_PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN_
In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be moreprecise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two youngmen of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation. The first,who was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best fashion,hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his companion.
'What!' he cried, 'Paul Somerset!'
'I am indeed Paul Somerset,' returned the other, 'or what remains of himafter a well-deserved experience of poverty and law. But in you,Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said, withouthyperbole, to write no wrinkle on your azure brow.'
'All,' replied Challoner, 'is not gold that glitters. But we are here inan ill posture for confidences, and interrupt the movement of theseladies. Let us, if you please, find a more private corner.'
'If you will allow me to guide you,' replied Somerset, 'I will offer youthe best cigar in London.'
And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a briskpace to the door of a quiet establishment in Rupert Street, Soho. Theentrance was adorned with one of those gigantic Highlanders of wood whichhave almost risen to the standing of antiquities; and across thewindow-glass, which sheltered the usual display of pipes, tobacco, andcigars, there ran the gilded legend: 'Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T.Godall.' The interior of the shop was small, but commodious and ornate;the salesman grave, smiling, and urbane; and the two young men, eachpuffing a select regalia, had soon taken their places on a sofa ofmouse-coloured plush and proceeded to exchange their stories.
'I am now,' said Somerset, 'a barrister; but Providence and the attorneyshave hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine. A select society atthe Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my afternoons, as Mr. Godallcould testify, have been generally passed in this divan; and my mornings,I have taken the precaution to abbreviate by not rising before twelve.At this rate, my little patrimony was very rapidly, and I am proud toremember, most agreeably expended. Since then a gentleman, who hasreally nothing else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my maternaluncle, deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if you beholdme once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in my favouritequarter, you will readily divine that I have come into a fortune.'
'I should not have supposed so,' replied Challoner. 'But doubtless I metyou on the way to your tailors.'
'It is a visit that I purpose to delay,' returned Somerset, with a smile.'My fortune has definite limits. It consists, or rather this morning itconsisted, of one hundred pounds.'
'That is certainly odd,' said Challoner; 'yes, certainly the coincidenceis strange. I am myself reduced to the same margin.'
'You!' cried Somerset. 'And yet Solomon in all his glory--'
'Such is the fact. I am, dear boy, on my last legs,' said Challoner.'Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have scarcely a decenttrouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I would this instant set aboutsome sort of work or commerce. With a hundred pounds for capital, a manshould push his way.'
'It may be,' returned Somerset; 'but what to do with mine is more than Ican fancy. Mr. Godall,' he added, addressing the salesman, 'you are aman who knows the world: what can a young fellow of reasonable educationdo with a hundred pounds?'
'It depends,' replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot. 'The powerof money is an article of faith in which I profess myself a sceptic. Ahundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a year; with somewhatmore difficulty you may spend it in a night; and without any difficultyat all you may lose it in five minutes on the Stock Exchange. If you areof that stamp of man that rises, a penny would be as useful; if youbelong to those that fall, a penny would be no more useless. When I wasmyself thrown unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to possessan art: I knew a good cigar. Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?'
'Not even law,' was the reply.
'The answer is worthy of a sage,' returned Mr. Godall. 'And you, sir,'he continued, turning to Challoner, 'as the friend of Mr. Somerset, may Ibe allowed to address you the same question?'
'Well,' replied Challoner, 'I play a fair hand at whist.'
'How many persons are there in London,' returned the salesman, 'who havetwo-and-thirty teeth? Believe me, young gentleman, there are more stillwho play a fair hand at whist. Whist, sir, is wide as the world; 'tis anaccomplishment like breathing. I once knew a youth who announced that hewas studying to be Chancellor of England; the design was certainlyambitious; but I find it less excessive than that of the man who aspiresto make a livelihood by whist.'
'Dear me,' said Challoner, 'I am afraid I shall have to fall to be aworking man.'
'Fall to be a working man?' echoed Mr. Godall. 'Suppose a rural dean tobe unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain werecashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge? The ignorance of yourmiddle class surprises me. Outside itself, it thinks the world to liequite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common degradation; but to the eye ofthe observer, all ranks are seen to stand in ordered hierarchies, andeach adorned with its particular aptitudes and knowledge. By the defectsof your education you are more disqualified to be a working man than tobe the ruler of an empire. The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learnedarts--those which alone are safe from the competition of insurgentlaymen--are those which give his title to the artisan.'
'This is a very pompous fellow,' said Challoner, in the ear of hiscompanion.
'He is immense,' said Somerset.
Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young fellow madehis appearance, and rather bashfully requested some tobacco. He wasyounger than the others; and, in a somewhat meaningless and altogetherEnglish way, he was a handsome lad. When he had been served, and hadlighted his pipe and taken his place upon the sofa, he recalled himselfto Challoner by the name of Desborough.
'Desborough, to be sure,' cried Challoner. 'Well, Desborough, and whatdo you do?'
'The fact is,' said Desborough, 'that I am doing nothing.'
'A private fortune possibly?' inquired the other.
'Well, no,' replied Desborough, rather sulkily. 'The fact is that I amwaiting for something to turn up.'
'All in the same boat!' cried Somerset. 'And have you, too, one hundredpounds?'
'Worse luck,' said Mr. Desborough.
'This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall,' said Somerset: 'Threefutiles.'
'A character of this crowded age,' returned the salesman.
'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit onefact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile, and that weare all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered law,smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I haveeven a working knowledge of judicial astrology; and here I stand, allLondon roaring by at the street's end, as impotent as any baby. I have aprodigious contempt for my maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle todeny it, I should simply resolve into my elements like an unstablemixture. I begin to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thingto the bottom--were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man of theworld is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an extraordinarymass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at home; he has seen lifein all its phases; and it is impossible but that this great habit ofexistence should bear fruit. I count myself a man of the world,accomplished, _cap-a-pie_. So do you, Challoner. And you, Mr.Desborough?'
'Oh yes,' returned the young man.
'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world, without atrade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of the universe(for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in the midst of thechief mass of people, and within ear-shot of the most continuous chink ofmoney on the surface of the globe. Sir, as civilised men, what do we do?I will show you. You take in a paper?'
'I take,' said Mr. Godall solemnly, 'the best paper in the world, the_Standard_.'
'Good,' resumed Somerset
. 'I now hold it in my hand, the voice of theworld, a telephone repeating all men's wants. I open it, and where myeye first falls--well, no, not Morrison's Pills--but here, sure enough,and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is theweak spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offerof substantial gratitude: "_Two hundred Pounds Reward_.--The above rewardwill be paid to any person giving information as to the identity andwhereabouts of a man observed yesterday in the neighbourhood of the GreenPark. He was over six feet in height, with shoulders disproportionatelybroad, close shaved, with black moustaches, and wearing a sealskingreat-coat." There, gentlemen, our fortune, if not made, is founded.'
'Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?' inquiredChalloner.
'Do I propose it? No, sir,' cried Somerset. 'It is reason, destiny, theplain face of the world, that commands and imposes it. Here all ourmerits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers of conversation,vast stores of unconnected knowledge, all that we are and have builds upthe character of the complete detective. It is, in short, the onlyprofession for a gentleman.'
'The proposition is perhaps excessive,' replied Challoner; 'for hithertoI own I have regarded it as of all dirty, sneaking, and ungentlemanlytrades, the least and lowest.'
'To defend society?' asked Somerset; 'to stake one's life for others? toderacinate occult and powerful evil? I appeal to Mr. Godall. He, atleast, as a philosophic looker-on at life, will spit upon such philistineopinions. He knows that the policeman, as he is called upon continuallyto face greater odds, and that both worse equipped and for a bettercause, is in form and essence a more noble hero than the soldier. Doyou, by any chance, deceive yourself into supposing that a general wouldeither ask or expect, from the best army ever marshalled, and on the mostmomentous battle-field, the conduct of a common constable at PeckhamRye?' {9}
'I did not understand we were to join the force,' said Challoner.
'Nor shall we. These are the hands; but here--here, sir, is the head,'cried Somerset. 'Enough; it is decreed. We shall hunt down thismiscreant in the sealskin coat.'
'Suppose that we agreed,' retorted Challoner, 'you have no plan, noknowledge; you know not where to seek for a beginning.'
'Challoner!' cried Somerset, 'is it possible that you hold the doctrineof Free Will? And are you devoid of any tincture of philosophy, that youshould harp on such exploded fallacies? Chance, the blind Madonna of thePagan, rules this terrestrial bustle; and in Chance I place my solereliance. Chance has brought us three together; when we next separateand go forth our several ways, Chance will continually drag before ourcareless eyes a thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but tothe countless mysteries by which we live surrounded. Then comes the partof the man of the world, of the detective born and bred. This clue,which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as a cat, heleaps upon it, makes it his, follows it with craft and passion, and fromone trifling circumstance divines a world.'
'Just so,' said Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you should recognisethese virtues in yourself. But in the meanwhile, dear boy, I own myselfincapable of joining. I was neither born nor bred as a detective, but asa placable and very thirsty gentleman; and, for my part, I begin to wearyfor a drink. As for clues and adventures, the only adventure that isever likely to occur to me will be an adventure with a bailiff.'
'Now there is the fallacy,' cried Somerset. 'There I catch the secret ofyour futility in life. The world teems and bubbles with adventure; itbesieges you along the street: hands waving out of windows, swindlerscoming up and swearing they knew you when you were abroad, affable anddoubtful people of all sorts and conditions begging and truckling foryour notice. But not you: you turn away, you walk your seedy mill round,you must go the dullest way. Now here, I beg of you, the next adventurethat offers itself, embrace it in with both your arms; whatever it looks,grimy or romantic, grasp it. I will do the like; the devil is in it, butat least we shall have fun; and each in turn we shall narrate the storyof our fortunes to my philosophic friend of the divan, the great Godall,now hearing me with inward joy. Come, is it a bargain? Will you,indeed, both promise to welcome every chance that offers, to plungeboldly into every opening, and, keeping the eye wary and the headcomposed, to study and piece together all that happens? Come, promise:let me open to you the doors of the great profession of intrigue.'
'It is not much in my way,' said Challoner, 'but, since you make a pointof it, amen.'
'I don't mind promising,' said Desborough, 'but nothing will happen tome.'
'O faithless ones!' cried Somerset. 'But at least I have your promises;and Godall, I perceive, is transported with delight.'
'I promise myself at least much pleasure from your various narratives,'said the salesman, with the customary calm polish of his manner.
'And now, gentlemen,' concluded Somerset, 'let us separate. I hasten toput myself in fortune's way. Hark how, in this quiet corner, Londonroars like the noise of battle; four million destinies are hereconcentred; and in the strong panoply of one hundred pounds, payable tothe bearer, I am about to plunge into that web.'
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