"Few things are as unlike a cornet in the Life Guards as a child in a perambulator--"
"Very well, all that," interrupted Lord Culduff, impatiently. "I know that sort of argument perfectly. I have been pestered with the acorn, or, rather, with the unborn forests in the heart of the acorn, for many a day. Let us get a stride in advance of these plat.i.tudes. Is the whole thing like this?" and he threw the drawing across the table contemptuously as he spoke. "Is it all of this pattern, eh?"
"In one sense it is very like," said the other, with a greater amount of decision in his tone than usual.
"In which case, then, the sooner we abandon it the better," said Lord Culduff, rising, and standing with his back to the fire, his head high, and his look intensely haughty.
"It is not for me to dictate to your Lordship,--I could never presume to do so,--but certainly it is not every one in Great Britain who could reconcile himself to relinquish one of the largest sources of wealth in the kingdom. Taking the lowest estimate of Carrick Nuish mine alone,--and when I say the lowest, I mean throwing the whole thing into a company of shareholders and neither working nor risking a shilling yourself,--you may put from twenty to five-and-twenty thousand pounds into your pocket within a twelvemonth."
"Who will guarantee that, Cutbill?" said Lord Culduff, with a faint smile.
"I am ready myself to do so, provided my counsels be strictly followed.
I will do so, with my whole professional reputation."
"I am charmed to hear you say so. It is a very gratifying piece of news for me. You feel, therefore, certain that we have struck coal?"
"My Lord, when a young man enters life from one of the universities, with a high reputation for ability, he can go a long way,--if he only be prudent,--living on his capital. It is the same thing in a great industrial enterprise; you must start at speed, and with a high pressure,--get way on you, as the sailors say,--and you will skim along for half a mile after the steam is off."
"I come back to my former question. Have we found coal?"
"I hope so. I trust we have. Indeed, there is every reason to say we have found coal. What we need most at this moment is a man like that gentleman whose note is on the table,--a large capitalist, a great City name. Let him a.s.sociate himself in the project, and success is as certain as that we stand here."
"But you have just told me he has given up his business life,--retired from affairs altogether."
"My Lord, these men never give up. They buy estates, they can live at Rome or Paris, and take a chateau at Cannes, and try to forget Mincing Lane and the rest of it; but if you watch them, you "ll see it"s the money article in the "Times" they read before the leader. They have but one barometer for everything that happens in Europe,--how are the exchanges? and they are just as greedy of a good thing as on any morning they hurried down to the City in a hansom to buy in or sell out. See if I "m not right. Just throw out a hint, no more, that you "d like a word of advice from Colonel Bramleigh about your project; say it"s a large thing,--too large for an individual to cope with,--that you are yourself the least possible of a business man, being always engaged in very different occupations,--and ask what course he would counsel you to take."
"I might show him these drawings,--these colored plans."
"Well, indeed, my Lord," said Cutbill, brushing his mouth with his hand, to hide a smile of malicious drollery, "I"d say I"d not show him the plans. The pictorial rarely appeals to men of his stamp. It"s the multiplication-table they like, and if all the world were like them one would never throw poetry into a project."
"You "ll have to come with me, Cutbill; I see that," said his Lordship, reflectingly.
"My Lord, I am completely at your orders."
"Yes; this is a sort of negotiation you will conduct better than myself. I am not conversant with this sort of thing, nor the men who deal in them. A great treaty, a question of boundary, a royal marriage,--any of these would find me ready and prepared, but with the diplomacy of dividends, I own myself little acquainted. You must come with me." Cutbill bowed in acquiescence, and was silent.
CHAPTER VII. AT LUNCHEON
As the family at the great house were gathered together at luncheon on the day after the events we have just recorded, Lord Culduff"s answer to Temple Bramleigh"s note was fully and freely discussed.
"Of course," said Jack, "I speak under correction; but how comes it that your high and mighty friend brings another man with him? Is Cutbill an attache? Is he one of what you call "the line"?"
"I am happy to contribute the correction you ask for," said Temple, haughtily. "Mr. Cutbill is not a member of the diplomatic body, and though such a name might not impossibly be found in the Navy list, you "ll scarcely chance upon it at F. O."
"My chief question is, however, still to be answered. On what pretext does he bring him here?" said Jack, with unbroken good humor.
"As to that," broke in Augustus, "Lord Culduff"s note is perfectly explanatory; he says his friend is travelling with him; they came here on a matter of business, and, in fact, there would be an awkwardness on his part in separating from him, and on ours, if we did not prevent such a contingency."
"Quite so," chimed in Temple. "Nothing could be more guarded or courteous than Lord Culduff"s reply. It was n"t in the least like an Admiralty minute, Jack, or an order to Commander Spiggins, of the "Snarler," to take in five hundred firkins of pork."
"I might say, now, that you "ll not find that name in the Navy list, Temple," said the sailor, laughing.
"Do they arrive to-day?" asked Marion, not a little uncomfortable at this exchange of tart things.
"To dinner," said Temple.
"I suppose we have seen the last leg of mutton we are to meet with till he goes," cried Jack: "that precious French fellow will now give his genius full play, and we "ll have to dine off "salmis" and "supremes,"
or make our dinner off bread-and-cheese."
"Perhaps you would initiate Bertond into the mystery of a sea-pie, Jack," said Temple, with a smile.
"And a precious mess the fellow would make of it! He"d fill it with c.o.c.ks" combs and mushrooms, and stick two skewers in it with a half-boiled truffle on each--lucky if there would n"t be a British flag in spun sugar between them; and he "d call the abomination "pate a la gun-room," or some such confounded name."
A low, quiet laugh was now heard from the end of the table, and the company remembered, apparently for the first time, that Mr. Harding, the agent, was there, and very busily engaged with a broiled chicken.
"Ain"t I right, Mr. Harding?" cried Jack, as he heard the low chuckle of the small, meek, submissive-looking little man, at the other end of the table.
"Ain"t I right?"
"I have met with very good French versions of English cookery abroad, Captain Bramleigh."
"Don"t call me "captain" or I "ll suspect your accuracy about the cookery," interrupted Jack. "I fear I "m about as far off that rank as Bertond is from the sea-pie."
"Do you know Cutbill, Harding?" said Augustus, addressing the agent in the tone of an heir expectant.
"Yes. We were both examined in the same case before a committee of the House, and I made his acquaintance then."
"What sort of person is he?" asked Temple.
"Is he jolly, Mr. Harding?--that"s the question," cried Jack. "I suspect we shall be overborne by greatness, and a jolly fellow would be a boon from heaven."
"I believe he is what might be called jolly," said Harding, cautiously.
"Jolly sounds like a familiar word for vulgar," said Marion. "I hope Mr.
Harding does not mean that."
"Mr. Harding means nothing of that kind, I "ll be sworn," broke in Jack. "He means an easy-tempered fellow, amusing and amusable. Well, Nelly, if it"s not English, I can"t help it--it ought to be; but when one wants ammunition, one takes the first heavy thing at hand. Egad! I"d ram down a minister plenipotentiary, rather than fire blank-cartridge."
"Is Lord Culduff also jolly, Mr. Harding?" asked Eleanor, now looking up with a sparkle in her eye.
"I scarcely know--I have the least possible acquaintance with his Lordship; I doubt, indeed, if he will recollect me," said Harding, with diffidence.
"What are we to do with this heavy swell when he comes, is the puzzle to me," said Augustus, gravely. "How is he to be entertained,--how amused? Here"s a county with nothing to see--nothing to interest--without a neighborhood. What _are_ we to do with him?"
"The more one is a man of the world, in the best sense of that phrase, the more easily he finds how to shape his life to any and every circ.u.mstance," said Temple, with a sententious tone and manner.