Mr Fred. Saxby stopped in front of the Royal Exchange one morning to
buy a rose, and spent some time in selecting it. Red ones would not do;
yellow he despised. He wanted a delicate white rose, with a dash of
blush pink upon its petals; and when he had discovered one, he made no
scruple about paying the flower-girl sixpence and carrying it off with
the greatest care to deposit in a glass upon his desk, for reasons known
only to himself.
He had rather a busy morning in his close, cool, dark office, in a court
out of Throgmorton Street--an office where the light of day had a
struggle every morning to get down between two tall piles of building,
and illumine the room, failing dismally seven or eight months out of the
twelve, and leaving the stockbroker to the tender mercies of his gas
company and the yellow flame that danced within a globe.
Mr Saxby's room was "as clean as hands could make it,"--the
housekeeper's words--but all the same it did not seem clean. There was
a dingy look about everything, excepting the rose he bought every
morning, and himself. In one part of the room was a tiny machine,
untouched save by electricity, which went on, unwinding, inking its
letters and stamping mile after mile of tape-like paper, informing the
reader the while that the shares of this railway were up, of that down;
that foreign stocks had made this change, consols were at that, and so
on, and so on, while the occupant of the office paid not the slightest
heed, but divided his attention between the _Times_ and the rose.
Just in the midst of one of his most earnest inspections of the flower,
during which he took a long soft inhalation of its odorous breath, a
clerk entered with a card. "Miss Raleigh, sir."
"Bless my heart!" ejaculated the stockbroker, hastily setting down the
rose, for the act of smelling it had taken him down to a velvet lawn,
sloping to the riverside; and upon that lawn he had seemed to see some
one walking, wearing a similar rose; but it was not the lady who now
entered, and of whom he had heard nothing since he warned her not to
venture in the Cornish mine.
"Good-morning, Miss Raleigh," he exclaimed, placing a chair. "I hardly
expected to see you."
"Why not?" said Aunt Sophia shortly. "Where did you expect I should
go?"
"I hope you are well, ma'am, and--Sir James and Lady Scarlett?"
"No; I'm not well; I'm worried," said the lady. "Sir James and Lady
Scarlett are both ill. Has--But never mind that now. Look here, Mr
Saxby; you always give me very bad advice, and you seem determined not
to let me get good interest for my money. Now, tell me this, sir. I
have been receiving a great many circulars lately about different
excellent investments; above all, several about gold mines in the north
of India."
"So I suppose, ma'am," said Mr Saxby rubbing his hands softly.
"And I suppose you will say that they are not good; but here is one that
I received yesterday which cannot fail to be right. I want some shares
in that."
"And you won't have one, ma'am," said Mr Saxby, who was far more
autocratic in his own office than at a friend's house.
"What! are they all sold?"
"Sold? Pooh! ma'am, hardly any. There are not many people lunatics
enough to throw their money into an Indian gold mine."
"Saxby, you are the most obstinate, aggravating man I ever _did_ know.
Look here; will not these figures convince you?"
"No, ma'am; only make me more obstinate--more aggravating still."
"Then what do these figures mean?"
"Mean, madam? To trap spinster ladies with small incomes, half-pay
officers, poor clergymen with miserable livings--the whole lot of poor
genteel people, and those who like to dabble in investments--people who
can't afford to lose, and people who can. Why, my dear madam, use your
own judgment. If there were a safe fifteen per cent, there, the shares
would be gone in one hour, and at a heavy premium the next."
"Humph!" said Aunt Sophia. "Of course you do all my nephew's business?"
"Yes, madam; it all comes here."
"You know what shares he holds?"
"I think so. Of course, he may have been to other brokers; but he would
not have done so without good reason."
"As far as you can, then," said Aunt Sophia, "keep an eye upon what are
sold, and I should like to be made acquainted with any sales that may
take place."
"Well, really, my dear Miss Raleigh, such a proceeding--"
"Yes, yes, man; I know all about that; but you know to what a state he
has been reduced. I love him like a son, and I--Now look here, Saxby;
I'm telling you this, because I think you are an honest man."
"Well, I hope I am, ma'am."
"Then look here; I will speak out. I won't mention any names; but I am
afraid that designing people are at work to get possession of some of
his property, and I want it watched."
"Rather a serious charge, Miss Raleigh."
"Stuff and nonsense, man! Not half serious enough. Just look at this
prospectus for a moment. There are some good names to it. I'll talk
about those other matters afterwards."
Aunt Sophia fixed her double glasses upon her nose, and stared through
them upon the neat and dapper stockbroker, who stared in return, and
frowned, otherwise he would have laughed, for the spring of Aunt
Sophia's _pince-nez_ was very strong, and its effect was to compress the
organ upon which it rested, so that the ordinarily thin sharp point of
the lady's nose was turned into a sickly-looking bulb, that was, to say
the least, grotesque.
"Halt!" said Mr Saxby, reading quickly: "Society for the Elevation of
the Human Race in large and Crowded Towns; patrons, the Right Hon.--
hum-ha-hum; his Grace the--hum-ha-hum; the Lord Bishop of--hum-ha-hum;
directors--hum-ha-hum; M.P.--hum--Mr--hum,"--Mr Saxby's voice grew
less and less distinct, becoming at last a continuance of the sound
expressed in letters by _hum_, but he finished off sharply with:
"Secretary, Mr Arthur Prayle!--Well, ma'am, and what of this?"
"What of it, Saxby? Why, wouldn't it be a most admirable thing to
invest in a Society which will benefit my fellow-creatures and bring in
a large percentage as well?"
"Admirable, my dear madam," said Saxby; "but you don't quite express the
result."
"What _do_ you mean?"
"Singular, ma'am, not plural, and no percentage."
"Now, look here, Saxby: I have come here on business, if you please, not
to hear you discuss points of grammar. What do you mean by your
singular and plural?"
"I mean, my dear madam," said Saxby, with a chuckle, "that this
Society,"--he flipped the prospectus with his finger as he spoke--"would
benefit one fellow-creature only, and give no percentage at all. What
is more, you would never see your money back."
"Ho!" ejaculated Aunt Sophia. "And pray, who would be the
fellow-creature?"
"Well, ma'am, it is being rather hard upon a gentleman whom I have had
the pleasure of meeting, and who is no doubt acting in the best of
faith; but the secretary is the only fellow-creature who will get
anything out of that affair. He will of course take care that the
office expenses are paid, he is an office expense. There will be
nothing for a soul beside."
"Oh, this is prejudice, Mr Saxby."
"Business prejudice, perhaps, ma'am; but, to my mind, this is only one
of many Societies that are constantly springing up like toadstools--that
kind that comes up fair and white, looks very much like a good mushroom
for a time, and then dissolves into a nasty black inky fluid, and is
gone."
"It _is_ prejudice," said Aunt Sophia.
"Maybe, ma'am; but there are numbers of silly Societies got up, such as
appeal to weak sensitive people; the secretary gets a few letters in the
daily papers, and plenty of ladies like yourself subscribe their money,
say, for the Suppression of Sunday Labour amongst Cabhorses, the Society
for Dieting Destitute Blackbeetles, and the Provident Home for Canaries
whose Patrons are out of Town. These, my dear madam, are exaggerations,
but only slight ones, of many Societies got up by ingenious secretaries,
who turn a bottle of ink, a ream of neatly headed note-paper, and some
cleverly monogrammed envelopes, into a comfortable income."
"That will do," said Aunt Sophia shortly as she took off her _pince-nez_
and allowed the blood to resume its circulation--"that will do, Mr
Saxby.--Then you will not buy the shares for me?"
"No, ma'am, not a share. I should deserve to be kicked out of the Stock
Exchange, if I did."
"Very well, sir--very well, sir," said the lady, rising and tightening
her lips. "That will do."
"And now, as business is over, my dear madam, may I ask for the latest
report concerning our friend Scarlett's health?"
"Yes, sir, you may," said Aunt Sophia shortly. "It is very bad. His
nerve is completely gone."
"Ah, but I hope it will return," said Saxby. "Patience, ma'am,
patience. When stocks in a good thing, mind, I say a good thing, are at
their lowest, they take a turn, and become often enough better than
ever. And--er--may I ask how--how Miss Raleigh junior is?"
"No, sir; you may not," said Aunt Sophia shortly. "Good-morning!"
"Phe-ew! What an old she-dragon it is!" said Mr Saxby to himself as
the door closed upon Aunt Sophia's angular form.
"I am right!" said Aunt Sophia to herself as she got into the hansom cab
that she had waiting. "Here!--hi!" she cried, poking at the little
trapdoor in the roof with her parasol. "Waterloo Station."
Then, as the cab rattled along: "Arthur Prayle is a smooth-looking,
smooth-tongued scoundrel; I know he is, and I've a good mind to let him
have a few hundreds, so as to take off his mask. I won't mistrust Saxby
any more. He's as honest as the day, and I'm glad I've put him on his
guard. But he must be snubbed, very hard, and I must speak to Naomi. I
do believe the hard, money-grubbing, fog-breathing creature thinks that
he is in love!"
Volume 2, Chapter II.