"Of course, afther hearing a skitch of the plan," continued the major, "me curiosity was so aroused that I could not help following the details with intherest. I saw the gintleman who departed for Russia-- Langworthy, I believe, was his name. Ged! I knew a chap of that name in the Marines who used to drink raw brandy and cayenne pepper before breakfast every morning. Did ye? Of course you couldn"t. What was I talking of at all at all?"
Girdlestone stared gloomily at his visitor. The latter took a pinch of snuff from a tortoise-sh.e.l.l box, and flicked away a few wandering grains which settled upon the front of his coat.
"Yes," he went on, I saw Langworthy off to Russia. Then I saw your son start for Africa. He"s an interprising lad, and sure to do well there.
_coelum non animam mutant_, as we used to say at Clongowes.
He"ll always come to the front, wherever he is, as long as he avoids little slips like this one we"re spaking of. About the same time I heard that Girdlestone & Co, had raised riddy money to the extint of five and thirty thousand pounds. That"s gone to Africa, too, I presume.
It"s a lot o" money to invist in such a game, and it might be safe if you were the only people that knew about it, but whin there are others--"
"Others?"
"Why, me, of course," said the major. "I know about it, and more be token I am not in the swim with you. Sure, I could go this very evening to the diamond merchants about town and give them a tip about the coming fall in prices that would rather astonish "em."
"Look here, Major Clutterbuck," cried the merchant, in a voice which quivered with suppressed pa.s.sion, "you have come into possession of an important commercial secret. Why beat about the bush any longer?
What is the object of your visit to-day? What is it that you want?"
"There now!" the major said, addressing himself and smiling more amicably than ever. "That"s business. Bedad, there"s where you commercial men have the pull. You go straight to the point and stick there. Ah, when I look at ye, I can"t help thinking of your son.
The same intelligent eye, the same cheery expression, the same devil-may-care manner and dry humour--"
"Answer my question, will you?" the merchant interrupted savagely.
"And the same hasty timper," continued the major imperturbably.
"I"ve forgotten, me dear sir, what it was you asked me."
"What is it you want?"
"Ah, yes, of course. What is it I want?" the old soldier said meditatively. "Some would say more, some less. Some would want half, but that is overdoing it. How does a thousand pound stroike you?
Yes, I think we may put it at a thousand pounds."
"You want a thousand pounds?"
"Ged, I"ve been wanting it all me life. The difference is that I"m going to git it now."
"And for what?"
"Sure, for silence--for neutrality. We"re all in it now, and there"s a fair division of labour. You plan, your son works, I hold me tongue.
You make your tens of thousands, I make my modest little thousand.
We all git paid for our throuble."
"And suppose I refuse?"
"Ah! but you wouldn"t--you couldn"t," the major said suavely.
"Ged, sir, I haven"t known ye long, but I have far too high an opinion of ye to suppose ye could do anything so foolish. If you refuse, your speculation is thrown away. There"s no help for it. Bedad, it would be painful for me to have to blow the gaff; but you know the old saying, that "charity begins at home." You must sell your knowledge at the best market."
Girdlestone thought intently for a minute or two, with his great eyebrows drawn down over his little restless eyes.
"You said to my son," he remarked at last, "that you were too honourable to embark in our undertaking. Do you consider it honourable to make use of knowledge gained in confidence for the purpose of extorting money?"
"Me dear sir," answered the major, holding up his hand deprecatingly, "you put me in the painful position of having to explain meself in plain words. If I saw a man about to do a murther, I should think nothing of murthering him. If I saw a pickpocket at work, I"d pick his pocket, and think it good fun to do it. Now, this little business of yours is-- well, we"ll say unusual, and if what I do seems a little unusual too, it"s to be excused. Ye can"t throw stones at every one, me boy, and then be surprised when some one throws one at you. You bite the diamond holders, d"ye see, and I take a little nibble at you. It"s all fair enough."
The merchant reflected again for some moments. "Suppose we agree to purchasing your silence at this price," he said, "what guarantee have we that you will not come and extort more money, or that you may not betray our secret after all?"
"The honour of a soldier and a gintleman," answered the major, rising and tapping his chest with two fingers of his right hand.
A slight sneer played over Girdlestone"s pale face, but he made no remark. "We are in your power," he said, and have no resource but to submit to your terms. You said five hundred pounds?"
"A thousand," the major answered cheerfully.
"It"s a great sum of money."
"Deuce of a lot!" said the veteran cordially.
"Well, you shall have it. I will communicate with you." Girdlestone rose as if to terminate the interview.
The major made no remark, but he showed his white teeth again, and tapped Mr. Girdlestone"s cheque-book with the silver head of his walking-stick.
"What! Now?"
"Yes, now."
The two looked at each other for a moment and the merchant sat down again and scribbled out a cheque, which he tossed to his companion. The latter looked it over carefully, took a fat little pocket-book from the depths of his breast pocket, and having placed the precious slip of paper in it, laboriously pushed it back into its receptacle. Then he very slowly and methodically picked up his jaunty curly-brimmed hat and shining kid gloves, and with a cheery nod to his companion, who answered it with a scowl, he swaggered off into the counting-house. There he shook hands with Tom, whom he had known for some months, and having made three successive offers--one to stand immediately an unlimited quant.i.ty of champagne, a second to play him five hundred up for anything he would name, and a third to lay a tenner for him at 7 to 4 on Amelia for the Oaks--all of which offers were declined with thanks--he bowed himself out, leaving a vague memory of smiles, shirt collars, and gaiters in the minds of the awe-struck Clerks.
Whatever an impartial judge might think of the means whereby Major Tobias Clutterbuck had successfully screwed a thousand pounds out of the firm of Girdlestone, it is quite certain that that gentleman"s seasoned conscience did not reproach him in the least degree. On the contrary, his whole being seemed saturated and impregnated with the wildest hilarity and delight. Twice in less than a hundred yards, he was compelled to stop and lean upon his cane owing to the breathlessness which supervened upon his attempts to smother the delighted chuckles which came surging up from the inmost recesses of his capacious frame.
At the second halt he wriggled his hand inside his tight-breasted coat, and after as many contortions as though he were about to shed that garment as a snake does its skin, he produced once more the little fat pocket-book. From it he extracted the cheque and looked it over lovingly. Then he hailed a pa.s.sing hansom. "Drive to the Capital and Counties Bank," he said. It had struck him that since the firm was in a shaky state he had better draw the money as soon as possible.
In the bank a gloomy-looking cashier took the cheque and stared at it somewhat longer than the occasion seemed to demand. It was but a few minutes, yet it appeared a very long time to the major.
"How will you have it?" he asked at last, in a mournful voice. It tends to make a man cynical when he spends his days in handling untold riches while his wife and six children are struggling to make both ends meet at home.
"A hunthred in gold and the rest in notes," said the major, with a sigh of relief.
The cashier counted and handed over a thick packet of crisp rustling paper and a little pile of shining sovereigns. The major stowed away the first in the pocket-book and the latter in his trouser pockets.
Then he swaggered out with a great increase of pomposity and importance, and ordered his cabman to drive to Kennedy Place.
Von Baumser was sitting in the major"s campaigning chair, smoking his china-bowled pipe and gazing dreamily at the long blue wreaths.
Times had been bad with the comrades of late, as the German"s seedy appearance sufficiently testified. His friends in Germany had ceased to forward his small remittance, and Endermann"s office, in which he had been employed, had given him notice that for a time they could dispense with his services. He had been spending the whole afternoon in perusing the long list of "wanteds" in the _Daily Telegraph_, and his ink-stained forefinger showed the perseverance with which he had been answering every advertis.e.m.e.nt that could possibly apply to him. A pile of addressed envelopes lay upon the table, and it was only the uncertainty of his finances and the fact that the humble penny stamp mounts into shillings when frequently employed, that prevented him from increasing the number of his applications. He looked up and uttered a word of guttural greeting as his companion came striding in.
"Get out of this," the major said abruptly. "Get away into the bedroom."
"Potztausand! Vot is it then?" cried the astonished Teuton.
"Out with you! I want this room to meself."
Von Baumser shrugged his shoulders and lumbered off like a good-natured plantigrade, closing the door behind him.
When his companion had disappeared the major proceeded to lay out all his notes upon the table, overlapping each other, but still so arranged that every separate one was visible. He then built in the centre ten little golden columns in a circle, each consisting of ten sovereigns, until the whole presented the appearance of a metallic Stonehenge upon a plain of bank notes. This done, he c.o.c.ked his head on one side, like a fat and very ruddy turkey, and contemplated his little arrangement with much pride and satisfaction.
Solitary delight soon becomes wearisome, however, so the veteran summoned his companion. The Teuton was so dumbfounded by this display of wealth, that he was bereft for a time of all faculty of speech, and could only stare open-mouthed at the table. At last he extended a fore-finger and thumb and rubbed a five pound note between them, as though to convince himself of its reality, after which he began to gyrate round the table in a sort of war dance, never taking his eyes from the heap of influence in front of him. "Mein Gott!" he exclaimed, "Gnadiger Vater! Ach Himmel! Was fur eine Schatze! Donnerwetter!" und a thousand other cacophonous expressions of satisfaction and amazement.