rose from his chair and forcefully pounded Mr. Dobb’s shoulder in token
of esteem for his astuteness, and at the same time loudly challenged the
world to produce Mr. Dobb’s equal either in artfulness or fertility of
invention. And Mr. Peter Lock affectionately declared that Mr. Dobb, far
from being spoiled by life ashore, was now even a bigger rascal than when
he had served as cook to the “Jane Gladys,” of mixed memories.
These compliments Mr. Dobb equably accepted as his just due, merely
observing that he counted himself fortunate to have the co-operation of
men who had graduated in craft on that ill-reputed vessel to assist him
now in furthering the more ambitious plans for which his present
occupations as second-hand dealer offered such scope. As sufficient
answer to an interpolated suggestion of Mr. Tridge’s, he reminded them
that “Strictly Business” was his motto, and explained that, therefore, he
would produce no bottles nor tumblers till it was manifest that all
present thoroughly understood their parts in the plan of campaign he had
outlined to them.
“Let’s see,” said Mr. Clark. “Peter Lock’s the ’ero, ain’t he?”
“Not the ’ero,” corrected Mr. Dobb. “The rightful heir.”
“I’ve seen ’em at the theatre,” stated Mr. Clark, vaguely. “With their
’air all smarmed down with ile, and being shot at by villains, and
what-not. There’s generally a gal or two in the offing and—”
“Well, anyway,” interrupted Mr. Lock, with some satisfaction, “I’ve got
to be pretty conspicuous. What’s that worth, Horace?”
“Same to you as to the others,” replied Mr. Dobb. “When I’ve taken one
quid, cost price, off the sum received, and another one quid for profit,
and one quid more because it’s my idea, the rest is divided into five
equal shares and we takes each one, and one over for me!”
“Good enough!” accepted Mr. Lock. “All right. I’ll be the unfortunate
young chap what’s lost his great-uncle. What was his name, Horace?”
“’Ennery Pash,” supplied Mr. Dobb. “You was the happle of his heye,
Peter!”
“Loved me like a father he did,” stated Mr. Lock. “Always together we
was, didn’t you say, Horace?”
“Right up to the day before ’e died so sudden,” instructed Mr. Dobb.
“And then you went away on business, and you never come back till weeks
after the melancholy event,” he ended, with pride of artistry.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Lock. “And what was he like to look at,
Horace?”
“A snuffy, grubby little chap with sandy whiskers and a bald ’ead,”
returned Mr. Dobb.
“He don’t seem exactly the kind of relation to be proud of,” complained
Mr. Lock. “Can’t you do me better than that, Horace?”
“You don’t get misers with top-’ats and white weskits, Peter,” pointed
out Mr. Dobb. “If ’e’d spent all ’is money on clothes, ’e wouldn’t ’ave
’ad any to ’ide in the seat of ’is favourite old arm-chair, would ’e?”
“By the way, ’Orace,” put in Mr. Clark, “where did you get the chair to
start with?”
“Bought it with a odd lot of stuff at a farm sale a few miles away. It
ain’t worth stuffing and re-up’olstering, so I thought I’d try to sell it
as it was, and that’s ’ow I come to ’atch out this idea I’ve been
a-telling you of.”
“Well, you’ve ’it it on just the right chap in Tommy Lane,” approved Mr.
Tridge. “’E drops into my place pretty well every day for a shave, and I
never see such a old idjit for believing what ’e’s told! You ought to
’ear some of the adventures of seafaring life I’ve told ’im! Why, they
almost make _me_ choke, telling ’em! And yet he’d swallow ’em down
without so much as a cough!”
“’Ere!” exclaimed Mr. Dobb, in some alarm. “’E don’t know you and me and
Peter and Sam Clark was all shipmates together once, does ’e?”
“No, ’e don’t,” said Mr. Tridge, flushing a little.
“’Ow do you know ’e don’t?” demanded Mr. Dobb.
“Because,” said Mr. Tridge, rather reluctantly, “I’ve always give ’im to
understand that afore family misfortunes made me take a ’air-dresser’s
shop I was second in command on a torpeder-boat!”
“And ’e believed _that_?” cried Mr. Clark.
“’E said that ’e’d guessed it! Said that there was always something
about us naval chaps what couldn’t be disguised, no matter ’ow ’ard we
tried!” related Mr. Tridge, with pride.
“Well, then, we shan’t ’ave no trouble with _’im_!” foretold Mr. Lock,
happily. “I don’t know the chap myself; he don’t come to the ‘Royal
William’ billiard-saloon, as I knows of. Have _you_ ever met him, Sam?”
“’Undreds of times!” asserted Mr. Clark. “I often ferries ’im across the
river.” Mr. Clark paused, and his eyes twinkled joyously. “’E thinks I
used to be a smack-owner!” he crowed.
“Whatever made ’im think that?” asked Mr. Tridge, in surprise.
“I told ’im so!” shamelessly answered Mr. Clark. “A smack-owner! _Me_!
Only I was unlucky!”
“A bit of make-believe I can understand,” reproved Mr. Tridge, loftily.
“But a pack of downright _lies_!”
“Well, ’e shouldn’t try to be so clever, then!” said Mr. Clark, with
spirit. “If ’e can slip out the other side without paying my fare, ’e
think’s ’e’s done well, and ’e takes a deal of convincing, too, to get
the money out of ’im in the end.”
“Yes, ’e certainly watches money pretty close,” agreed Mr. Tridge.
“Never yet ’as ’e over-paid me by as much as a ’apenny, and ’e tried to
beat down the price of a shave till ’e see it was no good. Oh, ’e’s got
a eye for the main chance all right!”
“That was the character I got of ’im,” mentioned Mr. Dobb, dryly. “’Ence
this gathering of old friends.”
“Anyway,” summarized Mr. Lock, “this here Mr. Lane sounds just our mark!”
And with that the confederation went into close committee.
It was during the course of the next afternoon that a rotund little
gentleman, with a countenance remarkable for a guileless expression and
neatly trimmed side-whiskers, sauntered down to the ferry-boat at the
mouth of the harbour.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lane, sir!” said Mr. Samuel Clark, with deference.
“Going across?”
The little gentleman, affably admitting this to be his intention,
disposed himself neatly in the boat, and Mr. Clark pulled off at his
customary leisurely stroke.
“Beautiful weather!” observed Mr. Lane.
“Just right for heverybody except the doctors, as my old pal, ’Ennery
Pash, used to say,” agreed Mr. Clark, with some emphasis on the latter
portion of his remark.
“Lovely lot of ozone in the air to-day,” mentioned Mr. Lane, sniffing
appreciatively at the odours from the dredger.
“All, if ’e could ’ave got more into ’is system, ’e wouldn’t be where ’e
is to-day,” stated Mr. Clark, regretfully.
“Who wouldn’t?” inquired Mr. Lane.
“My old pal, ’Ennery Pash.”
“And where is ’e now, then?” asked the passenger.
Mr. Clark sorrowfully shook his head and pointed aloft.
“Far as I know,” he explained. And added: “’E was a good churchman,
according to ’is views, anyway.”
Mr. Lane, in response to this sombre intrusion on the brightness of the
day, kept a chastened silence. Mr. Clark, sighing deeply, shook his head
again, and offered a well-known quotation bearing on the instability of
human life.
“P’r’aps you knew old ’Ennery Pash, sir?” he suggested.
“Can’t say I did,” returned Mr. Lane, apologetically.
“Ah, ’e was a quiet old chap. ’E didn’t get about much. There wasn’t
many as met ’im. ’E stopped indoors most of ’is time, only I thought
p’r’aps you might ’ave knowed ’im.”
“No. Where did he live?”
“Oh, ’e was always moving!” replied Mr. Clark. “’E never stopped
anywhere long, but now ’e’s settled for good and all. Five weeks ago,
that was.”
“Is he buried in the town?” asked Mr. Lane, politely, affecting interest
in the sad event.
“No, sir; in Scotland, where ’e was born.”
“And what was ’e like?”
“Ah, a little, short, shabby old chap, ’e was. But, then, there was a
reason for ’is going shabby.”
“Oh, indeed? He was poor, I suppose?”
“Not _’im_! ’E was a miser.”
“A miser?” said Mr. Lane. “Really?”
“Really! ’E told me so ’isself dozens of times! ‘Sam,’ ’e says to me,
‘you’d never believe ’ow much I’ve got saved up!’ Couldn’t bear to spend
a penny, ’e couldn’t; and ’e kept it all in the ’ouse. Didn’t believe in
banks, ’e said.”
“And I suppose they found it when—”
“Not a brass farthing!” cheerfully affirmed Mr. Clark.
“Strange! What did his relations do about it?”
“’E’d only got one, a great-nephew, and ’e was away at the time and
couldn’t be found.”
“But who paid for the funeral? It must have cost a lot, taking place in
Scotland.”
“Some of us paid for it, sir, ’is old pals. Leastwise, we sold all ’is
furniture and stuff, and raised the money that way.”
“But what do you think became of his savings?”
“Well, if you ask _me_, sir I reckon the old fool—begging ’is pardon, I
forgot!—the poor old fellow ’ad kept on changing ’em into paper money and
’ad burned ’em by accident, or else because ’e couldn’t bear the idea of
anyone else getting ’em after ’e was gone.”
“I should have thought he’d have been glad for his nephew to get them.”
“His great-nephew, sir. Well, that’s as may be. All I know is that we
found a great ’eap of charred papers in ’is fire-place when we broke in,
when we suspected the worst. Lots of it was only old letters and
noos-papers, and so on, but there might easily ’eve been paper money
amongst it. It was all so powdered up. Anyway, that’s what we decided
on in the end, there being no other way to account for the habsence of
the money; and we ’adn’t ’alf ransacked ’is chest of drawers and boxes,
neither!”
“Strange!” commented Mr. Lane again. “Very strange!”
“So we thought, sir,” acquiesced Mr. Clark. “’Owever, ’ere we are,” he
went on, with an abrupt change of key, as the ferry gently nosed into the
opposite bank. “And I never noticed ’ow quick we was travelling; all
along of chatting about poor old ’Ennery Pash.”
He assisted his passenger to alight, pocketed his fare, and slowly
sculled away again across the river.
“Another minute and I’d ’ave bust!” he told himself, in rapt enjoyment.
“Sam, my boy, you’re like wine—you improves with age!”
The Magnolia Toilet Saloon, Shorehaven, was empty next morning at noon,
save for two individuals. One of these was the proprietor, Mr. Joseph
Tridge; the other was the trim, debonair Mr. Peter Lock, and to-day he
wore a black tie in place of his usual brilliant neckwear.
“’E’s sure to be in soon, Peter,” Mr. Tridge was saying. “This is just
about ’is time. It’s no good your complaining about ’aving to ’ang about
’ere. You agreed with ’Orace and us others— ’Ere quick, sit down! ’Ere
’e comes!”
Mr. Lock, casting aside a newspaper, seated himself at a bound in the
operating chair. Mr. Tridge, wrapping a towel about his companion’s
shoulders, began delicately to powder Mr. Lock’s smooth chin. A minute
later the door opened, and Mr. Thomas Lane entered with the inquiring,
calculating gaze habitual to men entering barbers’ shops.
“Shan’t keep you waiting a minute, sir!” called out Mr. Tridge. “I’m
just finishing this gent.”
Mr. Lane sat down readily enough, and Mr. Tridge proceeded to remove the
powder from Mr. Lock’s chin.
“So you ain’t ’eard nothing more about your great-uncle’s money, sir?”
inquired Mr. Tridge, in confidential tones that just reached Mr. Lane’s
ears.
“I’ve pretty well given up hope now,” said Mr. Lock. “I begin to think
with them others, that he must have burned it. If ever he had it, mind
you! Perhaps he only talked about it to keep me up to the mark as his
great-nephew. Not that there was any need to do that, though,” declared
Mr. Lock, rising, as Mr. Tridge removed the towel from his shoulder with
a professional flourish. “I was always very fond of him for his own
sake.”
“I’m sure you was, sir,” agreed Mr. Tridge, with sympathy. “But I can’t
’elp thinking you’ve been the victim of bad luck.”
“No use crying over spilt milk,” said Mr. Lock, philosophically. “Still,
I’d like to have had a souveneer in memory of him, even if it wasn’t
money. But by the time I’d got back here, everything had been sold and
the funeral was all over, as you know.”
Mr. Tridge nodded, and irrelevantly mentioned the sum of threepence,
extending his hand at the same time. A little light which was shining at
the back of his eyes abruptly expired when Mr. Lock airily told him to
put it down on the account, as usual.
At the departure of Mr. Lock, Mr. Lane took up his position in the chair,
and for some while Mr. Tridge wielded the lather brush in silence.
Frequently did Mr. Tridge glance in the mirror at his patron, and each
time he was pleased to note the continuance of a meditative look on Mr.
Lane’s face.
“Who was that young chap you were shaving when I came in?” asked Mr. Lane
at last. “I don’t seem to recognize him.”
“Oh, he’s been about some time,” answered Mr. Tridge. “He’s the
billiard-marker down at the ‘Royal William.’”
“Is his name, by any chance—er—what is it?—oh, yes! Pash?”
“No, his name’s Lock, sir—Peter Lock. Funny you should have mentioned
Pash, though. ’E was related to old ’Ennery Pash. You know, sir, the
old chap they said was a miser.”
“I’ve heard of him,” admitted Mr. Lane.
“Mind you, I’ve never really swallowed the yarn that ’e was a miser,”
declared Mr. Tridge. “Only one ’as to agree with one’s customers, and
show an interest in ’em, you know. But as for old Pash being a miser—I
wouldn’t like to bet on it. I know ’e used to ’ave a lot of registered
letters come for ’im, but that don’t prove anything, do it? And as for
that tale about ’im being seen with stacks of notes as thick as a pack of
cards—well, I never met anyone as could swear to it, anyway. Besides,
they never found none in ’is cottage afterwards, though they searched
every ’ole and corner. Ah, a queer old chap, ’e wos! I can see ’im now,
sitting beside ’is fire in that old arm-chair of ’is. ’E never stirred
from it if ’e could ’elp it. ’E regular loved that old chair of ’is.
Once ’is chimney caught light, and bless me if that chair wasn’t the
first thing ’e thought of to save!”
“Really?” said Mr. Lane, with interest.
“_And_ truly,” affirmed Mr. Tridge. “Soon as ever that chimney began to
blaze, ’e lugged that chair outdoors. Ah, and ’e wouldn’t leave it,
neither, to go in and rescue anything else. ’E just sat tight on it
there, out in the middle of the road, and let some one else put out the
fire. ’E said ’e wouldn’t leave ’is old chair in case some one stole it.
A shabby, broken old chair like that, fancy!” scornfully concluded Mr.
Tridge. “No wonder folk thought ’im a bit dotty!”
“Why, perhaps he’d—” exclaimed. Mr. Lane starting.
“Steady, sir, or I’ll be cutting you,” warned Mr. Tridge. “P’r’aps what,
you was a-going to say?”
“Perhaps—perhaps he was very fond of it,” said Mr. Lane, a trifle weakly.
“I been a-telling you he was,” remarked Mr. Tridge. “But there! Old
people like ’im often ’ave queer fancies like that!”
As one dismissing a thoroughly exhausted subject, Mr. Tridge turned the
talk to the doings of Parliament, expounding his views with no more
interruption than an occasional monosyllable interjected in a preoccupied
way by his client.
“Let me see, where did you say that young man was employed?” inquired Mr.
Lane, when at length Mr. Tridge simultaneously ceased his political
remarks and his tonsorial services.
“What young man, sir?”
“Mr.—er—Mr. Pash’s great-nephew.”
“Oh, along at the ‘Royal William Hotel,’ sir,” said Mr. Tridge, turning
aside to conceal a satisfied smile.
It was in the slack hour after tea that same day that the billiard-room
of the “Royal William” was honoured by a first visit from Mr. Thomas
Lane. He entered coyly, seating himself just inside the door in the most
unobtrusive manner. Mr. Lock, idly testing his skill at the table,
accorded the visitor a courteous greeting.
“No, I don’t want to play, thanks,” replied Mr. Lane. “I—I only just
looked in, that’s all.”
“Quite so, sir,” agreed Mr. Lock.
Mr. Lane offered no further explanation of his presence, and Mr. Lock
walked round the table a few times in leisurely pursuit of that
perfection which comes to practice. The visitor, watching Mr. Lock’s
activity through narrowed eyelids, patiently awaited opportunity, and
this Mr. Lock presently offered him.
“Very good table, this, sir,” he observed, casually. “Good as any you’ll
find in the town.”
“Dare say,” returned Mr. Lane, absently.
“I ain’t come across a public table to beat it,” stated Mr. Lock. “Of
course, I don’t know anything about the private tables in the big houses
round here. I expect there are a few good ones in some of them big
houses on the cliff. If I was a rich man, I’d have a good
billiard-table, I know.”
“I see,” said Mr. Lane, not very brilliantly.
“Once I did think that maybe I’d have a billiard-table of my own,”
remarked Mr. Lock, with a smile at his own folly. “But it never come
off.”
“How was that?” asked Mr. Lane, alertly.
“I was expecting a bit of a legacy,” explained Mr. Lock. “Not a big ’un,
mind, but I thought if there was enough to buy me a billiard-table that
’ud satisfy me. It would have kept me in recreation for the rest of my
life. I’d got my eye on a place to keep it, too, and I’d have made a bit
of money out of it, one way and another.”
“But—” prompted Mr. Lane.
“But it wasn’t to be,” said Mr. Lock, with a wistful shake of the head.
“And how was that?” inquired Mr. Lane. “The money was left to some one
else, eh?”
“There wasn’t no money left at all!” Mr. Lock informed him. “Just a sort
of mystery, it was. Anyway, they had to sell the furniture to pay for
the funeral, and that tells its own tale, don’t it?”
“Well, well!” murmured Mr. Lane.
“Not a stick left when I come back on the scene!” related Mr. Lock. “I’d
like to have had something to remember him by, too. Relation of mine,
you know, he was. ‘Peter,’ he used to say to me, ‘Peter, I particular
wants you to have my old arm-chair when I’m gone.’ Always saying that,
he was. Why he couldn’t have given it to me while he was alive, and have
done with it, I don’t know.”
“Perhaps he didn’t want to part with it?” suggested Mr. Lane.
“That was about it, I expect,” agreed Mr. Lock. “He’d certainly got a
great fancy for that chair. Why, he used to carry it into the bedroom
with him at night, and bring it down again in the morning. But, there,
it had clean gone when I got back here.”
“Couldn’t you find out who’d bought it?”
“I did try, sir, but it was no good. You see, it was just a sort of
Dutch auction, and people paid their money down for anything they bought,
and took it straight away. There was a lot of strangers present, too,
far as I could make out, and it must have been one of them that bought
that old chair. A chap from the country, some of ’em told me. Dare say
that old chair’s not more than five miles away at this minute, if the
truth was known.”
“Why don’t you—haven’t you advertised for it?”
“Oh, I ain’t so keen on it as all that, sir,” replied Mr. Lock,
carelessly. “I can remember the old chap well enough, without needing
his old arm-chair to remind me of him. I don’t believe in being
sentimental, sir, when it costs money, and a advertisement would cost
more than that old chair’s worth. Besides, he won’t know now whether
I’ve got it or not, and, if he does, it can’t make much difference to
him, can it, sir?”
With these practical remarks, Mr. Lock turned again to the billiard-table
for interest. Mr. Lane, after sitting meditatively for a long three
minutes, rose and unostentatiously quitted the room.
The saloon was well patronized when, a couple of hours later, Mr. Horace
Dobb strolled in. His eyes sought Mr. Lock’s, and, meeting them, a
slight upward flicker of the brows was perceptible. Mr. Lock nodded
slowly, once, and Mr. Dobb drifted out again.
About ten minutes later Mr. Lane, his arms folded and his head bent in
reverie, was occupying his accustomed seat in the bar-parlour of the
“King’s Arms,” when a patron entered with a certain reckless joviality
which compelled attention. Mr. Lane, glancing up petulantly at this
intrusion on his meditations, recognized the new-comer to be a gentleman
who dealt in second-hand goods at an establishment in Fore Street.
“’Evening all!” cried Mr. Dobb, exhibiting an unusual boisterousness of
manner. He clung, swaying gently, to the handle of the door, and beamed
owlishly round on the company. “’Evening all—and be blowed to the lot of
you!”
The lady behind the counter, with whom it seemed that Mr. Dobb was
something of a favourite, shook her finger at him in surprised reproach,
and asked him what he meant by it.
“I been keeping off a cold!” explained Mr. Dobb, simply.
“So _I_ should think!” declared the lady.
A glassy look came into Mr. Dobb’s orbs, indicating purposeful
concentration. Releasing his grasp on the door, he, as it were, swooped
forward and came neatly to rest with his elbows on the counter. This
feat achieved, he gazed about him as one seeking plaudits.
“Been keeping off a cold!” he announced again, and performed a little
shuffling movement which brought him backwards to the centre of the room.
“Look at me boots!” he invited, proudly.
“Why, wherever have you been?” asked the lady. “All that mud!”
“I been keeping—I mean, I been out in the country!” stated Mr. Dobb,
returning to the support offered by the bar.
“Been watercressing by the look of it?” suggested the lady, in playful
sarcasm.
“Business!” said Mr. Dobb portentously, and looked round as though to
balk the intentions of eavesdroppers.
“Business!” he repeated, in a whisper, and solemnly put his finger to his
lips. “Norraword!” he urged warningly, and immediately added in the
loudest, boastfullest accents: “I’ve had a good day to-day. Bought a
rare lot of stuff!”
He waited indecisively a little time, and then, selecting the chair
adjacent to Mr. Lane’s, sat down on it with some abruptness of impact.
“Wanter buy a nice set of fire-irons?” he inquired, winningly.
“Beautiful set! Bargain!”
Mr. Lane replied to the effect that he was adequately furnished with
fire-irons.
“Don’t blame you, either!” hazily commented Mr. Dobb, and was silent for
a brief space.
“Funny thing about it is,” he remarked next, opening one eye to stare at
Mr. Lane challengingly, “’alf the stuff come from this town to start
with. Now, ain’t that a rum ’un, eh?”
“I dare say,” politely ceded Mr. Lane.
“Of course it is!” insisted Mr. Dobb, with truculence. “Me going all the
way out there to buy stuff what ’ad come—what ’ad come from Shore’aven to
start with! It’s a—a cohincydence, that’s what it is! Going miles and
miles to buy stuff what I could ’ave bought at old Pash’s sale, if only
I’d been there!”
“Whose sale did you say?” quickly asked the other.
“Never you mind ’oose sale!” returned. Mr. Dobb, with reserve. “But,
’oosever it was, the stuff I bought to-day come from it! See? So don’t
go a-contradicting of me!”
“I’m not!” protested Mr. Lane.
“Oh, yes, you was!” asserted Mr. Dobb. “Why don’t you let a man finish
what ’e’s got to say afore you starts to argue? I’m telling you most of
this stuff was bought by a chap in several lots to furnish ’is cottage.”
“Indeed?” said Mr. Lane.
“There you goes again!” complained Mr. Dobb. “Anyway, ’e’s got a job at
the other end of the country now, and—”
Mr. Dobb ceased momentarily, and regarded his boots with a fond smile.
“I ’aven’t ’alf been keeping out a cold!” he observed, confidentially.
“Talk about mud and rain and cold winds—’oo’d live in the country, I’d
like to know.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Lane, ingratiatingly. “Who would, indeed?”
To this Mr. Dobb made no response, being now engaged in inward thought.
“Who would, indeed?” said Mr. Lane again.
“Eh?” demanded Mr. Dobb, returning to wakefulness.
“Who would live in the country?” said Mr. Lane.
“Why, _I_ would!” declared Mr. Dobb. “I love the country! All the
little dicky-birds and—so on!”
He suddenly rose, proclaiming his intention of going home to bed as a
preventive measure against chill. He nodded a protracted, dreary-eyed,
good-night to each individual of the company present, and then,
festooning across the apartment, noisily negotiated the door and passed
from view.
No sooner was Mr. Dobb outside in the street, however, than his
waywardness dropped from him, and, congratulating himself on his
histrionic powers, he walked briskly to his abode.
Soon after breakfast next morning, Mr. Lane was visible in Fore Street.
Into half a dozen shop-windows did he peer with an air of boredom, nor
did his expression become quickened when at length he ranged himself
before the jumbled collection of oddments which Mr. Dobb exhibited to the
passer-by.