THE GENTLEMAN OF TITLE
One of our younger clerks, a man of the name of Perkins, is said to be very well connected. He certainly spends more than his salary, and rarely wears the same trousers on two consecutive days. But I am not a snob, nor one who thinks much of these things, and I had never cultivated young Perkins. Consequently it rather surprised me when he introduced me to his friend, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount. Then I remembered what had been said about Perkins's connections.
The Hon. Eugene Clerrimount was a handsome young man, though apparently troubled with pimples. His manner had in it what I should call dash. There was not an ounce of affectation about him; but then high rank does not need affectations—I have always noticed that. He appeared to take rather a liking to me, and insisted that we must all three go out and have a drink together. This is a thing which I really never do, but on this occasion I allowed myself to be persuaded. Not liking to mention beer, I said that I would take a glass of sherry wine. Nothing could have been more friendly and pleasing than his behaviour toward me; there was nothing at all stuck-up about him. It turned out that, after all, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount had forgotten his purse, and Perkins happened to have no money on him; I therefore paid for the drinks, and also lent the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount half a crown for his cab; it was, indeed, quite a pleasure to do so. He thanked me warmly, and said that he should like to know me better. Might he call at my house on the following Saturday afternoon? As luck would have it, I happened to have a card on me, and presented it to him, saying that it would indeed be an honour. "Thanks," he replied, "and then I can repay you this half-sovereign, or whatever it is." "Only four shillings," I replied, "and pray do not mention it."
The Gentlemen of TitleThe Gentleman of Title.
Eliza was certainly less pleased than myself when she heard that the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount was coming. She said that he might be all right, or he might not, and we did not know anything about him. I replied: "One does not know anything about anybody in that rank of life. It is not necessary."
"Oh!" she said. "Isn't it? Well, I don't happen to be an earl myself."
And, really, on the Saturday morning I had the greatest difficulty to get Eliza to take a little trouble with the drawing-room, though I asked for nothing more than a thorough dusting, chrysanthemums, and the blinds up. For the tea I offered to make myself entirely responsible. There was some doubt as to whether the girl should announce him as the Hon. Mr. Clerrimount, or the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount, or Mr. Hon. Clerrimount. "She'd better do all three, one after the other," said Eliza, snappishly. I obviated the difficulty by telling the girl, as she opened the drawing-room door, merely to say, "A gentleman to see you." I am rather one for thinking of these little ways out of difficulties.
Eliza wanted to know what time he was coming. I replied that he could not come before three or after six, because that would be against etiquette.
"Suppose he came at five minutes to three by accident," said Eliza. "Would he sit on our doorsteps until the clock struck, and then ring the bell?" I was really beginning to lose patience with Eliza.
However, by three o'clock I had Eliza in the drawing-room, with a magazine and paper-knife by her side, as if she had been reading. She was really darning socks, but they could easily be concealed in an empty art flower-pot when the front bell rang.
We sat in the drawing-room until six, but, strangely enough, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount never came. The trifle that I had spent on the Madeira cake and macaroons was nothing, but it did wound my feelings that he had not even thought it worth while to explain his inability to keep his appointment.
And on the Monday I said to Perkins, rather sharply: "There was that matter of four shillings with your friend. I've not received the money, and I should thank you to see about it."
"What?" said Perkins. "You ask my friend and me to come and drink with you, and then want me to dun him for the money to pay for it. Well, Iamblowed!"
Oh, the whole thing was most unsatisfactory and incomprehensible!
THE HAT
I had long believed that all was not right with my hat. I could prove nothing, but I had no doubt in my own mind that the girl took liberties with it. It is very easy to brush a silk hat the wrong way, for instance, but silk hats do not brush themselves the wrong way; if it is done, some one must have done it. Morning after morning I found marks on my hat which I could not account for. Well, I said nothing, but I made up my mind to keep my eyes open. It was not only the injury to the hat—it was the impertinence to myself that affected me.
One Saturday afternoon, while I was at home, a costermonger came to the door with walnuts. The girl answered the bell, and presently I saw the coster and his cart go past the dining-room window. I don't know why it was, or how it was, but a suspicion came over me. I stepped sharply to the door, and looked out into the passage. There was no one there. The front door was open, and the kitchen door was open, and in a position between the two, against the umbrella-stand, was—something worse than ever I had expected.
I picked that hat up just as it was, with the walnuts inside it, and placed it on the dining-room table. Then I called to Eliza to come down-stairs.
"What is it?" she asked, as she entered the dining-room.
I pointed to the hat. "This kind of thing," I said, "has been going on for years!"
"Oh, do talk sense!" she said. "What do you mean?"
"Sense!" I said. "You ask me to talk sense, when I find my own hat standing on the floor in the hall, and used as a—a receptacle for walnuts!"
She smiled. "I can explain all that," she said.
"I've no doubt you can. I'm sick to death of explanations. I give ten or eleven shillings for a hat, and find it ruined. I know those explanations. You told the girl to buy the walnuts, and she had got nothing else to put them in, and the hat was handy; but if you think I take that as an excuse, you make a mistake."
"I wasn't going to say that at all."
"Or else you'll tell me that you can paste in a piece of white paper, so that the stains on the lining won't show. Explanations, indeed!"
"And I wasn't going to say that, either."
"I don't care what you were going to say. I won't hear it. There's no explanation possible. For once I mean to take a strong line. You see that hat? I shall never wear it again!"
"I know that."
"No one shall wear it! I don't care for the expense! If you choose to let that servant-girl ruin my hat, then that hat shall be ruined, and no mistake about it!"
I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick. My foot went through it, and the walnuts flew all over the room. At the same moment I heard from the drawing-room a faint tink-tink-tink on the piano.
I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick.
"I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick."
"Yes," said Eliza. "That's the piano-tuner. He came at the same time as the walnut-man, and bought those walnuts. And he put them in his hat.Hishat, mind you, notyourhat. Your hat's hanging up in the usual place. You might have seen it if you'd looked. Only you're——"
"Eliza," I said, "you need say no more. If that is so, the servant-girl is much less to blame than I had supposed. I have to go out now, but perhaps you'd drop into the drawing-room and explain to the tuner that there's been some slight misunderstanding with his hat. And, I say, a glass of beer and two shillings is as much as you need offer."
MY FORTUNE
The girl had just removed the supper things. We have supper rather early, because I like a long evening. "Now, Eliza," I said, "you take your work,—your sewing, or whatever it may be,—and I will take my work. Yes, I've brought it with me, and it's to be paid as overtime. I daresay it mayn't seem much to you,—a lot of trouble, and only a few shillings to show for it, when all's said and done,—but that is the way fortunes are made, by sticking at it, by plugging into it, if I may use the term."
"The table's clear, if you want to start," said Eliza.
"Very well," I replied, and fetched my black bag from the passage to get the accounts on which I was working. I always hang the bag on the peg in the passage, just under my hat. Then it is there in the morning when and where it is wanted. Method in little things has always been rather a motto of mine.
"It has sometimes struck me, Eliza," I said, as I came back into the dining-room, with the bag in my hand, "that you do not read so much as I should like to see you read."
"Well, you asked me to take my work, and these socks are for you, and I never know what you do want."
"I did not mean that I wanted you to read at this moment. But there is one book—I cannot say exactly what the title is, and the name of the author has slipped my memory, which I should like to see in your hands occasionally, because it deals with the making of fortunes. It practically shows you how to do it."
"Did the man who wrote it make one?" asked Eliza.
"That—not knowing the name of the man—I cannot say for certain."
"Well, I should want to know that first. And aren't you going to start?"
"I can hardly start until I have unlocked my bag, and I cannot unlock my bag until I have the keys, and I cannot have the keys until I have fetched them from the bedroom. Try to be a little more reasonable."
I could not find the keys in the bedroom. Then Eliza went up, and she could not find them, either. By a sort of oversight they were in my pocket all the time. I laughingly remarked that I knew I should find them first. Eliza seemed rather pettish, the joke being against herself.
"The reason why I mentioned that book," I said, as I unlocked the bag, "is because it points out that there are two ways of making a fortune. One is, if I may say so, my own way,—by method in little things, economy of time, doing all the work that one can get to do, and——"
"You won't get much done to-night, if you don't start soon," said Eliza.
"I do not like to be interrupted in the middle of a sentence. The other way by which you may make a fortune—well, it's not making a fortune. It's that the fortune makes you, if you understand me."
"I don't," said Eliza.
"I mean that the fortune may come of itself by luck. Luck is a very curious thing. We cannot understand it. It's of no use to talk about it, because it is quite impossible to understand it."
"Then don't let's talk about it, especially when you've got something else to do."
"Temper, temper, Eliza! You must guard against that. I was not going to talk about luck. I was going to give you an instance of luck, which happened to come within my own personal experience. It is the case of a man of the name of Chumpleigh, in our office, and would probably interest and amuse you. I do not know if I have ever mentioned Chumpleigh to you."
"Yes, you've told me all about him several times."
I might have mentioned Chumpleigh to Eliza, but I am sure that I have never told her all about him. However, I was not going to sulk, and so I told her the story again. The story would not have been so long if she hadn't interrupted me so frequently.
When I had finished, she said that it was time to go to bed, and I had wasted the evening.
I owned that possibly I had been chatting rather longer than I had intended, but I would still get those accounts done, and sit up to do them.
"And that means extra gas," she said. "That's the way money gets wasted."
"There are many men in my place," I said, "who would refuse to sit down to work as late as this. I don't. Why? On principle. Because it's through the cultivation of the sort of thing that I cultivate one arrives at fortune. Think what fortune would mean to us. Big house, large garden, servants, carriages. I should come in from a day with the hounds, and perhaps say I felt rather done up, and would like a glass of champagne. No question of expense—not a word about it—money no object. You'd just get the bottle out of the sideboard, and I should have my glass, and they'd finish it in the kitchen, and——"
"Areyou going to begin, or are you not?" asked Eliza.
"This minute," I replied, opening the black bag. I examined the contents carefully.
"Well," I said, "this is a very strange occurrence indeed—most unaccountable! I don't remember ever to have done anything of the kind before, but I seem to have forgotten to bring that work from the city. Dear me! I shall be forgetting my head next."
Eliza's reply that this would be no great loss did not seem to me to be either funny, or polite, or even true. "You strangely forget yourself," I replied, and turned the gas out sharply.
SHAKESPEARE
I led up to it, saying to Eliza, not at all in a complaining way, "Does it not seem to you a pity to let these long winter evenings run to waste?"
"Yes, dear," she replied; "I think you ought to do something."
"And you, too. Is it not so, darling?"
"There's generally some sewing, or the accounts."
"Yes; but these things do not exercise the mind."
"Accounts do."
"Not in the way I mean." I had now reached my point. "How would it be if I were to read aloud to you? I don't think you have ever heard me read aloud. You are fond of the theatre, and we cannot often afford to go. This would make up for it. There are many men who would tell you that they would sooner have a play read aloud to them than see it acted in the finest theatre in the world."
"Would they? Well—perhaps—if I were only sewing it wouldn't interrupt me much."
I said, "That is not very graciously put, Eliza. There is a certain art in reading aloud. Some have it, and some have not. I do not know if I have ever told you, but when I was a boy of twelve I won a prize for recitation, though several older boys were competing against me."
She said that I had told her before several times.
I continued: "And I suppose that I have developed since then. A man in our office once told me that he thought I should have done well on the stage. I don't know whether I ever mentioned it."
She said that I had mentioned it once or twice.
"I should have thought that you would have been glad of a little pleasure—innocent, profitable, and entertaining. However, if you think I am not capable of——"
"What do you want to read?"
"What would you like me to read?"
"Miss Sakers lent me this." She handed me a paper-covered volume, entitled, "The Murglow Mystery; or, The Stain on the Staircase."
"Trash like this is not literature," I said. However, to please her, I glanced at the first page. Half an hour later I said that I should be very sorry to read a book of that stamp out loud.
"Then why do you go on reading it to yourself?"
"Strictly speaking, I am not reading it. I am glancing at it."
When Eliza got up to go to bed, an hour afterward, she asked me if I was still glancing. I kept my temper.
"Try not to be so infernally unreasonable," I said. "If Miss Sakers lends us a book, it is discourteous not to look at it."
On the following night Eliza said that she hoped I was not going to sit up until three in the morning, wasting the gas and ruining my health, over a book that I myself had said—
"And who pays for the gas?"
"Nobody's paid last quarter's yet. Mother can't do everything, and——"
"Well, we can talk about that some other time. To-night I am going to read aloud to you a play of Shakespeare's. I wonder if you even know who Shakespeare was?"
"Of course I do."
"Could you honestly say that you have ever read one—only one—of his tragedies?"
"No. Could you?"
"I am going to read 'Macbeth' to you, trying to indicate by changes in my voice which character is speaking." I opened the book.
Eliza said that she couldn't think who it was took her scissors.
"I can't begin till you keep quiet," I said.
"It's the second pair that's gone this week."
"Very well, then," I said, shutting up the book with a bang, "I will not read aloud to you to-night at all. You may get along as you can without it."
"You're sure you didn't take those scissors for anything?" she replied, meditatively.
"Now then," I said, on the next night, "I am ready to begin. The tragedy is entitled 'Macbeth.' This is the first scene."
"What is the first scene?"
"A blasted heath."
"Well, I think you might give a civil answer to a civil question. There was no occasion to use that word."
"I didn't."
"You did. I heard it distinctly."
"Do let me explain. It's Shakespeare uses the word. I was only quoting it. It merely means——"
"Oh, if it's Shakespeare I suppose it's all right. Nobody seems to mind whathesays. You can go on."
I read for some time. Eliza, in reply to my question, owned that she had enjoyed it, but she went to bed before her usual time.
When I was preparing to read aloud on the following evening, I was unable to find our copy of Shakespeare. This was very annoying, as it had been a wedding-present. Eliza said that she had found her scissors, and very likely I should find the Shakespeare some other night.
But I never did. I have half thought of buying another copy, or I dare say Eliza's mother would like to give us it. Eliza thinks not.
THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM
"Eliza," I said one evening, "do you think that you are fonder of me than I am of you, or that I am fonder of you than you are of me?"
She answered, "What is thirteen from twenty-eight?" without looking up from the account-book.
"I do think," I said, "that when I speak to you you might have the civility to pay some little attention."
She replied, "One pound fifteen and two, and I hope you know where we are to get it from, for I don't. And don't bang on the table in that silly way, or you'll spill the ink."
"I did not bang. I tapped slightly from a pardonable impatience. I put a plain question to you some time ago, and I should like a plain answer to it."
"Well, what do you want to talk for when you see I am counting? Now, what is it?"
"What I asked was this. Do I think—I mean, do you think—that I am fonder of me—no, you are fonder of I—well, I'll begin again. Which of us two would you say was fonder of the other than the other was of the—dash it all, you know what I mean!"
"No, I don't, but it's nothing to swear about."
"I was not swearing. If you don't know what I mean, I'll try to put it more simply. Are you fonder than I am? There."
"Fonder of what?"
"Fonder of each other."
"You mean is each of us fonder of the other than the other is of—of the each?"
"I mean nothing of the kind. Until you muddled it the thing was perfectly clear. Well, we two are two, are we not?"
"Of course I know that, but——"
"Wait a minute. I intend that you shall understand me this time. Which of those two would you say was fonder of the other than the other was of the other, or would you say that each was as fond of the other as the other one was? Now you see it."
"Almost. Say it again."
"Would you say that in your opinion neither of us were fonder of the other than both were of each, or that one was fonder of the other than the other was of the first, and if so, which?"
"Now you've made it worse than ever. I don't believe you know what you mean yourself. Do come to supper and talk sense."
I smiled cynically as I sat down to supper. "This doesn't surprise me in the least," I remarked. "I never yet knew a woman who could argue, or even understand the first step in an argument, and I don't suppose I ever shall."
"Well," said Eliza, "you can't argue until you know what you are talking about, and I don't know what you're talking about, and you don't seem to know yourself, or, if you do, you're too muddled to tell anybody. If you want to argue, argue about one pound fifteen and two. It's Griffiths, and been sent in three times already."
"Don't shirk it, Eliza. Don't try to get away from it. I asked you which of us you thought was the fonder of the other, and you couldn't understand it."
"Why, of course, I understandthat. Why didn't you say so before?"
"As far as I remember, those were my precise words."
"But they weren't! What you said was, 'If neither of us was fonder of both than each is of either, which of the two would it be?' or something of the kind."
"Now, how could I talk such absolute nonsense?"
"Ah!" she said; "when men lose their temper they never know what they're saying!"
I had a very good answer to that, but just at the moment the girl brought in the last post. There was a letter from Eliza's mother. There was also an enclosure in postal orders quite beyond anything I had expected, and she expressed a hope that they might enable us "to defray some of the expenses incidental to the season." As far as my own personal feeling is concerned, I should have returned them at once. In some ways I daresay that I am a proud man. I have been told so. But the poor old lady takes such pleasure in giving, and she has so little other enjoyment, that I should have been reluctant to check her. In fact, taking the money as evidence of her affection, I was pleased. So was Eliza.
"Pay Griffiths's twopenny-halfpenny account to-morrow," I said, "and tell him that he has lost our patronage for ever."
We did not recur to the original question. Personally, I should say that in the case of two people it might very well happen that, though at one time the affection of one for the other might be greater than the affection which the other had for the one which I originally mentioned at the same time, yet at some other time the affection which the other one had for the other might be just as much greater than the affection which the first one had for the second, as the difference was in the first instance between the two. At least, that is the general drift of what I mean. Eliza would never see it, of course.
THE DAY OFF
On the occasion of the marriage of our junior partner to Ethel Mary, only surviving daughter of William Hubblestead, Esq., J.P., of Banlingbury, by the Canon of Blockminster, assisted by the Rev. Eugene Hubblestead, cousin of the bride—on this occasion the office was closed for the whole of one day, and the staff had a holiday without deduction of salary.
The staff had presented six silver (hallmarked) nutcrackers, and a handsomely bound volume of Cowper's Poetical Works. The latter was my own suggestion; there was a sum of eight shillings over after the purchase of the nutcrackers, and I have always had a partiality for Cowper. The junior partner thanked us personally, and in very warm terms; at the same time he announced that the following Thursday was to be treated as a holiday.
The weather was glorious, and I have never had a more enjoyable day. The girl laid breakfast overnight, and we rose at half-past five. By half-past six Eliza had cut some mutton sandwiches and placed them in a basket with a bottle of milk—the milkman having obliged with a specially early call by appointment. A brief journey by train, and by a quarter-past seven we were at Danstow for our day off in the country.
Danstow is a picturesque little village, and looked beautiful in the hot sunlight. I was wearing a fairly new summer suit, with brown boots. As I remarked to Eliza, it would probably have created a feeling of surprise among the villagers if they had learned that, as a rule, my professional duties took me to the city in the morning.
Eliza said: "All right. What do we do here?"
"Why," I said, "there's the old church. We mustn't miss that."
We went and examined the old church. Then we went twice up and down the village street, and examined that.
"Well," said Eliza, "what next?"
"Now," I replied, "we just stroll about and amuse ourselves. I feel particularly light-hearted."
"That's breakfasting at six, that is," said Eliza. "If you could find a quiet place, we might have a sandwich."
We went a little way along the road, and I espied a field which seemed to me to look likely. I said to a passer-by: "I am a stranger here. Can you tell me whether there would be any objection to our sitting in that field?" He said, in rather an offensive and sarcastic way, that he believed the field was open for sitting in about that hour. I did not give him any reply, but just opened the gate for Eliza.
We sat down under the hedge, and finished our sandwiches and milk. The church clock struck nine.
"What train do we go back by?" asked Eliza.
"Not until half-past nine to-night. There's a day for you!"
"Twelve hours and a half," said Eliza. "And we've done the sandwiches, and done the milk, and done the church, and there's nothing else to do."
"Except amuse ourselves," I added, as I took off my boots, which had pained me slightly. I then dozed off.
Eliza woke me to say that she had read all the newspaper the sandwiches were wrapped in, and picked some wild flowers, and the flowers had died, and she wanted to know what the time was. It was just past eleven.
She said: "Oh, lor!"
I soon dropped off again.
When I woke, at half-past twelve, Eliza was not there. She returned in a few minutes, and said that she had been doing the church over again.
"That was hardly necessary," I observed.
"Oh, one must do something, and there's nothing else to do."
"On the contrary, there's luncheon. We'll have that at once, so as to give us a good long afternoon."
"The afternoon will be long enough," she said. If I had not known that she was having a day's enjoyment, I should have thought that she seemed rather dejected in her manner.
The luncheon at the village inn was not expensive. Eliza said that their idea of chops was not her idea; but all the same she seemed inclined to spin the thing out and make it last as long as possible. I deprecated this, as I felt that I could not very well take my boots off again until I had returned to the field.
"Very well, then," she said. "Only let's go back slowly."
"As slowly as you like," I replied. "It's the right boot principally; but I prefer to walk slowly."
When we had resumed our old position under the hedge, and I had removed my boots, I said:
"Now, then, I think I've earned a pipe and a short nap. You amuse yourself in any way you like."
"Dowhatwith myself?" she asked, rather sharply.
She walked twice round the field, and then I fell off to sleep. It turned out afterward that she also did the picturesque old church for the third time, and went over a house which was to let, refusing to take it on the ground that there was no bath-room. This was rather dishonest, as she would not have taken it if there had been a bath-room, or even two bath-rooms. I would not do that kind of thing myself. I awoke about tea-time. The charge for tea at the inn was very moderate, though Eliza said that there was tea which was tea, and tea which was an insult.
Eliza found that there was a train back at half-past six, and said she was going by it, whether I did or not, because it was a pity to have too much of a good thing, and she hadn't the face to ask for the keys of that church again. I accompanied her. I fancy that the brown leather is liable to shrink in the sun, and I was not unwilling to get back to my slippers and stretch myself out on the sofa.
There is nothing like a long day in the country; quite apart from the enjoyment, you feel that it is doing you so much good. I am sorry that Eliza did not seem to enter into the spirit of the thing more.
THE MUSHROOM
We were at breakfast one morning in the summer when the girl entered rather excitedly and said that to the best of her belief there was a mushroom coming in the little lawn in front of the house. It seemed a most extraordinary thing, and Eliza and I both went out to look at it. There was certainly something white coming through the turf; the only question was, whether or not it was a mushroom. The girl seemed certain about it. "Why," she said, "in my last place mushrooms was frequent. You see, being wealthy, they had anything they fancied. If I didn't know about mushrooms, I ought to!" There is a familiarity in that girl's manner which to my mind is highly objectionable. The establishment where she was formerly employed was apparently on a scale that we do not attempt. That does not justify her, however, in continually drawing comparisons. I shall certainly have something to say to her about it.
However, it was not about Jane that I intended to speak, but about the mushroom.
Eliza said that I ought to put a flowerpot over the mushroom, because, being visible from the road, some one might be tempted to come in and steal it. But I was too deep for that. "No," I replied, "if you put an inverted plant-pot there everybody will guess that you are hiding a mushroom underneath it. Just put a scrap of newspaper over it."
"But that might get blown away!"
"Fasten down one corner of it with a hairpin."
Eliza said that I was certainly one to think of things. I believe there is truth in that. On my way to the station I happened to meet Mr. Bungwall's gardener (a most obliging and respectful man), and had a word with him about the mushroom. He said that he would come round in the evening and have a look at it.
I was pleased to find (on my return) that the mushroom was still in the garden under the newspaper, and had increased slightly in size.
"This," I said to Eliza, "is very satisfactory."
"It would make a nice little present to send to mother," Eliza observed.
There I could not entirely agree with her. I pointed out that in a week's time I should probably be applying to her mother for a small temporary loan. I did not think it an honourable thing to attempt to influence her mind beforehand by sending a present. I wished her to approach the question of the loan purely in a business spirit. I added that I thought we would leave the mushroom to grow for one more day, and then have it for breakfast. That ultimately was decided upon.
Then Mr. Bungwall's gardener arrived, and said that he was sorry to disappoint us in any way, and it was not his fault, but the mushroom was a toadstool.
"This," I said to Eliza, "is something of a blow."
"Perhaps," she said, "Mr. Bungwall's gardener is mistaken."
"I fear not. But, however, I happened to mention about that mushroom to our head clerk this morning, and he said that he thoroughly understood mushrooms, and had made a small profit by growing them. To-morrow morning I will pick that toadstool or mushroom, as the case may be, take it up to the city, and ask him about it."
Eliza agreed that this would be the best way.
But at breakfast next morning she seemed thoughtful and somewhat depressed. I asked her what she was thinking about.
"It's like this," she said. "If your head clerk says that our toadstool is a mushroom, while Mr. Bungwall's gardener says that our mushroom is a toadstool, we sha'n't like to eat it because of Mr. Bungwall's gardener, and we sha'n't like to throw it away because of your head clerk, and I don't see what to do with it."
"You forget, my dear. We have a third opinion. Jane says the mushroom is a mushroom."
"Jane will say anything."
"Well, we might put her to the test. We might ask her if she'd like to eat the mushroom herself, and then if she says yes and seems pleased, why, of course we'd eat it. I'll go and pick it now."
And when I went to do so I found that the mushroom had gone.
Eliza says that Mr. Bungwall's gardener told us it was a toadstool to keep us from picking it, and then stole it himself, because he knew that it was a mushroom.
That may be. I should be sorry to believe it, because I have always found Mr. Bungwall's gardener such a very respectful man. To my mind there is an air of mystery over the whole affair.
THE PLEASANT SURPRISE
I had got the money by work done at home, out of office hours. It came to four pounds altogether. At first I thought I would use it to discharge a part of our debt to Eliza's mother. But it was very possible that she would send it back again, in which case the pence spent on the postal orders would be wasted, and I am not a man that wastes pennies. Also, it was not absolutely certain that she would send it back. I sent her a long letter instead—my long letters are almost her only intellectual pleasure. As for the four pounds, I reserved two for myself, for any incidental expenses, and decided to give two to Eliza. I did not mean simply to hand them to her, but to get up something in the way of a pleasant surprise.
I had tried something of the kind before. Eliza once asked me for six shillings for a new tea-tray that she had seen. I went and stood behind her chair, and said, "No, dear, I couldn't think of it," at the same time dropping the six shillings down the back of her neck. Eliza said it was a pity I couldn't give her six shillings for a tea-tray without compelling her to go up-stairs and undress at nine o'clock in the morning. It was not a success.
However, I had more than one idea in my head. This time I thought I would first find out if there was anything she wanted.
So on Sunday at tea-time I said, not as if I were meaning anything in particular, "Is there anything you want, Eliza?"
"Yes," she said; "I want a general who'll go to bed at half-past nine and get up at half-past five. If they'd only do that, that's all I ask."
"You will pardon me, Eliza," I said, "but you are not speaking correctly. You said that was all that you asked. What you meant——"
"Do you know what I meant?"
"I flatter myself that I know precisely——"
"Then if you know precisely what I meant, I must have spoken accurately."
But as we went to church I discovered that she wanted a new jacket. Her own was trimmed rabbit, and had been good, but the fur had gone bald in places.
Next morning I wrote on a sheet of note-paper, "To buy a new jacket. With your husband's love." I folded the two sovereigns up in this, and dropped the packet into the pocket of Eliza's old jacket, as it hung in the wardrobe, not telling her what I had done. My idea was that she would put on the jacket to go out shopping in the morning, and putting her hand in the pocket, get a pleasant surprise. As I was leaving for town, she asked me why I kept on smiling so mysteriously. I replied, "Perhaps you, too, will smile before the day is over."
On my return I found Eliza at the front door. "Come and look," she said, cheerfully. "I have got a pleasant surprise for you." She flung open the drawing-room door, and pointed. In the middle of the table stood aspiraea, a most handsome and graceful plant. It stood in one of the best saucers, with some coloured paper round the pot, and the general effect was very good. I at once guessed that she had bought it for me with the change from my present to her, and thought it showed very good feeling in her.
"I hope you have not given too much for this," I said.
"I didn't give any money for it."
"I don't understand."
"Well, you must know I had a present this morning."
"Of course I know."
"Did mother tell you? Yes, she has sent me a beautiful new jacket. Then a man came round with a barrow of plants, and he said he didn't want money if I had any clothes to spare. So I gave him my old worn-out jacket for thisspiraea, and——"
I remembered that I had seen the man with the barrow farther down the street.
"Excuse me for one moment, Eliza," I said, and dashed out after him.
He was a big, red-faced man, and he made no difficulty about it at all.
"Yes," he said, "I bought that jacket, gov'ner, and I don't deny it. There it is at the bottom of my bundle, and I ain't even looked at it since. Nor I ain't goin' to look now. You say there was two suvreigns in the pocket. A gent like you don't want to swindle a common man like me. If you say the two suvreigns was there, then they're there now, and I can return yer two pound out o' my own, in a suttunty of gettin' 'em back out o' the jacket pocket. Bless yer! I knows an honest man when I sees one."
With these words he drew the money from his own waistcoat pocket, and handed it to me. I took it with some reluctance.
"Hadn't you better make quite certain——"
"Not a bit," says he. "If them suvreigns were there when the jacket were 'anded to me, they is there now. I could see as you was a man to be trusted, otherwise I'd 'ave undone the bundle and searched long afore this."
"What have you been doing?" said Eliza, on my return.
"Never mind. Your mother has given you a new jacket. Let me have the pleasure of giving you a new hat." I pressed the two coins into her palm.
She looked at them, and said, "You can't get a hat for a halfpenny, you know, dear. What did you rush out for just now? And why did you have these two farthings gilded? You'll be mistaking them for sovereigns, if you're not careful. Were you trying to take me in?"
I did not quite see what to say for the moment, and so I took her suggestion. I explained that it was a joke.
"You don't look much as if you were joking."
"But I was. I suppose I ought to know if any man does. However, Eliza, if you want a new hat, anything up to half a sovereign, you've only to say it."
She said it, thanked me, and asked me to come and help her water thespiraea.
"It's such a shapelyspiraea," she said.
"Yes," I answered sadly, "it's a regular plant." And so it was, though I had not been intending what the French call adouble entendreat the time.
THE MOPWORTHS
I must say that both Eliza and myself felt a good deal of contempt for the Mopworths. We had known them for three years, and that gave us a claim; Peter Mopworth was a connection of Eliza's by marriage, and that also gave us a claim; further, our social position gave us a claim. Nevertheless, the Mopworths were to have their annual party on the following Wednesday, and they had not invited us.
"Upon my soul," I exclaimed, "I never in my life heard of anything so absolutely paltry."
"I can't think why it is," said Eliza.
"Oh, we're not good enough for them. We all know who his father was, and we all know what he is—a petty provincial shopkeeper! A gentleman holding important employment in one of the principal mercantile firms in the city isn't good enough for him. If I'm permitted to clean his boots I'm sure I ought to be thankful. Oh, yes! Of course! No doubt!"
"You do get so sarcastic," observed Eliza.
"That's nothing—nothing to what I should be if I let myself go. But I don't choose to let myself go. I don't think he's worth it, and I don't think she's worth it either. It's a pity, perhaps, that they don't know that they're making themselves ridiculous, but it can't be helped. Personally, I sha'n't give the thing another thought."
"That's the best thing to do," said Eliza.
"Of course it is. Why trouble one's head about people of that class? And, I say, Eliza, if you meet that Mopworth woman in the street, there's no occasion for you to recognize her."
"That would look as if we were terribly cut up because we hadn't been asked to their party."
"Possibly. Whereas, I don't even consider it worth talking about."
We discussed the Mopworths and their party for another hour and a half, and then went to bed.
"Lying awake last night," I said at breakfast next morning, "I couldn't help thinking over the different things we have done for those serpents."
"What serpents?"
"Those contemptible Mopworths. I wonder if they have any feelings of shame? If they have, they must blush when they think of the way they have treated us."
"I can't think why they've left us out. Perhaps it's a mistake."
"Not a bit of it. I've been expecting this for some time. Of course he has made money. I don't say—I would rathernotsay—how he has made it. But it seems to have turned his head. However, after this I shall probably never mention him again."
Eliza began to talk about the weather. I told her that Mopworth had done things which, personally, I should have been very sorry to do, and that I should be reluctant to adopt his loud style of dress.
"But, of course," I added, "no gentleman ever does dress like that."
Eliza said that if I intended to catch my train I had better start.
I started.
On my return I said to Eliza that, though the whole subject was distasteful to me, there was one point to which I had given a few moments' consideration. Reluctant though I was to sully my lips with the name of Mopworth, I felt it a duty to myself to say that even if the Mopworths had asked us to their annual party I should have refused point-blank.
"Really?" said Eliza. This annoyed me slightly. She ought to have seen, without being told, that it was impossible for people like us to continue to know people like them.
"I am accustomed," I replied, "to say just exactly what I mean. As far as I can remember, I have lately more than once asked you to drop the Mopworths. If I have not actually done it, it has been in my mind to do so. They are connected to us by marriage, and I am not unduly proud, but still I feel that we must draw the line somewhere. I do not care to have Mopworth bragging about the place that he is on intimate terms with us."
"Well," said Eliza, "there aren't such a lot of people who ever ask us to anything. Miss Sakers is friendly, of course, especially when there are subscriptions on for the bazaar or the new organ, but she doesn't carry it to that point."
"Quite so," I said, "and I'm by no means certain about Miss Sakers. She may be all right. I hope she is. But I candidly confess that I by no means like her manner."
At this moment the girl brought in a note, delivered by hand, from Mrs. Mopworth. It said that she had sent an invitation to Eliza but had had no reply. She felt so certain that the invitation must have been delayed in the post (which was not surprising, considering the season), that she had ventured to write again, though it might be against etiquette. She hoped that we should both be able to come, and said that on the previous occasion I had been the life and soul of the party.
"Well," I said, "Eliza, what would you like to do?"
"Oh, I'm going!" she replied.
"Then if you insist, I shall go with you. I've never had a word to say against Mrs. Mopworth. It is true thatheis not in every particular what—well, what I should care to be myself. Possibly he has not had my advantages. I do not want to judge him too harshly. My dress clothes are put away with my summer suit in the second drawer in the box-room. Just put them to the fire to get the creases out. And, Eliza, write a friendly note to Mrs. Mopworth, implying that we had never heard of the party. I saw from the first that the omission was a mistake."
Eliza went away smiling. Women are so variable.