Part 3

“Moreover, you’re only a Londoner, and that sort of hampers you. My experience, my dear, tells me that it don’t do to expect everything to ’appen all at once. Your dog—or rather the dog belonging to a gentleman military friend that you was taking charge of—slips his collar three days ago, whilst your train was stoppin’ at the station, and makes off. You, being tur’bly upset, you gives up your journey, and you offers ten shillin’ reeward. On my suggestion, you next day makes it two pound. Still acting on my racommendation, you, the foll’ing day, increases it to five.”

“That is more than I can really afford.”

“Never you mind ’bout that,” said the other, with a touch of impatience. “I’m only tellin’ you what happened. I’m a business woman, and I like to have everything straightfor’ard, and above board. I know all that occurs in Hayford, and if you leave yourself in my hands, you won’t go fur wrong. Your dog’s been seen, and that ought to be enough for you, to go on with.”

“If he could only catch sight of me, he’d come directly. Fuzzy is as fond of me as he is of his master.”

“But not near so fond, miss, I lay a pint,” interposed Sprules, with a wink to the others, “as what his master is of you.”

She regarded him with a steady gaze; the blacksmith tried to hum a tune, and failing in this, mentioned it was high time he went back to finish his breakfast.

“I have been walking around the neighbourhood,” the girl went on, “every day in the hope of finding him, and I haven’t succeeded. To-night, by the 6.37, I must go on, and—” with a break in her voice,—“I shall have to face Captain Stamford.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Marchant encouragingly, “you make it ten, and some’ing seems to tell me you’ll get your dog back.”

“That would mean giving up my holiday,” she answered doubtfully. Young Banks, draper and grocer, stepped forward: some one pulled at his apron. “But if you think it will increase the efforts of the villagers, I’ll do as you suggest.”

“Ten pound,” announced Mrs. Marchant, addressing the others in tones of authority, “to any one what brings this lady’s dog back here to The Windmill afore six o’clock this very evening.”

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?”