The Three Clerks Part 32

'Nonsense,' said he, getting up and standing so as to prevent M'Ruen from leaving the box; 'that's d---- nonsense.'

'Oh! don't swear,' said M'Ruen--'pray don't take G.o.d's name in vain; I don't like it.'

'I shall swear, and to some purpose too, if that's your game. Now look here----'

'Let me get up, and we'll talk of it as we go to the bank--you are so unpunctual, you know.'

'D---- your punctuality.'

'Oh! don't swear, Mr. Tudor.'

'Look here--if you don't let me have this money to-day, by all that is holy I will never pay you a farthing again--not one farthing; I'll go into the court, and you may get your money as you can.'

'But, Mr. Tudor, let me get up, and we'll talk about it in the street, as we go along.'

'There's the stamp,' said Charley. 'Fill it up, and then I'll go with you to the bank.'

M'Ruen took the bit of paper, and twisted it over and over again in his hand, considering the while whether he had yet squeezed out of the young man all that could be squeezed with safety, or whether by an additional turn, by giving him another small advancement, he might yet get something more. He knew that Tudor was in a very bad state, that he was tottering on the outside edge of the precipice; but he also knew that he had friends.

Would his friends when they came forward to a.s.sist their young Pickle out of the mire, would they pay such bills as these or would they leave poor Jabesh to get his remedy at law? That was the question which Mr. M'Ruen had to ask and to answer. He was not one of those n.o.ble vultures who fly at large game, and who are willing to run considerable risk in pursuit of their prey.

Mr. M'Ruen avoided courts of law as much as he could, and preferred a small safe trade; one in which the fall of a single customer could never be ruinous to him; in which he need run no risk of being transported for forgery, incarcerated for perjury, or even, if possibly it might be avoided, gibbeted by some lawyer or judge for his malpractices.

'But you are so unpunctual,' he said, having at last made up his mind that he had made a very good thing of Charley, and that probably he might go a _little_ further without much danger.

'I wish to oblige you, Mr. Tudor; but pray do be punctual;' and so saying he slowly spread the little doc.u.ment before him, across which Scatterall had already scrawled his name, and slowly began to write in the date. Slowly, with his head low down over the table, and continually twisting it inside his cravat, he filled up the paper, and then looking at it with the air of a connoisseur in such matters, he gave it to Charley to sign.

'But you haven't put in the amount,' said Charley.

Mr. M'Ruen twisted his head and laughed. He delighted in playing with his game as a fisherman does with a salmon. 'Well--no--I haven't put in the amount yet. Do you sign it, and I'll do that at once.'

'I'll do it,' said Charley; 'I'll say 15, and you'll give me 10 on that.'

'No, no, no!' said Jabesh, covering the paper over with his hands; 'you young men know nothing of filling bills; just sign it, Mr. Tudor, and I'll do the rest.' And so Charley signed it, and then M'Ruen, again taking the pen, wrote in 'fifteen pounds'

as the recognized amount of the value of the doc.u.ment. He also took out his pocket-book and filled a cheque, but he was very careful that Charley should not see the amount there written.

'And now,' said he, 'we will go to the bank.'

As they made their way to the house in Lombard Street which Mr.

M'Ruen honoured by his account, Charley insisted on knowing how much he was to have for the bill. Jabesh suggested 3 10s.; Charley swore he would take nothing less than 8; but by the time they had arrived at the bank, it had been settled that 5 was to be paid in cash, and that Charley was to have the three Seasons for the balance whenever he chose to send for them. When Charley, as he did at first, positively refused to accede to these terms, Mr. M'Ruen tendered him back the bill, and reminded him with a plaintive voice that he was so unpunctual, so extremely unpunctual.

Having reached the bank, which the money-lender insisted on Charley entering with him, Mr. M'Ruen gave the cheque across the counter, and wrote on the back of it the form in which he would take the money, whereupon a note and five sovereigns were handed to him. The cheque was for 15, and was payable to C. Tudor, Esq., so that proof might be forthcoming at a future time, if necessary, that he had given to his customer full value for the bill. Then in the outer hall of the bank, unseen by the clerks, he put, one after another, slowly and unwillingly, four sovereigns into Charley's hand.

'The other--where's the other?' said Charley.

Jabesh smiled sweetly and twisted his head.

'Come, give me the other,' said Charley roughly.

'Four is quite enough, quite enough for what you want; and remember my time, Mr. Tudor; you should remember my time.'

'Give me the other sovereign,' said Charley, taking hold of the front of his coat.

'Well, well, you shall have ten s.h.i.+llings; but I want the rest for a purpose.'

'Give me the sovereign,' said Charley, 'or I'll drag you in before them all in the bank and expose you; give me the other sovereign, I say.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr. M'Ruen; 'I thought you liked a joke, Mr. Tudor. Well, here it is. And now do be punctual, pray do be punctual, and I'll do anything I can for you.'

And then they parted, Charley going westward towards his own haunts, and M'Ruen following his daily pursuits in the city.

Charley had engaged to pull up to Avis's at Putney with Harry Norman, to dine there, take a country walk, and row back in the cool of the evening; and he had promised to call at the Weights and Measures with that object punctually at five.

'You can get away in time for that, I suppose,' said Harry.

'Well, I'll try and manage it,' said Charley, laughing.

Nothing could be kinder, nay, more affectionate, than Norman had been to his fellow-lodger during the last year and a half. It seemed as though he had transferred to Alaric's cousin all the friends.h.i.+p which he had once felt for Alaric; and the deeper were Charley's sins of idleness and extravagance, the wider grew Norman's forgiveness, and the more sincere his efforts to befriend him. As one result of this, Charley was already deep in his debt. Not that Norman had lent him money, or even paid bills for him; but the lodgings in which they lived had been taken by Norman, and when the end of the quarter came he punctually paid his landlady.

Charley had once, a few weeks before the period of which we are now writing, told Norman that he had no money to pay his long arrear, and that he would leave the lodgings and s.h.i.+ft for himself as best he could. He had said the same thing to Mrs.

Richards, the landlady, and had gone so far as to pack up all his clothes; but his back was no sooner turned than Mrs. Richards, under Norman's orders, unpacked them all, and hid away the portmanteau. It was well for him that this was done. He had bespoken for himself a bedroom at the public-house in Norfolk Street, and had he once taken up his residence there he would have been ruined for ever.

He was still living with Norman, and ever increasing his debt. In his misery at this state of affairs, he had talked over with Harry all manner of schemes for increasing his income, but he had never told him a word about Mr. M'Ruen. Why his salary, which was now 150 per annum, should not be able to support him, Norman never asked. Charley the while was very miserable, and the more miserable he was, the less he found himself able to rescue himself from his dissipation. What moments of ease he had were nearly all spent in Norfolk Street; and such being the case how could he abstain from going there?

'Well, Charley, and how do 'Crinoline and Maca.s.sar' go on?' said Norman, as they sauntered away together up the towing-path above Putney. Now there were those who had found out that Charley Tudor, in spite of his wretched, idle, vagabond mode of life, was no fool; indeed, that there was that talent within him which, if turned to good account, might perhaps redeem him from ruin and set him on his legs again; at least so thought some of his friends, among whom Mrs. Woodward was the most prominent. She insisted that if he would make use of his genius he might employ his spare time to great profit by writing for magazines or periodicals; and, inspirited by so flattering a proposition, Charley had got himself introduced to the editor of a newly-projected publication. At his instance he was to write a tale for approval, and 'Crinoline and Maca.s.sar' was the name selected for his first attempt.

The affair had been fully talked over at Hampton, and it had been arranged that the young author should submit his story, when completed, to the friendly criticism of the party a.s.sembled at Surbiton Cottage, before he sent it to the editor. He had undertaken to have 'Crinoline and Maca.s.sar' ready for perusal on the next Sat.u.r.day, and in spite of Mr. M'Ruen and Norah Geraghty, he had really been at work.

'Will it be finished by Sat.u.r.day, Charley?' said Norman.

'Yes--at least I hope so; but if that's not done, I have another all complete.'

'Another! and what is that called?'

'Oh, that's a very short one,' said Charley, modestly.

'But, short as it is, it must have a name, I suppose. What's the name of the short one?'

'Why, the name is long enough; it's the longest part about it.

The editor gave me the name, you know, and then I had to write the story. It's to be called "Sir Anthony Allan-a-dale and the Baron of Ballyporeen."'

'Oh! two rival knights in love with the same lady, of course,'

and Harry gave a gentle sigh as he thought of his own still unhealed grief. 'The scene is laid in Ireland, I presume?'

'No, not in Ireland; at least not exactly. I don't think the scene is laid anywhere in particular; it's up in a mountain, near a castle. There isn't any lady in it--at least, not alive.'

'Heavens, Charley! I hope you are not dealing with dead women.'

'No--that is, I have to bring them to life again. I'll tell you how it is. In the first paragraph, Sir Anthony Allan-a-dale is lying dead, and the Baron of Ballyporeen is standing over him with a b.l.o.o.d.y sword. You must always begin with an incident now, and then hark back for your explanation and description; that's what the editor says is the great secret of the present day, and where we beat all the old fellows that wrote twenty years ago.'

'Oh!--yes--I see. They used to begin at the beginning; that was very humdrum.'