DAVID MACGOWAN GETS INTO TROUBLE.
The first thing that caught Alec Lindsay’s eye when he went down to the
office next morning was the draft of his uncle’s will. No corrections
had been made in it; no suggestions had been written in the margin; and
assuming that the managing clerk had looked over it on the preceding
evening, he was about to send it out to the law-stationer’s, when he
remembered Beattie’s hint that it would be more prudent to have it
‘engrossed’ in the office.
Taking the paper in his hand, he went into the ‘outer office,’ where
four clerks sat whose duty it was to do the more mechanical part of
the work of the conveyancing department.
‘Where’s Hobson?’ asked Alec.
‘He and Graves are out, comparing an abstract,’ said one of the clerks,
whose name was Hill. ‘Mr. Beattie told them yesterday they were to go
the first thing this morning.’
‘Then you had better leave off what you are doing, Hill, and engross
this will.’
‘Very sorry, sir, but Mr. Beattie has given me this settlement and this
mortgage to do,’ pointing to the papers and parchments as he spoke;
‘and he particularly told me not to leave them till I had finished
them.’
MacGowan’s services were available; but Alec would have preferred to
entrust the draft to one of the other clerks.
‘When will Hobson and Graves be back?’ he asked.
‘Not until late, I expect,’ answered Hill; ‘they have gone into the
country--to St. Albans.’
It was more than probable that the two absent clerks would contrive to
make a day of it at St. Albans, so Alec turned to MacGowan and asked if
he were busy.
He was not.
‘I wish you would engross this, then,’ said Alec, giving him the draft;
‘and see you hold your tongue about it when you go outside,’ he added
in a lower tone.
MacGowan promised obedience with more fervour than was necessary, and
Alec returned to his own room.
Left to himself, MacGowan laid the draft before him and measured its
length with a practised eye. There was abundance of time for him to
finish engrossing it before the luncheon-hour. He was glad of this, for
it was pay-day, and he knew by experience that it was very doubtful if
he would be back at his desk in the afternoon.
Every month, as pay-day came round, he made a resolution that he would
dine sparely, and drink nothing but water, and return at the proper
hour. But the resolution had been so constantly broken, that he had
no faith in his own power to keep it, and always took care, on such
occasions, to leave matters so that his absence might attract as little
attention as possible. More than once he had been nearly dismissed for
this very offence, but his fellow-clerks were generally good-natured
enough to invent excuses for him; and once, as we have seen, Alec had
stood his friend.
One o’clock struck, and the will was finished. MacGowan left his
seat and went to the cashier’s room to receive the money that was
due to him. That official, however, had gone out, and he returned
discontentedly to his place.
It happened that he and his fellow-clerk Hill were not on very good
terms with each other just then, so, by way of putting off the time
until the cashier’s return, he took the will and the draft from which
he had copied it to Alec Lindsay, and got him to go through the process
of ‘examining’ the two documents along with him--one reading the
engrossed will aloud, while the other read the draft--on the plea that
Hill was too busy to do it.
As he returned to the outer office, he met the managing clerk.
‘Have you engrossed a will for Mr. Lindsay this morning?’ asked Mr.
Beattie.
‘Yes, sir; just finished it.’
‘If you bring it to my room, I will examine it with you. I don’t want
Hill to be taken from what he is doing.’
This was an unusual kind offer for Mr. Beattie to make; but MacGowan,
of course, answered:
‘Mr. Lindsay has examined it with me.’
‘Oh, very good,’ said Beattie, as he passed out of the office.
MacGowan waited impatiently until about two o’clock, when the cashier
made his appearance. By that time he was very hungry, and thirsty as
well.
‘I want my salary, if you please,’ said he, as soon as the cashier was
seated at his desk.
‘It’s early in the day, MacGowan,’ said the cashier. ‘Better let me
give you only a shilling or two now. If you take it all, the chances
are you won’t make your appearance again to-day, and you know what the
consequence of that must be, sooner or later.’
‘I’ll be back at three, Mr. Carter, never fear,’ said the clerk.
‘You had better not take it all at present.’
‘I must take it all, sooner or later,’ answered MacGowan in a hard,
stubborn voice; ‘and little enough it is. Give it to me, Mr. Carter.’
A few minutes afterwards MacGowan was hurrying along in the direction
of a large tavern near the office, where he usually dined on high days.
If he had not been so intent upon getting there, he would have noticed
Mr. William Beattie walking slowly along, on the other side of the
street.
Beattie, who knew the clerk’s habits perfectly well, was, in fact,
waiting for him. As soon as MacGowan entered the tavern, Beattie,
with a smile on his thin lips, returned to the office. Everything had
happened exactly as he had foreseen that it would happen.
In the course of the afternoon Alec Lindsay made his appearance in the
managing clerk’s room, and asked him if he would attend at his uncle’s
on the following morning, to superintend the signing of the will.
‘Indeed I can’t. I have to be in the Vice-Chancellor’s room by ten, and
I shall probably be out all the morning. Why don’t you do it yourself?’
‘Because my name is mentioned in the will.’
‘What does that matter? You needn’t witness it. Get two of the servants
to do that.’
‘But I have never done anything of the kind before.’
‘Why, a child might do it. Ask Mr. Hatchett to go, if you like, but
don’t bother me any more, there’s a good fellow. I’m terribly busy.’
Alec knew that Mr. Hatchett would never dream of attending personally
at so simple a matter as the execution of a will, so he made up his
mind to go himself.
About five o’clock that afternoon Mr. Beattie went into the outer
office, and inquired for MacGowan. Of course he was not there--had not
been seen for the last three hours. Beattie struck his fist angrily on
the desk before him, and went straight to Mr. Hatchett’s room.
Graves (who had just returned from St. Albans) looked at Hill and
grinned.
‘’E’ll ’ave it this time, to a dead certainty,’ said Mr. Hill.
‘Right you are, Mr. ’Ill,’ said Mr. Graves.
‘I’m afraid we can’t afford to keep that fellow MacGowan any longer,’
said Beattie to Mr. Hatchett. ‘He has not been here since three
o’clock--drinking, I suppose. It is the same thing every pay-day, and
on other occasions too--whenever he has money, in fact.’
‘Dismiss him, then, and advertise for another clerk,’ said the
solicitor, hardly troubling himself to look up from the paper he was
reading.
‘I think in that case you had better write the note, Mr. Hatchett. He
will understand then that the decision is your own.’
Mr. Hatchett wrote a dozen words on a sheet of paper, and handed it to
his subordinate.
‘Get it copied in the letter-book, and send it to his lodgings,’ he
said, turning back to his work.
Mr. David MacGowan was troubled by no fears of the fate which had been
prepared for him. About eight o’clock that evening he was sitting in
the smoking-room of ‘The Alexandra,’ with a glass of punch before him,
applauding, in a loud, half-tipsy tone, a song which had just been
finished. Care he had cast to the winds. He was not quite drunk,
though he was far from sober; and, after his besotted fashion, he
was enjoying himself thoroughly. Suddenly his face grew pale, and
his tongue refused to speak the words on his lips, for there, calmly
surveying the company from the doorway, stood--Mr. William Beattie.
A vague sense of alarm filled MacGowan’s mind; but he was too tipsy to
speculate on the reason which the respectable Mr. Beattie might have
for coming to such a place.
In another moment Beattie had recognised him, and walked straight up to
him.
‘Will you step outside for a moment, Mr. MacGowan? I wish to speak with
you,’ said he.
‘Better say’t here, whatever it is,’ answered the clerk, stringing his
words together as he spoke.
‘Come upstairs for a minute,’ was Beattie’s answer, laying his hand on
the other’s arm, and looking straight into his eyes.
MacGowan recognised the presence of a stronger will; he staggered to
his feet and allowed Beattie to lead him out of the room.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, the clerk followed Beattie to a
private room which the latter had already engaged. On the table lay two
or three sheets of foolscap, an inkstand and pens, while a decanter and
some glasses stood on a small side-table.
‘Sit down, MacGowan; you have been enjoying yourself, I see.’
‘Just for once in a while, Mr. Beattie,’ said the other, with tipsy
gravity. ‘_Dulce est desipere--in--loco_, ye ken.’
‘Exactly; and I’m sorry to interrupt you; but I want to know whether
you engrossed a will this afternoon.’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. Dare say I did.’
‘Well, it appears you have made a blunder in it. I can’t stop to
explain it. It wasn’t your fault really; and it won’t make any
difference if you will just copy it over again.’
‘I can’t--not just now; I’ll do it in the morning;’ and Mr. MacGowan
seemed on the point of dropping off to sleep.
Beattie roused him with a slap on the shoulder.
‘Come, come,’ he cried, ‘you’re not too tipsy to write----’
‘Tipsy? Who’s tipsy? I’m not tipsy,’ interrupted the other.
‘All right, then. Come along. See; I’ve ruled a sheet of paper; and
I’ll read the draft for you, so that you can make no mistake.’
MacGowan suffered himself to be dragged to the table; and, once there,
his mechanical power of copying asserted itself. Steadily his pen
moved over the paper, while Beattie looked over the writer’s shoulder,
reading every word as it was written, to make sure that no blunder was
committed.
Before ten o’clock the task was ended. The document was folded,
endorsed in the orthodox manner, and safely lodged in Mr. Beattie’s
pocket.
‘You’ll stand a bottle of champagne, Mr. Beattie?’ said the clerk,
throwing himself back in his chair.
‘Certainly; but I’d advise you to stick to whisky. It’s the healthier
of the two,’ said Beattie, slipping half a sovereign into the other’s
hand. ‘Hadn’t you better go home now?’ he added, feeling pretty certain
that the advice would not be acted upon.
‘In a wee while, Mr. Beattie. I’ll drink your very good health in the
first place. I look upon that as a duty. Good-night, sir; good-night.
You’re a gentleman, sir. And, look here, I’ll be at old Hatchett’s as
usual to-morrow, and you’ll say nothing about seeing me here? It’s a
low place, Mr. Beattie; I’m quite aware of that--a place I very seldom
come to.’
‘Certainly not. It is not my business to carry tales.’
‘And, I say, how did you know I was here?’ asked MacGowan suddenly.
‘Oh, I thought it likely.’
‘And about that will----’ began MacGowan; and he stopped, trying to
recollect what the other had said about it.
‘Oh, never mind; it’s all right. I’m afraid I must be off now,’ said
Beattie.
‘All right. Then, good-night, Mr. Beattie, good-night.’
And so the managing clerk made his escape, while poor MacGowan returned
to the room from which he had been summoned.