ENTER MADGIN, JUNIOR.
"Beg your pardon, sir," said the landlord of the Jolly Fishers one
morning to his guest, Mr. Deedes, "but I think I have more than once
heard you say that you came from London?"
"I do come from London," answered Mr. Deedes; "I am a Cockney born and
bred. I came direct from London to Windermere. But why do you ask?"
"Simply, sir, because they are in want of a footman at Bon Repos, to
fill up the place of one who has gone away to get married. Mossoo
Platzoff don't like advertising for servants, and Mr. Cleon is at a
loss where to find a fellow that can wait at table and has some
manners about him. You see, sir, the country louts about here are
neither useful nor ornamental in a gentleman's house. Now, sir, it
struck me that among your friends you might perhaps know some
gentleman who would be glad to recommend a respectable man for such a
place. Must have a good character from his last situation, and be able
to wait at table; and I hope, sir, you will pardon the liberty I've
taken in mentioning it to you."
Mr. Deedes was holding up a glass of wine to the light as the landlord
brought his little speech to a close. He sipped the wine slowly, with
his eyes bent on the floor; then he put down the glass and rubbed his
hands softly one within the other. Then he spoke.
"It happens, singularly enough," he said, "that a particular friend of
mine--Mr. Madgin, a gentleman, I daresay, whose name you have never
heard--spoke to me only three weeks ago about one of his people for
whom he was desirous of obtaining another situation, he himself being
about to break up his establishment and go to reside on the Continent,
I will write Mr. Madgin to-night, and if the young man has not engaged
himself I will ask my friend to send him down here. He will have a
first-class testimonial, and I have no doubt he would suit M. Platzoff
admirably. I am obliged to you, landlord, for mentioning this matter
to me."
Mr. Deedes went off at once to his room, and wrote and despatched the
following letter:--
"My dear Boy,--I saw by an advertisement in last week's _Era_ that you
are still out of an engagement. I have an opening for you down here in
a drama of real life. It will be greatly to your advantage to accept
it, so do not hesitate for a moment. Come without delay. Book yourself
from Euston-square to Windermere. Take steamer from the latter place
to Newby-bridge. There, at the hotel, await my arrival. Bear in mind
that down here my name is _Mr. Jared Deedes_, and that yours is _James
Jasmin_, a footman, at present out of a situation. To a person of your
intelligence I need not say more.
"Your affectionate father,
"S. M."
"N.B.--This communication is secret and confidential. All expenses
paid. Do not on any account fail to come. I will be at the
Newby-bridge Hotel on Thursday morning at eleven."
This letter he addressed, "Mr. James Madgin, Royal Tabard Theatre,
Southwark, London." Having posted it with his own hands, he went for a
long solitary ramble among the hills. He wanted to think out and
elaborate the great scheme that had unfolded itself before his dazzled
eyes while the landlord was talking to him. He had seen the whole
compass of it at a glance; he wanted now to consider it in detail.
There was an elation in his eye and an elasticity in his tread that
made him seem ten years younger than on the previous day.
He had requested the landlord to tell Mr. Cleon what steps he was
about to take with the view of supplying M. Platzoff with a new
footman. In these proceedings the mulatto acquiesced ungraciously.
Truth to tell, he was bored by Mr. Deedes and his friendly
officiousness, and although secretly glad that the trouble of hunting
out a new servant had been taken off his hands, he was not a man
willingly to acknowledge his obligations to another.
Mr. Deedes set out immediately after breakfast on Thursday morning,
and having walked to the Ferry Hotel, he took the steamer from that
place to Newby-bridge. Mr. James Jasmin was at the landing-stage
awaiting his arrival. After shaking hands heartily, and inquiring as
to each other's health, the two wandered off arm in arm down one of
the quiet country roads. Then Mr. Deedes explained to Mr. Jasmin his
reasons for sending for him from London, and with what view he was
desirous of introducing him into Bon Repos. The younger man listened
attentively. When the elder one had done, he said:--
"Father, this is a very pretty scheme of yours, but it seems to me
that I am to be nothing more than a catspaw in the affair. You have
only given me half your confidence. You must give me the whole of it
before I can agree to act as you wish. I want to hear the whole
history of the case, and how you came to be mixed up in it. Further--I
want to know how much Lady Pollexfen intends to give you in case you
succeed in getting back the Diamond, and what my share of the
recompense is to be?"
"Dear! dear! what a headstrong boy you are!" moaned Mr. Deedes. "Why
can't you be content with what I tell you, and leave the rest to me?"
The younger man made no reply in words, but turned abruptly on his
heel and began to walk back.
"James! James!" cried the old man, catching his son by the coat tails,
"do not go off in that way. It shall be as you wish. I will tell you
everything. You headstrong boy! Do you want to break your poor
father's heart?"
"Break your fiddlestick!" said Mr. Jasmin, irreverently. "Let us sit
down on this green bank, and you shall tell me all about the Diamond
while I try the quality of these cigars. I am all attention."
Thus adjured, Mr. Deedes sighed deeply, wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief, looked meditatively into his hat for a few seconds, and
then began.
Beginning with the narrative of Sergeant Nicholas, Mr. Deedes went on
from that point to detail by what means he had discovered that M.
Platzoff was still alive and where he was now living. Then he told of
his coming down to Bon Repos and all that had happened to him since
that time. He had already told his son with what view he had sent for
him from London--that not being able to make any further headway in
the case himself, he was desirous of introducing his dear James, in
the guise of a servant, into Bon Repos, as an agent on whose integrity
and cleverness he could alike depend.
"But you have not yet told your dear James the amount of the
honorarium you will be entitled to receive in case you recover the
stolen Diamond."
"What do you say to five thousand pounds?" asked Mr. Deedes, in a
solemn whisper.
The younger man opened his eyes. "Hum! A very pretty little amount,"
he said, "but I have yet to learn what proportion of that sum will
percolate into the pockets of this child. In other words, what is to
be my share of the plunder?"
"Plunder, my dear boy, is a strange word to make use of. Pray be more
particular in your choice of terms. The mercenary view you take of the
case is very distressing to my feelings. A proper recompense for your
time and trouble it was my intention to make you; but as regards the
five thousand pounds, I hoped to be able to fund it _in toto_, to add
it to my little capital, and to leave it intact for those who will
come after me. And you know very well, James, that there will only be
you and Mirpah to divide whatever the old man may die possessed of."
"But, my dear dad, you are not going to die for these five-and-twenty
years. My present necessities are imperative: like the daughters of
the horse-leech, they are continually asking for more."
"James! James! how changed you are from the dear unselfish boy of ten
years ago!"
"And very proper too. But do let us be business-like, if you please.
The _rôle_ of the 'heavy father' doesn't suit you at all. Keep
sentiment out of the case, and then we shall do very well. Listen to
my ultimatum. The day I place the Great Mogul Diamond in your hands
you must give me a cheque for fifteen hundred pounds."
"Fifteen hundred pounds!" gasped the old man. "James! James! do you
wish to see me die in a workhouse?"
"Fifteen hundred pounds. Not one penny less," reiterated Madgin,
junior. "What do you mean by a workhouse? You will then have three
thousand five hundred pounds to the good, and will have got the job
done very cheaply. But there is another side to the question. Both you
and I have been counting our chickens before they are hatched. Suppose
I don't succeed in laying hold of the Diamond--what then? And, mind
you, I don't think I shall succeed. To begin with--I don't half
believe in the existence of your big Diamond. It looks to me very much
like a hoax from beginning to end. But granting the existence of the
stone, and that it was stolen by your Russian friend, are not the
chances a thousand to one either that he has disposed of it long ago,
or else that he has hidden it away in some place so safe that the
cleverest burglar in London would be puzzled to get at it. Suppose,
for instance, that it is deposited by him at his banker's: in that
case, what are your expectations worth? Not a brass farthing. No, my
dear dad, the risk of failure is too great, outweighing, as it does,
the chances of success a thousandfold, for me to have the remotest
hope of ever fingering the fifteen hundred pounds. I have, therefore,
to appraise my time and services as the hero of a losing cause. I say
the hero; for I certainly consider that I am about to play the leading
part in the forthcoming drama--that I am the bright particular 'star'
round which the lesser lights will all revolve. Such being the case, I
do not consider that I am rating my services too highly when I name
two hundred guineas as the lowest sum for which I am willing to play
the part of James Jasmin, footman, spy, and amateur detective."
Again Mr. Deedes gasped for breath. He opened his mouth, but words
refused to come. He shook his head with a fine tragic air, and wiped
his eyes.
"Take an hour or two to consider of it," said the son, indulgently.
"If you agree to my proposition, I shall want it put down in black and
white, and properly signed. If you do not agree to it, I start back
for town by this night's mail."
"James, James, you are one too many for me!" said the old man,
pathetically. "Let us go and dine."
The first thing Madgin junior did after they got back to the hotel was
to place before his father a sheet of note paper, an inkstand, and a
pen. "Write," he said; and the old man wrote to his dictation:--
"I, Solomon Madgin, on the part of Lady Pollexfen, of Dupley Walls, do
hereby promise and bind myself to pay over into the hands of my son,
James Madgin, the sum of fifteen hundred pounds (1500_l_.) on the day
that the aforesaid James Madgin places safely in my hands the stone
known as the Great Mogul Diamond.
"Should the aforesaid James Madgin, from causes beyond his own
control, find himself unable to obtain possession of the said Diamond,
I, Solomon Madgin, bind myself to reimburse him in the sum of two
hundred guineas (210_l_.) as payment in full for the time and labour
expended by him in his search for the Great Mogul Diamond."
(Signed) "Solomon Madgin.
"July 21st, 18--."
Mr. Madgin threw down the pen when he had signed his name, and
chuckled quietly to himself. "You don't think, dear boy, that a
foolish paper like that would be worth anything in a court of law?" he
said, interrogatively.
"As a legal document it would probably be laughed at," said Madgin
junior. "But in another point of view I have no doubt that it would
carry with it a certain moral weight. For instance, suppose the claim
embodied in this paper were disputed, and I were compelled to resort
to ulterior measures, the written promise given by you might not be
found legally binding, but, on the other hand, neither Lady Pollexfen
nor you would like to see that document copied _in extenso_ into all
the London papers, nor the whole of your remarkable scheme for the
recovery of the Great Mogul Diamond detailed by the plaintiff in open
court, to be talked over next morning through the length and breadth
of England. 'Extraordinary Case between a Lady of Rank and an Actor.'
How would that read, eh?"
"My dear James, let me shake hands with you," exclaimed the old man
with emotion. "You are a most extraordinary young man. I am proud of
you, my dear boy, I am indeed. What a pity that you adopted the stage
as your profession! You ought to have entered the law. In the law you
would have risen,--nothing could have kept you down."
"That is as it may be," returned James. "If I am satisfied with my
profession you have no cause to grumble. But here comes dinner."
Mr. James Madgin was first low comedian at one of the transpontine
theatres. The height of his ambition was to have the offer of an
engagement from one of the West-end managers. Only give him the
opportunity, and he felt sure that he could work his way with a
cultivated audience. When a lad of sixteen he had run away from home
with a company of strolling players, and from that time he had been a
devoted follower of Thespis. He had roughed it patiently in the
provinces for years, his only consolation during a long season of
poverty and neglect arising from the conviction that he was slowly but
surely improving himself in the difficult art he had chosen as his
mode of earning his daily bread. When the manager of the Royal Tabard,
then on a provincial tour, picked him out from all his brother actors,
and offered him a metropolitan engagement, James Madgin thought
himself on the high road to fame and fortune. Time had served to show
him the fallacy of his expectations. He had been four years at the
Royal Tabard, during the whole of which time he had been in receipt of
a tolerable salary for his position--that of first low comedian; but
fame and fortune seemed still as far from his grasp as ever. With
opportunity given him, he had hoped one day to electrify the town. But
that hope was now buried very deep down in his heart, and if ever
brought out, like an "old property," to be looked at and turned about,
its only greeting was a quiet sneer, after which it was relegated to
the limbo whence it had been disinterred. James Madgin had given up
the expectation of ever shining in the theatrical system as a "great
star;" he was trying to content himself with the thought of living and
dying a respectable mediocrity,--useful, ornamental even, in his
proper sphere, but certainly never destined to set the Thames on fire.
The manager of the Tabard had recently died, and at present James
Madgin was in want of an engagement.
As father and son sat together at table, you might, knowing their
relationship to each other, have readily detected a certain likeness
between them; but it was a likeness of expression rather than of
features, and would scarcely have been noticed by any casual observer.
Madgin junior was a fresh-complexioned, sprightly young fellow of six
or seven-and-twenty, with dark, frank-looking eyes, a prominent nose,
and thin mobile lips. He had dark-brown hair, closely cropped; and, as
became one of his profession, he was guiltless of either beard or
moustache. Like Mirpah, he inherited his eyes and nose from his
mother, but in no other feature could he be said to resemble his
beautiful sister.
Father and son were very merry over dinner, and did not spare the wine
afterwards. The old man could not sufficiently admire the shrewd
business-like aptitude shown by his son in their recent conference.
The latter's extraction of a written promise from his own father was
an action that the elder man could fully appreciate; it was a stroke
of business that touched him to the heart, and made him feel proud of
his "dear James."
"But how will you manage about waiting at table?" asked Solomon of his
son as they strolled out together to smoke their cigars on the little
bridge by the hotel. "I am afraid that you will betray your ignorance,
and break down when you come to be put to the test."
"Never fear; I shall pull through somehow," answered James. "I am not
so ignorant on such matters as you may suppose. Geary used to say that
I did the flunkey business better than any man he ever had at the
Tabard: I have always been celebrated for my footmen. Of course I am
quite aware that the real article is very different from its stage
counterfeit, but I have actually been at some pains to study the genus
in its different varieties, and to arrive at some knowledge of the
special duties it has to perform. One of our supers had been footman
in the family of a well-known marquis, and from him I picked up a good
deal of useful information. Then, whenever I have been out to a swell
dinner of any kind, I have always kept my eye on the fellows who
waited at table. So, what with one thing and what with another, I
don't think I shall make any very terrible blunders."
"I hope not, or else Mr. Cleon will give you your _congé_, and that
will spoil everything. Further, as regards the mulatto, I have a word
or two to say to you. It is quite evident to me that he is the
presiding genius at Bon Repos. If you wish to retain your situation
you must pay court to him far more than to M. Platzoff, with whom,
indeed, it is doubtful whether you will ever come into personal
contact. You must therefore, my dear boy, swallow your pride for the
time being, and take care to let the mulatto see that you regard him
as a patron to whose kindness you hold yourself deeply indebted."
"All that I can do, and more, to serve my own ends," answered the son.
"Your words are words of wisdom, and shall live in my memory."
Mr. Madgin stopped with his son till summoned by the whistle of the
last steamer. The two bade each other an affectionate farewell. When
next they met it would be as strangers.
Mr. Cleon and the landlord were enjoying the cool of the evening and
their cigars outside the house as Mr. Deedes walked up to the Jolly
Fishers. He stopped for a moment to speak to them.
"I had a note this morning from my friend Mr. Madgin of Dupley Walls,"
he said, "in which that gentleman informs me that the young man, James
Jasmin, will be with you in the course of the day after to-morrow at
the latest. He hopes that Jasmin will suit you, and he is evidently
much pleased that a position has been offered him in an establishment
in every way so unexceptionable as that of Bon Repos."
The mulatto's white teeth glistened in the twilight. Evidently he was
pleased. He muttered a few words in reply. Mr. Deedes bowed
courteously, wished him and the landlord a very good night, and
withdrew.
Late in the afternoon of the day but one following that of his visit
to Newby-bridge, as Mr. Deedes was busy with a London newspaper three
or four days old, the landlord ushered a young man into his room, who,
with a bow and a carrying of the forefinger to his forehead, announced
himself as James Jasmin from Dupley Walls.
"Don't you go, landlord," said Mr. Deedes; "I may want you." Then he
deliberately put on his gold-rimmed glasses, and proceeded to take a
leisurely survey of the new comer, who was dressed in a neat (but not
new) suit of black, and was standing in a respectful attitude, and
slowly brushing his hat with one sleeve of his coat.
"So you are James Jasmin from Dupley Walls, are you?" asked Mr.
Deedes, looking him slowly down from head to feet.
"Yes, sir,--I am the party, sir," answered James.
"Weil, Jasmin, and how did you leave my friend Mr. Madgin? and what is
the latest news from Dupley Walls?"
"Master and family all pretty well, sir, thank you. Master has got a
tenant for the old house, and the family will all start for the
continent next week."
"Well, Jasmin, I hope you will contrive to suit your new employer as
well as you appear to have suited my friend. Landlord, let him have
some dinner, and he had better perhaps wait here till Mr. Cleon comes
down this evening."
When Mr. Cleon arrived a couple of hours later Jasmin was duly
presented to him. The mulatto scrutinized him keenly and seemed
pleased with his appearance, which was decidedly superior to that of
the ordinary run of Jeameses. He finished by asking him for his
testimonials.
"I have none with me, sir," answered Jasmin, discreetly emphasizing the
_sir_. "I can only refer you to my late master, Mr. Madgin of Dupley
Walls, who will gladly speak as to my qualifications and integrity."
"That being the case I will take you for the present on the
recommendation of Mr. Deedes, and will write Mr. Madgin in the course
of a post or two. You can go up to Bon Repos at once, and I will
induct you into your new duties to-morrow."
Jasmin thanked Mr. Cleon respectfully and withdrew. Ten minutes later,
with his modest valise in his hand, he set out for his new home. He
and Mr. Deedes did not see each other again. Next day Mr. Deedes
announced that he was summoned home by important letters. He bade the
landlord and Cleon a friendly farewell, and left early on the
following morning in time to catch the first train from Windermere
going south.