This laconic epistle signified that the firm in whose warehouse Richard Jones was employed, had stopped payment Rich men lost their thousands, and eat none the worse a dinner; Richard Jones lost his week"s wages, his future employment, and remained stunned with the magnitude of the blow.
His first thought flew to his child.
"How shall I pay Miss Gray for my little Mary"s keep?" he exclaimed, inwardly.
He cast his look round the room to see what he could pledge or sell.
Alas! there was little enough there. His next feeling was,
"My darling must know nothing about it Thank G.o.d, she is not with me now!
Thank G.o.d!"
But, though this was some sort of comfort, the future still looked so dark and threatening, that Jones spent a sleepless night, tossing in his bed, and groaning so loudly, that his landlady forsook her couch to knock at his door, and inquire, to his infinite confusion, "if Mr. Jones felt poorly, and if there was anything she could do for him, and if he would like some hot ginger?" To which Mr. Jones replied, with thanks, "that he was quite well, much obliged to her all the same."
After this significant hint, he managed to keep quiet. Towards morning, he fell asleep, and dreamed he had found a purse full of guineas, and that he was going to open a grocer"s shop, to be called the Teapot.
Richard Jones was sober, intelligent enough for what he had to do, and not too intelligent--which is a great disadvantage; he bore an excellent character; and yet, somehow or other, when he searched for employment, there seemed to be no zoom for him; and had he been a philosopher, which, most fortunately for his peace of mind, he was not, he must inevitably hare come to the conclusion, that in this world he was not wanted.
We are not called upon to enter into the history of his struggles. He maintained a sort of precarious existence, now working at this, now working at that; for he was a Jack of all trades, and could torn his hand to anything, but certain of no continual employment. How he went through it all, still paying Miss Gray, still keeping up a decent appearance, contracting no debts, the pitying eye which alone looks down on the bitter trials of the poor, also alone knows.
The poorer a man gets, the more he thinks of wealth and money; the narrower does the world close around him, and all the wider grows the world of his charms. The shop, which had only been a dormant idea in Richard Jones"s mind, now became a living phantom; day and night, mom and noon it haunted him. When he had nothing to do--and this was, unfortunately, too often the case--he sought intuitively the suburb where Rachel Gray dwelt; ascertained, over and over, that within the mile circuit of that central point there did not exist one grocer"s shop, and finally determined that the precise spot where, for public benefit and its own advantage, a grocer"s shop should be, was just round the corner of the street next to that of Rachel Gray, in a dirty little house, now occupied by a rag and bottle establishment, with very dirty windows, and a shabby black doll dangling like a thief, over the doorway; spite of which enticing prospect, the rag and bottle people seemed to thrive but indifferently, if one might judge from the sulky, ill-tempered looking woman, whom Jones always saw within, sorting old rags, and scowling at him whenever she caught him in the act of peering in.
It was, therefore, with no surprise, though with some uneasiness, that coming one day to linger as usual near the place, James found the rag and bottle shop closed, the black doll gone, and the words, "To let"
scrawled, in white chalk, on the shutters. Convinced that none but a grocer could take such a desirable shop, and desirous, at least, to know when this fated consummation was to take place, Jones took courage, and went on as far as Rachel Gray"s.
Jane, the grim apprentice, opened to him,
"There"s no one at home," she said.
Mr. Jones pleaded fatigue, and asked to be permitted to rest awhile. She did not oppose his entrance, but grimly repelled all his attempts at opening a conversation. He entered on that most innocent topic, the weather, and praised it.
"It has been raining," was Jane"s emphatic reply.
"Oh! has it? What"s them bells ringing for, I wonder."
"They aint a ringing; they"re a tolling."
Mr. Jones, rather confused at being thus put down by a girl of sixteen, coughed behind his hand, and looked round the room for a subject. He found none, save a general inquiry after the health of Mary, Mrs. Gray, and Miss Gray.
"They"re all well enough," disdainfully replied Jane.
"Oh, are they! I see the rag and bottle shop is shut," he added, plunging desperately into the subject.
"S"pose it is!" answered Jane, eyeing him rather defiantly; for the rag and bottle woman was her own aunt; and she thought the observation of a personal nature.
Though much taken aback, Jones, spurred on by the irresistible wish to know, ventured on another question.
"You don"t know who is going to take it next, do you?"
"Oh! you want to take it, do you?" said Jane.
"I--I!" exclaimed Jones, flurried and disconcerted. "La, bless the young woman! I aint in the rag and bottle line, am I?"
He thought by this artful turn to throw his young enemy off the scent; but her rejoinder showed him the futility of the attempt.
"I didn"t say you was, did I?" she replied, drily.
Jones rose precipitately, and hastily desiring his love to Mrs. Gray, and his respects to Mary, he retreated most shamefully beaten. He did not breathe freely until he reached the end of the street, and once more found himself opposite the closed rag shop. How he had come there, he did not rightly know; for it was not his way home. But, being there, he naturally gave it another look. He stood gazing at it very attentively, and absorbed in thought, when he was roused by a sharp voice, which said,
"P"raps you"d like to see it within."
The voice came from above. Richard looked up. The first floor window was open, and a man"s head was just thrust out of it. It looked down at him in the street, and apparently belonged to a little old man, to whom one very sharp eye--the other was closed up quite tight--and a long nose, which went all of one side, gave a rather remarkable appearance.
"Thank you, sir," replied Jones, rather confused. "I--I--"
Before he had got to the end of his speech, the old man vanished from the window, and suddenly appeared at the private door, beckoning him in.
"Come in," he said, coaxingly, like an ogre luring in an unwary little boy.
And, drawn as by a magnet, Jones entered.
"Dark pa.s.sage, but good shop," said the old man. He opened a door, and in the shop suddenly stepped Richard Jones. It was small, dirty, and smelt of grease and old rags.
"Good shop," said the old man, rubbing his hands, in seeming great glee; "neat back parlour;" he opened a gla.s.s door, and Jones saw a triangular room, not much larger than a good-sized cupboard.
"More rooms up stairs," briskly said the old man; he nimbly darted up an old wooden staircase, that creaked under him. Mechanically Jones followed. There were two rooms on the upper and only storey; one of moderate size; the other, a little larger than the back parlour.
"Good shop," began the old man, reckoning on his fingers, "ca-pital shop; neat parlour--very neat; upper storey, two rooms; one splendid; cosy bed-room; rent of the whole, only thirty-five pounds a-year--only thirty-five pounds a-year!"
The repet.i.tion was uttered impressively.
"Thank you--much obliged to you," began Richard Jones, wishing himself fairly out of the place; "but you see--"
"Stop a bit," eagerly interrupted the old man, catching Jones by the b.u.t.ton-hole, and fixing him, as the "Ancient Mariner" fixed the wedding guest, with his glittering eye, "stop a bit; you take the house, keep shop, parlour, and bedroom for yourself and family--plenty; furnish front room, let it at five shillings a week; fifty-two weeks in the year; five times two, ten--put down naught, carry one; five times five, twenty-five, and one, twenty-six--two hundred and sixty shillings, make thirteen pounds; take thirteen pounds from thirty-five--"
"Law bless you, Sir!" hastily interrupted Jones, getting frightened at the practical landlord view the one-eyed and one-sided-nosed old man seemed to take of his presence in the house. "Law bless you, Sir! it"s all a mistake, every bit of it."
"A mistake!" interrupted the old man, his voice rising shrill and loud.
"A mistake! five times two, ten--"
"Well, but I couldn"t think of such a thing," in his turn interrupted Jones. "I--"
"Well then, say thirty pound," pertinaciously resumed the old man; "take thirteen from thirty--"
"No, I can"t then--really, I can"t," desperately exclaimed Jones; "on my word I can"t."
"Well, then, say twenty-five; from twenty-five take thirteen--"
"I tell you, "tain"t a bit of use your taking away thirteen at that rate," interrupted Jones, rather warmly.