GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY
I know Michael Finsbury personally; my business--I know the awkwardness
of having such a man for a lawyer--still it's an old story now, and
there is such a thing as gratitude, and, in short, my legal business,
although now (I am thankful to say) of quite a placid character, remains
entirely in Michael's hands. But the trouble is I have no natural talent
for addresses; I learn one for every man--that is friendship's offering;
and the friend who subsequently changes his residence is dead to me,
memory refusing to pursue him. Thus it comes about that, as I always
write to Michael at his office, I cannot swear to his number in the
King's Road. Of course (like my neighbours), I have been to dinner
there. Of late years, since his accession to wealth, neglect of
business, and election to the club, these little festivals have become
common. He picks up a few fellows in the smoking-room--all men of Attic
wit--myself, for instance, if he has the luck to find me disengaged; a
string of hansoms may be observed (by Her Majesty) bowling gaily through
St. James's Park; and in a quarter of an hour the party surrounds one of
the best appointed boards in London.
But at the time of which we write the house in the King's Road (let us
still continue to call it No. 233) was kept very quiet; when Michael
entertained guests it was at the halls of Nichol or Verrey that he would
convene them, and the door of his private residence remained closed
against his friends. The upper story, which was sunny, was set apart
for his father; the drawing-room was never opened; the dining-room was
the scene of Michael's life. It is in this pleasant apartment, sheltered
from the curiosity of King's Road by wire blinds, and entirely
surrounded by the lawyer's unrivalled library of poetry and criminal
trials, that we find him sitting down to his dinner after his holiday
with Pitman. A spare old lady, with very bright eyes and a mouth
humorously compressed, waited upon the lawyer's needs; in every line of
her countenance she betrayed the fact that she was an old retainer; in
every word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious
circumstance of a Scottish origin; and the fear with which this powerful
combination fills the boldest was obviously no stranger to the bosom of
our friend. The hot Scotch having somewhat warmed up the embers of the
Heidsieck, it was touching to observe the master's eagerness to pull
himself together under the servant's eye; and when he remarked, "I
think, Teena, I'll take a brandy and soda," he spoke like a man doubtful
of his elocution, and not half certain of obedience.
"No such a thing, Mr. Michael," was the prompt return. "Clar't and
water."
"Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best," said the master. "Very
fatiguing day at the office, though."
"What?" said the retainer, "ye never were near the office!"
"O yes, I was though; I was repeatedly along Fleet Street," returned
Michael.
"Pretty pliskies ye've been at this day!" cried the old lady, with
humorous alacrity; and then, "Take care--don't break my crystal!" she
cried, as the lawyer came within an ace of knocking the glasses off the
table.
"And how is he keeping?" asked Michael.
"O, just the same, Mr. Michael, just the way he'll be till the end,
worthy man!" was the reply. "But ye'll not be the first that's asked me
that the day."
"No?" said the lawyer. "Who else?"
"Ay, that's a joke, too," said Teena grimly. "A friend of yours: Mr.
Morris."
"Morris! What was the little beggar wanting here?" inquired Michael.
"Wantin'? To see him," replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning
by a movement of the thumb toward the upper story. "That's by his way of
it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. Michael.
Bribe--me!" she repeated, with inimitable scorn. "That's no' kind of a
young gentleman."
"Did he so?" said Michael. "I bet he didn't offer much."
"No more he did," replied Teena; nor could any subsequent questioning
elicit from her the sum with which the thrifty leather merchant had
attempted to corrupt her. "But I sent him about his business," she said
gallantly. "He'll not come here again in a hurry."
"He mustn't see my father, you know; mind that!" said Michael. "I'm not
going to have any public exhibition to a little beast like him."
"No fear of me lettin' him," replied the trusty one. "But the joke is
this, Mr. Michael--see, ye're upsettin' the sauce, that's a clean
table-cloth--the best of the joke is that he thinks your father's dead
and you're keepin' it dark."
Michael whistled. "Set a thief to catch a thief," said he.
"Exac'ly what I told him!" cried the delighted dame.
"I'll make him dance for that," said Michael.
"Couldn't ye get the law of him some way?" suggested Teena truculently.
"No, I don't think I could, and I'm quite sure I don't want to," replied
Michael. "But I say, Teena, I really don't believe this claret's
wholesome; it's not a sound, reliable wine. Give us a brandy and soda,
there's a good soul." Teena's face became like adamant. "Well, then,"
said the lawyer fretfully, "I won't eat any more dinner."
"Ye can please yourself about that, Mr. Michael," said Teena, and began
composedly to take away.
"I do wish Teena wasn't a faithful servant!" sighed the lawyer, as he
issued into King's Road.
The rain had ceased; the wind still blew, but only with a pleasant
freshness; the town, in the clear darkness of the night, glittered with
street-lamps and shone with glancing rain-pools. "Come, this is better,"
thought the lawyer to himself, and he walked on eastward, lending a
pleased ear to the wheels and the million footfalls of the city.
Near the end of the King's Road he remembered his brandy and soda, and
entered a flaunting public-house. A good many persons were present, a
waterman from a cab-stand, half a dozen of the chronically unemployed, a
gentleman (in one corner) trying to sell aesthetic photographs out of a
leather case to another and very youthful gentleman with a yellow
goatee, and a pair of lovers debating some fine shade (in the other).
But the centrepiece and great attraction was a little old man, in a
black, ready-made surtout, which was obviously a recent purchase. On the
marble table in front of him, beside a sandwich and a glass of beer,
there lay a battered forage-cap. His hand fluttered abroad with
oratorical gestures; his voice, naturally shrill, was plainly tuned to
the pitch of the lecture-room; and by arts, comparable to those of the
Ancient Mariner, he was now holding spell-bound the barmaid, the
waterman, and four of the unemployed.
"I have examined all the theatres in London," he was saying; "and pacing
the principal entrances, I have ascertained them to be ridiculously
disproportionate to the requirements of their audiences. The doors
opened the wrong way--I forget at this moment which it is, but have a
note of it at home; they were frequently locked during the performance,
and when the auditorium was literally thronged with English people. You
have probably not had my opportunities of comparing distant lands; but I
can assure you this has been long ago recognised as a mark of
aristocratic government. Do you suppose, in a country really
self-governed, such abuses could exist? Your own intelligence, however
uncultivated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country even
possibly more enslaved than England. I have myself conversed with one of
the survivors of the Ring Theatre, and though his colloquial German was
not very good, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his
opinion of the case. But, what will perhaps interest you still more,
here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will
now read to you, translating as I go. You can see for yourselves; it is
printed in the German character." And he held the cutting out for
verification, much as a conjurer passes a trick orange along the front
bench.
"Hullo, old gentleman! Is this you?" said Michael, laying his hand upon
the orator's shoulder.
The figure turned with a convulsion of alarm, and showed the countenance
of Mr. Joseph Finsbury.
"You, Michael!" he cried. "There's no one with you, is there?"
"No," replied Michael, ordering a brandy and soda, "there's nobody with
me; whom do you expect?"
"I thought of Morris or John," said the old gentleman, evidently greatly
relieved.
"What the devil would I be doing with Morris or John?" cried the nephew.
"There is something in that," returned Joseph. "And I believe I can
trust you. I believe you will stand by me."
"I hardly know what you mean," said the lawyer, "but if you are in need
of money I am flush."
"It's not that, my dear boy," said the uncle, shaking him by the hand.
"I'll tell you all about it afterwards."
"All right," responded the nephew. "I stand treat, Uncle Joseph; what
will you have?"
"In that case," replied the old gentleman, "I'll take another sandwich.
I daresay I surprise you," he went on, "with my presence in a
public-house; but the fact is, I act on a sound but little-known
principle of my own--"
"O, it's better known than you suppose," said Michael sipping his brandy
and soda. "I always act on it myself when I want a drink."
The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a
cheerless laugh. "You have such a flow of spirits," said he, "I am sure
I often find it quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which I
was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one's-self to the
manners of any land (however humble) in which our lot may be cast. Now,
in France, for instance, every one goes to a cafe for his meals; in
America, to what is called a 'two-bit house'; in England the people
resort to such an institution as the present for refreshment. With
sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a man can live
luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum."
"Yes, I know," returned Michael, "but that's not including clothes,
washing, or boots. The whole thing, with cigars and occasional sprees,
costs me over seven hundred a year."
But this was Michael's last interruption. He listened in good-humoured
silence to the remainder of his uncle's lecture, which speedily branched
to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an
illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best
manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and-dumb; and with that, the
sandwich being then no more, _explicuit valde feliciter_. A moment later
the pair issued forth on the King's Road.
"Michael," said his uncle, "the reason that I am here is because I
cannot endure those nephews of mine. I find them intolerable."
"I daresay you do," assented Michael, "I never could stand them for a
moment."
"They wouldn't let me speak," continued the old gentleman bitterly; "I
never was allowed to get a word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with
some impertinent remark. They kept me on short allowance of pencils,
when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing interest; the daily
newspaper was guarded from me like a young baby from a gorilla. Now, you
know me, Michael. I live for my calculations; I live for my manifold and
ever-changing views of life; pens and paper and the productions of the
popular press are to me as important as food and drink; and my life was
growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion of that fortunate
railway accident at Browndean, I made my escape. They must think me
dead, and are trying to deceive the world for the chance of the
tontine."
"By the way, how do you stand for money?" asked Michael kindly.
"Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich," returned the old man with
cheerfulness. "I am living at present at the rate of one hundred a year,
with unlimited pens and paper; the British Museum at which to get books;
and all the newspapers I choose to read. But it's extraordinary how
little a man of intellectual interest requires to bother with books in a
progressive age. The newspapers supply all the conclusions."
"I'll tell you what," said Michael, "come and stay with me."
"Michael," said the old gentleman, "it's very kind of you, but you
scarcely understand what a peculiar position I occupy. There are some
little financial complications; as a guardian, my efforts were not
altogether blessed; and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, I
am absolutely in the power of that vile fellow, Morris."
"You should be disguised," cried Michael eagerly; "I will lend you a
pair of window-glass spectacles and some red side-whiskers."
"I had already canvassed that idea," replied the old gentleman, "but
feared to awaken remark in my unpretentious lodgings. The aristocracy, I
am well aware----"
"But see here," interrupted Michael, "how do you come to have any money
at all? Don't make a stranger of me, Uncle Joseph; I know all about the
trust, and the hash you made of it, and the assignment you were forced
to make to Morris."
Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank.
"O, but I say, this won't do," cried the lawyer. "You've put your foot
in it. You had no right to do what you did."
"The whole thing is mine, Michael," protested the old gentleman. "I
founded and nursed that business on principles entirely of my own."
"That's all very fine," said the lawyer; "but you made an assignment,
you were forced to make it, too; even then your position was extremely
shaky; but now, my dear sir, it means the dock."
"It isn't possible," cried Joseph; "the law cannot be so unjust as
that?"
"And the cream of the thing," interrupted Michael, with a sudden shout
of laughter, "the cream of the thing is this, that of course you've
downed the leather business! I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange
ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour."
"I see nothing to laugh at," observed Mr. Finsbury tartly.
"And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign for the firm?" asked
Michael.
"No one but myself," replied Joseph.
"Poor devil of a Morris! O, poor devil of a Morris!" cried the lawyer in
delight. "And his keeping up the farce that you're at home! O, Morris,
the Lord has delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what
do you suppose the leather business worth?"
"It _was_ worth a hundred thousand," said Joseph bitterly, "when it was
in my hands. But then there came a Scotsman--it is supposed he had a
certain talent--it was entirely directed to book-keeping--no accountant
in London could understand a word of any of his books; and then there
was Morris, who is perfectly incompetent. And now it is worth very
little. Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram and Jarris offered
only four thousand."
"I shall turn my attention to leather," said Michael with decision.
"You?" asked Joseph. "I advise you not. There is nothing in the whole
field of commerce more surprising than the fluctuations of the leather
market. Its sensitiveness may be described as morbid."
"And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with all that money?" asked
the lawyer.
"Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds," answered Mr. Finsbury
promptly. "Why?"
"Very well," said Michael. "To-morrow I shall send down a clerk with a
cheque for a hundred, and he'll draw out the original sum and return it
to the Anglo-Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will try
to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as Morris can't touch
a penny of it without forgery, it will do no harm to my little scheme."
"But what am I to do?" asked Joseph; "I cannot live upon nothing."
"Don't you hear?" returned Michael. "I send you a cheque for a hundred;
which leaves you eighty to go along upon; and when that's done, apply to
me again."
"I would rather not be beholden to your bounty all the same," said
Joseph, biting at his white moustache. "I would rather live on my own
money, since I have it."
Michael grasped his arm. "Will nothing make you believe," he cried,
"that I am trying to save you from Dartmoor?"
His earnestness staggered the old man. "I must turn my attention to
law," he said; "it will be a new field; for though, of course, I
understand its general principles, I have never really applied my mind
to the details, and this view of yours, for example, comes on me
entirely by surprise. But you may be right, and of course at my time of
life--for I am no longer young--any really long term of imprisonment
would be highly prejudicial. But, my dear nephew, I have no claim on
you; you have no call to support me."
"That's all right," said Michael; "I'll probably get it out of the
leather business."
And having taken down the old gentleman's address, Michael left him at
the corner of a street.
"What a wonderful old muddler!" he reflected, "and what a singular thing
is life! I seem to be condemned to be the instrument of Providence. Let
me see; what have I done to-day? Disposed of a dead body, saved Pitman,
saved my Uncle Joseph, brightened up Forsyth, and drunk a devil of a lot
of most indifferent liquor. Let's top off with a visit to my cousins,
and be the instrument of Providence in earnest. To-morrow I can turn my
attention to leather; to-night I'll just make it lively for 'em in a
friendly spirit."
About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were striking eleven,
the instrument of Providence descended from a hansom, and, bidding the
driver wait, rapped at the door of No. 16 John Street.
It was promptly opened by Morris.
"O, it's you, Michael," he said, carefully blocking up the narrow
opening: "it's very late."
Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris warmly by the hand,
and gave it so extreme a squeeze that the sullen householder fell back.
Profiting by this movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby
and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at his heels.
"Where's my Uncle Joseph?" demanded Michael, sitting down in the most
comfortable chair.
"He's not been very well lately," replied Morris; "he's staying at
Browndean; John is nursing him; and I am alone, as you see."
Michael smiled to himself. "I want to see him on particular business,"
he said.
"You can't expect to see my uncle when you won't let me see your
father," returned Morris.
"Fiddlestick," said Michael. "My father is my father; but Joseph is just
as much my uncle as he's yours; and you have no right to sequestrate his
person."
"I do no such thing," said Morris doggedly. "He is not well, he is
dangerously ill and nobody can see him."
"I'll tell you what, then," said Michael. "I'll make a clean breast of
it. I have come down like the opossum, Morris; I have come to
compromise."
Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush of wrath against
the injustice of man's destiny dyed his very temples. "What do you
mean?" he cried, "I don't believe a word of it!" And when Michael had
assured him of his seriousness, "Well, then," he cried, with another
deep flush, "I won't; so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it."
"Oho!" said Michael queerly. "You say your uncle is dangerously ill, and
you won't compromise? There's something very fishy about that."
"What do you mean?" cried Morris hoarsely.
"I only say it's fishy," returned Michael, "that is, pertaining to the
finny tribe."
"Do you mean to insinuate anything?" cried Morris stormily, trying the
high hand.
"Insinuate?" repeated Michael. "O, don't let's begin to use awkward
expressions! Let us drown our differences in a bottle, like two affable
kinsmen. _The Two Affable Kinsmen_, sometimes attributed to
Shakespeare," he added.
Morris's mind was labouring like a mill. "Does he suspect? or is this
chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap," he
concluded. "It gains time. Well," said he aloud, and with rather a
painful affectation of heartiness, "it's long since we have had an
evening together, Michael; and though my habits (as you know) are very
temperate, I may as well make an exception. Excuse me one moment till I
fetch a bottle of whisky from the cellar."
"No whisky for me," said Michael; "a little of the old still champagne
or nothing."
For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was very valuable:
the next he had quitted the room without a word. His quick mind had
perceived his advantage; in thus dunning him for the cream of the
cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. "One bottle?" he thought. "By
George, I'll give him two! this is no moment for economy; and once the
beast is drunk, it's strange if I don't wring his secret out of him."
With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses were produced, and
Morris filled them with hospitable grace.
"I drink to you, cousin!" he cried gaily. "Don't spare the wine-cup in
my house."
Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the table; filled it
again, and returned to his chair, carrying the bottle along with him.
"The spoils of war!" he said apologetically. "The weakest goes to the
wall. Science, Morris, science." Morris could think of no reply, and for
an appreciable interval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still
champagne produced a rapid change in Michael.
"There's a want of vivacity about you, Morris," he observed. "You may be
deep; but I'll be hanged if you're vivacious!"
"What makes you think me deep?" asked Morris with an air of pleased
simplicity.
"Because you won't compromise," said the lawyer. "You're deep dog,
Morris, very deep dog, not t' compromise--remarkable deep dog. And a
very good glass of wine; it's the only respectable feature in the
Finsbury family, this wine; rarer thing than a title--much rarer. Now a
man with glass wine like this in cellar, I wonder why won't compromise?"
"Well, _you_ wouldn't compromise before, you know," said the smiling
Morris. "Turn about is fair play."
"I wonder why _I_ wouldn' compromise? I wonder why _you_ wouldn'?"
inquired Michael. "I wonder why we each think the other wouldn'? 'S
quite a remarrable--remarkable problem," he added, triumphing over oral
obstacles, not without obvious pride. "Wonder what we each think--don't
you?"
"What do you suppose to have been my reason?" asked Morris adroitly.
Michael looked at him and winked. "That's cool," said he. "Next thing,
you'll ask me to help you out of the muddle. I know I'm emissary of
Providence, but not that kind! You get out of it yourself, like AEsop and
the other fellow. Must be dreadful muddle for young orphan o' forty;
leather business and all!"
"I am sure I don't know what you mean," said Morris.
"Not sure I know myself," said Michael. "This is exc'lent vintage,
sir--exc'lent vintage. Nothing against the tipple. Only thing: here's a
valuable uncle disappeared. Now, what I want to know: where's valuable
uncle?"
"I have told you: he is at Browndean," answered Morris, furtively wiping
his brow, for these repeated hints began to tell upon him cruelly.
"Very easy say Brown--Browndee--no' so easy after all!" cried Michael.
"Easy say; anything's easy say, when you can say it. What I don' like's
total disappearance of an uncle. Not business-like." And he wagged his
head.
"It is all perfectly simple," returned Morris, with laborious calm.
"There is no mystery. He stays at Browndean, where he got a shake in the
accident."
"Ah!" said Michael, "got devil of a shake!"
"Why do you say that?" cried Morris sharply.
"Best possible authority. Told me so yourself," said the lawyer. "But if
you tell me contrary now, of course I'm bound to believe either the one
story or the other. Point is--I've upset this bottle, still champagne's
exc'lent thing carpet--point is, is valuable uncle dead--an'--bury?"
Morris sprang from his seat. "What's that you say?" he gasped.
"I say it's exc'lent thing carpet," replied Michael, rising. "Exc'lent
thing promote healthy action of the skin. Well, it's all one, anyway.
Give my love to Uncle Champagne."
"You're not going away?" said Morris.
"Awf'ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend," said the wavering
Michael.
"You shall not go till you have explained your hints," returned Morris
fiercely. "What do you mean? What brought you here?"
"No offence, I trust," said the lawyer, turning round as he opened the
door; "only doing my duty as shemishery of Providence."
Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with some difficulty,
and descended the steps to the hansom. The tired driver looked up as he
approached, and asked where he was to go next.
Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the steps; a brilliant
inspiration came to him. "Anything t' give pain," he reflected....
"Drive Shcotlan' Yard," he added aloud, holding to the wheel to steady
himself; "there's something devilish fishy, cabby, about those cousins.
Mush' be cleared up! Drive Shcotlan' Yard."
"You don't mean that, sir," said the man, with the ready sympathy of the
lower orders for an intoxicated gentleman. "I had better take you home,
sir; you can go to Scotland Yard to-morrow."
"Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me not to go
Shcotlan' Yard t'night?" inquired Michael. "All righ', never min'
Shcotlan' Yard, drive Gaiety bar."
"The Gaiety bar is closed," said the man.
"Then home," said Michael, with the same cheerfulness.
"Where to, sir?"
"I don't remember, I'm sure," said Michael, entering the vehicle, "drive
Shcotlan' Yard and ask."
"But you'll have a card," said the man, through the little aperture in
the top, "give me your card-case."
"What imagi--imagination in a cabby!" cried the lawyer, producing his
card-case, and handing it to the driver.
The man read it by the light of the lamp. "Mr. Michael Finsbury, 233
King's Road, Chelsea. Is that it, sir?"
"Right you are," cried Michael, "drive there if you can see way."