Part 3

In the morning he was looking ten years older, and for a short time I thought and hoped the New Scheme had broken down. But, after a glass of brandy and soda-water, he brightened up, and his headache went off. He declared that he had enjoyed himself extremely, spent a royal night, and felt all the better for it.

"I find," he said, "that I don’t care a straw for wine yet, but the old taste for spirits has come back. We must get in a few gallons at once. And cigars, too; I’m taking to cigars again."

He was rather sulky when I did up his accounts, but he considered it money well spent. Then he put on his hat and went out "to see the boys."

He came back in a terrible rage, and used three new expletives, and hinted at murder. It appeared that his defeated rivals on the Local Board had lodged a protest against him for bribery and corruption. Grandpapa nearly went mad with rage. He knocked a man down in the open street, and was summoned and appeared at a police court, and had to be bound over to keep the peace. Finally he lost his seat on the Local Board, the case going against him; and as he dashed into the kitchen, where I was showing the cook how to make something, he absolutely foamed at the mouth. He threatened to buy dynamite, to blow Chislehurst to the skies, to destroy his political opponents with poison. Then he talked seriously of ending his own existence, from which step I dissuaded him, feeling at the same time, that he could hardly make worse arrangements for his future than he had already done. After dinner on that day he said he should give up trying to do good, and he kept his word. He took to living at the _Eight Bells_, and to writing insulting letters to the local papers. One of these cost him a hundred pounds in a libel action. Then (and I was not sorry for it) he found some brown hair on his head. This threatened to spread and attract attention, so I considered that the time had come for us to make another move, and begin life upon a new plan with altered relationships.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

_*MARIE ROGERS.*_

Heaven knows that I do not wish to show up grandpapa in this narrative, or make the unhappy old sufferer appear worse than he was. Indeed, my desire is to write with a dispassionate pen, to state facts, and leave scientists, legal experts, and students of ethics to draw their own conclusions. But I do not intend that anything shall blind me to what I owe my grandpapa; and I will say that in the matter of Marie Rogers he was not entirely to blame. The girl set her cap at him, haunted him in the tap-room at her father’s place of entertainment, sent him flowers, gushed about him to me, and did everything she could to flatter his vanity. This had always been extremely easy. He was still old enough to feel tickled by the attention of a woman of thirty. Miss Rogers had a childish prettiness of manner, which might have been effective when she was younger, but struck me as rather ridiculous now. She talked young and dressed young, and pretended a general ignorance of the seamy side of the world which took in my grandpapa completely. No doubt it had similarly deceived the life insurance agent. That young man lost his temper with Miss Rogers over the matter of my grandpapa, and received short notice in consequence.

"Gad!" said grandfather, "it’s very gratifying--an old buffer of a hundred and six to cut out this youngster. What d’ ye think of her, Martha? Not a day older than thirty--eh?"

"I think you are on the verge of a volcano, grandpapa. You are doing a most dangerous thing by stopping here. Already people laugh at your new piebald wig, as they call it. You ought to have left Chislehurst three months ago, as I urged you at the time."

"Well, well, let ’em laugh. Who cares? I’m sure I don’t. This girl takes my fancy, and that’s a fact. She’s in love with me, and can’t hide it, and Rogers hasn’t any objection."

"Of course not; he knows what you’re worth."

"I’ve been wondering if I could run away with her and marry her somewhere in Scotland," said grandpapa, winking at me. I did not understand the wink, and asked him what he meant.

"It doesn’t matter," he answered, "only she might get tired of me when I grow younger; and I myself might fancy something a little fresher later on."

"Once and for all," I said, "this inclination towards matrimony is reprehensible and must be crushed, dear grandpapa. I implore of you to fight against it. Don’t let every woman you meet fool you into a declaration. Do be circumspect; for Heaven’s sake, look on ahead."

"It’s brutal always asking me to do that," he answered, shedding tears, for it was one of his maudlin days; "I don’t want to look ahead. The future can take care of itself. I’m spoiling for somebody who would be a comfort to me at home--somebody who would take a bright view of things and not always be ramming the future down my throat, like you do. I see no reason why I should not marry."

"Then let me give you some," I answered desperately. "You must remember what lies in store. No woman shall suffer as I have suffered and am suffering. This girl, Marie Rogers, is thirty or more; you are--say, five-and-fifty. In four years’ time you will be _fifteen_! You cannot get away from that. The horrible fact is reached by simple arithmetic. Imagine yourself at that age saddled with a wife, and perhaps a family! If you can face such a prospect with a good conscience, I cannot. I’d rather die than see you in such a position."

He laughed bitterly.

"What relation would you be to them, I wonder? The brats would be your uncles and aunts, and my wife your grandmother! What a fool you’d look!"

I couldn’t see it, and for the first time since the commencement of the New Scheme, I lost my temper with grandpapa.

"Oh, you horrid, depraved old man!" I cried, "will no words, or tears, or prayers, make you pause and reflect? Cannot your only surviving relation, your own son’s child, carry any weight with you? Would you rather have this flighty female at your side than me? Cannot you realise what I am doing for you, what you would be without me? I blush for you; I blush for your disgraceful tastes and wicked ambitions. You, who ought to spend all your time on your knees and in church, calling on Providence to avert this doom! You shall not marry. Hear me, I say, once and for all, you shall not. If you dare to get engaged again, I’ll tell the woman’s people. I’ll make a clean breast of it to Mr. Rogers. Then you’ll have to leave this place whether you like it or not. I’ve done a great deal for you, but I’m only human, and you’ve stung me beyond endurance to-day. Let us have no repetition of this terrible conversation. Make your choice once for all. Take Marie Rogers, or let me stay with you, and fight for you. But you cannot have both of us."

He was rather cowed by my vehemence.

"Of course, if you’re going to make such a a fuss, I must debate with myself," he said. "Only it’s rather awkward now. Why didn’t you speak sooner? You must have seen the woman adoring me for the last six weeks."

"I gave you credit for a certain amount of proper feeling," I answered.

"That was weak," he said. "I’ve made a law unto myself lately. As a matter of fact we are engaged. I popped the question yesterday in the bar-parlour, and she cried and asked me to see the old man. He was delighted. I didn’t explain things to him, but it’s a very good bargain--for Marie. She’ll have a rum time of it certainly for five years and six months; then I shall fade away, or be carried off in a fiery chariot or something, and she can take the money. Still, I may be doing a foolish thing. My tastes are changing so readily. I’m certain to drop my eye on something more up-to-date as soon as I’m booked to her."

"I implore you, grandpapa, to throw her over. She doesn’t love you. She is marrying you for your money. Her regard will never stand against the shock of finding out the New Scheme. She will confide in others and ruin your peace of mind. Possibly she will run away altogether when you begin to--to shrink, as you must. I, on the contrary, am prepared to face everything. Tear her image from your heart! Fight the passion and conquer it. Rest on me!"

My grandpapa smoked and drank whisky, while I sat up into the small hours and argued with him.

"I believe you’re right," he said at last. "I can’t face the girl, nor yet her father now; but I really think we’d better drop the connection. Socially, of course, it’s not satisfactory at all. No doubt young Widdicombe, the life insurance agent, will come back when I’m gone. Yes, we’d better make tracks, perhaps. She hasn’t got anything in writing. Besides, I’m sick of this place. I’ve quarrelled with pretty nearly everybody in it, and I’m owing some money too--some debts of honour--that I think I can wriggle out of paying. I’ll try and forget Marie. We’ll ’shoot the moon’ before quarter-day."

By "shooting the moon," my grandpapa explained that he employed a well-known technicality which meant leaving Chislehurst at night, in an abrupt manner, without letting our departure be known beforehand or advertising our new address in the local newspapers, or even mentioning it at the post-office.

*CHAPTER IX.*

_*IN LONDON ONCE MORE.*_

Of course, a hale man with a strong will of his own, numerous vices, rapidly-decreasing years, and strong, if misplaced, convictions, was more than an unmarried, inexperienced, woman of my age could be expected to manage.

As time progressed I gave up attempting to reform grandpapa, and simply contented myself with praying that he might complete his career without falling into absolute crime. The thought of seeing him in a felon’s dock at the last haunted me like a nightmare. He would get younger and less familiar with the wicked ways of the world daily. As a young man, he was one for whom traps, snares, and pitfalls had never been set in vain. When he reached a hundred and eight he would look and feel twenty years of age under the New Scheme. Then, how probable that the poor old man might fall a prey to some iniquitous schemer! I told him my fears, and he sneered bitterly, and said:

"Yes, a pretty old cough-drop I should look, shouldn’t I, being sentenced to penal servitude for life--at a hundred and nine years of age? Then you’d see an advertisement in the papers, ’Wanted, at Portland Prison, a wet nurse for the notorious forger and embezzler, Daniel Dolphin.’ Bless you, Martha, there’s some real fun in store for you and me yet."

I cried and begged him not to say such things. It was a horrible thought, and yet had a ray of comfort in it, that if I could only keep the old man fairly straight for the next five years, or less, he would then be at my mercy again. By that time somebody would certainly have to be a second mother to grandpapa.

We "shot the moon" on a night when there was none. Our next move took us back to town. I hired a little flat, No. 1, Oxford Mansions, a snug place enough, near Earl’s Court. According to custom, we left no address behind us, and began life anew. I was obliged to drop all my old friends in Peckham Rye and Ealing for grandpapa’s sake. I had met Mrs. Hopkins at Whiteley’s, and told her the old man was dead. She pressed me to come and see her, and I answered that I would write. Then I hastened away to the Drugs Department, leaving her in the Haberdashery, astonished and disappointed. My heart sorrowed, for I loved the good woman; but there was nothing else to be done. On another occasion grandpapa took me to the Royal Figi Exhibition at Earl’s Court, and we ran right on top of the Bangley-Browns. The girls recognised me, and whispered to their mother; but, of course, they did not know grandpapa. He was twenty years younger than when they last saw him. Mrs. Bangley-Brown turned very red, and sailed towards me; but I dodged with my grandpapa round a refreshment building, and then dragged him through a crowd to the entrance of the Exhibition, finally escaping in a hansom cab.

"What do I care?" he said. "I’d like to have spoken to her again. I spotted ’em before you did. She wasn’t half a bad old bounder. Those gals don’t go off apparently; too much torso and not enough tin, eh?"

In this painful style did the old man speak of two perfect ladies, whose only crime was a hereditary inclination to _enbonpoint_. I toned him down when I could, but he rarely listened to me now. It was as his sister that I posed at No. 1, Oxford Mansions. He had grown into a very corpulent, big-bearded man. He wore white waistcoats, and followed fashion, and took particular pains with his person. He abandoned politics and began to develop interest in City affairs. Once he brought home a new friend who he said was on the Stock Exchange--a most gentlemanly, polite individual, who treated me with a courtesy and consideration to which I had long been a stranger. After he had gone, grandpapa told me he was somebody of great importance.

"He’s floating a fine scheme that’s got thousands in it," he explained. "We dined at Richmond with some friends last week, and, coming home in the drag, Phil Montague--that’s his name--let me into a secret or two, and promised me shares. Mind, Martha, I’m doing this for you. Don’t say I never think of you. When I’m gone, you’ll draw many a fine dividend from the ’Automatic Postcard Company.’ And when you draw ’em, think of me, far away--probably frying."

Mr. Phil Montague called again, and, finally, I know that grandpapa took at least a thousand pounds of his capital out of Something Three Per Cents, and put them into Automatic Postcards. Then he suddenly determined to go upon the Stock Exchange himself. I think that he would have carried out this mad project, but other affairs distracted his attention. Hardly was the company of Mr. Phil Montague well floated when that gentleman called again, dined by invitation, and broached a new scheme to grandpapa.

This man represents my own greatest failure as a student of character. I was utterly deceived in him. He simply laid himself out to deceive me. Doubtless he felt that if he could get me on his side he would be able to deal with grandpapa all the more easily. Outwardly Mr. Montague was both religious and modest; which qualities, openly paraded in a stockbroker, appeared very beautiful to me. He also quoted Scripture, not ostentatiously, but evidently from habit. He constantly alluded to his dead mother, and told me that he took exotics to her grave at Brompton every second Sunday afternoon. How many financiers would do that? He never talked business in front of me, and I found after he had known my grandpapa about a month that the old man began to grow very secretive and peculiar. A cunning furtive look appeared in his eye; he was away from home--in the City and elsewhere--a great deal; he avoided discussion of his affairs as far as possible. Once I asked him some question about Mr. Montague’s own status, and he laughed, and answered in bad taste--

"Spoons, eh? Well, Martha, old chip, I believe he’s gone on you, too, or else he’s playing the fool because he thinks it will please me. ’Fine woman, your sister,’ he said to me last week. ’Fine for her age--she’s sixty,’ I answered."

"Grandfather, you _know_ I’m not!"

"Well, you look it, every hour of it. But he pretended to be surprised, and said it was strange you hadn’t made some good man happy before now."

"I think he is a very worthy, honourable gentleman, grandfather, and I wish you would try and be more like him."

"Bless you, Phil’s all right. We’re great pals. And he’s got some brains under that sanctified manner, too. We have a little bit of fun in hand just now that means a pile for us both, if I’m not mistaken."

At this moment Mr. Montague himself was announced, and, without waiting to enquire of grandpapa whether I might do so, I asked him boldly of what nature was his new enterprise.

*CHAPTER X.*

_*THE CRUSADE.*_

"I will tell you with great pleasure, dear Miss Dolphin," he said, in his sad, rather sweet voice.

He sat down, stroked his clean-shaven chin, drew up his trousers that their elegant appearance might not be spoiled by his sharp, thin knees, and then spoke:

"Your brother and I are engaged in a crusade. Is not that the word, Mr. Dolphin?"

"As good as any other," said my grandpapa.

"Better than any other. You have doubtless heard of Monte Carlo, Miss Dolphin? It is a plague-spot on the fair face of France. God made the Riviera; man is responsible for Monte Carlo. The Prince of Monaco is the landlord, so I understand; the Prince of Darkness is the tenant. Miss Dolphin, it is often necessary to fight the Devil with his own weapons. We are going to Monte Carlo with a golden sword. Your brother finds the sword--I wield it."

"In plain English, Martha, Montague’s worked out a dead snip----"

"A system, pardon me."

"Well, a ’system,’ that will take the stuffing out of the strongest bank that ever robbed innocents. We are both going."

"Grandf--! Daniel! Going to Monte Carlo!"

"Yes. Don’t want you. It’s simply a matter of business."

"Let me explain," said Mr. Montague. "You are rather startled, dear Miss Dolphin, and I cannot wonder at it."

He blew his nose. His handkerchiefs and shirt-cuffs and so on were always beautiful. He said:

"The facts are these. I have had an inspiration. Heaven has from my earliest youth been pleased to bestow upon me certain mathematical gifts denied to most men. This power of dealing with figures was not given me for nothing. It is a talent not to be hidden in a napkin."

"No fear," said grandpapa.

"I have long been seeking some outlet for my peculiar ability, and I have at length found it. In my hand is a power, that rightly exercised, will extinguish one of the greatest evils of the present day. Under Heaven I have been mercifully permitted to discover a system which rises naturally from certain processes in the higher mathematics. This system applied to the laws which govern chance produces a most startling result. It annihilates chance altogether, and substitutes certainty. Do I make myself clear?"

"Clear as crystal," said grandpapa, chuckling.

"A lady can hardly be interested in my deductions, but their conclusions, their practical results, will not fail to interest her," continued Mr. Montague. "My system, once grasped and accepted, becomes a law, and the effect of that law must be a revolution in human society. Think, dear Miss Dolphin, of a world from which all element of chance is eliminated! The vices of gambling and betting vanish. Mathematics will rise superior to human roguery. We know when to expect red or black--I refer to card-playing; we know which horse ought to win every race, and if it doesn’t we know where to throw the blame; we know everything; we are become as gods!"

"But what has that to do with Monte Carlo, sir?" I ventured to ask.

"Good old Martha! Go up one," said grandpapa.

Then Mr. Montague turned to me and answered my question.

"I expected you would ask that, Miss Dolphin, and I gladly explain. Monte Carlo is the headquarters of this pestilential passion, this love of gambling which dominates mankind. We are going to begin a crusade there, and fight against the most powerful troops the enemy has at command."

"That’s so! I’m planking down a thousand; and we’re goin’ to play a big game and make some of ’em hop, and wish they had never been born," said grandpapa.

"In other and more seemly words, Miss Dolphin, we design to crush Monte Carlo, to wipe that blot from the fair face of France. The gambling hell shall be no more; treachery, falsehood, knavery shall cease out of the land."

"And we’ll come home with flags flying, in a triumphal car drawn by oof-birds," said grandpapa.

"That, of course, is a circumstance incidental to the scheme," explained Mr. Montague to me. "You do not understand your brother, naturally enough, but what he means is that a large sum of money will accrue to us. With this wealth we shall develop my system, and place it within the reach of the misguided speculators of all countries."

Grandpapa exploded with noisy laughter, and patted Mr. Montague on the back.

"Why not do so first?" I asked. "Why not publish this great discovery at once in the papers?"

"Give it away! Good Lord, Martha--and you a lawyer’s daughter!" said grandpapa.

"I would do so willingly enough," answered Mr. Montague, "but advertisement is a costly business. To make the system sufficiently known would require an expenditure of many thousands of pounds. You see no better advertisement of it could be hit upon than breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. We shall go on breaking that bank until the proprietors are ruined and the place is shut up. Then we shall return home."

"By way of Paris," said grandpapa. "If you like to meet us there," he added, with his real affection for me bubbling up to the surface of his nature, "you may; and we’ll make a bit of a splash among the frogs." But I had never been out of England in my life, and did not like the picture of splashing with grandpapa in Paris. At the same time the thought of him splashing there alone was even less pleasant.

Mr. Montague said a few more words, promised never to lose sight of my grandfather and then took his leave, kissing my hand on his departure, in a stately, old-fashioned way which was very pleasing to me.

I could not help contrasting him with grandpapa, to the disadvantage of the latter. They looked about the same age, yet how different in their conduct, language, and attitude towards the gentler sex! One behaved, and thought, and acted as though he was forty-five; the other, who ought, heaven knows, to have been old-fashioned, and staid, and sensible, conducted himself like a fast, silly boy of twenty-one. For about this time grandfather began to grow young for his years, even on the New Scheme.

He bought some showy clothes, cloth caps, and knickerbockers, a meerschaum pipe, a spirit-flask, and several other things at the Army and Navy Stores. For these he certainly paid, but he gave the people who served him an imaginary name and ticket number. Rather than spend five shillings in a member’s voucher, he told a lie to the officials of-the Co-operative Society; which I should think was very unusual. Then the old man drew another precious thousand pounds out of Government securities, and went away with Mr. Montague to wipe out Monte Carlo.

I was fearful of the entire concern, but he told me to "keep up my pecker and watch the papers," and so departed in roaring spirits. The only thing which troubled him was that his time for "blueing the booty" would be so short. To this day I have never met anybody who could explain the meaning of the expression "blueing the booty."

*CHAPTER XI.*

_*A NEW LEAF TURNED.*_

I am a simple old woman, ready to see fine qualities in anybody, unwilling to doubt the honesty of fellow-creatures or the good faith of their assertions. Therefore I am not ashamed to confess that Mr. Montague entirely deceived me, and turned out, not merely no better than he should have been, but much worse. He deceived dear grandpapa, too, though in a different way.

"I thought he was a sly beggar who ’d found a plum in the pie," said grandfather to me afterwards; "but it wasn’t so--a mere blackleg, a scamp, a devourer of orphans. Break the bank? No, we didn’t break the bank, but I broke his nose, and scattered his false teeth from one end of the Casino to the other, and dusted the steps with him afterwards!"

These and other things grandpapa said when he returned from Monte Carlo. I watched the daily journals as he directed, and so was not wholly unprepared for the fiasco which resulted from his trip to the Continent.