THE TWO TEMPLES.
The success of Christabel, “the mysterious lady,” in some new business
at the Severntown races, together with the high appreciation which the
working classes exhibited of the tricks of “Momus” and his master,
induced the showman to make a considerable stay at Severntown.
Mr. Henry Bilks, “the only living skeleton extant,” had also made
overtures to Mr. Martin to join him in a permanent winter exhibition,
and, so strangely does one thing influence another, that the
advertisement of Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs played its part in the scheme.
The Temple of Magic had already been removed to the Blue Post’s
Yard, where “the riders” and other companies of public entertainers
usually took their stand; the public had already been addressed in
grandiloquent terms, in very grey ink, on very thin paper; and Mr.
Dibble had solemnly done duty “on the outside” for many nights, when
Mr. Bilks drove to the side-door, (“private entrance, ladies and
gentlemen, at the side, price three pence!”), and without further ado
went behind the magic curtain, and offered to join the wizard for the
winter season, if the wizard would take a shop in some public street,
advertise the exhibition, and conduct it upon something like high-class
principles.
The “living skeleton” had left with the showman copies of various
testimonials, and a copy of the _Slumkey Guardian_. It was in
this latter journal that Martin had spelled out the Loan Office
advertisement, whereupon he dictated to Dibble the terms of a letter
which should be sent to James Marfleeting, Esq.
It was a strangely quaint and ungrammatical letter this, penned by
Thomas Dibble. It set forth, in big straggling letters, that the
writer was the proprietor of an exhibition of considerable fame in the
provinces; that he was anxious to add thereto additional attractions,
and make it a permanent thing for the winter at the important city
of Severntown, where it had recently attained to a pitch of great
celebrity.
The writer required a loan of one hundred pounds for six months,
re-payable by instalments, and he was prepared to give his bond for the
amount, together with security upon his properties.
“Indeed,” said Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, who was just preparing to remove
his quarters from the street off the Strand. “Indeed! Thomas Dibble, by
all that is wonderful! I never forget handwriting, and I shall never
forget Master Dibble’s above everybody else’s. Surely he has not turned
showman? No; he is the exhibitor’s fag, his man-of-all-work, and he has
written this letter from dictation. I will reply by-and-by. Meanwhile,
I must see what there is to be made out of this with Mrs. Dibble. I
fancy the old girl would give something to know where her faithless
Tommy is.”
Thus soliloquised Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, whilst he packed up sundry
letters and papers, and prepared to change his residence.
Some of his correspondents were beginning to be tiresome; they had
commenced to require explanations of the continued delay; and the women
who had written to the Coffee House in the City, were appealing in
heart-breaking terms for the promised materials, or the return of their
money.
“It is getting hot,” the ex-swell went on. “I can’t stand these
pathetic epistles; they hurt my feelings. Poor creatures! They would
surely be satisfied if they knew that they were contributing to
maintain the faded splendours--ah! of a buck out of luck. That’s
rhyme--’gad, bless my soul! who would have thought that I should
burst out into rhyme? I am very sorry, ladies, that I cannot afford
to forward the materials in question, nor the trifling sums which
you have--haw--entrusted to my care. And, _messieurs, les pauvres
gentilhommes_, and you, ye wretched traders, who get into debt beyond
your means of payment, I will make further inquiries into your cases.
Meanwhile I am much obliged to you for the fees which you have
forwarded so promptly.”
The next day a detective officer inquired at No. 3, Great Charlton
Street, Strand, for James Marfleeting, Esq.; but that gentleman had
left the house without giving the landlady warning, or paying for the
last week’s rent.
Shortly afterwards, in the garb of a “Mossoo” of the Leech cut, and
with a heavy black moustache, Mr. Gibbs called at Mrs. Dibble’s. He
found that lady in a very melancholy state of mind, and considerably
thinner than when we last saw her.
With a strong French accent he asked Mrs. Dibble if her husband had run
away, and if his name was Thomas.
“Yeth, thir,” was Mrs. Dibble’s reply. “It ith with feelings of thorrow
and shame--though why I should have such feelings, ith not my fault or
deserth--it ith, however, with these feelings that I thay yeth to you,
and having had a boarding-school education ath a girl, and been brought
up in the highest spear of society, it ith a degradation which I feel
to the core.”
“Ah, madame, dat is bad, dat is very bad; for it is goot to have
education,--and why shall your husband leave you?”
Mr. Gibbs shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands as he spoke, and
Mrs. Dibble sighed and shook her little stumpy curls sympathetically.
“It ith a long story, which I am not inclined to go into
unnecessarily,” said Mrs. Dibble, “and there are griefs which are not
improved by being talked about. Ath a busineth woman, and one who wath
the daughter of a builder that erected hundreds of houses and public
inthitutions, the specifications of which I have written out many a
time,--ath a busineth woman, I would athk what your busineth ith with
me? and then we can go on.”
Mrs. Dibble sat down, smoothed her apron, and looked Monsieur full in
the face.
“If I shall pring you to vere your husband shall be, is he of--ah! vat
sall I say?--is he of dat value to you for vich you sall pay mine fees,
vich is out of mine pocket?”
Mrs. Dibble did not reply, but proceeded to fasten her dress behind,
which required a considerable effort.
“You vill be surprised at vat I ask, but dat vill disappear ven I tell
you I am attached to a Private Inquiry Office, vich is on de French
plan, and dat I am in de detective line _à la Française_, and I can
restore to your arm de husband of your heart.”
“You can?” exclaimed Mrs. Dibble. “Prove that to me, and I will pay
your fees.”
“Is dat his writing?” he asked, showing her part of the showman’s
letter.
“It ith!” Mrs. Dibble exclaimed. “I should know it in ten thousand.”
“Vell--fifteen pounds is my fees for his direction, vere you sall find
him,” said Gibbs.
Mrs. Dibble demurred to this for some time, and argued the point in a
dozen ways; but Mr. Gibbs was not to be moved. Finally Mrs. Dibble gave
him three five-pound notes, and in return received his address at “The
Temple of Magic, Blue Posts Inn yard, Severntown.”
It was rather a courageous thing on the part of Mr. Gibbs to visit Mrs.
Dibble; but he no doubt felt perfectly secure in his disguise.
He visited her at a time when he calculated that her lodgers would be
away at their several places of business; for Paul Somerton might have
been more penetrating than Mrs. Dibble.
Paul still lodged with Mrs. Dibble, and was rapidly making his way to a
respectable position through the kind introductions of his patron, Mr.
Williamson.
His unsophisticated manners, his honesty, his thoroughly English
characteristics, his manliness, and his intelligent face had quite won
Mr. Williamson’s heart, and he frequently invited Paul to sup with him
at his chambers in the Temple.
A quiet cozy little room, up several narrow flights of stairs--a snug
little room, though slightly fusty--with two sides occupied by law
books bound in calf. There were sundry maps and old engravings hung
here and there; a bust of a Chancery judge, a ditto of Shakspeare; a
coal-box, a couple of easy chairs, a table littered with papers, and a
mantel-piece covered with visiting and invitation cards.
When the sombre curtains were drawn, and that mysterious old woman,
who turned up from some dark corner outside the door, was permitted
to retire for the night, and Mr. Williamson produced the sugar and
lemons and whisky--when the kettle was singing on the fire--then indeed
was that little room snug, and cosy, and everything else that is
comfortable.
“It is pleasant to talk to a simple-hearted young fellow like you,”
said Mr. Williamson upon one of those evenings prior to the sudden
death of Mr. Tallant.
Paul smiled and sipped the whisky.
“And so you think, notwithstanding all your troubles, that it is a good
thing to have been born?”
“I do,” said Paul, modestly.
“You think an all-wise Providence conferred a great boon upon you when
He called you into existence, and all that sort of thing?”
“Of course,” said Paul.
“You would not, could you now select, be blotted out for ever, and have
all your chances or hopes of a future annihilated?”
“Oh, no!” said Paul.
“Happy youth,” said Mr. Williamson, smoking and blowing the smoke up
amongst his books bound in calf.
“Well, not particularly happy that I know of,” said Paul; “but still,
with all respect to you, I thank God I am happier than some people.”
“And you don’t think the Bible is Hebrew mythology? In fact, you are a
virtuous, good boy. You think it’s a good thing, too, to have been born
an Englishman, and that we are better and braver than other people, and
all that stuff?”
“All this I steadfastly believe,” said Paul, remembering a passage in
the Prayer-book.
“Very well; I shall not try to influence your orthodox views, and
I will endeavour to promote your temporal prosperity. You like the
_Pyrotechnic_ office, and you think you will get on?”
“Yes, thank you, I do,” said Paul.
“I suppose, like most fellows connected with newspapers in any way,
you would rather be on the literary staff? You would like to be giving
forth your own opinions, and see them printed in long columns of leaded
type?” said the barrister, who was evidently highly amused with Paul,
whom he seemed to regard as an agreeable study.
“I sometimes think I should be glad if I could write,” said Paul.
“There’s nothing in it, my boy--nothing at all. At first there is a
kind of satisfaction about the thing; but it all arises from conceit:
it is all vanity and vexation of spirit, as the Preacher says. It is
all very well if you can obtain one or two comfortable engagements,
with permission to write pretty well what you please; and when you can
combine literature, as I do, with another distinguished profession.”
Mr. Williamson smiled at this bit of quiet waggery of his own, seeing
that he had never yet had more than a single client.
“If one has not many clients, however,” he went on, as if answering his
own protest against that small boast about combining two professions,
“the law is a distinguished profession after all: makes one a gentleman
by Act of Parliament, you know, Paul.”
And then the barrister smiled again; he was evidently entertaining
himself as well as Paul.
“There is an offshoot of the legal profession, a sort of
Jackall-byeway, along which a large quantity of grist comes to
the legal mill--I mean the police. The higher branches of that
craft present many features of interest--the detective feature in
particular,” the barrister went on. “I have been studying it a little
lately, in the interest of your friend Gibbs; the police seem to have
given the fellow up altogether.”
As they were talking, two literary friends dropped in, and the
conversation was changed to a gossip about books, and plays, and
pictures--“Seeking New Homes” was a leading topic. One of the strangers
said the town was mad about it, and after all it was just simply a
sensational thing--a dramatic bit that would engrave well and be
popular in country districts. His companion did not agree with this
criticism, but spoke of the picture as a work of really high art--a
poem on canvas, wonderfully well painted.
And so the time wore on, and by degrees the barrister’s room was filled
with smoke, and Paul at length bade his friend and patron good-night,
shook hands with the visitors, and departed.
“You are a queer fellow, Williamson,” said one of the new comers as
Paul left the room and commenced blundering his way down-stairs.
“Oh, this is Williamson’s _protégé_, is it?” said the other.
“Yes, that is the young fellow,” said the barrister; “he is quite a
study of English innocence and honesty, and I am going to be useful to
him. His sister is a splendid creature; but, somehow or other, he tells
me now that it is discovered she is not his sister, but the daughter of
a very wealthy gentleman. There is something exceedingly interesting
in the whole family: his only brother went to sea at fifteen, and has
never since been heard of.”
“Williamson’s going to write a sensation romance,” said one friend to
the other, in a loud ironical aside; “and here are his materials.”
“I am certainly studying the young fellow,” said Williamson, quietly.
“A bit of genuine honesty of thought and feeling and expression,
though it be not coupled with the highest order of education, is very
refreshing to contemplate in these times, and especially when one is
connected with professional critics.”
Williamson smiled quietly at the gentleman who had spoken adversely of
“Seeking New Homes,” and the critic laughed good-humouredly in return,
tapped his hand upon the table, and said:--
“Ah, well! wait until your sensation novel appears, Williamson, and
I’ll take it out of you, my friend.”
And then they all laughed; for who that knew Williamson’s lazy habit
would ever expect him to write a story of eight or nine hundred pages?
And if he did, who amongst his personal friends, that were critics,
would have said an unkind word of him or his work?
He was a big-hearted, generous pet amongst all the men, this
same journalistic barrister, and known amongst them all as “The
Philanthropist.” It was a happy thing for Paul that the barrister was
on a mission of benevolence at the Police Court on that memorable
morning when he stood at the dock, and equally unlucky for Mr.
Shuffleton Gibbs.