Part 11

“I was expecting a bit of a legacy,” explained Mr. Lock. “Not a big ’un, mind, but I thought if there was enough to buy me a billiard-table that ’ud satisfy me. It would have kept me in recreation for the rest of my life. I’d got my eye on a place to keep it, too, and I’d have made a bit of money out of it, one way and another.”

“But—” prompted Mr. Lane.

“But it wasn’t to be,” said Mr. Lock, with a wistful shake of the head.

“And how was that?” inquired Mr. Lane. “The money was left to some one else, eh?”

“There wasn’t no money left at all!” Mr. Lock informed him. “Just a sort of mystery, it was. Anyway, they had to sell the furniture to pay for the funeral, and that tells its own tale, don’t it?”

“Well, well!” murmured Mr. Lane.

“Not a stick left when I come back on the scene!” related Mr. Lock. “I’d like to have had something to remember him by, too. Relation of mine, you know, he was. ‘Peter,’ he used to say to me, ‘Peter, I particular wants you to have my old arm-chair when I’m gone.’ Always saying that, he was. Why he couldn’t have given it to me while he was alive, and have done with it, I don’t know.”

“Perhaps he didn’t want to part with it?” suggested Mr. Lane.

“That was about it, I expect,” agreed Mr. Lock. “He’d certainly got a great fancy for that chair. Why, he used to carry it into the bedroom with him at night, and bring it down again in the morning. But, there, it had clean gone when I got back here.”

“Couldn’t you find out who’d bought it?”

“I did try, sir, but it was no good. You see, it was just a sort of Dutch auction, and people paid their money down for anything they bought, and took it straight away. There was a lot of strangers present, too, far as I could make out, and it must have been one of them that bought that old chair. A chap from the country, some of ’em told me. Dare say that old chair’s not more than five miles away at this minute, if the truth was known.”

“Why don’t you—haven’t you advertised for it?”

“Oh, I ain’t so keen on it as all that, sir,” replied Mr. Lock, carelessly. “I can remember the old chap well enough, without needing his old arm-chair to remind me of him. I don’t believe in being sentimental, sir, when it costs money, and a advertisement would cost more than that old chair’s worth. Besides, he won’t know now whether I’ve got it or not, and, if he does, it can’t make much difference to him, can it, sir?”

With these practical remarks, Mr. Lock turned again to the billiard-table for interest. Mr. Lane, after sitting meditatively for a long three minutes, rose and unostentatiously quitted the room.

The saloon was well patronized when, a couple of hours later, Mr. Horace Dobb strolled in. His eyes sought Mr. Lock’s, and, meeting them, a slight upward flicker of the brows was perceptible. Mr. Lock nodded slowly, once, and Mr. Dobb drifted out again.

About ten minutes later Mr. Lane, his arms folded and his head bent in reverie, was occupying his accustomed seat in the bar-parlour of the “King’s Arms,” when a patron entered with a certain reckless joviality which compelled attention. Mr. Lane, glancing up petulantly at this intrusion on his meditations, recognized the new-comer to be a gentleman who dealt in second-hand goods at an establishment in Fore Street.

“’Evening all!” cried Mr. Dobb, exhibiting an unusual boisterousness of manner. He clung, swaying gently, to the handle of the door, and beamed owlishly round on the company. “’Evening all—and be blowed to the lot of you!”

The lady behind the counter, with whom it seemed that Mr. Dobb was something of a favourite, shook her finger at him in surprised reproach, and asked him what he meant by it.

“I been keeping off a cold!” explained Mr. Dobb, simply.

“So _I_ should think!” declared the lady.

A glassy look came into Mr. Dobb’s orbs, indicating purposeful concentration. Releasing his grasp on the door, he, as it were, swooped forward and came neatly to rest with his elbows on the counter. This feat achieved, he gazed about him as one seeking plaudits.

“Been keeping off a cold!” he announced again, and performed a little shuffling movement which brought him backwards to the centre of the room. “Look at me boots!” he invited, proudly.

“Why, wherever have you been?” asked the lady. “All that mud!”

“I been keeping—I mean, I been out in the country!” stated Mr. Dobb, returning to the support offered by the bar.

“Been watercressing by the look of it?” suggested the lady, in playful sarcasm.

“Business!” said Mr. Dobb portentously, and looked round as though to balk the intentions of eavesdroppers.

“Business!” he repeated, in a whisper, and solemnly put his finger to his lips. “Norraword!” he urged warningly, and immediately added in the loudest, boastfullest accents: “I’ve had a good day to-day. Bought a rare lot of stuff!”

He waited indecisively a little time, and then, selecting the chair adjacent to Mr. Lane’s, sat down on it with some abruptness of impact.

“Wanter buy a nice set of fire-irons?” he inquired, winningly. “Beautiful set! Bargain!”

Mr. Lane replied to the effect that he was adequately furnished with fire-irons.

“Don’t blame you, either!” hazily commented Mr. Dobb, and was silent for a brief space.

“Funny thing about it is,” he remarked next, opening one eye to stare at Mr. Lane challengingly, “’alf the stuff come from this town to start with. Now, ain’t that a rum ’un, eh?”

“I dare say,” politely ceded Mr. Lane.

“Of course it is!” insisted Mr. Dobb, with truculence. “Me going all the way out there to buy stuff what ’ad come—what ’ad come from Shore’aven to start with! It’s a—a cohincydence, that’s what it is! Going miles and miles to buy stuff what I could ’ave bought at old Pash’s sale, if only I’d been there!”

“Whose sale did you say?” quickly asked the other.

“Never you mind ’oose sale!” returned. Mr. Dobb, with reserve. “But, ’oosever it was, the stuff I bought to-day come from it! See? So don’t go a-contradicting of me!”

“I’m not!” protested Mr. Lane.

“Oh, yes, you was!” asserted Mr. Dobb. “Why don’t you let a man finish what ’e’s got to say afore you starts to argue? I’m telling you most of this stuff was bought by a chap in several lots to furnish ’is cottage.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Lane.

“There you goes again!” complained Mr. Dobb. “Anyway, ’e’s got a job at the other end of the country now, and—”

Mr. Dobb ceased momentarily, and regarded his boots with a fond smile.

“I ’aven’t ’alf been keeping out a cold!” he observed, confidentially. “Talk about mud and rain and cold winds—’oo’d live in the country, I’d like to know.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Lane, ingratiatingly. “Who would, indeed?”

To this Mr. Dobb made no response, being now engaged in inward thought.

“Who would, indeed?” said Mr. Lane again.

“Eh?” demanded Mr. Dobb, returning to wakefulness.

“Who would live in the country?” said Mr. Lane.

“Why, _I_ would!” declared Mr. Dobb. “I love the country! All the little dicky-birds and—so on!”

He suddenly rose, proclaiming his intention of going home to bed as a preventive measure against chill. He nodded a protracted, dreary-eyed, good-night to each individual of the company present, and then, festooning across the apartment, noisily negotiated the door and passed from view.

No sooner was Mr. Dobb outside in the street, however, than his waywardness dropped from him, and, congratulating himself on his histrionic powers, he walked briskly to his abode.

Soon after breakfast next morning, Mr. Lane was visible in Fore Street. Into half a dozen shop-windows did he peer with an air of boredom, nor did his expression become quickened when at length he ranged himself before the jumbled collection of oddments which Mr. Dobb exhibited to the passer-by.

For some moments Mr. Lane affected a lukewarm interest in a faded photograph of the Niagara Falls, and next he lingered to gaze on a teapot which had suffered casualty in its more obtrusive parts. And, after that, he stepped into the doorway and pretended close scrutiny of a pair of cast-iron dumb-bells, and, under cover of this manœuvre, he glanced into the interior of the shop, and there saw a heterogeneous pile of furniture which was evidently awaiting disposal, and the most conspicuous item in it was a tattered and battered old arm-chair.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Lane, involuntarily.

At this juncture Mr. Horace Dobb himself made an appearance at the threshold of his shop with evident purpose of ascertaining the state of the weather.

“Good morning, sir!” he said.

“Good morning—good morning!” returned Mr. Lane, with eager amiability. “Did you keep the cold off all right?”

“Oh, yes, I kept it; but ’ow did you know I was trying to keep a cold off?”

“Why, you told me so last night.”

“Last night?” queried Mr. Dobb, shaking his head. “Why, I never see you last night, sir.”

“In the ‘King’s Arms,’” prompted Mr. Lane.

“I never went in the ‘King’s Arms’ last night!” denied Mr. Dobb. “I came straight ’ome and went to bed. I’m sure of it.”

Mr. Lane was about to contradict, when it was evident that he changed his intention.

“Oh, well, I must have been thinking of some one else,” he said, lightly.

“I don’t know whether you’re interested in furniture, sir,” ventured Mr. Dobb. “But I’ve got some stuff in new to stock this morning, and—”

“I don’t mind having a look at it,” admitted Mr. Lane, almost skipping into the emporium.

“There’s a bedstead for you!” cried the vendor, with enthusiasm. “Real solid, good stuff. Been in a farm’ouse these ’undred years and more.”

“I got a bedstead,” said Mr. Lane.

“What about a sofa?” asked Mr. Dobb.

Mr. Lane shook his head. He was giving his attention to the worn old arm-chair.

“You don’t expect ever to sell a shabby old thing like that, do you?” he asked, artfully.

“It is a bit knocked about,” confessed Mr. Dobb. “But it’s a real fine old chair of its kind. I reckon to get a pretty good price for it when it’s been restored. I’ll ’ave it restuffed and reup’olstered, and it’ll fetch a big price, I lay.”

“It looks very lumpy,” observed Mr. Lane, and seized the opportunity to prod the sagging seat with his finger. He thrilled electrically when his touch encountered something vaguely massy and hard in the horsehair stuffing. Mr. Dobb, who had planned that thrill with the aid of a bulky old volume from the rubbish corner, winked pleasantly at the ceiling.

“I ain’t ’ardly ’ad a good look at it yet,” said Mr. Dobb. “It was in with a lot of other things I was after, though I meant to ’ave it, of course, soon as ever I spotted it. Genuine antike, that is.”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” said Mr. Lane.

“Well, it belonged to a old chap ’oo died in Shore’aven ’ere, and ’e’d ’ad it pretty nigh all ’is life, and chance it!” contended Mr. Dobb.

“I wonder the man who bought it then didn’t overhaul it,” mentioned Mr. Lane, thoughtfully. “Perhaps he did?” he suggested, a little dashed.

“Ah, ’e meant to, but ’e never ’ad the time,” said Mr. Dobb. “’E bought it with that idea, ’e told me, and ’e took it to ’is cottage in the country, meaning to see to it. But ’e ’append to lose ’is job, and, what with finding a fresh one, and then making arrangements to shift ’is family, ’e was so busy that the old chair just stayed up in ’is attic, untouched, from the time ’e took it ’ome to the time I bought it yesterday.”

“And what would you be asking for it as it stands?”

“Well, I dunno,” mused Mr. Dobb. “It ’ud pay me better to touch it up a bit first, I suppose. A genuine antike, you know. Still, if anybody was to offer me, say—oh, fifteen for it—”

“Fifteen shillings!” cried Mr. Lane, in excitement. “Right you—”

“Shillings? No!” scornfully interrupted Mr. Dobb. “Pounds, of course!”

“Why, it’s nowhere near worth that!”

“It’s worth what it’ll fetch,” said Mr. Dobb. “Anyway, by the time I’ve pulled it into shape a bit, and—”

“I’ll give you a couple of pounds for it as it stands,” offered Mr. Lane.

“Why, that ain’t a quarter of what I give for it myself!” returned Mr. Dobb. “But I’ve got a set of fire-irons what you can ’ave for two quid, if you like,” he offered, brightly.

“I don’t want fire-irons,” said Mr. Lane, pettishly.

“Well, I don’t take a penny less than fifteen quid for that chair. Look at the woodwork! A bit scratched, maybe, but sound—sound and ’eavy. They don’t make ’em like that nowadays.”

“But fifteen pounds!” murmured Mr. Lane.

“Oh, I shall get more than that for it when I’ve squared it up and restored it,” foretold Mr. Dobb, confidently. “Why, I know more than one collector in these parts that’ll only be too anxious to secure it soon as ever ’e sees it. In a way, I’m doing you a favour by giving you first chance.”

“But fifteen pounds!” protested Mr. Lane.

“Well, I’ll say twelve as it stands, seeing as I shan’t ’ave to bother with restoring it. There, twelve! Just to make a reg’lar customer of you, only don’t go talking too much. Why, you can’t get much new in the furniture line to-day for twelve; and as for antikes—. Solid, that’s what it is! ’Ere, ’alf a mo’! I’ll just strip the cover off and leave the stuffing aside, and you’ll see what a fine strong frame it’s got.”

“No, don’t do that—don’t do that!” babbled Mr. Lane, desperately. “It’s all right! I mean, I believe you. But—but twelve pounds! I wouldn’t mind going to—to four, or even five, but—but twelve! It isn’t a particularly handsome chair—”

“But you seem pretty keen to ’ave it, sir, for all that,” Mr. Dobb pointed out. “However, please yourself. If you don’t take it I shall put it in my window there, and somebody’s bound to come along and—”

“You—you couldn’t let me have it on approval for a day or two?” suggested Mr. Lane, but not hopefully.

“No, sir. This is a cash business. But I’ll tell you what—if you like to let me take out the stuffing and leave it ’ere, I’d knock off a quid. Good ’orse’air’s always worth—”

“No, no. I want it as it is!”

“Then twelve quid buys it!”

Mr. Lane again probed the ragged upholstery of the seat with an investigatory forefinger.

“I’ll give you ten,” he offered.

“You seem to think I ain’t a man of my word,” complained Mr. Dobb, indignantly.

“Ten!” offered Mr. Lane, again. “That’s my limit!”

Twenty minutes later they had arrived at a compromise, and the sum of eleven pounds ten shillings changed ownership. With his own hands Mr. Lane lifted the chair and staggered out with it to the handtruck Mr. Dobb had obligingly placed at his disposal.

“There he goes with ’is ’idden treasure,” said Mr. Dobb, smiling, as Mr. Lane’s small back bent in energetic propulsion of his purchase.

That same evening Mr. Dobb paid thirty shillings into the willing grasp of each of his three old shipmates, and fully endorsed their flattering statements as to his mental ingenuity.

A fortnight elapsed, and then, one afternoon, Mr. Lane walked into the emporium. Mr. Dobb, mastering a primitive impulse to point derisively at his visitor, addressed him in honeyed tones of courtesy.

“Ain’t seen you lately, sir,” he remarked.

“I’ve been away,” said Mr. Lane. “Been taking a bit of a holiday.”

“Lucky to be you, sir, to ’ave the money to spare,” said Mr. Dobb. “Why, I ain’t seen you, come to think of it, not since the morning you bought that antike chair off of me. I ’ope you never repented that antike bargain, sir?” he asked, with tremulous lips.

“Well, I must say it didn’t turn out quite as I expected,” admitted Mr. Lane; “but I’m not grumbling.”

“Spoke like a sportsman!” declared Mr. Dobb.

“Funny thing, when I took that stuffing to bits,” observed Mr. Lane. “You’ll never guess what I found hidden in the seat?”

“Bag o’ gold!” suggested Mr. Dobb.

“No. An old book!”

“Never!” breathed Mr. Dobb, incredulously.

“It’s a fact!” asseverated Mr. Lane. “Believe me or believe me not, there was a big, old-fashioned musty old book!”

“Fancy that!” said Mr. Dobb.

“Surprising, ain’t it? Anyway, I showed it to a friend of mine, and he said it had evidently been hidden there because it was very rare.”

“Sounds possible,” said Mr. Dobb, his eyes watering under the strain of enforced gravity.

“As it happened, my friend was right,” said Mr. Lane. “Of course, he knew something about old books, and that was why I showed it to him. Anyway, it was a rare old first edition, ever so old, and I sent it up to London, and sold it for thirty guineas!”

“What!” cried Mr. Dobb.

“Sold it for thirty guineas!” repeated Mr. Lane. “Thirty guineas for an old book that anyone who didn’t know its value might have thrown away.”

“Don’t believe it!” declared Mr. Dobb, huskily.

“Well, here’s the cheque,” said Mr. Lane; “and here’s the correspondence.”

Mr. Dobb gazed at the documentary evidence. Then, without a word, he tottered into the shop parlour and took the unprecedented step of drinking a glass of undiluted water. The fortunate Mr. Lane, looking round for other chairs to prod and finding none, went out of the dusty little emporium into the sunshine.

_EPISODE VIII_ A SPECIAL PERFORMANCE

Mr. Horace Dobb, released from the ministrations of the proprietor of the Magnolia Toilet Saloon, critically inspected the reflection of his shaven chin, and then charged Mr. Joseph Tridge with being a niggard as to face-powder.

“’Ere you are!” scornfully said Mr. Tridge, passing him the puff. “’Elp yourself! Go on! Put some on your nose, too. I would, if I was you! Take some ’ome with you in a paper bag. ’Ere, steady!” he ended, snatching the puff out of Mr. Dobb’s hand. “It’s for powdering, not whitewashing, remember!”

“You ain’t got a little complexion cream to spare, I suppose?” asked Mr. Dobb, unabashed. “No, I thought not. Well, then, what about a little drop o’ brilliantine, eh? This it? Thanks.”

“Don’t you be a fool, ’Orace,” earnestly counselled Mr. Tridge. “I’m surprised at you, I am, reely! Runnin’ after gals at your time of life! What would your missis say?”

“I ain’t running after no gals,” denied Mr. Dobb. “I ain’t even slow-marching after ’em. But I wants to look just-so, because I’m making a sort of deboo in ’igh society this evening.”

“Fish supper with the dook and duchess, I suppose?” ironically hazarded Mr. Tridge.

“No; but it’s the opening night at the theayter to-night,” explained Mr. Dobb, “and I’m going to sit somewhere near the front seats. ’Ow’s that for getting on in life, eh?”

“Free complimentaries,” diagnosed Mr. Tridge, “for promising to show window-bills. Why, I’ve got orders for two myself.”

“’Ave you though?” said Mr. Dobb, a little dashed by this discounting of his social value. “Why, I was going to hinvite you to come along with me. We could ’ave tossed up to see ’oo paid for the programme. If you don’t come, I shall only ’ave to take the missis, and I don’t want to waste a seat deliberate like that, if I can ’elp it.”

“I’ve asked Peter Lock to come along with me,” returned Mr. Tridge. “It’s ’is night off from the billiard-room. ’Ere, what about asking old Sam Clark, eh? The four of us going together to the theayter like we used to do in the good old, bad old days of the ‘Jane Gladys.’”

“Right-o!” agreed Mr. Dobb, very readily. “Anything to hencourage my missis in ’ome life. We’ll all four go together. But no getting chucked out in a bunch, though, mind,” he stipulated. “I’ve got business reasons for not wanting to upset the chap what’s running the theayter now.”

“It’s a noo management,” mentioned Mr. Tridge.

“I know. It’s the fifth noo management in fourteen months, so they tells me. Shore’aven don’t seem what you might call a hartistic place, do it? Specially when they done Shakespeare six weeks ago. Only done ’im once, they did, but that was enough. That was what reely led to the sale.”

“What sale?” inquired Mr. Tridge.

“Why, the last time it shut. They ’ad a sale of fixtures up there, when the creditors wouldn’t take out their money in tickets. That was where the glass shandyleary came from.”

“Shandy-’ow-much?” demanded Mr. Tridge.

“Shandyleary. I’ve got it in my shop now. I bought it off a chap what bought it at the sale. Great big thing it is, what used to ’ang in the centre of the roof. ’Andsome thing it is, too, in its way, all made of sparkly bits of glass as big as—”

“As big as a second-’and dealer’s Sunday scarfpin,” pointedly suggested Mr. Tridge.

“Aye, pretty nigh,” accepted Mr. Dobb, with complacency. “I’m going to sell it back soon to the chap what’s running the theayter now.”

“Does ’e know you’re going to?”

“Not yet, ’e don’t,” admitted Mr. Dobb. “Why, ’e don’t even know I’ve got it yet. But I’ve got some one to sound ’im to see whether ’e’s at all inclined to buy it, and ’e said ’e won’t ’ave it at no price. But it takes two to make a quarrel, don’t it? Anyway, whether ’e reely wants it or not, ’e’s going to buy it.”

“And ’ow are you going to make ’im do that?” inquired Mr. Tridge, with every faith in his old shipmate’s commercial omnipotence.

“Ah, I ain’t thought quite so far as that yet,” confessed Mr. Dobb. “All I’ve fixed in my mind is that ’e’s going to give me thirty-five quid for that shandyleary. It’s old Joe Bindley, that retired builder chap, what’s the noo proprietor, you know. ’E bought up the theayter cheap, as a speckylation, and ’e reckons to make a big success out of it. You ought to ’ear ’im talk about what ’e’s going to do at ’is theayter! Anyone might think that the next war was going to be perdooced there as a front piece to the big play of the evening.”

“I see ’e’s starting with a month’s hengagement, straight off, of the world-famous hactress, Miss Margureety Delafayne,” observed Mr. Tridge, studying a printed announcement on his wall. “’Oo’s she, anyway? It’s the first time I’ve ’eard of ’er.”

“Ah, she’s one of the good-old-might-’ave-been-p’r’apsers,” Mr. Dobb somewhat ungallantly informed him. “Not that she ain’t still a fine figure of a woman, far as golden ’air and a sealskin coat and light blue satin goes. But hact? Oh, dear me, no! It’s more like a fit of the dismals that hacting. Bindley reckons she’s going to get all the neighbourhood into the reg’lar ’abit of coming to ’is theayter. She’s more likely to cure ’em of the ’abit, to my way of thinking.”

“You’ve seen ’er, then?”

“I paid to see ’er hact once, at Yarmouth. I’ve always reckoned I’ve been three pints out from that day to this. Well, I’m off now to fix up with old Sam Clark.”

“Meet you outside the show at seven-thirty,” said Mr. Tridge. “Mind you ain’t late.”

“I never am late,” replied Mr. Dobb simply, “when there’s something for nothing.”

Thus it was ordained, and thus it came about that a few hours later, four contiguous seats at the Shorehaven Theatre were occupied by that old-established fellowship of graduates from the baneful academy of the “Jane Gladys.” From the time of their processional entry to the rising of the curtain on the play, each of the quartet expressed his individuality in his customary manner.

Mr. Horace Dobb, reflecting very patently the prosperity of the little shop he had married, leaned back in his seat with an air of bored patronage and made great play with a ring which, when happily it caught the light at a certain elusive angle, gleamed quite visibly. Mr. Joseph Tridge, wearing something new and very arrestive in the way of check suitings, could not but be correspondingly sportive and genial in the truculent, domineering manner. Mr. Peter Lock, trim and brisk and debonair as ever, maintained a joyous flow of scandal about such of the attendance present as had their secret histories discussed in the billiard-room of the “Royal William.” And the plump and venerable Mr. Samuel Clark, his rubicund face aglow with happiness in the reunion, beamed impartially on all around him, and with a conspicuous, festooning forefinger, beat time to the orchestra’s overture.