MR. ROBERT VYNER entered upon his new duties with enthusiasm. The second
day he was at the office half an hour before anybody else; on the third
day the staff competed among themselves for the honour of arriving
first, and greeted him as respectfully as their feelings would permit
when he strolled in at a quarter to eleven. The arrival of the senior
partner on the day following at a phenomenally early hour, for the sake
of setting an example to the junior, filled them with despair. Their
spirits did not revive until Mr. John had given up the task as
inconvenient and useless.
A slight fillip was given to Robert’s waning enthusiasm by the arrival
of new furniture for his room. A large mahogany writing-table, full of
drawers and pigeon-holes, gave him a pleasant sense of importance, and
the revolving chair which went with it afforded a welcome relief to a
young and ardent nature. Twice the office-boy had caught the junior
partner, with his legs tucked up to avoid collisions, whirling wildly
around, and had waited respectfully at the door for the conclusion of
the performance.
“It goes a bit stiff, Bassett,” said the junior partner.
“Yessir,” said Bassett.
“I’m trying to ease it a bit,” explained Mr. Robert.
“Yessir,” said Bassett again.
Mr. Robert regarded him closely. An undersized boy in spectacles, with a
large head and an air of gravity and old age on his young features,
which the junior thought somewhat ill-placed for such an occasion.
“I suppose you never twizzle round on your chair, Bassett?” he said,
slowly.
Bassett shivered at the idea. “No, sir,” he said, solemnly; “I’ve got my
work to do.”
Mr. Robert sought for other explanations. “And, of course, you have a
stool,” he remarked; “you couldn’t swing round on that.”
“Not even if I wanted to, sir,” said the unbending Bassett.
Mr. Robert nodded, and taking some papers from his table held them
before his face and surveyed the youth over the top. Bassett stood
patiently to attention.
“That’s all right,” said the other; “thank you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Bassett, turning to the door.
“By the way,” said Mr. Robert, eying him curiously as he turned the
handle, “what exercise _do_ you take?”
“Exercise, sir?” said Bassett.
Mr. Robert nodded. “What do you do of an evening for amusement after the
arduous toils of the day are past? Marbles?”
“No, sir,” said the outraged one. “If I have any time to spare I amuse
myself with a little shorthand.”
“Amuse!” exclaimed the other. He threw himself back in his chair and,
sternly checking its inclination to twirl again, sought for a flaw in
the armour of this paragon. “And what else do you do in the way of
recreation?”
“I’ve got a vivarium, sir.”
Mr. Robert hesitated, but curiosity got the better of his dignity.
“What’s that?” he inquired.
“A thing I keep frogs and toads in, sir,” was the reply.
Mr. Robert, staring hard at him, did his honest best to check the next
question, but it came despite himself. “Are you—are you married,
Bassett?” he inquired.
Bassett regarded him calmly. “No, sir,” he said, with perfect gravity.
“I live at home with my mother.”
The junior partner gave him a nod of dismissal, and for some time sat
gazing round the somewhat severely furnished office, wondering with some
uneasiness what effect such surroundings might have on a noble but
impressionable temperament. He brought round a few sketches the next day
to brighten the walls, and replaced the gum-bottle and other useful
ornaments by some German beer-mugs.
Even with these aids to industry he found the confinement of office
somewhat irksome, and, taking a broad view of his duties, gradually
relieved Bassett of his errands to the docks. It was necessary, he told
himself, to get a thorough grasp of the whole business of ship-owning.
In the stokeholds of Vyner and Son’s’ steamships he talked learnedly on
coal with the firemen, and, quite unaided, hit on several schemes for
the saving of coal—all admirable except for the fact that several knots
per hour would be lost.
“The thing is to take an all-round view,” he said to Captain Trimblett,
of the SS. _Indian Chief_, as he strolled back with that elderly
mariner from the ship to the office one day.
“That’s it, sir,” said the captain.
“Don’t waste, and, at the same time, don’t pinch,” continued Mr. Robert,
oracularly.
“That’s business in a nutshell,” commented the captain. “Don’t spoil
the ship for a ha’porth of tar, and, on the other hand, don’t get
leaving the tar about for other people to sit on.”
“But you got it off,” said Robert, flushing. “You told me you had.”
“As far as tar ever can be got off,” asserted the captain, gloomily.
“Yes. Why I put my best trousers on this morning,” he continued, in a
tone of vague wonder, “I’m sure I don’t know. It was meant to be, I
suppose; it’s all for some wise purpose that we don’t know of.”
“Wise fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Robert, shortly—“Your particular brand
of fatalism is the most extraordinary nonsense I ever heard of. What it
means is that thousands of years ago, or millions, perhaps, was decided
that I should be born on purpose to tar your blessed trousers.”
“That and other things,” said the immovable captain. “It’s all laid down
for us, everything we do, and we can’t help doing it. When I put on
those trousers this morning—”
“Oh, hang your trousers,” said Robert. “You said it didn’t matter, and
you’ve been talking about nothing else ever since.”
“I won’t say another word about it,” said the captain. “I remember the
last pair I had done; a pair o’ white ducks. My steward it was; one o’
those silly, fat-headed, staring-eyed, garping—”
“Go on,” said the other, grimly.
“Nice, bright young fellows,” concluded the captain, hastily; “he got on
very well, I believe.”
“After he left you, I suppose?” said Mr. Vyner, smoothly.
“Yes,” said the innocent captain. He caught a glance of the other’s face
and ruminated. “After I had broken him of his silly habits,” he added.
He walked along smiling, and, raising his cap with a flourish, beamed in
a fatherly manner on a girl who was just passing. Robert replaced his
hat and glanced over his left shoulder.
“Who is that?” he inquired. “I saw her the other day; her face seems
familiar to me.”
“Joan Hartley,” replied the captain. “Nathaniel Hartley’s daughter. To
my mind, the best and prettiest girl in Salthaven.”
“Eh?” said the other, staring. “Hartley’s daughter? Why, I should have
thought—”
“Yes, sir?” said Captain Trimblett, after a pause.
“Nothing,” concluded Robert, lamely. “She doesn’t look like it; that’s
all.”
“She’s got his nose,” maintained the captain, with the obstinate air of
a man prepared to go to the stake for his opinions. “Like as two peas
their noses are; you’d know them for father and daughter anywhere by
that alone.”
Mr. Vyner assented absently. He was wondering where the daughter of the
chief clerk got her high looks from.
“Very clever girl,” continued the captain. “She got a scholarship and
went to college, and then, when her poor mother died, Hartley was so
lonely that she gave it all up and came home to keep house for him.”
“Quite a blue-stocking,” suggested Robert.
“There’s nothing of the blue-stocking about her,” said the captain,
warmly. “In fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if she became engaged soon.”
Mr. Vyner became interested. “Oh!” he said, with an instinctive glance
over his left shoulder.
Captain Trimblett nodded sagely. “Young fellow of the name of Saunders,”
he said slowly.
“Oh!” said the other again.
“You might have seen him at Wilson’s, the ship-broker’s,” pursued the
captain. “Bert Saunders his name is. Rather a dressy youngster, perhaps.
Generally wears a pink shirt and a very high stand-up collar—one o’
those collars that you have to get used to.”
Mr. Vyner nodded.
“He’s not good enough for her,” said the captain, shaking his head. “But
then, nobody is. Looked at that way it’s all right.”
“You seem to take a great interest in it,” said Robert.
“He came to me with his troubles,” said Captain Trimblett, bunching up
his gray beard in his hand reflectively. “Leastways, he made a remark or
two which I took up. Acting under my advice he is taking up gardening.”
Mr. Vyner glanced at him in mystification.
“Hartley is a great gardener,” explained the other with a satisfied
smile. “What is the result? He can go there when he likes, so to speak.
No awkwardness or anything of that sort. He can turn up there bold as
brass to borrow a trowel, and take three or four hours doing it.”
“You’re a danger to society,” said Robert, shaking his head.
“People ought to marry while they’re young,” said the captain. “If they
don’t, like as not they’re crazy to marry in their old age. There’s my
landlord here at Tranquil Vale, fifty-two next birthday, and over his
ears in love. He has got it about as bad as a man can have it.”
“And the lady?” inquired Robert.
“She’s all right,” said the captain. He lowered his voice
confidentially. “It’s Peter’s sister, that’s the trouble. He’s afraid to
let her know. All we can do is to drop a little hint here and a little
hint there, so as to prepare her for the news when it’s broken to her.”
“Is she married?” inquired Robert, pausing as they reached the office.
“No,” said Captain Trimblett; “widow.”
Mr. Vyner gave a low whistle. “When do you sail, cap’n?” he inquired, in
a voice oily with solicitude.
“Soon as my engine-room repairs are finished, I suppose,” said the
other, staring.
“And you—you are giving her hints about courtship and marriage?”
inquired Mr. Vyner, in tones of carefully-modulated surprise.
“She’s a sensible woman,” said the captain, reddening, “and she’s no
more likely to marry again than I am.”
“Just what I was thinking,” said Mr. Vyner.
He shook his head, and, apparently deep in thought, turned and walked
slowly up the stairs. He was pleased to notice as he reached the first
landing that the captain was still standing where he had left him,
staring up the stairs.