Part 11

"I rather reckoned to find the others here," drawled the short-sighted youth, as, very carefully, he replaced the broken spectacles upon his nose. "We didn't agree. I guess they're on the road."

"Is this"--Mr. Harland addressed his question to one of the other Masters Bindon--"is this your brother?"

"I disown him," answered Rufus, on whom the principal's glance happened to fall. "I disown 'em all."

"He is my brother," struck in the shrill piping treble of John F. Ernest, "though he is the meanest-minded boy that ever put on shoes."

"I am not ashamed to admit," remarked John P. Arthur, still adjusting his broken spectacles, "that I appreciate the value of money. I have walked from Liverpool to save the charges."

"You have walked from Liverpool?"

"I understand it is a distance in the neighbourhood of one hundred and fifty miles. I have worn out a pair of boots. Still, I reckon I have saved better than half a dollar, net."

Mr. Harland took John P. Arthur up into his study. There the young gentleman explained.

"There was another row, so father decided to ship off three more of us. I rather think he must have forgotten to write, owing to the pressure of his business."

"Does your father keep an orphanage?"

John P. Arthur stared. "I never heard of it."

"Did you say he had shipped off three more of you? May I ask, then, where are the other two?"

"I left them at Liverpool. We didn't agree. I should calculate they're gone upon the burst. We each had twenty-five dollars and our fares." John P. Arthur slapped the inner pocket of his coat. "I've still got my twenty-five, besides half a dollar saved out of my fare."

"May I ask the names of your two missing brothers?"

"One is John A. Francis, and the other--I forget the other's name."

It was Mr. Harland's turn to stare.

"You forget your brother's name?"

"There are such a lot of them that one gets mixed."

"I quite concede that there do appear to be a lot of them, and that one may get mixed, but still--your brother's name! May I ask the ages of the young gentlemen whom you presume have gone upon the burst? About your own?"

"I should say John A. Francis is younger than me. I fought him three times as we were crossing. I licked each time. He must be younger."

"And the young gentleman whose name you don't happen to remember?"

"He's older. He bangs me easy. Just picks me up and knocks me down. I reckon John G. William will find him pretty tough."

While Mr. Harland had been talking to John P. Arthur he had been paying no attention to his letters. When he turned to them he found that among them there were two which threw some light upon the proceedings of the missing Masters Bindon. Here is the first:

"The Barracks, Liverpool.

"Sir,--At our Holiness Meeting on Tuesday--Alleluia!--there came in a new recruit. He gave his name as Thompson Symes, and said that he was seventeen. He now says that his name is John A. Francis Bindon, and that his age is twelve. He originally stated that he was a pickpocket, and had been nine times in jail. He now says that he has never been in jail, but that he has been sent by his father in America to be a pupil in your school. We shall be obliged if you will inform us if you know anything of a boy named John A. Francis Bindon. We fear that his present statement is as false as the others he has made. Alleluia!--G. Smith, _Major_."

Here is the second:

"Office Of The Society For The Reclamation Of Juvenile Beggars,

"Liverpool.

"Sir,--A boy who was charged this afternoon at the Liverpool Police Court with the offence of begging tells a somewhat remarkable story. He has been remanded to the workhouse for a week to enable us to inquire into the truth of what he says.

"He is four feet seven inches in height, dark hair, pale face, and he has a deep scar upon his left cheek. Speaks with a decided American accent.

"He states that his name is John B. David Bindon, that he left New York on board the steamship _Ocean Star_, in company with his two brothers. The names of these two brothers he declares that he forgets, alleging that he has so many brothers that he cannot remember all their names. He says that they were coming from New York to be pupils in your school. On board ship they disagreed, and at Liverpool they parted. He does not know what became of his two brothers. He says that he himself had twenty-five dollars in his pockets in American currency. Part of this he spent upon confectionery and sweets, until he made some acquaintances in the street, who took him to what appears to have been a disreputable house. There they robbed him, not only of his money, but also of his clothes. They kept him, so he states, locked up for three days, only releasing him on his promising to appeal for alms, and on his undertaking to bring back the proceeds of his appeal. No sooner, according to his statement, did he commence to beg than he was given into custody.

"If you know anything, whether for good or ill, of a boy named John B. David Bindon, I should be obliged by your communicating at once with me at these offices. I have had much experience in these cases, and I think myself that the boy's story, strange though it seems, contains at least some portion of truth. Awaiting your early favour,

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"Edward Everest, _Secretary_."

When Mr. Harland showed these letters to his wife, and told her John P. Arthur's story, the lady was, not unnaturally, surprised.

"Andrew, I am sure there is something wrong about those Bindons! There will be a scandal if you don't take care! I never heard of such a thing! Don't tell me that any man can have seven sons, all of an age! It's incredible on the face of the thing!"

Mr. Harland communicated with Mr. Smith and Mr. Everest. The two missing Masters Bindon appeared at Duddenham. They were given into the charge of the guard at Liverpool; the schoolmaster himself met them at the village station.

"Them boys," observed the guard, as he handed over his charges to the principal of Mulberry House, "them boys is nice ones."

Ten minutes after their appearance in the playground John G. William was having it out with John B. David.

"Andrew," called Mrs. Harland from an upper room, "those Bindons are fighting again."

"I see they are."

As a matter of fact the uproar had attracted her husband to his study window.

"They are an interesting family."

He stood at the window for a second or two observing the fray.

"I fancy that in John B. David John G. William has met his match. It is perhaps as well that he should."

He was aware, from previous experience, that if he interfered in one of the family discussions it would only be renewed at the earliest opportunity. As he was wondering whether it would not be as well to let them fight it out and have done with it, at any rate for the time, a servant entered the room with a letter in her hand. The principal opened it. It was a cablegram:

"Forgot to advise last shipment. Three. Draw Rödenheim.--Bindon."

"'What sort of a family can that be," inquired the schoolmaster of himself, "which is so large that the father overlooks such a trifling detail as the sending of three of his sons, all of tender years, unescorted, across the Atlantic Ocean? And when, a month after their departure, the incident does occur to his mind, he contents himself with sending nine words--and nine such words--in a telegram. I think I will go up in person to Messrs. Rödenheim, and make a few inquiries."

He made them, but he received little information in return. Messrs. Rödenheim received him with courtesy. They informed him that, up to a certain amount, they were instructed to honour his calls; that Mr. Bindon was a client of theirs, financially, of the highest standing. But as to his family affairs: they were simply bankers, and as such Mr. Harland could not suppose that they concerned themselves with the family affairs of their customers.

"One thing seems pretty clear," said Mr. Harland to his wife, when he returned to Mulberry House. "There appears, in the case of the prolific parent of the Bindons, to be plenty of money, and that is more than can be said in the case of the parents of all my boys. I don't see myself, Maria, why I should object to there being seven, or even seventy brothers in a family, especially if the father of the seventy is a good paymaster, and all the seventy come to me."

"Of course there's that to be said."

"There's very much that to be said. The terms in my prospectus are thirty guineas per annum for boys of twelve, a reduction to be made for brothers. I have to make a reduction sometimes when there are no brothers. In this case there are actually _seven_ brothers, and, instead of being called upon to make a reduction--some fathers would want you to take the seven as though they were four!--I receive one hundred pounds a year with each, besides extras."

Mr. Harland smiled as he thought of the sum which he had drawn that day from Messrs. Rödenheim.

"No doubt that's nice enough."

"I don't know if you're aware that I receive more from those seven Bindons than from all the rest of my pupils put together. Under those circumstances I don't see how it concerns me if their father has a peculiar habit of shipping his offspring as though they were barrels of pork, and then forgetting to 'advise' me, as he calls it, of his 'shipments'!"

"But will it last?"

"Will what last? The Bindons? Are you afraid that John G. William will knock the rest of the family all to pieces? I don't think there is much fear of that now that John B. David has appeared upon the scene. It strikes me from what I have heard and seen that he will perform upon John G. William. I noticed at tea that John G. William's countenance seemed to be a little the worse for wear."

"But suppose tales got about, and the parents of the other boys objected to the presence of the Bindons--they certainly are the most remarkable children, for brothers too, I ever saw--and the other boys were taken away, and then the Bindons went, the school would have lost its character."

Mr. Harland reflected for a moment.

"I think I'll take the risk, Maria. So far as I am myself concerned I only hope that Mr. Bindon may 'ship' another seven."

The wish was father to the thought. Mr. Bindon shipped them. Not a fortnight after that discussion Mr. Harland had this letter:

"219, Twentieth Street, New York.

"Sir,--I am shipping, per s.s. _City of Thay_, an assorted lot of five sons. My final selection not being yet made I am unable to advise you as to their names. For fees please draw, on their arrival, on Messrs. Rödenheim.

"Yours faithfully,

"J. Bindon.

"P.S.--Probably the lot may consist of seven."

"Maria," said Mr. Harland, when he handed this epistle to his wife, "Mr. Bindon is a truly remarkable man."

The lady read the letter.

"Andrew, what does he mean? 'An assorted lot of five sons. Probably the lot may consist of seven.' I take my stand, Andrew, and I insist upon an explanation. I will not have this man shooting his children--or what he calls his children--into my house as though they were coals. Seven sons all of an age were hard to swallow, but at fourteen I draw the line."

"You're not a philosopher, Maria. At the rate of a hundred pounds a head I shouldn't draw the line at forty."

"Andrew, don't talk to me like that. Who is this man? And what is the mystery connected with his children? Did I tell you that the other morning I asked John P. Arthur how many brothers he had, and he said that he didn't know, there were always such a lot of fresh ones turning up?"

Mr. Harland rubbed his chin.

"I don't know, Maria, what difference it makes to us whether the boys we receive as pupils are the sons of Brown or Jones. It is not as though we went in for anything special in the way of birth and family. It isn't even as though we confined ourselves to the sons of so-called gentlemen. Mine is a middle-class school. In these days of competition with the Board Schools one cannot choose one's pupils. I always welcome the sons of tradesmen, and I am quite sure I shall be always glad to receive any number of pupils at a hundred pounds a head, no matter who they are."

Probably, on reflection, Mrs. Harland fell into her husband's views. At dinner the principal of Mulberry House School made an announcement which, while it was of an interesting, was, at the same time, of a curious kind. It was when the pudding had been served.

"Boys, you will be glad to hear that I expect to receive, either to-day or to-morrow, five new pupils, and probably seven, but of the seven I am not quite sure. This piece of news should be specially interesting to the Masters Bindon, since the new pupils are their brothers." The headmaster's words were received with silence--possibly the silence of surprise. "I don't think that there is any other school in Europe which can claim to have had under its roof, at one and the same time, twelve brothers, and perhaps fourteen."

Up spake Rufus--John F. Stanley:

"I disown 'em," he observed; "I disown 'em all."

Mr. Harland smiled.

"But it does not follow because you disown them--which I am sorry to hear, because perhaps one of these days they may turn the tables and disown you--that therefore they are not your brothers."

"But they're not my brothers, not one of all the lot of them. I'm the only son."

"Yes," said Mr. Harland with gentle sarcasm, as his eyes, wandering round the table, rested on the other six; "I should say you were the only son."

Two days passed. There were still no signs of the latest "shipment." On previous occasions the Masters Bindon had appeared at Mulberry House within a few hours of the receipt of the "advice."

"I hope," suggested the principal to his wife when, on the evening of the second day, there was still no news, "that this is not another case of 'going on the burst.'"

On the afternoon of the following day Mrs. Harland was working in her own apartment, when the servant came rushing in. There was in the maid's bearing a suggestion of suppressed excitement.

"If you please, ma'am, there are a lot of little girls downstairs."

"A lot of little girls! What do they want?"

"If you please, ma'am, I don't know. I think they're foreigners. They say they've come to school."

The servant giggled. Mrs. Harland rose.

"Come to school! There must be some mistake. Where are they?"

"They're in the hall. And if you please, ma'am, there are three flies full of luggage."

Mrs. Harland went downstairs. A crowd of small girls were grouped together in the hall, varying in ages perhaps from six to fourteen.

The lady addressed herself to the largest.

"What is it you want?"

"We've come to school."

Mrs. Harland smiled.

"But this is a school for young gentlemen. No doubt you are looking for Miss Simpson's, Burlington House Academy. The flyman ought to have known."

"He said Mulberry House. He wrote it down."

The young lady held a piece of paper. She handed it to Mrs. Harland. On it were some words, inscribed in a handwriting which was becoming almost too familiar. At sight of it the lady felt an inward qualm.

"What is your name?"

"Clara Mary Dixon."

Unconsciously the lady gave a sigh of relief. It was not the name which she had dreaded.

"I'm sure there's some mistake."

"There's no mistake." Suddenly the young lady put her handkerchief up to her eyes. Immediately all the other young ladies followed suit. "You're trying to play it off on us. He wrote it down himself, he did. We never thought he was going to ship us off to Europe just 'cause he'd married ma."

The young ladies' voices' were raised in lamentation. The servants stood giggling by. The flymen grinned upon the doorstep. Mrs. Harland deemed it inadvisable to continue the interview in public.

"Come this way." She led the way into the drawing-room. The weeping maidens followed. "Pray don't cry. The mistake, however it may have arisen, will soon be cleared up. Now tell me, where do you come from?"

"New--York--City!"

Mrs. Harland, when she received that answer, was conscious of another inward qualm.

"Who sent you to England?"

"Mr.--Bindon."

The lady sat down on a chair. She stared in speechless silence at the new arrivals. Then, rising, she rang the bell. The servant appeared.

"Tell your master I wish to speak to him in the drawing-room."

Scarcely had the housemaid turned her back than there came a loud ringing at the front-door bell. Another servant entered--the cook--in her hand a cablegram. Mrs. Harland was conscious that the envelope was addressed to Mr. Harland. As a rule enclosures addressed to him she held inviolate, but on this occasion she broke the rule. She tore the envelope open with a hand which slightly trembled. With her eyes she devoured the words which were written on the sheet of paper it had contained:

"Girls shipped by mistake. Boys following.--Bindon."

Those were the words which had been flashed across the seas. She read them over and over again. It seemed as though she could not grasp their meaning. She still held the telegram extended in her hand when her husband entered the room. That gentleman paused upon the threshold. Retaining the handle of the door in his hand, he appeared to be making an effort to comprehend the meaning of the scene within.

"What is it you want, Maria?"

"I--I want nothing." The lady put her hand to her brow with a gesture which was almost tragic. "This is Mr. Bindon's latest shipment."

She stretched out her hands towards the strangers in a manner which really was dramatic. The girls had dried their eyes to enable them, perhaps, to study Mr. Harland to better advantage. They stood in a row, the tallest at one end and the shortest at the other. The line of height descended in an agreeably graduated scale. Mr. Harland stared at the girls. Then he stared at his wife. "I don't understand," he said.

"Read that!"

The lady thrust the cablegram into his hand. He read it. He read it once, he read it twice, he read it even thrice. Then crumpling it up he thrust both hands into his trouser pockets and he whistled.

"This is a pleasant state of things," he said.

"Is that all you have to say?" inquired his wife.

"Well, my dear, I may have a little more to say if you will give me a little time to reflect upon the situation. It is a situation which requires reflection." He stared at the row of girls in front of him. He reflected. "This is a truly pleasant state of things. Your father, young ladies----"

"He is not our father," interposed the tallest of the row, Clara Mary.

"Not your father? Mr. Bindon is not your father?" Mr. Harland referred to the crumpled cablegram. "I am afraid that again I do not understand."

"We're the Miss Dixons. Ma's a widow. Mr. Bindon shipped us off to Europe the very day he married her. We never knew that we were going till just before we started, and I don't believe Ma knew it either."

Again the handkerchiefs were raised in a simultaneous row to tearful eyes.

"J. Bindon," murmured Mr. Harland, "_must_ be Jolly Jack. You will be pleased to learn, young ladies," he added in a louder key, "that you have been shipped to Europe by mistake. I don't at this moment understand altogether how the mistake arose. There are eight of you--I perceive that there are eight--and one would think that a mistake to that extent would be one which it would be rather difficult to make. Still, you will be gratified to learn, it has been made. Mr. Bindon has telegraphed to tell me so. We expected a shipment to consist of an assorted lot of sons, possibly five--possibly seven. I am informed in the telegram that that shipment is following. But whether we are to return at once the shipment which consists of you, or whether, so to speak, we are to give it warehouse room, there are no instructions yet to hand."

The row of girls stared at Mr. Harland, dry-eyed and open-mouthed.

He spoke in a tongue which was strange to them.

"Andrew," cried his wife, "I am ashamed of you! How can you talk like that!"

Mr. Harland continued, almost as if he were speaking to himself. "It occurs to me that I have read somewhere, it was perhaps in some old book, that in American schools they run--I believe the term is a correct one--the boys and girls together. I hope Mr. Bindon is not under the impression that such a system obtains in Duddenham."

"Andrew, it is shocking! Upon my word, I feel inclined to cry."

"Do not cry, Maria; do not cry. Suppose, instead of crying, you come with me to the study, and let me say a word to you alone."

"Andrew," cried the lady, as she closed the study door, "I really am ashamed of you. How can you say such things--a man in your position?"

"A man in my position, Maria, is justified in saying anything, even damn. It is because my tongue inclines to adjectives, strong and pithy adjectives, that I endeavour to let off the steam in another way."

"What are you going to do with those poor girls?"

"What are you going to do, Maria? Girls are more in your line than mine."

"I believe he's done it on purpose, that Bindon man. I don't believe it's possible to make such a mistake; shipping girls in mistake for boys, indeed!"

"Not in the case of an ordinary family, Maria. But it is not an ordinary family, Mr. Bindon's." There was a pause. The lady walked excitedly up and down the room. The gentleman sat back in an arm-chair, his hands in his trouser pockets, his legs stretched out in front of him. "You will have to provide them with bed and with board, Maria, till we have turned the matter over in our minds, or till we have heard further from Mr. Bindon."

They had to.

They provided the young ladies with bed and board.

"As," remarked Mr. Harland, when the days went by, and there still came no further instructions from America, "these young ladies bid fair to remain with us an indefinite length of time, I think, in order to do something which will entitle me to the proper fees, I will lay on something in the shape of a daily governess. They shall receive their education in the parlour. If Mr. Bindon could only see his way to making a few more errors in the 'shipment' line I might, on my part, see my way to running a school for young ladies in connection with my establishment for boys."

The eight Misses Dixon arrived on a Tuesday. Nothing--that is, nothing unusual--happened during the whole of the ensuing week. But on the Wednesday week, eight days after their arrival, an incident, slightly out of the common way, did vary the monotony. A fly drove up to Mulberry House, and in it, on the back seat, sat a solitary boy. Mr. Harland happened to be leaving the house just as the fly drove up. He eyed the boy, the boy eyed him. The flyman touched his hat.

"If you please, sir, seems as how this here boy's for you. Leastways, it says so on his ticket." Turning round on his box the driver addressed his fare. "This here's the schoolmaster, and this here's Mulberry House."

The boy opened his mouth. Sounds issued forth. But they were sounds without form, and void. He appeared, judging from the grimaces he was making, to be suffering from an attack of facial convulsion. The flyman descended from his box.

"Seems, sir, as how this here boy's got a stutter. It is a stutter too. I never see nothing like it. They've been and stuck a lot of tickets all over him, so that people might know where he was going to. He'd never have made them understand."

When the boy came out of the fly Mr. Harland perceived that what the coachman said was correct. A square, white card was sewed on his coat, another on his waistcoat, and a third in a most prominent situation on his breeches. The writing on this latter, by dint of constant friction, had become so worn as to be unintelligible. On the other two was written, in a bold round hand, so that he that ran might read:

"Frank J. Samuel Bindon, Mulberry House School, Duddenham, England. Note.--This Boy Stutters."