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LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
NEW SIX-SHILLING NOVELS
THE MAGIC OF MAY
By "Iota," Author of "The Yellow Aster," etc. " A document of the hour." — Times.
THE THIEF ON THE CROSS
By Mrs. Harold Gorst, Author of " This Our Sister," etc.
" ' The Jungle ' of L,ondon"— Daily Graphic.
THE KISS OF HELEN
By Charles Marriott, Author of " The
Wondrous Wife."
"A book to read slowly and remember long."
Evening Standard.
THE FIFTH QUEEN CROWNED By Ford Madox Hueffer, Author of " The Fifth Queen," etc. "A wonderful picture of the \\vae."— Daily Mail.
A GENTLEMAN OF LONDON By Morice Gerard, Author of " Rose of Blenheim," etc. ' ' A pleasure to ic3.d.."— Globe.
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
BY
h: BELLOC
AUTHOR OF "EMANUEL BURDEN'
LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
FAWSIDE HOUSE
1908
rR.Goo3
To
GILBERT CHESTERTON
Ic^em Sentire de Republic a . . .
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
CHAPTER I
Towards the end of the late Queen Victoria's reign there resided in the suburban town of Croydon a gentleman of the name of Clutterbuck, who, upon a modest capital inherited from his father, contrived by various negotiations at his office in the City of London to gain an income of now some seven hundred, now more nearly a thousand, pounds in the year.
It will be remembered that a war of unpre- cedented dimensions was raging, at the time of which I speak, in the sub-continent of South Africa.
The President of the South African Republic, thinking the moment propitious for a conquest of our dominions, had invaded our territory after an ultimatum of incredible insolence, and, as though it were not sufficient that we should grapple foe to foe upon equal terms, the whole weight of the
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Orange Free State was thrown into the scale against us.
The struggle against the combined armies which had united to destroy this country was long and arduous, and had we been compelled to rely upon our regular forces alone things might have gone ill. As it was, the enthusiasm of Colonial manhood and the genius of the generals prevailed. The names qi Kitchener, Methuen, Baden-Powell, and Rhodes will ever remain associated with that of the Commander-in-Chief himself. Lord Roberts, who in less than three years from the decisive victory of Paardeburg imposed peace upon the enemy. Their territories were annexed in a series of thirty-seven proclamations, and form to-day the brightest jewel in the Imperial crown.
These facts — which must be familiar to many of my readers — I only recall in order to show what influence they had in the surprising revolutions of fortune which enabled Mr. Clutterbuck to pass from ease to affluence, and launched him upon public life.
The business which Mr. Clutterbuck had inherited from his father was a small agency chiefly con- cerned with the Baltic trade. This business had declined ; for Mr. Clutterbuck's father had failed to follow the rapid concentration of commercial effort which is the mark of our time. But Mr. Clutterbuck
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had inherited, besides the business, a sum of close upon ten thousand pounds in various securities : it was upon the manipulation of this that he princi- pally depended, and though he maintained the sign of the old agency at the office, it was the cautious buying and selling of stocks which he carefully watched, various opportunities of promotion in a small way, commissions, and occasional speculations in kind, that procured his constant though some- what irregular income. To these sources he would sometimes add private advances or covering mort- gages upon the stock of personal friends.
It was a venture of the latter sort which began the transformation of his life.
The last negotiations of the war were not yet wholly completed, nor had the coronation of his present Majesty taken place when, in the early summer of 1902, a neighbour of the name of Boyle called one evening at Mr. Clutterbuck's house.
Mr. Boyle, a man of Mr. Clutterbuck's own age, close upon fifty, and himself a bachelor, had long enjoyed the acquaintance both of Mr. Clutter- buck and of his wife. Some years ago, indeed, when Mr. Boyle resided at the Elms, the acquaint- ance had almost ripened into friendship, but Mr. Boyle's ill-health, not unconnected with financial worries, and later his change of residence to
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15 John Bright Gardens had somewhat estranged the two households. It was therefore with a certain solemnity that Mr. Boyle was received into the neat sitting-room where the Clutterbucks were accus- tomed to pass the time between tea and the hour of their retirement.
They were shocked to see how aged Mr. Boyle appeared : he formed, as he sat there opposite them, the most complete contrast with the man whose counsel and support he had come to seek. For Mr. Clutterbuck was somewhat stout in figure, of a roundish face with a thick and short moustache making a crescent upon it. He was bald as to the top of his head, and brushed across it a large thin fan of his still dark hair. His forehead was high, since he was bald ; his complexion healthy. But Mr. Boyle, clean-shaven, with deep-set, restless grey eyes, and a forehead ornamented with corners, seemed almost foreign ; so hard were the lines of his face and so abundant his curly and crisp grey hair. His gestures also were nervous. He clasped and unclasped his hands, and as he delivered — at long intervals — his first commonplace remarks, his eyes darted from one object to another, but never met his host's : he was very ill.
His evident hesitation instructed Mrs. Clutterbuck that he had come upon some important matter ; she therefore gathered up the yellow satin centre,
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upon the embroidery of which she had been en- gaged, and dehcately left the room.
When she had noiselessly shut the door behind her, Mr. Boyle, looking earnestly at the fire, said abruptly :
"What I have come about to-night, Mr. Clutter- buck, is a business proposition." Having said this, he extended the fore and middle fingers of his right hand in the gesture of an episcopal benediction, and tapped them twice upon the palm of his left ; which done, he repeated his phrase : " A business proposition " ; cleared his throat and said no more.
Mr. Clutterbuck's reply to this was to approach a chiffonier, to squat down suddenly before it in the attitude of a frog, to unlock it, and to bring out a cut glass decanter containing whiskey. The whiskey was Scotch ; and as Mr. Clutterbuck straightened himself and set it upon the table, he looked down upon Mr. Boyle with a look of pro- perty and knowledge, winked solemnly and said :
" Now, Mr. Boyle ! This is something you won't get everywhere. Pitt put me up to it." He made a slight gesture with his left hand. " Simply couldn't be bought ; that's what Pitt said. Not in the market ! Say when " — and with a firm smile he poured the whiskey into a glass which he set by Mr. Boyle's side, and next poured a far smaller
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amount into his own. Indeed it was a feature of this epoch-making interview that the sound business instinct of Mr. Clutterbuck restrained him to a great moderation as he listened to his guest's advances.
When Mr. Boyle had drunk the first glass of that whiskey which Mr. Pitt had so kindly recommended to Mr. Clutterbuck, he was moved to continue :
" It's like this : if you'll meet me man to man, we can do business." He then murmured : " I've thought a good deal about this " — and while Mr. Boyle w^as indulging in these lucid preliminaries, Mr. Clutterbuck, who thoroughly approved of them, nodded solemnly several times.
" What I've got to put before you," said Mr. Boyle, shifting in his seat, gazing earnestly at Mr. Clutterbuck and speaking with concentrated emphasis, " is eggs ! "
" Eggs ? " said Mr. Clutterbuck with just that tone of contempt which the other party to a bargain should assume, and with just as much curiosity as w^ould permit the conversation to continue.
" Yes, eggs," said Mr. Boyle firmly ; then in a grand tone he added, " a million of 'em. . . . There ! " And Mr. Boyle turned his head round as triumphantly as a sick man can, and filled up his glass again with whiskey and water.
" Well/' said Mr. Clutterbuck, " what about your 6
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
million eggs ? What you want ? Are you buying 'em or selling 'em, or what ? "
The somewhat unconventional rapidity of Mr. Clutterbuck did not disturb Mr. Boyle. He leaned forward again and said : " I've only come to you because it's you. I knew you'd see it if any man would, and I thought I'd give you the first chance."
" Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck slowly, " but how do you mean ? Is it buying or selling, or what ? "
" Neither," said Mr. Boyle, and then like a horse taking a hedge, he out with the whole business and said :
" It's cover. I want to carry on."
" Oh ! " said Mr. Clutterbuck deliberately cold, "that's a question of how much and on what terms. Though for the matter of business from one gentle- man to another, I don't see what a million eggs anyhow, if you understand me . . ."
Here he began to think, and Mr. Boyle nodded intelligently to show that he completely followed the train of Mr. Clutterbuck's thought.
Mr. Boyle filled his glass again with whiskey and waited, but Mr. Clutterbuck, who had ever appre- ciated the importance of sobriety in the relations of commerce, confined himself to occasional sips at his original allowance. When some intervals of silence had passed between them in this manner,
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and when Mr. Boyle had, now for the fourth time, replenished his glass, Mr. Clutterbuck, who could by this time survey the whole scheme in a lucid and organised fashion, repeated the number of eggs, to wit, one million, and after a considerable pause repeated also the fundamental proposition that it was a question of how much and upon what terms.
Mr. Boyle, staring at the fire and apparently obtaining some help from it, made answer : " A thousand."
A lesser man than Mr. Clutterbuck would perhaps have professed astonishment at so large a sum ; he, however, like all men destined for commercial great- ness at any period, however tardy, in their lives, said quietly :
" More like five hundred."
Mr. Clutterbuck had not yet divided one million by a thousand or by five hundred ; still less had he estimated the probable selling value of an egg ; but he was a little astonished to hear Mr. Boyle say with lifted eyebrows and a haughty expression : " Done with you ! "
" It is not done with me at all," said Mr. Clutter- buck hotly, as Mr. Boyle poured out a fifth glass of whiskey and water. " It's not done with me at all ! Wait till you see my bit of paper ! "
Mr. Boyle assumed a look of weariness. " My 8
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
dear sir," he said, " I was only speaking as one gentleman would to another."
Mr. Clutterbuck nodded solemnly.
" It's not a matter of five hundred or a thousand between men like you and me."
Mr. Clutterbuck still nodded.
" I'm not here to see your name in ink. I'm here to make a business proposition."
Having said so much he rose to go. And Mr. Clutterbuck, appreciating that he had gained one of those commercial victories which are often the foundation of a great fortune, said : " I'll come and see 'em to-morrow. Current rate."
" One above the Bank," said Mr. Boyle, and they parted friends.
When Mr. Boyle was gone, Mr. Clutterbuck re- clined some little time in a complete blank : a form of repose in which men of high capacity in organisation often recuperate from moments of intense activity. In this posture he remained for perhaps half an hour, and then went in, not without hesitation, to see his wife.
Eighteen years of married life had rendered Mrs. Clutterbuck's features and manner familiar to her husband. It is well that the reader also should have some idea of her presence. She habitually dressed in black ; her hair, which had never been abundant, was of the same colour, and shone with extraordinary
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precision. She was accustomed to part it in the middle, and to bring it down upon either side of her forehead. It was further to be remarked that round her neck, which was long and slender, she wore a velvet band after a fashion which royalty itself had not disdained to inaugurate. At her throat was a locket of considerable size containing initials worked in human hair ; upon her wrists, according to the severity of the season, she w^ore or did not wear mittens as dark as the rest of her raiment. She spoke but little, save in the presence of her husband ; her gestures were restrained and purposeful, her walk somewhat rapid ; and her accent that of a cul- tivated gentlewoman of the middle sort ; her grammar perfect. Her idiom, however, when it was not a trifle selected, occasionally erred. Her hours and diet are little to my purpose, but it is perhaps worth while to note that she rose at seven, and was accus- tomed to eat breakfast an hour afterwards, while hot meat in the middle of the day and cold meat after her husband's office hours, formed her principal meals. Her recreations were few but decided, and she had the method to attack them at regular seasons. She left Croydon three times in the year, once to visit her family at Berkhampstead, to which rural village her father had retired after selling his medical practice ; once to the seaside, and once to spend a few days in the heart of London, during which
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holiday it was her custom to visit the principal theatres in the company of her husband.
She had no children, and was active upon those four societies which, at the time of which I speak, formed a greater power for social good than any others in Croydon — the Charity Organisation Society, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a similar society which guaranteed a similar immunity to the children of the poor, and the Association for the Reform of the Abuses prevalent in the Congo " Free " State.
Though often solicited to give her aid, experience and subscriptions to many another body intent upon the uplifting of the lower classes, she had ever strictly confined herself to these four alone, which, she felt, absorbed the whole of her available energy. She had, however, upon two occasions, consented to take a stall for our Dumb Friends' League, and had once been patroness of a local ball given in support of the Poor Brave Things. In religion she was, I need hardly add, of the Anglican persuasion, in which capacity she attended the church of the Rev. Isaac Fowle ; though she was not above worshipping with her fellow citizens of other denominations when social duty or the accident of hospitality demanded such a courtesy.
As Mr. Clutterbuck entered, Mrs. Clutterbuck continued her work of embroidery at the yellow
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centre, putting her needle through the fabric with a vigour and decision which spoke volumes for the restrained energy of her character ; nor was she the first to speak.
Mr. Clutterbuck, standing at the fire parting his coat tails and looking up toward that ornament in the ceiling whence depended the gas pipe, said boldly ; " Well, he got nothing out of me ! "
Mrs. Clutterbuck, without lifting her eyes , replied as rapidly as her needlework : " I don't want to hear about your business affairs, Mr. Clutterbuck. I leave gentlemen to what concerns gentlemen. I hope I know my work, and that I don't interfere where I might only make trouble." It is remarkable that after this preface she should have added : " Though why you let every beggar who darkens this door make a fool of you is more than I can understand."
Mr. Clutterbuck was at some pains and at great length to explain that the imaginary transaction which disturbed his wife's equanimity had not taken place, but his volubility had no other effect than to call from her, under a further misapprehension, a rebuke with regard to his excess in what she erroneously called " wine." Her sympathetic remarks upon Mr. Boyle's state of health and her trust that her husband had not too much taxed his failing energies, did little to calm that business man's
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now legitimate irritation, and it must be confessed that when his wife rose in a commanding manner and left the room to put all in order before retiring, a dark shadow of inner insecurity overcast the merchant's mind.
It was perhaps on this account that he left next day for the City by the 8.32 instead of taking, as was his custom, the 9.17 ; and that, still moody after dealing with his correspondence, he sought the office of Mr. Boyle in Mark Lane.
As he went through the cold and clear morning with the activity and hurry of the City about him, he could review the short episode of the night before in a clearer light and with more justice. His irrita- tion at his wife's remarks had largely disappeared ; he had recognised that such irritation is always the worst of counsellors in a business matter ; he re- membered Mr. Boyle's long career, and though that career had been checkered, and though of late they had seen less of each other, he could not but contrast the smallness of the favour demanded with the still substantial household and the public name of his friend. He further recollected, as he went rapidly eastward, more than one such little trans- action which had proved profitable to him in the past, not only in cash, but, what was more important to him, in business relations.
It was in such a mood that he reached. Mr. Boyle's
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office : his first emotion was one of surprise at the fineness of the place. He had not entered it for many years, but during those years he had hardly represented Mr. Boyle to himself as a man rising in the world. He was surprised, and agreeably surprised ; and when one of the many clerks in- formed him that Mr. Boyle was down at the docks seeing to the warehouse, he took accurate direc- tions of the place where he might find him, and went off in a better frame of mind ; nay, in some readiness to make an advance upon that original quotation of five hundred which, he was now free to admit, had been accepted by Mr. Boyle with more composure than he had expected.
He was further impressed as he left the office to see upon a brass plate the new name of Czernwitz added to Mr. Boyle's and to note the several lines of telephone which radiated from the central cabin that served the whole premises.
Commercial requirements are many, complicated, delicate and often secret ; nor was Mr. Clutterbuck so simple as to contrast the excellent appointments of the office and the air of prosperity which per- meated it, with the personal and private offer for an advance which Mr. Boyle had been good enough to make.
The partnership of which Mr. Boyle was a member was evidently sound — the name of Czern- 14
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
witz was enough to show that ; there could be little doubt of the banking support behind such an establishment ; but the relations between partners often involve special details of which the outside world is ignorant, the moment might be one in which it was inconvenient to approach the bank in the name of the firm ; a large concession might, for all he knew, have just been obtained for some common purpose ; Mr. Boyle himself might have in hand a personal venture bearing no relation to the transactions of the partnership ; he might even very probably be gathering, from more than one quarter, such small sums as he required for the moment. A man must have but little acquaintance with the City whose imagination could not suggest such contin- gencies, and upon an intimate acquaintance with the City and all its undercurrents Mr. Clutterbuck very properly prided himself. During that brief walk all these considerations were at work in Mr. Clutterbuck's mind, and severally leading him to an act of generosity which the future was amply to justify.
He went down to the docks ; he entered the warehouse, and was there astonished to observe so many cases, each so full of brine, and that brine so packed with such a vast assemblage of eggs held beneath the surface by wire lattices, that an impres- sion of incalculable wealth soon occupied the whole
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of his spirit ; for he perceived not only the paltry million in which Mr. Boyle had apparently em- barked some private moneys (the boxes were marked with his name), but the vast stores of perhaps twenty other merchants who had rallied round England in her hour of need and had pre- pared an inexhaustible supply of sterilised organic albumenoids for the gallant lads at the front.
He went up several stairs through what must have been three hundred yards of corridor with eggs and eggs and eggs on every side — it seemed to him a mile — he pushed through a dusty door and saw at last the goal of his journey : Mr. Boyle him- self. Mr. Boyle was wearing a dazzling top hat, he was dressed in a brilliant cashmere twill relieved by a large yellow flower in his buttonhole, and was seated before a little instrument wherein an electric lamp, piercing the translucency of a sample egg, determined whether it were or were not still suitable for human food.
Mr. Boyle recognised his visitor, nodded in a courteous but not effusive way, and continued his observations. He rose at last, and offered Mr. Clut- terbuck a squint (an offer which that gentleman was glad to accept), and explained to him the working of the test ; then he removed the egg from its position before the electric lamp, deposited it with care beneath the brine under that section of the lattice i6
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
to which it belonged, and said with a heartiness which his illness could not entirely destroy ; "What brings you here ? "
Mr. Clutterbuck in some astonishment referred to their conversation of the night before.
Mr. Boyle laughed as soundly as a sick man can, coughed rather violently after the laugh, and said : "Oh, I'd forgotten all about it — it doesn't matter. I've seen Benskin this morning, and there's no hurry."
" My dear Boyle," said Mr. Clutterbuck warmly.
Mr. Boyle waved him away with his hand. " My dear fellow," he said, " don't let's have any ex- planations. I saw you didn't like the look of it, and, after all, what does it matter ? If one has to carry on for a day or two one can always find what one wants. It was silly of me to have talked to you about it. But when a man's ill he sometimes does injudicious things."
Here Mr. Boyle was again overcome with a very sharp and hacking cough which was pitiful to hear.
" You don't understand me, Boyle," said Mr. Clutterbuck with dignity and yet with assurance. " If it was a matter of friendship I'd do it at once ; but I can see perfectly well it's a matter of business as well, and you ought to allow me to combine both : I've known you long enough ! "
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Mr. Boyle, after a further fit of coughing, caught his breath and said : " You mean I ought to go to Benskin and let you in for part of it ? "
" My dear Boyle," said Mr. Clutterbuck, now quite at his ease, "let me in for the whole of it, or what you like. After all, when you spoke about the matter last night it was sudden, and "
"Yes, I know, I know," said Mr. Boyle, im- patiently, " that's what I'm like. . . . You see I've twenty things to think of — these eggs are only part of it ; and if I were to realise, as I could . . ."
Mr. Clutterbuck cut him short : " Don't talk like that, Boyle," he said, " I'll sign it here and now ; and you shall send me the papers when you like."
" No, no," said Mr. Boyle, " that's not business. I'll introduce you to Benskin and you can talk it over."
With that he began to lead the way towards Mr. Benskin's office, when he suddenly thought better of it, and said : " Look here, Clutterbuck, this is the best way : I'll send you the papers. I'm in for a lot more than a million, but I'll earmark that million — eggs I mean. I won't bring Benskin into it, I'll send you the papers and when your six and eight-penny has passed 'em, you can hand over the i8
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risk if you like. I want it, I tell you frankly, I want several of 'em, and I'm getting 'em all round ; but there's no good letting everybody know. I won't touch your envelope or your pink slip till you've had the papers and got them passed. They're all made up, I'll send them round."
In vain did Mr. Clutterbuck protest that for so small a sum as ;^5oo it was ridiculous that there should be formalities between friends. Mr. Boyle, alternately coughing and wagging his head, was adamant upon the matter. He led Mr. Clutterbuck back through the acres of preserved eggs, choosing such avenues as afforded the best perspective of these innumerable supplies, crossed with him the space before the Minories, re-entered, still coughing, the narrowness of Mark Lane, and promising Mr. Clutterbuck the papers within a few hours, turned into his own great doors.
Long before those hours were expired Mr. Clutter- buck had made up his mind : he knew the value of informal promptitude in such cases. He had hardly reached his own offices in Leadenhall Street, he had barely had time to take off his overcoat, to hang his hat upon a peg, to cover his cuffs with paper, to change into his office coat, and to take his seat at his desk, when he dictated a note relative to an advance in Perus, signed his cheque for five hundred and sent it round by a private messenger
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with a few warm lines in his own handwriting such as should accompany a good deed wisely done.
He was contented with himself, he appreciated, not without justice, the rapidity and the sureness of his judgment ; he withdrew the paper from his cuffs, put on his City coat and his best City hat, and determined to afford himself a meal worthy of so excellent a transaction. But genius, however lucid and immediate, is fated to endure toil as much as it is to enjoy vision ; and this excellent speculation, greatly and deservedly as it was to enhance Mr. Clutterbuck's commercial reputation, was not yet safe in harbour.
He returned late from his lunch, which he had rounded up with coffee in the company of a few friends. It was nearly four. He asked carelessly if any papers had reached him from Mr. Boyle's office or elsewhere, and, finding they had been delayed, he went home without more ado, to return for them in the morning. He reached Croydon not a little ex- hilarated and pleased at the successes of the day — for he had had minor successes also ; he had sold Per- nambucos at i6| just before they fell. In such a mood he committed the imprudence of making Mrs. Clutterbuck aware, though in the vaguest terms, that her opinion of Mr. Boyle was harsh, and that his own judgment of the man had risen not a little
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from what he had seen that day. The lady's vir- tuous silence spurred him to further arguments, and though his confidences entered into no details and certainly betrayed nothing of the main business, yet the next morning as he reviewed the conversation in his mind, he regretted it.
He approached his office on that second day in a sober mood, prepared to scan the document which he awaited, and, if necessary, to visit his lawyer. No document was there ; but Mr. Clutterbuck had had experience of the leisure of a solicitor's office, and, in youth, too many reminders of the results of interference to hasten its operation. What did sur- prise him, however, and that most legitimately, was the absence of any word of acknowledgment from his friend, in spite of the fact that the cheque had been cashed, as he discovered, the day before at a few minutes past twelve. Of all courses precipita- tion is the worst. Mr. Clutterbuck occupied himself with other matters ; worked hard at the Warra- Mugga report, mastered it ; sold Perterssens for Warra-Muggas (a very wise transaction) ; and re- turned home in a thoughtful mood by a late train.
The first news with which Mrs. Clutterbuck greeted him was the sudden and serious illness of Mr. Boyle, who was lying between life and death at 15 John Bright Gardens. As she announced this
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fact to her husband, she looked at him in a manner suggestive neither of conciliation, nor of violence, nor of weakness, but, as it were, of calm control ; and Mr. Clutterbuck, acting upon mixed emotions, among which anxiety was not the least, went out at once to have news of his friend. All that he could hear from the servant at the door was that the doctor would admit no visitor ; that her master was extremely ill, but that he was expected to survive the night.
Mr. Clutterbuck hurried back home in a con- siderable confusion of mind, and was glad to find, as he approached his house, that everything was dark.
Next morning he postponed his journey to the City to call again as early as he decently could at 15 John Bright Gardens. Alas ! the blinds were drawn at every window. The Dread Reaper had passed.
The effect produced by this calamity upon Mr. Clutterbuck was such as would have thrown a more emotional man quite off his balance. The loss of so near a neighbour, the death of a man with whom but fifty hours ago he had been in intimate conversation, was in itself a shock of dangerous violence. When there was added to this shock his natural doubts upon the status of the Million Eggs, it is not to be wondered that a sort of distraction 22
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followed. He ran, quite forgetful of his dignity, to the nearest telephone cabin, rang up his office in the City, was given the wrong number, in his agony actually forgot to repeat the right number again, dashed out without paying, returned to fulfil this formality, pelted away toward the station, missed the 11.28, and, such was his bewildered mood, leapt upon a tram as though this were the quickest means of reaching information.
In a quarter of an hour a little calm was restored to him, though by this time the rapid electric service of the Electric Traction Syndicate had carried him far beyond the limits of Croydon. He got out at a roadside office, wrote out and tore up again half a dozen telegrams, seized a time-table, determined that after all the train was his best refuge, and catching the 12.17 ^^ Norwood Junction, found himself in the heart of the City before half-past one. A hansom took him to his office after several intolerable but unavoidable delays in the half-mile it had to traverse. His visible pertur- bation was a matter of comment to his subordi- nates, who were not slow to inform him before he opened his mouth that the documents had not yet arrived.
Exhaustion followed so much feverish activity, an anxiety, deeper if possible than any he had yet shown, settled upon Mr. Clutterbuck's features. He
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forgot to lunch, he walked deliberately to the ware- house, only to be asked what his business might be, and to be told that the particular section of eggs which he named were the property of Messrs. Czernwitz and Boyle, and could be visited by no one without their written order.
The tone in which this astonishing message was delivered would have stung a man of less sensitive- ness and breeding than Mr. Clutterbuck ; he turned upon his heel in a mood to which anger was now added, and immediately sought the office of that firm. But he was doomed to yet further delay. No one was in who could give him any useful information, nor even any one of so much responsibility as to be able to explain to him the extraordinary occurrences of the last few days.
He was at the point of a very grave decision — I mean of going on to his lawyers and perhaps dis- turbing to no sort of purpose the most delicate of commercial relations — when there moved past him into the office the ponderous and well-clad form of a gentleman past middle age, with such magnificent white whiskers as adorn the faces of too many Continental bankers, and wearing a simple bowler hat of exquisite shape and workmanship. He was smoking a cigar of considerable size and of delicious flavour, and by the deference immediately paid to
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him upon his entry, Mr. Clutterbiick, as he stood in nervous anxiety by the door, could distinguish the head of the firm.
It was characteristic of the Baron de Czern- witz, and in some sort an explanation of his future success in our business world, ever so suspicious of the foreigner, that the moment he had heard Mr. Clutterbuck's name and busi- ness, he turned to him, in spite of his many preoccupations, with the utmost courtesy and said :
" It iss myself you want ? You shall come hier."
With these words he put his arm in the most gentlemanly manner through that of his exhausted visitor, and led him into an inner room furnished with all the taste and luxury which the Baron had learnt in Naples, Wurtemburg, Dantzig, Paris, and New York.
" Mr. Clottorbug, Mr. Clottorbug," he said leaning backwards and surveying the English merchant with an almost paternal interest, " what iss it I can do for you ? "
Mr. Clutterbuck, quite won by such a manner, unfolded the whole business. As he did so the Baron's face became increasingly grave. At last he took a slip of paper and noted on it one or two points — the amount, the date, and time of the trans-
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action. This he gravely folded into four, and as gravely placed within a Russian leather pocket- book which contained, apart from certain masonic engagements, a considerable quantity of bank notes wrapped round an inner core of letter paper.
I cannot deny that Mr. Clutterbuck expected little from this just if good-natured man. The Baron, with whose name he was familiar, had no concern with, and no responsibility in, the most unfortunate accident which had befallen him. To make the interview (whose inevitable termination he thought he could foresee) the easier, Mr. Clutterbuck murmured that no doubt the firm of solicitors were preparing the papers, and that they would be in his hands within a brief delay. The Baron smiled largely and wagged his pon- derous head.
" Oh ! noh ! " he said, and then added, as though he were summing up the thoughts of many years, " He voss a bad egg ! "
Such an epithet applied to a friend but that moment dead might have shocked Mr. Clutter- buck under other circumstances ; as things were, he could not entirely disagree with the verdict ; and when he had informed the financier that Mr. Boyle's name had been placed separately from his partner's upon the boxes of the firm, even that expression 26
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seemed hardly strong enough to voice M. de Czern- witz's feelings.
He next learned from the Baron's own lips how from senior partner Mr. Boyle had sunk to a salaried position ; how even so he had but been retained through the kindness of the Baron ; how he had more than once involved himself in petty gambling, and how the Baron had more than once actually paid the debts resulting from that mania ; how his name had been kept upon the plate only after the most urgent entreaties and to save his pride ; and how the Baron now saw that this act of generosity had been not only unwise but perhaps unjust in its effect upon the outer world.
When he had concluded his statement the noble- man knocked the ash from his cigar in such a manner that part of it fell upon Mr. Clutterbuck's trousers, and surveyed that gentleman with a shade of sadness for some moments.
Mr. Clutterbuck rose as though to go, saying, as he did so, that he had no business to detain his host, that he must bear his own loss, and that there was no more to be done. But the Baron, half rising, placed upon his shoulder a hand of such weight as compelled him to be seated.
" You shall not soffer ! " he exclaimed to Mr. Clutterbuck's mingled amazement and delight. He spent the next few minutes in devising a plan, and
27
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at last suggested that Mr. Clutterbuck should be permitted to purchase at a nominal price, the unhappy Million Eggs which were at the root of all this tragedy. He rang the bell for certain quotations and letters recently despatched by his firm ; he satisfied the merchant of the prices to be obtained from Government under contracts which, he was careful to point out, ran '' until hostilities in South Africa should have ceased"; he pointed out the advantages which so distant and indeterminate a date offered to the seller ; and he concluded by putting the stock at Mr. Clutterbuck's disposal for
Mr. Clutterbuck's gratitude knew no bounds. He was accustomed to the hard, dry, unimaginative temper of our English houses, and there swam in his eyes that salt humour which survives, alas ! so rarely in the eyes of men over forty. He shook the Baron's left hand warmly — the right was occupied with the stump of the cigar — he reiterated his obliga- tion, and came back to his own ofBce with the gaiety of boyhood.
He found M. de Czernwitz a very different man of business from the unhappy fellow who had now gone to his account. Before five o'clock every- thing was in order, and he slept that night the possessor in law (and, as his solicitor was careful to advise him, in fact also) of One Million Eggs, supply 28
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
for the army in South Africa during the continuance of hostilities, and acquired by the substantial but moderate total investment of £']^o.
So true is it that probity and generosity go hand in hand with success in the world-wide commerce of our land.
29
CHAPTER II
There are accidents in business against which no good fortune nor even the largest generosity can protect us.
Mr. Clutterbuck woke the next morning, after a night of such repose as he had not lately enjoyed. The June morning in that delightful Surrey air awoke all the perfumes of his small but well- ordered garden, and he sauntered with a light step down its neat gravel paths, reflecting upon his new property, considering what advice he should take, whether to hold it for the necessities that might arise later in the year if the campaign should take a more difficult turn, or whether it would be found the experience of such of his friends as held Government contracts, that he had better offer at once in the expectation of an immediate demand.
To settle such questions needed some conversa- tion with men back from the front, a certain know- ledge of the conditions in South Africa (where, he was informed, the month of June was the depth of
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winter), and many another point upon which a sound decision should repose.
As he mapped out his consequent activity for the coming day, he heard the postman opening the gate in front of his villa, and went out to intercept the daily paper which he delivered.
Mr.Clutterbuck tore its cover thoughtlessly enough in the expectation of discovering some minor suc- cesses or perhaps an unfortunate but necessary surrender of men and guns, when a leaded para- graph in large type and at the very head of the first column, struck him almost as with a blow. With a dramatic suddenness that none save a very few in the highest financial world could have expected, negotiations for peace had opened and the enemy had laid down their arms.
Mr. Clutterbuck sat down upon the steps of his house, oblivious of the giggling maid who was wash- ing the stone behind him, and gazed blankly at the two Wellingtonias and the Japanese arbutus which dignified his patch of lawn. He left the paper lying where it was, and moved miserably into the house.
During the meal Mrs. Clutterbuck made no more allusion to his business than was her wont, and was especially careful to say nothing in regard to the deceased friend, whose relations with her husband she knew had latterly been more than those of an
31
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ordinary acquaintance. She did, however, permit herself to suggest that there must be something extraordinary in the fact that the blinds in Mr. Boyle's house were now lifted, that there had been no orders for a funeral, and that her own investigations among her neighbours made it more than probable that no such ceremony would be needed.
The candid character of her husband was slow to seize the significance of this last item, but when in the course of the forenoon a police inspector, accompanied by a less exalted member of the force, respectfully desired an interview with him, Mr. Clutterbuck could not but experience such emotions as men do who find themselves engulfed in dark- ness by a sudden flood.
He was happy to find, after the first few moments, that it was not with him these bulwarks of public order were concerned, but with that faithless man whose name he had determined never again to pro- nounce.
Did Mr. Clutterbuck know anything of Mr. Boyle's movements ? When had he last seen him ? Had Mr. Boyle, to his knowledge, taken the train for Croydon as usual on the day he cashed the cheque ? Had he any knowledge of Mr. Boyle's intentions ? Had Mr. Boyle shown him, by accident or by design, a ticket for any foreign port ? And if so (added the 32
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
official with the singular finesse of his profession) was that ticket made out for Buenos Ayres ?
To all of these questions Mr. Clutterbuck was happily able to give a frank, straightforward, English answer such as satisfied his visitors. Nor did he dismiss them without offering, in spite of the matutinal hour, to the more exalted one a glass of wine, to the lesser a tumbler of ale. To see them march in step out of his carriage gate was the first relief he had obtained that morning.
He comforted his sad heart by the very object of his sadness, as is our pathetic human way. He took a sort of mournful pride in handling the great key that gave him access to the warehouse, and a peculiar pleasure in snubbing the servant who had denied him when he had called before.
These eggs after all were a possession ; they were a tangible thing, a million was their number ; the very boxes in which they soaked were property ; and it cannot be denied that Mr. Clutterbuck, who had hitherto possessed no real thing nor extended his personality to any visible objects beyond his furniture, his clothes, his pipe, his bicycle, and his wife, could not but be influenced by the sense of ownership. Sometimes he would select an egg at random, and placing it in the machine which had been witness of his first decisive interview, he would examine whether or no it were still transparent ;
c 33
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but the occupation was but a pastime. Often he did not really note their condition, and when he did note it, whether that condition were satisfactory or no, he would replace the sample as solemnly as he had chosen it.
Day after day it was Mr. Clutterbuck's mournful occupation to regard them as they lay stilly in their brine, these eggs that had so long awaited the call to arms from South Africa; that call which never came. To complete his despair the rumours of a full treaty of peace, which had tortured him for a whole week, were finally confirmed. He seemed irrecoverably lost, and though a preserved egg will always fetch its price in this country, yet the distribution of so vast a number, the search for a market, and the presence of such considerable competitors on every side — the total length of the boxes in which the eggs were stored amounted to no less than six miles and one-third — made him despair of recovering even one-half of the original sum which he had risked.
Mr. Clutterbuck must not be blamed for an anxiety common to every man of affairs in specula- tions which have not yet matured : and those who, from a more exalted position in society, or from a more profound study of our institutions would have reposed confidence in the equity of the Government, must not blame the humble merchant of Croydon
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if in his bewilderment he misjudged for a moment the temper of a British Cabinet.
That temper did not betray him. The Govern- ment, at the close of the war were more than just — they were bountiful to those who, in the expectation of a prolonged conflict, had accumulated stores for the army.
No one recognised better than the Cabinet of the day under what an obligation they lay to the mer- cantile world which had seen them through the short but grave crisis in South Africa, nor did any men appreciate better than they the contract intd which they had virtually if not technically entered, to recoup those whom their abrupt negotiations for peace had left in the lurch. It could not be denied that the published despatches of Lord Milner and the frequently expressed determination of the Government never to treat with the Dutch rebels in the Transvaal, had led the community in general to imagine a conflict of indefinite duration. And if, for reasons which it is not my duty to criticise here, they saw fit to reverse this policy and to put their names to a regular treaty, the least they could do for those whose patriotism had accumulated provisions to continue the struggle, was to recompense them not only equitably but largely for their sacrifice.
The decision so to act and to repurchase, with a special generosity, the eggs accumulated for our
35
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forces, was reinforced by many other considerations besides those of political equity. It was recognised that for some time to come a considerable garrison would be necessary to constrain the terrible foe whom we had so recently vanquished ; it was recognised that of all articles of diet the egg has recently been proved the most sustaining for its weight and price ; the perishable nature of the commodity, though it had been counteracted by the scientific methods of the packers, was another con- sideration of great weight, certain as it was that the preservation of these supplies could not be indefinitely continued, and that the moment they were moved dissolution would be at hand ; finally, the Government could not forget that these eggs, worth but a paltry farthing apiece upon the shores of the Baltic or in the frozen deserts of Siberia, would exchange in the arid waste of the veldt for fifty times that sum.
My readers will have guessed the conclusion : in spite of the fact that the chief packer was no less than Sir Henry Nathan, a man willing to wait, well able to do so, a continual and generous subscriber to the Relief Funds ; in spite of a letter to the Times signed by Baron de Czernwitz himself in the name of the larger holders, and professing every willing- ness to accept bonds at 3^ per cent., the condition of the smaller men was enough to decide the Govern- 36
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ment. Within a week of the cessation of hostilities, ofifers had been issued to all the owners at the rate less carriage, of one shilling for each egg which should be found actually present beneath the surface of the brine ; for here, as in every other matter, our Government regulations are strict and minute ; there was no intention of paying in the rough for a vague or computed number : it was necessary that every egg should be counted, and its preservation determined, before a shilling of public money should be exchanged for it. The inspection, the cost of which fell, as was only just, upon the public purse, was rapidly and efficiently accomplished by a large body of experts chosen for the purpose, and organised under the direction of Lord Henry Townley, whose name and salary alone are a guarantee of scientific excellence and accuracy. Thus it was that a group of mer- chants who had in no way pressed the authorities, who had stood the stress and strain of waiting during those last critical days before the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed, obtained, as such men always will from our Commonwealth, the just reward of their public spirit and endurance.
Mr. Clutterbuck was perhaps not so fortunate as some others. Of the million eggs which he nominally controlled, no less than 8306 were rejected upon ex- amination, and the bonds he received, so far from
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amounting to a full ;^5ooo, fell short of that sum by over -^415. Certain expenses incidental to the trans- action further lowered the net amount paid over, but even under these circumstances Mr. Clutterbuck was not disappointed to receive over ;^45oo as his share of compensation for loss and delay.
Those who are willing to see in human affairs the guiding hand of Providence and who cannot admit into their vocabulary the meaningless expression "coincidence," will reverently note the part which an English Government played in the foundation of a private fortune.
Elated, and (it must be admitted) rendered a little wayward in judgment by this accession of wealth, Mr. Clutterbuck was more deeply convinced of advancing prosperity when the rise of Government credit during the next weeks still further increased the value of the bonds which his bank held for him. He sold in July, and with the sum he realised entered upon yet another venture, which must be briefly reviewed. Upon the advice of an old and dear friend he purchased no less than 72,000 shares in the discredited property of the Curicanti Docks. The one pound shares of that unhappy concern had fallen steadily since 1897, when the whaling station had been removed to Dolores ; but even here, imprudent as the speculation may appear, his good fortune followed him, 38
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
The friend whose advice Mr. Clutterbuck had followed — a private gentleman — had himself long held shares in the property of that distant port ; its continued misfortune had raised in him such doubts as to its future that he thought it better a solid brain such as Mr. Clutterbuck's should help to direct its fortunes, than that he and others like him should be at the loss of their small capital. He arranged with an intermediary for the sale of the shares should Mr. Clutterbuck desire to purchase in the open market, and was relieved beyond measure to find his advice followed and Mr. Clutterbuck in possession of the whole parcel at one and a penny each. To the astonishment, however, of the friend, and still more of the intermediary whom that friend had employed, the difficulties of the Curicanti Docks were in the very next month submitted to arbitration ; a man of Cabinet rank, whose name I honour too much to mention here, was appointed arbitrator. The help of the Imperial Government was afforded to re-establish a concern whose failings were purely commercial, but whose strategic im- portance to the Empire it needs but a glance at the map to perceive. The shares which had dropped some days after Mr. Clutterbuck's purchase to be- tween ninepence ha'pennny and ninepence three farthings, rose at once upon the news of this Imperial Decision to half a crown. The negotiations were
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conductediby that tried statesman with so much skill and integrity that, before September, the same shares were at eight and fourpence, and though the com- mercial transactions of the port and the grant of Government money upon the Admiralty vote did not warrant the public excitement in this particular form of investment, it was confidently prophesied they would go to par. They did not do so, but when they had reached, and were passing, ten shil- lings Mr. Clutterbuck sold.
He had not intended to dispose of them at so early a date, for he was confident, as was the rest of the public, that they would go to par. His action, due to a sudden accession of nervousness and to a contemplation of the large profit already acquired, turned out, however (as is so often the case with the sudden decisions of men with business instinct !) profoundly just. In one transaction, in- deed, a few days later, Curicantis were quoted at ten shillings and sixpence, but it is not certain that they really changed hands at that price, and cer- tainly they went no higher.*
* The present price of sixpence a share is, in the opinion of the author, merely nominal, and any one with a few pounds to spare would do well to buy, for further Govern- ment action in connection with the docks has been rendered inevitable by the necessity of admitting new ships of the Dreadnought type for repair to plates after faring.
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As the autumn thus turned to winter, Mr. Clutter- buck found himself possessed, somewhat to his bewilderment and greatly to the increase of his manhood, of over ;^50,ooo.
It has often been remarked by men of original genius as they look back in old age upon their careers, that some one turning point of fortune established in them a trust in themselves and determined the future conduct of their minds, strengthening all that was in them and almost compelling them to the highest achievement. In that autumn this turning point had come for Mr. Clutterbuck.
There were subtle signs of change about the man : he would come home earlier than usual ; the four o'clock train in which the great Princes of Commerce are so often accommodated would re- ceive him from time to time ; there were whole Saturdays on which he did not leave for the City at all. He was kinder to his wife and less careful whether he were shaved or no before ten o'clock in the morning. Other papers than the Times found entry to his villa : he was open to discuss political matters with a broad mind, and had more than once before the year was ended read articles in the Daily Chronicle and the Westminster Gazette. He had also attended not a few profane concerts, and had bought, at the recommendation of a local dealer,
41
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six etchings, one after Whistler, the other five original.
But, such is the effect of fortune upon wise and balanced men, he did not immediately proceed to use his greatly increased financial power in the way of further speculation ; he retained his old offices, he invested, sold, and reinvested upon a larger scale indeed than he had originally been accustomed to, but much in the same manner. A cheeriness developed in his manner towards his dependents, notably towards his clerk and towards the office boy, a staff which he saw no reason to increase. He would speak to them genially of their affairs at home, and when he had occasion to reprimand or mulct them, a thing which in earlier days he had never thought of doing, it was always in a sympa- thetic tone that he administered the rebuke or exacted the pecuniary penalty.
It was long debated between himself and his wife whether or no they should set up a brougham ; and Mrs. Clutterbuck, having pointed out the expense of this method of conveyance, herself decided upon a small electric landaulette, which, as she very well pointed out, though of a heavier initial cost, would be less expensive to maintain, less capricious in its action, and of a further range. She argued with great facility that in case of any interruption in train service, or in the sad event of her own demise, it 42
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would still be useful for conveying her husband to and from the City; and Mr. Clutterbuck having pointed out the many disadvantages attaching to this form of traction, purchased the vehicle, only refusing, I am glad to say, with inflexible determina- tion, to have painted upon its panels the crest of the Montagues.
No extra servants were added to the household ; but in the matter of dress there was a certain large- ness ; the cook was trained at some expense to present dishes which Mr. Clutterbuck had hitherto only enjoyed at the Palmerston Restaurant in Broad Street ; and the bicycle, which was now no longer of service, was given open-handedly to the gardener who had hitherto only used it by permission.
Simultaneously with this increase of fortune, Mr. Clutterbuck acquired a clean and decisive way of speaking, prefaced most commonly by a little period of thought, and he permitted himself certain minor luxuries to which he had hitherto been unaccus- tomed : he would buy cigars singly at the tobacco- nist's; he used credit in the matter of wine, that is, of sherry and of port, and his hat was often ironed when he was shaved.
It must not be imagined, however, that these new luxuries gravely interfered with the general tenor of his life. His wife perceived, indeed, that something was easier in their fortunes, that the cash necessary
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for her good deeds (and this was never extravagant) was always present and was given without grudging. His ample and ready manner impressed his neigh- bours with some advance in life. But nothing very greatly changed about him. He lived in the same house, with the same staff of servants ; he enter- tained no more at home, for he was shy of meeting new friends, and but little more in the City, where also his acquaintance was restricted. This wise de- meanour resulted in a continual accumulation, for it is not difficult in a man of this substance to buy and sell with prudence upon the smaller scale. Mr. Clutterbuck for five years continued a sensible examination of markets, buying what was obviously cheap, selling what even the mentally deficient could perceive to be dear, and though he missed, or rather did not attempt, many considerable oppor tunities (among which should honourably be men- tioned Hudson Bays, and the rise in the autumn of 1907 of the London and North Western Railway shares),* the general trend of his judgment was accurate. For two years he maintained a slight but sufficient growth in his capital, and he entered what was to prove a new phase of his life in the year 1910 with a property, not merely upon paper, but in rapidly negotiable securities,
* After the fruitful interference of the Board of Trade. 44
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of over ;^6o,ooo, a solid outlook on the world, and a knowledge of the market which, while it did not pretend to subtle or occult relations with the heads of finance, still less to an exalted view of European politics, was minute and expe- rienced.
It was under these conditions that such an increment of wealth came to him as only befalls men who have earned the apparent accident of fortune by permanent and uncompromising labour.
In the April of that momentous year 1910, Mr. Clutterbuck suddenly achieved a financial position of such eminence as those who have not toiled and thought and planned are too often tempted to believe fortuitous.
45
CHAPTER III
It was certain, as the month of April 1910 pro- ceeded, that a demand would suddenly be made upon English capital for the exploitation of the Manatasara Syndicate's concession upon the Upper Congo.
I mention the matter only to elucidate what follows, for Mr. Clutterbuck was neither of the social rank nor of the literary world in which the salvation of the unhappy natives of the Congo had been the principal theme for months and years before.
That salvation had been only recently achieved, but the hideous rule of Leopold no longer weighed upon the innocent and unfortunate cannibals of equatorial Africa ; dawn had broken at last upon those millions whom Christ died to save, and whom so many missionaries had undertaken hasty and expensive voyages to free from an exploitation odious to the principles of our Common Law.
But though the consummation of that great event, which history will always record as the chief 46
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achievement of modern England, was but freshly written upon the tablets of our age, there were not a few in the financial and ecclesiastical world of London who could read the signs of the times, and could appreciate the material results which would follow upon the advent of Christian liberty for these unhappy men. I have but to mention Sir Joseph Gorley,the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Shoreham, Sir Harry Hog, Mrs. Entwistle, Lord Barry, the Dean of Betchworth, Lord Blackwater, and his second son, the Hon. L Benzinger, to show the stuff of which the reformers were composed.
There were some, indeed, to whom the financial necessities of the unhappy natives were but a second consideration, absorbed as they were in the spiritual needs of the African ; but there were others who saw, with the sturdy common sense which has led us to all our victories, that little could be done even upon the spiritual side, until marshes had been drained, forests cleared, fields ploughed, and the most carefully chosen implements imported from as carefully chosen merchants in the capitals of Europe. The directing hand and brain of the European must be lent to raise the material position of those unhappy savages in whom the Belgian had almost obliterated the semblance of humanity.
For this purpose had been chosen, after long thought by those best acquainted with the district,
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Mr. Charles Hatton, brother of that Mr. Sachs whose name will be familiar to all as the originator of the Society for the Prevention of the Trade in Tobacco to the Inhabitants of Liberia, and the successful manager of Chutes Limited.
Mr. Hatton, who, upon his marriage with Amelia, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Hatton, of Hatton Hall, Hatton, in Herefordshire, had adopted his father-in-law's name and had lent the whole of his considerable fortune, and of his yet more con- siderable talents, to the uplifting of the equatorial negro. Mr. Hatton it was who successfully carried through the negotiations with the Colonial Com- mittee of the Belgian Parliament, and who obtained for his syndicate the concession of the Manatasara district for twenty-one years.
The first act of the concessionaires was to take advantage of the new regulations whereby future chartered rulers in the Congo might declare the native to be the owner of his land. The soil to which these poor blacks were born was restored to them. The hideous system of forced labour was at once ended, and in its place one uniform hut tax was imposed upon the whole community. All were free, and though the actual amount of labour re- quired to discharge the tax was perhaps triple the old assessment, yet as it fell equally upon the whole tribe, no complaint of injustice could be made, nor, 48
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to judge from the absence of complaint in the London papers, was any felt.
In many other ways the new regime witnessed to the great truth that business and righteousness are not opposed in the Dark Continent. Where the native had been permitted to run free at every risk to his morals and to ours, he was now segregated in neat compounds under a tutelage suitable to his stage of development. The early marriages at which the fatuous Continental friars had winked, were severely repressed. The adoption of Christianity in any of its forms (except Mormonism), was left to the free exercise of individual choice, but the pestilent folly of ordaining native priests was at once forbidden. Most important of all, the abominable restriction of human liberty by which, under the accursed rule of King Leopold the native's very food and drink had been supervised, was replaced by an ample liberty in which he was free to accept or to reject the beverages of civilisation. The natural temptation which gin at a penny the bottle offers to a primitive being was not met as of old by slavish prohibition, but by the wiser and more noble engine of persua- sion, and the temperance leagues already springing up in the coast towns, gave promise of deep effect upon the general tone of the native community.
To all this beneficent endeavour, capital alone was lacking. To look for it in the hardened and worldly
D 49
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centres of the continent was hopeless. Those who in our own country would some years ago have been the first to come forward, had recently so suffered through the necessary initial expense of Rhode's glorious dream, that with all the good will in the world they hesitated to embark upon novel ventures in Africa.
More than one godly woman, persuaded by the eloquence of those who had heard of the atrocities, was willing to venture her few hundreds ; and more than one wealthy manufacturer bestowed con- siderable donations of fifty pounds and more upon the spiritual side of the new enterprise : one high spirit of fire endowed a bishopric with ;^300 a year for three years. But the attempt to float a com- pany upon the basis of the concession was still in jeopardy, and it seemed for a moment as though all those years of effort to destroy the infamy of Leopold's control had been thrown away.
The concessionaires, eager as they were to work in the vineyard, could hardly be expected to go forward until the general public should take some- thing of the burden off their hands. It was under these circumstances that the Manatasara Syndicate and its offspring the company stood in the spring of 1910.
Put in terms of Eternal Life, the shares in the new company of the Manatasara Syndicate which
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was to uplift so many poor negroes and to free so many human souls, were more precious than pearl or ruby and above the price of chrysoprase,* but in the cold terms of our mortal markets this month of April found them utterly unsaleable. Yet the capital required was small, one considerable pur- chase would have been enough to start the sluggish stream; and if it be asked why, under these cir- cumstances, Mr. Hatton did not use his consider- able financial influence to obtain the first subscrip- tions, the answer is that he was far too high-minded to persuade any man, even for the noblest of ideals, to the smallest risk for which he might later seem responsible. As to his own means, ardent as was his enthusiasm for the cause of our black brothers, he owed it to his wife, to his bright-eyed boy, and to his aged father-in-law. Sir Charles Hatton of Hatton Hall, who was penniless, to risk no portion of the family fortune in any speculation no matter how deserving.
The public, though their ears were ringing with the name of Manatasara, and though the Press spoke of little else, held back ; there was an interval — a very short one — during which the re- construction of the whole affair was seriously con- sidered in secret, when the Hand which will so
* Habakkuk xvi. 8.
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often be observed in these pages, visibly moved for the benediction of Mr. Clutterbuck and of the great Empire which he was destined to serve.
The Municipal Council of Monte Zarro, in southern Italy, had in that same spring of 1910 determined upon the construction of new water- works; and in the true spirit of the men who inherit from Garibaldi, from Crispi, and from Nathan,* they had put the contract up to the highest — or rather, to the most efficient — tender. I need hardly say that the firm of Bigglesworth, of Tyneside, the Minories, and Pall Mall East, obtained the contract ; a firm intimately connected both with the Foreign Office and with the Cavaliere Marlio, and one whose name is synonymous with thorough if expensive workmanship. The bonds to be issued in connection with this progressive enterprise were to bear an interest of four and a half per cent., and in view of the comparative poverty of the town and the extensive nature of the investment (which was designed for a town of at least 50,000 inhabitants, though Monte Zarro numbered no more than 15,000), in view also of the high cost of municipal action in Italy, was to be issued at some low figure ; the precise price was
* The sometime Mayor of Rome ; not to be confounded with Sir Henry Nathan, whom we recently came across in the matter of the eggs.
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conveyed privately to a few substantial clients of Barnett and Sons' Bank who all precipitately refused to touch the security : all, that is, with the exception of Mr. Clutterbuck.
He, with the unerring instinct that had now guided him for nearly eight long years, decided to take up the issue. It was not until he had twice dined, and generously, with a junior partner of the bank that he was finally persuaded to support the scheme with his capital, nor did his loyal nature suspect the bias that others were too ready to impute to the banker's recommendation.
Indeed, Mr, Clutterbuck was led to this determi- nation not so much by the extremely low price at which the bonds were offered him, or the con- siderable interest they were pledged to bear, as by the implied and, as it were, necessary guarantee of the Itahan Government which Barnett and Sons assured him were behind them. Of the two things, as the junior partner was careful to point out, one must occur : either the interest upon the outlay would be too much for the Municipality, in which case the Government would be bound to intervene, or the interest would be regularly paid, at least for the first few years, in which case the price of eighty- three at which the bonds were offered was surely so low as to ensure an immediately profitable sale.
Mr. Clutterbuck was in no haste, however ; the
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issue still had some days before it, he was still con- sidering what precise sum he was prepared to furnish, when he felt, during one of the later and more bitter mornings of that April, an unaccount- able weakness and fever which increased as the day proceeded.
He at once consulted an eminent physician of his recent acquaintance, and was assured by the Baronet that if he were not suffering from the first stages of influenza, he was either the victim of a feverish cold or possibly of overwork.
This grave news determined him, as a prudent man, to leave his business for some days and to take a sea voyage, but before doing so, with equal prudence he put a power of attorney into the hands of a confidential clerk and left witnessed instruc- tions upon the important investment which would have to be made in his absence.
Unfortunately, or rather fortunately — such are the mysterious designs of Heaven — he dictated these full and minute instructions which he was to leave behind him, and in the increasing dis- comfort which he felt toward evening, he neglected to read over the typewritten copy presented him to sign.
That evening at Croydon, the symptoms being now more pronounced, it was patent even to the suburban doctor that Mr. Clutterbuck was the
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prey of a Diplococcus, not improbably the hideous Diplococcus of pneumonia.
« « 9ie * #
The confidential clerk heard with regret next morning by telephone of the misadventure that had befallen his master ; but he was a man of well-founded confidence in himself ; he had now for five years past conducted the major part of Mr. Clutterbuck's affairs, under his superior's immediate direction, it is true, and his proficiency had earned him a high and increasing salary. Save for an active anxiety as to Mr. Clutterbuck's ultimate recovery, the terms of his will, and other matters naturally falling within his province, he knew that he had all the instructions and powers upon which to act during the next few days.
He spent the first of those days in visiting, in company with his second cousin Hyacinth, the charming old town of Rye ; the second, which was also the first of Mr. Clutterbuck's delirium, he occupied in perusing and digesting at length the detailed instructions which had been left in his hands.
With the fact that a large investment must of necessity be made in a few days he was already familiar : his master had sold out and had placed to his current account at Parr's the important sum destined to meet it. But he was necessarily in
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ignorance of the precise security in which that sum was to be placed, for Mr. Clutterbuck had come to his final determination but a little while before his illness had struck him.
The instructions would, he knew, contain his orders in every particular, and it was mainly with the object of discovering what he was to do in this chief matter that he studied the lines before him.
The directions given covered a multitude of points ; they concerned the buying and selling of a certain number of small stocks, especially the realisation of certain Siberian Copper shares, which still stood high, but which Mr. Clutterbuck, having heard upon the best authority that the copper was entirely exhausted, had determined to convey to some other gentleman before the general public should acquire, through the Press, information which he had obtained at no small expense in advance of the correspondents.
There followed several paragraphs relative to the installation of certain improvements in the office, upon which Mr. Clutterbuck was curiously eager ; next, in quite a brief but equally clear passage, was the order — if the merchant were not himself able to attend to the matter by the 25th at latest — to take up 15,000 shares in the Muntsar issue ; an investment, the instructions added, on which the fullest particu-
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lars would be afforded him, if he were in any doubt, by Messrs. Barnett and Sons.
The Confidential Clerk was in very considerable doubt. The word as it stood was meaningless. He sent for Miss Pugh, the shorthand writer, and her notes; they appeared together with hauteur, and the Confidential Clerk, who in humbler days had done his 120 words a minute, carefully examined the outline. It was not very neat, but there was the "Mntsor" right enough. He complained of the vowels, and received from Miss Pugh, whom he openly admired, so sharp a reprimand as silenced him. . . . Yet his experience assured him that "Mnt" was not an English form. He began to experiment with the vowels. He tried "e" and "a" and made Muntusare, which was nonsense; then he tried ''a" and "u"; then "a" and "e " ; and suddenly he saw it.
In a flash he remembered a friend of his who was employed in the offices of a syndicate ; he should surely have guessed ! Manatasara !
More than once that friend had hinted at the advantage of *' setting the ball rolling." More than once had he spoken in flattery of the Confidential Clerk's ascendency over his master and with un- merited contempt of that master's initiative. . . . He had even let it be known that the introduction of Mr. Clutterbuck's name alone would be regarded with
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substantial gratitude by Mr. Hatton. . . . The more he thought of it the more he was determined that Manatasara was the word . . . and he needed no help from Barnett and Sons now.
He considered the habits of his friend, and re- membered that he commonly lunched at the Wool- pack. To the Woolpack went the Confidential Clerk a little after two, and found that friend making a book with Natty Timpson, Joe Buller, and the rest upon the approaching but most uncertain Derby. He joined them, drew him aside, briefly told him his business, and asked him how he should pro- ceed.
His friend, who was a true friend and a little drunk, conveyed to him, in language which would certainly be tedious here and probably offensive, the extreme pleasure his principals would find in Mr. Clutterbuck's determination : the probability that the Confidential Clerk himself would not go un- rewarded. He spoke of his own high hopes ; then, as he contemplated the opportunity in all its great- ness, it so worked upon his own enthusiasm as to make him insist upon accompanying the reluctant Clerk to the office itself, and introducing him in a flushed but articulate manner to Mr. Hatton's private secretary.
The two were closeted together for something less than an hour ; it was not four o'clock when
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they parted. Mr. Hatton's secretary, forgetting all social distinctions, shook hands warmly at the door with the Confidential Clerk, who passed out heedless of his friend's eager pantomime in the outer office. And thus it was that by the morning of the next day, while poor Mr. Clutterbuck's temperature was hovering round 104" (Fahrenheit), no small portion of his goods were already earmarked for the Great Crusade to Redeem the Negro Race.
Mr. Clutterbuck's illness reached its crisis and passed ; but for many days he was not allowed to hear the least news, still less to occupy himself with business. The Confidential Clerk was far too careful of his master's interests to jeopardise them by too early a call upon his energies. He wrote a daily report to Mrs. Clutterbuck to the effect that nothing had been done beyond the written instructions left by her husband, that all was well, and the office in perfect order. He was at the pains of dictating a daily synopsis of the correspondence he had opened and answered ; and though the offer of marriage which since his new stroke of fortune he had made to Miss Pugh for the second time had for the second time been rejected, he continued to utilise her ser- vices, both on his own account and on that of his absent principal.
He dictated considerable reports upon the move- ments of his favourite stocks to greet Mr. Clutter-
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buck's eye upon his recovery, and in a hundred ways gave evidence of his discretion and his zeal now that he could look forward to his master's early return.
Meanwhile Barnett and Sons, after assuring them- selves by certain general questions that Mr. Clutter- buck had said nothing with regard to any Italian investment, held the parcel over till it could be dealt with in person, and were satisfied of the tenacity of purpose of their client.
In the first week of May Mr. Clutterbuck, his crescent of a moustache untrimmed, his hair quite grey, but the broad fan of it still clinging to his large, bald forehead, was permitted for the first time after so many days to see the papers and hear news of the world.
He was languid and utterly indifferent, as con- valescents are, to what had hitherto been his chief interests, but as a matter of wifely duty Mrs. Clutter- buck felt herself bound to read him at full length the City article in the Times, and as she did so on the third day her philanthropic and evangelising eye was caught, in the midst of names that had no meaning for her, by the one name Manatasara. It was the feature of the moment that the new company had been successfully launched.
A strong Imperialist, like most women of the governing classes and of the Established Faith, 60
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
whether in this country or in Scotland, she natu- rally rejoiced to observe securely forged yet another bond with the Britains Overseas. She could comprehend little of the technicalities of promotion, but she was aware that another of these achievements, of which the Chartered Company of South Africa hadfor so many years been the brilliant type, was upon the eve of its success, and she re- joiced with a joy in which the love of country stood side by side with a pure and sincere attachment to her religion.
As one day of convalescence succeeded to another, this item of news began to grow so insistent that the wan invalid could not but take some heed of it. Although the long list of shares and prices recited like a litany had carried with it, when it had approached him through his wife's lips, something more than tedium, yet when he was permitted to read and select in it for himself and with his own eyes, the prominence given to Manatasara's inter- wove with his reviving interest in life the story of Charles Hatton's creation.
The capital was not large : the district was but one of many, but the strong interest which the place had aroused and the very restriction in the number of available shares had roused the public.
The allotment had been followed by a sharp rise.
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There were dealings in the new quotation so con- tinual and so vigorous as to recall the great days before the South African War. The premium upon " Congoes," as they were affectionately called, rose without ceasing — and just at the moment when Mr. Clutterbuck was beginning, but only beginning, to grasp the story of the company, he was per- mitted, somewhat doubtfully, by his doctor to return for an hour or two to the City.
He reached his office, where a warm and cordial welcome awaited him ; his correspondence had already been opened, and an abstract made by his Clerk and Secretary, when, before he had fully mastered what had happened, that admirable assist- ant remarked to him in a tone more deferential than he had expected, that he had received full allot- ment for his application in consideration of the very early date on which he approached the Syndi- cate.
" What allotment ? " said the enfeebled Mr. Clutterbuck, as he looked up in some astonishment from the paper before him.
''The allotment in Congoes, sir. I understood I was to apply. I kept the money ready, sir."
"You've paid nothing I hope," said Mr. Clutter- buck in a testy voice too often associated with convalescents. "You haven't been such a fool as to pay anything on your own ? " 62
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
" Well, sir " said the Clerk hesitatingly. Then
he waited for a moment for the full effect of his good fortune to penetrate Mr. Clutterbuck's renewed conceptions of the outer world.
Mr. Clutterbuck read the letter before him twice over, slowly. He had received allotment to the full amount ; the call had been for a half-crown on 60,000. He did not appreciate how he stood. His mind, always rather sane than alert, was enfeebled by illness and long absence from affairs.
"You've been doing something silly," he said again peevishly, " something damned silly. I don't understand. I'll repudiate it. I don't understand what you've done — 1 don't believe it's meant for me at all."
" I humbly did my best, sir ; I was assured, really and truly, that a quarter was the most they'd allow, sir ; I truly believed I wasn't risking more than 15,000 of yours, sir ; I did truly."
"Ohl do be quiet," said his principal, as he turned again to the letter. His head hurt him, and he had a buzzing in the ears. He felt he wasn't fit for all this. It was a cruel injustice to a man barely on his feet after a glimpse of the grave.
The Clerk had the wisdom to hold his tongue and to wait. And as he waited it dawned upon Mr. Clutterbuck that he held 60,000 Congoes ; the Congoes he had heard talked of in the train ; the
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Congoes of which the papers had been full during the long listless days when he had lain beside his window looking out into the little sunlit garden ; the Congoes with which every feature of the repeated view from that window had become grotesquely associated in his invalid imagination. He was just about to speak again, perhaps to say the something which his Clerk most dreaded, when he was swamped by a realisation of what had happened.
What Mr. Clutterbuck in health would have seen in five or ten minutes, Mr. Clutterbuck in con- valescence at last grasped, at least as to its main lines. He remembered two men in the train as he went in, and their angry discussion : how one who pooh-poohed the whole affair and said they would not go beyond three before next settling day ; and the other, who was equally confident, swore that they could not fail to pass five and might touch seven, At the lowest the paper ready to his hands was 60,000 of those same.
He deliberately settled his face and said to the Clerk in an impassive and altered tone :
" Have you heard what people are offering ? "
" Well, sir, it's all talk so far," answered the Clerk. " Some were saying two and a half, and I heard one gentleman say two and five-eighths ; but it's all talk, sir."
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He watched his master narrowly, standing a little behind him and scrutinising his face as he bent over the letter and read its short contents for the fourth time. He was well content with the result of that scrutiny.
As for Mr. Clutterbuck, he now perceived quite clearly (and was astonished to discern his own quiet acquiescence in the discovery) that he was at that moment — by some accident which mystified him — the possessor of over ^^200,000 in one de- partment of his investments alone. He sighed profoundly, and said in something like his old voice :
" I supposed they've had their cheque ? "
"Yes, sir, undoubtedly," said the clerk rapidly.
Mr. Clutterbuck called for the cheque-book on Parr's, casually asked the balance, turned to the counterfoil and, initialled the ;^75oo sacrifice, he rose from the table a man worth a quarter of a million all told.
The air was warmer with the advent of summer. It was a pleasant day, and Mr. Clutterbuck, throw- ing open the window and letting in the roar of the sunlit street, leant for awhile looking out and taking deep draughts of air. He noted all manner of little things, the play of the newsboys, the ribbons upon the dray horses, the chance encounters of passers-by, and the swirl and the eddy of men.
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Then he drew in again, more composed, and said to the clerk :
"Well, I suppose there's nothing more to be done to-day." Then it occurred to him to add : " If any one comes round from Barnett's, tell 'em 'certainly.' "
" Certainly what, sir ? " said the clerk. They had been round more than once, and lately a little anxiously, but he did not like to trouble Mr. Clutterbuck at that moment with such details.
"Why," said that gentleman with a touch of his invalid's testiness returning, "tell 'em I'm ready to do what they want. I promised them something before — before my illness. Tell them * certainly.' Tell them I'll be here again to-morrow."
The clerk helped him on with his heavy fur coat and saw him carefully to the carriage he had hired. He urged him to drive back the whole way. But Mr. Clutterbuck shook his head, and drove to the station. He would soon be well again.
That afternoon, just after hours, another anxious message came from Barnett's, but this time they were satisfied. Mr. Clutterbuck was entirely at their service ; he would be at the office next day.
This revolution — for it was no less — acted like a tonic upon the man into whose life it had come. His health was restored to him with a rapidity which the doctor, who had repeatedly urged him 66
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to seek a particular hotel upon the EngHsh Riviera, marvelled at and frequently denied. There is no better food for a man's recovery than the food of his vigorous manhood, and this, with Mr. Clutter- buck, was the food of affairs. To venture, to per- ceive before another, to seize the spoil, is life to men of his kind ; and he could now recognise in himself one of those whose foresight and lightning action win the great prizes of this world.
He was at his office every day, first for a short spell only, but soon for the old full working hours ; and in the midst of twenty other interests which were rather recreations than labours, he watched Congoes. In the eagerness of that watch he neglected all the marvels the newspapers had to tell him of an energy that was transforming the old hell of the equator into a paradise. He even neglected the great spiritual work which Dr. Perry and his assistant clergy had so manfully begun. It must honestly be confessed that he watched nothing but the fluctuation of the Company's shares.
Mrs. Clutterbuck went to the seaside without him. He saw them touch seven in the heat of the summer ; he was confident they would go further. They fell to six before the opening of August, to five a week later. His sound commercial instinct bade him beware ; at four and a half he sold. Then and then only did he take his long holiday away from the
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strain of business ; a holiday marred to some extent by the observation that the moment he had disposed of them Congoes rose Hke a balloon to a point still higher than that at which he might himself much earlier have realised.
But though this secret thorn remained in his own side, to the world he was a marvel ; first Croydon talked of him, then the City, then Mayfair, and the sportsmen, and even the politicians. In ever-increas- ing circles, at greater and greater distances from himself, fantastically exaggerated even in his own immediate neighbourhood and growing to be a legend in the mouths of great ladies, the story of his one fortune, among the others of that flotation, expanded into fame.
The story rose beneath him like a tide ; it floated him out of his suburb into a new and a greater world ; it floated him at last into the majestic councils of the nation. It all but bestowed upon him an imperishable name among the Statesmen of England.
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CHAPTER IV
Deep in the Surrey hills, and long secluded from the world, there runs a drowsy valley known to the rustics whom it nurtures as the Vale of Caterham.
Of late years our English passion for the country- side has discovered this enchanted spot ; a railway has conveyed to it those who were wise enough to seize early upon its subtle beauties, and the happy homes of a population freed from urban care are still to be seen rising upon every sward. Here Purley, which stands at the mouth of the Vale, Kenley, Warlingham and Caterham Stations receive at morning and discharge at evening the humbler breadwinners whom economic circumstance com- pels to absent themselves from the haunting woods of Surrey during the labours of the day. Some few, more blest, in mansions more magnificent, can contemplate throughout untroubled hours the solemn prospect of the hills.
Here it was that Mr. Clutterbuck was building the new home,
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The sense of proportion which had always marked his Hfe and had contributed so largely to his financial success, was apparent upon every side. He was content with some seven acres of ground, chosen in the deepest recess of the dale, and, since water is rare upon that chalk, he was content with but a small lake of graceful outline, and of no more than eighteen inches in depth ; in the midst an island, destined with time to bear a clump of exotic trees, stood for the moment a bare heap of whitish earth diversified rather than hidden by a few leafless saplings.
The house itself had been raised with business- like rapidity under the directions of Mrs. Clutter- buck herself, who had the wisdom to employ in all but the smallest details, an architect recom- mended by the Rev. Isaac Fowle.
The whole was in the taste which the sound domestic sense of modern England has substituted for the gloomy stucco and false Italian loggias of our fathers. The first storey was of red brick which time would mellow to a glorious and har- monious colour ; the second was covered with roughcast, while the third and fourth appeared as dormer windows in an ample roof containing no less than fifteen gables. The chimneys were astonishingly perfect examples of Somersetshire heading, and the woodwork, which was applied in 70
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thin strips outside the main walls of the building, was designed in the Cheshire fashion, with draw- pins, tholes and spring-heads tinctured to a sober brown. The oak was imported from the distant Baltic and strengthened with iron as a precaution against the gape and the warp.
The glass, which was separate from the house and stood in a great dome and tunnel higher up on the hillside where it sheltered the Victoria Regia, the tobacco plant, the curious and carnivorous Hepteryx Rawlinsonia, the palm and the common vine. A lodge guarded both the northern and the southern entrances and a considerable approach swept up past the two greyhounds which digni- fied the cast-iron gates; themselves a copy, upon a smaller scale, of the more famous Guardini's at Bensington, while the main door was of pure elm studded with one hundred and fifty-three large nails. The rooms within were heated not only by fireplaces of exquisite decoration, but also secretly by pipes which ran beneath the floors and had this inconvenience, that the captious, with- drawing from the fierceness of the blaze to some distant margin of the apartment, would marvel at the suffocating heat which struck them in the chance corner of their retirement.
Of the numerous bath-rooms fitted in copper and Dutch tiles, of the chapel, the vesting chamber and
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the great number of bedrooms — many with dress- ing-rooms attached — I need not speak.
The stables were connected with the mansion by a covered way, which the guests could use in all weathers when there was occasion to visit the stables and to admire Aster, West Wind, Coeur de Lion, Ex Calibur, Abde-el-Kader, and the little pink pony, Pompey, which was permanently lame, but had caught Mrs. Clutterbuck's eye at Lady Moreton's sale, and had cost no less than 250 guineas.
"The Plas" was the simple name suggested somewhat later by Charlie Fitzgerald, but for the moment Mr. and Mrs. Clutterbuck, well acquainted with the hesitation of all cultured people to adopt pretentious names for their residences, were con- tent to leave it unchristened, and to allude to it among their acquaintance by nothing more particular than the beautiful title of " Home."
In the spring of 191 1 the last drier had been applied to the walls, and with the early summer of that year Mr. Clutterbuck and his wife sat before the first fire upon their new hearth. It was a fire of old ship logs, and they were delighted to confirm the fact that it produced small particoloured flames.
If it be wondered why a fortune of barely half a million should have been saddled with so spacious 72
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a building, it must be replied that a large part of every important income must of necessity be expended in luxury, and that the form of luxury which most appealed to this hospitable and childless pair was a roof under which they might later entertain numerous gatherings of friends, while, to those long accustomed during the active period of life to somewhat cramped surroundings, ease of movement and spacious apartments are a great and a legitimate solace in declining years. Here Mr, Clutterbuck, did he weary of his study, could wander at ease into the morning- room ; from thence to the picture gallery which adjoined the well-lit hall, or if he chose to pursue his tour he could find the peacock-room, the Japanese room, the Indian room, and the Henri Quatre Alcove and Cosy Corner, and the Jacobean Snuggery awaiting him in turn. Had he been a younger man he would probably have added a stvimming-bath ; as it was, the omission of this appendage was all that marred the splendid series of apartments.
Doubtless he had overbuilt, as ordinary standards of wealth are counted, but the standards of financial genius are not those of commerce, and this very excess it was which brought him the first beginnings of his public career. It was impossible that display upon such a scale and so near London, should not
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attract the attention of households at once well- born and generous. Our political world is ever ready to admit to the directing society of the nation those whose prudence and success in business have shown them worthy of undertaking the task of government. In the height of the season, as Mr. and Mrs. Clutterbuck were sitting at their breakfast, a little lonely in the absence of any guests in that great house, the lady's post was found to contain an invitation from no less a leader of London than the widow of Mr. Barttelot Smith.
» « ^ » ♦
Mary Smith had about her every quality that entitled her to lead the world, which she in fact did lead with admirable power. She had been born a Bailey. Her mother was a Bunting; she was there- fore of that well established middle rank which forms perhaps the strongest core in our governing class. Her husband, Barttelot Smith, of Bar Harbour, Maine, and the New Bessemer, Birming- ham, Alabama, had died in 1891, after a very brief married life, which had barely sufficed to introduce him to the Old Country and a world of which the hours and the digestion were quite unsuitable to him.
The fortune of which his widow was left in command after her bereavement was ample for the
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part it was her genius to play ; and though her means were not of that exaggerated sort to which modern speculation has accustomed us, yet her roomy house in St. James's Place, her Scotch forest, the two places in Cumberland, and the place she rented in the heart of the Quorn permitted her to entertain upon a generous scale ; while large and historic but cosy Habberton on the borders of Exmoor afforded a secure retreat for the few weeks in August, which, if she were in England, she devoted to the society of her intimates.
She was a woman of high culture, the intimate friend of the Prime Minister — not as a politician, but as a poet — and through her sister, Louise, the sister-in-law of the leader of the Opposition, whose extraordinary polo play in the early eighties had endeared him to the then lively girl much more than could family ties.
Such other connections as she had with the political world were quite fortuitous. Her aunt. Lady Steyning, had seen, of course, the most bril- liant period of the Viceroyalty in India, before the recent deplorable situation had destroyed at once the dignity and the leisure of that post ; while a second aunt, the oldest of the three surviving Duchesses of Drayton, though living a very retired hfe at Molehurst, naturally brought her into touch with the Ebbworths and all the Rusper group of
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old Whig families, from young Lord Rusper, to whom she was almost an elder sister, to the rather disreputable, but extremely wealthy, Ockley couple, whom she chivalrously defended through the worst of the storm.
It would be a great error to imagine that this charming and tactful woman found her interests in such a world alone — she was far too many sided for that. Her collection of Fragonards had many years ago laid at her feet the whole staff of the Persian Embassy, and opened an acquaintance with a world of Oriental experience ; with it she discovered and cultivated the two chief Eastern travellers of our time, Lord Hemsbury and Mr. Teak ; upon quite another side her modest but sincere and inde- fatigable interest in the lives of the poor had naturally led to a warm understanding between herself and Lord Lambeth — the indefatigable empire builder whom the world had known as Mr. Barnett of the M'Korio, and who now, as the aged Duke of Battersea, had earned by his unceas- ing good deeds, the half-playful, half-reverend nick- name of " Peabody Yid " among the younger members of his set.
It was not a little thing to have gained the devo- tion of such a man, and it was, in a sense, the summit of Mary Smith's achievement : but she was more tham a sympathetic and universal friend ; she was 76
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also — as such friends must always be — a power in both Political parties — and perhaps in three.
It was said — I know not with how much justice — that young Pulborough (who was his own father) owed his Secretaryship of State more to her direct influence than to his blood relationship to the aunt by marriage of her second brother-in-law, The MacClure ; and there were rumours, certainly exaggerated, that when the Board of Trade was filled after Illingsbury had fled the country, Paston's marriage with her niece Elizabeth had decided his appointment.
I am careful to omit any reference to the Attorney-General of the day — it was mere gossip — nor will I tarry upon her brother at the Home Office, or her Uncle Harry at Dublin Castle, lest I should lead the reader to imagine that her well- earned influence depended on something other than her great soul and admirable heart.
It was a generous impulse in such a woman to send the large gilt oblong of pasteboard which was the key to her house, and to a seat at her board, to the lonely and now ageing couple in their retire- ment in the Caterham Valley. But Mrs. Smith, even in her most heartfelt and spontaneous actions^ had always in view the nature of our political institutions. The sudden fortune of Mr. Clutterbuck had no doubt been exaggerated in the numerous
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conversations upon it which had enlivened her drawing-room ; if so, it was an error upon the right side, and her instinct told her that she could not be much to blame in giving such a man the oppor- tunity to enter into the fuller life of his country.
Every rank in our carefully ordered society has its conventions ; one, which will doubtless appear ridiculous to many of my readers, is that which forbids, among the middle classes, the extension of a warm invitation to people whom one never happens to have seen. The basis for this suburban conven- tion it would be impossible to discover, but then, convention is not logical ; and whatever may be the historic origin of the fetich, certain it is that most of our merchants and professional men would never dream of asking a Cabinet minister or a peer to their houses until at least a formal introduction had passed between them and the statesman so honoured.
The converse is not true at all ; our public men would accept or reject such an invite as convenience dictated, and would hardly remember whether they had the pleasure of an acquaintance or no : they approach men of lesser value with unaffected ease and find it difficult to tolerate the strict ritual of a narrower class ; but their own society, as they would be the first to admit, has its own body of unreasoning etiquette, the more difficult to recognise because it
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is so familar ; Buffle himself, for instance, would hardly tolerate a question in Parliament upon his recent escapade.
The varying codes of varying strata of society are the cause of endless misunderstandings ; such a mis- understanding might have arisen now, but once again it was a woman that saved the jar. Mary Smith had unwittingly gone near to the line of offence, in the eyes of Mr. Clutterbuck at least, when she posted her well-meant card for July 2. Mrs. Clutter- buck had not only a wider social experience than her husband, but could also rely upon the instinctive psychology of her sex. She overruled at once, and very wisely, the petty objections of her husband to the form in which the acquaintance had been offered them, and returned, by the morning's post in the third person and upon pink paper, an acceptance to the kindly summons.
There were three weeks only in which to antici- pate and prepare for this novel experience, but they were three weeks during which Mr. Clutterbuck was so thoroughly convinced by his wife, as very sincerely to regret the first comments he had made upon a custom to which his ignorance of life had made him take exception.
Meanwhile, in St. James's Place, the large and comfortable rooms which had once been those of the exiled Bourbons and later of the Boxing Club
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were the scene of more than one conversation between Mary Smith and her friends in the matter of those whom Charlie Fitzgerald lightly called " the mysterious guests."
" The less mysterious they are to you," said Mary Smith, nodding at this same Charhe Fitzgerald one very private afternoon at tea, " the better for you." She shut her lips and nodded again at him with emphasis.
" Oh Lord ! Mary," said Charlie Fitzgerald, " is it going to be another of them ? "
He was twenty years and more her junior, but she tolerated anything from the son of her favourite cousin ; besides which, every one called her Mary, and if she was to be called Mary she would as soon be called Mary by an intimate younger relation as by the crowd of chance men and women of her own age who used her name so freely.
" Yes," went on Mrs. Smith with decision, " it's going to be another of them ; and this time I hope you'll stick."
Her trim little body was full of energy as she said it, and her face full of determination.
" It's never been my fault," said Fitzgerald re- proachfully. " Was it my fault that Isaacs got into trouble, or that old Burpham lost his temper about the motor-car ? "
" The last was your fault certainly," answered his 80
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cousin vivaciously. " If you take a man's money, you mustn't use his motor-car without his leave."
" He's an old cad," yawned Fitzgerald lazily.
" Every one knows that," said Mrs. Smith, " and no one thinks the better of you for not understanding an old cad. It's a private secretary's business to understand. . . . You won't get anything from me, anyhow, I can tell you."
" You've said that before," said Charlie, looking down at her with a smile.
" Yes, and I have kept it, too," said Mary.
To which he answered with some emphasis : " By God you have !" and looking out into the trees in the Green Park he fell into a reverie, the monotone of which was his large and increasing indebtedness. It did not trouble him, but it furnished a constant food for his thoughts and lent him just that interest in the acquirement of money which his Irish character perhaps needed.
Later, as the room filled with callers, the conver- sation upon the Clutterbucks became more general. A certain Mr. Higginson, who was very smart indeed and wrote for the papers, was able to give the most precise information : Old Clutterbuck had been worth four millions ; he'd dropped a lot on house property in Paris. He was worth nearly three anyhow, but he was a miserly old beggar. He had made it by frightening Charley Hatton.
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At this all of his audience were pleased and several laughed.
" I'd frighten the beggar for less than four millions," said Charlie Fitzgerald. He spread out his arms and made a loud roaring noise to show how he*d do it, to the huge amusement of an aged general who loved youth and high spirits, but to the no small annoyance of Mr. Higginson, who hated being interrupted.
"Nonsense!" said Mary Smith, pouring out tea for a new caller in the old familiar way (she detested a pack of servants and kept hers for the most part in the double-decked basement under- ground). " Nonsense ! I believe he made it perfectly honestly. He's got a dear old face! "
Mary Smith had never seen his face, but a good word is never thrown away.
*' He's got an old hag of a wife," blurted out the General, " an old "
Mary Smith put up her hand. " Now do be careful — you used that word only last Thursday."
" Good Lord ! " said Charlie Fitzgerald ; " what a long time." And the General and he, who had lunched together that same day, were amused beyond the ordinary at the simple jest.
" I've never seen his wife," said Mary Smith severely and with perfect truth. " She's iprobably just like everybody else. You people make up 82
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ideas in your heads about classes that don't exist. Everybody's just like everybody else. . . . Look at old Bolney ! "
" Damned if he's like anybody else 1 " said Miss Mosel, taking her cigarette out of her mouth and picking a long shred of yellow tobacco from her underlip at the same time. " Mamma calls him Cow Bolney."
" She's quite wrong, my dear, thoroughly wrong," said the old General fussily. " I wouldn't have believed it of your mother. I knew her when she was your age."
" Don't believe it now," said Mary Smith sooth- ingly, " Victoria tells lies."
" No, I don't," said Miss Mosel stolidly. " Any- how I'm coming to see old Clutterbuck."
" Not if I know it," said Mary Smith grimly.
"Oh, I don't mean at dinner," caught up Victoria Mosel lightly. " I wouldn't rag anybody's dinner, but you can't prevent my coming on, after."
Mrs. Smith gazed at her imploringly. " Don't play the fool, Vic," she begged.
" I shan't play the fool," said Victoria. " I only want to look on : I won't touch."
" Who you goin' to get ? " asked Charlie.
" Well, there's youl' spreading out her fingers in what had been for half a lifetime a pretty affectation
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of hers, and ticking them off. " And there's old Mother D. of Drayton, and I shall try to get the Duke."
"Oh, your perpetual Peabody Yid," began Charlie.
" Don't," said his cousin, laughing with great charm.
"Well, yes, the Duke, and I've got him already," she said pointing to the General. "And . . . and I must have William."
Vic Mosel and Mr. Higginson shouted together : " Risking William ! Oh ! I say ! " while Charlie's eye gleamed at the mention of her brother's name and he gloated on the prospect of a really good shindy.
"Oh, fiddlesticks-ends," said Mary Smith. " He's a white man : besides some one must do host for me. You're too green " (she said that to Fitzgerald), " and he'll behave all right. I'll warn him."
"Then," she went on hurriedly, "then there's Mrs. Carey and her mother, and the Steynings — I can't remember the whole lot. Perkins would tell you- There's sixteen, I know that."
" I'll hold the sponge for William Bailey," said Charlie solemnly ; " the General supports the Duke."
" If there's any row," said Mary Smitli to him 84
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vigorously, " I shall know who started it, and who will lose by it. William's a dear."
And so the flashing talk went round, while, with Mr. Clutterbuck in the Caterham glens, the hours crept on towards an appointed day ; and the horses were exercised and the motors ran, and the lake slowly filled, and parties, a little larger with each succeeding week, groups of their old friends and of their new, met and drank champagne at lunch, at dinner, and at supper too, until June was ended.
The second of July was warm and fine : an open motor would have pleased Mr. Clutterbuck for the run to town, — but Mrs. Clutterbuck, Mrs. Clutterbuck knew 1 It was in the Limousine that they swept up the London Road, past the Palace and round into St. James's Place. Mr. Clutterbuck, who had long secretly wondered how those great houses upon the Park were approached at all, and who had half believed that some royal entry, hidden from the vulgar gaze, led into them, saw this great mystery solved : he was silent upon his discovery. He wondered whether one should tell the motor to go into the stables of the house, or what : and again Mrs. Clutterbuck knew. She left it for the motor man and the big flunkeys to thresh out between them.
When they were at table the many lights, the
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much wine and the more talk entered her husband's soul and warmed it. The lights greatly pleased him ; the wine he drank freely. He was beginning to live.
He noted curiously the faces round the great table, and asked his neighbour the names of more than one ; that neighbour was Mrs. Carey, than whom he could have had no better guide, for she knew every face in London, to the number of two hundred or more. She pointed out the large, beneficent features of the Duke of Battersea where he sat at Mary Smith's right, hardly able to take his eyes from her face. Mr. Clutterbuck in his turn gazed long and with increasing awe at the man whose name stood for the power of England in so many distant harbours, and whose career in finance was the model and the envy of all his own society. He strained to listen and catch some word falling from his lips, but the hubbub was too loud. The bright young laughing face to his left was that of Charlie Fitzgerald, but he did not need the information, for Mary Smith had been careful to introduce the lad with an unmistakable intona- tion, and, as though by inadvertence, twice over. The tall, square-faced, whiskered, spectacled man opposite who sipped his soup as though every taste of it were to be thought out and appreciated, was, he learnt, Mr. William Bailey, the brother of his 86
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hostess ; and as Mrs. Carey told him that name, she laughed discreetly, for the eccentricities of Mr. William Bailey, though they were not always harmless, were never without point to women of Mrs. Carey's superficial character. She saw nothing in them but matter for her own amuse- ment.
Nothing perhaps struck Mr. Clutterbuck more in the great society he had entered than the superb ease which distinguished it. Every member of that world seemed free to pursue his own appetite or inclination without restraint of form, and yet the whole was bound by just that invisible limit which is the framework of good breeding. Here on his right was Lord Steyning, talking at the top of his voice ; a little nearer Charlie Fitzgerald was whispering across his neighbour. Miss Carey, to another guest whose name Mr. Clutterbuck did not know. The Duke of Battersea felt no necessity to talk to any one beside his hostess, or to take his eyes for more than a moment from her face ; while Mr. William Bailey shocked no one by main- taining a perfect silence, and staring gloomily through his spectacles at a '' Reynolds " of his great grandfather, the Nabob, which he had fre- quently declared in mixed company to be a forgery. It was this atmosphere of freedom that gave Mr. Clutterbuck his chief pleasure in an evening which
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he heartily, thoroughly, and uninterruptedly en- joyed.
When the women had gone away and the men were sitting at their ease, with the silent William Bailey for host, a maze of acute interest surrounded the merchant ; he could hear the Duke of Battersea, a little grumpy in the absence of the hostess, praising Lord Steyning to his face for the arrange- ment of his garden, and turning his back on Mr. Bailey, which gentleman, speaking for almost the first time that evening, shoved up close to Mr. Clutterbuck and maintained his character for oddity by asking how he liked the Peabody Yid.
Mr. Clutterbuck, uncertain whether this were a novel, a play, or a new game, but unwilling to betray his ignorance, said that it depended upon taste.
" It does," said Mr. Bailey, with emphasis ; " it's a jolly house, isn't it ? "
Mr. Clutterbuck affirmed the grandeur and admir- able appointment of the house, but he could not help wondering whether William Bailey would have been more pleased if he had found something to criticise. Then, as Charlie Fitzgerald turned to talk to Mr. Clutterbuck, William Bailey relapsed again into his silence, an attitude of mind which he diversified in no way save by pulling out a pencil and sketching, with some exaggeration of 88
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the ears, nape, and curled ringlets, the back view presented to him by the venerable Duke of Battersea.
Upstairs, Mary Smith, squatting familiarly beside Mrs. Clutterbuck, giggled into her private ear with that delightful familiarity which had ever put her guests into her intimate confidence, and swept away every vestige of gene and of disparity in status. This charm of manner it was for which those whom she still honoured chiefly loved her, and which those whom she had seen fit to drop most poignantly regretted.
Upon Mrs. Clutterbuck, as she reclined on a Tutu Louis XVII., in an attitude full of charm and of repose yet instinct with self-control, the spell of Mary Smith was powerful indeed. Her talk was of the great — and of their secretaries. She remembered stories of ambassadors, and of their secretaries as well ; and in what she had to say concerning Secretaries of State, yet other secre- taries of these secretaries appeared — unpaid secre- taries and under-secretaries, parliamentary sec- retaries, and common negligible secretaries who did secretarial work. The functions, position, and weight of a secretary had never seemed so clear to Mrs. Clutterbuck before ; nay, until that moment she had given but little heed to the secretary's trade. She saw it now.
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But all this was done so deftly and with such tact, and interrupted with such merry little screams of laughter ; in the course of it Mrs. Clutterbuck was herself compelled to make so many confidences that the atmosphere was one of mutual informa- tion, and the guest was confident that she had contributed more than the hostess. When Mary Smith moved off to play general post with the guests, and, as her charming phrase went, " to make them to talk to one another," Mrs. Clutterbuck found how singularly less a woman of the world was Mrs. Smith's somewhat prudish aunt, Lady Steyning, long at Simla, sometime our ambassadress at Washington, and now about to be at the head of the Embassy in Paris. As for Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Clutterbuck regarded her with loathing.
Downstairs Charlie Fitzgerald had been drinking port, and, keeping his right hand firmly fixed upon the neck of the decanter, he had poured out wine at intervals for Mr. Clutterbuck with a gesture which he falsely termed "passing the bottle." He had not his cousin's manner or science in the handling of a conversation, but the wine, though bad, was a bond between them ; they drank it largely, especially Fitzgerald : it enabled him to recite with passion and Mr. Clutterbuck to receive with faith, anecdotes of yet another batch of secretaries, and of Mr. Fitz- gerald's own adventures in his confidential relations 90
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with the discredited Isaacs and the aged but irasci- ble Lord Burpham ; a last engagement which he had apparently terminated from his fixed decision to undertake no such work in the future, but to live the live of a private gentleman, and possibly to enter the House of Commons.
It was impossible for Mr. Clutterbuck not to contrast again the spontaneity and ease of the world round him with the much more sterile asso- ciations of his middle and later manhood. Nor did anything please him more in that ease and spon- taneity than the Irish good nature with which Charlie Fitzgerald poured at his feet his wealth of social experience, and especially his experience in that secretarial phase which Mr. Clutterbuck sincerely regretted that he should have entirely abandoned. He could not help thinking, as he looked at the handsome curly head and merry eyes, and as he heard the names of the great and good flash con- stantly from the lips before him, how perfect would that arrangement be which should permit some humbler but similar man to be to him what Charlie Fitzgerald seemed to have been to the eminent financier and the hot-tempered politician ; a- second-and-a-younger-eye-and-brain.
As they came into the drawing-room together, they were already fast friends, and such was the effect of the atmosphere about him and the exhila-
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rating evening he had passed, that Mrs. Smith found it quite impossible to make her Clutterbuck speak to any one save his new-found acquaintance : a disappointment to those ladies who had heard exaggerated accounts of his wealth, and were already interested in his crescent-shaped mous- taches and the fan of grey hair which he displayed over his considerable forehead.
Mr. Clutterbuck noticed with some astonishment — if anything could astonish him now — the entry o^ further guests at a late hour. They came, as it seemed to him, without introduction and without ceremonial. And he wondered, as he followed the imperial carriage and gestures of Victoria Mosel among the rest, whether he also in some future year might be found drifting thus through open doors free from the weary necessities of etiquette. He doubted it.
They left at half-past eleven, and all the way home Mrs. Clutterbuck complained of fatigue. But her husband, upon his arrival, felt it necessary to continue the evening, and far into the early morn- ing drank yet more port, and considered the change in his life.
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CHAPTER V
The season was not yet over. Mrs. Clutterbuck had called upon Mary Smith, — and if my readers will believe me, — Mary Smith had called upon Mrs. Clutterbuck. And there had come a morning — Parliament was still sitting, the Goodwood Cup was not yet collared — when Mrs. Clutterbuck having heard for weeks past from Mr. Clutterbuck hints and guesses at the necessity for a secretary to deal with his now numerous invitations and engage- ments, quietly suggested Charlie Fitzgerald.
Had she suggested Tolstoi or the German Emperor she could not have surprised him more. But when he heard that the proposition had come from the family itself, that it had been largely due to Mr. Fitzgerald's own pronounced affection, and that he would be content with a nominal salary of £400 or ;^5oo a year, Mr. Clutterbuck, though as much astonished as a man rapt into heaven, was convinced of the reality of the business, and the only thing that troubled him was the question of salary.
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He paced up and down the room, suggesting to his wife the dilemma that a sum of ;£iooo or ;^i5oo a year was all the expense he would hesitate to incur, while less would be an insult he would hesitate to offers To which her only and sharp reply was that the young man could surely look after himself ; that doubtless he had grown used to work of this sort and liked it, that he probably had means of his own, and that, anyhow, it had come from him, and that Mrs. Smith herself had spoken strongly in favour of the arrangement.
How long such a change might last only Fate could tell. It was the middle of the summer. When there were no more dinners to eat and no more women to talk to,i Charlie Fitzgerald, all life and boxes, came down to Caterham, but not before going the round of some twenty-eight tradesmen in St. James's Street and Mayfair and assuring them that until the autumn he would be abroad.
With the entry of that vigorous young Irish life into Mr. Clutterbuck's home, began the last adven- tures of the merchant's singularly adventurous life and his introduction to the conflicting destinies of his country ; for even if things had not bent that way, something in Charlie Fitzgerald's nature would have left him restless until he and those for whom he worked had struck some mark.
The young Irishman was the son of that Doctor
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Fitzgerald the oculist, who had been during all the later years of Queen Victoria's reign a link, as it were, between the professional and the political world of London, and who was himself a younger son of Sir Daniel Fitzgerald, the permanent head of the Fisheries whose name appears so frequently in Lady Cotteswold's Memoirs of Prince Albert and the Queen's early married life. Lady Fitz- gerald, his wife, had been a Bailey, and the aunt, therefore, of Mrs. Smith.
It had not been thought necessary to dower her with any portion of the great Bailey fortune, for in those days the Irish land upon which Sir Daniel had foreclosed was a very ample provision even for onerous social duties in London, and the Baileys asked nothing of the eager lover but that he should adopt the name of Fitzgerald which had for centuries been associated with the estate his ardent forethought had acquired.
In those days a change of name demanded certain formalities ; these were soon fulfilled, and in Charlie's generation, the third to bear the Irish title and arms, the original form " Daniel Daniels " was justly forgotten.
Since the days of Sir Daniel Irish land has passed through a revolution, especially when it has been held by those whose duties did not necessitate a visit to their estates. Sir Daniel's heir, the
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oculist's eldest brother, would have died im- poverished had not the Government very properly succoured the son of so distinguished a Civil servant and created for him the post of Inspector in the Channel Islands (with the exception of Sark), a district in which he was understood to be present twice or even three times in a year. This salary died of course with its incumbent ; his brother, the oculist, had been compelled to spend in hospi- tality his exceptional earnings, and the present generation of young men, sons of either brother, had had to face life unguarded.
It was not an easy position for boys used to the conversation and habits of the wealthiest society in the world. But much was done for them. Edward was married to the half-witted daughter of Sir John Garstang the cotton-spinner ; Henry was put into the Scotch Education Office ; Philip died, and Charlie, in spite of the mistake about Mr. Isaacs, would have done very well out of Lord Burpham if his incorrigible Irish character had not run away with him and with the motor- car of that eminent director of our Foreign Affairs. " Irish," I say, for Ireland was apparent in all that poor Charlie did, for though his mother was of pure German stock and strongly Protestant, while his accent was that of Eton College, yet his friends could easily descry in all his extravagances and 96
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escapades the adventurous Irish influence of his grandfather's estate. His cousins, through the Baileys (who were of pure English or Indian lineage), Jim in the Foreign Office and '' Nobby " who had means and was, after a spell in the Heralds' College, at large, the Steynings and the rest, saw this Hibernian brilliance more clearly than any, and made it a permanent if insufficient excuse for his vagaries.
It was Boswell Delacourt who first suggested politics to Charlie Fitzgerald, and Fate did the rest.
Boswell Delacourt was not exactly a relative of Charlie Fitzgerald's, except in so far as everybody can be said to be related to everybody else ; he was no more than a connection by marriage. But he did think it hard that a man of Mr. Clutterbuck's antecedents and position should stand aloof from political life. Nowhere can money be more use- fully spent for the country than in the support of great political ideals, and nowhere can the wide experience and hard mental training of a commer- cial career do more for England than in the House of Commons. Nor did any one appreciate these truths more than Boswell Delacourt, nor did any of the younger people who were working in the organisation of the National Party work harder than he to spread them abroad. He hammered at Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald did his duty.
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The new Secretary had passed the whole summer without a word of complaint, cooped up in the new house at Caterham ; he had spent his energies in suggesting the purchase of books, the removal of pictures, and the renaming of the estate ; he had recommended horses, cigars, wines, traps, motors, and jewellery, and sold them again with ready de- cision when he thought them unworthy ; he had attended to all the correspondence, signed nearly all the cheques, received payment against all ex- changes, and spared his host every sort of financial worry ; he had compelled not a few of his own friends, in spite of their intense reluctance, to spend Saturday to Monday under that roof ; with noble perseverance he had run the light Panhard himself for incredible distances and at a speed which Mr. Clutterbuck could hardly bear ; he had done all these things for nearly two months without a re- spite, when, late in September, having forsworn all opportunities to shoot, he tackled the great affair.
It was in the second smoking-room some time before dinner that the elder man and the younger, sipping sherry and bitters, began their fateful con- versation.
Charlie Fitzgerald first introduced the business, and he launched it fair and clean, for when Mr. Clutterbuck had said in a ruminating sort of way : 98
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" The days are drawing in, Mr. Fitzgerald/' Charlie Fitzgerald had answered :
" Yes Why don't you send something to the
Party Funds ? "
Since his secretary had been in the house, Mr. Clutterbuck had authorised not a few large cheques, and had let Charlie sign many more. He wondered what new claim this might be, but he hardly liked to venture an opinion. He thought it better to wait a moment and let time or the goddess Chance illumi- nate him.
" You see, after all," said Fitzgerald, spreading out one hand towards the fire, " they expect it . . . don't they ? " he asked sympathetically, looking up sideways in Mr. Clutterbuck's face.
" Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a maze, " yes " — thoughtfully — " I suppose they do." But who they were, or what it was they expected, torture could not have got out of him.
" Well — you see " went on Charlie in the
tone of interest and thought which men adopt when they are putting a proposition carefully to another, " it's only natural they should. You can't carry on either of the great Parties for nothing, and lots of men expect to get everything out of politics and to put nothing in ; and then there are others who don't care about being in the movement. It's a difficult job altogether." Then he added in a
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thoroughly different tone : " They were in a damned tight hole in '95 ! "
" Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald," said the older man again. He had appreciated by this time perhaps one quarter of the affair.
" Bozzy," went on Fitzgerald, " Bozzy says that it goes up and down like a Jack-in-the-box. One election hardly anything, and then before they know where they are — millions ! But I don't believe it " — he wagged his head wisely and leaned back again — " don't believe a word of it. There must always be a balance in hand, and a fat one too. Think of it ! " he went on, " think of all it's got to do — Damn elections ! They only come once in five years anyhow. Look at all that's got to go on meanwhile ? You can't advertise for nothing, and you can't print for nothing, and you can't get men to start newspapers, that don't pay, in Egypt for nothing ; and you can't get your information abroad and in America for nothing. It's all rub- bish to say that they let it go fut ! It is true they get in a hole sometimes. And I say they were both in a hole in '95."
Mr. Clutterbuck still sat silent.
"You will say," continued Fitzgerald rapidly after a short interval, as he stood up against the mantelpiece with his back to the fire, "you'll
say "
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" No, I won't," said Mr. Clutterbuck, " I assure you, Mr. Fitzgerald, I shall put no obstacle in the way of such a decision."
"Well — but," returned his secretary, "you see it really must be explained — you can't leap in the dark."
" Certainly not," said Mr. Clutterbuck with deter- mination.
"That's it," said Charlie Fitzgerald, dropping his chin and looking profoundly at the carpet.
There was a considerable interval of silence, and Mr. Clutterbuck, who fully appreciated that this new world was not the lucid world of commerce, or, rather, that it had a language of its own with which he was not yet familiar, forebore to ask a question. Nay, it would have puzzled him very considerably to frame a question so that it should i relate to anything intelligible, human or divine. But as Charles Fitzgerald remained quite silent, the merchant did venture to suggest that he would gladly and heartily do anything that was expected ; of him in the matter.
" Yes, I know," said Fitzgerald, pacing towards the window. " I wasn't bothering about that. I'm sure you would. But I was thinking which Party. . . . You see, in the old days," he said, suddenly facing round, " it was simple enough : you had your set and your set went Whig, and it
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was all plain sailing, but then the old days were beastly corrupt, and what a man spent he liked to spend on his own people. There's a place over the hill there," he said, jerking his head backwards towards Gatton, " where my great uncle's father-in- law was — seven electors and ;^20,ooo. But they won't tolerate that now. So there you are ! You got to ask yourself which Party. Then there's another trouble : there used to be only two Parties ; now they're five, and look like seven."
Mr. Clutterbuck's mind moved forward by one cog, and he saw that the talk had something to do with the nuances of the House of Commons. He let Fitzgerald go on, but he could have wished that young man of breeding would make himself clearer, unless, indeed, this method of address were native or in some way necessary to exalted rank.
" Bozzy says," began Fitzgerald, " there are really only two party-funds again, now the National Party's kept going two years, and I 'spose he's right. Nobody gives to the Irish except the Irish, and that's a sort of audit sheet business, like the Labour people. And the Radicals haven't got a regular organisation. Then, of course, you might say, ' Why not give to both ? ' like the Stanfords."
" Who are the Stanfords, Mr. Fitzgerald ? " broke in the master of the house, clutching like a drown- ing man at a straw.
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" Lord Stanford and his wife," said Charlie Fitz- gerald innocently. "Old Bill Lewisohn that was; they call it Lewis and Lewis still."
"Oh yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck humbly.
" Well," said Fitzgerald, getting his second wind, " as I say, you might say ' Why not give to both, like the Stanfords ? ' Frankly, I don't think it pays. He gives to the Opposition, anyway he did give to the Opposition before the General Election because of the peerage ; and she gives to the Nationals now because of the Church Bill. But it doesn't pay. They don't get half the attention either of 'em would get singly. Besides which," he added, " a man must consult his convictions. Course he must."
" Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Clutterbuck, who now at last perceived that the elements of the tangle consisted of a sum of money, his political convic- tions, and the Party system. " I've never concealed mine. I was a Conservative as long as I took any interest in politics. But the 1906 administration was a good one ; the 1908 was a better. Then when this Coalition came I was hard at work and not bothering about politics : I suppose I'd have gone National. But not altogether, you know ; and as for the first tariff — well, I'm out of business now, and I suppose I oughtn't to lose my temper. As one gets older," he added wearily, " one cares much less about these things."
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"That's it," said Fitzgerald suddenly, determined to keep it alight. " You're ab-so-lute-ly right . . . it's just because practical business men know the harm the first tariff did, that the Nationals want their help — help o' men like you. Rubber, for instance : Congo rubber. After all, you know more about it than twenty of the politicians put together. I tell you what," he added, " buzz down with me to-morrow and see Bozzy — Bozzy Delacourt. He's a sort of relation of mine, and he'll tell you a lot more about it than I could. We wouldn't have to go to the head offices in Peter Street : he'll give us lunch. I'll telephone through to him." And the happy but loquacious fellow went out upon that errand.
Mr. Clutterbuck, left alone to his own thoughts, carefully unravelled them and picked them out clearly strand from strand : that he was expected, to his own advantage, to subscribe a sum of money ; that he was expected to subscribe it to a political party ; that a man called Bozzy, who was also called Delacourt, was in the inner ring of such affairs, and that of the two Parties it would best suit a merchant of his standing to tender such financial support, through the said Bozzy, to the Party in power.
When he had put the thing thus to himself it seemed much simpler ; he was prepared for the business before him, and next day Delacourt's per- 104
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fectly lucid and very straightforward manner finished the affair. He found that so small a sum as a thousand pounds was received on behalf of the great organisation with the greatest dignity and courtesy, and that his support was as warmly acknowledged as though he had given twenty times that sum. When the formality was over, Delacourt, detaining him over the wine, said gravely :
"We all have to do what we can, Mr. Clutter- buck, but the real loss to the New Tariff nowadays isn't in money. You all come forward most generously. Our trouble is that we can't get the candidates we used to. We can't get the Old Com- mercial Member who could drive it down in the House with fact and grip and experience. We couldn't ask a man Hke you to stand, for instance, Mr. Clutterbuck, because the work has got so hard ; but it's a great pity. It all gets handed over to the young journalists and the lawyers." He went on to rattle off with ease and familiarity a dozen great names in the City connected with the Liberal benches and with the Conservative in the old free trade days, names that were the names of gods to the astonished Mr. Clutterbuck, who had never heard them pronounced in so everyday a fashion before.
"There's where you'd have been in the old days,
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Mr. Clutterbuck," said Bozzy with ardour, " but we wouldn't dare to ask you now."
In Mr. Clutterbuck's experience this was but a delicate way of telling him that a seat in Parliament was quite out of his reach. But the suggestion had moved him, and moved him profoundly. Of Par- liament, of men who stood for Parliament, of the Northern manufacturers especially and their qualifi- cations, of the London members, and of a hundred other similar things, he talked eagerly to Fitzgerald through the afternoon, as the Limousine shot back to the Surrey Hills.
That night Charlie Fitzgerald, before going to bed, wrote a note containing the simple information that the old blighter would take it out of the hand. Then he bethought himself of the danger of written messages and of the advantages of modern inven- tion. He burnt the note, rang up Bozzy on the telephone, found him in no very good humour just back from a boring play, and informed him in bad French that he had no need to shoot further: the opossum would come down when he was called.
Four days later Mr. Clutterbuck received a lengthy and very careful letter upon the official paper of Peter Street. It contained a statement and a proposal, both highly confidential. The state- ment was to the effect that the borough of Mickleton in North London would very probably be vacant io6
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
in a few weeks ; for what reasons could not easily be written. The proposition — made with infinite tact and with the most courteous recognition of the very high favour I\Ir. Clutterbuck would be doing the Party should he accede — was that he should accept the Prospective National Candidature at once in time to make himself familiar with the con- stituency, supposing always that the National Com- mittee of that borough should be instructed by the General Meeting to urge their Executive Body to demand Mr. Clutterbuck's services.
The Opposition majority, Delacourt admitted, was a high one — no less than 851, as the books of refer- ence would inform him. But a great part of this was due to the female vote, which had naturally been given to the Party who had pressed their claims during the recent administration ; and though he did not pretend to prophesy victory, he could assure Mr. Clutterbuck that the proposition would never have been made to him had not the chances of victory been such as to make that proposal an honourable one.
As for Mr. Clutterbuck, he sat that night upon a throne.
^p ^p ^p ^P ^P
To Mr. Clutterbuck the stages by which a man may enter the Representative Chamber were far from familiar. Charlie Fitzgerald had indulged in
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political sport more than once, and though he would not compare it to motoring, or even to really good yachting, he confessed that it attracted him, and he would often go off for a day or two's electioneering when the occasion served, at the request of a friend ; nay, on the last occasion he had given up a capital day's shooting to see cousin " Nobby " handsomely beaten in Derbyshire by 3286. It was excitement of which he did not easily tire. But as he described the first processes with gusto to Mr. Clutterbuck, that gentleman perceived that the road to Parlia- ment was not as smooth or as simple as he had vaguely imagined : and of all the obstacles that lay between him and the final stages of a political career, none did he dread more than the first, which was fixed for October 5. For though the Mickleton National Committee had indeed, as Mr. Delacourt hoped, received orders for the General Meeting to instruct their Executive to approach the merchant, and though he had at once given a warm reply in the affirmative, it was still their public duty to examine Mr. Clutterbuck upon the orthodoxy of his political faith ; it was this that appalled him. He prepared for the inquisi- tion with sweat and agony. He read at Fitz- gerald's order "The National Year Book," "A Thousand Points on Nationalism," "What is a Nationalist ? " " Why I am a Nationalist," and was 108
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relieving himself with " Platform Jokes " when he was bidden leave that useful compendium to a later stage. There would be little joking on October 5 !
He very humbly and sincerely followed the instructions of his secretary in the details of the interrogators he would have to meet ; he noted the foreign wrongs which he desired redressed, the wickedness of European Governments and their particular crimes, the domestic evils whose mere existence darkened the sun, and the personal habits which were expected of him — notably total abstin- ence. One thing above all he learnt ; it was drummed into him till he knew it by heart ; no matter what the committee might say or think, no matter what pressure he might suffer, he was to pledge himself boldly against his party in the matter of the Offences Disenfranchisement Bill.
On that Charlie was adamant. " It looks easy now," he said (alas ! did it ?) ; " but it may be the devil and all on the 5th of October."
What precisely the measure might be, Fitzgerald, who had himself not studied it minutely, thought it as well to leave aside. The simpler the manly reply, the better. He was sure it was the Government's one mistake.
The programme was thoroughly threshed out, often repeated, fixed, and as the fatal day approached,
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Mr. Clutterbuckfelt himself armoured ; but not before he had, again on Charlie Fitzgerald's advice, written out, quite spontaneously, a note and a cheque for ;^ioo to the United Sons of Endeavour. It was a religious association of young men which did strenuous work among the poor of Mickleton, dis- tributed large sums every quarter in salaries to its vast organisation, and had upon its membership representatives of nearly every family of note in the borough.
October 5 was a glorious autumn day, and it was the open Renault which was chosen. The inter- view was to take place in the North Street schools at four ; just after lunch Mr. Clutterbuck, already passably nervous, and Charlie Fitzgerald in the highest of high spirits, started northward.
As they left the more familiar parts of London behind them, and passed through miles of sordid and obscure streets, Mr. Clutterbuck's vitality steadily fell. Public engagements of every kind were ill suited to his temperament ; the thought of public examination was abhorrent to him. He fortified himself by an occasional mental glance at his financial position and a comparison between it and that of the pigmies who would that day pre- sume to be his Judges, but even this great balm for human woe hardly comforted him as the horrid perspective of North Street swung into view and the no
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car stopped with a jerk in front of the dreary wall of the schools.
He was glad, from the very bottom of his heart, to be accompanied by Charlie Fitzgerald, whose exceed- ingly good grey clothes, very curly brown hair and frank boyish eyes, would have been a protection to any man in an ordeal even more severe than that which Mr. Clutterbuck had to face.
For a few minutes they sat together in a little bare room furnished as to the floor with a dead stove without a fire, and as to the walls with a glazed picture for the instruction of the young — a picture representing an elephant in his natural colours, and underneath it in large letters:
EL-E-PHANT (Mammal)
This huge crea-ture is an in-hab-i-tant of our
In-di-an Em-pire.
At this work Mr. Clutterbuck mournfully gazed during his period of probation, whilst Charlie Fitz- gerald first swung his clasped hands between his knees, then crossed his legs, leaned his head back, and hummed the old Ga.iety pas de quatrev^ihxch. had rejoiced his boyhood.
Suddenly the door opened and Mr. Clutterbuck and his companion were gravely summoned into the presence of the Executive.
Of the various functions filled by an Executive, a
HI
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Committee, a Body of Workers, a Confederation, and a Deputation to Choose in the organisation of our pubHc Hfe, I will not here treat. The vast machinery of self-government, passionately interesting as it must be to all free men, would take me too far from the purpose of my narrative. It must be enough for the reader to know that five gentlemen and one lady, of very different complexions, garb and demeanours, sat in a semicircle on six Windsor chairs, in the schoolroom which Mr. Clutterbuck entered. He was suffering — oh ! suffering with the pangs men only experience upon reaching the turn- ing-points of their lives. Upon this jury depended, not even his entry into the great council of the nation, but his bare opportunity for presenting himself as a candidate at all.
The chairman, or at any rate the gentleman who sat in the middle of the crescent, was a clergyman of gigantic stature, though of what denomination it would have been difficult to say, for above a Roman collar he carried an immense black beard, wore spec- tacles, and was bald. His voice was perhaps the most profound and awe-inspiring Mr. Clutterbuck had ever heard, and when he said, " Pray, gentlemen, be seated," it was as though a judge had pronounced sentence in the weightiest of criminal trials.
Mr. Clutterbuck felt uncertainly backwards for the chair which he hoped was there, found the
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target and expected the issue in an attitude of misfortune. Charlie Fitzgerald sat down upon the chair next him, smiled at the half-moon of faces, and threw up his trenches to receive the attack.
"The first thing we have to ask you, Mr. Clut- terbuck," boomed out the terrible hierarch, "is your attitude upon the Irish question ?"
"My attitude upon the Irish question," said Mr. Clutterbuck, in a dry, unnatural voice, " is that of the great Mr. Gladstone."
Four of the male heads approved of this reply by various expressions and signs, and the lady by a series of enthusiastic little nods, intended to reassure the candidate whose embarrassment she sincerely pitied.
But a man of apparently captious temper at the end of the line, said :
"Ah, now, but at what periud of the old djentle- mun ? "
Mr. Clutterbuck, recognising the accent, replied eagerly, "At the period most closely associated with his name."
" That won't do f'r my boys," said the interrupter cheerfully, " n'r f'r anny uv the Orange Temperance League that / know, I can tell ye ! "
And this was Mr. Clutterbuck's first introduction to the great truth that practical politics depend on compromise.
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The Chairman bestowed a sorrowful look upon the gentleman from Ulster, and said severely :
" I think, Mr. Clutterbuck, most of us are satisfied with your reply."
Mr. Clutterbuck was grateful ; he waited for the next question and braced himself to bear it. It was the lady who put it to him in a voice which some years earlier must have been a beautiful contralto, and which even yet retained notes of singular richness and power. She asked Mr. Clutterbuck in a manner suggesting persuasion rather than pressure, what his views might be upon the establishment of female courts of justice.
Mr. Clutterbuck replied that in this, as in every other matter concerning the sex, he should be guided by the opinion of the committee representing the lady electors.
" But I am here to represent the Female Com- mittee," said the lady sweetly.
"Well, Ma'am," said Mr. Clutterbuck, ''ahem! I suppose you represent their views ?"
"Certainly," said the lady with decision and in her richest tones. . " Quite so, quite so," said Mr. Clutterbuck.
At this point Charlie Fitzgerald looked up and said quietly :
" I can assure you Mr. Clutterbuck is heartily in favour." 114
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His interruption was not very palatable to the committee, who found it a diversion from the pleasures of the chase. The chairman frowned at him, and Charlie Fitzgerald smiled back sadly in return.
" Mr. Clutterbuck," came forth the deep voice again, " I have now to ask you the gravest question of all: How would you vote in the matter of temperance reform ? "
"Mr. Clutterbuck," said Charlie Fitzgerald briskly, " is a total abstainer."
"We are not here, sir," said a barber who had not yet spoken, and who was a deeply religious man, "to hear you, but to hear Mr. Clutterbuck."
To which rebuke Charlie Fitzgerald had the imprudence to murmur in a low tone : " Oh, my God ! "
Luckily the expression did not reach the stern half-moon of inquisitors, and Mr. Clutterbuck was free to reply that he had the most ardent and complete sympathy with temperance reform in all its aspects.
" But to take a specific instance," said the clergy- man, wagging a forefinger at Mr. Clutterbuck and fixing him with his two glass eyes, " would you or would you not vote for Sir William Cattermole's Bill ? "
" I would vote for it," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a
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tone of ardent conviction, " though it should cost me my seat and the confidence of my party ! "
A look of blank amazement passed over the clergyman's face, nor did any of the half circle smile, except the Orangeman, and he only with his eyes.
" You surely cannot have heard me aright," said the clergyman in astonishment and sorrow. " I said Sir William Cattermole's Bill. You would support that infamous measure ?"
Charlie Fitzgerald was in a qualm, and it cannot be denied that Mr. Clutterbuck looked at him for aid and information. Like most honest men, Mr. Clutterbuck was not very ready to take hints or to observe expressions, but Charlie Fitzgerald's eye- brows were so unmistakable that he found his cue.
"You must have misunderstood me," he said. " My point was that I would vote for an amendment to that Bill though it should cost me my seat — that is," he added modestly, "supposing I had one."
After using this expression Mr. Clutterbuck was so miserable that the very publicans themselves would have pitied him had they seen the sweat gathering upon his temples, and the droop of his mouth which at every moment more and more resembled that of a child who is about to burst into tears. ii6
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"Well, Mr. Clutterbuck," said the chairman with a sigh, " that's not very satisfactory."
" No, it izunt," said the Orangeman offensively, though in a lower tone ; while the lady, who had hitherto befriended the forlorn financier, now re- garded him with a constrained reproach.
" I am afraid," stammered the unfortunate man, " that I must have expressed myself ill."
"No matter, Mr. Clutterbuck, no matter," said the chairman, lifting his hand benignly. "The time will come for all that, when this deplorable measure comes, if it ever does come, before the House. . . . And now, Mr. Clutterbuck," he added leaning forward, to the evident annoyance of his colleagues who desired to have a word, " what about the policy of Offences Disfranchisement ? "
To the immense surprise of his six torturers, Mr. Clutterbuck, in a manly and decisive voice replied, or rather shouted :
" I will have nothing to do with it ! "
" Ear-ear ! " said the barber enthusiastically.
"Mr. Pickle," said the clergyman reprovingly, "your interruption is most improper."
" But the sentiment's all right," said a little man to the left of the chair, who had not yet spoken, and whose wizened face betrayed acute intelligence. He added : " And I con-gratulate you, Mr. Clut- terbuck. You're a gentleman ! What's more is
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this; I shall be happy to shake you heartily by the hand when all o' this is over."
The lady on the extreme left wing was visibly annoyed, the clergyman appeared indifferent, while the one member of the executive who had hitherto maintained a complete silence, and who yet was no less a person than the husband of the representative of the female committee of Mickleton, copied his wife's demeanour with that exactitude which is the outward symbol of a happy union. They had no children.
Mr. Clutterbuck, in a tone still strong, but with something of the monotony which comes from frequent repetition, added :
" There are some things, gentlemen, on which a Democrat cannot swerve, and I cannot see, with duel deference to the mixed opinion before me, how a Democrat could have answered other than I did."
Here doubts of grammar rushed into his mind and he was silent.
The wizened little man said : " That's all roight," and the barber beamed at him.
The clergyman, rising, said :
" Well, Mr. Clutterbuck, you've done us a great honour by meeting us, I'm sure. ... We shall have to consider our decision. We will let you know, Mr. Clutterbuck. May I have the honour and the pleasure of shaking you by the hand ? " ii8
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Mr. Clutterbuck accorded him this felicity, and repeated it in the case of every other member of the crescent ; they had now broken their formation and were standing in various attitudes before him, the lady with a notable pride which became her female representative position, her husband with an extremely quiet dignity. The ordeal was over.
As Charlie P'itzgerald and he went out past the elephant and the dead stove into the open air, and when they were well out of earshot, Mr. Clutterbuck asked nervously :
" Was that all right, Mr. Fitzgerald ? " For answer Fitzgerald felt in his breast pocket, looked really anxious and said :
" Good God ! I forgot to post that letter." " What letter ? " asked Mr. Clutterbuck, a little pale.
" Nothing," said Fitzgerald, " nothing." He walked quickly to a pillar-box a few steps off, and dropped into it the envelope addressed to the United Sons of Endeavour which he should have posted the night before : his omission accounted for much, but he had rectified it and he knew that all would be well.
" It's all right," he said, slogging back, '' but I was a big fool to forget it. That's the worst of being an Irishman," he added genially.
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Mr. Clutterbiick vras quite i: sri. But is it all right, "Sir. F rziri : it :: ti.
"It's: , : ? He hit his
t~z'.-z: : into the car
Four days Caterham from
±z A::;nz S: - ::.::: National
jke in wltzl . - f Mr. Clatterbock's
I20
CHAPTER VI
In the height of that splendid London season which had seen Mr. Clutterbuck's introduction to Mrs. Smith's dehghtful circle, a little thing had happened at Podger's Wharf in the neighbourhood of Nine Elms upon the south side of the river.
A gentleman of the name of Peake employed by Messrs. Harman and James, barge and transport masters, to pump and swab out the bilge of the " Queen of Denmark," certified to carry 182 tons of merchandise, and of due cubic capacity for that burthen, discovered himself unable to reach the vessel on account of the intervening mud and the accident of an exceptionally low tide.
At twelve o'clock the new and well-appointed hooter of Messrs. Harman and James's works having sounded, Mr. Peake immediately laid down the mop and hand-pump with which he had been furnished, and proceeded to pass the check door and receive his salary, for it was a Saturday. The day was very sunny and bright — but that is not to my purpose.
Mr. Harman himself approached Mr. Peake and
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suggested to him that now the tide was rising he might gratify the firm by remaining at an increased salary for a couple of hours to accomplish his task ; but Mr. Peake pointed out with such brevity as the occasion demanded that this would be a gross violation of the rules of his Union, and moved towards the gate.
It was at this moment that Mr. Harman com- mitted the deplorable error which was to lead to such enormous consequences in the body politic : he lost his temper. He was alleged, I know not with how much truth, to have addressed Mr. Peake in terms vividly suggesting social inferiority ; but whether this be true or not it is certain that he assured Mr. Peake of the uselessness of seeking further employment at the wharf ; nay, he had the brutality to tender to that gentleman a week's salary in lieu of notice, and having done so he retired.
I will not here go into the vexed question of the language used on either side, nor enter into Mr. Harman's somewhat lame excuses that he was provoked by a certain expression of his employee's which cast a most unjust reflection upon his, Mr. Harman's, pride of birth and personal morals. Mr. Harman's hasty action was surely indefen- sible upon any provocation, and its natural con- sequence was that the remainder of those who
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worked at Podger's Wharf were called out by their Union, while the United Riverside Workers and Sons of Southwark threatened a sympathetic cessation of labour to extend from the eastern side of Hammersmith Bridge to the western edge of the steps at the bottom of Edgar Street in Lime- house.
I need hardly say that under these circum- stances the compulsory clauses of the Conciliation Act of 1909 were at once acted upon by the popular and wealthy President of the Board of Trade, and the decision of the courts, the machin- ery of which in such actions is extraordinarily rapid, was given within three days entirely in favour of the Union ; indeed, no other decision could possibly have been arrived at, and public opinion thoroughly justified the coercion very properly applied to the tyrannical master ; papers as different as the Spectator and the Winning Post were at one upon the matter, and their widely separate reading publics heartily agreed.
So far the incident, though it had attained cer- tain dimensions, did not threaten any very grave results. But it so happened that a section of the workers involved, namely, the Paint Removers and Tar and Marine Composition Appliers had taken advantage of the disturbance to demand the aboli- tion of piecework upon all hulks and upon all
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vessels in active use between the Garboard Strake and the North Atlantic Winter Loading Line. The courts, in their haste to settle the main issue, had perhaps too lightly overlooked this contention, and the result was some considerable disappointment among the Paint Removers and Tar and Marine Composition Appliers throughout the Port of London. The Union, as it was bound to do by statute, accepted the decision of the court ; unfor- tunately a gentleman of the name of Fishmonger, in company with his brother-in-law, Henry Bebb (hereinforth and henceforward known as "Another"), both expert Tar Smoothers, felt so strongly upon the matter that they refused to return to work. A warrant was made out for their arrest, and though their Union was somewhat half-hearted in the matter, the P.D.Q. and several other societies desired to fight it, and under the powers afforded by the same statute they lodged an appeal — for, as is now well known, there are certain cases in which a work- man cannot be compelled to accept employment even after the Court of Conciliation has delivered its judgment.
The appeal was heard before Justices Hunny- bubble, Compton and Welsh. Sir John Compton was averse to create a precedent of such lamentable consequence ; the Act was new, it was, so to speak, upon its trial, and though he would have been the 124
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first to admit that he was there not to make the law but to administer it, he could not but recognise the function of an EngHsh judge in the common- wealth, and he was for finding some issue by which Mr. Fishmonger and Mr. Bebb might escape the too drastic consequences of a somewhat hastily drafted measure.
We are not a logical people : we refuse to be bound by the formal syllogisms so popular with the lower races of Europe and especially among the dying Latin nations. There is no doubt that Mr. Justice Compton reflected, in the attitude he adopted, the permanent common sense of the nation. Unfortunately, Mr. Justice Hunnybubble, in spite of the sterling Saxon name he bore, was too much of the lawyer and the pedant to concur. In his long and disastrous decision he introduced a hundred empty abstractions and metaphysical whimsies: that "contract was mutual," for in- stance, or that " the obligation was binding upon either party." He even descended to talking of " equality " declared the law as much the defender of the rich man as of the poor, and would not admit, in theory, that contrast between Employer and Employed, which is so glaring in practice to every eye. He insisted that if the master was con- strained to take a workman back, so was that work- man bound to return ; he so strained the petty
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details of the Act itself as to interpret the words "all parties" in clause IV. to include the employees as well as the employers, and applied the phrase "shall abide by the award under pain, &c.," to hungry artisan as severely as to paunchy capitalist.
In spite of Sir John Compton's dissent, Mr. Justice Hunnybubble took with him his colleague, Welch. The decision of the lower court was therefore upheld, and Mr. Fishmonger and Mr. Bebb, who had found better paid employment in the Halls during the Long Vacation, and who refused to re-enter the yard, were, to the shame of our institutions, cast into HoUoway Jail as first class misdemeanants. They were deprived of the use of tobacco and the daily newspapers ; and even their cuisine was regulated by official order.
While the case was still sub judice the respect invariably shown to the courts forbade any open comment, but when, some ten days after Mr. Clutter- buck's interview with the executive of Mickleton, the deplorable miscarriage of justice had actually taken place, and when the populace had been afforded the spectacle of these two unfortunate men driven in a common cab to their dungeon, the storm burst.
The general emotion did not at first find its way into the public Press : the proprietors of our daily and weekly journals have too strong a regard for 126
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the Bench to permit themselves any immediate criticism of a judicial decision, and the relations into which they are nightly brought with our judges as host or guest in many a hospitable house, adds to their natural reserve ; but in spite of this absence of printed comment, the matter became first the chief, and at least the only subject of talk among the artisans of the metropolis, from them it spread, as all such movements must, to the un- skilled labourers, and from these to the general population of London. Within a fortnight the police were aware of the extraordinary extent of the ferment, and the Home Secretary went so far as to curtail a pleasant visit at the country seat of the Baron de Czernwitz, in order to hurry up to town and consult with his brother-in-law, the Lord Chief Justice, and his wife's uncle, the Chief Commis- sioner, His decision was to do nothing : but mean- while two public meetings had been held, one in Moore's Circus, another an open-air one, on Peckham Rye, and feeling had risen so high that two newspapers actually admitted short reports of the proceedings at each of these gatherings.
Early in November, while matters were in this very critical state, the sitting member for Mickleton whose financial entanglement could no longer be concealed, fled to Ostend and was rash enough to take his life in the front room of the Villa des
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Charmettes, thereby leaving a vacancy in the re- presentation of his borough.
Mr. Clutterbiick's easy prospect of nursing Mickleton, of carefully and continuously sup- porting its worthier activities, and of extending a judicious hospitality to its many inhabitants, was suddenly shattered : he must prepare for instant action. It was with a mixture of fixed concern and unpleasant excitement that, under the direction of Charlie Fitzgerald, his plans were made.
The writ, it was understood, would be issued on the following Wednesday week, and the polling would take place upon Saturday, November 19 ; there was little time to lose. The dates and places of the principal meetings were rapidly arranged, the printers among whom work was to be dis- tributed were carefully noted, the excellent organisation of the constituency had prepared him a numbered list of the electors who would expect a personal visit, and he received one morning by post the manifesto which had been drawn up at headquarters for him to sign.
Mr. Clutterbuck had signed this in his business- like way and had left it for his secretary to post.
That gentleman came in from his usual morning spin in the green Darracq — the Napier he had slightly damaged some days before in attempting a group of oxen on Merstham hill. As he slowly 128
MR. CLUTTERBUCK'S ELECTION
mastered the few lines he began to shake his head solemnly and at last laid the document down, saying :
" It won't do as it is."
"You don't want me to add to it myself, Mr. Fitzgerald ? " said Mr. Clutterbuck with an anxious look.
" N — no," said Fitzgerald, running his finger down the page. ..." My point is . . . there's something you got to add."
He read it again more closely, knitting his brows.
It was a straightforward bit of democratic plead- ing and clear, popular statement. It emphasised the importance to Great Britain of raising the price of Consols up to a standard level of seventy-five, of maintaining and if possible increasing the gold reserve so that the Bank rate should not rise above six per cent, for more than three months at one time ; it declared strongly for the principle of female courts of justice, and supported the policy of the Government in its recent subsidies to the Grimsby fishing industry, the White Star Line the Small Holders Capitalisation Association, the new " Eastern Counties Railway," and Lord Pain- ton's Association for the Construction and Repair of English Canals.
Upon lesser matters it turned to criticise the woe-
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ful parsimony of the late administration, and con- trasted the provision made for the fleet in the last National Budget with the Naval Estimates of 1908.
The document ended with a paragraph upon the Offences Disfranchisement Bill, which Charlie Fitzgerald read with close attention. It was as follows :
"In my opinion those who have borne themselves So ill as to merit condemnation by one of our English justices of the peace, whether to fine or imprisonment, or both, are certainly ivorthy of some measure of loss of the powers of the fulness of complete and unre- stricted citizenship ; but I shall reserve my judgment upon the present Government's decision to withdraw the franchise for five years, or in some cases in per- petuity, from those who have done no more than to excite such grave suspicion as must attach to those who have been arrested by the police or have been present as defendants in a county court."
Fitzgerald read this sentence three times over, and sighed. "Too many 'ois'," he murmured, "too many words! . . . "Did you notice that last paragraph ?" he added without looking up at his employer.
" I really can't say, Mr. Fitzgerald," answered that gentleman moving about somewhat uneasily. " I can't tell you, quoted offhand like that. What's it about ? " 130
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" Well, it seems to be about the Offences Disfran- chisement Bill, but God only knows who drafted it."
"Who— what ?" said Mr. Clutterbuck still more uneasily, coming and looking over his shoulder.
" Who wrote it out," said Fitzgerald, " who de- signed the beastly thing ? "
" Really, Mr. Fitzgerald, really," said Mr. Clutter- buck. He had not himself written the fatal words, but he had carried on a little correspondence of his own about them, and he did not like the work to be treated so sharply, though his respect for Charlie Fitzgerald was still strong.
" It's got to go," said Fitzgerald decisively.
"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald!" said Mr. Clutterbuck in some alarm, " we can't do without an allusion to the Offences Bill ! Really, Mr. Fitzgerald, you know it's the most important reform, well, of our time so to speak. Why," said he, remembering sundry quotations from his reading : " this country is the pioneer; Italy's only talked of the thing; Germany's backward. There's only Nebraska abreast of us. And think of the effect ! "
" Look here," said Charlie Fitzgerald a little im- patiently, " that paragraph has got to go. If you want to say anything about the Offences Disfran- chisement Bill you had better put in four lines
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saying that wild horses won't make you vote for it in any shape or form. But I doubt whether those old jossers in Mickleton would pass that. Just say nothing about it, and a day or two before the poll enlarge your spirit on the platform and damn it up hill and down dale."
Mr. Clutterbuck felt like a man who had just lost his dog, but he held his tongue, and only thought mournfully of the letters that might come to him next day.
"And now," said Charlie Fitzgerald as he drew a red chalk thoughtfully through the offending para- graph, " I'm going off this evening, and when I come back I shall tell you what I think ought to be added at the end of the manifesto — I shall know then."
He got up quite suddenly. " I won't be late," he added. "I'll be back before midnight, and I'll tell you."
Mr. Clutterbuck and he looked at each other without speaking for a moment, and for once there was a slight disturbance in the merchant's mind as he looked through the window and saw his secretary calmly giving orders to the gardener and to the mechanician, and a moment later stepping into the newly-bought F.I.A.T. with a gesture of proprietorship that was perhaps a trifle exaggerated.
But this unworthy mood disturbed for but a 132
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moment the Clutterbuckian poise, and certainly his young friend's achievement, when he returned to tell of it, would have dispelled for ever any such ill- omened emotion.
4: * iH * *
The business which Mr. Fitzgerald had before him that evening was one so familiar to all those acquainted with the apparatus of self-government, that it is perhaps redundant in me to chronicle it. Nevertheless it was of such importance in the events that follow, that I must briefly relate it.
He drove to the station and sent the car back (its reappearance was a first solace to the master of the house) ; he took, out of the petty cash, a first return for Victoria, hailed a cab as he left the station (noting the expense with a regularity rare in a man of high birth and Irish nationality), drove to his Club, dined handsomely, again put down this inci- dental item in round figures, hailed yet another cab, and told the driver vaguely to drive to Mickleton.
The driver, a North countryman of sturdy temper, insisted upon knowing an exact address, but upon receiving a reply which savoured too much of care- lessness about The Future Life, he whipped up his horse and drove northward as he was bid, taking, as is the invariable custom of hackney coachmen, the largest and the widest artery of the place, a street known for some centuries as the London Road,
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called during the eighties and nineties The Boulevard, but since the feat of arms of General Baden-Powell, characteristically and finally christened Mafeking Avenue.
In this fine thoroughfare were to be discovered not a few licensed premises. Charlie Fitzgerald chose the most sumptuous of these and the best lit stopped the cab and went in. He was about to explore the public opinion of Mickleton.
He came out in a quarter of an hour, drove on to another public-house, visited it for a few minutes only, called at another and another, and so until he had fairly sampled the constituents in perhaps a dozen of those general rendezvous where the political temper of a great people may best be determined. The result of his investigation was much what he had expected, though it was more precise, and in one matter much more emphatic, than he would have premised before he began his inquiry.
The populace were, as he had expected, indifferent to, and for the greater part ignorant of, the death of their respected member. Those of them who were acquainted with his demise found it difficult to keep an audience, and the few who had attempted to retail it as an entertaining item of news, were met by the coarsest of opposition, save in the case of one man, who ascribed it with conviction to 134
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murder at the hands of the police, pointing out to his companion at "The Naked Man" how many cases of such mysterious deaths had recently occurred on the Opposition side of the House, and drawing from his own rich experience of the con- stabulary many dark examples of their mysterious power.
But while the death of the late baronet was found to have produced so little impression, one topic struck Fitzgerald's ears upon every side, and this, I need hardly say, was the case of Rex v. Fishmonger and Another.
The full legal terminology was unfamiliar to these plain working men, and they alluded to it com- monly as " the Nine Elms business," or the " Rodger's Lay " to which the more familiar would add the term, "the Holloway job." But unvar- nished and even inaccurate as were their expres- sions, it was clear that they were deeply moved. Save here and there in the saloon bars, where the local gentry would meet in rarer numbers, and where Fitzgerald during this tour had little concern, nothing else was talked of : most significant of all, as he rightly judged, was the ardent sympathy of the potboys, the barmaids, and the very publicans themselves, who, for all their substantial position as employers of labour, could not conceal their ardent agreement with their customers.
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A foreigner unacquainted with the national temper, and hearing the popular judgments passed upon Mr. Justice Hunnybubble, might have imagined that exalted personage's Hfe to be in danger, and in more than one instance Charlie Fitzgerald was annoyed to have a glass smashed under his nose in the heat of the denunciations, or to find some huge and purple visage, one with which he was totally unacquainted, angrily challenging him to agree with the general verdict or to take Toko. With true diplomacy Fitzgerald joined heartily in the uni- versal topic and opinion, but his clothes and accent laid him open to a just suspicion, and he was glad when his round of visits was over and his mind thoroughly informed.
It is not an easy thing to conduct such a piece of research after dinner in a dozen public-houses large and small, and to retain one's clarity of vision and one's acuteness of judgment. But Fitzgerald, by the simple manoeuvre of ordering the whiskey and the water separately, and of ultimately standing the former to a chance acquaintance in each place, accomplished his mission with complete success. As he took the last train at Victoria, after discharg- ing the cabman with an ample reward (which he again noted in round figures), he had the campaign well in hand.
That night, late as it was, he found Mr. Clutter- 136
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buck waiting for him, and, what is more, Mrs. Clutterbuck as well. He manfully stood out one hour of earnest defence against her continued presence, and when, not without a promise of vengeance in her eye she had determined to re- treat, he tackled Mr. Clutterbuck at once, and told him that the constituency was his upon one con- dition.
Mr. Clutterbuck, who seriously feared that the condition would involve yet another generous recog- nition of The Sons of Endeavour, was relieved beyond measure to hear that no more was required of him than a strong and simple declaration such as behoved a Democrat upon a plain matter of public policy.
" You got to speak heart and soul for Fishmonger — and for the Other also, I suppose," said Charlie Fitzgerald. "If you think you dare do it, go for Hunnybubble, and do as little as you can of any- thing else. That's the tip," said Fitzgerald, bringing his hands together with a hearty clap like a pistol shot, and mentally calculating his total expenses of the evening, with ten shillings added for a margin.
It was all Greek to Mr. Clutterbuck, but he understood it was politics. To a man of his frank- ness and probity political work was clear, and — so that it were political work and contained no hint of corruption — he was ready for the fray.
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Of the elements of the matter he could only remember vaguely the word Fishmonger tucked away in small type in the legal columns of the Times, while for Mr. Justice Hunnybubble he had never felt any feeling more precise than the defer- ence due to a man who was gratefully remem- bered by the social class to which Mr. Clutterbuck belonged as " Hanging Jim."
The hour was too late for him to follow further argument. It was not till next morning that his strategy was laid down for him by his invaluable secretary.
The manifesto was brought out again, the last objectionable paragraph was cut out, and in its place Charlie Fitzgerald added these ringing words :
"Much more than any Passing Question OF Politics I shall challenge, if you return me as your member, the hideous Injustice and Tyranny which has con- demned TWO British Workmen to lan- guish IN Jail for exercising the Common Rights of every Free Man. And I shall leave no stone unturned to secure the Reversal of that Iniquitous Judgment."
" Now," said Charlie Fitzgerald pleasantly, when he had drafted this bugle call, '' we won't send that back to your agents, will we ? " He accompanied 138
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this unexpected remark with a sunny smile, and Mr. Chitterbuck looked at him blankly.
"No, no," said Charlie Fitzgerald humorously, " we'll note who the printers are, shall we ?" He looked at the small type at the bottom of the sheet and saw " The Alexandra Printing Works."
" I'm greatly relieved," he said, " they're Oppo- sition : they can't be got at by our people." Then he wrote on a slip of paper : " 20,000 as corrected. Please note caps in last paragraph. No need for revise. Deliver to address given. Hoardings as order. Immediate." He scribbled Mr. Clutter- buck's initials as it was his secretarial duty to do. He folded up the proof and the note, addressed the cover, and before Mr. Clutterbuck fully seized what had happened, Fitzgerald had himself taken it down to the pillar-box at the lodge and was back, cheer- fully contented.
" I'm sure you know best, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Clutterbuck, though he was not yet quite happy.
For answer Mr. Fitzgerald pulled out of his pocket an evening paper, in which was the account of a police charge in Mickleton itself, which had broken up a monster meeting in favour of the condemned men.
Mr. Clutterbuck read the account carefully, and interlarded his reading with repeated exclamations
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of wonder addressed apparently to the reporter of the scene.
He was next turning to read the opinions of the paper itself upon the transaction, and would in a moment have discovered its disapproval of his con- stituency's violence, when Fitzgerald asked for the sheet to be given back to him, and Mr. Clutterbuck at once complied. His mind was clear. The thing was in capitals, and would evidently be the point of the election. He must get it up.
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CHAPTER VII
Mr. Clutterbuck was right, and Charlie Fitzgerald had judged wisely.
The first meeting of the campaign was to be held in quite a little hall belonging to the local ethical society. No interest had yet been taken in the election, the greater part of the constitu- ency had perhaps but just heard of it — yet the whole evening turned upon Fishmonger and The Other.
Mr. Clutterbuck's fervid declaration was not enough : one man after another at the back of the hall must take the opportunity, while congratulating the candidate upon his attitude, to make a con- siderable harangue upon the awful pass to which English freedom had come. Leaflets, printed by the Relief Committee, were in the hands of more than half the audience ; and what was more interest- ing was to see how, the moment the meeting was over, those who had asked questions distributed themselves, as though according to orders, into the various quarters of the borough, visiting the public
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houses and spreading the news of their candidate's declarations.
This was upon a Wednesday. On the Friday, for which the second meeting had been announced, a much larger hall, the Cleethorpe Foundation Schools, was absolutely full before a quarter past seven, though the speeches were not to begin until eight.
The audience filled the interval with songs con- cerning political and economic liberty, and more than one ribald catch in contempt of the Fish- monger judgment. The appearance of the platform did not silence them. They sang with a vengeance as they awaited their candidate, and the stout and elderly chairman, Mr. Alderman Thorpe, continually pulled out his watch in his nervousness, noted that the crowd of faces before him were of quite a different sort from those repeated faces which perpetually appeared at the National meetings. The tone of their cries was more violent than the Executive were accustomed to, and the spirit of the hall quite novel.
Mr. Clutterbuck at last appeared. It was unfor- tunate that he should be ten minutes late, and the accident provoked not a few shouted queries, but his appearance as he stalked on to the platform with Charlie Fitzgerald at his heels, called forth an in- describable volume of cheering, which lasted during 142
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the whole of the introducer's speech, and threatened to overlap into that of the candidate himself.
Mr. Clutterbuck was not an impromptu speaker • it was his custom to learn by heart the remarks it was his duty to deliver, nor was he superior to obtaining a general draft or even a more detailed summary of those remarks from the Democratic Speech Agency upon Holborn Viaduct. That evening, however, his heart spoke for him, and he could not forbear repeating some dozen times, when silence was restored, " Upon my word, gentlemen, I am highly flattered — I am highly flattered, I am very highly flattered, indeed ! "
He cleared his throat and began the first set speech of the campaign. He knew it by heart ; it was therefore in a clear if somewhat high pitched voice that he delivered the opening phrase " the effect of free trade in the past upon " — he was inter- rupted by another wild burst of cheering and loud applause from the vast audience, who imagined him to refer to the incarcerated Fishmonger and whose thousand hearts were beating as one.
It was so throughout the carefully worded address. His allusion to the taxation of rice produced the chorus of a popular song in favour of the men languishing in Holloway, and his passing remarks upon Consols " which, as a City man he assured them were a matter to him of the very gravest con-
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cern," led to repeated cries of "Drown old Har- man ! " and enthusiastic hurrahs for their candidate's championship of the doomed men.
When Mr. Clutterbuck sat down, in some con- fusion but in great happiness, and when the cus- tomary vote of thanks had been given, a genial publican in the body of the hall who had never attended a public meeting save to protest against the unhappy Licensing Bill of 1908, rose most unexpectedly to support the resolution. In a voice full of nutriment and good humour, he assured the candidate, amid repeated confirmations from all around, that in spite of his attitude upon temperance — and no one saw more of the evils of mtemperance than the licensed victualler — in spite of that, Mr. Clutterbuck's manly attitude on the case of Rex v. Fishmonger and Another would secure him the support of the trade.
A clergyman, who had had the temerity to rise with the intention of congratulatimg the candidate, was imagined from his pale face and refined voice to be an opponent : he was angrily silenced, and the meeting dispersed with loud cheers for his pre- sent Majesty, for the armed servants of the Crown whether military or naval, and — need it be told ? — for Fishmonger over all.
It was evidently an election to be taken on the fly and to be run before the machine slowed down. 144
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The common National literature sent out from the head offices in Peter Street was soon absorbed. Charlie Fitzgerald implored them for matter upon Fishmonger, but the official press refused. He could not brave the Act nor exceed the statutory limit of expense, but Mr. Clutterbuck was delighted to find that the Fishmonger Relief Committee — to which his wife, his brother-in-law, and even his coachman very largely subscribed — would furnish him with endless tracts and posters. The walls were covered by this independent ally, and the expenditure upon its part of over four thousand pounds associated Mr. Clutterbuck's name with the relief of the poor prisoners in letters six, ten and fifteen feet high and in the most astounding colours.
There were pictures also : pictures by the ton. Pictures of Mr. Clutterbuck striking the fetters from Fishmonger's wrists; pictures of Fishmonger in con- vict garb sleeping his troubled sleep upon a pallet of straw while a vision of the valiant Clutterbuck floated above him in a happy cloud : this was called " The Dream of Hope." Pictures of Fishmonger on the treadmill pitied by an indignant Britannia and a Clutterbuck springing to his aid, inflamed the popular zeal, and further pictures of a black Demon cowering before an avenging Clutterbuck in full armour afforded a parable of immense effect.
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And then there were speeches ! Every day saw its meeting, and at the end of the first week its second or its third meeting within the twenty-four hours. Mr. Clutterbuck, by whose side Mrs. Ckitter- buck often sat in those wild and happy moments of popular fervour, was permitted no great length by his secretary, and a band of good fellows who were determined to achieve the liberties of England, took care that questions other than those provided them by the secretary or the committee, should not be asked with impunity. It was even, as the unhappy example of the clergyman had shown, unwise to express adhesion to Mr. Clutterbuck's candidature, unless this were done in so unmistak- able a manner that there should be no room for popular hostility.
So ended the first week of the struggle ; nor had Mr. Clutterbuck showed a single fault save, in his confusion, an occasional lack of punctuality, which was certainly resented and noted more than he knew. His throat was supple, his delivery clear, but he was a little doubtful whether his enunciation was sufficiently vigorous to fill a large hall.
Sunday, I am glad to say, in spite of the woeful inroads Socialism has recently made, was observed as a day of rest by either side ; and Mr. Clutter- buck took the opportunity of the holy season to summon to The Plas, on Charlie Fitzgerald's advice 146
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and at an enormous expense, a Voice Producer, who, while complaining of the shortness of the time allowed him, guaranteed his client a con- siderable extension of vocal power if his rules were strictly observed.
He it was who for three hours upon that holy day elicited from Mr. Clutterbuck at least one hundred times, a loud and increasing roar during which he insisted that the head should be thrown back, the throat widely opened and the mouth stretched to its fullest extent. He it was who, insisted upon the regular use of the Hornsby lozenge, though Mr. Clutterbuck had been per- suaded by a friend to make secret use of the Glarges type of emollient bonbon. He it was who taking Mr. Clutterbuck after tea by the shoulders, pressed them back until, at the expense of exquisite suffering to that elderly gentleman, he had caused them to lock behind him. He it was who then compelled the merchant to fill his chest to its fullest extent, to retain his breath to the utmost of his capacity, and to emit, when he could hold it no longer, the syllables
MAH-MUH-MOH-MAY-MYE-MEE-MO-MAH
in the ascending notes of the octave ; and he it was who almost rendered the master of the house ridiculous by compelling him to run three or four
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times round the building and never to cease a loud singsong during his breathless course.
Mr. Clutterbuck could not but feel that the pro- fessional adviser had well earned the twenty guineas with which he was rewarded ; and if upon rising the next morning he found himself some- what strained and hoarse, he readily accepted Fitzgerald's assurance that his voice would return all the more strongly in the course of the day.
That Monday morning, the Monday preceding the poll, the first of the open-air meetings was held in front of the Town Hall, and quite 4,000 people from every part of London, among whom were a number of the local electors themselves, must have listened to the short declaration in which Mr. Clutterbuck, now considerably fatigued, insisted, for the twenty-seventh time, in terms with which they were now all too familiar, and in a voice increasingly raucous, upon the iniquity of the judgment he stood there to reverse, and upon the necessity of returning him to West- minster in order to effect the necessary change in the law ; indeed it cannot be denied that, as the election proceeded and the excitement grew, Mr. Clutterbuck himself came greatly to exaggerate the power of a private member in directing the course of British legislation. The lengthy procedure of the House of Commons of which he had but a 148
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hazy conception, dwindled in his imagination, and as for the House of Lords, he forgot it altogether.
Upon the Tuesday a football match upon Mickle- ton Common naturally suspended the vanity of speechmaking, and the day was given over to that hard spadework by the canvassers upon which every election finally depends. The canvassing was the more successful and the less arduous from the fact that the heads of families who were cheer- ing upon the Common the fortunes of the Micklc- ton Rousers, left the ladies at home to pledge the votes of the household, which they did with a complete freedom to the emissaries of either candi- date.
Mr. Clutterbuck, his wife, Fitzgerald, and Mr, Maple, the agent, went the round all day till the candidate himself was fit to drop. At one place they smiled and bowed at a little group of lads who replied with glares, at another they steadily worked half a street, only to find at last that it was just outside the constituency. At a third, a seedy man, a most undoubted voter, who had been present at every meeting approached Mr. Clutter- buck and spoke a word in his ear.
Mr. Clutterbuck good-naturedly proffered half a sovereign ; the coin had barely changed hands when the agent — who had caught the gesture in the nick of time — pounced on the needy citizen
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and wrenched his fingers open by main force. The struggle was brief, and Mr. Maple — a man of stature and consequence — triumphantly returned the coin to the candidate.
Whether from the wrestling or some other emotion he was trembling as he returned it.
" Oh ! Mr. Clutterbuck— Oh ! It would have cost you your seat ! " he puffed out.
Mr. Clutterbuck was grateful indeed, but he heard for hours the echo of the angry borrower's blasphemy and his repeated vow to vote for that fallen angel whom an older theology has regarded as the Enemy of Mankind before he would vote National again.
So Tuesday ended — and here my duty compels me to introduce the repugnant subject of the Opposition candidate, lest the reader should forget in the fever of enthusiasm which I have described, the very presence of a man who dared to set himself against the expressed opinion of The People.
Lord Henfield was his name. His hairs, which were of the palest yellow and few in number for a man of but thirty years, were parted down the middle with an extraordinary accuracy which was no more disturbed when he appeared in the early morning after rising from repose than when in the last hours of the night he would withdraw from the 150
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critical and angry audiences which he too often had to encounter.
His face was not clean-shaven : contrariwise, he wore long and drooping moustaches of the same character and complexion as his hair, and forming a singular contrast with that virile grey crescent upon Mr. Clutterbuck's upper lip, of which the reader has so often heard.
His eyes were of a very watery blue ; he lisped a little, and such decision as he may have possessed was only to be discovered in his apparently com- plete indifference to the judgment of men poorer than himself.
The deference due to his rank and wealth forbade any assault upon his person ; all other forms of opposition he met with a slight and rather mournful smile, and with the regret that there should be any differences between himself and those whom he hoped would soon prove to be his constituents.
The weakness of his position w^as not, it may be admitted, entirely due to his personality nor even to the wild popularity which the cause of Fish- monger and Another had recently acquired. Indeed he was as ardent a champion of the incarcerated Fishmonger as was Mr. Clutterbuck himself, and differed from his opponent only in modifying his language where it might have shocked the English sense of the respect which we all owe to the Bench.
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His principal ally in a struggle which seemed to disturb him so little was his wife. Lady Henfield, a woman of the most captivating vitality, called at every house in the constituency, smiled, flattered, and joked into friendship the hearts of all the women, and fearlessly bestowed upon either sex indifferently the marks of a warm appreciation which, from such a woman, are never thrown away. Many a household could tell, long before the con- test was engaged, of deeds of kindness which her genuine sympathy with the populace forbade her to noise abroad, and her known influence upon the Board of Pleeson's Charity, a social work of im- mense importance in the neighbourhood, lent her a high and most legitimate influence in all that she did in Mickleton. She had had the sense to take a house for her husband in the locality, and though they but rarely slept in this distant quarter of the metropolis, the excellent way in which it was served and furnished naturally impressed her neighbours of every degree.
All this counteracted, to no slight extent, Lord Henfield's insufhcient performances upon the plat- form, and no one acquainted with electoral cam- paigning will deny that the enthusiasm or disapproval of popular audiences counts little as compared with the domestic eft'ect of private visits and of good deeds coming from the heart. To all this was 152
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added on the Wednesday, a false step on the part of Mr. Clutterbuck, which for the first time, and that so near the poll, was a serious setback to the tide in his favour. A gentleman of considerable means, a printer and dyer of the name of Stephens, who had frequently appeared upon Mr. Clutterbuck's platform and had seemed, even to the keen eye of Charlie Fitzgerald, to be an inoffensive plutocrat, insisted upon receiving the candidate and his wife as his guests at Bongers End during the last days of the struggle.
" It will save your husband," he said to Mrs. Clutterbuck, " those long night journeys to Croydon which a man at his age cannot afford to despise, and will give Mrs. Stephens and myself and my two sons and my daughter Clara and Miss Curie the very greatest pride and pleasure."
This apparently innocuous proposal, which Mrs. Clutterbuck eagerly accepted for her husband, was a threefold error. A long-standing rivalry, or rather enmity, existed between their new host and a Mr. Clay, whose engineering works were perhaps the most important industry in Mickleton, and who as a Tory Home Ruler of some years' standing, was now naturally the head of the National Party since the establishment of a Parliament in Dublin and the framing of the new tariff had called that party into existence. He bitterly resented the honour shown
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to his rival, and it needed all the tact of Fitzgerald to prevent his influence being thrown into the wrong scale. But that tact was well exercised. Fitzgerald called upon Mr. Clay late at night, de- scribed Mr. Clutterbuck's intense desire to have been the guest of Mr. Clay, his hesitation to invite himself, the brutal forwardness of his rival, while the whole story was cemented by a description of blood relationship between Mrs. Clutterbuck and Mrs. Stephens, which, in later days, Fitzgerald him- self did not hesitate to deny.
To lead the close of the campaign from Mr. Stephen's mansion at Bongers End was still more dangerous, from the fact that a quarrel had arisen between that gentleman and one of his workmen, whom indeed he had almost dismissed : had the tragedy actually occurred, the situation would have been not very different from the famous cause of the strike at Podger's Wharf, and the parallel was often drawn between the one case and the other in the humbler homes of Mickleton. Finally, Mr. Clutterbuck had not calculated, when he