The success of Christabel, “the mysterious lady,” in some new business at the Severntown races, together with the high appreciation which the working classes exhibited of the tricks of “Momus” and his master, induced the showman to make a considerable stay at Severntown.
Mr. Henry Bilks, “the only living skeleton extant,” had also made overtures to Mr. Martin to join him in a permanent winter exhibition, and, so strangely does one thing influence another, that the advertisement of Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs played its part in the scheme.
The Temple of Magic had already been removed to the Blue Post’s Yard, where “the riders” and other companies of public entertainers usually took their stand; the public had already been addressed in grandiloquent terms, in very grey ink, on very thin paper; and Mr. Dibble had solemnly done duty “on the outside” for many nights, when Mr. Bilks drove to the side-door, (“private entrance, ladies and gentlemen, at the side, price three pence!”), and without further ado went behind the magic curtain, and offered to join the wizard for the winter season, if the wizard would take a shop in some public street, advertise the exhibition, and conduct it upon something like high-class principles.
The “living skeleton” had left with the showman copies of various testimonials, and a copy of the Slumkey Guardian. It was in this latter journal that Martin had spelled out the Loan Office advertisement, whereupon he dictated to Dibble the terms of a letter which should be sent to James Marfleeting, Esq.
It was a strangely quaint and ungrammatical letter this, penned by Thomas Dibble. It set forth, in big straggling letters, that the writer was the proprietor of an exhibition of considerable fame in the provinces; that he was anxious to add thereto additional attractions, and make it a permanent thing for the winter at the important city of Severntown, where it had recently attained to a pitch of great celebrity.
The writer required a loan of one hundred pounds for six months, re-payable by instalments, and he was prepared to give his bond for the amount, together with security upon his properties.
“Indeed,” said Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, who was just preparing to remove his quarters from the street off the Strand. “Indeed! Thomas Dibble, by all that is wonderful! I never forget handwriting, and I shall never forget Master Dibble’s above everybody else’s. Surely he has not turned showman? No; he is the exhibitor’s fag, his man-of-all-work, and he has written this letter from dictation. I will reply by-and-by. Meanwhile, I must see what there is to be made out of this with Mrs. Dibble. I fancy the old girl would give something to know where her faithless Tommy is.”
Thus soliloquised Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, whilst he packed up sundry letters and papers, and prepared to change his residence.
Some of his correspondents were beginning to be tiresome; they had commenced to require explanations of the continued delay; and the women who had written to the Coffee House in the City, were appealing in heart-breaking terms for the promised materials, or the return of their money.
“It is getting hot,” the ex-swell went on. “I can’t stand these pathetic epistles; they hurt my feelings. Poor creatures! They would surely be satisfied if they knew that they were contributing to maintain the faded splendours—ah! of a buck out of luck. That’s rhyme—’gad, bless my soul! who would have thought that I should burst out into rhyme? I am very sorry, ladies, that I cannot afford to forward the materials in question, nor the trifling sums which you have—haw—entrusted to my care. And, messieurs, les pauvres gentilhommes, and you, ye wretched traders, who get into debt beyond your means of payment, I will make further inquiries into your cases. Meanwhile I am much obliged to you for the fees which you have forwarded so promptly.”
The next day a detective officer inquired at No. 3, Great Charlton Street, Strand, for James Marfleeting, Esq.; but that gentleman had left the house without giving the landlady warning, or paying for the last week’s rent.
Shortly afterwards, in the garb of a “Mossoo” of the Leech cut, and with a heavy black moustache, Mr. Gibbs called at Mrs. Dibble’s. He found that lady in a very melancholy state of mind, and considerably thinner than when we last saw her.
With a strong French accent he asked Mrs. Dibble if her husband had run away, and if his name was Thomas.
“Yeth, thir,” was Mrs. Dibble’s reply. “It ith with feelings of thorrow and shame—though why I should have such feelings, ith not my fault or deserth—it ith, however, with these feelings that I thay yeth to you, and having had a boarding-school education ath a girl, and been brought up in the highest spear of society, it ith a degradation which I feel to the core.”
“Ah, madame, dat is bad, dat is very bad; for it is goot to have education,—and why shall your husband leave you?”
Mr. Gibbs shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands as he spoke, and Mrs. Dibble sighed and shook her little stumpy curls sympathetically.
“It ith a long story, which I am not inclined to go into unnecessarily,” said Mrs. Dibble, “and there are griefs which are not improved by being talked about. Ath a busineth woman, and one who wath the daughter of a builder that erected hundreds of houses and public inthitutions, the specifications of which I have written out many a time,—ath a busineth woman, I would athk what your busineth ith with me? and then we can go on.”
Mrs. Dibble sat down, smoothed her apron, and looked Monsieur full in the face.
“If I shall pring you to vere your husband shall be, is he of—ah! vat sall I say?—is he of dat value to you for vich you sall pay mine fees, vich is out of mine pocket?”
Mrs. Dibble did not reply, but proceeded to fasten her dress behind, which required a considerable effort.
“You vill be surprised at vat I ask, but dat vill disappear ven I tell you I am attached to a Private Inquiry Office, vich is on de French plan, and dat I am in de detective line à la Française, and I can restore to your arm de husband of your heart.”
“You can?” exclaimed Mrs. Dibble. “Prove that to me, and I will pay your fees.”
“Is dat his writing?” he asked, showing her part of the showman’s letter.
“It ith!” Mrs. Dibble exclaimed. “I should know it in ten thousand.”
“Vell—fifteen pounds is my fees for his direction, vere you sall find him,” said Gibbs.
Mrs. Dibble demurred to this for some time, and argued the point in a dozen ways; but Mr. Gibbs was not to be moved. Finally Mrs. Dibble gave him three five-pound notes, and in return received his address at “The Temple of Magic, Blue Posts Inn yard, Severntown.”
It was rather a courageous thing on the part of Mr. Gibbs to visit Mrs. Dibble; but he no doubt felt perfectly secure in his disguise.
He visited her at a time when he calculated that her lodgers would be away at their several places of business; for Paul Somerton might have been more penetrating than Mrs. Dibble.
Paul still lodged with Mrs. Dibble, and was rapidly making his way to a respectable position through the kind introductions of his patron, Mr. Williamson.
His unsophisticated manners, his honesty, his thoroughly English characteristics, his manliness, and his intelligent face had quite won Mr. Williamson’s heart, and he frequently invited Paul to sup with him at his chambers in the Temple.
A quiet cozy little room, up several narrow flights of stairs—a snug little room, though slightly fusty—with two sides occupied by law books bound in calf. There were sundry maps and old engravings hung here and there; a bust of a Chancery judge, a ditto of Shakspeare; a coal-box, a couple of easy chairs, a table littered with papers, and a mantel-piece covered with visiting and invitation cards.
When the sombre curtains were drawn, and that mysterious old woman, who turned up from some dark corner outside the door, was permitted to retire for the night, and Mr. Williamson produced the sugar and lemons and whisky—when the kettle was singing on the fire—then indeed was that little room snug, and cosy, and everything else that is comfortable.
“It is pleasant to talk to a simple-hearted young fellow like you,” said Mr. Williamson upon one of those evenings prior to the sudden death of Mr. Tallant.
Paul smiled and sipped the whisky.
“And so you think, notwithstanding all your troubles, that it is a good thing to have been born?”
“I do,” said Paul, modestly.
“You think an all-wise Providence conferred a great boon upon you when He called you into existence, and all that sort of thing?”
“Of course,” said Paul.
“You would not, could you now select, be blotted out for ever, and have all your chances or hopes of a future annihilated?”
“Oh, no!” said Paul.
“Happy youth,” said Mr. Williamson, smoking and blowing the smoke up amongst his books bound in calf.
“Well, not particularly happy that I know of,” said Paul; “but still, with all respect to you, I thank God I am happier than some people.”
“And you don’t think the Bible is Hebrew mythology? In fact, you are a virtuous, good boy. You think it’s a good thing, too, to have been born an Englishman, and that we are better and braver than other people, and all that stuff?”
“All this I steadfastly believe,” said Paul, remembering a passage in the Prayer-book.
“Very well; I shall not try to influence your orthodox views, and I will endeavour to promote your temporal prosperity. You like the Pyrotechnic office, and you think you will get on?”
“Yes, thank you, I do,” said Paul.
“I suppose, like most fellows connected with newspapers in any way, you would rather be on the literary staff? You would like to be giving forth your own opinions, and see them printed in long columns of leaded type?” said the barrister, who was evidently highly amused with Paul, whom he seemed to regard as an agreeable study.
“I sometimes think I should be glad if I could write,” said Paul.
“There’s nothing in it, my boy—nothing at all. At first there is a kind of satisfaction about the thing; but it all arises from conceit: it is all vanity and vexation of spirit, as the Preacher says. It is all very well if you can obtain one or two comfortable engagements, with permission to write pretty well what you please; and when you can combine literature, as I do, with another distinguished profession.”
Mr. Williamson smiled at this bit of quiet waggery of his own, seeing that he had never yet had more than a single client.
“If one has not many clients, however,” he went on, as if answering his own protest against that small boast about combining two professions, “the law is a distinguished profession after all: makes one a gentleman by Act of Parliament, you know, Paul.”
And then the barrister smiled again; he was evidently entertaining himself as well as Paul.
“There is an offshoot of the legal profession, a sort of Jackall-byeway, along which a large quantity of grist comes to the legal mill—I mean the police. The higher branches of that craft present many features of interest—the detective feature in particular,” the barrister went on. “I have been studying it a little lately, in the interest of your friend Gibbs; the police seem to have given the fellow up altogether.”
As they were talking, two literary friends dropped in, and the conversation was changed to a gossip about books, and plays, and pictures—“Seeking New Homes” was a leading topic. One of the strangers said the town was mad about it, and after all it was just simply a sensational thing—a dramatic bit that would engrave well and be popular in country districts. His companion did not agree with this criticism, but spoke of the picture as a work of really high art—a poem on canvas, wonderfully well painted.
And so the time wore on, and by degrees the barrister’s room was filled with smoke, and Paul at length bade his friend and patron good-night, shook hands with the visitors, and departed.
“You are a queer fellow, Williamson,” said one of the new comers as Paul left the room and commenced blundering his way down-stairs.
“Oh, this is Williamson’s protégé, is it?” said the other.
“Yes, that is the young fellow,” said the barrister; “he is quite a study of English innocence and honesty, and I am going to be useful to him. His sister is a splendid creature; but, somehow or other, he tells me now that it is discovered she is not his sister, but the daughter of a very wealthy gentleman. There is something exceedingly interesting in the whole family: his only brother went to sea at fifteen, and has never since been heard of.”
“Williamson’s going to write a sensation romance,” said one friend to the other, in a loud ironical aside; “and here are his materials.”
“I am certainly studying the young fellow,” said Williamson, quietly. “A bit of genuine honesty of thought and feeling and expression, though it be not coupled with the highest order of education, is very refreshing to contemplate in these times, and especially when one is connected with professional critics.”
Williamson smiled quietly at the gentleman who had spoken adversely of “Seeking New Homes,” and the critic laughed good-humouredly in return, tapped his hand upon the table, and said:—
“Ah, well! wait until your sensation novel appears, Williamson, and I’ll take it out of you, my friend.”
And then they all laughed; for who that knew Williamson’s lazy habit would ever expect him to write a story of eight or nine hundred pages? And if he did, who amongst his personal friends, that were critics, would have said an unkind word of him or his work?
He was a big-hearted, generous pet amongst all the men, this same journalistic barrister, and known amongst them all as “The Philanthropist.” It was a happy thing for Paul that the barrister was on a mission of benevolence at the Police Court on that memorable morning when he stood at the dock, and equally unlucky for Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs.