Part 4

"Max, my boy! Look at that!" cried the old man, clearing his throat. "What d'ye think of Papa now, eh?"

He rose, chuckled violently and rattled his golden watch-chain. Max took the card and read it. It was an invitation to dine with the Lord Mayor and some representatives of commercial houses. He felt a twinge of envy, and then of pride.

"Bravo, Dad!" said the son. They shook hands solemnly. "It'th to-night, too!"

"Yeth," said Emmanuel, taking the invitation and frowning at it. "Thoth idioth at the potht-offith nearly mitht my thecuring thith 'igh honour. 'Ere's the envelope. Look at the thtamp. Pothted a week ago, and I only got it to-day. Put in the wrong letter-box. I've written to the Potht-mathter-General to complain. A 'ot and strong letter I've written. Very nice of the Lord Mayor, ain't it?"

"'Ow did you get it, Dad?"

"Lord knowth! I lent one of 'is footmen money. P'raps that 'elped!"

"'Ave you accepted? You mutht, you know!"

"Twice; to make sure, I sent two letterth by expreth, from different poth-offithes."

"My word, Dad, you are spendin'. That'th what I call extravaganth."

"No, my boy, you muthn't look at the pennieth when there'th a twenty-bob dinner in store. That'th policy and busineth too. You can't teach Papa nothin', you can't! Now, 'ow are things?"

They talked of clothes, market-prices and details of their trade for a couple of hours, while June listened and wondered. How these mortals did waste their time over the wealth which isn't worth having!

She made up her mind to go to the banquet at the Mansion House.

When the office-clock chinkled five the elder Oldstein looked at his watch to confirm the news, and hurriedly put away his papers.

"I mutht be off to dreth," he said to his son. "I'm going' to 'ave a bath."

He went, June after him.

He drove westward in a slow omnibus. The fairy sat on his knee, and, looking about her, felt disappointed with civilization.

At length they stopped by Maida Vale, and the wholesale clothier having ridden his full three-pennyworth, waddled down two streets and arrived at his dwelling. It was one of a row of buildings, mostly boarding-houses, in their dull unornamental dinginess strangely similar to each other. They were Mid-Victorian--the Drab Age!--and looked it from boot-scraper to roof-tree. Oldstein's private residence, like his business house, seemed in dire need of paint. What the household could do was done. What they could not do must be done without.

"Wathte of good money, my boy;" and then, "Next year, per'aps." And so on, season after season, year after year. Like Alice's to-morrow, the Oldstein next-year never came.

The clothier and his family lived at forty-eight. The next house was number fifty. The two front-doors were immediately adjacent, the entrances separated by a row of rusty railings.

As he ascended his steps, Emmanuel slyly slipped a folded, printed paper out of his breast-pocket; and leaning over the railings, gently dropped it into the next-door letter-box.

The same instant his front-door was opened by Hannah, the ever-indignant, eldest daughter of the house.

"Those people have been at it again!" she said, and angrily crumpled up and threw down a circular she had just taken out of the letter-box.

"The thame thort?" her father asked, shutting the door quietly.

"Yes, of course, this is the ninety-second they've dropped in. It makes me wild! I've made up my mind when the hundredth comes--if it does come--to give Aaron Hyam's youngest tuppence to break their kitchen window."

"Don't waste yer money like that; am I a millionaire?" He picked up and smoothed out the circular, and began to read it aloud: "'Thothiety for the Conversion of the Jews; an evenin' meetin' with addretheth.' Oh, put it with the retht, Max will make a spill of it. Leave it to Papa, dear. I've got a better plan for dealing with 'em; I've begun to put it in practice already."

"'Ave you, Dad? I'd like to scratch that little nincompoop of a son of theirs. He makes me mad with his soppy smile, and sandy whiskers, and conceited sanctimoniousness. I'd give 'im hymns at the street corner."

"A much better plan, my clear. You may as well give me them little billths--all of 'em. They'll be useful. They're poor, ain't they?"

"They are--as synagogue rats--if the faces of the tradespeople are anything to go by."

Hannah was very vicious.

"Well, then, leave it to me. Every time they invite us to be converted, I invite them to borrow money from me--from Jabez Gordon. They've 'ad fourteen of my circulars already. I gave 'em a fifteenth to-day. That'th the best bait for those birds. Trust Daddy, my dear. They will bite--that sort of body always does. Trutht a hymn-smiter for a quiet gamble; and then----"

"You will fleece them?" she cried, with fierce exultation. Something of Jephthah's daughter, of Deborah, of Hagar, of the ancient heroines of Israel, lived in her breast.

"Oh no, Hannah! Fleeth! we never fleeth. I will help them to some very good bithness, that ith all."

"That will do!" she said. "They convert _us_! The fools!"

"And ith the shirt well aired?" he asked. "I'm nervouth of cold white shirts."

"You'll find everything all right, Dad. Your bath-water will soon be ready. Mother's in the drawing-room ironing your dress trousers. Now don't you worry. Just wait while I'm putting your things ready, and listen to a tune on the gramophone. You've plenty of time. The brougham won't be 'ere for a good hour yet."

He went into the drawing-room. June fluttered above him. Her brightness was faintly reflected on his dingy bald head. She was strangely curious for a high-minded fairy. The home of want she had seen; now for the home of the master!

The sight awed and depressed her. She perched on the chandelier and studied everything closely, while beneath her a gramophone--set going by Becky, the second and last of the daughters--blared a blatant anthem of the streets.

The furniture was worthy of the house--Mid-Victorian to the last. A green mirror with gilded frame, a golden eagle perched at the top of it, reflected an untrue version of the objects before it. There was a clumsy clock, with black ornaments to match it on either side; at each end of the mantelpiece was a lustre with spills stuck into it. Photographs of Hebrew celebrities--singers, actresses, and politicians of a certain party complexion--were ranged about shelves and tables. There were albums and unreadable books with cheap, bright covers here and there. Some coloured engravings of sentimental pictures hung against the red wall. A dead musical box, waxen water-lilies in a glass case, and--but enjoyable as it is to take a verbal photograph of a characteristic, respectable British interior, it is unnecessary to do so here. We shall not require to enter that room again.

The more June watched the place and its people, the more she wondered. And then, while she waited for Mr. Oldstein to bathe and adorn himself in glistening raiment, she decided on a plan of campaign. In her dreams of prediction, even then, in that centre of hopeless banality, she saw Fairyland exultant where vulgarity gloomed.

The crusade was to begin that evening. So let London hope!

*CHAPTER VI*

*POST-PRANDIAL*

Mr. Oldstein drove to the Mansion House in a hired brougham. Hannah travelled with him, for the sake of the drive. He talked of his father, who had been a publican in Petticoat Lane.

June was on the box with the coachman most of the time. She found looking at the passing lights and strange shops more entertaining than the conversation inside, which, indeed, was no better than the ordinary stodge most of us talk.

The fairy rested. She still felt the strain of the crowds, the noise, and the atmosphere; but not so severely as she had done during her entrance to London yesterday. She rested her very best.

They arrived at Walbrook in good time. Emmanuel had no intention of missing anything. This was a chance to be swallowed whole. The carriage found its place in the gathering queue, and slowly approached the side of the Mansion House where the guests were alighting.

June watched a few belated pigeons which had not yet gone to roost. An idea came. Dim would be of use that evening.

She charmed one of the birds to her, put her spell upon it, and despatched it at its special speed to Paradise Court. The pigeon flew well; it was to be rewarded.

In twenty-five minutes it was back again, with Bim clinging to its feet. June praised the pigeon and touched it, giving it nobler plumage. It was no longer grey and ordinary, but brightly speckled and a pouter. Sudden pride ate up its quieter qualities. It did not wait even the tail-end of a minute, as courtesy required, but was up in the pigeons' dormitory over the architrave, as swaggering and important as Bumble, showing off and strutting before its mate, who woke from domesticated dreams of well-laid eggs to gaze and grumble. She had been quite contented with the lord and master as he was.

Bim's sleep had restored him. He was once again his old berry-hued self, and June's as devotedly as ever.

Mr. Oldstein had long since entered the Mansion House and been welcomed by the host and Chief Magistrate of the City, Sir Titus Dodds; but not all the guests had yet arrived. The most important--the representatives of the Church, the State and the halfpenny Press--were in fact but then arriving. So June flew and Bim scrambled up the red-covered steps together, and entered the palace of feasting in good time to share the greatest event in Oldstein's life.

Bim stared at the stockings of the footmen, awed, and Emmanuel followed his example. He admired and examined the mayoral furniture, appurtenances, ornaments; the busts, pictures and tapestry, appraising their value with eager professional interest. It must have cost a good twenty thousand pound! He determined to remodel his own drawing-room on Mansion House principles, provided he had good luck in Wardour Street.

He regretted now that he had not sought civic responsibilities and honours for himself. Dear, dear! Economy is a bad policy when it costs anything. He began to know golden-chained hopes; but the ambition never extinguished the tradesman. He wondered whether he might surreptitiously drop one of his Jabez Gordon circulars on that corner ottoman, and decided not to do so. There were too many risks.

He wished that his wife, Hannah, Becky, Max, could have seen him in his glory, waiting amidst that high company, and that they might have watched him shaking hands with the Lord Mayor--his fingers tingled with pleasure still. He must have an appropriate coat-of-arms--something gold and scarlet, with a rampant lion if possible. Social ambitions quickened within his brain. Yes, he would come into public life, if it did not cost too much.

So Emmanuel Oldstein went on building his castles--forgetting, forgetting they were based on piles of clothing sewed and made saleable by the needles of sweated women. That aspect of facts did not even for a half-moment occur to him. This was the prevalent fact--that he was a gentleman, enjoying the company of baronets and Common Councillors, received within the hospitable walls of that Zion of commercial probity and prosperity--the Mansion House.

The welcome summons came at last, and, the Lord Mayor leading, the guests trooped into the Egyptian room, place of daytime dullness and evening festivities.

The banquet was begun.

June, who afterwards confessed herself much impressed by the Lord Mayor's robes and diamonds, perched herself on an epergne full of delicious spring flowers. She feasted on their delicate scents and colours, while Bim sprawled lazily on a jelly. Little did the masters of Gog and Magog, feasting there on their soups and meats and sweets, dream that a fairy and a gnome were watching them. June was thinking hard about Sally, and the hunger of the slums.

A solid hour was eaten away.

The loving-cups were brought in, and distributed to the various tables. Now was the time to act. June gave Bim her wand. In obedience to her command he dipped it deep in the spiced wine of the loving-cups. Never a common drink, it was nigh to nectar now. There was magic in it, and liquid warmth-of-heart, a loving-cup indeed! Every man drank the new ambrosia and passed the cup to his neighbour. So the fairy's influence went round, and the distinguished company of commoners was linked together in a union nobler than any of them knew.

The fun was beginning. How likeable seemed their fellow-guests! what a nice bright kindly world it was! They thought this generosity of feeling was their ordinary post-prandial satisfaction, fed upon warm meats and the drinks that are Philistine; but the fairy at the board knew better. Later on, some of the guests realized the difference too, for they are astute--those gentlemen in the City.

The toast-master made himself evident. He had a magnificent voice, and a big broad beard, which would get entangled with his watch-chain. Bim could not resist it. He gazed with longing, and then tucked the wand under his elbow, took a flying leap on to the arm of the mayoral chair, ran up to the back of it, and sprang at the beard. There he clung, and hid, peeping out of the brown forest at the concourse of happy gourmands.

The loyal toasts were given, cheered and sung. There was conversation and amateur music by Guildhall scholars.

The Lord Mayor uprose to propose the toast of the evening, "The Commerce of London." He was a picture of rubicund prosperity, a man of drab and scarlet. He began a pompous speech.

"My lords and gentlemen, the Lord Mayor and the ancient Corporation of London have often greeted at their hospitable board gatherings similar to this, yet never before, my lords and gentlemen, never before, has any Lord Mayor had the high honour of welcoming to his table a more distinguished gathering of leaders in commerce than that which graces it now."

The orator stopped to look at his notes. A rolling round of applause told him he was doing well enough.

Emmanuel Oldstein, whose seat was some distance from the speaker, craned forward better to hear. He--a leader in commerce! Good!

"Round this table," the Lord Mayor continued, with a sweep of his white fat hand, "are magnates of banking houses, shippers, merchants of all kinds of produce brought from the farthest ends of the earth, heads of railways, representatives of all departments of commercial industry. The prosperity of the United Kingdom--let me say the British Empire--is represented here. It's a happy, a very happy, condition of things."

Another pause for note-reading; another roll of hand-clapping and "Hear, hears." Cigars were lighted, wine sipped; the audience was in a particularly sympathetic mood. It is flattering and delightful to be reminded you are rich, and--the wand in the loving-cup had done its work.

The fairy who ruled the feast was frankly bored by this display of prose. To her critical ears it was drivel.

Some use must be made of this talkative gentleman, round whom the incense of tobacco--how can men make that stifling smoke?--was being assiduously burned. She flew to his shoulder, hovered for one deliberative moment above his head, and forthwith crowned him with the fairy crown. It shone like a golden drop on the shining bald space--a glorious globule on a barren sphere; but none of the mortals could see it.

The Lord Mayor at once threw down his notes. He had gained the confidence of Demosthenes. He smiled, and braced himself for an effort. His pomposity was forgotten; his hesitancy gone.

June was making a miracle. The wonders went on. Never before at a Mansion House festival had any such speech been heard as was then to be delivered; but now it was heard--and applauded. June flew back to the epergne to listen. She had reasons for being interested now. Bim, seeing his mistress's activities, crept out of his tangle and returned to sit cross-legged on the table to watch and listen with eyes and mouth at their widest, till the warmth and the smoke took their toll, and he lapsed into sleep.

"Now, my friends and fellow-citizens, I want to speak to you as man to men. I put a plain question plainly, and you will accept its truth. What is the good of our wealth if it is not well used? How can it bring us true happiness, if it does not bring others happiness too? Would you like to think that your possessions meant want in others?"

"No!" shouted Emmanuel Oldstein.

"No!" shouted everyone else.

"Of course No. You are true men. Princes of Commerce! And yet look facts in the face. Does our wealth bring those others who help us to create it anything like an adequate return for their labours in happiness or kind? It does not!"

Men rose from their seats to shout agreement with this utterance.

Was this the Tory City or an improved Tower Hill?

The toast-master--in his private life a talking Radical, who always voted Conservative--listened with perturbation and amazement. He had not drunk of the loving-cup as had the guests. The speech was not strange to them; they understood, they sympathized, and at intervals punctuated it with rousing cheers. It was the very thing they wanted.

Archdeacon Pryde, who all his life had persistently blocked progress with many words of heartfelt sympathy, smiled benediction, and tapped the table, loudly encouraging the Lord Mayor to go on with his revolution. The Lord Mayor went on. Nay, he broke another record, established another precedent for the Mansion House, did what Mr. Pickwick did--stood on his chair that he might be better heard. The toast-master watched and hearkened, deeply grieved.

"It is just six months since the City did me the honour of electing me Chief Magistrate. I have tried to do my duty. I have tried to serve the City well."

"You have, you have!"

"Half my term of office has ended. The second half begins. During the time remaining I intend to do something to make my year of office more than ever memorable and worthy of the City. I am going to use my opportunity and my wealth to set an example and undo some of the evil that many of us have thoughtlessly done. I depend on the leaders of Commerce to help me. Gentlemen, will you?"

He looked around from his chair, the Olympian citadel, and was encouraged to continue. All the guests were listening eagerly. Cigars were going out. The wine in the glasses was forgotten. The speaker's face was the focus of eight hundred eyes.

"Money is a good thing," he went on. "It is necessary for economic activities and commercial life. In private hands, well used, it yields comfort, freedom, happiness, to countless homes. Never let us despise the goodly things of life!"

"Hear, hear!" said Archdeacon Pryde.

"But too much wealth in a few hands is an evil bringing disastrous results. Where is there greater unhappiness than with those multi-millionaires, in America especially, whose mass of possessions grows and grows, increasing their harassing responsibilities and anxieties, haunting them with panic fears of rapid ruin; useless in its vastness, mischievous, greedy? Like a golden horror, this Frankenstein-monster of overgreat wealth brings sleeplessness, madness, death, in its train. There you see money a burden and a curse."

Sir Titus paused again; and once more swept the faces of his hearers with a keen glance. The room was as still as a tired church. The toast-master now shared the interest of the guests. June sat on the epergne smiling. Bim noiselessly snored.

"It is trebly a curse when, its creator dead, it passes to the children. Think of those victims of fortune, and pity them. In the beginning they are glad because they own so much. They plan the enjoyment of an infinity of pleasures, and wonder how they can spend the hoard their fathers have left them. They are victims caught in the toils. The great machine goes on. Still the wheels of its production are moving; the labourers are toiling, aching, and wanting. But the brain which has guided their operations has become cold. The new controllers of the machinery are comparatively effete. The old genius is gone. Hired managers do their best, no doubt; but the master, the head of the enterprise, is dead, and his place cannot be filled."

"Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!"

Agreement came in a rumble, followed with appeals to hush.

"There are dislocations in the machinery, labour troubles, angers, strikes. I need not detail to you the consequences of swollen industrial organizations, or the infinite troubles which come to enterprises over-capitalized or run by incompetence. Let me, at present, be content to remind you of the effects upon the fortune-ridden, unfortunate children. The worldly folly of the fathers is visited on them. All their lives they have been preserved from experience. They have not been allowed to learn from contact with the roughnesses of the world. They have been spoiled babes, pampered children, gilded youths; and so grow up to responsibilities which they cannot realize, and are perpetually blind to facts, victims to the rapacity of rascals, puppets of fashion, tools and fools--wasting, extravagant, weak, morally ruined. The greatest evil a man can do is to leave his sons so much money that they need not work. The only occupation left them is play; and so they spend their lives, pitting excitement against ennui. Better far be poor with brains and character than rich with the fortune of Dives and Croesus. Is it not so?"

"It is!" agreed the Archdeacon, looking down his nose. He had a fine voice, kept in condition with constant lozenges, so that his approval was heard all over the room.

"Hear, hear!" cried others.

"The useless children of the over-rich are with rare exceptions prodigal, spendthrift, the gulls of unscrupulous rogues--no curse can be greater than the glaring and manifold inequities which come from undue wealth. I need not further remind you of these facts, for you are thoughtful men and sympathetic. But this counsel I venture to give, and this counsel henceforth I pledge myself to keep. When you have secured your sufficiency for comfort, for legitimate industrial enterprise, and for the proper training and equipment of those dependent on you, don't you think it better, instead of accumulating and still accumulating loads of unrequired wealth, to use the surplus for the communal good, for the improvement of the locality, and the betterment of your neighbours and fellows? I shall do this, I pledge my word to it. To-morrow I go to my office, and will ensure that every one of my employes has a fair wage and a secure prospect, provided he does his duty."

Such applause of approval went up, breaking the Lord Mayor's speech, that Bim awoke with a start. He sat up and looked around affrighted; but seeing June sitting among her flowers, laughing, he became the courageous gnome again.

He picked up the wand, and went for a stroll down the table, wantonly touching men's hands as he went by, impelling them to clap and thump the louder. He was delighted to be wielding such powers. It was a comedy out of Fairyland, a farce with an effective ending.

The Lord Mayor stepped down from his chair and lifted his glass of champagne. His voice took on new seriousness: