out into eternity for his unfortunate companion, he returned, bearing in
his hand an open Gladstone bag. His movements were still horribly
deliberate, and his eyes lingered gloatingly on his dear boxes, as he
moved to and fro about the drawing-room, gathering a few small trifles.
Last of all, he lifted one of the squares of dynamite.
"Put that down!" cried Somerset. "If what you say be true, you have no
call to load yourself with that ungodly contraband."
"Merely a curiosity, dear boy," he said persuasively, and slipped the
brick into his bag; "merely a memento of the past--ah, happy past,
bright past! You will not take a touch of spirits? no? I find you very
abstemious. Well," he added, "if you have really no curiosity to await
the event----"
"I!" cried Somerset. "My blood boils to get away."
"Well, then," said Zero, "I am ready; I would I could say, willing; but
thus to leave the scene of my sublime endeavours----"
Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged him
downstairs; the hall-door shut with a clang on the deserted mansion; and
still towing his laggardly companion, the young man sped across the
square in the Oxford Street direction. They had not yet passed the
corner of the garden, when they were arrested by a dull thud of an
extraordinary amplitude of sound, accompanied and followed by a
shattering _fracas_. Somerset turned in time to see the mansion rend in
twain, vomit forth flames and smoke, and instantly collapse into its
cellars. At the same moment, he was thrown violently to the ground. His
first glance was towards Zero. The plotter had but reeled against the
garden rail; he stood there, the Gladstone bag clasped tight upon his
heart, his whole face radiant with relief and gratitude; and the young
man heard him murmur to himself: "_Nunc dimittis, nunc dimittis!_"
The consternation of the populace was indescribable: the whole of Golden
Square was alive with men, women, and children, running wildly to and
fro, and, like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out of the house
doors, and under favour of this confusion, Somerset dragged away the
lingering plotter.
"It was grand," he continued to murmur: "it was indescribably grand. Ah,
green Erin, green Erin, what a day of glory! and, oh, my calumniated
dynamite, how triumphantly hast thou prevailed!"
Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the
footway, he consulted the dial of his watch.
"Good God!" he cried, "how mortifying! seven minutes too early! The
dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle clockwork, has
once more betrayed me. Alas, can there be no success unmixed with
failure? and must even this red-letter day be chequered by a shadow?"
"Incomparable ass!" said Somerset, "what have you done? Blown up the
house of an unoffending old lady, and the whole earthly property of the
only person who is fool enough to befriend you!"
"You do not understand these matters," replied Zero, with an air of
great dignity. "This will shake England to the heart. Gladstone, the
truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of revenge. And
now that my dynamite is proved effective----"
"Heavens, you remind me!" ejaculated Somerset. "That brick in your bag
must be instantly disposed of. But how? If we could throw it in the
river----"
"A torpedo," cried Zero, brightening, "a torpedo in the Thames! Superb,
dear fellow! I recognise in you the marks of an accomplished anarch."
"True!" returned Somerset. "It cannot so be done; and there is no help
but you must carry it away with you. Come on, then, and let me at once
consign you to a train."
"Nay, nay, dear boy," protested Zero. "There is now no call for me to
leave. My character is now reinstated; my fame brightens; this is the
best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations that await
the author of the Golden Square Atrocity."
"My young friend," returned the other, "I give you your choice. I will
either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol."
"Somerset, this is unlike you!" said the chemist. "You surprise me,
Somerset."
"I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,"
returned Somerset, with something bordering on rage. "For on one point
my mind is settled: either I see you packed off to America, brick and
all, or else you dine in prison."
"You have perhaps neglected one point," returned the unoffended Zero:
"for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means you can employ
to force me. The will, my dear fellow----"
"Now, see here," interrupted Somerset. "You are ignorant of anything but
science, which I can never regard as being truly knowledge; I, sir, have
studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my
hand and voice--here in this street--and the mob----"
"Good God in Heaven, Somerset," cried Zero, turning deadly white and
stopping in his walk, "great God in Heaven, what words are these? Oh,
not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used! The brutal mob, the
savage passions.... Somerset, for God's sake, a public-house!"
Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity. "This is very
interesting," said he. "You recoil from such a death?"
"Who would not?" asked the plotter.
"And to be blown up by dynamite," inquired the young man, "doubtless
strikes you as a form of euthanasia?"
"Pardon me," returned Zero: "I own, and, since I have braved it daily in
my professional career, I own it even with pride: it is a death
unusually distasteful to the mind of man."
"One more question," said Somerset; "you object to Lynch Law? why?"
"It is assassination," said the plotter calmly; but with eyebrows a
little lifted, as in wonder at the question.
"Shake hands with me," cried Somerset. "Thank God, I have now no
ill-feeling left; and though you cannot conceive how I burn to see you
on the gallows, I can quite contentedly assist at your departure."
"I do not very clearly take your meaning," said Zero, "but I am sure you
mean kindly. As to my departure, there is another point to be
considered. I have neglected to supply myself with funds; my little all
has perished in what history will love to relate under the name of the
Golden Square Atrocity; and without what is coarsely if vigorously
called stamps, you must be well aware it is impossible for me to pass
the ocean."
"For me," said Somerset, "you have now ceased to be a man. You have no
more claim upon me than a door-scraper; but the touching confusion of
your mind disarms me from extremities. Until to-day, I always thought
stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and when I look upon your
idiot face, laughter rises within me like a deadly sickness, and the
tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as blood. What should this
portend? I begin to doubt; I am losing faith in scepticism. Is it
possible," he cried, in a kind of horror of himself--"is it conceivable
that I believe in right and wrong? Already I have found myself, with
incredulous surprise, to be the victim of a prejudice of personal
honour. And must this change proceed? Have you robbed me of my youth?
Must I fall, at my time of life, into the Common Banker? But why should
I address that head of wood? Let this suffice. I dare not let you stay
among women and children; I lack the courage to denounce you, if by any
means I may avoid it; you have no money; well then, take mine, and go;
and if ever I behold your face after to-day, that day will be your
last."
"Under the circumstances," replied Zero, "I scarce see my way to refuse
your offer. Your expressions may pain, they cannot surprise me; I am
aware our point of view requires a little training, a little moral
hygiene, if I may so express it; and one of the points that has always
charmed me in your character is this delightful frankness. As for the
small advance, it shall be remitted you from Philadelphia."
"It shall not," said Somerset.
"Dear fellow, you do not understand," returned the plotter. "I shall now
be received with fresh confidence by my superiors; and my experiments
will be no longer hampered by pitiful conditions of the purse."
"What I am now about, sir, is a crime," replied Somerset; "and were you
to roll in wealth like Vanderbilt, I should scorn to be reimbursed of
money I had so scandalously misapplied. Take it, and keep it. By George,
sir, three days of you have transformed me to an ancient Roman."
With these words, Somerset hailed a passing hansom; and the pair were
driven rapidly to the railway terminus. There, an oath having been
extracted, the money changed hands.
"And now," said Somerset, "I have bought back my honour with every penny
I possess. And I thank God, though there is nothing before me but
starvation, I am free from all entanglement with Mr. Zero Pumpernickel
Jones."
"To starve?" cried Zero. "Dear fellow, I cannot endure the thought."
"Take your ticket!" returned Somerset.
"I think you display temper," said Zero.
"Take your ticket," reiterated the young man.
"Well," said the plotter, as he returned, ticket in hand, "your attitude
is so strange and painful, that I scarce know if I should ask you to
shake hands."
"As a man, no," replied Somerset; "but I have no objection to shake
hands with you, as I might with a pump-well that ran poison or
hell-fire."
"This is a very cold parting," sighed the dynamiter; and still followed
by Somerset, he began to descend the platform. This was now bustling
with passengers; the train for Liverpool was just about to start,
another had but recently arrived; and the double tide made movement
difficult. As the pair reached the neighbourhood of the bookstall,
however, they came into an open space; and here the attention of the
plotter was attracted by a Standard broadside bearing the words: "Second
Edition: Explosion in Golden Square." His eye lighted; groping in his
pocket for the necessary coin, he sprang forward--his bag knocked
sharply on the corner of the stall--and instantly, with a formidable
report, the dynamite exploded. When the smoke cleared away the stall was
seen much shattered, and the stall-keeper running forth in terror from
the ruins; but of the Irish patriot or the Gladstone bag no adequate
remains were to be found.
In the first scramble of the alarm, Somerset made good his escape, and
came out upon the Euston Road, his head spinning, his body sick with
hunger, and his pockets destitute of coin. Yet as he continued to walk
the pavements, he wondered to find in his heart a sort of peaceful
exultation, a great content, a sense, as it were, of divine presence and
the kindliness of fate; and he was able to tell himself that even if
the worst befell, he could now starve with a certain comfort since Zero
was expunged.
Late in the afternoon he found himself at the door of Mr. Godall's shop;
and being quite unmanned by his long fast, and scarce considering what
he did, he opened the glass door and entered.
"Ha!" said Mr. Godall, "Mr. Somerset! Well, have you met with an
adventure? Have you the promised story? Sit down, if you please; suffer
me to choose you a cigar of my own special brand; and reward me with a
narrative in your best style."
"I must not take a cigar," said Somerset.
"Indeed!" said Mr. Godall. "But now I come to look at you more closely,
I perceive that you are changed. My poor boy, I hope there is nothing
wrong?"
Somerset burst into tears.
EPILOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN
On a certain day of lashing rain in the December of last year, and
between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, Mr. Edward Challoner
pioneered himself under an umbrella to the door of the Cigar Divan in
Rupert Street. It was a place he had visited but once before: the memory
of what had followed on that visit and the fear of Somerset having
prevented his return. Even now, he looked in before he entered; but the
shop was free of customers.
The young man behind the counter was so intently writing in a penny
version-book, that he paid no heed to Challoner's arrival. On a second
glance, it seemed to the latter that he recognised him.
"By Jove," he thought, "unquestionably Somerset!"
And though this was the very man he had been so sedulously careful to
avoid, his unexplained position at the receipt of custom changed
distaste to curiosity.
"'Or opulent rotunda strike the sky,'" said the shopman to himself, in
the tone of one considering a verse. "I suppose it would be too much to
say 'orotunda,' and yet how noble it were! 'Or opulent orotunda strike
the sky.' But that is the bitterness of arts; you see a good effect, and
some nonsense about sense continually intervenes."
"Somerset, my dear fellow," said Challoner, "is this a masquerade?"
"What? Challoner!" cried the shopman. "I am delighted to see you. One
moment, till I finish the octave of my sonnet: only the octave." And
with a friendly waggle of the hand, he once more buried himself in the
commerce of the Muses. "I say," he said presently, looking up, "you seem
in wonderful preservation: how about the hundred pounds?"
"I have made a small inheritance from a great aunt in Wales," replied
Challoner modestly.
"Ah," said Somerset, "I very much doubt the legitimacy of inheritance.
The State, in my view, should collar it. I am now going through a stage
of socialism and poetry," he added apologetically, as one who spoke of a
course of medicinal waters.
"And are you really the person of the--establishment?" inquired
Challoner, deftly evading the word "shop."
"A vendor, sir, a vendor," returned the other, pocketing his poesy. "I
help old Happy and Glorious. Can I offer you a weed?"
"Well, I scarcely like ..." began Challoner.
"Nonsense, my dear fellow," cried the shopman. "We are very proud of the
business; and the old man, let me inform you, besides being the most
egregious of created beings from the point of view of ethics, is
literally sprung from the loins of kings. '_De Godall je suis le
fervent._' There is only one Godall.--By the way," he added, as
Challoner lit his cigar, "how did you get on with the detective trade?"
"I did not try," said Challoner curtly.
"Ah, well, I did," returned Somerset, "and made the most incomparable
mess of it; lost all my money and fairly covered myself with odium and
ridicule. There is more in that business, Challoner, than meets the eye;
there is more, in fact, in all businesses. You must believe in them, or
get up the belief that you believe. Hence," he added, "the recognised
inferiority of the plumber, for no one could believe in plumbing."
"_A propos_," asked Challoner, "do you still paint?"
"Not now," replied Paul; "but I think of taking up the violin."
Challoner's eye, which had been somewhat restless since the trade of the
detective had been named, now rested for a moment on the columns of the
morning paper, where it lay spread upon the counter.
"By Jove," he cried, "that's odd!"
"What is odd?" asked Paul.
"Oh, nothing," returned the other: "only I once met a person called
M'Guire."
"So did I!" cried Somerset. "Is there anything about him?"
Challoner read as follows: "_Mysterious death in Stepney._ An inquest
was held yesterday on the body of Patrick M'Guire, described as a
carpenter. Dr. Dovering stated that he had for some time treated the
deceased as a dispensary patient, for sleeplessness, loss of appetite,
and nervous depression. There was no cause of death to be found. He
would say the deceased had sunk. Deceased was not a temperate man, which
doubtless accelerated death. Deceased complained of dumb ague, but
witness had never been able to detect any positive disease. He did not
know that he had any family. He regarded him as a person of unsound
intellect, who believed himself a member and the victim of some secret
society. If he were to hazard an opinion, he would say deceased had died
of fear."
"And the doctor would be right," cried Somerset; "and my dear Challoner,
I am so relieved to hear of his demise, that I will----. Well, after
all," he added, "poor devil, he was well served."
The door at this moment opened, and Desborough appeared upon the
threshold. He was wrapped in a long waterproof, imperfectly supplied
with buttons; his boots were full of water, his hat greasy with service;
and yet he wore the air of one exceeding well content with life. He was
hailed by the two others with exclamations of surprise and welcome.
"And did you try the detective business?" inquired Paul.
"No," returned Harry. "Oh yes, by the way, I did though: twice, and got
caught out both times. But I thought I should find my--my wife here?" he
added, with a kind of proud confusion.
"What? are you married?" cried Somerset.
"Oh yes," said Harry, "quite a long time: a month at least."
"Money?" asked Challoner.
"That's the worst of it," Desborough admitted. "We are deadly hard up.
But the Pri--Mr. Godall is going to do something for us. That is what
brings us here."
"Who was Mrs. Desborough?" said Challoner, in the tone of a man of
society.
"She was a Miss Luxmore," returned Harry. "You fellows will be sure to
like her, for she is much cleverer than I. She tells wonderful stories,
too; better than a book."
And just then the door opened, and Mrs. Desborough entered. Somerset
cried out aloud to recognise the young lady of the Superfluous Mansion,
and Challoner fell back a step and dropped his cigar as he beheld the
sorceress of Chelsea.
"What!" cried Harry, "do you both know my wife?"
"I believe I have seen her," said Somerset, a little wildly.
"I think I have met the gentleman," said Mrs. Desborough sweetly; "but I
cannot imagine where it was."
"Oh no," cried Somerset fervently; "I have no notion--I cannot
conceive--where it could have been. Indeed," he continued, growing in
emphasis, "I think it highly probable that it's a mistake."
"And you, Challoner?" asked Harry, "you seemed to recognise her, too."
"These are both friends of yours, Harry?" said the lady. "Delighted, I
am sure. I do not remember to have met Mr. Challoner."
Challoner was very red in the face, perhaps from having groped after his
cigar. "I do not remember to have had the pleasure," he responded
huskily.
"Well, and Mr. Godall?" asked Mrs. Desborough.
"Are you the lady that has an appointment with old ..." began Somerset,
and paused, blushing. "Because if so," he resumed, "I was to announce
you at once."
And the shopman raised a curtain, opened a door, and passed into a small
pavilion which had been added to the back of the house. On the roof, the
rain resounded musically. The walls were lined with maps and prints and
a few works of reference. Upon a table was a large-scale map of Egypt
and the Soudan, and another of Tonkin, on which, by the aid of coloured
pins, the progress of the different wars was being followed day by day.
A light, refreshing odour of the most delicate tobacco hung upon the
air; and a fire, not of foul coal, but of clear-flaming resinous
billets, chattered upon silver dogs. In this elegant and plain
apartment, Mr. Godall sat in a morning muse, placidly gazing at the fire
and hearkening to the rain upon the roof.
"Ha, my dear Mr. Somerset," said he, "and have you since last night
adopted any fresh political principle?"
"The lady, sir," said Somerset, with another blush.
"You have seen her, I believe?" returned Mr. Godall; and on Somerset's
replying in the affirmative: "You will excuse me, my dear sir," he
resumed, "if I offer you a hint. I think it not improbable this lady may
desire entirely to forget the past. From one gentleman to another, no
more words are necessary."
A moment after, he had received Mrs. Desborough with that grave and
touching urbanity that so well became him.
"I am pleased, madam, to welcome you to my poor house," he said; "and
shall be still more so, if what were else a barren courtesy and a
pleasure personal to myself, shall prove to be of serious benefit to you
and Mr. Desborough."
"Your highness," replied Clara, "I must begin with thanks; it is like
what I have heard of you, that you should thus take up the case of the
unfortunate; and as for my Harry, he is worthy of all that you can do."
She paused.
"But for yourself?" suggested Mr. Godall--"it was thus you were about to
continue, I believe."
"You take the words out of my mouth," she said. "For myself, it is
different."
"I am not here to be a judge of men," replied the prince; "still less of
women. I am now a private person like yourself and many million others;
but I am one who still fights upon the side of quiet. Now, madam, you
know better than I, and God better than you, what you have done to
mankind in the past; I pause not to inquire; it is with the future I
concern myself, it is for the future I demand security. I would not
willingly put arms into the hands of a disloyal combatant; and I dare
not restore to wealth one of the levyers of a private and a barbarous
war. I speak with some severity, and yet I pick my terms. I tell myself
continually that you are a woman; and a voice continually reminds me of
the children whose lives and limbs you have endangered. A woman," he
repeated solemnly--"and children. Possibly, madam, when you are yourself
a mother, you will feel the bite of that antithesis: possibly when you
kneel at night beside a cradle, a fear will fall upon you, heavier than
any shame; and when your child lies in the pain and danger of disease,
you shall hesitate to kneel before your Maker."
"You look at the fault," she said, "and not at the excuse. Has your own
heart never leaped within you at some story of oppression? But, alas,
no! for you were born upon a throne."
"I was born of woman," said the prince; "I came forth from my mother's
agony, helpless as a wren, like other nurselings. This, which you
forgot, I have still faithfully remembered. Is it not one of your
English poets, that looked abroad upon the earth and saw vast
circumvallations, innumerable troops manoeuvring, warships at sea, and a
great dust of battles on shore; and, casting anxiously about for what
should be the cause of so many and painful preparations, spied at last,
in the centre of all, a mother and her babe? These, madam, are my
politics; and the verses, which are by Mr. Coventry Patmore, I have
caused to be translated into the Bohemian tongue. Yes, these are my
politics: to change what we can, to better what we can; but still to
bear in mind that man is but a devil weakly fettered by some generous
beliefs and impositions; and for no word however nobly sounding, and no
cause however just and pious, to relax the stricture of these bonds."
There was a silence of a moment.
"I fear, madam," resumed the prince, "that I but weary you. My views are
formal like myself; and like myself, they also begin to grow old. But I
must still trouble you for some reply."
"I can say but one thing," said Mrs. Desborough: "I love my husband."
"It is a good answer," returned the prince; "and you name a good
influence, but one that need not be conterminous with life."
"I will not play at pride with such a man as you," she answered. "What
do you ask of me? not protestations, I am sure. What shall I say? I have
done much that I cannot defend and that I would not do again. Can I say
more? Yes: I can say this: I never abused myself with the muddle-headed
fairy tales of politics. I was at least prepared to meet reprisals.
While I was levying war myself--or levying murder, if you choose the
plainer term--I never accused my adversaries of assassination. I never
felt or feigned a righteous horror, when a price was put upon my life by
those whom I attacked. I never called the policeman a hireling. I may
have been a criminal, in short; but I never was a fool."
"Enough, madam," returned the prince: "more than enough! Your words are
most reviving to my spirits; for in this age, when even the assassin is
a sentimentalist, there is no virtue greater in my eyes than
intellectual clarity. Suffer me then to ask you to retire; for by the
signal of that bell, I perceive my old friend, your mother, to be close
at hand. With her I promise you to do my utmost."
And as Mrs. Desborough returned to the Divan, the prince, opening a door
upon the other side, admitted Mrs. Luxmore.
"Madam, and my very good friend," said he, "is my face so much changed
that you no longer recognise Prince Florizel in Mr. Godall?"