Chapter 2

"That puts a different complexion on the affair. Very tactful of her to have announced the intention. I do not grudge a handful of firing when there is a reason. I only ask that there shall be a reason." Miss Sakers is the vicar's daughter. Strictly speaking, I suppose her social position is superior to our own. I know for a fact that she has been to county balls. She seemed anxious to cultivate an intimacy with us, so I gathered. I was not absurdly pleased about it. One has one's dignity. Besides, at the office we frequently see people far above Miss Sakers. A nobleman who had called to see one of the partners once remarked to me, "Your office is a devilish long way from everywhere!" There was no particular reason why he should have spoken to me, but he seemed to wish it. After that, it was no very great thing that Miss Sakers seemed anxious to know us better. At the same time, I do not pretend that I was displeased. I went into the drawing-room and put some more coal on.

"Is it to be a party?" I asked.

"Not at all. She is coming quite as a friend."

I went up-stairs and changed all my clothes, and then purchased a few flowers, which I placed in vases in the drawing-room. Eliza had got two kinds of cake; I added a plate of mixed biscuits on my own responsibility. Beyond this, I did nothing in the way of preparation, wishing to keep the thing as simple and informal as possible.

* * * * *

The tea was quite a success. Miss Sakers was to have a stall at the bazaar in aid of the new church. I promised her five shillings at first, but afterward made it seven-and-six. Though no longer young, Miss Sakers is very pleasant in her manner.

After tea Miss Sakers and Eliza both did needlework. Miss Sakers was doing a thing in crewels. I could not see what Eliza was doing. She kept it hidden, almost under the table.

To prevent the conversation from flagging, I said, "Eliza, dear, what are you making?"

She frowned hard at me, shook her head slightly, and asked Miss Sakers about the special preacher for Epiphany Sunday.

I at once guessed that Eliza was doing something for Miss Sakers' stall at the bazaar, and had intended to keep it secret.

I smiled. "Miss Sakers," I said, "I do not know what Eliza is making, but I am quite sure it is for you."

There was a dead silence. Miss Sakers and Eliza both blushed. Then Miss Sakers said, without looking at me, "I think you are mistaken."

I felt so sure that I was mistaken that I blushed, too.

Eliza hurriedly hid her work in the work-basket, and said, "It is very close in here. Let me show you round our little garden."

They both went out, without taking any notice of me. Not having had much tea, I cut myself another slice of cake. While I was in the middle of it, Miss Sakers and Eliza came back, and Miss Sakers said good-bye to me very coldly. I offered to raise my bazaar donation to ten shillings, but she did not seem to have heard me.

* * * * *

"How could you say that?" said Eliza, when Miss Sakers had gone. "It was most tactless--and not very nice."

"I thought you were doing something for the bazaar. What were you making, then?"

She did not actually tell me, but she implied it in a delicate way.

"Well," I said, "of course I wouldn't have called attention to it if I had known, but I don't think you ought to have been doing that work when Miss Sakers was here."

"I've no time to waste, and I always make mine myself. I was most careful to keep them hidden. You are very tactless."

"I don't think much of that Miss Sakers," I said. "Why should we go to this expense," pointing to the cakes, "for a woman of that kind?"

THE ORCHESTROME

The orchestrome was on Lady Sandlingbury's stall at the bazaar. Her ladyship came up to Eliza in the friendliest way, and said, "My dear lady, I am convinced that you need an orchestrome. It's the sweetest instrument in the world, worth at least five pounds, and for one shilling you have a chance of getting it. It is to be raffled." Eliza objects, on principle, to anything like gambling; but as this was for the Deserving Inebriates, which is a good cause, she paid her shilling. She won the orchestrome, and I carried it home for her.

* * * * *

Six tunes were given with the orchestrome; each tune was on a slip of perforated paper, and all you had to do was to put in a slip and touch the spring.

We tried it first with "The Dandy Coloured Coon." It certainly played something, but it was not right. There was no recognizable tune about it.

"This won't do at all," I said.

"Perhaps that tune's got bent or something," said Eliza. "Put in another."

I put in "The Lost Chord" and "The Old Folks at Home," and both were complete failures--a mere jumble of notes, with no tune in them at all. I confess that this exasperated me.

"You see what you've done?" I said. "You've fooled away a shilling. Nothing is more idiotic than to buy a thing without trying it first."

"Why didn't you say that before, then?" said Eliza. "I don't believe there's anything really wrong with it--just some little thing that's got out of order, and can be put right again."

"Wrong! Why, it's wrong all through. Not one scrap of any of the tunes comes out right. I shall take it back to Lady Sandlingbury at once."

"Oh, don't do that!"

But my mind was made up, and I went back to the bazaar, and up to Lady Sandlingbury's stall. Eliza wouldn't come with me.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon," I said, "but your ladyship supplied me with this orchestrome, and your ladyship will have to take it back again."

"Dear me! what's all the trouble?"

I started the instrument, and let her hear for herself. She smiled, and turned to another lady who was helping her. The other lady was young, and very pretty, but with a scornful kind of amused expression, and a drawling way of speaking--both of which I disliked extremely.

"Edith," said Lady Sandlingbury, "here's this angry gentleman going to put us both in prison for selling him a bad orchestrome. He says it won't work."

"Doesn't matter, does it?" said the other lady. "I mean to say, as long as it will play, you know." At this rather stupid remark they both laughed, without so much as looking at me.

"I don't want to make myself in any way unpleasant, your ladyship," I said; "but this instrument was offered for raffle as being worth five pounds, and it's not worth five shillings."

"Come, now," said Lady Sandlingbury, "I will give you five shillings for it. There you are! Now you can be happy, and go and spend your money." I thanked her. She took the orchestrome and started it, and it played magnificently. Nothing could have been more perfect. "These things do better," she said, "when you don't put the tunes in wrong end first, so that the instrument plays them backwards."

"I think your ladyship might have told me that before," I said.

"Oh! you were so angry, and you didn't ask me. Edith, dear, do go and be civil to some people, and make them take tickets for another raffle."

"I call this sharp practice," I said, "if not worse, and----"

Here the other lady interrupted me.

"Could you, please, go away, unless you want to buy something? Thanks, so much!"

I went. I am rather sorry for it now. I think it would have been more dignified to have stopped and defied them.

Eliza appeared to think that I had made myself ridiculous. I do not agree with her. I do think, however, that when members of the aristocracy practise a common swindle in support of a charity, they go to show that rank is not everything. If Miss Sakers happens to ask us whether we are going to the bazaar in support of the Deserving Inebriates next year, I have instructed Eliza to reply: "Not if Lady Sandlingbury and her friend have a stall." I positively refuse to meet them, and I do not care twopence if they know it.

THE TONIC PORT

We do a large export trade (that is, the firm does), and there are often samples lying about in the office. There was a bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port, which had been there some time, and one of the partners told the head clerk that he could have it if he liked. Later in the day the head clerk said if a bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port was any use to me I might take it home. He said he had just opened it and tasted it, because he did not like to give anything away until he knew if it was all right.

I thanked him. "Tastes," I said, "just like any ordinary port, I suppose?"

"Well," he said, "it's more a tonic port than an ordinary port. But that's only what you'd expect from the label."

"Quite so," I said--"quite so." I looked at the label, and saw that it said that the port was peculiarly rich in phosphates. I put the bottle in my bag that night and took it home.

* * * * *

"Eliza," I said, "I have brought you a little present. It is a bottle of port." Eliza very rarely takes anything at all, but if she does it is a glass of port. In this respect I admire her taste. Port, as I have sometimes said to her, is the king of wines. We decided that we would have a glass after supper. That is really the best time to take anything of the kind; the wine soothes the nerves and prevents insomnia.

Eliza picked the bottle up and looked at the label. "Why," she said, "you told me it was port!"

"So it is."

"It says tonic port on the label."

"Well, tonic port practically _is_ port. That is to say, it is port with the addition of--er--phosphates."

"What are phosphates?"

"Oh, there are so many of them, you know. There is quinine, of course, and magnesium, and--and so on. Let me fill your glass."

She took one very little sip. "It isn't what I should call a pleasant wine," she said. "It stings so."

"Ah!" I said, "that's the phosphates. It would be a little like that. But that's not the way to judge a port. What you should do is to take a large mouthful and roll it round the tongue,--then you get the aroma. Look: this is the way."

I took a large mouthful.

When I had stopped coughing I said that I didn't know that there was anything absolutely wrong with the wine, but you wanted to be ready for it. It had come on me rather unexpectedly.

Eliza said that very likely that was it, and she asked me if I would care to finish my glass now that I knew what it was like.

I said that it was not quite a fair test to try a port just after it had been shaken about. I would let the bottle stand for a day or two. Ultimately I took what was left in Eliza's glass and my own, and emptied it into the garden. I did this because I did not want our general servant to try it when she cleared away, and possibly acquire a taste for drink.

Next morning I found that two of our best geraniums had died during the night. I said that it was most inexplicable. Eliza said nothing.

* * * * *

A few nights afterward, Eliza asked me if I thought that the tonic port had stood long enough.

"Yes," I said; "I will decant it for you, and then if Miss Sakers calls you might say carelessly that you were just going to have a glass of port, and would be glad if she would join you."

"No, thank you," she said; "I don't want to deceive Miss Sakers."

"You could mention that it was rich in phosphates. There need be no deception about it."

"Well, then, I don't want to lose the few friends we've got."

"As you please, Eliza. It seems a pity to waste more than half a bottle of good wine."

"Bottle of what?"

"You heard what I said."

"Well, drink it yourself, if you like it."

* * * * *

Some weeks afterward I found the bottle of Tarret's Tonic Port still standing in the sideboard. I gave it to our servant, explaining to her that it would be best mixed with water. There was still the risk of her acquiring drinking habits, but I could think of no one else to give it to. That night Eliza found the girl crying in the kitchen. When Eliza asked what was the matter, she said that she would rather say nothing, but that she was wishful to leave at the end of her month.

Of course Eliza blamed me, but I had told the girl as distinctly as I could speak that it was a wine which required dilution. However, Eliza persuaded her to stay on. The girl took the pledge on the following day, and seemed changed in many ways. She put the bottle back in the sideboard; there was still more than half of it left.

* * * * *

After that nothing happened with reference to the tonic port, until one day I noticed that our cat (who had recently lost her kittens) seemed in a poor state of health. I gave it a few spoonfuls of the tonic port in a little milk. It drank it with avidity, somewhat to my surprise. I had one or two little things to do in the garden after that, and when I came back Eliza said that the cat had become so very strange in its manner that she had thought it best to lock it in the coal-cellar.

I went to look at it, and found it lying on its back, dead. It had a singularly happy expression on its face. Both Eliza and myself were very sorry to lose it.

I judged it best to say nothing about the port. But the bottle had gone from the sideboard. Eliza said that she had removed it, to prevent further accidents.

I told the head clerk about it, but he only laughed in the silliest way. He is a most ill-bred man, in my opinion.

THE GENTLEMAN OF TITLE

One of our younger clerks, a man of the name of Perkins, is said to be very well connected. He certainly spends more than his salary, and rarely wears the same trousers on two consecutive days. But I am not a snob, nor one who thinks much of these things, and I had never cultivated young Perkins. Consequently it rather surprised me when he introduced me to his friend, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount. Then I remembered what had been said about Perkins's connections.

* * * * *

The Hon. Eugene Clerrimount was a handsome young man, though apparently troubled with pimples. His manner had in it what I should call dash. There was not an ounce of affectation about him; but then high rank does not need affectations--I have always noticed that. He appeared to take rather a liking to me, and insisted that we must all three go out and have a drink together. This is a thing which I really never do, but on this occasion I allowed myself to be persuaded. Not liking to mention beer, I said that I would take a glass of sherry wine. Nothing could have been more friendly and pleasing than his behaviour toward me; there was nothing at all stuck-up about him. It turned out that, after all, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount had forgotten his purse, and Perkins happened to have no money on him; I therefore paid for the drinks, and also lent the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount half a crown for his cab; it was, indeed, quite a pleasure to do so. He thanked me warmly, and said that he should like to know me better. Might he call at my house on the following Saturday afternoon? As luck would have it, I happened to have a card on me, and presented it to him, saying that it would indeed be an honour. "Thanks," he replied, "and then I can repay you this half-sovereign, or whatever it is." "Only four shillings," I replied, "and pray do not mention it."

* * * * *

Eliza was certainly less pleased than myself when she heard that the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount was coming. She said that he might be all right, or he might not, and we did not know anything about him. I replied: "One does not know anything about anybody in that rank of life. It is not necessary."

"Oh!" she said. "Isn't it? Well, I don't happen to be an earl myself."

And, really, on the Saturday morning I had the greatest difficulty to get Eliza to take a little trouble with the drawing-room, though I asked for nothing more than a thorough dusting, chrysanthemums, and the blinds up. For the tea I offered to make myself entirely responsible. There was some doubt as to whether the girl should announce him as the Hon. Mr. Clerrimount, or the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount, or Mr. Hon. Clerrimount. "She'd better do all three, one after the other," said Eliza, snappishly. I obviated the difficulty by telling the girl, as she opened the drawing-room door, merely to say, "A gentleman to see you." I am rather one for thinking of these little ways out of difficulties.

Eliza wanted to know what time he was coming. I replied that he could not come before three or after six, because that would be against etiquette.

"Suppose he came at five minutes to three by accident," said Eliza. "Would he sit on our doorsteps until the clock struck, and then ring the bell?" I was really beginning to lose patience with Eliza.

However, by three o'clock I had Eliza in the drawing-room, with a magazine and paper-knife by her side, as if she had been reading. She was really darning socks, but they could easily be concealed in an empty art flower-pot when the front bell rang.

* * * * *

We sat in the drawing-room until six, but, strangely enough, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount never came. The trifle that I had spent on the Madeira cake and macaroons was nothing, but it did wound my feelings that he had not even thought it worth while to explain his inability to keep his appointment.

And on the Monday I said to Perkins, rather sharply: "There was that matter of four shillings with your friend. I've not received the money, and I should thank you to see about it."

"What?" said Perkins. "You ask my friend and me to come and drink with you, and then want me to dun him for the money to pay for it. Well, I _am_ blowed!"

Oh, the whole thing was most unsatisfactory and incomprehensible!

THE HAT

I had long believed that all was not right with my hat. I could prove nothing, but I had no doubt in my own mind that the girl took liberties with it. It is very easy to brush a silk hat the wrong way, for instance, but silk hats do not brush themselves the wrong way; if it is done, some one must have done it. Morning after morning I found marks on my hat which I could not account for. Well, I said nothing, but I made up my mind to keep my eyes open. It was not only the injury to the hat--it was the impertinence to myself that affected me.

One Saturday afternoon, while I was at home, a costermonger came to the door with walnuts. The girl answered the bell, and presently I saw the coster and his cart go past the dining-room window. I don't know why it was, or how it was, but a suspicion came over me. I stepped sharply to the door, and looked out into the passage. There was no one there. The front door was open, and the kitchen door was open, and in a position between the two, against the umbrella-stand, was--something worse than ever I had expected.

I picked that hat up just as it was, with the walnuts inside it, and placed it on the dining-room table. Then I called to Eliza to come down-stairs.

"What is it?" she asked, as she entered the dining-room.

I pointed to the hat. "This kind of thing," I said, "has been going on for years!"

"Oh, do talk sense!" she said. "What do you mean?"

"Sense!" I said. "You ask me to talk sense, when I find my own hat standing on the floor in the hall, and used as a--a receptacle for walnuts!"

She smiled. "I can explain all that," she said.

"I've no doubt you can. I'm sick to death of explanations. I give ten or eleven shillings for a hat, and find it ruined. I know those explanations. You told the girl to buy the walnuts, and she had got nothing else to put them in, and the hat was handy; but if you think I take that as an excuse, you make a mistake."

"I wasn't going to say that at all."

"Or else you'll tell me that you can paste in a piece of white paper, so that the stains on the lining won't show. Explanations, indeed!"

"And I wasn't going to say that, either."

"I don't care what you were going to say. I won't hear it. There's no explanation possible. For once I mean to take a strong line. You see that hat? I shall never wear it again!"

"I know that."

"No one shall wear it! I don't care for the expense! If you choose to let that servant-girl ruin my hat, then that hat shall be ruined, and no mistake about it!"

I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick. My foot went through it, and the walnuts flew all over the room. At the same moment I heard from the drawing-room a faint tink-tink-tink on the piano.

"Yes," said Eliza. "That's the piano-tuner. He came at the same time as the walnut-man, and bought those walnuts. And he put them in his hat. _His_ hat, mind you, not _your_ hat. Your hat's hanging up in the usual place. You might have seen it if you'd looked. Only you're----"

"Eliza," I said, "you need say no more. If that is so, the servant-girl is much less to blame than I had supposed. I have to go out now, but perhaps you'd drop into the drawing-room and explain to the tuner that there's been some slight misunderstanding with his hat. And, I say, a glass of beer and two shillings is as much as you need offer."

MY FORTUNE

The girl had just removed the supper things. We have supper rather early, because I like a long evening. "Now, Eliza," I said, "you take your work,--your sewing, or whatever it may be,--and I will take my work. Yes, I've brought it with me, and it's to be paid as overtime. I daresay it mayn't seem much to you,--a lot of trouble, and only a few shillings to show for it, when all's said and done,--but that is the way fortunes are made, by sticking at it, by plugging into it, if I may use the term."

"The table's clear, if you want to start," said Eliza.

"Very well," I replied, and fetched my black bag from the passage to get the accounts on which I was working. I always hang the bag on the peg in the passage, just under my hat. Then it is there in the morning when and where it is wanted. Method in little things has always been rather a motto of mine.

"It has sometimes struck me, Eliza," I said, as I came back into the dining-room, with the bag in my hand, "that you do not read so much as I should like to see you read."

"Well, you asked me to take my work, and these socks are for you, and I never know what you do want."

"I did not mean that I wanted you to read at this moment. But there is one book--I cannot say exactly what the title is, and the name of the author has slipped my memory, which I should like to see in your hands occasionally, because it deals with the making of fortunes. It practically shows you how to do it."

"Did the man who wrote it make one?" asked Eliza.

"That--not knowing the name of the man--I cannot say for certain."

"Well, I should want to know that first. And aren't you going to start?"

"I can hardly start until I have unlocked my bag, and I cannot unlock my bag until I have the keys, and I cannot have the keys until I have fetched them from the bedroom. Try to be a little more reasonable."

I could not find the keys in the bedroom. Then Eliza went up, and she could not find them, either. By a sort of oversight they were in my pocket all the time. I laughingly remarked that I knew I should find them first. Eliza seemed rather pettish, the joke being against herself.

"The reason why I mentioned that book," I said, as I unlocked the bag, "is because it points out that there are two ways of making a fortune. One is, if I may say so, my own way,--by method in little things, economy of time, doing all the work that one can get to do, and----"

"You won't get much done to-night, if you don't start soon," said Eliza.

"I do not like to be interrupted in the middle of a sentence. The other way by which you may make a fortune--well, it's not making a fortune. It's that the fortune makes you, if you understand me."

"I don't," said Eliza.