Part 2

It was a lovely dinner party of fourteen. The Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite, some untitled people of both sexes, the minister and his wife and daughter, and his daughter’s visiting friend, an English girl of twenty-two, named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love with in two minutes, and she with me—I could see it without glasses. There was still another guest, an American—but I am a little ahead of my story. While the people were still in the drawing-room, whetting up for dinner, and coldly inspecting the late comers, the servant announced:

‘Mr. Lloyd Hastings.’

The moment the usual civilities were over, Hastings caught sight of me, and came straight with cordially outstretched hand; then stopped short when about to shake, and said with an embarrassed look:

‘I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you.’

‘Why, you do know me, old fellow.’

‘No! Are _you_ the—the——?’

‘Vest-pocket monster? I am, indeed. Don’t be afraid to call me by my nickname; I’m used to it.’

‘Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I’ve seen your own name coupled with the nickname, but it never occurred to me that _you_ could be the Henry Adams referred to. Why, it isn’t six months since you were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting up nights on an extra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the Gould and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your being in London, and a vast millionaire, and a colossal celebrity! Why, it’s the Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can’t take it in at all; can’t realise it; give me time to settle the whirl in my head.’

‘The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can’t realise it myself.’

‘Dear me, it _is_ stunning, now, isn’t it? Why, it’s just three months to-day since we went to the Miners’ restaurant——’

‘No; the What Cheer.’

‘Right, it _was_ the What Cheer; went there at two in the morning, and had a chop and coffee after a hard six hours’ grind over those Extension papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would not listen to me, said I wouldn’t succeed, and you couldn’t afford to lose the run of business and be no end of time getting the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did you happen to come, and whatever _did_ give you this incredible start?’

‘Oh, just an accident. It’s a long story—a romance, a body may say. I’ll tell you all about it, but not now.

‘When?’

‘The end of this month.’

‘That’s more than a fortnight yet. It’s too much of a strain on a person’s curiosity. Make it a week.’

‘I can’t. You’ll know why, by and by. But how’s the trade getting along?’

His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh:

‘You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn’t come. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night, when we leave here, and tell me all about it.’

‘Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?’ and the water showed in his eyes.

‘Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word.’

‘I’m so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more, in some voice and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine, after what I’ve been through here—lord! I could go down on my knees for it!’

He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all right and lively after that for the dinner—which didn’t come off. No; the usual thing happened, the thing that is always happening under that vicious and aggravating English system—the matter of precedence couldn’t be settled, and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go out to dinner, because _they_ know the risks they are running; but nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap. Of course nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of us being novices except Hastings, and he having been informed by the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the English custom he had not provided any dinner. Everybody took a lady and processioned down to the dining-room, because it is usual to go through the motions; but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding that he outranked a minister who represented merely a nation and not a monarch; but I stood for my rights, and refused to yield. In the gossip column I ranked all dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed precedence of this one. It couldn’t be settled, of course, struggle as we might and did, he finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, and I ‘seeing’ his Conqueror and ‘raising’ him with Adam, whose direct posterity I was, as shown by my name, while _he_ was of a collateral branch, as shown by _his_, and by his recent Norman origin; so we all processioned back to the drawing-room again and had a perpendicular lunch—plate of sardines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not so strenuous; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a shilling, the one that wins has first go at his strawberry, and the loser gets the shilling. The next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. After refreshment, tables were brought, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a game. The English never play any game for amusement. If they can’t make something or lose something—they don’t care which—they won’t play.

We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn’t count my hands if they went above a double sequence; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every time, only the girl did the same, she being in just my condition, you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why we didn’t; we only just knew we were happy, and didn’t wish to know anything else, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And I _told_ her—I did indeed—told her I loved her; and she—well, she blushed till her hair turned red, but she liked it; she _said_ she did. Oh, there was never such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn’t even say, ‘Two for his heels,’ without adding, ‘_My_, how sweet you do look!’ And she would say, ‘Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen—_do_ you think so?’ peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and cunning. Oh, it was just _too_-too!

Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her I hadn’t a cent in the world but just the million-pound note she’d heard so much talk about, and _it_ didn’t belong to me; and that started her curiosity, and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly killed her, laughing. What in the nation she could find to laugh about, _I_ couldn’t see, but there it was; every half minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame, she did indeed; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a painful story—a story of a person’s troubles and worries and fears—produce just _that_ kind of effect before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there wasn’t anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course I told her we should have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but she didn’t mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching on our third year’s pay. Then she began to get a little worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been feeling before; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out.

‘Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when I confront those old gentlemen?’

She shrank a little, but said:

‘N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But—would it be quite proper, do you think?’

‘No, I don’t know that it would; in fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t; but, you see, there’s so _much_ dependent upon it that——’

‘Then I’ll go anyway, proper or improper,’ she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. ‘Oh, I shall be so happy to think I’m helping.’

‘Helping, dear? Why, you’ll be doing it all. You’re so beautiful, and so lovely, and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they’ll never have the heart to struggle.’

Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine!

‘You wicked flatterer! There isn’t a word of truth in what you say, but still I’ll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes.’

Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn’t tell her; I saved it for a surprise.

All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlour he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries.

‘Let me just stand here a little and look my fill! Dear me, it’s a palace; it’s just a palace! And in it everything a body _could_ desire, including cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn’t merely make me realise how rich you are; it makes me realise to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am—how poor I am—and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated!’

Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch crust, with a crater underneath. _I_ didn’t know I had been dreaming—that is, I hadn’t been allowing myself to know it for a while back; but _now_—oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl’s happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never—oh, _would_ never—materialise! Oh, oh, oh, I am ruined past hope; nothing can save me!

‘Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily income would——’

‘Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your soul. Here’s with you! Or, no—you’re hungry; sit down and——’

‘Not a bite for me; I’m past it. I can’t eat, these days; but I’ll drink with you till I drop. Come!’

‘Barrel for barrel, I’m with you! Ready! Here we go! Now, then, Lloyd, unreel your story while I brew.’

‘Unreel it? What, again?’

‘Again? What do you mean by that?’

‘Why, I mean do you want to hear it _over_ again?’

‘Do I want to hear it _over_ again? This _is_ a puzzler. Wait; don’t take any more of that liquid. You don’t need it.’

‘Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn’t I tell you the whole story on the way here?’

‘You?’

‘Yes, I.’

‘I’ll be hanged if I heard a word of it.’

‘Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up yonder at the minister’s?’

Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up, like a man.

‘I took the dearest girl in this world—prisoner!’

So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook, and shook till our hands ached; and he didn’t blame me for not having heard a word of a story which had lasted while we walked three miles. He just sat down then, like the patient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again. Synopsised, it amounted to this: He had come to England with what he thought was a grand opportunity; he had an ‘option’ to sell the Gould and Curry Extension for the ‘locators’ of it, and keep all he could get over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he knew of, had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly all the money he had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run out at the end of the month. In a word, he was ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out:

‘Henry, you can save me! You can save me, and you’re the only man in the universe that can. Will you do it? _Won’t_ you do it?’

‘Tell me how. Speak out, my boy.’

‘Give me a million and my passage home for my ‘option’! Don’t, _don’t_ refuse!’

I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of coming out with the words, ‘Lloyd, I’m a pauper myself—absolutely penniless, and in _debt_!’ But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, and I gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a capitalist. Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way:

‘I will save you, Lloyd——’

‘Then I’m already saved! God be merciful to you for ever! If ever I——’

‘Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way; for that would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and the risks you’ve run. I don’t need to buy mines; I can keep my capital moving, in a commercial centre like London, without that; it’s what I’m at, all the time; but here is what I’ll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I know its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash, using my name freely, and we’ll divide, share and share alike.’

Do you know, he would have danced the furniture to kindling-wood, in his insane joy, and broken everything on the place, if I hadn’t tripped him up and tied him.

Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying:

‘I may use your name! Your name—think of it! Man, they’ll flock in droves, these rich Londoners; they’ll _fight_ for that stock! I’m a made man, I’m a made man for ever, and I’ll never forget you as long as I live!’

In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn’t anything to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers:

‘Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the man and I know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks for it.’

Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister’s with Portia. I didn’t say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary together. And my! the interest the minister’s wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the minister in the dark and unsuspicious—well, it was just lovely of them!

When the month was up, at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. Dressed at my level best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on towards the minister’s and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just intolerably beautiful. I said:

‘Dearie, the way you’re looking it’s a crime to strike for a salary a single penny under three thousand a year.’

‘Henry, Henry, you’ll ruin us!’

‘Don’t you be afraid. Just keep up those looks, and trust to me. It’ll all come out right.’

So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up _her_ courage all the way. She kept pleading with me, and saying:

‘Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may get no salary at all; and then what will become of us, with no way in the world to earn our living?’

We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they were, the two old gentlemen. Of course they were surprised to see that wonderful creature with me, but I said:

‘It’s all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate.’

And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It didn’t surprise them; they knew I would know enough to consult the directory. They seated us, and were very polite to me, and very solicitous to relieve her from embarrassment, and put her as much at her ease as they could. Then I said:

‘Gentlemen, I am ready to report.’

‘We are glad to hear it,’ said _my_ man, ‘for now we can decide the bet which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for me, you shall have any situation in my gift. Have you the million-pound note?’

‘Here it is, sir,’ and I handed it to him.

‘I’ve won!’ he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back. ‘_Now_ what do you say, brother?’

‘I say he _did_ survive, and I’ve lost twenty thousand pounds. I never would have believed it.’

‘I’ve a further report to make,’ I said, ‘and a pretty long one. I want you to let me come soon, and detail my whole month’s history; and I promise you it’s worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at that.’

‘What, man! Certificate of deposit for £200,000? Is it yours?’

‘Mine! I earned it by thirty days’ judicious use of that little loan you let me have. And the only use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer the bill in change.’

‘Come, this is astonishing! It’s incredible, man!’

‘Never mind, I’ll prove it. Don’t take my word unsupported.’

But now Portia’s turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes were spread wide, and she said:

‘Henry, is that really your money? Have you been fibbing to me?’

‘I have indeed, dearie. But you’ll forgive me, _I_ know.’

She put up an arch pout, and said:

‘Don’t you be so sure. You are a naughty thing to deceive me so!’

‘Oh, you’ll get over it, sweetheart, you’ll get over it; it was only fun, you know. Come, let’s be going.’

‘But wait, wait! The situation, you know. I want to give you the situation,’ said my man.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m just as grateful as I can be, but really I don’t want one.’

‘But you can have the very choicest one in my gift.’

‘Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don’t even want _that_ one.’

‘Henry, I’m ashamed of you. You don’t half thank the good gentleman. May I do it for you?’

‘Indeed you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see you try.’

She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round his neck, and kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with laughter, but I was dumfounded, just petrified, as you may say. Portia said:

‘Papa, he has said you haven’t a situation in your gift that he’d take; and I feel just as hurt as——’

‘My darling! is that your papa?’

‘Yes; he’s my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was. You understand now, don’t you, why I was able to laugh when you told me at the minister’s, not knowing my relationships, what trouble and worry papa’s and Uncle Abel’s scheme was giving you?’

Of course I spoke right up, now, without any fooling, and went straight to the point.

‘Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said. You _have_ got a situation open that I want.’

‘Name it.’

‘Son-in-law.’

‘Well, well, well! But you know, if you haven’t ever served in that capacity, you of course can’t furnish recommendations of a sort to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and so——’

‘Try me—oh, do, I beg of you! Only just try me thirty or forty years, and if——’

‘Oh, well, all right; it’s but a little thing to ask. Take her along.’

Happy, we too? There are not words enough in the unabridged to describe it. And when London got the whole history, a day or two later, of my month’s adventures with that bank-note, and how they ended, did London talk, and have a good time? Yes.

My Portia’s papa took that friendly and hospitable bill back to the Bank of England and cashed it; then the Bank cancelled it and made him a present of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has always hung in its frame in the sacredest place in our home, ever since. For it gave me my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London, would not have appeared at the minister’s, never should have met her. And so I always say, ‘Yes, it’s a million-pounder, as you see; but it never made but one purchase in its life, and _then_ got the article for only about a tenth part of its value.’

_MENTAL TELEGRAPHY_

_A MANUSCRIPT WITH A HISTORY_

NOTE TO THE EDITOR.—By glancing over the enclosed bundle of rusty old manuscript, you will perceive that I once made a great discovery: the discovery that certain sorts of things which, from the beginning of the world, had always been regarded as merely ‘curious coincidences’—that is to say, accidents—were no more accidental than is the sending and receiving of a telegram an accident. I made this discovery sixteen or seventeen years ago, and gave it a name—‘Mental Telegraphy.’ It is the same thing around the outer edges of which the Psychical Society of England began to grope (and play with) four or five years ago, and which they named ‘Telepathy.’ Within the last two or three years they have penetrated towards the heart of the matter, however, and have found out that mind can act upon mind in a quite detailed and elaborate way over vast stretches of land and water. And they have succeeded in doing, by their great credit and influence, what I could never have done—they have convinced the world that mental telegraphy is not a jest, but a fact, and that it is a thing not rare, but exceedingly common. They have done our age a service—and a very great service, I think.

In this old manuscript you will find mention of an extraordinary experience of mine in the mental telegraphic line, of date about the year 1874 or 1875—the one concerning the Great Bonanza book. It was this experience that called my attention to the matter under consideration. I began to keep a record, after that, of such experiences of mine as seemed explicable by the theory that minds telegraph thoughts to each other. In 1878 I went to Germany and began to write the book called _A Tramp Abroad_. The bulk of this old batch of manuscript was written at that time and for that book. But I removed it when I came to revise the volume for the press; for I feared that the public would treat the thing as a joke and throw it aside, whereas I was in earnest.

At home, eight or ten years ago, I tried to creep in under shelter of an authority grave enough to protect the article from ridicule—the _North American Review_. But Mr. Metcalf was too wary for me. He said that to treat these mere ‘coincidences’ seriously was a thing which the _Review_ couldn’t dare to do; that I must put either my name or my _nom de plume_ to the article, and thus save the _Review_ from harm. But I couldn’t consent to that; it would be the surest possible way to defeat my desire that the public should receive the thing seriously, and be willing to stop and give it some fair degree of attention. So I pigeon-holed the MS., because I could not get it published anonymously.

Now see how the world has moved since then. These small experiences of mine, which were too formidable at that time for admission to a grave magazine—if the magazine must allow them to appear as something above and beyond ‘accidents’ and ‘coincidences’—are trifling and commonplace now, since the flood of light recently cast upon mental telegraphy by the intelligent labours of the Psychical Society. But I think they are worth publishing, just to show what harmless and ordinary matters were considered dangerous and incredible eight or ten years ago.