CHAPTER XI.

_In Clover._

After picking up his belongings at the outfitter's, two smart Gladstone bags with "P. A." nicely painted on them, Philip stopped his cab at Somerset House. He experienced no difficulty in reaching the proper department for stamping documents, and thus giving them legal significance.

An official glanced at Isaacstein's contract note, and then looked at Philip, evidently regarding him as a relative or youthful secretary of the "Philip Anson, Esq., Pall Mall Hotel," whose name figured on the paper.

"I suppose you only want this to be indicated?" he said.

"Yes," agreed Philip, who had not the remotest idea what he meant.

"Sixpence," was the curt rejoinder.

Philip thought he would be called on to pay many pounds--some amount in the nature of a percentage of the sum named in the agreement. He produced the coin demanded, and made no comment. With stamp or without, he knew that Isaacstein would go straight in this preliminary undertaking. A single glimpse of the monster diamond in his pocket had made that quite certain.

For the rest, he was rapidly making out a plan which should secure his interests effectually. He hoped, before the day was out, to have set on foot arrangements which would free him from all anxiety.

From Somerset House he drove to the Pall Mall Hotel. A gigantic hall porter, looking like a youthful major-general in undress uniform, received him with much ceremony and ushered him to the office, where an urbane clerk instantly classed him as the avant courier of an American family.

"I want a sitting room and bedroom en suite," said Philip.

"One bedroom?" was the surprised query.

"Yes."

"How many of you are there, then?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

The clerk fumbled with the register. Precocious juveniles were not unknown to him, but a boy of Philip's type had not hitherto arisen over his horizon.

"A sitting room and a bedroom en suite?" he repeated.

"Exactly."

The clerk was disconcerted by Philip's steady gaze.

"On what floor?" he asked.

"Really," said Philip, "I don't know. Suppose you tell me what accommodation you have. Then I will decide at once."

The official, who was one of the most skilled hotel clerks in London, found it ridiculous to be put out of countenance by a mere boy, who could not be a day older than seventeen, and might be a good deal less. He cast a critical eye on Philip's clothing, and saw that, while it was good, it had not the gloss of Vere de Vere.

He would paralyze him at one fell blow, little dreaming that the other read his glance and knew the exact mental process of his reasoning.

"There is a good suite vacant on the first floor, but it contains a dressing room and bath room," he said, smiling the smile of a very knowing person.

"That sounds all right. I will take it."

"Ah, yes. It costs five pounds a day!"

Each of the six words in that portentous sentence contained a note of admiration that swelled out into a magnificent crescendo. It was a verbal avalanche, beneath which this queer youth should be crushed into the very dust.

"Five pounds a day!" observed Philip, calmly. "I suppose there would be a reduction if taken for a month?"

"Well--er--during the season it is not--er--usual to----"

"Oh, very well. I can easily arrange for a permanency later if I think fit. What number is the suite, please, and will you kindly have my luggage sent there at once?"

The clerk was demoralized, but he managed to say:

"Do you quite understand the terms--thirty-five pounds a week!"

"Yes," said Philip. "Shall I pay you a week in advance? I can give you notes, but it will oblige me if you take a check, as I may want the ready money in my possession."

Receiving a faint indication that, under the circumstances, a check would be esteemed a favor, Philip whipped out his check book, filled in a check to the hotel, and did not forget to cross it "ac. payee."

The clerk watched him with an amazement too acute for words. He produced the register and Philip signed his name. He was given a receipt for the payment on account, and then asked to be shown to his rooms.

A boy smaller, but not younger, than himself--a smart page, who listened to the foregoing with deep interest--asked timidly whether the guest would go by the stairs or use the elevator.

"I will walk," said Philip, who liked to ascertain his bearings.

The palatial nature of the apartments took him by surprise when he reached them. Although far from being the most expensive suite in the hotel, the surroundings were of a nature vastly removed from anything hitherto known to him.

Even the charming house he inhabited as a child in Dieppe contained no such luxury. His portmanteau followed quickly, and a valet entered. Philip's quick ears caught the accent of a Frenchman, and the boy spoke to the man in the language of his country, pure and undefiled by the barbarisms of John Bull.

They were chatting about the weather, which, by the way, ever since the nineteenth of March had been extraordinarily fine, when there was a knock at the door and the manager entered.

The clerk found the situation too much for him. He had appealed to a higher authority.

Even the suave and diplomatic Monsieur Foret could not conceal the astonishment that leaped to his eyes when he saw the occupant of Suite F.

"I think you will find these rooms very comfortable," he said, for lack of aught better. A commissionaire was already on his way to the bank to ask if the check was all right.

"Are you the manager?" asked Philip, who was washing his hands.

"Yes."

"I am glad you called. One of your clerks seemed to be taken aback because a youngster like me engaged an expensive suite. I suppose the proceeding is unusual, but there is no reason why it should create excitement. It need not be commented on, for instance?"

"No, no. Of course not."

"Thank you very much. I have a special reason for wishing to live at this hotel. Indeed, I have given this address for certain important documents. Will you kindly arrange that I may be treated like any ordinary person?"

"I hope the clerk was not rude to you?"

"Not in the least. I am only anxious to prevent special notice being taken of me. You see, if others get to know I am living here alone, I will be pointed out as a curiosity, and that will not be pleasant."

The request was eminently reasonable. The manager assured him that strict orders would be given on the point instantly, though he was quite certain, in his own mind, that inquiry would soon be made for this remarkable youth, perhaps by the police.

"You can leave us," said Philip to the valet in French.

Now the chance use of that language, no less than his perfect accent, went a long way toward removing the manager's suspicions. A boy who was so well educated must be quite out of the common. Perhaps some eccentric parent or guardian encouraged him to act independently thus early in life. He might be the son of a rich man coming to London for a special course of study. The name, Anson, was an aristocratic one. But his clothes--they were odd. Good enough, but not the right thing.

"Will you oblige me by recommending a good tailor?" said Philip. "I need a complete outfit of wearing apparel, and it will save me a lot of trouble if somebody will tell me exactly what to buy and where to buy it."

His uncanny trick of thought reading disconcerted the manager greatly. Undoubtedly the boy was a puzzle. Never had this experienced man of the world met anyone more self-possessed, more direct, and yet, with it all, exceedingly polite.

"I take it that you want the best?" he inquired, pleasantly.

"Yes."

"Are you lunching in the hotel?"

"I would like something sent here, if you please, and, there again, your advice will be most gratefully accepted."

The manager felt that a generation was growing up of which he knew nothing, but he simply answered:

"I will see to it. Do you--er--take wine?"

Philip laughed, that pleasant whole-souled laugh of his which instantly secured him friends.

"Not yet, Monsieur----"

"Foret is my name."

"Well, Monsieur Foret, I am far too young as yet for either wine or tobacco. I promised my mother I would touch neither until I am twenty-one, and I will keep my word. I think I would like some _café au lait_."

"I understand. Your _déjeuner_ will be sent up in ten minutes. By the time you have finished, I will have people here from two or three establishments who will meet all your requirements in the shape of clothes and the rest."

An hour's talk and the payment of checks on account worked wonders. Before many days had passed, Philip was amply provided with raiment. His presence in the hotel, too, attracted no comment whatever. People who saw him coming or going, instantly assumed that he was staying with his people, while the manager took care that gossip among the employees was promptly stopped.

As for the ragged youth with the diamonds, he was forgotten, apparently. The newspapers dropped him, believing, indeed, that Isaacstein had worked some ingenious advertising dodge on his own account, and Messrs. Sharpe & Smith never dreamed of looking for the lost Philip Anson, the derelict from Johnson's Mews, in the Pall Mall Hotel, the most luxurious and expensive establishment in London.

That afternoon, Philip visited the Safe Deposit Company. He had little difficulty, of course, in securing a small strong-room. He encountered the wonted surprise at his youth, but the excellent argument of a banking account and the payment of a year's rent in advance soon cleared the air.

He transferred four of his portmanteaux to this secure environment--the fifth was sent to his hotel. When the light failed, he drove to the East End, and made a round of pawnbrokers' shops. Although some of the tickets were time-expired, he recovered nearly all his mother's belongings, excepting her watch.

The odd coincidence recalled the inspector's implied promise that he should receive one as a recognition of his gallantry.

How remote, how far removed from each other, the main events in his life seemed to be at this eventful epoch. As he went westward in a hansom, he could hardly bring himself to believe that barely twenty-four hours had elapsed since he traveled to the Mile End Road in company with Mrs. Wrigley.

And the curious thing was that he felt in no sense awed by the possession of thousands of pounds and the tenancy of palatial chambers in a great hotel. His career had been too checkered, its recent developments too stupendous, to cause him any undue emotion. Existence, for the hour, was a species of well-ordered dream, in which imagination was untrammeled save by the need to exercise his wits in order to keep the phantasy within the bounds, not of his own brain, but of other men's.

At the hotel he found the French valet setting forth a shirt. The man explained that he required a spare set of studs and links.

This reminded Philip that there was still a good deal of shopping to be done. He was about to leave the room for the purpose, when the valet said:

"Another portmanteau has arrived for monsieur. Will you be pleased to unlock it?"

"No," said Philip. "It must remain untouched." He smiled at the thought of the sensation his tattered rags and worn boots would make in that place. Yet, just a week ago, he passed through the street outside, bound in the pitiless rain for Johnson's Mews, and bent on suicide.

He walked into Regent Street and made a number of purchases, not forgetting some books. A double silver-mounted photograph stand caught his eye. It would hold the two best pictures he possessed of his father and mother, so he bought it. He also acquired a dispatch box in which he could store his valuables, both jewelry and documents, for he had quite a number of receipts, letters and other things to safeguard now, and he did not wish servants' prying eyes to examine everything belonging to him.

When alone in his room, he secured the album and locked that special portmanteau again, after stowing therein the letters found beneath Mrs. Anson's pillow. Soon his mother's dear face smiled at him from a beautiful border of filigree silver. The sight was pleasant to him, soothing to his full mind. In her eyes was a message of faith, of trust, of absolute confidence in the future.

It was strange that he thought so little of his father at this time, but the truth was that his childhood was passed so much in his mother's company, and they were so inseparable during the last two years, that memories of his father were shadowy.

Yet the physiognomist would have seen that the boy owed a great deal of his strength of character and well-knit frame to the handsome, stalwart man whose name he bore.

Philip loved his mother on the compensating principle that persons of opposite natures often have an overpowering affinity for each other. He resembled her neither in features nor in the more subtle traits of character.

After a dinner the excellence of which was in nowise diminished by lack of appreciation on his part, he undertook a pilgrimage of curiosity to which he had previously determined to devote the evening.

He wondered unceasingly to whom he was indebted for the good meals he had enjoyed in prison. Now he would endeavor to find out.

A hansom took him to Holloway, but the first efforts of the driver failed to discover the whereabouts of the "Royal Star Hotel."

At last Philip recollected the warder's added direction--"opposite."

He dismissed the cab and walked to the prison entrance. Directly in front he saw a small restaurant called the "Star." Its titular embellishments were due to the warder's gift of humor.

He entered. A woman was knitting at a cash desk.

"Until yesterday," he said, "you sent food regularly to a boy named Anson, who was confined in the prison----"

"Yes," interrupted the lady. "I on'y heard this mornin' that he was let out."

"Would you mind telling me who paid the bill? I suppose it was paid?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, it was overpaid," was the reply. "You see, the pore lad was remanded for a week, an' Mr. Judd, a man 'oo lives in the Farringdon Road, kem 'ere an' arranged for 'is week's board. Hav' ye heard wot 'appened to 'im?"

Philip's heart was in his mouth, but he managed to answer that the boy was all right; there was no charge against him. Then he escaped into the street. The one man he had forgotten was his greengrocer friend, who had indeed acted the part of the Good Samaritan.

There was some excuse for this, but the boy's abounding good nature would admit of none. He hastened to Farringdon Road with the utmost speed, and found his fat friend putting up the shutters of his shop.

The restaurant next door was open. Philip approached quietly.

"Good-evening, Mr. Judd," he said, holding out his hand.

"Good-evenin', sir," said the greengrocer, his eyes revealing not the remotest idea of the identity of the smart, young gentleman who addressed him so familiarly.

"Don't you know me, Mr. Judd?"

"Well, sir, I can't exactly bring to min'----"

"I suppose the good fare you provided for me at Holloway has so altered my appearance that you fail to recognize me again?"

"Wot! Ye don't mean to s'y----'Ere, Eliza, this young gent is the lad I was a-tellin' you of. Remanded till Saturday, you was. I saw in the piper last night. Well, there, I'm done!"

By this time Philip was inside the shop, and the stout greengrocer and his equally stout spouse were gazing open-mouthed at this well-dressed youth who had supplanted the thin tatterdemalion so much discussed by them and their neighbors.

Judd and the restaurant keeper were the only men in the locality who could claim actual acquaintance with the boy whose strange proceedings as reported by the newspapers made London gape. Indeed, both men had been interviewed by police and reporters many times. They were living links with the marvelous, a pedestal of common stone for an aërial phantasy.

And now, here he was, back again, dressed like a young gentleman, and hailing Judd as a valued friend. No wonder the greengrocer lost his breath and his power of speech.

But Philip was smiling at him and talking.

"You were the one man out of many, Mr. Judd, who believed in me, and even stuck up for me when you saw me led through the street by a policeman to be imprisoned on a false charge. I did not know until an hour ago that I was indebted to you for an abundance of excellent food while I was remanded in prison. I will not offer to refund you the money you spent. My gratitude will take another form, which you will learn in a few days. But I do want to pay you the ninepence I borrowed. Would you mind asking the proprietor of the restaurant to step in here for a moment? Don't say I am present. I wish to avoid a crowd, you know."

Judd had time to collect his scattered ideas during this long speech.

"Blow the ninepence!" he cried. "Wot's ninepence for the treat I've 'ad? People I never set eyes on in my life afore kem 'ere an' bought cabbiges, or taters, or mebbe a few plums, an' then they'd stawt: 'Mr. Judd, wasn't it you as stood a dinner to the Boy King of Diamonds?' That's wot they christened yer, sir. Or it's: 'Mr. Judd, cahn't yer tell us w'ere that young Morland lives? Sure-ly yer know summat abaht 'im or yer wouldn't hev paid 'is bill.' Oh, it 'as bin a beano. Hasn't it, Eliza?"

"But we never let on a word," put in Mrs. Judd. "We was close as wax. We told none of 'em as how Mr. Judd went to 'Olloway that night, did we, Willyum?"

"Not us. Ye see, I took a fancy to ye. If ahr little Johnnie 'ad lived 'e'd ha' bin just your ige. Fifteen, aren't ye?"

At last Philip got him persuaded to summon his neighbor. Judd did so with an air of mystery that caused the bald-headed restaurateur to believe that a burglar was bottled up in the greengrocer's cellar.

Once inside the shop, however, Mr. Judd's manner changed.

"Wot did I tell yer, Tomkins?" he cried, elatedly. "Wot price me as a judge of karak-ter! 'Ere's Mr. Morland come back to p'y me that ninepence. Eh, Tomkins! 'Oo's right now, old cock?"

Philip solemnly counted out the money, which he handed to his delighted backer.

"There was a bet, too," he said.

"Ra-ther!" roared Judd. "Two bob, w'ich I've pide. Out wi' four bob, Tomkins. Lord lumme, I'll stand treat at the George for this!"

"There's something funny in the kise," growled Tomkins, as he unwillingly produced a couple of florins.

"I was sure you would see the joke at once," said Philip. "Good-by, Mr. Judd. Good-by, ma'am. You will hear from me without fail within a fortnight."

He was gone before they realized his intention. They saw him skip rapidly up the steps leading into Holborn, and London had swallowed him forever so far as they were concerned.

Ten days later a firm of solicitors wrote to the greengrocer to inform him that a client of theirs had acquired the freehold of his house and shop, which property, during the life of either himself or his wife, would be tenantable free of rent, rates or taxes.

So Mr. Judd's investment of ninepence, plus the amount expended on eatables at the Royal Star Hotel, secured to him and his wife an annual revenue of one hundred and seventy-five pounds.

And Tomkins never heard the last of it.