Steadying my thoughts with an effort, I read every word of the document
over again deliberately, and the stupefaction of my wonder increased.
Was I going mad, or sickening for a fever? Or could this startling, this
stupendous piece of information be really true? Because,--if indeed it
were true, ... good heavens!--I turned giddy to think of it,--and it was
only by sheer force of will that I kept myself from swooning with the
agitation of such sudden surprise and ecstasy. If it were true--why then
the world was mine!--I was king instead of beggar;--I was everything I
chose to be! The letter,--the amazing letter, bore the printed name of a
noted firm of London solicitors, and stated in measured and precise
terms that a distant relative of my father's, of whom I had scarcely
heard, except remotely now and then during my boyhood, had died suddenly
in South America, leaving me his sole heir.
"_The real and personal estate now amounting to something over Five
Millions of Pounds Sterling, we should esteem it a favour if you could
make it convenient to call upon us any day this week in order that we
may go through the necessary formalities together. The larger bulk of
the cash is lodged in the Bank of England, and a considerable amount is
placed in French government securities. We should prefer going into
further details with you personally rather than by letter. Trusting you
will call on us without delay, we are, Sir, yours obediently...._"
Five Millions! I, the starving literary hack,--the friendless, hopeless,
almost reckless haunter of low newspaper dens,--I, the possessor of
"over Five Millions of Pounds Sterling"! I tried to grasp the astounding
fact,--for fact it evidently was,--but could not. It seemed to me a wild
delusion, born of the dizzy vagueness which lack of food engendered in
my brain. I stared round the room;--the mean miserable furniture,--the
fireless grate,--the dirty lamp,--the low truckle bedstead,--the
evidences of penury and want on every side;--and then,--then the
overwhelming contrast between the poverty that environed me and the news
I had just received, struck me as the wildest, most ridiculous
incongruity I had ever heard of or imagined,--and I gave vent to a shout
of laughter.
"Was there ever such a caprice of mad Fortune!" I cried aloud--"Who
would have imagined it! Good God! I! I, of all men in the world to be
suddenly chosen out for this luck! By Heaven!--If it is all true, I'll
make society spin round like a top on my hand before I am many months
older!"
And I laughed loudly again; laughed just as I had previously sworn,
simply by way of relief to my feelings. Some one laughed in answer,--a
laugh that seemed to echo mine. I checked myself abruptly, somewhat
startled, and listened. Rain poured outside, and the wind shrieked like
a petulant shrew,--the violinist next door was practising a brilliant
roulade up and down his instrument,--but there were no other sounds than
these. Yet I could have sworn I heard a man's deep-chested laughter
close behind me where I stood.
"It must have been my fancy;" I murmured, turning the flame of the lamp
up higher in order to obtain more light in the room--"I am nervous I
suppose,--no wonder! Poor Boffles!--good old chap!" I continued,
remembering my friend's draft for fifty pounds, which had seemed such a
godsend a few minutes since--"What a surprise is in store for you! You
shall have your loan back as promptly as you sent it, with an extra
fifty added by way of interest for your generosity. And as for the new
Mæcenas you are sending to help me over my difficulties,--well, he may
be a very excellent old gentleman, but he will find himself quite out of
his element this time. I want neither assistance nor advice nor
patronage,--I can buy them all! Titles, honours, possessions,--they are
all purchaseable,--love, friendship, position,--they are all for sale in
this admirably commercial age and go to the highest bidder! By my
soul!--The wealthy 'philanthropist' will find it difficult to match me
in power! He will scarcely have more than five millions to waste, I
warrant! And now for supper,--I shall have to live on credit till I get
some ready cash,--and there is no reason why I should not leave this
wretched hole at once, and go to one of the best hotels and swagger it!"
I was about to leave the room on the swift impulse of excitement and
joy, when a fresh and violent gust of wind roared down the chimney,
bringing with it a shower of soot which fell in a black heap on my
rejected manuscript where it lay forgotten on the floor, as I had
despairingly thrown it. I hastily picked it up and shook it free from
the noisome dirt, wondering as I did so, what would be its fate
now?--now, when I could afford to publish it myself, and not only
publish it but advertise it, and not only advertise it, but 'push' it,
in all the crafty and cautious ways known to the inner circles of
'booming'! I smiled as I thought of the vengeance I would take on all
those who had scorned and slighted me and my labour,--how they should
cower before me!--how they should fawn at my feet like whipt curs, and
whine their fulsome adulation! Every stiff and stubborn neck should bend
before me;--this I resolved upon; for though money does not always
conquer everything, it only fails when it is money apart from brains.
Brains and money together can move the world,--brains can very
frequently do this alone without money, of which serious and proved fact
those who have no brains should beware!
Full of ambitious thought, I now and then caught wild sounds from the
violin that was being played next door,--notes like sobbing cries of
pain, and anon rippling runs like a careless woman's laughter,--and all
at once I remembered I had not yet opened the third letter addressed to
me,--the one coroneted in scarlet and gold, which had remained where it
was on the table almost unnoticed till now. I took it up and turned it
over with an odd sense of reluctance in my fingers, which were slow at
the work of tearing the thick envelope asunder. Drawing out an equally
thick small sheet of notepaper also coroneted, I read the following
lines written in an admirably legible, small and picturesque hand.
Dear Sir.
I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to you from your former
college companion Mr John Carrington, now of Melbourne, who has been
good enough to thus give me the means of making the acquaintance of
one, who, I understand, is more than exceptionally endowed with the
gift of literary genius. I shall call upon you this evening between
eight and nine o'clock, trusting to find you at home and disengaged.
I enclose my card, and present address, and beg to remain,
Very faithfully yours
Lucio Rimânez.
The card mentioned dropped on the table as I finished reading the note.
It bore a small, exquisitely engraved coronet and the words