I
“So you have agreed to accept seven-and-six-pence in the pound from
Hatchard?” Oxley said in his slow, quiet manner, as he smoked with his
two friends after luncheon at the Club. “I could not attend the meeting,
but I hear that the affairs showed badly.”
“Yes, we took the sum he offered, and of course it would have done
no good to put him in the Bankruptcy Court, as far as the dividend is
concerned: very likely we should only have netted half-a-crown; but I
had a good mind to refuse a composition.” And in his excitement Beazley
established himself for oratorical purposes on the hearthrug,--he had
recently taken to municipal politics.
“You mean that Hatchard has acted foolishly, and ought not to have got
into such a hole. I suppose you are right: Tommy was always a sanguine
chap.”
“Sanguine has nothing to do with it, Oxley, and I fancy you know that
there's more than want of judgment at Hatchard's door. Of course the
longest-headed men in the corn trade may make a mistake and be caught
by a falling market, but that is no reason why a fellow should take in
every friend he could lay hands on. What do you say, Macfarlane?”
That most phlegmatic and silent of Scots never said anything unless
speech was absolutely necessary; and as the proposition that a man ought
not to cheat his friends was one no person could deny, Macfarlane gave
no sign.
“I'm afraid that it is a rather bad case,” Oxley admitted with
reluctance, “but I'm sorry for Tommy: when a man is at his wits' end
he's apt to... forget himself, in fact, and do things he would be the
first to condemn at other times. A man loses his moral presence of
mind.”
Macfarlane indicated, after consideration, his agreement.
“That sounds very fine, Oxley,” burst in Beaz-ley, “but it's very
dangerous doctrine and would cover some curious transactions. Hatchard
knew quite well that when he was hopelessly bankrupt he ought not to
have borrowed a thousand from Macfarlane and you and five hundred from
me: our business losses were enough.”
“Had none,” murmured Macfarlane to himself.
“I was so angry,” continued Beazley, “that I got hold of him afterwards
in Fenwick Street and gave him as sound a talking to as ever a man got
in this city: he'll not forget it in a hurry. You see he is a friend,
and that makes me sore.”
“Can you give us an idea what you said?” inquired Oxley drily, while
Macfarlane showed that he was listening.
“Well, I said various things; but the gist was that his friends were
ashamed of him--not about the cash, you know, but about the conduct, and
that he was little better than a swindler: yes, I did.”
Macfarlane smoked furiously.
“No, Oxley, he made no reply. Not one word of defence: he simply turned
round and walked away. I suppose you think that I ought not to have been
so hard on him?”
“Well, no doubt you did what seemed right, and Hatchard has not been
quite straight; but I now understand what I saw two hours ago, and what
gave me a shock. You favoured him with your mind about eleven, I should
guess? Yes: then at twelve he came out of a restaurant in Dale Street as
if he had been drinking. That is the first time Hatchard ever did that
kind of thing, I believe, but it will not be the last: his face was
quite changed--half woe-begone and half desperate.”
“If Thomas takes to tasting”--Macfarlane was much moved--“it's all over
with him: he's such a soft-hearted chap.”
“Nonsense, you're making too much of it; but I was a trifle sharp,
perhaps: he's been very provoking, and any other man would have said the
same except you two fellows, and the one of you is so charitable that he
would find an excuse for a pickpocket, and the other is so cannie that
he can't make up his mind to say anything.”
After which there was a pause.
“Yes,” began Oxley again, falling into ancient history, “he has gone off
form a bit--the best may do so at a time--but Tommy wasn't half a bad
fellow once: he got a study at Soundbergh before me, and he was very
decent with it, letting me do 'prep.' in it before exams.; and I never
counted him sidey, did you, B.?”
“I should think not; I'll say that for him at any rate, there wasn't
one scrap of humbug in Tommy: why, he was a prefect when I was in the
fourth, and he didn't mind although a chap 'ragged' and chaffed him; he
was the jolliest 'pre.' in the whole school. It was perhaps rather hard
lines to slang him to-day,--I half wish I hadn't.”
“If Tommy got a grub-box from home every chap in Buttery's house
knew,”--Oxley was bent on reminiscences,--“it was shared round in three
days, and his raspberry jam was not to be despised. I hear him yet: 'All
right, Ox., dig in, there's lots left' Now there's By les, who makes
speeches about hospitals: he was mean if you please.”
“Mean ain't the word for Byles,” and in his enthusiasm Freddie Beazley
dropped into school slang, which no public-schoolboy ever forgets,
and which lasts from generation to generation, like the speech of the
Gypsies: “Byles was a beastly gut, and a sneak too; why, for all his
cheek now he isn't fit to black Tommy's shoes. Tommy wasn't what you
would call 'pie,' but he was as straight as a die. I'd give ten pounds
not to have called him that word to-day.” Freddie was breaking down.
“Poor old Tommy!” went on Oxley: “one never expected him to come such a
cropper; he was a good all-round man--cricket, football, sports, Tommy
did well for his house; he was a double-colour man.”
“Do ye mind the ten miles, lads?” and Macfarlane chuckled.
“Rather,” and Freddie could not sit still: “he did it in one hour twelve
minutes and was it fifteen seconds?”
“Thirteen and three-fifths seconds.” Macfarlane spoke with decision.
“And he could have walked back to Buttery's, as if he had never run a
yard; but didn't the fellows carry him?”
“I had a leg myself.” Macfarlane was growing loquacious.
“Yes, and he didn't swagger or brag about it,”--Oxley took up the
running,--“not he, but was just as civil as if he had won some footling
little race at the low-country schools, where they haven't a hill within
twenty miles, instead of running round Baughfell in the Soundbergh
ten-mile.”
“What did old Tommy do it for?” and Freddie Beazley almost wept at the
thought that the crack of Soundbergh had played foul: “it couldn't be
money; he was never selfish--as open-handed a chap as ever I saw.”
“Wife and kids” answered Macfarlane, smoking thoughtfully.
“The Scot has it,” said Oxley. “Tommy doesn't care one straw for
himself, but he wanted, I take it, to keep that dear little wife of his
comfortable and get a good education for his boys, and so he got deeper
and deeper, trying to retrieve himself for their sakes. Mind you, I
don't defend him, but that was his excuse; and now Tommy has gone
under.”
“Not if I can help it, boys,” and Beazley's face flushed. “And I say,
here are three of us: why shouldn't we join and--and--tighten the rope
and haul Tommy on his feet again?” Macfarlane took the briar root out of
his mouth and regarded Freddie with admiration.
“We were all in the same house, and Tommy likes us, and we could do...
that sort of thing when he wouldn't take it from others; and I say,
it would be a jolly decent thing to do.”
“You're all right, Freddie,”--Oxley was evidently pleased,--“and we're
with you” (“shoulder to shoulder,” said Macfarlane, lighting his pipe
with ostentatious care). “Now the first step is to let Tommy know that
we have not turned our backs on him: my idea is that if he knows we
three are going to stand by him he'll not throw up the sponge.”
“Look here,” cried Beazley, “I'll go round this minute, and I'll beg his
pardon for what I said, and I'll tell him that we haven't forgotten the
old days among the hills, and that we know he's a white man, and... in
fact he'll take the cup yet.”
“That will help mightily; and now let us make up our plans,” said Oxley.
And that was how three men joined in a conspiracy for the business and
social and personal salvation of Thomas Hatchard.