CHAPTER XI.
BEGGAR AND CHOOSER.
The one communication which Harry Ringrose had received from GordonLowndes was little more than a humorous acknowledgment of the sumrefunded to him after the sale of the trophies. The writer warmlyprotested against the payment of a debt which he himself had neverregarded in that light. The worst of it was that he was not in aposition to refuse such payment. The prospects of the HighlandCrofters' Salmon and Trout Supply Association, Limited, were ifanything rosier than ever. But it was an axiom that the more giganticthe concern, the longer and more irritating the initial delay, and nonews of the Company would be good news for some time to come.
"Meanwhile I am here every day of my life," concluded Lowndes, "andpretty nearly all day. Why the devil don't you look me up?"
Indeed, Harry might have done so on any or all of those dreadful dayswhich took him a beggar to the City of London. His reason for not doingso was, however, a very simple one. He did not want Lowndes to thinkthat he disbelieved in the H.C.S. & T.S.A., as he must if he knew thatHarry was assiduously seeking work elsewhere. Harry was not altogethersure that he did utterly disbelieve in that colossal project. But itwas difficult to put much confidence in it after the revelations atRichmond, and when it was obvious that the promoter's own daughterlacked confidence in his schemes. Certainly it was impossible to feelfaith enough in the Highland Crofters' to leave lesser stones unturned.And yet to let Lowndes know what he was doing might be to throw awaythree hundred a year.
So Harry had avoided Leadenhall Street on days when thecompany-promoter's boisterous spirits and exuberant good-humour wouldhave been particularly grateful to him. But this was before he became asuccessful literary man. He wanted Lowndes to hear of his success; heparticularly wanted him to tell his daughter. He was not sure that heshould avoid Leadenhall Street another time, nor did he when it came.
This was after the successful effort had realised only half-a-guinea,and when some subsequent attempt was coming back in disgrace by everypost. Mrs. Ringrose had taken a leaf out of Harry's book, and committeda letter to the post without even letting him know that she had writtenone. An answer came by return, and this she showed to Harry inconsiderable trepidation. It was from the solicitor whom she hadmentioned on the day after Harry's arrival. In it Mr. Wintour Phippspresented his compliments to Mrs. Ringrose, and stated that he would bepleased to see her son any afternoon between three and four o'clock.
"I thought old friends were barred?" Harry said, reproachfully. "Ithought we were agreed about that, mother?"
"But this is not an old friend of yours or mine, my dear. I never knewhim; I only know what your father did for him. He paid eighty poundsfor his stamps, so I think he might do something for you! And so doeshe, you may depend, or he would not write that you are to go and seehim."
"He doesn't insist upon it," said Harry, glancing again at thesolicitor's reply. "He puts it pretty formally, too!"
"Have I not told you that I never met him? It was your father and hisfather who were such old friends."
"So he writes to you through a clerk!"
"How do you know?"
"It's the very hand they all tell me I ought to cultivate."
"I have no doubt he is a very busy man. I have often heard your fathersay so. Yet he can spare time to see you! You will go to him, myboy--to please your mother?"
"I will think about it, dear."
The mid-day post brought back another set of rejected verses. Harryswallowed his pride.
"It's all right, mother; I'll go and see that fellow this afternoon."
And there followed the last of the begging interviews, which incharacter and result had little to differentiate it from all the rest.Harry did indeed feel less compunction in bearding his father's god-sonthan in asking favours of complete strangers. He also fancied that hewas better fitted for the law than for business, and, when he came toBedford Row, he could picture himself going there quite happily everyday. The knowledge, too, that this Wintour Phipps was under obligationsto his father, sent the young fellow up a pair of dingy stairs with aconfidence which had not attended him on any former errand of the kind.And yet in less than ten minutes he was coming down again, with hisbeating heart turned to lead, but with a livelier contempt for his owninnocence than for the hardness of the world as most lately exemplifiedby Wintour Phipps. Nor would the last of these interviews be worthmentioning but for what followed; for it was on this occasion thatHarry went on to Leadenhall Street to get what comfort he could fromthe one kind heart he knew of in the City of London.
But there an unexpected difficulty awaited him. He remembered thenumber, but he looked in vain for the name of Gordon Lowndes among theothers that were painted on the passage wall as you went in. So hedoubted his memory and tried other numbers; but results brought himback to the first, and he climbed upstairs in quest of the name thatwas not in the hall. He never found it; but as he reached the fourthlanding a peal of unmistakable laughter came through a half-open door.And Harry took breath, for he had found his friend.
"Very well," he heard a thin voice saying quietly, "since you refuse methe slightest satisfaction, Mr. Lowndes, I shall at once take steps."
"Steps--steps, do you say?" roared Lowndes himself. "All right, takesteps to the devil!"
And a small dark man came flying through the door, which was instantlybanged behind him. Harry caught him in his arms, and then handed himhis hat, which was rolling along the stone landing. The poor manthanked him in an agitated voice, and was tottering down the stairs,when he turned, and with sudden fury shook his umbrella at the shutdoor.
"The dirty scamp!" he cried. "The bankrupt blackguard!"
Harry never forgot the words, nor the working, whiskered face of theman who uttered them. He stood where he was until the tremblingfootfalls came up to him no more. Then he knocked at the door. Lowndeshimself flung it open, and the frown of a bully changed like lightningto the most benevolent and genial smile.
"You!" he cried. "Come in, Ringrose--come in; I'm delighted to seeyou."
"Yes, it's me," said Harry, letting drop the hearty hand which he feltto be a savage fist unclenched to greet him. "Who did you think itwas?"
"Why, the man you must have met upon the stairs! A little rat of acreditor I've chucked out this time, but will throw over the banistersif he dares to show his nose up here again."
Harry was forcibly reminded of the butcher at Richmond.
"So this is the other way of treating them?" said he.
"This is the other way. Ha! ha! I recollect what you mean. Well, I havesome sympathy with a small tradesman whom the fortune of war has keptout of his money for weeks and months; not a particle for a little Jewwho has the insolence to come up here and browbeat and threaten me inmy own office for a few paltry pounds! If he had written me a civilnote, reminding me of the debt, which was really so small that I'dforgotten all about it, he should have had his money in time. Now hemay whistle for it till he's black in the face!"
Lowndes's indignation was so much more impressive than that of thelittle dark man on the stairs, that Harry's sympathies changed sideswithout his knowledge. He merely felt his heart warm to Lowndes as thelatter took him by the arm and led him through the outer office (inwhich an undersized urchin was mastheaded on an abnormally high stool)into an inner one, where a red-nosed man sat at the far side of a largedouble desk.
"My friend Mr. Backhouse," said Lowndes, introducing the red-nosed man."We're not partners; not even in the same line of business; but weshare the office between us, and the clerks, too--don't we, Bacchus?"
The red-nosed man grinned at his blotting-pad, and Harry perceived thatthe "clerks" consisted of the small child in the outer office.
"I noticed your name down below in the passage," said Harry to Mr.Backhouse, "but I couldn't see yours, Mr. Lowndes. I nearly went awayagain."
"Ah! it's in Backhouse's name we have the office; it suits my hand tokeep mine out of it. I'm playing a deep game, Ringrose--one of th
edeepest that ever was played in the City of London. I stand to win amillion of money!"
Lowndes had assumed an air of suitable subtlety and mystery; his eyeswere half-closed behind their gold-rimmed lenses, and he nodded hishead slowly and impressively as he stood with his back to thefireplace. Harry noticed that he still wore the shabby frock-coat, andthat his trousers were as baggy as ever at the knees. He could not helpasking how the deep game was progressing.
"Slowly, Ringrose, slowly, but as surely as the stride of time itself.My noble Earl is up in the Highlands with his yacht. Insisted onlooking into the thing with his own eyes. That's what's keeping us all,but I expect him back in another week, and then, Ringrose, you maythrow up your hat; for I have not the slightest shadow of a doubt as tothe result of the old chap's investigations."
Here the clock struck four, and the red-nosed man, who had also a stiffleg, put on his hat, and stumped out of the office.
"Now we can talk," said Lowndes, shutting the door, giving Harry achair, and sitting down himself. "He'll be gone ten minutes. It's hiswhisky-time; he has a Scotch whisky every hour as regularly as theclock strikes. Wonderful man, Bacchus, for I never saw him a penn'orththe worse. Some day he'll go pop. But never mind him, Ringrose, andnever mind the Company; tell us how the world's been using you, my boy;that's more to the point."
So Harry told him about the accepted verses, and Gordon Lowndes notonly promised to tell his daughter, but was himself most emphatic inencouraging Harry to go on as he had begun. It might be his truevocation after all. If he wrote a book and made a hit it would be abetter thing even than the Secretaryship of the H.C.S. & T.S.A. Thedelay there was particularly hard lines on Harry. Lowndes only hoped hewas letting no chances slip meanwhile.
"It is always conceivable," said he, "that my aristocratic directorsmay each have a loafing younger son whom they may want to shove intothe billet. You may depend upon me, Ringrose, to resist such jobberytooth-and-nail; but, if I were you, I wouldn't refuse the substance forthe shadow; you could always chuck it up, you know, and join us justthe same."
"Then you won't be offended," said Harry, greatly relieved, "if I tellyou that I have had one or two other irons in the fire?"
"Offended, my boy? I should think you a duffer if you had not."
In another minute Harry had made a clean breast of his other journeysto the City, and was recounting the latest of those miserableexperiences when Lowndes cut him short.
"What!" cried he, "your father paid for the fellow's stamps, and herefused to pay for yours?"
"We never got so far as that," said Harry bitterly. "He wanted apremium with me, and that settled it. He said three hundred guineas wasthe usual thing, but in consideration of certain obligations he hadonce been under to my father (he wasn't such a fool as to go intoparticulars), he would take me for a hundred and fifty. And he made atremendous favour of that. He expected me to go down on my knees withgratitude, I daresay, but I just told him that a hundred and fifty wasas far beyond me as three hundred, and said good afternoon and cameaway. Mind you, I don't blame him. Why should I expect so much for solittle? He's no worse than any of the rest; they're all the same, and Idon't blame any of them. Who am I that I should go asking favours ofany one of them? My God, I've asked my last!"
"You're your father's son, that's who you are," said Gordon Lowndes."What your father did for this skunk of a solicitor, he should be thefirst man to do for you. What's his name, by the way?"
"Phipps."
"Not Wintour Phipps?"
Harry nodded; and his nod turned up every light in the other'sexpressive face. Gordon Lowndes seized his hat and was on his legs inan instant, as radiant and as eager as when he set out to chasten andcorrect Harry's tailors. Such little punitive crusades were in fact thesalt and pepper of his existence.
"My boy," he cried, "I've known Wintour Phipps for years. I know enoughto strike Wintour Phipps off the rolls to-morrow. I guess he'll doanything for me, will Wintour Phipps! So you sit just as tight as waxtill I come back. I shan't be long." And he was gone before Harrygrasped his meaning sufficiently to interfere. For the young fellow wasapt to be slow-witted when taken by surprise: and though he ranheadlong down the stairs a minute later, he was only in time to seeLowndes dive into a hansom on the other side of the crowded street, andbe driven away.
He could do nothing now. He was annoyed with Lowndes, and yet the manmeant well--by Harry, at all events Others might take him as they foundhim, and call him a scamp if they chose. Very possibly he was one;indeed, on his own showing, in his own stories, he was nothing else.But he had a kind heart, and Harry's needs and rebuffs inclined him torate a sympathetic rogue far higher in the moral scale than a callousparagon. Whatever else might be said of Lowndes, there was no end tothe trouble he would take for another. Even when he insisted on doingwhat the person most concerned would have had him leave undone (as inthis instance), it was impossible not to feel grateful to him for doinganything at all. His unselfish enthusiasm in other people's causes wasbeyond all praise. He might not be a good man, but that was a virtuewhich many a good man had not.
Still Harry was annoyed. What Gordon Lowndes had gone to say to WintourPhipps he could only conjecture; but the object was plainlyintercessory, and Harry hated the thought of such intercession on hisbehalf. There was nothing for it, however, but to climb upstairs again(he had done so), and patiently to await the return of Lowndes. So theafternoon passed. Mr. Backhouse stumped in, took his hat off, wroteletters, reached his hat, and stumped out again. But still no Lowndes.
"Good-night," said Harry to the retreating Bacchus.
"Oh, I'm not going--I shall be back directly," replied that methodicalman. "I have a little business down below." And he was back in tenminutes, sucking his moustache, and followed almost immediately byGordon Lowndes, who stalked into the room with an air which Harry hadnot before seen him affect. His triumph was self-evident, but it wasbeautifully suppressed. He put down his hat with exasperatingdeliberation, and then stood beaming at Harry through his glasses.
"Well?" said Harry.
"It's all right," said Lowndes, very quietly, as of a foregoneconclusion: "you may start work to-morrow, Ringrose. Our friend Phippswill be only too glad to have you. He will pay for the stamps for yourarticles, and, so far from charging you a premium, he will give you asmall salary from the beginning. It won't be much, but then articledclerks as a rule get nothing. Our friend Phipps is going to make anexception in your case--and just you let me know when he treats youagain as he did this afternoon. He never will! You'll find him tameenough now. You're to go to him again to-morrow morning; and you see ifhe don't receive you with open arms!"
"But why?" cried Harry. "What have you said?"
"What have I said? Well, I reminded him of a trifling incident whichthere was no need to remind him of at all, for the mere thought of itturned him pale the moment he saw me. So I took the liberty of showinghim what might still happen if he didn't do exactly what I wanted aboutyou. My boy, the thing was settled in two minutes. A rising youngfellow like Wintour Phipps is not the man to be struck off the rolls ifhe knows it! But I wasn't coming away without having the whole thingdown in black and white, and here it is."
From his inner pocket he took out a long blue envelope and slapped itdown on the desk.
"May I see?" said Harry in a throbbing voice.
"Certainly; it's your business now, not mine."
Harry ran his eye over the brief document. Then he looked up.
"It's my business now--not yours?"
"To be sure."
"Then I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Lowndes, but here's an end ofit."
He tore the paper twice across, and carefully dropped it into thewaste-paper basket. Then he looked up again. And he had never seenLowndes really pale until that moment, nor really red until the next.Yet the storm passed over after all.
"Well--upon--my--soul!" said Gordon Lowndes, very slowly, but with morehumour and less wrath in each successive word. "And you
're the man whowanted a billet!"
"I want one still, but not on such terms. I'd rather starve."
"There's no accounting for taste."
"But I'm very sorry, I am indeed, that you should have troubledyourself to no purpose," continued Harry, holding out his hand withgenuine emotion. "It was awfully good of you, and I shall never forgetit."
"Nonsense--nonsense!" said Lowndes sharply. "Don't name it, my goodfellow. We all look at these things differently--don't we, Bacchus? Youwouldn't have had any scruples, would you? No more would I, my boy, Itell you frankly. But don't name it again. It was no trouble at all,and, even if it had been, there's nothing I wouldn't do for any of you,Ringrose, and now you know it. Hurt my feelings? Not a bit of it, mydear boy, I'm only frightened I hurt yours. Good night, good night, andmy love to the old lady. Cut away home and tell her I've no moreprinciples than Bacchus has brains!"
But Harry thought the matter over in the Underground; and it was many aday before he mentioned it at the flat.
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