley 's a devilish
clever fellow,--up to a thing or two,--ask Grog Davis if he ain't. Just
try to get between him and the ropes, that's all; see if he does n't
sleep with one eye open. 'Do you tell me there's one of them would
refuse him? Grog said to his face, at Epsom Downs, the morning Crocus
was scratched, 'My Lord,' says he, 'take all you can get upon Annesley;
make your book on him; he's the best horse in your lot, and it's Grog
Davis says it.'”
Very true was it that Grog Davis said so. Nay, to enjoy the pleasure
of hearing him so discourse was about the greatest gratification of
Annesley Beecher's present life. He was poor and discredited. The Turf
Club would not have him; he durst not show at Tattersall's. Few would
dine, none discount him; and yet that one man's estimate of his gifts
sustained him through all. “If Grog be right--and he ought to be, seeing
that a more dodgy, crafty fellow never lived--I shall come all round
again. He that never backed the wrong horse could n't be far astray
about men. He thinks I've running in me yet; _he_ sees that I 'll come
out one of these days in top condition, and show my number from the
stand-house.” To have had the greatest opinion in Equity favorable to
your cause in Chancery, to have known that Thesiger or Kelly said
your case was safe, to learn that Faraday had pronounced your analysis
correct, or White, of Cowes, had approved of the lines of your new
yacht,--would any of them be very reassuring sensations; and yet were
they as nothing to the unbounded confidence imparted to Beecher's mind
by the encouraging opinion of his friend Grog Davis. It is only justice
to say that Beecher's estimate of Davis was a feeling totally free
of all the base alloy of any self-interest. With all Grog's great
abilities, with talents of the very highest order, he was the reverse
of a successful man. Trainer, auctioneer, sporting character, pugilist,
publican, and hell-keeper, he had been always unlucky. He had his share
of good things,--more than his share. He had been in at some of
the “very best-robberies” ever done at Newmarket. The horses he had
“nobbled,” the jockeys “squared,” the owners “hocussed,” were legion.
All the matches he had “made safe,” all the fights he had sold, would
have filled five columns of “Bell's Life.” In whatever called itself
“sport” he had dabbled and cheated for years; and yet, there he was,
with all his successes and all his experiences, something more than
fifteen thousand pounds worse than ruined.
Worthy reader, have you stood by while some enthusiastic admirer of
Turner's later works has, in all the fervor of his zeal, encomiumized
one of those strange, incomprehensible creations, where cloud and sea,
atmosphere, shadow and smoke, seem madly commingled with tall masts
piercing the lurid vapor, and storm-clouds drifting across ruined
towers? If at first you gladly welcomed any guidance through the
wondrous labyrinth, and you accepted gratefully the aid of one who could
reconcile seeming incongruities, and explain apparent difficulties, what
was your disappointment, at last, to discover that from some defect of
organization, some absent power of judgment, you could not follow the
elucidation; that you saw no power in this, no poetry in that; that no
light gleamed into _your_ soul out of all that darkness, nor any hope
into _your_ heart, from the mad confusion of that chaos? Pretty much
the same mystification had it been to you to have listened to Annes-ley
Beecher's account of his friend Grog Davis. It was evident that _he_
saw the reason for everything,--he could account for all; but, alas! the
explanatory gift was denied him. The very utmost you could attain to was
a glimmering perception that there were several young men of rank and
station who had only half trusted the distinguished Davis, and in their
sparing confidence had rescued themselves from his knavery; that very
artful combinations occasionally require confederates, and confederates
are not always loyal; that Grog occasionally did things with too high a
hand,--in plain words, reserved for himself more than his share of the
booty; and, in fact, that, with the best intentions and the most decided
determination to put others “into the hole,” he fell in himself, and so
completely, too, that he had never been able to show his head out of it
ever since.
If, therefore, as we have said, Annesley Beecher's explanation of these
tangled skeins was none of the clearest, there was nothing daunting to
himself in that difficulty. On the contrary, he deemed his intimacy with
Grog as one of his greatest privileges. Grog had told him things that
he would not tell to another man breathing; he had seen, in Grog's own
hand, what would, if not hang him, give him twenty years at Norfolk
Island; he knew that Grog had done things no man in England but himself
had ever dreamed of; in fact, as Othello's perils had won the fair
Desdemona's love, Grog Davis's rascalities had captivated Beecher's
admiration; and, as the recruit might gaze upon the thickly studded
crosses on the breast of some glorious soldier, so did he venerate the
proofs of the thousand-and-one knaveries of one who for thirty-odd years
had been a “leg” and a swindler.
Let us present Captain Davis--for by that title was he popularly
known--to our reader. He was a short, red-faced--very red-faced--man,
with a profusion of orange-red hair, while he wore beard and whiskers
in that form so common in our Crimean experiences. He was long-armed and
bandy, the legs being singularly short and muscular. He affected dress,
and was remarkable for more ostentation of velvet than consisted with
ordinary taste, and a far greater display of rings, charms, and watch
trinkets than is common even to gentlemen of the “Jewish persuasion.”
The expression of the man's face was eminently determination, and his
greenish-gray eyes and thin-lipped, compressed mouth plainly declared,
“Bet with me or not,--if you give me the shadow of a shade of
impertinence I 'll fasten a quarrel upon you of which all your rank and
station won't protect you from the consequences. I can hit a sixpence at
twenty paces, and I 'll make you feel that fact in every word you say to
me. In my brevet rank of the turf you can't disown me, and if you try,
mine the fault if you succeed.” He had been out three or four times in
very sanguinary affairs, so that the question as to “meeting” him was a
settled point. He was one of those men to whom the epithet “dangerous”
completely applies; he was dangerous alike to the young fellow entering
life, unsuspectful of its wiles and ignorant of its rascalities;
dangerous in the easy facility with which he would make foolish wagers,
and lend even large sums on the very slightest acquaintance. He seemed
so impressed with his theory that everybody ought to have all the
enjoyment he liked, there was such a careless good-nature about him,
such an uncalculating generosity, an air of such general kindliness,
that very young men felt at once at ease in his company; and if there
were sundry things in his manner that indicated coarseness or bad
breeding, if his address was vulgar and his style “snobbish,” there were
sufficient traits of originality about him to form a set-off for these
defects, and “Old Grog” was pronounced an “out-and-out good fellow,” and
always ready “to help one at a pinch.”
Such was he to the very young men just passing the threshold of life; to
the older hands--fellows versed in all its acts and ways--he showed
no false colors; such, then, he was, the character which no disguise
conceals,--“the leg;” one whose solvency may be counted on more safely
than his honesty, and whose dealings, however based on roguery, are
still guided by that amount of honor which is requisite for transactions
amongst thieves. There was an impression, too,--we have no warranty for
saying how far it was well founded,--that Grog was behind the scenes in
transactions where many high and titled characters figured; that he was
confederate in affairs of more than doubtful integrity; and that, if
he liked, he could make revelations such as all the dark days at
Tattersall's never equalled. “They 'll never push _me_ to the wall,”
he would say, “take my word for it; they 'll not make Grog Davis turn
Queen's evidence,” was the boastful exclamation of his after-dinner
hours: and he was right. He could have told of strange doings with
arsenic in the stable, and, stranger still, with hocussed negus in the
back parlor; he had seen the certain favorite for the Oaks carted out
stiff and cold on the morning that was to have witnessed her triumph;
and he had opened the door for the ruined heir as he left his last
thousand on the green baize of the hell table. He was so accustomed to
all the vicissitudes of fortune--that is, he was so habituated to aid
the goddess in the work of destiny--that nothing surprised him; and
his red, carbuncled face and jaundiced eye never betrayed the slightest
evidence of anything like emotion or astonishment
How could Beecher have felt any other than veneration for one so gifted?
He approached him as might some youthful artist the threshold of Michael
Angelo; he felt, when with him, that he was in the presence of one whose
maxims were silver and whose precepts were gold, and that to the man who
could carry away those experiences the secrets of life were no longer
mysteries.
All the delight an old campaigner might have felt had the Great Duke
vouchsafed to tell him of his achievements in the Peninsula--how he had
planned the masterly defences of Torres Vedras, or conceived the bold
advance upon Spain--would have been but a weak representation of the
eager enjoyment Beecher experienced when Grog narrated some of his
personal recollections: how he had squared Sir Toby at Manchester;
the way he had won the York Handicap with a dead horse; and the still
prouder day when, by altering the flags at Bolton, he gained twenty-two
thousand pounds on the Great National Steeplechase. Nor was it without
a certain vaingloriousness that Grog would speak of these, as, cigar
in mouth and his hands deep in his breeches pockets, he grunted out, in
broken sentences, the great triumphs of his life.
We began this chapter by saying that Lord Lackington was not an
impassioned letter-writer; and here we are discoursing about Mr. Davis
and his habits, as if these topics could possibly have any relation
to the noble Viscount's ways; and yet they are connected, for it was
precisely to read one of his Lordship's letters to his friend that
Beecher was now Grog's guest, seated opposite to him at the fire, in a
very humble room of a very humble cottage on the strand of Irish-town.
Grog had sought this retirement after the last settling at Newmarket,
and had been, in popular phrase, “missing” since that event.
“Well, it's a long one, at all events,” said Mr. Davis, as he glanced
through his double eyeglass at the letter Beecher handed him,--“so long
that I 'll be sworn it had no enclosure. When a man sends the flimsy, he
spares you the flourish!”
“Right there, Grog. It's all preach and no pay; but read it” And he
lighted his cigar, and puffed away.
“'Lake of Como, Oct 15
“What 's the old cove about up at Como so late in the season?”
“Read it, and you 'll know all,” said the other, sententiously.
“'Dear Annesley,--I have been plotting a letter to you these half-dozen
weeks; but what with engagements, the heat, and that insurmountable
desire to defer whatever can by possibility be put off, all my good
intentions have turned out tolerably like some of your own,--pleasant
memories, and nothing more. Georgina, too, said--'
“Who's Georgina?”
“My sister-in-law.”
“What's she like,--you never spoke of her?”
“Oh, nothing particular. She was a Ludworth; they 're a proud set, but
have n't a brass farthing among them.”
“Why did he marry her?”
“Who knows? He liked her, I believe,” said he, after a pause, as though,
failing a good and valid reason, he gave the next best that offered.
“'Georgina, too, said she 'd write, but the chances are her own
commissions would have been the burden of her letter. She has never
forgotten that bargain of Mechlin lace you once procured her, and always
speculates on some future exercise of your skill.'”
Annesley burst into a hearty laugh, and said,--
“It was amongst the trumpery they gave me at Antwerp for a bill of three
hundred and fifty pounds; I got a Rubens,--a real Rubens, of course,--an
ebony cabinet, and twenty yards of coffee-colored 'point de Bruxelles,'
horrid trash; but no matter, I never paid the bill, and Georgina thought
the lace a dead bargain at forty louis.”
“So that it squared you both?” said Grog.
“Just so, Master Davis. Read on.”
“'You must see the utter impossibility of my making any increase to your
present allowance--'”
“Hang me if I do, then!”
“'--present allowance. The pressure of so many bad years, the charges of
aiding the people to emigrate, and the cost of this confounded war, have
borne very heavily upon us all, and condemned us to economies that we
never dreamed of. For myself, I have withdrawn my subscription from
several charities, and will neither give a cup at the Broome Regatta,
nor my accustomed ten pounds towards the race ball. I wish I could
impress you with the necessity of similar sacrifices: these are times
when every man must take his share of the national burdens, and reduce
his habits of indulgence in conformity with national exigency.'”
“It 's all very fine to talk of cutting your coat, but when you have n't
got any cloth at all, Master Davis--”
“Well, I suppose you must take a little of your neighbor's--if it don't
suit you to go naked. This here noble Lord writes 'like a book;' but
when he says, 'I 'm not a-goin' to stump it,' there 's no more to be
said. You don't want to see the horse take his gallops that you know
is to be scratched on the day of the race,--that's a mere piece of idle
curiosity, ain't it?”
“Quite true, Grog.”
“Well, it's clear he won't He says he won't, and that's enough.--'We
have come abroad for no other reason than economy, and are only looking
for a place inexpensive enough for our reduced means.' What's his
income?”
“Better than twelve thousand a year.”
“Has he debts?”
“Well, I suppose he may; everybody has.”
“Ay,” said Grog, dryly, and read on.--“'The Continent, however, is
not the cheap place it once was,--rent, servants, markets, all are
dearer,--and I 'm quite satisfied you find Ireland much less expensive
than any other part of Europe,'--which means, 'Stay there,'--eh?”
“No, I don't take it that way,” said Beecher, reddening.
“But I do, and I 'll maintain it,” reiterated Grog. “He's a knowing one,
that same noble Viscount; he's not the flat you always thought he was.
He can square his own book, he can.--As to any prospect of places, I
tell you, frankly, there is none. These competitive humbugs they call
examinations do certainly stop a number of importunate people, but the
vigilance of Parliament exercises a most overbearing tyranny on the
ministers; and then the press! Now, we might tide over the House,
Annesley, but the press would surely ruin all. If you were gazetted
to-day Consul to the least-known South American republic,--commissioner
for the sale of estates in the planet Saturn,--those fellows would have
a leader on you to-morrow, showing what you did fifteen years ago at
Ascot,--all your outlawries, all your actions in bankruptcy. They 'd
begin saying, 'Is this the notorious Hon. Annesley Beecher? or are we
mistaken in supposing that the gentleman here referred to is the same
lately mentioned in our columns as the friend and associate of the still
more famous Grog Davis?'”
“He's cool, he is, the noble Lord,” said Davis, laying down the letter,
while Beecher laughed till his eyes ran over with tears. “Now, I 'd
trouble his Lordship to tell _me_,” continued Grog, “which had the worst
of that same acquaintance, and which was more profitable to the other.
If the famous Grog were to split upon the notorious Annes-ley, who 'd
come last out of the bag?”
“You need n't take it so seriously as all that, Grog,” said Beecher, in
a placable tone.
“Why, when I'm told that one of the hardest things to be laid to _your_
charge is the knowing _me_, it's high time to be serious, I think; not
but I might just throw a shell into the enemy's own camp. The noble Lord
ain't so safe as he fancies. I was head-waiter at Smykes's,--the old
Cherry-tree, at Richmond--the night Mat Fortescue was ruined. I could
tell the names of the partners even yet, though it's a matter of I won't
say how many years ago; and when poor Fortescue blew his brains out, I
know the man who drove his phaeton into town and said, 'Fortescue never
had a hand light enough for these chestnuts. I always knew what I could
do with them if they were my own.'”
“Lackington never said that. I 'll take my oath of it he never did!”
cried Beecher, passionately.
“Take your oath of it!” said Davis, with an insulting sneer. “Do you
mind the day old Justice Blanchard--it was at the York assizes--said,
'Have a care, Mr. Beecher, what you are about to swear; if you persist
in affirming that document, the consequences may be more serious than
you apprehend?' And do you remember you did n't swear?”
“I 'll tell you what, Master Grog,” said Beecher, over whose face a
sudden paleness now spread, “you may speak of _me_ just as you like. You
and I have been companions and pals for many a day; but Lackington is
the head of my family, he has his seat in the Peers, he can hold up
his head with the best in England, and I 'll not sit here to listen to
anything against him.”
“You won't, won't you?” said Grog, placing a hand on either knee, and
fixing his fiery gray eyes on the other's face. “Well, then, I 'll tell
you that you _shall!_ Sit down, sir,--sit down, I say, and don't
budge from that chair till I tell you! Do you see that hand? and that
arm,--grasp it, squeeze it,--does n't feel very like the sinews of a
fellow that feared hard labor. I was the best ten stone seven man in
England the year I fought Black Joe, and I 'm as tough this minute, so
that Norfolk Island needn't frighten me; but the Hon. Annesley Beecher
would n't like it, I 'll promise him. He 'd have precious pains in the
shoulder-blades, and very sore feelings about the small of the back,
after the first day's stone-breaking. Now, don't provoke me, that's all.
When the world has gone so bad with a man as it has with _me_ the last
year or two, it's not safe to provoke him,--it is not.”
“I never meant to anger you, old fellow,” began Annesley.
“Don't do it, then,--don't, I say,” repeated the other, doggedly; and he
resumed the letter, saying: “When you 're a-writing the answer to this
here letter, just ask Grog Davis to give you a paragraph. Just say,
'Grog, old fellow, I 'm writing to my noble brother; mayhap you have a
message of some kind or other for him,' and you 'll see whether he has
or not.”
“You 're a rum one, Master Davis,” said Beecher, with a laugh that
revealed very little of a heart at ease.
“I'm one that won't stand a fellow that doesn't run straight with
me,--that's what I am. And now for the noble Viscount.” And he ran
his eyes over the letter without reading aloud. “All this here is only
saying what sums he has paid for you, what terrible embarrassment your
debts have caused him. Lord love him! it's no new thing to hear of in
this life that paying money is no pleasure. And then it finishes, as
all the stories usually do, by his swearing he won't do it any more. 'I
think,' he says, 'you might come round by a fortunate hit in marriage;
but somehow you blundered in every case that I pointed out to you--'”
“That's too bad!” cried Beecher, angrily. “The only thing he ever 'put
me on' was an iron-master's widow at Barnstable, and I found that the
whole concern was under a contract to furnish rails for a Peruvian line
at two pounds ten a ton under the market price of iron.”
“It was _I_ discovered that!” broke in Grog, proudly.
“So it was, old fellow; and you got me off the match without paying
forfeit.”
“Well, this here looks better,” continued Grog, reading.
“Young and handsome, one of two daughters of an old Irish provision
merchant come abroad for the first time in their life, and consequently
new to everything. The name's O'Reilly, of Mary's Abbey, so that you
can have no difficulty in accurately learning all about him in Dublin.
Knowing that these things are snapped up immediately in the cities, I
have induced O'R. to take a villa on the lake here for the present,
so that if your inquiries turn out satisfactorily, you can come out at
once, and we 'll find the birds where I have landed them.'”
“That's business-like,--that's well and sensibly put,” said Davis, in a
voice of no counterfeited admiration.
He read on: “'O'R. talks of forty thousand to each, but, with the
prospect of connecting himself with people of station, might possibly
come down more handsomely in one case, particularly when brought to see
that the other girl's prospects will be proportionately bettered by this
alliance; at all events, no time is to be lost in the matter, and you
can draw on me, at two months, for fifty pounds, which will carry you
out here, and where, if you should not find me, you will have letters
of presentation to the O'R.'s. It is not a case requiring either time
or money,--though it may call for more energy and determination than you
are in the habit of exercising. At the proper moment I shall be ready to
contribute all in my power.'
“What does that mean?” said Davis.
“I can't even guess; but no matter, the thing sounds well. You can
surely learn all about this O'Reilly?”
“That's easy enough.”
“I say, I say, old fellow,” cried Beecher, as he flung his cigar away
and walked up and down the room briskly, “this would put us all on
our legs again. Wouldn't I 'go a heavy pot' on Rolfs stable! I 'd take
Coulton's three-year-old for the Canterbury to-morrow, I would! and give
them twelve to twenty in hundreds on the double event. We'd serve them
out, Master Grog--we'd give them such a shower-bath, old boy! They say
I'm a flat, but what will they say when A. B.'s number hangs out at the
Stand-house?”
“There's not much to do on the turf just now,” said Grog, dryly. “They
've spoiled the turf,” said he, as he lighted his cigar,--“clean
spoiled it. Once upon a time the gents was gents, and the legs legs, but
nowadays every one 'legs' it, as he can; so I 'd like to see who's to
make a livin' out of it!”
“There's truth in that!” chimed in Beecher.
“So that,” resumed Grog, “if you go in for this girl, don't you be
making a book; there's plenty better things to be had now than the ring.
There's companies, and banks, and speculations on every hand. You buy in
at, say thirty, and sell out at eighty, ninety, or a hundred. I 've been
a meditating over a new one I 'll tell you about another time,--let us
first think about this here marriage,--it ain't impossible.”
“Impossible! I should think not, Master Grog. But you will please to
remember that Lackington has no child. I must succeed to the whole
thing,--title and all.”
“Good news for the Jews, would n't it be?” cried Davis. “Why, your
outlying paper would n't leave much of a margin to live on. You owe
upwards of a hundred thousand,--that you do.”
“I could buy the whole concern to-morrow for five-and twenty thousand
pounds. They can't touch the entail, old fellow!”
“My word on't, they 'd have it out of you, one way or other; but never
mind, there's time enough to think of these things,--just stir yourself
about this marriage.”
“I 'll start on Monday. I have one or two trifling matters to look after
here, and then I 'm free.”
“What's this in the turn-down of Lackington's letter marked '_Strictly_
confidential'?
“'I meant to have despatched this yesterday, but fortunately
deferred doing so--fortunately, I say--as Davenport Dunn has
just arrived here, with a very important communication, in
which your interest is only inferior to my own. The
explanation would be too long for a letter, and is not
necessary besides, as D. will be in Dublin a day or two
after this reaches you. See him at once; his address is
Merrion Square North, and he will be fully prepared for your
visit. Be on your guard. In truth, D., who is my own
solicitor and man of business in Ireland, is somewhat of a
crafty nature, and may have other interests in his head
paramount to those of, yours,
“'Lackington.'”
“Can you guess what this means, Grog? Has it any reference to the
marriage scheme?”
“No; this is another match altogether,” said Grog, sententiously;
“and this here Dunn--I know about him, though I never seen him--is the
swellest cove going. _You_ ain't fit to deal with _him_--you ain't!”
added he, contemptuously. “If you go and talk to that fellow alone, I
know how 't will be.”
“Come, come, I'm no flat”
Grog's look--one of intense derision--stopped him, and after stammering
and blushing deeply, he was silent.
“You think, because you have a turn of speed among cripples, that you
're fast,” said Grog, with one of his least amiable grins, “but I tell
you that except among things of your own breeding, you'd never save
a distance. Lord love ye! it never makes a fellow sharp to be 'done;'
that's one of the greatest mistakes people ever make. It makes him
suspicious,--it keeps him on the look-out, as the sailors say; but
what's the use of being on the look-out if you haven't got good eyes?
It's the go-ahead makes a man nowadays, and the cautious chaps have none
of that. No, no; don't you go rashly and trust yourself alone with Dunn.
You 'll have to consider well over this,--you 'll have to turn it over
carefully in your mind. I 'd not wonder,” said he, after a pause, “but
you 'll have to take _me_ with you!”