CHAPTER IX.

BUSINESS.

For some days Mr. Boxall was so uneasy about Mary that he forgot his appointment with Mr. Worboise. At length, however, when a thaw had set in, and she had began to improve, he went to call upon his old friend.

"Ah, Boxall! glad to see you. What a man you are to make an appointment with! Are you aware, sir, of the value of time in London, not to say in this life generally? Are you aware that bills are due at certain dates, and that the man who has not money at his banker's to meet them is dishonored--euphemistically shifted to the bill?"

Thus jocosely did Mr. Worboise play upon the well-known business habits of his friend, who would rather, or at least believed he would rather, go to the scaffold than allow a bill of his to be dishonored. But Mr. Boxall was in a good humor, too, this morning.

"At least, Worboise," he answered, "I trust when the said bill is dishonored, you may not be the holder."

"Thank you. I hope not. I don't like losing money."

"Oh, don't mistake me! I meant for my sake, not yours."

"Why?"

"Because you would skin the place before you took the pound of flesh. I know you!"

Mr. Worboise winced. Mr. Boxall thought he had gone too far, that is, had been rude. But Mr. Worboise laughed aloud.

"You flatter me, Boxall," he said. "I had no idea I was such a sharp practitioner. But you ought to know best. We'll take care, at all events, to have this will of yours right."

So saying, he went to a drawer to get it out. But Mr. Boxall still feared that his friend had thought him rude.

"The fact is," he said, "I have been so uneasy about Mary."

"Why? What's the matter?" interrupted Mr. Worboise, stopping on his way across the room.

"Don't you know?" returned Mr. Boxall, in some surprise. "She's never got over that Hampstead Heath affair. She's been in bed ever since."

"God bless me!" exclaimed the other. "I never heard a word of it. What was it?"

So Mr. Boxall told as much as he knew of the story, and any way there was not much to tell.

"Never heard a word of it!" repeated the lawyer.

The statement made Mr. Boxall more uneasy than he cared to show.

"But I must be going," he said; "so let's have this troublesome will signed and done with."

"Not in the least a troublesome one, I assure you. Rather too simple, I think. Here it is."

And Mr. Worboise began to read it over point by point to his client.

"All right," said the latter. "Mrs. Boxall to have everything to do with it as she pleases. It is the least I can say, for she has been a good wife to me."

"And will be for many years to come, I hope," said Mr. Worboise.

"I hope so. Well, go on."

Mr. Worboise went on.

"All right," said his client again. "Failing my wife, my daughters to have everything, as indeed they will whether my wife fails or not--at last, I mean, for she would leave it to them, of course."

"Well," said the lawyer, "and who comes next?"

"Nobody. Who do you think?"

"It's rather a short--doesn't read quite business-like. Put in any body, just for the chance--a poor one, ha! ha! with such a fine family as yours."

"Stick yourself in then, old fellow; and though it won't do you any good, it will be an expression of my long esteem and friendship for you."

"What a capital stroke!" thought Mr. Boxall. "I've surely got that nonsense out of his head now. He'll never think of it more. I _was_ country-bred."

"Thank you, old friend," said Mr. Worboise, quietly, and entered his own name in succession.

The will was soon finished, signed, and witnessed by two of Mr. Worboise's clerks.

"Now what is to be done with it?" asked Mr. Worboise.

"Oh, you take care of it for me. You have more storage--for that kind of thing, I mean, than I have. I should never know where to find it."

"If you want to make any alteration in it, there's your box, you know."

"Why, what alteration could I want to make in it?"

"That's not for me to suppose. You might quarrel with me though, and want to strike out my name."

"True. I _might_ quarrel with my wife too, mightn't I, and strike her name out?"

"It might happen."

"Yes; anything might happen. Meantime I am content with sufficient probabilities."

"By the way, how is that son of mine getting on?"

"Oh, pretty well. He's regular enough, and I hear no complaints of him from Stopper; and _he's_ sharp enough, I assure you."

"But you're not over-satisfied with him yourself, eh?"

"Well, to speak the truth, between you and me, I don't think he's cut out for our business."

"That's much the same as saying he's of no use for business of any sort."

"I don't know. He does his work fairly well, as I say, but he don't seem to have any heart in it."

"Well, what do you think he is fit for now?"

"I'm sure I don't know. You could easily make a fine gentleman of him."

Mr. Boxall spoke rather bitterly, for he had already had flitting doubts in his mind whether Tom had been behaving well to Mary. It had become very evident since her illness that she was very much in love with Tom, and that he should be a hair's-breadth less in love with her was offense enough to rouse the indignation of a man like Mr. Boxall, good-natured as he was; and that he had never thought it worth while even to mention the fact of her illness to his father, was strange to a degree.

"But I can't afford to make a fine gentleman of him. I've got his sister to provide for as well as my fine gentleman. I don't mean to say that I could not leave him as much, perhaps more than you can to _each_ of your daughters; but girls are so different from boys. Girls can live upon anything; fine gentlemen can't." And here Mr. Worboise swore.

"Well, it's no business of mine," said Mr. Boxall. "If there's anything I can do for him, of course, for your sake, Worboise--"

"The rascal has offended him somehow," said Mr. Worboise to himself. "It's that Hampstead business. Have patience with the young dog," he said, aloud. "That's all I ask you to do for him. Who knows what may come out of him yet?"

"That's easy to do. As I tell you, there's no fault to find with him," answered Mr. Boxall, afraid that he had exposed some feeling that had better have been hidden. "Only one must speak the truth."

With these words Mr. Boxall took his leave.

Mr. Worboise sat and cogitated.

"There's something in that rascal's head, now," he said to himself. "His mother and that Simon will make a spoon of him. I want to get some sense out of him before he's translated to kingdom-come. But how the deuce to get any sense out when there's so precious little in! I found seventeen volumes of Byron on his book-shelves last night. I'll have a talk to his mother about him. Not that that's of much use!"

To her husband Mrs. Worboise always wore a resigned air, believing herself unequally yoked to an unbeliever with a bond which she was not at liberty to break, because it was enjoined upon her to win her husband by her chaste conversation coupled with fear. Therefore when he went into her room that evening, she received him as usual with a look which might easily be mistaken, and not much mistaken either, as expressive of a sense of injury.

"Well, my dear," her husband began, in a conciliatory, indeed jocose, while yet complaining tone, "do you know what this precious son of ours has been about? Killing Mary Boxall in a snow-storm, and never telling me a word about it. I suppose you know the whole story, though? You _might_ have told me."

"Indeed, Mr. Worboise, I am sorry to say I know nothing about Thomas nowadays. I can't understand him. He's quite changed. But if I were not laid on a couch of suffering--not that I complain of that--I should not come to _you_ to ask what he was about. I should find out for myself."

"I wish to goodness you were able."

"Do not set your wish against _His_ will," returned Mrs. Worboise, with a hopeless reproof in her tone, implying that it was of no use to say so, but she must bear her testimony notwithstanding.

"Oh! no, no," returned her husband; "nothing of the sort. Nothing further from my intention. But what is to be done about this affair? You know it would please you as well as me to see him married to Mary Boxall. She's a good girl, that you know."

"If I were sure that she was a changed character, there is nothing I should like better, I confess--that is, of worldly interest."

"Come, come, Mrs. Worboise. I don't think you're quite fair to the girl."

"What _do_ you mean, Mr. Worboise?"

"I mean that just now you seemed in considerable doubt whether or not your son was a changed character, as you call it. And yet you say that if Mary Boxall were a changed character, you would not wish anything more--that is, of worldly interest--than to see him married to Mary Boxall. Is that fair to Mary Boxall? I put the question merely."

"There would be the more hope for him; for the Scripture says that the believing wife may save her husband."

Mr. Worboise winked inwardly to himself. Because his wife's religion was selfish, and therefore irreligious, therefore, religion was a humbug, and _therefore_ his conduct might be as selfish as ever he chose to make it.

"But how about Mary? Why should you wish her, if she was a changed character, to lose her advantage by marrying one who is not so?"

"She might change him, Mr. Worboise, as I have said already," returned the lady, decisively; "for she might speak with authority to one who knew nothing about these things."

"Yes. But if Thomas were changed, and Mary not--what then?"

Mrs. Worboise murmured something not quite audible about "I and the children whom God hath given me."

"At the expense of the children he hasn't given you!" said Mr. Worboise, at a venture; and chuckled now, for he saw his victory in her face.

But Mr. Worboise's chuckle always made Mrs. Worboise _shut up_, and not another word could he get out of her that evening. She never took refuge in her illness, but in an absolute dogged silence, which she persuaded herself that she was suffering for the truth's sake.

Her husband's communication made her still more anxious about Thomas, and certain suspicions she had begun to entertain about the German master became more decided. In her last interview with Mr. Simon, she had hinted to him that Thomas ought to be watched, that they might know whether he really went to his German lesson or went somewhere else. But Mr. Simon was too much of a gentleman not to recoil from the idea, and Mrs. Worboise did not venture to press it. When she saw him again, however, she suggested--I think I had better give the substance of the conversation, for it would not in itself be interesting to my readers--she suggested her fears that his German master had been mingling German theology, with his lessons, and so corrupting the soundness of his faith. This seemed to Mr. Simon very possible indeed, for he knew how insidious the teachers of such doctrines are, and, glad to do something definite for his suffering friend, he offered to call upon the man and see what sort of person he was. This offer Mrs. Worboise gladly accepted, without thinking that of all men to find out any insidious person, Mr. Simon, in his simplicity, was the least likely.

But now the difficulty arose that they knew neither his name nor where he lived, and they could not ask Thomas about him. So Mr. Simon undertook the task of finding the man by inquiry in the neighborhood of Bagot Street.

"My friend, he said, stepping the next morning into Mr. Kitely's shop,--he had a way of calling everybody his friend, thinking so to recommend the Gospel.

"At your service, sir," returned Mr. Kitely, brusquely, as he stepped from behind one of the partitions in the shop, and saw the little clerical apparition which had not even waited to see the form of the human being to whom he applied the sacred epithet.

"I only wanted to ask you," drawled Mr. Simon, in a drawl both of earnestness and unconscious affectation, "whether you happen to know of a German master somewhere in this neighborhood."

"Well, I don't know," returned Mr. Kitely, in a tone that indicated a balancing rather than pondering operation of the mind. For although he was far enough from being a Scotchman, he always liked to know why one asked a question, before he cared to answer it. "I don't know as I could recommend one over another."

"I am not in want of a master. I only wish to find out one that lives in this neighborhood."

"I know at least six of them within a radius of one-half mile, taking my shop here for the center of the circle," said Mr. Kitely, consequentially. "What's the man's name you want?"

"That is what I cannot tell you."

"Then how am I to tell you, sir?"

"If you will oblige me with the names and addresses of those six you mention, one of them will very likely be the man I want."

"I dare say the clergyman wants Mr. Moloch, father," said a voice from somewhere in the neighborhood of the floor, "the foreign gentleman that Mr. Worboise goes to see, up the court."

"That's the very man, my child," responded Mr. Simon. "Thank you very much. Where shall I find him?"

"I'll show you," returned Mattie.

"Why couldn't he have said so before?" remarked Mr. Kitely to himself with indignation. "But it's just like them."

By _them_ he meant clergymen in general.

"What a fearful name--_Moloch_!" reflected Mr. Simon, as he followed Mattie up the court. He would have judged it a name of bad omen, had he not thought _omen_ rather a wicked word. The fact was, the German's name was Molken, a very innocent one, far too innocent for its owner, for it means only _whey_.

Herr Molken was a _ne'er-do-weel_ student of Heidelberg, a clever fellow, if not a scholar, whose bad habits came to be too well known at home for his being able to indulge them there any longer, and who had taken refuge in London from certain disagreeable consequences which not unfrequently follow aberrant efforts to procure the means of gambling and general dissipation. Thomas had as yet spent so little time in his company, never giving more than a quarter of an hour or so to his lesson, that Molken had had no opportunity of influencing him in any way. But he was one of those who, the moment they make a new acquaintance, begin examining him for the sake of discovering his weak points, that they may get some hold of him. He measured his own strength or weakness by the number of persons of whom at any given time he had a hold capable of being turned to advantage in some way or other in the course of events. Of all dupes, one with some intellect and no principle, weakened by the trammels of a religious system with which he is at strife, and which therefore hangs like a millstone about his neck, impedes his every motion, and gives him up to the mercy of his enemy, is the most thorough prey to the pigeon-plucker; for such a one has no recuperative power, and the misery of his conscience makes him abject. Molken saw that Tom was clever, and he seemed to have some money--if he could get this hold of him in any way, it might be "to the welfare of his advantage."

The next lesson fell on the evening after Mr. Simon's visit in Guild Court, and Mr. Molken gave Thomas a full account of the "beseek" he had had from "one soft ghostly," who wanted to find out something about Thomas, and how he had told him that Mr. Worboise was a most excellent and religious young man; that he worked very hard at his German, and that he never spent less (here Mr. Molken winked at Thomas) than an hour and a half over Krummacher or some other religious writer. All this Mr. Simon had faithfully reported to Mrs. Worboise, never questioning what Mr. Molken told him, though how any one could have looked at him without finding cause to doubt whatever he might say, I can hardly imagine. For Mr. Molken was a small, wiry man, about thirty, with brows overhanging his eyes like the eaves of a Swiss cottage, and rendering those black and wicked luminaries blacker and more wicked still. His hair was black, his beard was black, his skin was swarthy, his forehead was large; his nose looked as if it had been made of putty and dabbed on after the rest of his face was finished; his mouth was sensual; and, in short, one was inclined to put the question in the gospel--Whether hath sinned, this man or his parents? He could, notwithstanding, make himself so agreeable, had such a winning carriage and dignified deference, that he soon disarmed the suspicion caused by his appearance. He had, besides, many accomplishments, and seemed to know everything--at least to a lad like Thomas, who could not detect the assumption which not unfrequently took the place of knowledge. He manifested, also, a genuine appreciation of his country's poetry, and even the short lessons to which Thomas submitted had been enlivened by Herr Molken's enthusiasm for Goethe. If those of his poems which he read and explained to Thomas were not of the best, they were none the worse for his purposes.

Now he believed he had got, by Mr. Simon's aid, the hold that he wanted. His one wink, parenthetically introduced above, revealed to Thomas that he was master of his secret, and Thomas felt that he was, to a considerable degree, in his hands. This, however, caused him no apprehension.

His mother, although in a measure relieved, still cherished suspicions of German theology which the mention of Krummacher had failed to remove. She would give her son a direct warning on the subject. So, when he came into her room that evening, she said:

"Mr. Simon has been making some friendly inquiries about you, Thomas. He was in the neighborhood, and thought he might call on Mr. Moloch--what a dreadful name! Why have you nothing to say to me about your studies? Mr. Simon says you are getting quite a scholar in German. But it is a dangerous language, Thomas, and full of errors. Beware of yielding too ready an ear to the seductions of human philosophy and the undermining attacks of will-worship."

Mrs. Worboise went on in this strain, intelligible neither to herself nor her son, seeing she had not more than the vaguest notion of what she meant by German theology, for at least five minutes, during which Thomas did not interrupt her once. By allowing the lies of his German master to pass thus uncontradicted, he took another long stride down the inclined plane of deceit.

After this he became naturally more familiar with Mr. Molken. The German abandoned books, and began to teach him fencing, in which he was an adept, talking to him in German all the while, and thus certainly increasing his knowledge of the language, though not in a direction that was likely within fifty years to lead him to the mastery of commercial correspondence in that tongue.