THE MORAL MERCHANT ENTERTAINS HIS FRIENDS AT DINNER.
On the same evening, and at about the same hour, of the occurrence of
the foregoing matrimonial dialogue, Mr. Zachariah Blemish entertained
his friends at dinner. Mr. Zachariah Blemish was a merchant and a
philanthropist; he was also a gentleman of an imposing mien, and of a
portly appearance. Some of his detractors (and what man lives who has
them not?) said that the manly bosom which throbbed to the beats of
his patriotic heart was filled with as earthly desires as other
earthly flesh. If this assertion, which was generally made spitefully
and vindictively, was the worst that could be said against him,
Zachariah Blemish could look the world in the face without blushing.
True or untrue, he did look, unmoved, in the world's face, and if
either felt abashed in the presence of the other, it was the world,
and not Blemish. There was a self-assertion in his manner when he
appeared in public, which, if it could have been set down in so many
words, would have thus expressed itself:--"Here am I, sent among you
for your good; make much of me. You are frail, I am strong; you are
mean, I am noble. But do not be abashed. Do not be afraid of your own
unworthiness. I do not wish to hold myself above you. I will eat with
you, and talk with you, and sleep with you, as if I were one of
yourselves. It is not my fault that I am superior to you. Perhaps, if
you look up to me, you may one day reach my level. It would be much to
accomplish, but you have my best wishes. I am here to do you good, and
I hope I may." As he walked along the streets, people fell aside and
made way for him, deferentially. They looked after him, and pointed
him out to strangers as the great Mr. Blemish; and it was told of one
family that, when the children were put to bed at night, they were
taught to say, "God bless papa and mamma, and Good Mr. Blemish." His
snowy shirt-front, viewed from a distance, was a sight to look upon,
and, upon a nearer acquaintance, dazzled one with its pure whiteness.
At church he was the most devout of men, and the congregation wondered
how so much greatness and so much meekness could be found in the
breast of any one human being. There was not a crease in his face; it
was fat, and smooth, and ruddy; it looked like the blessed face of a
large cherubim; and it said as plainly as face could say, "Here dwell
content, and peace, and prosperity, and benevolence." He was Chairman
of the United Band of Temperance Aboriginals; President of the Moral
Boot-blacking Boys' Reformatory; Perpetual Grand Master of the Society
for the Total Suppression of Vice; the highest dignitary in the
Association of Universal Philanthropists; and a leading member of the
Fellowship of Murray Cods. He subscribed to all the charities; with a
condescending humility he allowed his name to appear regularly upon
all committees for religious and benevolent purposes, and would
himself go round with lists to collect subscriptions. In this
direction his power was enormous. Such a thing as a refusal was not
thought of. People wrote their names upon his list, in the firm belief
that twenty shillings invested in benevolence with Zachariah Blemish
returned a much larger rate of interest than if invested with any
other collector. Once, and once only, was he known to be unsuccessful.
He asked a mechanic for a subscription to the funds of the United Band
of Temperance Aboriginals, and the man refused him, in somewhat rough
terms, saying that the United Band of Temperance Aboriginals was a
Band of Humbugs. Blemish gazed mildly at the man, and turned away
without a word. The following day he displayed an anonymous letter, in
which the writer, signing himself "Repentant," enclosed one pound
three shillings and sixpence as the contribution of a working man
(being his last week's savings) towards the funds of the United Band
of Temperance Aboriginals, and a fervent wish was expressed in the
letter that the Band would meet with the success it deserved. There
was no doubt that it was the mechanic who sent it, and that it was the
magnetic goodness of the Moral Merchant that had softened his heart.
At the next meeting of the United Band of Temperance Aboriginals
(which was attended by a greasy Australian native clothed in a dirty
blanket, and smelling strongly of rum) a resolution was passed,
authorizing the purchase of a gilt frame for the mechanic's letter, to
perpetuate the goodness of Blemish, and the moral power of his eye.
On the present evening he was seated at the head of his table, round
which were ranged some dozen guests of undoubted respectability. He
was supported on his right by a member of the Upper House of
Parliament; he was supported on his left by a member of the Lower
House of ditto. One of the leading members of the Government was
talking oracularly to one of the leading merchants of the city. One of
the leading lawyers was laying down the law to one of the leading
physicians. And only three chairs off was Mr. David Dibbs, eating his
dinner like a common mortal. Like a common mortal? Like the commonest
of common mortals! He might have been a bricklayer for any difference
observable between them. For he gobbled his food did Mr. David Dibbs,
and he slobbered his soup did Mr. David Dibbs, and his chops were
greasy, and his hands were not nice-looking, and, altogether, he did
not present an agreeable appearance. But was he not the possessor of
half-a-dozen cattle and sheep-stations, each with scores of miles of
water frontage, and was not his income thirty thousand pounds a year?
Oh, golden calf! nestle in my bosom, and throw your glittering veil
over my ignorance, and meanness, and stupidity give me thirty thousand
pounds a year, that people may fall down and worship me!
The other guests were not a whit less respectable. Each of them, in
his own particular person, represented wealth or position. Could it
for a single moment be imagined that the guests of Mr. Zachariah
Blemish were selected for the purpose of throwing a halo of
respectability round the person of their host, and that they were one
and all administering to and serving his interest? If so, the guests
were unconscious of it; but it might not have been less a fact that he
made them all return, in one shape or another, good interest for the
hospitality he so freely lavished upon them. This evening he was
giving a dinner party to his male friends; and later in the night Mrs.
Zachariah Blemish would receive _her_ guests and entertain them.
The gentlemen are over their wine, and are conversing freely.
Politics, scandal, the state of the colony, and many other subjects,
are discussed with animation. Just now, politics is the theme. The
member of the Lower House and the member of the Upper House are the
principal speakers here. But, occasionally, others say a word or two,
which utterings are regarded by the two members as unwarrantable
interruptions. The member of the Government says very little on
politics, and generally maintains a cautious reticence.
"I should like to have been in the House last night," said one of the
conversational interlopers; "that was a smart thing Ritchie said."
"What was it?" asked another.
"Speaking of Beazley, who is awfully rich you know, and an
incorrigible miser, he said, 'He congratulated himself upon not
belonging to a party which had, for its principal supporter, a man
whose office was his church, whose desk was his pulpit, whose ledger
was his Bible, and whose money was his god.'"
"Very clever, but very savage," remarked one of the guests. "I do not
believe in such unbridled licence of debate."
"I met Beazley the other day, and he complained that the times were
dreadfully dull. He did not know what things were coming to. He had
seventy thousand pounds lying idle, he said, and he could not get more
than five per cent. for it. He shook his head and said, 'The golden
days of the colony are gone!'"
"And so they are," said the member of the Lower House, whose
proclivities were republican, "and they will not return until we
have Separation and Confederation. That's what we want to set us
going--separation from the home country, and a confederation of the
South Sea colonies. We don't want our most important matters settled
for us in the red-tape office over the water. We don't want our
Governors appointed for us; we want to select them ourselves from the
men who have grown up with us, and whose careers render them worthy
and prove them fit for the distinction. If we were in any serious
trouble we should have to extricate ourselves as best we could, and if
we _did_ have help from the home country, shouldn't we have to pay the
piper? That's the point--shouldn't we have to pay the piper?"
"Nay, nay," expostulated Mr. Zachariah Blemish. "Consider for a
moment, I beg--we are all loyal subjects, I hope--"
"I maintain," said the member of the Lower House, excited by his
theme, "that, notwithstanding our loyalty to the reigning Sovereign,
the day must come when we shall not be dependent upon the caprices of
a colonial office fourteen thousand miles distant, which very often
does not understand the nature of the difficulty it has to legislate
upon. I maintain that the day must come--"
"Gentlemen," called Mr. Zachariah Blemish, horrified at the utterance
of such sentiments over his dinner table, "gentlemen, I give you The
Queen! God bless her!"
"The Queen! God bless her!" responded all the guests, rising to their
feet, and drinking the toast enthusiastically. And then the
conversation took another turn. Presently, all ears were turned to the
leading physician, who was relating a circumstance to the leading
lawyer.
"It is a curious story," he said. "The man I speak of was always
reported to be very wealthy. No one knows more of his early career
than that, when the gold-diggings were first discovered, he was a
Cheap-Jack, as they call them, trading at all the new gold-fields. He
bought tents, picks, shovels, tubs, anything, from the diggers, who
were madly running from one place to another. He bought them for a
song, for the diggers could not carry those things about with them,
and they were glad to get rid of them at any price. When he sold them
he made enormous profits, and by these means he was supposed to have
amassed a great fortune. Then he speculated largely in sheep and
cattle, and grew to be looked upon as a sort of banker. Many men
deposited their savings with him, and, as he did not pay any interest
for the money, and traded with it, there is no doubt as to the
profitable nature of his operations. The great peculiarity about him
was that his face from beneath his eyes, was completely hidden in
bushy, brown, curly hair, He had been heard to say that he had never
shaved. Well, one night, at past eleven o'clock, he knocked up a
storekeeper at the diggings, and bought a razor and strop, a pair of
scissors, a pair of moleskin trousers, a pair of watertight boots, and
a blue serge shirt. In the course of conversation with the
storekeeper, and while he was selecting the articles, he said that
they were for a man whom he had engaged as a shepherd, and who was to
start at daybreak the following morning. That was the last
indisputable occurrence that was known in connection with him; the
next day he disappeared and was not heard of again. For a day or two,
no notice was taken of his absence; but, after that, depositors and
others grew uneasy, and rumour invented a hundred different stories
about him. A detective who knew him intimately, said that he was
standing at the pit entrance of the Theatre Royal in Bourke Street,
when a man passed in, the glitter of whose eyes attracted the
detective's attention strangely. He could not recall the man's face,
which was clean shaven, and he thought no more about it at the time.
The missing man was traced to Melbourne, but no further. Some three or
four weeks after his disappearance, the body of a drowned person was
found in a river in New South Wales, and, from certain marks about it,
it was supposed to be that of our missing friend. The inquest was
adjourned, to allow time for the production of evidence from Victoria,
and twelve medical men, all of whom knew the missing party were
subp[oe]naed for the purpose of identifying him, or otherwise. The
body was much decomposed, but some of the witnesses said that they
would know if it was the missing man by the peculiar shape of one of
his toes. The singularity of the affair lies in this. Six of the
witnesses swore that it was the missing man, and six of them swore
that it was not. Both sides were very positive. Some months after the
inquest, a story was current that he had been seen at Texas, which
story was shortly afterwards followed up by another, that he was shot
in a tavern in South America. Then came other reports that he was
living in great magnificence in all sorts of out-of-the-way places.
But whether he is alive or not, no one in the colony knows, and to
this day the mystery is not cleared up, and probably never will be."
"And the depositors' money?" asked the lawyer.
"Was never heard of. Vanished. If he was drowned, he did not like to
part with it, and he took it into the other world with him."
Everybody at the table was much interested in the story, and commented
upon it; after which there was a lull in the conversation.
"I have a great surprise in store for you to-night," said Mr. Blemish;
addressing a gentleman of about sixty years of age, whose face was
covered with iron-grey whiskers, beard, and moustache.
From some unexplained cause, the gentleman addressed looked suddenly
and excitedly into the face of his host, and exclaimed, in a quick,
nervous voice--
"A surprise!"
"Yes, and I hope a pleasant one."
"What surprise?" he asked, in the same agitated manner.
"Nay." returned Mr. Blemish, gently, "it will not be a surprise if I
tell you beforehand."
The flush that had risen to that portion of the gentleman's face which
the iron-grey whiskers, beard, and moustache allowed to be seen,
slowly died away, and was replaced by a whitish-grey tint, which
almost made him look like the ghost of an antique warrior. He
debated within himself for a few moments, and then, taking out his
pocket-book, wrote upon a leaf, "I shall take it as a particular
favour if you will let me know what is the surprise you have in store
for me; I have urgent reasons for asking;" and passed it, folded, to
his host. Mr. Blemish read it, smiled, and wrote beneath, in reply,
"Do you remember your brother?" and repassed the paper to his guest.
"Brother!" exclaimed that gentleman, in a voice betokening that,
although he was considerably astonished, he was also considerably
relieved.
"Yes," said Mr. Blemish, "your brother Nicholas."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Matthew Nuttall; and the rest of the
guests stared hard at him. Excepting Mr. David Dibbs, who was not
disposed to be diverted from the serious occupation of eating and
drinking. For Mr. David Dibbs lived to eat; he did not eat to live.
It _is_ a shock to a man to be wrenched, without forewarning, from the
groove in which his life has been gliding for twenty years. For fully
that time Mr. Matthew Nuttall, engrossed in his own pursuits and his
own cares, had never once thought of his brother; and now, at the very
mention of his name, memories, long buried and forgotten, floated upon
his mind like the sudden rising of a ghostly tide.
"Have you seen him?" he asked.
"No," said Mr. Zachariah Blemish, "I learned by accident that he has
but lately arrived in the colony. Singularly enough, he had a letter
of introduction to me from some of my people at home, and Mrs.
Blemish, out of respect to you, invited him this evening to meet you."
"Mrs. Blemish is always kind. I shall be very glad to see Nicholas,"
said Mr. Matthew Nuttall, slowly and thoughtfully; and then the
conversation became more general.
"Sheep are rising in the market, are they not, Mr. Dibbs?" asked the
member of the Upper House.
"It's time they was," replied the great squatter, his mouth full of
pine-apple.
"The people are complaining loudly of the price of beef," observed the
democratic member of the Lower House.
"They're always a-growlin'," said Mr. David Dibbs, who, having
swallowed his pine-apple, was enabled to speak with greater clearness.
"They don't know what they want, don't the people. Beef ought to be
double the price. My motto all'as has been, 'Live and let live.' They
lay the blame on us squatters, but it's the butchers as sticks it on."
"It lies between the two of you, I suppose. Did you read in the papers
that Mr. Froth said at the Eastern Market last night that the
squatters were the ruin of the country?" asked the member of the Lower
House, who, in virtue of his position, did all he could to make
himself disagreeable.
"Mr. Froth wants his head punched," said Mr. Dibbs, elegantly, "and I
wouldn't mind a-doin' of it for him. Why doesn't he stick to his
business? He's a ignorant, lazy--a--a--" Here Mr. Dibbs wanted a word,
and could not get it.
"Demagogue," suggested one of the guests.
"That's it. He's a ignorant, lazy demagogue, and is always trying to
stir up the mob."
"The fact of it is, sir," said the member of the Upper House, seizing
the opportunity to give a blow to democracy, "the people, as you call
them, are a discontented set. Manhood suffrage has done it all. No man
ought to have a vote who has not a property qualification."
"Quite right, sir," said Mr. Dibbs. "A glass of wine?"
"With pleasure. For, sir, what is the result?" (This oracularly, as if
he were addressing the House.) "These men, sir, who have no property,
but have a vote, exercise a pressure upon property detrimental to the
interests of gentlemen who have property. What has property to do with
them, or what have they to do with property? When they have property,
let them speak; until then, let them be silent, and not interfere with
what does not concern them."
"Them's my sentiments," nodded Mr. Dibbs, approvingly, helping himself
to more wine and pine-apple.
"To what, sir, is this state of things to be attributed?" continued
the orator. "The answer is plain. It is to be attributed to the
unfortunate state of independence in which the working-man finds
himself in these colonies. The working-classes all over the world,
sir, are democratic, often dangerously democratic. But in such a
country as England they are kept in their proper position by a
sense of dependence. They cannot afford to quarrel with their
bread-and-butter there. But, sir, when the working-man lands upon
these shores, this spirit of dependence vanishes. Speaking vulgarly,
sir, he says within himself, 'Jack's as good as his master;' and
acting up to the spirit of that old adage (the author of it sir, ought
to have been put into the pillory)--acting, I say again, sir, up to
the spirit of that adage, he aims a blow at the interests of all of us
who have property in the colony. He does not pay property the respect:
to which it is entitled. He becomes democratic to a dangerous degree,
and has no regard for conservative interests. This must be put a stop
to, sir. It is incumbent upon us, who are loyal subjects, to put a
stop to it--as loyal subjects, I say, sir, for we all know what is the
meaning of democracy. It behoves all of us who have settled interests
in the colony to look sharply about us. We must, if necessary, band
together for the protection of our own interests; and, above all, sir,
we must stick to the Constitution."
"Quite right again, sir," assented Mr. Dibbs, whose only idea of the
Constitution was thirty thousand pounds a year for himself.
All the guests, with the exception of the member of the Lower House,
agreed to the proposition that they must stick to the Constitution.
The way that poor word was tossed about, and flung across the table
and back again, was deplorable. It was settled that the Constitution
was in danger, and, at all hazards, must be protected. No one could
define precisely the nature of the danger. It appeared, as far as
could be gathered, to resolve itself into this--that times were very
dull, and that, therefore, the Constitution was imperilled. They all,
with one exception, appeared to think that something was very wrong
somewhere, and that the country was in a most distressing condition.
Mr. Zachariah Blemish was the only person at the table who ventured to
remark that "We are young, gentlemen, we are young, and have plenty of
time before us for improvement. In all new colonies evils are sure to
creep in. We have a fine estate in our hands, gentlemen; one of the
finest estates in the world; and all it wants is proper management.
Certainly the state of commercial morality is very bad--"
Ah, here was a theme! Commercial morality! The guests grew eloquent
upon it. The member of the Upper House said it was deplorable; the
member of the Lower House said it was disgraceful; the leading
physician said it was frightful; the leading lawyer said it was
unparalleled; Mr. Dibbs said it was beastly; and they raised their
hands and their eyes, and shook their heads as much as to say, "Is it
not dreadful that we, who are immaculate, who are undefiled, should
live in the midst of such a state of things, without being able to
remedy the evil?" But the most impressive of all was Mr. Zachariah
Blemish; and, as a merchant of the highest standing, his words were
listened to with deep attention.
Commercial morality (he said) was at its lowest ebb. The spirit of
over-speculation among traders was something frightful to contemplate,
and disastrous results were sure to follow. Indeed, indications of the
approaching crisis were already observable in the records of the
Insolvency Court. It was all occasioned by the easiness with which men
got credit--men who commenced with nothing, who had nothing, with the
exception of self-assurance, and who speculated recklessly, with the
knowledge that when the crash came--and come it must, sooner or later,
with such-like speculators--their creditors would only be too glad to
take five shillings in the pound; would feel delighted at seven
shillings and sixpence; would congratulate themselves at ten
shillings; and then, after giving a full release, would actually do
business again, upon terms, with the very man who had robbed them.
Where was honesty? Where was morality? What would become of vested
interests if that sort of thing were to continue? Steps must be
taken--it behoved all of them to take steps. A check must be put to
the spirit of reckless speculation, and he himself had some idea of
initiating a movement in furtherance of the desired result. All that
was required was that merchants should be true to themselves and to
their own interests, and the country would soon recover from its
present depressed condition.
And after the utterance of these platitudes, Mr. Zachariah Blemish
stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and looked round upon his
guests, who, one and all, bowed down to the spirit of honour and
integrity shining in the face of their merchant host!