During February I grew suddenly tired of waiting for the summer to begin. London in the summer is a pleasant place, and chiefly so because you can keep on buying evening papers to read the cricket news. In February life has no such excitements to offer. So I wrote to my solicitor about it.
"I want you," I wrote, "to buy me fifty rubber shares, so that I can watch them go up and down." And I added, "Brokerage one-eighth," to show that I knew what I was talking about.
He replied tersely as follows:
"Don"t be a fool. If you have any money to invest I can get you a safe mortgage at five per cent. Let me know."
It"s a funny thing how the minds of solicitors run upon mortgages. If they would only stop to think for a moment they would see that you couldn"t possibly watch a safe mortgage go up and down. I left my solicitor alone and consulted Henry on the subject. In the intervals between golf and golf Henry dabbles in finance.
"You don"t want anything gilt-edged, I gather," he said. It"s wonderful how they talk.
"I want it to go up and down," I explained patiently, and I indicated the required movement with my umbrella.
"What about a little flutter in oil?" he went on, just like a financier in a novel.
"I"ll have a little flutter in raspberry jam if you like. Anything as long as I can rush every night for the last edition of the evening papers and say now and then, "Good heavens, I"m ruined!""
"Then you"d better try a gold mine," said Henry bitterly, in the voice of one who has tried. "Take your choice," and he threw the paper over to me.
"I don"t want a whole mine--only a vein or two. Yes, this is very interesting," I went on, as I got among the West Africans. "The scoring seems to be pretty low; I suppose it must have been a wet wicket. "H.E.
Reef, 1-3/4, 2"--he did a little better in the second innings. "1/2, Boffin River, 5/16, 7/16,--they followed on, you see, but they saved the innings defeat. By the way, which figure do I really keep my eye on when I want to watch them go up and down?"
"Both. One eye on each. And don"t talk about Boffin River to _me_."
"Is it like that, Henry? I am sorry. I suppose it"s too late now to offer you a safe mortgage at five per cent.? I know a man who has some.
Well, perhaps you"re right."
On the next day I became a magnate. The Jaguar Mine was the one I fixed upon--for two reasons. First, the figure immediately after it was 1, which struck me as a good point from which to watch it go up and down.
Secondly, I met a man at lunch who knew somebody who had actually seen the Jaguar Mine.
"He says that there"s no doubt about there being lots there."
"Lots of what? Jaguars or gold?"
"Ah, he didn"t say. Perhaps he meant Jaguars."
Anyhow, it was an even chance, and I decided to risk it. In a week"s time I was the owner of what we call in the City a "block" of Jaguars--bought from one Herbert Bellingham, who, I suppose, had been got at by his solicitor and compelled to return to something safe. I was a West African magnate.
My first two months as a magnate were a great success. With my heart in my mouth I would tear open the financial editions of the evening papers, to find one day that Jaguars had soared like a rocket to 1-1/16, the next that they had dropped like a stone to 1-1/32. There was one terrible afternoon when for some reason which will never be properly explained we sank to 15/16. I think the European situation had something to do with it, though this naturally is not admitted. Lord Rothschild, I fancy, suddenly threw all his Jaguars on the market; he sold and sold and sold, and only held his hand when, in desperation, the Tsar granted the concession for his new Southend to Siberia railway. Something like that. But he never recked how the private investor would suffer; and there was I, sitting at home and sending out madly for all the papers, until my rooms were littered with copies of _The Times_, _The Financial News_, _Answers_, _The Feathered World_ and _Home Chat_. Next day we were up to 31/32, and I breathed again.
But I had other pleasures than these. Previously I had regarded the City with awe, but now I felt a glow of possession come over me whenever I approached it. Often in those first two months I used to lean against the Mansion House in a familiar sort of way; once I struck a match against the Royal Exchange. And what an impression of financial ac.u.men I could make in a drawing-room by a careless reference to my "block of Jaguars!" Even those who misunderstood me and thought I spoke of my "flock of Jaguars" were startled. Indeed life was very good just then.
But lately things have not been going well. At the beginning of April Jaguars settled down at 1-1/16. Though I stood for hours at the club tape, my hair standing up on end and my eyeb.a.l.l.s starting from their sockets, Jaguars still came through steadily at 1-1/16. To give them a chance of doing something, I left them alone for a whole week--with what agony you can imagine. Then I looked again; a whole week and anything might have happened. Pauper or millionaire? No, still 1-1/16.
Worse was to follow. Editors actually took to leaving out Jaguars altogether. I suppose they were sick of putting 1-1/16 in every edition.
But how ridiculous it made my idea seem of watching them go up and down!
How blank life became again!
And now what I dreaded most of all has happened. I have received a "Progress Report" from the mine. It gives the "total footage" for the month, special reference being made to "cross-cutting, winzing and sinking." The amount of "tons crushed" is announced. There is serious talk of "ore" being "extracted"; indeed there has already been a most alarming "yield in fine gold." In short, it can no longer be hushed up that the property may at any moment be "placed on a dividend-paying basis."
Probably I shall be getting a safe five per cent.!
"Dash it all," as I said to my solicitor this morning, "I might just as well have bought a rotten mortgage."
XVIII. THE THINGS THAT MATTER
Ronald, surveying the world from his taxi--that pleasant corner of the world, St. James"s Park--gave a sigh of happiness. The blue sky, the lawn of daffodils, the mist of green upon the trees, were but a promise of the better things which the country held for him. Beautiful as he thought the daffodils, he found for the moment an even greater beauty in the Gladstone bags at his feet. His eyes wandered from one to the other, and his heart sang to him, "I"m going away, I"m going away, I"m going away."
The train was advertised to go at 2.22, and at 2.20 Ronald joined the Easter holiday crowd upon the platform. A porter put down his luggage and was then swallowed up in a sea of perambulators and fl.u.s.tered parents. Ronald never saw him again. At 2.40, amidst some applause, the train came in.
Ronald seized a lost porter.
"Just put these in for me," he said. "A first smoker."
"All this lot yours, Sir?"
"The three bags--not the milk-cans," said Ronald.
It had been a beautiful day before, but when a family of sixteen which joined Ronald in his carriage was ruthlessly hauled out by the guard, the sun seemed to shine with a warmth more caressing than ever. Even when the train moved out of the station and the children who had been mislaid emerged from their hiding-places and were bundled in anywhere by the married porters, Ronald still remained splendidly alone. And the sky took on yet a deeper shade of blue.
He lay back in his corner, thinking. For a time his mind was occupied with the thoughts common to most of us when we go away--thoughts of all the things we have forgotten to pack. I don"t think you could fairly have called Ronald over-anxious about clothes. He recognised that it was the inner virtues which counted; that a well-dressed exterior was nothing without some graces of mind or body. But at the same time he did feel strongly that, if you are going to stay at a house where you have never visited before, and if you are particularly anxious to make a good impression, it _is_ a pity that an accident of packing should force you to appear at dinner in green knickerbockers and somebody else"s velvet smoking-jacket.
Ronald couldn"t help feeling that he had forgotten something. It wasn"t the spare sponge; it wasn"t the extra shaving-brush; it wasn"t the second pair of bedroom slippers. Just for a moment the sun went behind a cloud as he wondered if he had included the reserve razor-strop; but no, he distinctly remembered packing that.
The reason for his vague feeling of unrest was this. He had been interrupted while getting ready that afternoon; and, as he left whatever he had been doing in order to speak to his housekeeper, he had said to himself, "If you"re not careful, you"ll forget about that when you come back." And now he could not remember what it was he had been doing, nor whether he _had_ in the end forgotten to go on with it. Was he selecting his ties, or brushing his hair, or----
The country was appearing field by field; the train rushed through cuttings gay with spring flowers; blue was the sky between the baby clouds ... but it all missed Ronald. What _could_ he have forgotten?
He went over the days that were coming; he went through all the changes of toilet that the hours might bring. He had packed this and this and this and this--he was all right for the evening. Supposing they played golf?... He was all right for golf. He might want to ride.... He would be able to ride. It was too early for lawn tennis, but ... well, anyhow, he had put in flannels.
As he considered all the possible clothes that he might want, it really seemed that he had provided for everything. If he liked he could go to church on Friday morning; hunt otters from twelve to one on Sat.u.r.day; toboggan or dig for badgers on Monday. He had the different suits necessary for those who attend a water-polo meeting, who play chess, or who go out after moths with a pot of treacle. And even, in the last resort, he could go to bed.
Yes, he was all right. He had packed _everything_; moreover, his hair was brushed and he had no s.m.u.t upon his face. With a sigh of relief he lowered the window and his soul drank in the beautiful afternoon. "We are going away--we are going away--we are going away," sang the train.
At the prettiest of wayside stations the train stopped and Ronald got out. There were horses to meet him. "Better than a car," thought Ronald, "on an afternoon like this." The luggage was collected. "Nothing left out," he chuckled to himself, and was seized with an insane desire to tell the coachman so; and then they drove off through the fresh green hedgerows, Ronald trying hard not to cheer.
His host was at the door as they arrived. Ronald, as happy as a child, jumped out and shook him warmly by the hand, and told him what a heavenly day it was; receiving with smiles of pleasure the news in return that it was almost like summer.
"You"re just in time for tea. Really, we might have it in the garden."
"By Jove, we might," said Ronald, beaming.
However, they had it in the hall, with the doors wide open. Ronald, sitting lazily with his legs stretched out and a cup of tea in his hands, and feeling already on the friendliest terms with everybody, wondered again at the difference which the weather could make to one"s happiness.
"You know," he said to the girl on his right, "on a day like this, _nothing_ seems to matter."