THE man he had seen at the window was young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
heir.
He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a
memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams,
letters, and newspapers.
Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of human lion's mouth for
post-cards, but Raleigh junior had not got to manage the House of
Commons, the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South Africa, the Nile,
Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar, shipping, and Homer.
Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside him, from which the
letters, telegrams, newspapers, and scraps of paper had overflowed on to
the floor. In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen clerks to
answer that correspondence; this idle young aristocrat answered it
himself, entered it in his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced
the--the residue.
Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him--nothing in the least
like those gentlemen who consider that to go in to the "office" every
morning is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike young fellow.
A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on another chair beside him,
a glass of whiskey for a paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle,
lounging, "bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
writ very large indeed on his broad face. In short, a young "gent" of
the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere; not even in the cut of
his coat, no Brummel-like elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at
all--rough, large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the door of a shop
he would have done very well indeed for a shopkeeper, the sort that
drives about in a cart for orders.
Of his character nothing could be learned from his features. His face
was broad, rather flat, with a short but prominent nose; in spite of
indulgence, he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck was thick,
his figure stout, his hands big--a jovial, good-tempered looking man.
His neck was _very_ thick, tree-like; a drover's neck, no refinement or
special intelligence indicated there; great power to eat, drink, and
sleep--belly energy.
But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members of the upper ten
thousand are any thicker in the neck, or more abdominal in their
proclivities, or beneath the culture of the day. Take five hundred
"blue bloods," and you will find among them a certain proportion of
thick-necked people; take five hundred very common commoners, and you
may count exactly the same number interspersed.
The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable to be born big, with
broad faces, thick necks, and ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to
Raleigh, that jolly neck of his.
Unless you are given to æsthetic crockery, or Francesco de Rimini, I
think you would rather have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer, or his
credit--humph!--at a moment's notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.
He got rid of money in a most surprising way, and naturally had nothing
to show for it. The wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the mysteries of the skies.
It slips, it slides, it glides, it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the
pocket. The nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a sovereign
will leap forth in town.
Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented by soft aunts, yet he
frequently walked for lack of a cab fare. _I_ can't blame him; I should
be just as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now to walk down
Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a
widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,
all your own, and no need to worry when it was gone. To look in at all
the shops and pick up something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have a bit of real old
oak furniture; I'll go to Paris--" but Paris is not a patch on London.
To take a lady--_the_ lady--to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread the
silks of the earth before her feet, and see the awakening delight in her
eyes and the glow on her cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a
diamond brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended you years
since in time of financial need; to get a new gun, and inquire about the
price of a deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now and then with a
sip of Moet--but only one sip, for your liver's sake--just to brighten
up the imagination. And so onwards in a widening circle, as sun-lit
fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey, could Cæsar with all his
legions, could Lucullus with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such
pleasure as this--just to spend money freely, with a jolly chuckle, in
the streets of London? What is Mahomet's Paradise to _that_?
The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no
counting--anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream,
what is the use of living?
Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in
a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
not, in an age that preaches thrift and--twaddle? No joy like waste in
London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
butterfly!
Besides, there's no entertainment in the world like the streets of
London on a sunny day or a gas-lit night. The shops, the carriages, the
people, the odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and fro of
folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into shadowy corners, the
dresses, the women; dear me, where shall we get to? At all events, the
fact remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment in the
world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, séances, Albert
Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and
gaze at them again who could lounge in Piccadilly?
It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes
at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go to the opera; for me,
the streets.
So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and
could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
like water, and in order to get further supplies, the idle,
good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime minister with telegrams,
letters, newspapers, and so on, worked like a prime minister--at
betting. Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and the telegrams, kept
flat with a glass of whiskey as a paper-weight.
While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up his chances, a loud refrain
of snoring arose from the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of the
fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend Freddie, becoming oppressed
with so much labour, had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it went on the carpet.
With one long leg stretched out, the other knee up, lying on his back,
and his mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very happy.
Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed again. Freddie boomed
away on the sofa. The family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got down
here in this way: it happened one night there was a row at a superb bar,
Haymarket trail. The "chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
in the general melée Raleigh distinguished himself. Rolled about by the
crowd, he chanced to find himself for a moment in a favourable position,
and punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty severely.
Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was strong in the arm, he was
"up," and he hit hard. The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur twice in a lifetime;
Raleigh's genius seized the opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
a trifle to it.
There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and there are mighty men who do
not figure in the papers.
Raleigh became at once an anaxandron--a King of Men. The history of his
feat spread in ten minutes from one end of midnight London to the other:
from the policeman in Waterloo Place to--everywhere. Never was such a
stir; the fall of Sebastopol--dear me! I can remember it, look at the
flight of time--was nothing to it. They would have chaired him, _fêted_
him, got a band to play him about the place, literally crowned him with
laurel. Ave, Cæsar! Evoe! Bacchus! But they could not find him.
Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in at the death, and was well
"blooded." Hansom to Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad gauge, and they had
vanished.
Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a moment; having got the
glory, the next thing was to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he
slipped out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the excitement
of the campaign had subsided.
In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight battle, I may as
well label the account at once: "This is a goak."
I do _not_ approve of brawls at the bar, but I have set myself the task
to describe a bit of human life exactly as it really is, and I can
assure you as a honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became a
very great man indeed among people as they really are. People as they
really are, are not all Greek scholars.
As I don't wish you to look down upon poor Raleigh too much because he
smoked a cutty, and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent his
money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and was altogether wicked, I
may as well tell you something in his favour: He was a hero to his
valet.
"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb, not even Napoleon,
Disraeli, or Solomon.
But Raleigh _was_ a hero to his valet.
He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he had perfectly fascinated
him. The instant he was off duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself.
He put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in fact, he dressed
himself Raleigh all over. His private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so
was his necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the same shop; so
were his boots. He kept a sovereign loose in his waistcoat pocket,
because that was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He smoked a
cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies--just like Raleigh, "the very
ticket"--he had his betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine photographs of fine
women. He swore in Raleigh's very words, and used to spit like him;
Raleigh, if ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of twisting
up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs. In town Nobbs went to the very
same bars (always, of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the tiniest detail. Why,
Raleigh very rarely wound up his watch--careless Raleigh; accordingly,
Nobbs' watch was seldom going. "And you just look here," said Nobbs to a
great and confidential friend, after they had done endless whiskies, and
smoked handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I was _he_, and
had lots of chink, and soft old parties to get money out of as easy as
filling yer pipe, by Jove! wouldn't _I_ cut a swell! I'd do it, _I_
would. I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I rather guess I
would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I put a thou on the Middle Park Plate?
Ah! wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I have heaps of wimmen;
some in the trap, and some indoors, and some to go to the theatre
with--respectable gals, I mean--crowds of 'em would come if Raleigh was
to hold up his finger. Guess I'd fill this old shop (the Pamment
mansion) choke full of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like to
fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the nose, like _he_ did! Oh,
my! Oh, Tommy!" And Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
"he."
Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a Demi-god to his valet! Not
only Nobbs, but the footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of Raleigh looked upon him
as the Ideal Man. So did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at
the races, and all over town and country, all of that sort who knew
anything of Raleigh sighed to be like "he."
The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to his valet" seemed to
suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only. Nothing
of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and
blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.
If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt whatever he would have
"done it" very big indeed. But he would have left out of his copy that
part of Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and the cutty,
and the rest of it, made him still a perfect gentleman at heart. Nobbs
didn't want to be a perfect gentleman.
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