Paul Somerton had improved that friendship started at the Ashford Club, and had latterly dropped the evening society of Thomas Dibble. He had made the discovery in search of which Mr. Dibble had been useful to him, and since then he had preferred working at the mine alone.
Somehow or other the lad had acquired a relish for the work in which he was engaged. A desire to please his sister, whom he loved, had been strengthened by the dislike he had conceived for Mr. Gibbs. Had he known half as much of strange mysteries as the author of “Zanoni,” he might have fancied that he was impelled by some secret sympathy or antipathy over which he had no control. But Paul knew very little even about the great novelist’s romantic books, much less of Victor Cousin, Condillac and materialism, Jamblichus and Polinus, Swedenborg and Behemen, the golden ass of Apuleius and Hamilton’s metaphysics; and all he had ever heard of Puysegur and Mesmer was at a provincial lecture on Mesmerism and Biology by a quack, who amused his audience immensely with a couple of confederates.
So Paul never attempted to investigate the fascination which an exposure of Mr. Gibbs had for him, coupled with a vague sort of desire to save Mr. Richard Tallant and Mr. Hammerton from the machinations of so consummate a scoundrel. The sequel, however, may appear as if some secret power were at work to bring those two opposing forces, Paul Somerton and Shuffleton Gibbs, in contact.
He had watched at the club-door for some nights before Mr. Hammerton appeared again. He came at last, however, and Paul at once accosted him.
It had occurred to Paul previously that he would endeavour to watch the players until he openly detected Shuffleton’s double cards, and then rush into the room and denounce him.
But this he thought would compromise the poor club-keeper’s position, and was a little more showy and romantic than necessary. So Paul accosted the Hon. Mr. Hammerton, and as he did so Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs passed into the club, and noticed the incident.
Mr. Hammerton was impatient at first, but when Paul told him whom he was, his curiosity was aroused, and Paul’s earnestness soon rivetted his attention.
“Not a very creditable part to play, my young friend, that of spy upon the conduct of your master and his friends, by-and-by,” said Mr. Hammerton.
“If I do good thereby to my master?” said Paul, a little timidly, as the nature of his employment struck him in the new light suggested by Mr. Hammerton.
“I think you have overstepped the bounds of both duty and prudence,” said Mr. Hammerton.
“You may change your opinion,” said Paul, more courageously. “I entered upon the business in your interest as well as Mr. Tallant’s.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Mr. Hammerton; “that was very kind of you, certainly. From whom did you receive your instructions?”
Paul did not reply; his pride was hurt, he had not expected such a reception as this.
“Suppose I inform Mr. Tallant how you have occupied yourself during these last few weeks?” said Mr. Hammerton; for his pride and dignity were hurt also, and he was offended at this interference with his liberty, in doubt for the moment whether Paul was a tool in more skilled hands.
“I shall watch no more, sir,” said Paul. “You may take your own course; I have done my duty. You know how to test the truth of what I have told you. Good-night, sir.”
Paul disappeared without another word, although Mr. Hammerton called after him. He felt miserably disappointed as he went home, and could not help feeling that there was something of the sneak in his composition, after all.
Why had he persevered so in this wretched business? Why had he done so much more than his sister had asked him to do? He would move no further in it now.
After all his trouble, to be snubbed, and by the gentleman most to be benefited! “Well, people should mind their own business,” he said to himself. “I’ll mind mine in future.”
It would have been better for Paul Somerton had he resolved upon this when first he arrived in London. It was hardly wise for his sister to excite his curiosity to so high a pitch about the conduct of other people. Both of them suffered for their indiscretion—suffered in more ways than one. Amy’s object was, however, served in a measure; for the dangerous career of young Hammerton was cut short on this eventful night of Paul’s resolve to mind his own business in future, though it would have been better for the honourable gentleman had the conclusion of his gaming experiences been less demonstrative than it was.
When Paul left him, he joined the little party at the Ashford Club, determined not to entertain suspicions which for the moment had been strongly aroused.
This was the night when the pigeon was to be completely plucked. Clever manipulators in this art do not seize upon their prey at a first, or a second, or a third interview. They lure Signor Pigeon on by degrees. They let him win in the first encounter, and in the second or third vary the luck, exciting him at last, perchance, by a rather heavy loss, which he is anxious to retrieve. Shuffleton Gibbs had worked Mr. Hammerton to this point, and had been assisted to some extent by Mr. Richard Tallant; but the latter gentleman had been the tool rather than the confederate of his University companion.
University companion! It was this educational position which made Gibbs tolerated in the society which he affected. He was a University man, if he had not taken a degree. Something happened to disgrace him a little at Christ Church, it is true; but there!—“it was only a bit of wickedness.” He made love to a pastrycook’s daughter, and ran away with her, or something of the sort, and had a row with a fellow-student over cards. What was all this? Youthful indiscretion, an exuberance of animal spirits. He was a gentleman by education, at all events; he had worn a gown.
That would have been enough to have made him a man of consideration in any provincial city in the empire, and it was a great passport even in cosmopolitan London; but in the dear old cathedral city where Arthur Phillips lived, what weight it would have given to Mr. Gibbs! “Of what college?” says a simpering inquirer. “Christ Church,” is the reply, and the man’s position is made. You had better be hanged than not have worn a gown in some English cities.
And so the gown assisted to cover the cloven hoofs of Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, even in London; the gown had been sufficient for Richard Tallant, though it had not been enough for his father, and it had not shielded all the owner’s villanies; it had nevertheless worked favourably with Mr. Hammerton, who had put down Shuffleton’s wild college career to his dashing character, his natural wilfulness, and his animal spirits.
But during that last evening when Signor Pigeon was being plucked, the gown somehow fell aside, and Mr. Hammerton, made hot and suspicious by the loss of more than his present fortune, and something on account of his money in perspective, suddenly bounced out of his seat, picked up a duplicate card, seized Gibbs by the collar, and called him “cheat” and “black-leg.”
There was a terrible row, you may be sure. Gibbs, in the strong grip of Mr. Hammerton, shrunk like a coward, as he was, despite his college reputation as a “fast” man.
Clubmen and waiters thronged round the pair, and Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs’ conviction was complete; for, besides another duplicate turning up, the cards were found to be “doctored” substitutes for those used at the club. Fortunately for Richard Tallant, he had “cut out” of the four who were playing an hour before this contretemps occurred. His conduct was not without some suspicion in the club; but his father’s reputation, his own presumed wealth, and his generally open and apparently honest outspoken sentiments, protected him from anything beyond mere suspicion.
He neither attacked nor defended his friend Gibbs, but looked on whilst several members of the Ashford conducted Mr. Gibbs to the door and thrust him into the street. A confederate assisted in the expulsion, and was loudest, after his colleague’s disappearance, in his condemnation of all such scoundrels.
“A plague on all cowards, I say, and a vengeance, too.... A bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still.” Falstaff was not more demonstrative in praise of virtue, and against cowardice, than this wretched colleague of Gibbs’ in expressions of utter disgust for cheats and black-legs. Mr. Richard Tallant was even bold enough to sneer at the ranter, and advise him to communicate his sentiments to Shuffleton personally.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gibbs, shaking himself for a moment like a dog after a swim, quietly readjusted his crumpled collar, and deliberately pulled on his unimpeachable lavender gloves.
If you could have seen his face, you would have noticed the thin lips closely compressed, and the little eyes fixed and glaring. There were no great signs of rage there; but an expression of disappointment—not of despair by any means. He had been in difficulties before, and was not wont to lose his coolness; but he had never had “cheat” and “black-leg” thrown in his teeth until now, nor ever before trembled in the grip of an adversary. He wondered now at his own cowardice, and clenched his little gloved hand as he walked through St. James’s Park, and nursed his wicked thoughts.
By-and-by he lit a cigar, and walked musingly along, looking up at the moon. A reader for the daily press going homewards after his day’s work, looked at him, and put him down for a sentimental swell, planning a plot for a poem, or rehearsing some great scene for a new novel.
How clever we all are in reading character! Let us hope the poor newspaper fag read his proofs better than he read Shuffleton Gibbs.