John Leech, His Life and Work Volume I Part 14

Disgusted with these unreasonable demands for money, Mr. Jericho determines to revenge himself by taking a day's pleasure with three special friends, to be ended by "a quiet banquet at which the human heart would expand in good fellows.h.i.+p, and where the wine was above doubt."

The dinner was a great success. It was very late--or rather somewhat early, as the sparrows were twittering from the eaves--when Mr. Jericho sought the marital couch, in which, too, his "wife Sabilla" was evidently "in a sound, deep, sweet sleep."

"Untucking the bed-clothes, and making himself the thinnest slice of a man, Jericho slides between the sheets; and there he lies feloniously still, and he thinks to himself--Being asleep, she cannot tell how late I came to bed. At all events, it is open to dispute, and that is something.

"'Mr. Jericho, when can you let me have some money?'

"With open eyes, and clearly ringing every word upon the morning air, did Mrs. Jericho repeat this primal question.

"And what said Jericho? With a sudden qualm at the heart, and with a stammering tongue, he answered:

"'Why, my dear, I thought you were sound asleep.'"

Here follows a dialogue in the vein of the "Caudle Lectures," in which Jerrold gives his wit and humour full play. To the perusal of the "give-and-take" pa.s.sage of arms I cordially commend my readers. The dialogue closes with these words:

"'I'm sure it's painful enough to my feelings, and I feel degraded by the question, nevertheless I must and will ask you--_When will you let me have some money?_'"

This was the last straw, and Jericho groaned out:

"'I WISH TO HEAVEN I WAS MADE OF MONEY!'"

To which Mrs. Jericho retorted, "in a low, deep, earnest voice:

"'I wish to Heaven you were!'"

Silence came at last, and in the midst of it Jericho "subsided into muddled sleep; snoring heavily, contemptuously, at the loneliness of his spouse."

And now _two fleas_--an elder and younger flea--come upon the scene, and proceed to dine, or sup, upon Mr. Jericho's brow.

A long conversation ensues between these interesting creatures, in which the elder flea describes to his son how a man's heart was changed into inexhaustible bank-notes.

"'Miserable race!' said the father flea, with his beautiful bright eye s.h.i.+ning pitifully upon Jericho; 'miserable, craving race, you hear, my son! Man in his greed never knows when he has wherewithal. He gorges to gluttony; he drinks to drunkenness; and you heard this wretched fool who prayed to Heaven to turn him--heart, brain, and all--into a lump of money.'"

How the operation was effected may be learnt from Mr. Jerrold's book.

One result of it was a most troubled and miserable night to the dreamer Jericho, whose complaints to his wife when he awoke met with no sympathy.

"'If I were to live a thousand years, I shouldn't forget last night!'

groaned Jericho.

"'Very likely not,' said Mrs. Jericho; 'I've no doubt you deserve to remember it. I shouldn't wonder----'"

Mrs. Jericho's want of money is intensified by the wants of her son Basil, whose luck at billiards may have failed him just when his creditors were most pressing.

"'Well, what does the old fellow say, the scaly old griffin? What's he got to answer for himself?'" This was "the sudden question put to Mrs.

Jericho on her return to the drawing-room, after the interview with her husband. 'Come, what is it? Will he give me some money? In a word,'

asked young hopeful, 'will he go into the melting-pot, like a man and a father?'

"'My dear Basil, you mustn't ask me,' replied Mrs. Jericho.

"'Oh, mustn't I, though!' cried Basil. 'Ha, you don't know the lot of people that's asking me; bless you, they ask a hundred times to my once!'"

The Jerichos have some rich friends, the Carraways, who live in a mansion called Jogtrot Hall, "the one central grandeur, the boast and the comfort of the village of Marigolds." To a fete at the Hall comes an invitation to the Jerichos. It had always been Mrs. Jericho's ambition that her girls should--"in her own nervous words"--make a blow in marriage, and she felt that perhaps the time had come. But the girls'

dresses--the "war-paint," as Mr. Basil put it--there was the difficulty, only to be surmounted by Mr. Jericho's yielding to the repeated cry, "When will you let me have some money?"

With but faint hopes of success, Mrs. Jericho seeks her husband in his study. In a long colloquy, she urges the importance of her daughters'

appearance at this "grand party," and the necessity for an advance to enable them to do so properly. Mr. Jericho turns a deaf ear to her appeal, till suddenly a wonderful change comes over him.

"Quite a new look of satisfaction gleamed from his eyes, and his mouth had such a strange smile of compliance! What could ail him?"

The charm was working, the marvellous change was in operation. Mrs.

Jericho fears for her husband's sanity. "'He doesn't look mad,' thought Mrs. Jericho, a little anxious.

"'I feel as if I had got new blood, new flesh, new bones, new brain!

Wonderful!' Jericho trod up and down the room and snapt his fingers.

'Something's going to happen,' said he."

And something did indeed happen. The transformation was complete; the hard heart had given place to illimitable money.

"'You will let me have the money?' repeated Mrs. Jericho.

"Jericho answered not a word, but withdrew his hand from his breast.

Between his finger and his thumb he held in silver purity a virgin Bank of England note for a hundred pounds. Mrs. Jericho ran delightedly off with the money.

"And Jericho sat with his heart beating faster. Again he placed his hand to his breast, again drew forth another bank-note. He jumped to his feet, tore away his dress, and, running to a mirror, saw therein reflected, not human flesh, but over the region of the heart a loose skin of bank-paper, veined with marks of ink. He touched it, and still in his hand lay another note. His thoughtless wish had been wrought into reality. Solomon Jericho was in very truth a Man made of Money."

The fete at Jogtrot Hall was a great success. The guests were many, and some of them distinguished. The Honourable Mr. Candytuft, Colonel Bones, Commissioner Thrush, and Dr. Mizzlemist, of Doctors' Commons, must be noted, as they have to be dealt with pictorially by Leech hereafter.

After a variety of entertainments, some twenty or thirty hungry guests graced a table under a long, wide tent, on which "there were the most delicious proofs of the earth's goodness, with every kitchen mystery."

The host, Mr. Carraway, took the head of the table; Mr. Jericho, "dignified and taciturn, graced the board." The orator on the occasion was Dr. Mizzlemist, who had been seized with a pa.s.sion to drink everybody's health. For the third time he rose to give "the health of Solomon Jericho, Esquire, an honour to his country."

"In the course of his speech the Doctor delivered himself with so much energy that at the same time he stuck the fork, which had served him in emphasizing the Jericho virtues, between the bones of Mr. Jericho's right hand, pinning it where it lay.

"'It is nothing,' said the philosophic Jericho."

The change in Mr. Jericho's appearance, from the full-faced, healthy-looking individual of Leech's first drawing, to the spare, hollow-cheeked man at the banquet, is to be accounted for by the fact that, after each application to the strange bank established in Mr.

Jericho's breast, his whole form shrinks; he becomes thinner and thinner, to the alarm of his tailor, who "says, as he measures the changed man:

"'Six inches less round the body, as I'm a sinner! Six inches less, Mr.

Jericho, and I last took your measure six weeks ago.'"

At the Carraway fete the Misses Jericho made, and improved, the acquaintance of the Hon. Mr. Candytuft, and of an incredible idiot, Sir Arthur Homadod. The idiot was as beautiful as he was foolish; he was therefore handsome beyond the dreams of beauty. Whatever had taken the place of the mind in the baronet was impressed by Miss Agatha Pennibacker, and that virgin's heart being free, she lost it to Sir Arthur. The Hon. Mr. Candytuft, having an eye to the enormous fortune supposed to be possessed by Mr. Jericho, and being desirous to secure the portion of it that would of course fall to his step-daughter, made love to Miss Monica with considerable success.

In the meantime the ladies wish to go to Court; in this they are encouraged by Candytuft; and, to enable them to make a proper figure there, costly jewels are required. To Candytuft and Jericho enter Mrs.

J., "with a magnificent suite of jewels.

"'Aren't they beautiful, my dear Solomon?' said she....

"'You know, my dear,' said Mrs. Jericho, in her sweetest, most convincing voice, 'it would be impossible to go to Court without diamonds. One isn't dressed without diamonds.'

"'Court!' Jericho opened his eyes, and a wan smile broke on his thin, blank cheek. 'Are you going to Court?'