Chapter II: Part 2

The small crowd broke up. Children were sent off to school, and instructed in audible voices to keep a wary look-out for Fuzzy. The constable came from his headquarters at a neighbouring village, and was told of the increase in the reward; he went on to communicate the information, far and near. Mrs. Marchant took the cork from a bottle of red ink and made a correction in the handwritten bill headed “Lost, Stolen or Strayed” that rested on a box of caramels in her window. At half-past nine the London girl in a brown costume with a conveniently short skirt and carrying a walking-stick, left The Windmill and strode off in a northerly direction, the landlord wishing her, with great heartiness, good luck in her search; she sang out that she would return for tea. Ten minutes’ grace, and a meeting was held near to the porch of the tavern, with Mrs. Marchant in a standing position, but obviously in the chair. She glanced around at the four men present.

“Some one go for Mr. Banks,” she ordered.

Sprules took charge of the task, and returned with the message that the young draper and grocer was making up his books; Banks had suggested the deliberation should go on as though he were present.

“I don’t want to complain of nobody,” commented Mrs. Marchant, “but Mr. Banks don’t seem to take the interest in public affairs like what he ought to do. Howsomever,” dismissing this point, “what we’ve got to consider now is whether we’ve come to what they call in the newspapers the crucial moment, or whether we ought to go on a bit further.”

“Young party seems fairly bent on getting away this evening,” remarked the owner of The Windmill. “In fact, I may tell you all she’s settled up her bill.”

“My idea is,” said Sprules, “that we’ve arrived at the limit. Enough is as good as a feast.”

“Is the dog all right?” asked Mrs. Marchant.

“Safe and sound,” replied the blacksmith, “where it’s been since it first slipped the collar. And I hope you won’t none of you forget that I’ve had to bear the axpense of feeding it.”

“That amounts to a mere trifle,” commented Mrs. Marchant curtly. “From what I know of you, Mr. Sprules, I’ll be bound you ent overdone it.”

“What might you mean by that, ma’am?”

“I mean what I say.”

“A civil question,” persisted Sprules, “requires a civil answer.”

“You’ve come to the wrong shop for that,” retorted the lady, with increasing heat. “When I speak, I speak plain, I do. If you must know what I was driving at it was that, ’cording to all reports, you’re the only one in your ’ouse who enjoys a hearty meal. What you can’t eat, you give to your wife and the children.”

The proprietor of The Windmill, an experienced man in the settlement of disputes by arbitration, and one frequently called upon to decide knotty points (such as the exact height of the late Lord Randolph Churchill, or the winner of the Oaks in ’94) found some trouble in bringing the discussion back to the item on the agenda. Before he succeeded in effecting this, Sprules had managed to tell Mrs. Marchant what he thought of her, and Mrs. Marchant told Sprules what she thought of him. Even when the original topic was again approached, the two eyed each other from opposite sides of the pavement; their lips continued to move without producing words.

“No occasion to quarrel,” said the innkeeper soothingly. “The amount ent large enough to justify that. When it’s all divided out equally—”

The tumult recommenced, and Mr. Banks, leaving his books, came to his doorway, a pen over each ear; he seemed tempted to give up business for pleasure, but, with an effort, returned to his shop. This time Mrs. Marchant and Sprules found themselves, by the sport of circumstances, in agreement; the rest, with the exception of the proprietor of The Windmill, nodded approval of their contention. The Windmill, they argued, had made a good profit out of the young lady; The Windmill must take this fact into consideration in formulating its claim. Fair was fair, all the world over. Similarly, right was right, no matter where you lived. The proprietor of The Windmill, almost in tears, declared that his habit was to charge customers the merest trifle over cost price; an error in addition had, he told them, been detected by the young lady in settling the account. Perceiving that the general sense of the meeting was against him, he mentioned that he had no desire to become unpopular, and he therefore left himself in their hands.

“By the by,” remarked some one, “didn’t the young party buy a couple of old brass candlesticks from Mr. Banks’s mother?”

The fact had escaped memory, but only this hint was necessary to recall it. It was not known how much had been paid for the articles, but the village felt justified in assuming they were not given away, and the question was how much ought to be deducted. Foreheads took additional wrinkles at the prospect of mental arithmetic, and Sprules had found, in his pocket, a short stump of wood which was once a pencil, when Mrs. Marchant, lowering her voice, made a proposition which instantly met with a chorus of approval. Young Banks had taken little or no share in the whole business; he was evidently entitled to no share in the profits. Young Banks, a strict Wesleyan, had, in the hearing of one, characterised the affair as shady, and he could scarcely object to being left out. It was agreed that nothing should be said to young Banks for the present, and the meeting broke up with smiles, expressions of mutual regard, warning fingers that urged secrecy. A small sub-committee went to inspect the captive dog at the back of Sprules’s forge.

Mr. Banks was noticed to be giving instructions at two o’clock that afternoon to his assistant: a few minutes later shutters went up and Banks, straw-hatted, and carrying a light cane, went off, at a good pace, as one determined to enjoy a long walk. The assistant, answering inquiries, said the procedure was in the nature of an experiment, and could be taken as part and parcel of the Early Closing scheme. At four o’clock Sprules brought out Fuzzy, and tied the defiant-looking Irish terrier to the anvil; in the forge, Sprules rehearsed to a smoked portrait of Mr. Gladstone, tacked on the wall, an account of the capture of Fuzzy, to be given to the young woman upon her return. Sprules was in the third repetition of this (for improvements occurred to him) when his name was called. He unfastened the dog and took it out, shading eyes with the disengaged hand from the afternoon sun.

“I’m oncommon glad to inform you, miss, that our efforts have at last— Oh, it’s you, Mr. Banks!”

“Yes,” said the young draper and grocer, “it’s me. I happened to meet the lady up near Watbury, and she asked me to come back here, to save her the walk, and to see about sending on her portmanteau. She’s found her dog.”

“She’s done what?”

“You know them nut trees as you go down the hill, on the left-hand side? Just beyond the bridge I mean. Extraordinary pleased about it, she is, naturally. And Fuzzy, of course, half off his head at seeing her again.”

“Mr. Banks,” said the blacksmith, distressedly, “let’s get this all clear. Do I onderstand from you that the dog I’ve got here, at the end of this piece of string, isn’t the animal the reeward was offered for?”

“The lady only lost one.”

Sprules rubbed the top of his head. Mr. Banks patted the dog, and tried to induce it to stand on its hind legs.

“Then what’s to be done with this yer animal? I’ve got no use for him. ’Sides which, he tried all he knew just now to bite me.”

“I’ve got an aunt living down the line,” said young Banks, regarding the dog critically, “and I owe her a birthday present. I had intended to give about five shilling for something.”

“The dog’s yourn!” said the blacksmith promptly.

Mr. Banks carried the portmanteau off in good time for the 6.37, and the dog, with a label bearing the address of his relative, went with him. At the station, he made an alteration in the wording of the label, and took the ticket for it that is furnished when a dog accompanies a passenger. There were no other customers for the train, and he and the one porter had an animated discussion concerning the new minister whose name was on the plan to take up duties shortly. The train came in; the porter went to the brake van to see to arriving luggage.

“You dear old Fuzzy!” cried the girl delightedly, as the dog with a single bound jumped into her compartment. “Mr. Banks, how can I thank you, and how much do I owe you?” She took charge of the portmanteau, and opened her purse.

“You don’t owe me nothing,” replied young Banks, reddening. The engine whistled. “But if you want to pay me, and you think your friend Captain Stamford wouldn’t object, you might—you might jest blow me a kiss as the train goes out!”

V—LOOSE CASH

A PRINCE OF WALES was born, and Mr. Rollinson re-christened a row of houses which he had acquired. The original builder had gone incautiously on a certain evening in the early part of ’41 to inspect his property—an act nobody else thought of performing—and stumbled into one of the numerous holes that lined the approach. His widow found herself unable to carry on the building operations, and Mr. Rollinson, who, owing to popular prejudice, had just given up a career on the turf and some profitable transactions near the prize ring, offered her two hundred pounds ready cash for the lot.

“Could you make it two fifty, Mr. Rollin-son?”

“I’ll make it three hundred, because I like your manner.”

“Oh, you dear good generous soul!” she cried.

He paid in rather greasy-looking banknotes, and, later on, married her, and thus secured a return of the amount.

The Albert Edward estate was announced as specially suitable for newly married people, and these came, in pairs, attracted by the title and by the health statistics of the neighbourhood; a few carping critics pointed out that the agreeable figures were due to the sparsity of the population, but no one troubled to follow the argument. Meanwhile Mr. Rollinson ordered that building should go on with haste to meet the demands of would-be tenants, who, by an ingenious scheme of payments, became in a term of years responsible owners of the property, and he only relinquished the task when children began to arrive and the dwellings, in consequence, showed signs of wear and tear. He then went to Finsbury Park, and laid out the Princess Alice estate; later he proceeded to Hammersmith, and planned and carried out the Duke of Edinburgh estate. These houses might be exhibited at the present day, a tribute to Rollinson’s loyalty and industry, but for the interference of borough officials. By the time these steps were taken, Mr. Rollinson had disengaged himself from interest in the various properties, but one can understand the pain given by the action of the authorities to a man whose official letter paper bore the heading, “Not for an Age, but for all Time.”

Ernest Napoleon, the son, was born in ’43, and the event is registered at the church in Hart Street, Bloomsbury; his father, despite activities concerning new dwellings, preferred to reside in an older quarter of town. Mr. Rollinson found time to take a part in public life, and I have ascertained that he was one of 170,000 special constables sworn in at the time of the threatened Chartist riots; unfortunately, on the day of the meeting at Kennington Common, he was suffering from a slight headache, and he advised his neighbour, Dr. Fennell, to order him to stay in bed. Friendship between himself and his medical man increased as Mr. Rollinson spoke of his fortunate investments.

“Want you to do me a great favour, George,” asked Dr. Fennell, meeting him one day near the Museum. “My idea is that I ought very soon to be able to retire, and cultivate a garden in the country. But progress in my profession is slow.”

“You’re as safe as ’ouses,” remarked Mr. Rollinson,—“safe as some ’ouses, I mean—providing you’re not fool enough to go in for speculation.”

“Speculation,” declared the doctor warmly, “is the last vice I should indulge in. All I want you to do, the next time you see a good thing in prospect, is just to let me come in with you. I’ve five thousand pounds put by, and—call me ambitious, or what you will—I should like to make it ten. Promise me you’ll do your best.”

“Can’t guarantee success, mind you!”

“My dear George,” protested the other, “give me credit for a fair amount of common sense.”

The Great Exhibition was a year or two distant, but preparations were already being made, and Mr. Rollinson heard of several investments in regard to it that promised well; a scheme for obtaining all the printing work sounded so excellent that he brought it to the notice of his friend; the drawback was that only five thousand pounds appeared to be required. On Fennell’s earnest appeal he agreed to stand aside, and allow the doctor to take full advantage of the opportunity.

“But don’t you go forgetting that I warned you there was a risk.”

“Nothing venture, George,” said Fennell contentedly, “nothing have!”

When the auction took place in Bloomsbury Square, Mr. Rollinson acting, so it was rumoured, from motives of generosity towards an old and valued friend overtaken by misfortune, made arrangements with dealers, and purchased nearly all of Dr. Fennell’s furniture. He also bought the remainder of the lease. The goodwill he obtained at a fair price, and sold at another, and the ground floor was let to a new man who was told to keep the practice going for sixteen or eighteen years.

“What’s the idea of arranging that, Mr. R.?” asked his wife respectfully.

“Don’t you ask questions,” he retorted. “I’m looking well ahead!”

“If it’s something in store for our boy, I’m quite satisfied.”

“It is something for my boy, but I don’t care a hang whether you are satisfied or not.”

“Do you think we ought to get a governess in for him, Mr. R.?”

“I shall take charge of his education, and I don’t want no one interferin’. I’m a going to have him brought up proper, so as he’ll turn out to be a credit to me, later on. And, although it’s got nothing to do with you, I don’t mind mentioning that trouble will be no object. No object, whatsoever. I’ve got along pretty well without much beyond readin’ and writin’ and figurin’, and it stands to reason he’ll have a better chance than what I did, if he’s fitted out more complete. But don’t you go putting your spoke in, or else me and you’ll have words. Quite enough for you that he’s going to be brought up to be a doctor and a gentleman. Especially a gentleman!”

Although the printing scheme had ended in disaster, owing to the action of a mysterious gentleman in the City, there were others of a more solid nature in connection with the Hyde Park show, and it was said at this time that it was only necessary for Mr. Rollinson to be mixed up in any transaction to ensure success, so far as he was concerned. Some might endure stabs at the hand of Fortune, but Rollinson always came through safely. Oftentimes his name did not appear, and knowing folk therefore multiplied his gains by twenty to make sure they were well within the mark.

We are now at ’51.

It was during this year that the boy Ernest first gained special attention, and caused his father’s pride to increase. Mrs. Rollinson, with the improvement in income, and aided by a dressmaker of Theobald’s Road, cultivated a definite note in apparel, and her favourite costume was one of a tartan pattern, full in the flounces and so tightly stayed at the waist that the poor lady’s complexion was sometimes scarlet, sometimes purple. At the start, she had, for motives of economy, herself made the child’s clothes, but the boy reported to his father that these, by reason of their amplitude—

“You must allow for growing,” urged his mother.

—These caused him to become the object of ridicule, and his father at once put a stop to home manufactures. Ernest, thereafter, during Exhibition year, wore suits of velvet with frilled knickerbockers, and a stiffly carded cap with a blue tassel dependent, and his appearance extorted nothing but admiration as he walked, hand-in-hand with his father, along the transept of Mr. Joseph Paxton’s great building of glass. The boy had been furnished with several facts and arguments in connection with the place, and these he recited in a clear, distinct voice.

“Looking around, dear papa, at this striking scene, it seems impossible to think that war will again occur in our time.”

And,

“I believe this immense building covers twenty acres of ground, and is no less than two thousand feet long. Please correct me, papa, if I am in error.”

Quite distinguished-looking ladies and gentlemen took notice of the boy’s intelligence, and some gave him fourpenny pieces, patting him on the cap, and telling him he was a fine little fellow; a well-known politician prophesied of him, on one occasion, that he would grow up to be an Englishman in the best sense of the word. You can imagine Mr. Rollinson’s delight at these compliments, and the satisfaction in finding his own views confirmed from responsible quarters. It was his method, in regard to domestic affairs, to ascertain Mrs. Rollinson’s wishes and then to give instructions that the exact opposite should be adopted, but, returning home after one of these gratifying afternoons in Hyde Park, he took the unusual course of inviting her to his study, where, in smoking-cap and dressing-gown (a change from the restraint of out-door clothes) he bade her take the easy-chair, whilst he himself stood near the empty fireplace and leaned an elbow on the mantelpiece, in an attitude imposed by more than one artist upon the Prince Consort.

“You will no doubt say, Mrs. Rollinson,” he remarked, “that making money as I do now, and not doing much work for it, we ought to go on a steppin’ up the ladder. Allow me to remind you that sometimes I don’t retain all the cash I receive. Sounds peculiar, but it’s a fact. I find the money that takes the most trouble to get is the money that stays with me longest. Putting that all aside, your view, womanlike, is that we’ve only got one life to live in this world, whatever ’appens to us in the next, and that we’re entitled to make the most of it. You’ll tell me that we both of us had a hard time in the early days, and we’re justified in claiming our reward. And mind you, there’s something in your argument.”

Mrs. Rollinson, much astonished at this commendation of her presumed opinions, could find no words either to protest or to agree. She smoothed her crimped hair and bowed.

“But perhaps,” he went on in the same amazing tones of deference, “perhaps you won’t mind if I point out that we’re living now in a very fair state of comfort. We have roast meat every other day; if you feel inclined to go now and again to see Mr. Wigan at the St. James’s, why, you’ve only got to say so. And this brings me to the point of what I’m talking about. Why shouldn’t we go on as we’re going now, not wasting money specially, not ’oarding it to any special degree, but going a reg’lar buster in regard to the boy? Giving him chances that his father never had, seeing that he has every opportunity of growing up so that he can take his place amongst the ’ighest of the land? Now then, Mrs. R.! If you’ve got anything further to remark on the subject, here’s the time to say it, or ever after hold your peace.”

“Sometimes,” she ventured to remark, “you’ve pitched into me and told me I was spoiling him.”

“There’s a right way of doing it,” he retorted, “and a wrong way of doing it.”

“And you’ve said, more than once, that to make a man of him he ought to go through the mill, same as what you did.”

“There again, there’s two ways open.”

“If you can find the right way, Mr. R., I’m perfectly agreeable.”

“You’re a wise woman,” he declared, “although very often you manage to conceal the fact. And I promise you faithfully that if you leave it all to me, you won’t have no reason to be sorry!”

Ernest grew up tall, slim, good-looking, and with fair, curly hair; it was therefore reckoned impossible to make him a doctor. Apart from this, he showed no special intelligence, and at the new military college at Sandhurst the masters said caustically it was a pity the lad had not been born in America, for then the Civil War there would have been of very short duration. Discouraged by these comments, Ernest, of his own accord, left the College, thus depriving the British army of his services, and, coming back to town, took rooms in Jermyn Street, and mentioned to his father and mother that he proposed to look about him, a task which it is well known cannot be done in a hurry. Money was supplied from Bloomsbury Square, and it appeared to have some peculiar quality, for it all slipped through Ernest’s fingers with the greatest possible ease. Having, in spite of his defects, an amiable disposition, he soon found acquaintances, mainly amongst other men who were also looking about, and when they discovered he had money at his command, and that his cheques were always—after sometimes a brief delay—honoured, their admiration of his qualities knew no bounds.

“You’ve got a simple manner,” they said, “but, by gad, underneath that there’s any amount of cunning and cleverness.”

“Really think so?” inquired Ernest, pleased.

“Enough for ten ordinary people,” they declared. “Got a fi’pun note about you?”

Also, they gave him sound advice in regard to keeping well in with the governor: a dinner was arranged at a club to which one of them belonged, and, at the expense of Ernest, Mr. Rollinson was entertained, and made much of; Wilner (who had been twice through the Bankruptcy Court, using up several pails of whitewash and coming out not quite clean)—Wilner made a speech, proposing old Rollinson’s health, declaring that their guest was one of the bulwarks of the nation, and that his well-equipped son would, later on, when he had finished looking about, become one of the foremost men in the State. Privately, Wilner told Mr. Rollinson that all our best politicians had sown their wild oats in early days, and gave an amusing and little-known anecdote concerning a member of the Cabinet.

“What he wants,” said old Rollinson, glancing at his son, “is concentration, if you know what it means, sir.”

“That will grow on him,” remarked the other lightly. “All he has to do just now is to make plenty of friends. And it isn’t for a mere amateur like myself to give advice to an experienced man of the world like George Rollinson—”

Oddly enough, the term had never before been applied to him. Old Rollinson fixed his cigar at a more rakish angle.

“But if I were you, I should see that, for a year or two at any rate, he was not stinted of money.” Wilner gazed reflectively at his glass of claret. “I’ve seen so many youngsters, fine, promising, delightful lads, go to the deuce just for want of a few paltry hundreds. And you needn’t begrudge it, you know. By all accounts you make it easily enough.”

The rest of the dinner-party, once they had, as Wilner neatly phrased it, put off the old man, went to the Argyll Rooms, and later to Bob Croft’s in the Haymarket (no use in going to Croft’s until midnight), where Ernest insisted upon playing the harp, with the aid of his walking-stick; when the police came to make their usual nightly round, Ernest demanded the company of the Inspector in the Varsoviana. Wilner and the others were satisfied with the efforts of their pupil and allowed him, at his special request, to pay for everything. This was the occasion when Ernest lighted a cigar with one of the notes given to him by his father, and found some difficulty in making the paper burn.

There were times when Ernest, troubled with remorse and a severe headache, spoke of giving it all up, and returning to Bloomsbury Square; the bodyguard had to use their best powers of derision. An accusation of want of pluck generally proved effective; later, a slip of the pen on the part of Ernest gave them a better hold, and they had only to draw his attention to the punishment awarded by the law for forgery. Old Rollinson fell ill, in consequence of a chill sustained on the steamboat returning from Greenwich after his new doctor had ordered him a sea voyage, and the remittances stopped. A new and promising-looking pigeon flew into the district of the Circus; Wilner and his colleagues dropped the acquaintance of Ernest, who could find no better companion than a wise young housemaid at Jermyn Street. The girl gave him good advice and went with him to Bloomsbury Square, waiting at the railings whilst he entered to see his father, to make frank avowals, and to impersonate the prodigal son. He came out in less than half an hour, and it seemed at once evident that the fatted calf was still alive.

“Says I’ve disappointed him,” reported Ernest tearfully, “and that he never wants to see me again. Declares he did his best for me, and all I’ve done has been to spend nearly every penny he gained, and there’s nothing to show for it, excepting a good-for-nothing, broken-down young man. And mother agreed with him.”

“Appears to me,” remarked Helen, “some one is going to have the responsibility of looking after you.”

“I wish you’d marry me.”

“That will be about the best plan,” she agreed.

Ernest Rollinson died in ’64, and soon after the old people went. Young Mrs. Rollinson, putting her baby boy away with some working people in Clerkenwell, entered service again.

A Home for Indigent Bookmakers found itself benefited by the terms of the Bloomsbury Square will; nothing was left to the son’s family, in spite of the device used in christening the baby. Helen worked hard in her good situation and saved money, paying the folk in Corporation Lane weekly, and now and again snatching an hour off to see her boy. She was there one afternoon in December watching with amusement his celebrated impersonation of a policeman on the track of a Fenian (he had some new piece of cleverness each time she paid her furtive visits) when a tremendous clatter came from the wall of the prison opposite, the house trembled, plaster of the ceiling fell in a thick white shower, and then the place collapsed. Helen Rollinson found herself pulled out of the débris and screamed loudly for her George; they brought to her a maimed child, and she, almost demented, was nursing the poor thing in the confusion of the street, and begging it not to die, when Master George himself trotted up, safe and sound, demanding of his mother whether she had noticed the splendid fireworks. She placed the injured child in the hands of one of the doctors, heard that the woman of the house was not expected to recover, and rushed away with her boy from the disastrous scene.

“Well for you, Helen,” said her excellent mistress, “that you are able to show me your marriage lines, otherwise it would be my duty, as a strict Churchwoman, to turn you out of the house, neck and crop. As it is, you have practised deceit on me, and I am afraid we must look upon this dreadful affair at Clerkenwell as a judgment for your sin.”

“They seemed to suspect some Irish people, ma’am.”

“Heaven has its own way of punishing evil-doers,” declared the lady, “and it isn’t for us to question its methods. You cannot stay here any longer.”

“I must find another situation, I s’pose, ma’am. But I shan’t get such a good one as this.”

“Deceit,” insisted the other, “is one of the things that must, on no account, be encouraged. What is your boy like?”

The child, brought from the kitchen, repeated for the benefit of Helen’s mistress his account of the explosion, a performance that had been well received downstairs. The lady was impressed.

“A clever boy,” she said. “Would you like me to adopt him, Helen, and thus leave you free?”

“I’d rather starve than let him go away from me again.”

“Supposing, then,” said the lady, getting over her surprise at this attitude, “supposing I set you up in a small business of some kind; will you promise me never to be deceitful again?” Helen gave the required guarantee, and her mistress put the small boy through a viva-voce examination; his replies concerning the award meted out to naughty people fortunately coincided exactly with the lady’s own views.

Helen Rollinson, widow of Ernest Rollinson, and mother of George Rollinson, saw her name painted over a shop in Southampton Row, with the words added, on either side of the main inscription, “Newsagent” and “Tobacconist”; she let the rooms above, giving some personal attendance, used the apartment at the back of the shop as a living-room whence she could see when a customer entered, occupied spare moments by making clothes for George, preparing necessary meals, and telling him to be a good lad. She slept for about six hours every night, giving the remaining eighteen to hard work, and to the considerable task of minding her own business. Mr. Forster carried his Education Act just in time to enable George to take advantage of it, and the boy was one of the earliest to pay sixpence a week and become a pupil of the State at a superior school; in his spare time he delivered newspapers and ran errands, sometimes going so far as the City and making use of the new Viaduct at Holborn; he was at first terrified by these important missions, but overhearing his mother speak of him to a customer as a boy who knew his way about, he determined to keep his fears to himself, and to overcome them. Moreover, there was the knowledge that undertakings of the kind, perilous as they might be, saved expense. Mrs. Rollinson watched every penny, every halfpenny, and spoke with genuine regret when disbursements had to be made to the Parcels Delivery Company.

“Throwing away good money!” she declared.

She explained to George, in answer to his question, a theory she held in regard to the coinage of the United Kingdom, and he embodied these views in an essay at school the following morning. His teacher, greatly diverted, read the paper aloud to the class, and the boys followed the lead, glad of an excuse for boisterous amusement. George flushed, and kept his head down. It gives some notion of the difficulties experienced by the State in its early days of keeping school when I mention that George ranged himself on the side of his parent, and declined to accept the opinions of educational authorities; the teacher, noting his attitude, spoke to him later in the playground, and assured him again that his argument was based upon error. Money, said the teacher, was manufactured at a place called the Mint situated east of the City; the gold coins were actual value, whilst the rest were called tokens, representing a value only by agreement. Notes were made on special paper, and printed under the supervision of the Bank of England. To write, as George Rollinson had done, that there were two kinds of money, one dry and the other slippery, one easy to retain and the other impossible to keep, was to make an assertion that, in the light of facts, could not possibly be supported.

“So get that nonsensical idea out of your head, my lad,” advised his teacher earnestly, “as soon as you possibly can. You have a good deal to learn yet, remember.”

On most subjects George accepted the instructions of the representatives of the State, bringing home to Southampton Row items of geographical information and snips of historical news; his mother nodded approvingly and hinted that all the particulars had once been learnt by her, but, owing to pressure of other matters, forgotten. When the boy asked about his father she constructed for his encouragement, and her own content, an ideal man, dogged, wise, and industrious, never wasting a moment of valuable time, always thrifty. Upon George inquiring why, in these circumstances, they had not been left more comfortably off, she fell back on her old theory regarding cash, and told him in conclusion that little boys who did not ask too many questions would find their appropriate reward in not being told too many lies.

The profits of the business were small, but they were sure. The newspaper and magazine side increased slightly year by year with nothing in the nature of a set-back, excepting the occasional defalcation of some customer with a poor memory, and lightly furnished in the way of luggage. Mrs. Rollinson, when the lad was of a sufficient age, showed him the results of the business, and George said they ought to sell letter paper at the tobacco counter, seeing that the figures there were stationary. Mrs. Rollinson gave this remark as “George’s latest” to a customer, a short, clean-shaven man, who patronised the shop for lucifer matches, and the customer pronounced it good; later, in calling, he mentioned he had worked it into a burlesque at the Strand Theatre where he was playing, and that it went fairly well. He added that he had never yet found the perfect tobacco, and now almost despaired of doing so; described the different flavours which he desired. George, listening from the shop parlour, asked permission of his mother to make a few experiments; she gave her consent, on the understanding that there should be no waste. The results, tried in the celebrated actor’s pipe, gained emphatic approval, and George suggested a letter should be written from the Theatre embodying these compliments and bearing a signature. The letter was framed, set in the window. Within a week Mrs. Rollinson found herself compelled to engage the services of an assistant on the tobacco side, a worthy, well-favoured man who thenceforth for many years, in accepting his wages on Saturday nights, made a proposal of marriage to her. Mrs. Rollinson declined, in set form, on the grounds that she wished to look after George.

“Very well then,” he would say resignedly. “Then I s’pose I must wait.”

On a Saturday when George brought a young lady from High Street, Marylebone, to the shop, and introduced her to his mother with the remark, “I want you two to be friends!” Mrs. Rollinson, greatly upset, perturbed the assistant by giving in reply to the usual question an unusual answer. He went out of the shop in a dazed condition, and on the Monday morning a letter came from him, stating that, on reflection, he decided he was unworthy of the great honour, and he hoped Mrs. Rollinson would not mind if, instead, he sailed for Canada.

“It’s all for the best!” said Mrs. Rollinson. After going to chapel twice on the intervening Sunday, she was regarding the possibility of the engagement of her son with greater calm. “George will have to work harder, and I’m good for several years yet. We shall rub along all right. He needn’t get married until he’s thirty. It’s quite fashionable nowadays for gentlemen to wait until they’re getting on in life.”

She told him that her first criticism of the girl had been made on the impulse of the moment: she now begged to withdraw the word “minx” and to substitute a more flattering noun.

“Very glad to hear you say that, mother. She’s a girl with most wonderful ideas in her head.”

“That doesn’t matter,” replied Mrs. Rollinson tolerantly, “so long as she leaves them there.”

“What I mean is, extraordinarily ambitious.”

“I’m like that, too,” she remarked. “I’ve set my ’eart on having the front of the shop done up this spring. Me and her will get on capitally together. Make your mind quite easy. She can come here every Christmas day and now and again on Sundays—but not too often—and when eventually you get married, why, if all goes well, I’ll retire and I’ll leave you the business. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?”

“Mother,” the lad blurted out, “she wanted it to be a secret for a time, but I can’t keep it back from you. We’re married already!”

“No, George, my boy. That isn’t true, surely!”

“I take all the responsibility,” he went on, “but she said it was no use letting the grass grow under our feet.”

“I wish,” said Mrs. Rollinson aside, to the negro figure in the corner, “that grass was growing over her head!”

This was the final word of a vehement nature that George’s mother used in regard to her daughter-in-law. When she took some of the furniture, and rode away on the tail of the van to Chalk Farm, she told the middle-aged man with the green baize apron that there was nothing like retiring from business whilst one was still capable of enjoying life: to the lady who owned the house where the furniture was unloaded she mentioned, in taking possession of the two rooms on the ground floor, that her only visitors would be her son and her son’s wife; she hoped they would be in and out of the place frequently. Mrs. Rollinson gave a short, enthusiastic description of the bride and remarked that she already looked upon the girl as her own daughter.

“It’ll be a comfort to me, ma’am,” said the landlady mournfully, “to have a merry party about the house. The only thing is—I don’t mean anything personal—but I’ve generally found that when parties were cheerful, they turned out to be rather bad payers.”

Mrs. Rollinson produced her pass-book; exhibited figures showing the balance to her credit.

“That’s good enough,” said the other, with something like rapture. She was leaving the room, but curiosity detained her at the edge of the carpet. “You must have had some rare strokes of luck, in your day, ma’am!”

Mrs. Rollinson shook her head resolutely. “It’s all been saved out of hard work,” she declared.

“I was half hoping,” remarked the landlady, relapsing into gloom, “it was a case of easy come, easy go!”

The expected callers did not arrive on the first Sunday afternoon, although tea was prepared, crumpets ready, and Mrs. Rollinson had rehearsed several amiable speeches to be addressed to her daughter-in-law. So soon as it became dusk she walked down to Southampton Row, and from the opposite side of the roadway took a view. The shop was shuttered, and, alarmed by this—Sunday evening was one of the best times for receipts—she crossed, and read the notice. Retail Department Closed, said the bills. Central Office of the English Tobacco Syndicate. Branches all over the Country. Capital—and here so many figures (mainly noughts) that Mrs. Rollinson could not reckon them.

“Slippery money,” she said, on the way home. She paid the cabman in threepenny pieces, and he remarked that she might as well also hand over the offertory bag.

Young Mrs. George Rollinson delayed her call for nearly two years, and then she had no occasion to pay a fare; her manner when, on leaving Chalk Farm, she said to the coachman—

“Home, Watson!”

—Was, in itself, proof of the ease with which cultured habits can be acquired by those who set their minds to the task. Before going she, prefacing by the remark that she had called for a quiet chat, spoke at length and with great rapidity. They were living, George and herself, up West; Mrs. Rollinson observed that the exact address was not tendered, and a return call was evidently unnecessary. The present scheme was going on remarkably well, astonishingly well, amazingly well, and young Mrs. Rollinson had special cause for gratification in that it originated with her. For various reasons that her mother-in-law would not understand, if explained, the present scheme had taken the place of the old one, and a still newer one was in contemplation. George and his City friends knew how to manage these affairs to the best advantage. Unfortunately, it seemed likely the public might exhibit a certain reticence when the new idea was submitted to them, and investors would only become eager when they discovered that the shares, or most of them, had been privately subscribed. Just as many people only wanted to go to theatres where the notice “House Full” was exhibited, so some did not apply for shares unless they anticipated difficulty in procuring them.

“And George,” said young Mrs. Rollinson, refastening her fur coat, “is anxious to show he had not forgotten you, and he asked me to say that, for the sake of old times, he is quite willing to let you take up—”

“You tell George,” interrupted his mother, “that whenever the time arrives that he wants to be kept out of the workhouse, he can come along to me!”

I think I said something in approval of young Mrs. Rollinson’s manner of giving instructions to her coachman. To be exact, it ought to be mentioned that there was a distinct trace of asperity in her tones.

Young Mrs. Rollinson said “Home, Watson!” on a good many occasions, and at various places, before the one evening when she gave to the coachman a different destination; the two well-matched horses broke down the austere behaviour of a life-time by winking at each other. George arrived at Chalk Farm by yellow omnibus, that night, after his mother had gone to rest in the back room; she came out with no indication of surprise, and started at once to make up a bed for him on the sofa. He seemed inclined to retain possession of his silk hat, partly that he might gaze into it as he gave halting explanations, but his mother wrested this from him, and ordered him to make himself at home.

“I never heard for certain,” she said, when he had come to an end of the list of disasters, “but are there any children?”

George shook his head negatively.

“That’s just as well,” she remarked, with cheerfulness. “Now promise me, George, before we settle anything else: don’t divorce her.”

“I’m willing to give you my word, mother.”

“Good!” she said. “That means the trouble is over. No more Rollinsons will have to undergo the test. Other people will, but not a Rollinson. Something seems to tell me that I shall out-live you, and I shall make it my business to see that you earn honestly every penny you require.”

* * * * *

The single worry that came later was when Merry Hampton won the Derby. Mrs. Rollinson allowed George one speculation a year in the form of a half-crown ticket for a sweep-stake; prospects of success appeared sufficiently remote. George, on the canal bridge in High Street, was exhibiting to a friend his winnings when the sovereigns slipped through his fingers, and disappeared in the water below. The friend, taking the situation with great good-humour, remarked that it looked like a case of _felo s. d._

VI—PRICE OF JAMES McWINTER

THEY came separately, and rather stealthily, to the restaurant in Little Compton Street, giving a cautious look up and down the street before entering. Many folk in Soho wear the brims of soft hats flattened down over eyes, carry hands deep in overcoat pockets, and walk close to shop windows, hesitating slightly before turning a corner. The restaurant patrons did not belong to this type. Some of the early-comers spoke to a constable, and said, exhibiting an envelope, because they mistrusted their French accent:

“Which do you reckon now is my best way to get to this address?”

The policeman, pointing a gloved hand to the large window that had muslin curtains of the previous summer, replied:

“If you ain’t careful, sir, it’ll bite you.”

The constable, after the first inquiries, was able to recognise the type and, interrupting the question, indicated the doorway silently with a nod of his helmet without interrupting the task of slapping his shoulder; he mentioned to an anxious younger colleague who came up and put an inquiry that they were not in his opinion so much Anarchists as country gents out on the spree. Inside the Restaurant Chicot the head waiter had also gained experience, and, as the visitors arrived, he said, “Mr. Aumairst, yes?” and with a bow led the way to a long table, that had originally been three, at the end of the large room. Chairs leaned forward in the attitude of saying grace, and these were pulled back by the head waiter, whilst a short page-boy stood on tiptoe to assist the guests in removing overcoats, mufflers, and hats. Guarded salutations—“Hullo, Burnham, old man! What sort of an east wind blew you in here?”—and newcomers examined the menu card with a puzzled air, giving it all up after a cursory examination excepting the plum-pudding item, and joined the rest in taking a seat and in looking over the shoulder.

“I’d no notion we were to be all of us invited. What’s the idea?”

“H. A.” was the reply, in confident tones. “H. A. knows what he’s up to.”

“I quite feel that about him. Apart from liking to show off, and not being able to afford to do it, old Amherst is no fool. But whilst I know that he knows what he’s up to, I can’t say that I always know what he knows about knowing— See what I mean, don’t you? Is this him, in the Russian-bear costume?”

Mr. Amherst, in a brand-new fur-lined overcoat, was scarcely the man to deprive the public of a full view of it, and he resisted the page-boy’s attempt to take possession at the door. Diners at other tables glanced up. Two matronly ladies at the corner said something in a foreign language and suspended the rule which orders that one should not laugh at one’s own jokes. Men gave their closer attention to the trim young figure in a small sealskin cap and warm costume who followed so soon as Mr. Amherst’s whirling arms made it safe to do so.

“Gentlemen,” he said, advancing to the long table, with the air of making a speech, “I have to apologise for being somewhat late on the Rialto, so to speak, but— You’ve met my daughter. Waiter, another chair!” They rose, and she nodded pleasantly, giving to one her muff, another her cloak, a third her gloves. “I particularly wanted her to come along, and it occupied some little time to induce her to obey my request. She’s all I’ve got now, you see.” He sat down heavily at the top of the table. “Now then, my lad,” to the attendant, in a pained manner, “we all seem to be waiting, except you. How much longer before the soup comes?”

Miss Amherst, at the other end of the table, explained to neighbours that her father’s account was inexact in certain particulars. What had really happened was that she found he intended her to stop at the hotel and dine alone.

“He generally gets his own way,” remarked one.

“Not if it happens to differ from mine,” she said.

“Did he tell you, by any chance,” lowering voices, and speaking confidentially, “what the motive was for asking us all here this evening?”

“I understood it was that you should eat a dinner.” They shook their heads to convey that the information was not complete, and followed her lead in the management of the whitebait.

Near Mr. Amherst, the talk, managed and directed by him, was devoted to the political situation. The host submitted a practical method of solving the difficulty of which he spoke as one owning the patent rights; put more briefly than he explained it, it was to convey the principal members of the party with which he was not in agreement to Newgate on a convenient Monday morning, and hang them, one after the other. Near Miss Amherst conversation was on a less remote subject, and her admirable acquaintance with details enabled them to speak freely. Once she disputed a question concerning the Tottenham Hotspurs, and, obtaining silence by rapping a spoon, submitted it for decision to her father.

“My dear,” he answered deferentially, “we don’t want to talk shop. Not just yet awhile, at any rate.”

His guests glanced meaningly at each other.

“Good gracious!” he cried, to a good-looking waiter with a large black moustache and a head of hair like a clothes brush, “what are you standing there gazing at me in such a melancholy way for?”

“Ver’ sorry,” said the young waiter.

“You look it!”

His nearest guests applauded the wit and readiness of the retort. Other tables cleared; folk hurried off to theatres. The head waiter ordered the moustached youth to turn off some of the lights.

“Now, gentlemen!” Mr. Amherst, leaning elbows on the table as coffee and liqueurs were served, cleared his throat, and sent a commanding glance up and down. “My dear”—to his daughter, who was looking at the waiter—“have I your attention?”

“Not yet, father.”

“The presence of a lady,” he said to the others, “need not interfere with the flow of conversation. I want you to make yourselves thoroughly at home, and do just as you please. We can wish each other a happy New Year later on in the evening. But first of all there’s one small matter I wish to bring before your notice.” They put hands to ears, in the attitude of men anxious to gain every word. He leaned back in his chair and came forward once more; his chin went out and he fired a name down the table. They twisted chairs promptly in his direction.

“Yes,” gratified by their astonishment, “big game, I admit, but it’s what I’m after. Other clubs may be on the same track, and therefore what we want first of all is absolute secrecy. If you’re prepared to back me up I’ll promise to see it through, but there must be no cackle, no chatterboxing, no talking to wives, or what not. Not a single word uttered away from this table.”

“They won’t let him go.”

“Who said that?” The others, much in the manner of schoolboys, indicated Burnham.

“I believe,” said Mr. Amherst—“set me right if I’m wrong—but I believe I’m Chairman. Unless I’m woefully mistaken, I was made Chairman about four years ago, at a time when the club was right out on the rocks. It had got a past, but no present. If my memory serves me right, I made it a small present. I bought shares when no one else was prepared to do so. And since that time, what has the club done?” He put out the fingers of one hand and prepared to recite the successes. His daughter coughed.

“I was only going to run through the list, my dear.”

“You can save yourself the trouble,” she said.

“Now, having arrived at this point,” addressing the table, “I ask myself the question, where are we weak? Where are we deficient? Where are we—”

He was so much annoyed at their impatience in anticipating him by giving the answer, that he found himself obliged to apply a match to his cigar, which was still alight.

“Very well, then,” reluctantly. “Discovering this, I look around and I endeavour to find out the best man available.”

“Mr. Pangbourne,” said Burnham, taking heart, “would no more think—”

Mr. Amherst snapped finger and thumb.

“That for Master Willie Pangbourne,” he shouted. “No, no,” irritably, to the moustached waiter, “I didn’t call you. Go away and catch flies. I think, gentlemen,” turning to the others, “that when I tell you I’ve known young Pangbourne since he was so high, and that not long ago I had to order him out of my house—”

“Did he go?” asked the quiet voice at the other end.

“In point of fact he didn’t go, Mary, my dear; but I distinctly ordered him to go. I don’t mind a young man differing from me about politics, but there’s a way of doing it. What I want to say is that Pangbourne isn’t everybody. I can bring influence to bear on his directors. I’ve been accustomed to opposition all my life, and I’m not afraid of it. The only question is,”—he took a pear from the glass dish and shook it threateningly—“how to raise the money.”