_THE TEMPTER_.
The next day, Thomas had made up his mind not to go near Guild Court;
but in the afternoon Mr. Stopper himself sent him to bring an old
ledger from the floor above Mrs. Boxall's. As he got down from his
perch, and proceeded to get his hat--
"There's no use in going round such a way," said Mr. Stopper. "Mr.
Boxall's not in; you can go through his room. Here's the key of the
door. Only mind you lock it when you come back."
The key used to lie in Mr. Boxall's drawer, but now Mr. Stopper took
it from his own. Thomas was not altogether pleased at the change of
approach, though why, he would hardly have been able to tell. Probably
he felt something as a miser would feel, into whose treasure-cave
the new gallery of a neighboring mine threatened to break. He was,
as it were, exposed upon the flank. Annoyance instantly clouded the
expression of eagerness which he had not been able to conceal; and
neither the light nor the following cloud escaped Mr. Stopper, who,
although the region of other men's thoughts was dark as pitch to him
in the usual relation he bore to them, yet the moment his interests
or--rare case--his feelings brought him into the contact of opposition
with any man, all the man's pregnable points lay bare before him.
Thomas had nothing to do but take the key and go. He had now no
opportunity of spending more than one moment with Lucy. When the
distance was of some length, he could cut both ways, and pocket the
time gained; now there was nothing to save upon. Nevertheless, he sped
up the stairs as if he would overtake old Time himself.
Rendered prudent, or cunning, by his affections, he secured the ordered
chaos of vellum before he knocked at Mrs. Boxall's door, which he then
opened without waiting for the response to his appeal.
"Lucy! Lucy!" he said; "I have but one half minute, and hardly that."
Lucy appeared with the rim of a rainy sunset about her eyes. The rest
of her face was still as a day that belonged to not one of the four
seasons--that had nothing to do.
"If you have forgotten yesterday, Thomas, I have not," she said.
"Oh! never mind yesterday," he said. "I'm coming in to-night; and I can
stay as long as I please. My father and mother are gone to Folkestone,
and there's nobody to know when I go home. Isn't it jolly?"
And without waiting for an answer, he scudded like Poppie. But what in
Poppie might be graceful, was not dignified in Thomas; and I fear Lucy
felt this, when he turned the corner to the stair-case with the huge
ledger under his arm, and his coat flying out behind him. But she would
not have felt it had she not had on the preceding evening, for the
first time, a peep into his character.
As he reëntered the counting-house he was aware of the keen glance cast
at him by Stopper, and felt that he reddened. But he laid the ledger on
the desk before him, and perched again with as much indifference as he
could assume.
Wearily the hours passed. How could they otherwise pass with figures,
figures everywhere, Stopper right before him at the double desk, and
Lucy one story removed and inaccessible? Some men would work all the
better for knowing their treasure so near, but Thomas had not yet
reached such a repose. Indeed, he did not yet love Lucy well enough for
that. People talk about loving too much; for my part, I think all the
mischief comes of loving too little.
The dinner-hour at length arrived. Thomas, however, was not in the way
of attempting to see Lucy at that time. He would have said that there
was too much coming and going of the clerks about that hour: I venture
to imagine that a quiet enjoyment of his dinner had something to do
with it. Now, although I can well enough understand a young fellow in
love being as hungry as a hawk, I cannot quite understand his spending
an hour over his dinner when the quarter of it would be enough, and
the rest might give him if but one chance of one peep at the lady.
On the present occasion, however, seeing he had the whole evening in
prospect, Thomas may have been quite right to devote himself to his
dinner, the newspaper, and anticipation. At all events, he betook
himself to one of the courts off Cornhill, and ascended to one of those
eating-houses which abound in London city, where a man may generally
dine well, and always at moderate expense.
Now this was one of the days on which Thomas usually visited Mr.
Molken. But as he had missed two lessons, the spider had become a
little anxious about his fly, and knowing that Thomas went to dine at
this hour, and knowing also where he went, he was there before him, and
on the outlook for his entrance. This was not the sort of place the
German generally frequented. He was more likely to go prowling about
Thames Street for his dinner; but when Thomas entered, there he was,
signaling to him to take his place beside him.
Thomas did not see that in the dark corner of an opposite box sat Mr.
Stopper. He obeyed the signal, and a steak was presently broiling for
him upon the gridiron at the other end of the room.
"You vas not come fore your lesson de letst time, Mistare Verbose,"
said Molken.
"No," answered Thomas, who had not yet made a confidant of Mr. Molken.
"I was otherwise engaged."
He spoke quite carelessly.
"Ah! I yes. Oddervise," said Molken, and said no more.
Presently he broke into a suppressed laugh, which caused Thomas, who
was very sensitive as to his personal dignity, to choke over his
tankard of bitter ale, with which he was consoling himself for the
delay of his steak.
"What is it you find so amusing, Mr. Molken?" he asked.
"I beg your pardon," returned Molken. "It was very rude; but I could
not help it. I will tell you one story I did see last night. I am a man
of de vorld, as you know, Mr. Verbose."
My reader must excuse me if I do not keep to the representation of the
fellow's German-English. It is hardly worth doing, and I am doubtful,
besides, whether I can do it well.
"I am a man of the world," said Molken, "and I was last night in
one of those shops, what you call them--paradise; no, the other
thing--hell--where they have the spinning thing--the Roulette--and the
Rouge et Noir, and _cætera_. I do not mean to say that I was gambling.
Oh, no! I was at the bar having a glass of Judenlip, when lo! and
behold! down through the green door, with a burst, comes a young man I
knew. He was like yourself, Mr. Worboise, a clerk in a counting-house."
Thomas winced, but said nothing. He regarded his business as he ought
to have regarded himself, namely, as something to be ashamed of.
"Well, he comes up to me, and he says, 'Herr Molken, we are old
friends; will you lend me a sovereign?' 'No,' I said, 'Mr.--,'--I
forget the young man's name, but I did know him--' I never lend money
for gambling purposes. Get the man who won your last sovereign to
lend you another. For my own part, I've had enough of that sort of
thing,' For you see, Mr. Thomas, I _have_ gambled in my time--yes,
and made money by it, though I spent it as foolishly as I got it. You
don't think I would spend my time in teaching _Ich habe, Du hast_, if
I hadn't given up gambling. But university men, you know, learn bad
habits."
"What did he say to that?" asked Thomas.
"He swore and turned away as if he was choking. But the fact was, Mr.
Verbose, I hadn't a sovereign in my possession. I wasn't going to tell
him that. But if I had had one, he should have had it; for I can't
forget the glorious excitement it used to be to see the gold lying like
a yellow mole-hill on the table, and to think that one fortunate turn
might send it all into your own pockets."
"But he didn't choke, did he?" said Thomas, weakly trying to be clever.
"No. And I will tell you how it was that he didn't. 'By Jove!' he
cried. Now I had seen him fumbling about his waistcoat as if he would
tear his heart out, and all at once dive his two forefingers into a
little pocket that was meant to hold a watch, only the watch had gone
up the spout long ago. 'By Jove!' he said--that's the right swear,
isn't it, Mr. Verbose?--and then he rushed through the green door
again. I followed him, for I wanted to see what he was after. In half
an hour he had broken the bank. He had found a sovereign in that little
pocket. How it got there the devil only knew. He swept his money into
his pockets and turned to go. I saw the people of the house getting
between him and the door, and I saw one of the fellows--I knew him--who
had lost money all the evening, going to pick a quarrel with him. For
those gamblers have no honor in them. So I opened the door as if to
leave the room, and pretending to hesitate as if I had left something,
kept it open, and made a sign to him to bolt, which he understood at
once, and was down-stairs in a moment, and I after him. Now let me tell
you a secret," continued Molken, leaning across the table, and speaking
very low and impressively--"that young man confessed to me that same
evening, that when I refused him the sovereign, he had just lost the
last of two hundred pounds of his master's money. To-day I hope he has
replaced it honestly, as he ought; for his winnings that night came to
more than seven hundred."
"But he was a thief," said Thomas, bluntly.
"Well, so he was; but no more a thief than many a respectable man who
secures his own and goes on risking other people's money. It's the way
of the world. However, as I told you, _I_ gave it up long ago. There
_was_ a time in my life when I used to live by it."
"How did you manage that?"
"There are certain rules to be observed, that's all. Only you must
stick to them. For one thing, you must make up your mind never to lose
more than a certain fixed sum any night you play. If you stick to that,
you will find your winnings always in excess of your losses."
"How can that be?"
"Oh, I don't pretend to account for it. Gaming has its laws as well as
the universe generally. Everything goes by laws, you know-laws that
cannot be round out except by experiment; and that, as I say, is one of
the laws of gambling."
All this time Mr. Stopper had been reading Mr. Molken's face. Suddenly
Tom caught sight of his superior; the warning of Wither rushed back
on his mind, and he grew pale as death. Molken perceiving the change,
sought for its cause, but saw nothing save a stony gentleman in the
opposite box sipping sherry, and picking the ripest pieces out of a
Stilton.
"Don't look that way, Molken," said Tom, in an undertone. "That's our
Mr. Stopper."
"Well, haven't we as good a right to be here as Mr. Stopper?" returned
Molken, in a voice equally inaudible beyond the table, but taking
piercing eyeshots at the cause of Tom's discomposure.
The two men very soon had something like each other's measure. They
could each understand his neighbor's rascality, while his own seemed to
each only a law of nature.
"You generally pay, don't you?" added Molken.
Tom laughed.
"Yes, I do generally, and a penny to the cook besides, which, I will
be bound, he does not. But that's nothing to the point. He hates me,
though why, I'm sure I don't--I can only guess."
"Some girl, I suppose," said Molken, coolly.
Thomas felt too much flattered to endeavor even to dilute the
insinuation; and Molken went on:
"Well, but how can the fellow bear malice? Of course, he must have
seen from the first that he had no chance with you. I'll tell you
what, Worboise; I have had a good deal of experience, and it is my
conviction, from what I have seen of you, that you are one of the lucky
ones--one of the elect, you know-born to it, and can't help yourself."
Tom pulled out his watch.
"Half an hour to spare yet," he said. "Come up to the smoking-room."
Having ordered a bottle of Rhine wine, Tom turned to Molken, and said:
"What did you mean by saying that I was one of the lucky ones?"
"Oh, don't you know there are some men born under a lucky star--as they
would have said in old times? What the cause is, of course I don't
know, except it be that Heaven must have some favorites, if only for
the sake of variety. At all events, there is no denying that some men
are born to luck. They are lucky in everything they put their hands to.
Did you ever try your luck in a lottery, now?"
"I did in a raffle, once."
"Well?"
"I won a picture."
"I told you so! And it would be just the same whatever you tried. You
are cut out for it. You have the luck-mark on you. I was sure of it."
"How can you tell that?" asked Tom, lingering like a fly over the sweet
poison, and ready to swallow almost any absurdity that represented him
as something different from the ran of ordinary mortals, of whom he
was, as yet at least, a very ordinary specimen.
"Never you mind how I can tell. But I will tell you this much, that I
have experience; and your own Bacon says that the laws of everything
are to be found out by observation and experiment. I have observed, and
I have experimented, and I tell you you are a lucky one."
Tom stroked the faintest neutrality of a coming mustache, ponderingly
and pleasedly, and said nothing.
"By the by, are you coming to me to-night?" asked Molken.
"No--o," answered Tom, still stroking his upper lip with the thumb
and forefinger of his left hand, "I think not. I believe I have an
engagement to-night, somewhere or other."
He took out his pocket-book, and pretended to look.
"Yes. I can't have my lesson to-night."
"Then I needn't stop at home for you. By the way, have you a sovereign
about you? I wouldn't trouble you, you know, only, as I told you, I
haven't got one. I believe your quarter is out to-night."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I ought to have thought of that. I have two
half-sovereigns in my pocket, and no more, I am sorry to say. Will one
of them do for to-night? You shall have more to-morrow."
"Oh, thank you; it's of no consequence. Well, I don't know--I think I
_will_ take the ten shillings, for I want to go out this evening. Yes.
Thank you. Never mind to-morrow, _except_ it be convenient."
Tom settled the bill, and put the change of the other half-sovereign in
his pocket. Molken left him at the door of the tavern, and he went back
to the counting-house.
"Who was that with you at the Golden Fleece, Tom?" asked Mr. Stopper,
as he entered; for he took advantage of his position to be as rude as
he found convenient.
Taken by surprise, Tom answered at once:
"Mr. Molken."
"And who is he?" asked Stopper, again.
"My German master," answered Tom.
The next moment he could have knocked his head against the wall with
indignation at himself. For, always behindhand when left to himself, he
was ready enough when played upon by another to respond and repent.
"He's got a hangdog phiz of his own," said Mr. Stopper, as he plunged
again into the business before him, writing away as deliberately as if
it had been on parchment instead of foolscap; for Stopper was never in
a hurry, and never behind.
Tom's face flushed red with wrath.
"I'll thank you to be civil in your remarks on my friends, Mr. Stopper."
Mr. Stopper answered with a small puff of windy breath from distended
lips. He blew, in short. Tom felt his eyes waver. He grew almost blind
with rage. If he had followed his inclination, he would have brought
the ruler beside him down, with a terrible crack, on the head, before
him. "Why didn't he?" does my reader inquire? Just because of his
incapacity for action of any sort. He did not refrain in the pity that
disarms some men in the midst of their wrath, nor yet from the sense
that vengeance is God's business, and will be carried out in a mode
rather different from that in which man would prosecute his.