Роберт Льюис Стивенсон
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 7

“Did I?” said Uncle Ned; “I am certain I said no such thing.”

“Appeal to him, tell him he did, get on his soft side,” cried Gideon. “He’s a real brick if you get on his soft side.”

“Dear Mr. Bloomfield,” said Julia, “I know Gideon will be such a very good boy, and he has promised me to do such a lot of law, and I will see that he does too. And you know it is so very steadying to young men, everybody admits that; though, of course, I know I have no money, Mr. Bloomfield,” she added.

“My dear young lady, as this rapscallion told you to-day on the boat, Uncle Ned has plenty,” said the Squirradical, “and I can never forget that you have been shamefully defrauded. So as there’s nobody looking, you had better give your Uncle Ned a kiss. There, you rogue,” resumed Mr. Bloomfield, when the ceremony had been daintily performed, “this very pretty young lady is yours, and a vast deal more than you deserve. But now, let us get back to the houseboat, get up steam on the launch, and away back to town.”

“That’s the thing!” cried Gideon; “and to-morrow there will be no houseboat, and no Jimson, and no carrier’s cart, and no piano; and when Harker awakes on the ditch-side, he may tell himself the whole affair has been a dream.”

“Aha!” said Uncle Ned, “but there’s another man who will have a different awakening. That fellow in the cart will find he has been too clever by half.”

“Uncle Ned and Julia,” said Gideon, “I am as happy as the King of Tartary, my heart is like a threepenny-bit, my heels are like feathers; I am out of all my troubles, Julia’s hand is in mine. Is this a time for anything but handsome sentiments? Why, there’s not room in me for anything that’s not angelic! And when I think of that poor unhappy devil in the cart, I stand here in the night and cry with a single heart – God help him!”

“Amen,” said Uncle Ned.

CHAPTER XIII
THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND

In a really polite age of literature I would have scorned to cast my eye again on the contortions of Morris. But the study is in the spirit of the day; it presents, besides, features of a high, almost a repulsive, morality; and if it should prove the means of preventing any respectable and inexperienced gentleman from plunging light-heartedly into crime, even political crime, this work will not have been penned in vain.

He rose on the morrow of his night with Michael, rose from the leaden slumber of distress, to find his hand tremulous, his eyes closed with rheum, his throat parched, and his digestion obviously paralysed. “Lord knows it’s not from eating!” Morris thought; and as he dressed he reconsidered his position under several heads. Nothing will so well depict the troubled seas in which he was now voyaging as a review of these various anxieties. I have thrown them (for the reader’s convenience) into a certain order; but in the mind of one poor human equal they whirled together like the dust of hurricanes. With the same obliging preoccupation, I have put a name to each of his distresses; and it will be observed with pity that every individual item would have graced and commended the cover of a railway novel.

Anxiety the First: Where is the Body? or, The Mystery of Bent Pitman. It was now manifestly plain that Bent Pitman (as was to be looked for from his ominous appellation) belonged to the darker order of the criminal class. An honest man would not have cashed the bill; a humane man would not have accepted in silence the tragic contents of the water-butt; a man, who was not already up to the hilts in gore, would have lacked the means of secretly disposing them. This process of reasoning left a horrid image of the monster, Pitman. Doubtless he had long ago disposed of the body – dropping it through a trap-door in his back kitchen, Morris supposed, with some hazy recollection of a picture in a penny dreadful; and doubtless the man now lived in wanton splendour on the proceeds of the bill. So far, all was peace. But with the profligate habits of a man like Bent Pitman (who was no doubt a hunchback in the bargain), eight hundred pounds could be easily melted in a week. When they were gone, what would he be likely to do next? A hell-like voice in Morris’s own bosom gave the answer: “Blackmail me.”

Anxiety the Second: The Fraud of the Tontine; or, Is my Uncle dead? This, on which all Morris’s hopes depended, was yet a question. He had tried to bully Teena; he had tried to bribe her; and nothing came of it. He had his moral conviction still; but you cannot blackmail a sharp lawyer on a moral conviction. And besides, since his interview with Michael, the idea wore a less attractive countenance. Was Michael the man to be blackmailed? and was Morris the man to do it? Grave considerations. “It’s not that I’m afraid of him,” Morris so far condescended to reassure himself; “but I must be very certain of my ground, and the deuce of it is, I see no way. How unlike is life to novels! I wouldn’t have even begun this business in a novel, but what I’d have met a dark, slouching fellow in the Oxford Road, who’d have become my accomplice, and known all about how to do it, and probably broken into Michael’s house at night and found nothing but a waxwork image; and then blackmailed or murdered me. But here, in real life, I might walk the streets till I dropped dead, and none of the criminal classes would look near me. Though, to be sure, there is always Pitman,” he added thoughtfully.

Anxiety the Third: The Cottage at Browndean; or, The Underpaid Accomplice. For he had an accomplice, and that accomplice was blooming unseen in a damp cottage in Hampshire with empty pockets. What could be done about that? He really ought to have sent him something; if it was only a post-office order for five bob, enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. “But what would you have?” thought Morris; and ruefully poured into his hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in small change. For a man in Morris’s position, at war with all society, and conducting, with the hand of inexperience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was already a derision. John would have to be doing; no mistake of that. “But then,” asked the hell-like voice, “how long is John likely to stand it?”

Anxiety the Fourth: The Leather Business; or, The Shutters at Last: a Tale of the City. On this head Morris had no news. He had not yet dared to visit the family concern; yet he knew he must delay no longer, and if anything had been wanted to sharpen this conviction, Michael’s references of the night before rang ambiguously in his ear. Well and good. To visit the city might be indispensable; but what was he to do when he was there? He had no right to sign in his own name; and, with all the will in the world, he seemed to lack the art of signing with his uncle’s. Under these circumstances, Morris could do nothing to procrastinate the crash; and, when it came, when prying eyes began to be applied to every joint of his behaviour, two questions could not fail to be addressed, sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring insolvent. Where is Mr. Joseph Finsbury? and how about your visit to the bank? Questions, how easy to put! – ye gods, how impossible to answer! The man to whom they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and – eh! what was this? – possibly to the gallows. Morris was trying to shave when this idea struck him, and he laid the razor down. Here (in Michael’s words) was the total disappearance of a valuable uncle; here was a time of inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew who had been in bad blood with the old man any time these seven years; what a chance for a judicial blunder! “But no,” thought Morris, “they cannot, they dare not, make it murder. Not that. But honestly, and speaking as a man to a man, I don’t see any other crime in the calendar (except arson) that I don’t seem somehow to have committed. And yet I’m a perfectly respectable man, and wished nothing but my due. Law is a pretty business.”

With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Morris Finsbury descended to the hall of the house in John Street, still half-shaven. There was a letter in the box; he knew the handwriting: John at last!

“Well, I think I might have been spared this,” he said bitterly, and tore it open.

“Dear Morris,” it ran, “what the dickens do you mean by it? I’m in an awful hole down here; I have to go on tick, and the parties on the spot don’t cotton to the idea; they couldn’t, because it is so plain I’m in a stait of Destitution. I’ve got no bed-clothes, think of that, I must have coins, the hole thing’s a Mockry, I wont stand it, nobody would. I would have come away before, only I have no money for the railway fare. Don’t be a lunatic, Morris, you don’t seem to understand my dredful situation. I have to get the stamp on tick. A fact. – Ever your affte. Brother,

“J. Finsbury.”

“Can’t even spell!” Morris reflected, as he crammed the letter in his pocket, and left the house. “What can I do for him? I have to go to the expense of a barber, I’m so shattered! How can I send anybody coins? It’s hard lines, I daresay; but does he think I’m living on hot muffins? One comfort,” was his grim reflection, “he can’t cut and run – he’s got to stay; he’s as helpless as the dead.” And then he broke forth again: “Complains, does he? and he’s never even heard of Bent Pitman! If he had what I have on my mind, he might complain with a good grace.”

But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly honest; there was a struggle in the mind of Morris; he could not disguise from himself that his brother John was miserably situated at Browndean, without news, without money, without bed-clothes, without society or any entertainment; and by the time he had been shaved and picked a hasty breakfast at a coffee tavern, Morris had arrived at a compromise.

“Poor Johnny,” he said to himself, “he’s in an awful box! I can’t send him coins, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll send him the Pink Un– it’ll cheer John up; and besides, it’ll do his credit good getting anything by post.”

Accordingly, on his way to the leather business, whither he proceeded (according to his thrifty habit) on foot, Morris purchased and despatched a single copy of that enlivening periodical, to which (in a sudden pang of remorse) he added at random the Athenæum, the Revivalist, and the Penny Pictorial Weekly. So there was John set up with literature, and Morris had laid balm upon his conscience.

As if to reward him, he was received in his place of business with good news. Orders were pouring in; there was a run on some of the back stock, and the figure had gone up. Even the manager appeared elated. As for Morris, who had almost forgotten the meaning of good news, he longed to sob like a little child; he could have caught the manager (a pallid man with startled eyebrows) to his bosom; he could have found it in his generosity to give a cheque (for a small sum) to every clerk in the counting-house. As he sat and opened his letters a chorus of airy vocalists sang in his brain, to most exquisite music, “This whole concern may be profitable yet, profitable yet, profitable yet.”

To him, in this sunny moment of relief, enter a Mr. Rodgerson, a creditor, but not one who was expected to be pressing, for his connection with the firm was old and regular.

“O, Finsbury,” said he, not without embarrassment, “it’s of course only fair to let you know – the fact is, money is a trifle tight – I have some paper out – for that matter, every one’s complaining – and in short – ”

“It has never been our habit, Rodgerson,” said Morris, turning pale. “But give me time to turn round, and I’ll see what I can do; I daresay we can let you have something to account.”

“Well, that’s just where it is,” replied Rodgerson. “I was tempted; I’ve let the credit out of my hands.”

“Out of your hands?” repeated Morris. “That’s playing rather fast and loose with us, Mr. Rodgerson.”

“Well, I got cent. for cent. for it,” said the other, “on the nail, in a certified cheque.”

“Cent. for cent.!” cried Morris. “Why, that’s something like thirty per cent. bonus; a singular thing! Who’s the party?”

“Don’t know the man,” was the reply. “Name of Moss.”

“A Jew,” Morris reflected, when his visitor was gone. And what could a Jew want with a claim of – he verified the amount in the books – a claim of three five eight, nineteen, ten, against the house of Finsbury? And why should he pay cent. for cent.? The figure proved the loyalty of Rodgerson – even Morris admitted that. But it proved unfortunately something else – the eagerness of Moss. The claim must have been wanted instantly, for that day, for that morning even. Why? The mystery of Moss promised to be a fit pendant to the mystery of Pitman.

“And just when all was looking well too!” cried Morris, smiting his hand upon the desk. And almost at the same moment Mr. Moss was announced.

Mr. Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome, and offensively polite. He was acting, it appeared, for a third party; he understood nothing of the circumstances; his client desired to have his position regularised; but he would accept an antedated cheque – antedated by two months, if Mr. Finsbury chose.

“But I don’t understand this,” said Morris. “What made you pay cent. per cent. for it to-day?”

Mr. Moss had no idea; only his orders.

“The whole thing is thoroughly irregular,” said Morris. “It is not the custom of the trade to settle at this time of the year. What are your instructions if I refuse?”

“I am to see Mr. Joseph Finsbury, the head of the firm,” said Mr. Moss. “I was directed to insist on that; it was implied you had no status here – the expressions are not mine.”

“You cannot see Mr. Joseph; he is unwell,” said Morris.

“In that case I was to place the matter in the hands of a lawyer. Let me see,” said Mr. Moss, opening a pocket-book with, perhaps, suspicious care, at the right place – “Yes – of Mr. Michael Finsbury. A relation, perhaps? In that case, I presume, the matter will be pleasantly arranged.”

To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for Morris. He struck his colours. A cheque at two months was nothing, after all. In two months he would probably be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the manager give Mr. Moss a chair and the paper. “I’m going over to get a cheque signed by Mr. Finsbury,” said he, “who is lying ill at John Street.”

A cab there and a cab back; here were inroads on his wretched capital! He counted the cost; when he was done with Mr. Moss he would be left with twelvepence-halfpenny in the world. What was even worse, he had now been forced to bring his uncle up to Bloomsbury. “No use for poor Johnny in Hampshire now,” he reflected. “And how the farce is to be kept up completely passes me. At Browndean it was just possible; in Bloomsbury it seems beyond human ingenuity – though I suppose it’s what Michael does. But then he has accomplices – that Scotsman and the whole gang. Ah, if I had accomplices!”

Necessity is the mother of the arts. Under a spur so immediate, Morris surprised himself by the neatness and despatch of his new forgery, and within three-fourths of an hour had handed it to Mr. Moss.

“That is very satisfactory,” observed that gentleman, rising. “I was to tell you it will not be presented, but you had better take care.”

The room swam round Morris. “What – what’s that!” he cried, grasping the table. He was miserably conscious the next moment of his shrill tongue and ashen face. “What do you mean – it will not be presented? Why am I to take care? What is all this mummery?”

“I have no idea, Mr. Finsbury,” replied the smiling Hebrew. “It was a message I was to deliver. The expressions were put into my mouth.”

“What is your client’s name?” asked Morris.

“That is a secret for the moment,” answered Mr. Moss.

Morris bent toward him. “It’s not the bank?” he asked hoarsely.

“I have no authority to say more, Mr. Finsbury,” returned Mr. Moss. “I will wish you a good morning, if you please.”

“Wish me a good morning!” thought Morris; and the next moment, seizing his hat, he fled from his place of business like a madman. Three streets away he stopped and groaned. “Lord! I should have borrowed from the manager!” he cried. “But it’s too late now; it would look dicky to go back; I’m penniless – simply penniless – like the unemployed.”

He went home and sat in the dismantled dining-room with his head in his hands. Newton never thought harder than this victim of circumstances, and yet no clearness came. “It may be a defect in my intelligence,” he cried, rising to his feet, “but I cannot see that I am fairly used. The bad luck I’ve had is a thing to write to the Times about; it’s enough to breed a revolution. And the plain English of the whole thing is that I must have money at once. I’m done with all morality now; I’m long past that stage; money I must have, and the only chance I see is Bent Pitman. Bent Pitman is a criminal, and therefore his position’s weak. He must have some of that eight hundred left; if he has I’ll force him to go shares; and even if he hasn’t, I’ll tell him the tontine affair, and with a desperate man like Pitman at my back, it’ll be strange if I don’t succeed.”

Well and good. But how to lay hands upon Bent Pitman, except by advertisement, was not so clear. And even so, in what terms to ask a meeting? on what grounds? and where? Not at John Street, for it would never do to let a man like Bent Pitman know your real address; nor yet at Pitman’s house, some dreadful place in Holloway, with a trap-door in the back kitchen; a house which you might enter in a light summer overcoat and varnished boots, to come forth again piecemeal in a market-basket. That was the drawback of a really efficient accomplice, Morris felt, not without a shudder. “I never dreamed I should come to actually covet such society,” he thought. And then a brilliant idea struck him. Waterloo Station, a public place, yet at certain hours of the day a solitary; a place, besides, the very name of which must knock upon the heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of the latest of his guilty secrets. Morris took a piece of paper and sketched his advertisement.

“William Bent Pitman, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE on the far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M., Sunday next.”

Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. “Terse,” he reflected. “Something to his advantage is not strictly true; but it’s taking and original, and a man is not on oath in an advertisement. All that I require now is the ready cash for my own meals and for the advertisement, and – no, I can’t lavish money upon John, but I’ll give him some more papers. How to raise the wind?”

He approached his cabinet of signets, and the collector suddenly revolted in his blood. “I will not!” he cried; “nothing shall induce me to massacre my collection – rather theft!” And dashing upstairs to the drawing-room, he helped himself to a few of his uncle’s curiosities: a pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a water-cooler, a musket guaranteed to have been seized from an Ephesian bandit, and a pocketful of curious but incomplete sea-shells.

CHAPTER XIV
WILLIAM BENT PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE

On the morning of Sunday, William Dent Pitman rose at his usual hour, although with something more than the usual reluctance. The day before (it should be explained) an addition had been made to his family in the person of a lodger. Michael Finsbury had acted sponsor in the business, and guaranteed the weekly bill; on the other hand, no doubt with a spice of his prevailing jocularity, he had drawn a depressing portrait of the lodger’s character. Mr. Pitman had been led to understand his guest was not good company; he had approached the gentleman with fear, and had rejoiced to find himself the entertainer of an angel. At tea he had been vastly pleased; till hard on one in the morning he had sat entranced by eloquence and progressively fortified with information in the studio; and now, as he reviewed over his toilet the harmless pleasures of the evening, the future smiled upon him with revived attractions. “Mr. Finsbury is indeed an acquisition,” he remarked to himself; and as he entered the little parlour, where the table was already laid for breakfast, the cordiality of his greeting would have befitted an acquaintanceship already old.

“I am delighted to see you, sir” – these were his expressions – “and I trust you have slept well.”

“Accustomed as I have been for so long to a life of almost perpetual change,” replied the guest, “the disturbance so often complained of by the more sedentary, as attending their first night in (what is called) a new bed, is a complaint from which I am entirely free.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” said the drawing-master warmly. “But I see I have interrupted you over the paper.”

“The Sunday paper is one of the features of the age,” said Mr. Finsbury. “In America, I am told, it supersedes all other literature, the bone and sinew of the nation finding their requirements catered for; hundreds of columns will be occupied with interesting details of the world’s doings, such as water-spouts, elopements, conflagrations, and public entertainments; there is a corner for politics, ladies’ work, chess, religion, and even literature; and a few spicy editorials serve to direct the course of public thought. It is difficult to estimate the part played by such enormous and miscellaneous repositories in the education of the people. But this (though interesting in itself) partakes of the nature of a digression; and what I was about to ask you was this: Are you yourself a student of the daily press?”

“There is not much in the papers to interest an artist,” returned Pitman.

“In that case,” resumed Joseph, “an advertisement which has appeared the last two days in various journals, and reappears this morning, may possibly have failed to catch your eye. The name, with a trifling variation, bears a strong resemblance to your own. Ah, here it is. If you please, I will read it to you: —

“’William Bent Pitman, if this should meet the eye of, he will hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE at the far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo Station, 2 to 4 P.M. to-day.’”

“Is that in print?” cried Pitman. “Let me see it! Bent? It must be Dent! Something to my advantage? Mr. Finsbury, excuse me offering a word of caution; I am aware how strangely this must sound in your ears, but there are domestic reasons why this little circumstance might perhaps be better kept between ourselves. Mrs. Pitman – my dear sir, I assure you there is nothing dishonourable in my secrecy; the reasons are domestic, merely domestic; and I may set your conscience at rest when I assure you all the circumstances are known to our common friend, your excellent nephew, Mr. Michael, who has not withdrawn from me his esteem.”

“A word is enough, Mr. Pitman,” said Joseph, with one of his Oriental reverences.

Half an hour later, the drawing-master found Michael in bed and reading a book, the picture of good-humour and repose.

“Hillo, Pitman,” he said, laying down his book, “what brings you here at this inclement hour? Ought to be in church, my boy!”

“I have little thought of church to-day, Mr. Finsbury,” said the drawing-master. “I am on the brink of something new, sir.” And he presented the advertisement.

“Why, what is this?” cried Michael, sitting suddenly up. He studied it for half a minute with a frown. “Pitman, I don’t care about this document a particle,” said he.

“It will have to be attended to, however,” said Pitman.

“I thought you’d had enough of Waterloo,” returned the lawyer. “Have you started a morbid craving? You’ve never been yourself anyway since you lost that beard. I believe now it was where you kept your senses.”

“Mr. Finsbury,” said the drawing-master, “I have tried to reason this matter but, and, with your permission, I should like to lay before you the results.”

“Fire away,” said Michael; “but please, Pitman, remember it’s Sunday, and let’s have no bad language.”

“There are three views open to us,” began Pitman. “First this may be connected with the barrel; second, it may be connected with Mr. Semitopolis’s statue; and third, it may be from my wife’s brother, who went to Australia. In the first case, which is of course possible, I confess the matter would be best allowed to drop.”

“The court is with you there, Brother Pitman,” said Michael.

“In the second,” continued the other, “it is plainly my duty to leave no stone unturned for the recovery of the lost antique.”

“My dear fellow, Semitopolis has come down like a trump; he has pocketed the loss and left you the profit. What more would you have?” inquired the lawyer.

“I conceive, sir, under correction, that Mr. Semitopolis’s generosity binds me to even greater exertion,” said the drawing-master. “The whole business was unfortunate; it was – I need not disguise it from you – it was illegal from the first: the more reason that I should try to behave like a gentleman,” concluded Pitman, flushing.

“I have nothing to say to that,” returned the lawyer. “I have sometimes thought I should like to try to behave like a gentleman myself; only it’s such a one-sided business, with the world and the legal profession as they are.”

“Then, in the third,” resumed the drawing-master, “if it’s Uncle Tim, of course, our fortune’s made.”

“It’s not Uncle Tim, though,” said the lawyer.

“Have you observed that very remarkable expression: Something to his advantage?” inquired Pitman shrewdly.

“You innocent mutton,” said Michael, “it’s the seediest commonplace in the English language, and only proves the advertiser is an ass. Let me demolish your house of cards for you at once. Would Uncle Tim make that blunder in your name? – in itself, the blunder is delicious, a huge improvement on the gross reality, and I mean to adopt it in the future; but is it like Uncle Tim?”

“No, it’s not like him,” Pitman admitted. “But his mind may have become unhinged at Ballarat.”

“If you come to that, Pitman,” said Michael, “the advertiser may be Queen Victoria, fired with the desire to make a duke of you. I put it to yourself if that’s probable; and yet it’s not against the laws of nature. But we sit here to consider probabilities; and with your genteel permission, I eliminate her Majesty and Uncle Tim on the threshold. To proceed, we have your second idea, that this has some connection with the statue. Possible; but in that case who is the advertiser? Not Ricardi, for he knows your address; not the person who got the box, for he doesn’t know your name. The vanman, I hear you suggest, in a lucid interval. He might have got your name, and got it incorrectly, at the station; and he might have failed to get your address. I grant the vanman. But a question: Do you really wish to meet the vanman?”

“Why should I not?” asked Pitman.

“If he wants to meet you,” replied Michael, “observe this: it is because he has found his address-book, has been to the house that got the statue, and – mark my words! – is moving at the instigation of the murderer.”

“I should be very sorry to think so,” said Pitman; “but I still consider it my duty to Mr. Semitopolis…”

“Pitman,” interrupted Michael, “this will not do. Don’t seek to impose on your legal adviser; don’t try to pass yourself off for the Duke of Wellington, for that is not your line. Come, I wager a dinner I can read your thoughts. You still believe it’s Uncle Tim.”

“Mr. Finsbury,” said the drawing-master, colouring, “you are not a man in narrow circumstances, and you have no family. Guendolen is growing up, a very promising girl – she was confirmed this year; and I think you will be able to enter into my feelings as a parent when I tell you she is quite ignorant of dancing. The boys are at the board school, which is all very well in its way; at least, I am the last man in the world to criticise the institutions of my native land. But I had fondly hoped that Harold might become a professional musician; and little Otho shows a quite remarkable vocation for the Church. I am not exactly an ambitious man…”

“Well, well,” interrupted Michael. “Be explicit; you think it’s Uncle Tim?”

“It might be Uncle Tim,” insisted Pitman, “and if it were, and I neglected the occasion, how could I ever look my children in the face? I do not refer to Mrs. Pitman…”

“No, you never do,” said Michael.

“… but in the case of her own brother returning from Ballarat …” continued Pitman.

“… with his mind unhinged,” put in the lawyer.

“… returning from Ballarat with a large fortune, her impatience may be more easily imagined than described,” concluded Pitman.

“All right,” said Michael, “be it so. And what do you propose to do?”

“I am going to Waterloo,” said Pitman, “in disguise.”

“All by your little self?” inquired the lawyer. “Well, I hope you think it safe. Mind and send me word from the police cells.”

“O, Mr. Finsbury, I had ventured to hope – perhaps you might be induced to – to make one of us,” faltered Pitman.

“Disguise myself on Sunday?” cried Michael. “How little you understand my principles!”

“Mr. Finsbury, I have no means of showing you my gratitude; but let me ask you one question,” said Pitman. “If I were a very rich client, would you not take the risk?”

“Diamond, Diamond, you know not what you do!” cried Michael. “Why, man, do you suppose I make a practice of cutting about London with my clients in disguise? Do you suppose money would induce me to touch this business with a stick? I give you my word of honour, it would not. But I own I have a real curiosity to see how you conduct this interview – that tempts me; it tempts me, Pitman, more than gold – it should be exquisitely rich.” And suddenly Michael laughed. “Well, Pitman,” said he, “have all the truck ready in the studio. I’ll go.”

About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple of a dead religion, silent and deserted. Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle. The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr. Haggard’s novels, with which upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding London.