DWELLERS IN BOHEMIA.
The residence of Major Tobias Clutterbuck, late of the 119th Light
Infantry, was not known to any of his friends. It is true that at times
he alluded in a modest way to his "little place," and even went to the
length of remarking airily to new acquaintances that he hoped they would
look him up any time they happened to be in his direction. As he
carefully refrained, however, from ever giving the slightest indication
of which direction that might be, his invitations never led to any
practical results. Still they had the effect of filling the recipient
with a vague sense of proffered hospitality, and occasionally led to
more substantial kindness in return.
The gallant major's figure was a familiar one in the card-room of the
_Rag and Bobtail_, at the bow-window of the Jeunesse Doree. Tall and
pompous, with a portly frame and a puffy clean-shaven face which peered
over an abnormally high collar and old-fashioned linen cravat, he stood
as a very type and emblem of staid middle-aged respectability.
The major's hat was always of the glossiest, the major's coat was
without a wrinkle, and, in short, from the summit of the major's bald
head to his bulbous finger-tips and his gouty toes, there was not a flaw
which the most severe critic of deportment--even the illustrious
Turveydrop himself--could have detected. Let us add that the
conversation of the major was as irreproachable as his person--that he
was a distinguished soldier and an accomplished traveller, with a
retentive memory and a mind stuffed with the good things of a
lifetime. Combine all these qualities, and one would naturally regard
the major as a most desirable acquaintance.
It is painful to have to remark, however, that, self-evident as this
proposition might appear, it was vehemently contradicted by some of the
initiated. There were rumours concerning the major which seriously
compromised his private character. Indeed, such a pitch had they
reached that when that gallant officer put himself forward as a
candidate for a certain select club, he had, although proposed by a lord
and seconded by a baronet, been most ignominiously pilled. In public
the major affected to laugh over this social failure, and to regard it
as somewhat in the nature of a practical joke, but privately he was
deeply incensed. One day he momentarily dropped his veil of unconcern
while playing billiards with the Honourable Fungus Brown, who was
generally credited with having had some hand in the major's exclusion.
"Be Ged! sir," the veteran suddenly exclaimed, inflating his chest and
turning his apoplectic face upon his companion, "in the old days I would
have called the lot of you out, sir, every demned one, beginning with
the committee and working down; I would, be George!" At which savage
attack the Honourable Fungus's face grew as white as the major's was
red, and he began to wish that he had been more reserved in his
confidences to some of his acquaintances respecting the exclusiveness of
the club in question, or at least refrained from holding up the major's
pilling as a proof thereof.
The cause of this vague feeling of distrust which had gone abroad
concerning the old soldier was no very easy matter to define. It is
true that he was known to have a book on every race, and to have secret
means of information from stud-grooms and jockeys which occasionally
stood him in good stead; but this was no uncommon thing among the men
with whom he consorted. Again, it is true that Major Clutterbuck was
much addicted to whist, with guinea points, and to billiard matches for
substantial sums, but these stimulating recreations are also habitual to
many men who have led eventful lives and require a strong seasoning to
make ordinary existence endurable. Perhaps one reason may have been
that the major's billiard play in public varied to an extraordinary
degree, so that on different occasions he had appeared to be aiming at
the process termed by the initiated "getting on the money." The warm
friendships, too, which the old soldier had contracted with sundry
vacuous and sappy youths, who were kindly piloted by him into
quasi-fashionable life and shown how and when to spend their money, had
been most uncharitably commented upon. Perhaps the vagueness about the
major's private residence and the mystery which hung over him outside
his clubs may also have excited prejudice against him. Still, however
his detractors might malign him, they could not attempt to deny the fact
that Tobias Clutterbuck was the third son of the Honourable Charles
Clutterbuck, who again was the second son of the Earl of Dunross, one of
the most ancient of Hibernian families. This pedigree the old soldier
took care to explain to every one about him, more particularly to the
sappy youths aforementioned.
It chanced that on the afternoon of which we speak the major was
engrossed by this very subject. Standing at the head of the broad stone
steps which lead up to the palatial edifice which its occupiers
irreverently term the _Rag and Bobtail_, he was explaining to a
bull-necked, olive-complexioned young man the series of marriages and
inter-marriages which had culminated in the production of his own
portly, stiff-backed figure. His companion, who was none other than
Ezra Girdlestone, of the great African firm of that name, leaned against
one of the pillars of the portico and listened gloomily to the major's
family reminiscences, giving an occasional yawn which he made no attempt
to conceal.
"It's as plain as the fingers of me hand," the old soldier said in a
wheezy muffled brogue, as if he were speaking from under a feather-bed.
"See here now, Girdlestone--this is Miss Letitia Snackles of Snackleton,
a cousin of old Sir Joseph." The major tapped his thumb with the silver
head of his walking-stick to represent the maiden Snackles. "She
marries Crawford, of the Blues--one o' the Warwickshire Crawfords;
that's him"--here he elevated his stubby forefinger; "and here's their
three children, Jemima, Harold, and John." Up went three other fingers.
"Jemima Crawford grows up, and then Charley Clutterbuck runs away with
her. This other thumb o' mine will stand for that young divil Charley,
and then me fingers--"
"Oh, hang your fingers," Girdlestone exclaimed with emphasis.
"It's very interesting, major, but it would be more intelligible if you
wrote it out."
"And so I shall, me boy!" the major cried enthusiastically, by no means
abashed at the sudden interruption. "I'll draw it up on a bit o'
foolscap paper. Let's see; Fenchurch Street, eh? Address to the
offices, of course. Though, for that matter, 'Girdlestone, London,'
would foind you. I was spakin' of ye to Sir Musgrave Moore, of the
Rifles, the other day, and he knew you at once. 'Girdlestone?' says he.
'The same,' says I. 'A merchant prince?' says he. 'The same,' says I.
'I'd be proud to meet him,' says he. 'And you shall,' says I. He's the
best blood of county Waterford."
"More blood than money, I suppose," the young man said, smoothing out
his crisp black moustache.
"Bedad, you've about hit it there. He went to California, and came back
with five and twinty thousand pounds. I met him in Liverpool the day he
arrived. 'This is no good to me, Toby,' says he. 'Why not?' I asks.
'Not enough,' says he; 'just enough to unsettle me.' 'What then?' says
I. 'Put it on the favourite for the St. Leger,' says he. And he did
too, every pinny of it, and the horse was beat on the post by a short
head. He dropped the lot in one day. A fact, sir, 'pon me honour!
Came to me next day. 'Nothing left!' says he. 'Nothing?' says I.
'Only one thing,' says he. 'Suicide?' says I. 'Marriage,' says he.
Within a month he was married to the second Miss Shuttleworth, who had
five thou. in her own right, and five more when Lord Dungeness turns up
his toes."
"Indeed?" said his companion languidly.
"Fact, 'pon me honour! By the way--ah, here comes Lord Henry Richardson.
How d'ye do, Richardson, how d'ye do? Ged, I remember Richardson when
he was a tow-headed boy at Clongowes, and I used to lam him with a
bootjack for his cheek. Ah, yes; I was going to say--it seems a demned
awkward incident--ha! ha!--ridiculous, but annoying, you know. The fact
is, me boy, coming away in a hurry from me little place, I left me purse
on the drawers in the bedroom, and here's Jorrocks up in the
billiard-room afther challenging me to play for a tenner--but I won't
without having the money in me pocket. Tobias Clutterbuck may be poor,
me dear friend, but"--and here he puffed out his chest and tapped on it
with his round, sponge-like fist--"he's honest, and pays debts of
honour on the nail. No, sir, there's no one can say a word against
Tobias, except that he's a half-pay old fool with more heart than
brains. However," he added, suddenly dropping the sentimental and
coming back to the practical, "if you, me dear boy, can obloige me with
the money until to-morrow morning, I'll play Jorrocks with pleasure.
There's not many men that I'd ask such a favour of, and even from you
I'd never accept anything more than a mere timporary convanience."
"You may stake your life on that," Ezra Girdlestone said with a sneer,
looking sullenly down and tracing figures with the end of his stick on
the stone steps. "You'll never get the chance. I make it a rule never
to lend any one money, either for short or long periods."
"And you won't let me have this throifling accommodation?"
"No," the young man said decisively.
For a moment the major's brick-coloured, weather-beaten face assumed an
even darker tint, and his small dark eyes looked out angrily from under
his shaggy brows at his youthful companion. He managed to suppress the
threatened explosion, however, and burst into a loud roar of laughter.
"'Pon me sowl!" he wheezed, poking the young man in the ribs with his
stick, an implement which he had grasped a moment before as though he
meditated putting it to a less pacific use, "you young divils of
business-men are too much for poor old Tobias. Ged, sir, to think of
being stuck in the mud for the want of a paltry tenner! Tommy Heathcote
will laugh when he hears of it. You know Tommy of the 81st? He gave me
good advice: 'Always sew a fifty-pound note into the lining of each
waistcoat you've got. Then you can't go short.' Tried it once, and, be
George! if me demned man-servant didn't stale that very waistcoat and
sell it for six and sixpence. You're not going, are you?"
"Yes; I'm due in the City. The governor leaves at four. Good-bye.
Shall I see you to-night?"
"Card-room, as per usual," quoth the clean-shaven warrior. He looked
after the retreating figure of his late companion with anything but a
pleasant expression upon his face. The young man happened to glance
round as he was half-way down the street, on which the major smiled
after him paternally, and gave a merry flourish with his stick.
As the old soldier stood on the top of the club steps, pompous,
pigeon-chested, and respectable, posing himself as though he had been
placed there for the inspection of passers-by as a sample of the
aristocracy within, he made several attempts to air his grievances to
passing members touching the question of the expectant Jorrocks and the
missing purse. Beyond, however, eliciting many sallies of wit from the
younger spirits, for it was part of the major's policy to lay himself
open to be a butt, his laudable perseverance was entirely thrown away.
At last he gave it up in disgust, and raising his stick hailed a passing
'bus, into which he sprang, taking a searching glance round to see that
no one was following him. After a drive which brought him to the other
side of the City, he got out in a broad, busy thoroughfare, lined with
large shops. A narrow turning from the main artery led into a long,
dingy street, consisting of very high smoke-coloured houses, which ran
parallel to the other, and presented as great a contrast to it as the
back of a painting does to the front.
Down this sombre avenue the major strutted with all his wonted
pomposity, until about half-way down he reached a tall, grim-looking
house, with many notices of "apartments" glaring from the windows.
The line of railings which separated this house from the street was
rusty, and broken and the whole place had a flavour of mildew.
The major walked briskly up the stone steps, hollowed out by the feet of
generations of lodgers, and pushing open the great splotchy door, which
bore upon it a brass plate indicating that the establishment was kept by
a Mrs. Robins, he walked into the hall with the air of one who treads
familiar ground. Up one flight of stairs, up two flights of stairs, and
up three flights of stairs did he climb, until on the fourth landing he
pushed open a door and found himself in a small room, which formed for
the nonce the "little place" about which he was wont at the club to make
depreciatory allusions, so skilfully introduced that the listener was
left in doubt as to whether the major was the happy possessor of a
country house and grounds, or whether he merely owned a large suburban
villa. Even this modest sanctum was not entirely the major's own, as
was shown by the presence of a ruddy-faced man with a long, tawny beard,
who sat on one side of the empty fire-place, puffing at a great
china-bowled pipe, and comporting himself with an ease which showed
that he was no casual visitor.
As the other entered, the man in the chair gave vent to a guttural grunt
without removing the mouthpiece of his pipe from between his lips; and
Major Clutterbuck returned the greeting with an off-handed nod.
His next proceeding was to take off his glossy hat and pack it away in a
hat-box. He then removed his coat, his collar, his tie, and his
gaiters, with equal solicitude, and put them in a place of safety.
After which he donned a long purple dressing-gown and a smoking-cap, in
which garb he performed the first steps of a mazurka as a sign of the
additional ease which he experienced.
"Not much to dance about either, me boy," the old soldier said, seating
himself in a camp-chair and putting his feet upon another one.
"Bedad, we're all on the verge. Unless luck takes a turn there's no
saying what may become of us."
"We have been badder than this before now many a time," said the
yellow-bearded man, in an accent which proclaimed him to be a German.
"My money vill come, or you vill vin, or something vill arrive to set
all things right."
"Let's hope so," the major said fervently. "It's a mercy to get out of
these stiff and starched clothes; but I have to be careful of them, for
me tailor--bad cess to him!--will give no credit, and there's little of
the riddy knocking about. Without good clothes on me back I'd be like a
sweeper without a broom."
The German nodded his intense appreciation of the fact, and puffed a
great blue cloud to the ceiling. Sigismond von Baumser was a political
refugee from the fatherland, who had managed to become foreign clerk in
a small London firm, an occupation which just enabled him to keep body
and soul together. He and the major had lodged in different rooms in
another establishment until some common leaven of Bohemianism had
brought them together. When circumstances had driven them out of their
former abode, it had occurred to the major that by sharing his rooms
with Von Baumser he would diminish his own expenses, and at the same
time secure an agreeable companion, for the veteran was a sociable soul
in his unofficial hours and had all the Hibernian dislike to solitude.
The arrangement commended itself to the German, for he had a profound
admiration for the other's versatile talents and varied experiences; so
he grunted an acquiescence and the thing was done. When the major's
luck was good there were brave times in the little fourth floor back.
On the other hand, if any slice of good fortune came in the German's
way, the major had a fair share of the prosperity. During the hard
times which intervened between these gleams of opulence, the pair
roughed it uncomplainingly as best they might. The major would
sometimes create a fictitious splendour by dilating upon the beauties of
Castle Dunross, in county Mayo, which is the headquarters of all the
Clutterbucks. "We'll go and live there some day, me boy," he would say,
slapping his comrade on the back. "It will be mine from the dungeons
forty foot below the ground, right up, bedad, to the flagstaff from
which the imblem of loyalty flaunts the breeze." At these speeches the
simple-minded German used to rub his great red hands together with
satisfaction, and feel as pleased as though he had actually been
presented with the fee simple of the castle in question.
"Have you had your letter?" the major asked with interest, rolling a
cigarette between his fingers. The German was expecting his quarterly
remittance from his friends at home, and they were both anxiously
awaiting it.
Von Baumser shook his head.
"Bad luck to them! they should have sent a wake ago. You should do what
Jimmy Towler did. You didn't know Towler, of the Sappers? When he and
I were souldiering in Canada he was vexed at the allowance which he had
from ould Sir Oliver, his uncle, not turning up at the right time.
'Ged, Toby,' he says to me, 'I'll warm the old rascal up.' So he sits
down and writes a letter to his uncle, in which he told him his
unbusiness-like ways would be the ruin of them, and more to the same
effect. When Sir Oliver got the letter he was in such a divil's own
rage, that while he was dictating a codicil to his will he tumbled off
the chair in a fit, and Jimmy came in for a clean siven thousand a
year."
"Dat was more dan he deserved," the German remarked. "But you--how do
you stand for money?"
Major Clutterbuck took ten sovereigns out of his trouser pocket and
placed them upon the table. "You know me law," he said; "I never, on
any consideration, break into these. You can't sit down to play cards
for high stakes with less in your purse, and if I was to change one, be
George! they'd all go like a whiff o' smoke. The Lord knows when I'd
get a start again then. Bar this money I've hardly a pinny."
"Nor me," said Von Baumser despondently, slapping his pockets.
"Niver mind, me boy! What's in the common purse, I wonder?"
He looked up at a little leather bag which hung from a brass nail on the
wall. In flush times they were wont to deposit small sums in this, on
which they might fall back in their hours of need.
"Not much, I fear," the other said, shaking his head.
"Well, now, we want something to pull us together on a dull day like
this. Suppose we send out for a bottle of sparkling, eh?"
"Not enough money," the other objected.
"Well, well, let's have something cheaper. Beaune, now; Beaune's a good
comforting sort of drink. What d'ye say to splitting a bottle of
Beaune, and paying for it from the common purse?"
"Not enough money," the other persisted doggedly.
"Well, claret be it," sighed the major. "Maybe it's better in this sort
of weather. Let us send Susan out for a bottle of claret?"
The German took down the little leather bag and turned it upside down.
A threepenny-piece and a penny rolled out. "Dat's all," he said.
"Not enough for claret."
"But there is for beer," cried the major radiantly. "Bedad, it's just
the time for a quart of fourpinny. I remimber ould Gilder, when he was
our chief in India, used to say that a man who got beyond enjoying beer
and a clay pipe at a pinch was either an ass or a coxcomb. He smoked a
clay at the mess table himself. Draper, who commanded the division,
told him it was unsoldier-like. 'Unsoldier-like be demned,' he said.
Ged, they nearly court-martialled the ould man for it. He got the V.C.
at the Quarries, and was killed at the Redan."
A slatternly, slipshod girl answered the bell, and having received her
orders and the united available funds of the two comrades, speedily
returned with a brace of frothing pint pots. The major ruminated
silently over his cigarette for some time, on some unpleasant subject,
apparently, for his face was stem and his brows knitted. At last he
broke out with an oath.
"Be George! Baumser, I can't stand that young fellow Girdlestone.
I'll have to chuck him up. He's such a cold-blooded, flinty-hearted,
calculating sort of a chap, that--" The remainder of the major's
sentence was lost in the beer flagon.
"What for did you make him your friend, then?"
"Well," the old soldier confessed, "it seemed to me that if he wanted
to fool his money away at cards or any other divilment, Tobias
Clutterbuck might as well have the handling of it as any one else.
Bedad, he's as cunning as a basketful of monkeys. He plays a safe game
for low stakes, and never throws away a chance. Demned if I don't think
I've been a loser in pocket by knowing him, while as to me character,
I'm very sure I'm the worse there."
"Vat's de matter mit him?"
"What's not the matter with him. If he's agrayable he's not natural,
and if he's natural he's not agrayable. I don't pretind to be a saint.
I've seen some fun in me day, and hope to see some more before I die;
but there are some things that I wouldn't do. If I live be cards it's
all fair and aboveboard. I never play anything but games o' skill, and
I reckon on me skill bringing me out on the right side, taking one night
with another through the year. Again, at billiards I may not always
play me best, but that's gineralship. You don't want a whole room to
know to a point what your game is. I'm the last man to preach, but,
bedad, I don't like that chap, and I don't like that handsome, brazen
face of his. I've spint the greater part of my life reading folks'
faces, and never very far out either."
Von Baumser made no remark, and the two continued to smoke silently,
with an occasional pull at their flagons.
"Besides, it's no good to me socially," the major continued.
"The fellow can't keep quiet, else he might pass in a crowd; but that
demned commercial instinct will show itself. If he went to heaven he'd
start an agency for harps and crowns. Did I tell you what the
Honourable Jack Gibbs said to me at the club? Ged, he let me have it
straight! 'Buck,' he said, 'I don't mind you. You're one o' the right
sort when all's said and done, but if you ever inthroduce such a chap as
that to me again, I'll cut you as well as him for the future.' I'd
inthroduced them to put the young spalpeen in a good humour, for, being
short, as ye know, I thought it might be necessary to negotiate a loan
from him."
"Vat did you say his name vas?" Von Baumser asked suddenly.
"Girdlestone."
"Is his father a Kauffmann?"
"What the divil is a Kauffmann?" the major asked impatiently. "Is it a
merchant you mean?"
"Ah, a merchant. One who trades with the Afrikaner?"
"The same."
Von Baumser took a bulky pocket-book from his inside pocket, and scanned
a long list of names therein. "Ah, it is the same," he cried at last
triumphantly, shutting up the book and replacing it. "Girdlestone &
Co., African kauf--dat is, merchants--Fenchurch Street, City."
"Those are they."
"And you say dey are rich?"
"Yes."
"Very rich?"
"Yes."
The major began to think that his companion had been imbibing in his
absence, for there was an unfathomable smile upon his face, and his red
beard and towsy hair seemed to bristle from some internal excitement.
"Very rich! Ho, ho! Very rich!" he laughed. "I know dem; not as
friends, Gott bewahre! but I know dem and their affairs."
"What are you driving at? Let's have it. Out with it, man."
"I tell you," said the German, suddenly becoming supernaturally solemn
and sawing his hand up and down in the air to emphasize his remarks,
"in tree or four months, or a year at the most, there vill be no firm of
Girdlestone. They are rotten, useless--whoo! He blew an imaginary
feather up into the air to demonstrate the extreme fragility of the
house in question.
"You're raving, Baumser," said Major Clutterbuck excitedly. "Why, man,
their names are above suspicion. They are looked upon as the soundest
concern in the City."
"Dat may be; dat may be," the German answered stolidly. "Vat I know, I
know, and vat I say I say."
"And how d'ye know it? D'ye tell me that you know more about it than
the men on 'Change and the firms that do business with them?"
"I know vat I know, and I say vat I say," the other repeated.
"Dat tobacco-man Burger is a rogue. Dere is five-and-thirty in the
hundred of water in this canaster tobacco, and one must be for ever
relighting."
"And you won't tell me where you heard this of the Girdlestones?"
"It vould be no good to you. It is enough dat vat I say is certain.
Let it suffice that dere are people vat are bound to tell other people
all dat dey know about anything whatever."
"You don't make it over clear now," the old soldier grumbled. "You mane
that these secret societies and Socialists let each other know all that
comes in their way and have their own means of getting information."
"Dat may be, and dat may not be," the German answered, in the same
oracular voice. "I thought, in any case, my good friend Clutterbuck,
dat I vould give you vat you call in English the straight tap. It is
always vell to have the straight tap."
"Thank ye, me boy," the major said heartily. "If the firm's in a bad
way, either the youngster doesn't know of it, or else he's the most
natural actor that ever lived. Be George! there's the tay-bell; let's
get down before the bread and butther is all finished."
Mrs. Robbins was in the habit of furnishing her lodgers with an evening
meal at a small sum per head. There was only a certain amount of bread
and butter supplied for this, however, and those who came late were
likely to find an empty platter. The two Bohemians felt that the
subject was too grave a one to trifle with, so they suspended their
judgment upon the Girdlestones while they clattered down to the
dining-room.