Chapter Thirteen.
The new Secretary takes the Reins.
It is high time to return to Reginald, whom we left in a somewhat dismal fashion, straining his eyes for a last sight of his mother and brother as they waved farewell to him on the Euston platform.
If the reader expects me to tell him that on finding himself alone our hero burst into tears, or broke out into repentant lamentations, or wished himself under the wheels of the carriage, I’m afraid he will be disappointed.
Reginald spent the first half-hour of his solitary journey in speculating how the oil in the lamp got round at the wick. He considered the matter most attentively, and kept his eyes fixed on the dim light until London was miles behind him, and the hedges and grey autumn fields on either hand proclaimed the country. Then his mind abandoned its problems, and for another half-hour he tried with all his might to prevent the beat of the engine taking up the rhythm of one of the old Wilderham cricket songs. That too he gave up eventually, and let his imagination wander at large over those happy school days, when all was merry, when every friend was a brick, and every exertion a sport, when the future beckoned him forward with coaxing hand. What grand times they were! Should he ever forget the last cricket match of the summer term, when he bowled three men in one over, and made the hardest catch on record in the Wilderham Close? He and Blandford—
Ah, Blandford! His mind swerved on the points here, and branched off into the recollection of that ill-starred dinner at the Shades, and the unhealthy bloated face of the cad Pillans. How he would have liked to knock the idiot down, just as he had knocked Durfy down that night when young Gedge—
Ah, another point here and another swerve. Would Horace be sure and keep his eye on the young ’un, and was there any chance of getting him down to Liverpool?
Once more a swerve, and this time into a straight reach of meditation for miles and miles ahead. He thought of everything. He pictured his own little office and living-room. He drew a mental portrait of the housekeeper, and the cups and saucers he would use at his well-earned meals. He made up his mind the board-room would be furnished in green leather, and that the Bishop of S— would be a jolly sort of fellow and fond of his joke. He even imagined what the directors would say among themselves respecting himself after he had been introduced and made his first impression. At any rate they should not say he lacked in interest for their affairs, and when he wrote home—
Ah! this was the last of all the points, and his thoughts after that ran on the same lines till the train plunged into the smoke and gloom of the great city which was henceforth to extend to him its tender mercies.
If Reginald had reckoned on a deputation of directors of the Select Agency Corporation to meet their new secretary at the station, he was destined to be disappointed. There were plenty of people there, but none concerning themselves with him as he dragged his carpet-bag from under the seat and set foot on the platform.
The bag was very heavy, and Shy Street, so he was told, was ten-minutes’ walk from the station. It did occur to him that most secretaries of companies would take a cab under such circumstances and charge it to “general expenses.” But he did not care to spend either the Corporation’s money or his own for so luxurious a purpose, and therefore gripped his bag manfully and wrestled with it out into the street.
The ten-minutes grew to considerably more than twenty before they both found themselves in Shy Street. A long, old-fashioned, dismal street it was, with some shops in the middle, and small offices at either end. No imposing-looking edifice, chaste in architecture and luxurious in proportions, stood with open doors to receive its future lord. Reginald and his bag stumbled up a side staircase to the first floor over a chemist’s shop, where a door with the name “Medlock” loomed before him, and told him he had come to his journey’s end.
Waiting a moment to wipe the perspiration from his face, he turned the handle and found himself in a large, bare, carpetless room, with a table and a few chairs in the middle of it, a clock over the chimneypiece, a few directories piled up in one corner, and a bundle of circulars and wrappers in another; and a little back room screened off from the general observation with the word “private” on the door. Such was the impression formed in Reginald’s mind by a single glance round his new quarters.
In the flutter of his first entrance, however, he entirely overlooked one important piece of furniture—namely, a small boy with long lank hair and pale blotched face, who was sitting on a low stool near the window, greedily devouring the contents of a pink-covered periodical. This young gentleman, on becoming aware of the presence of a stranger, crumpled his paper hurriedly into his pocket and rose to his feet.
“What do yer want?” he demanded.
“Is Mr Medlock here?” asked Reginald.
“No fear,” replied the boy.
“Has he left any message?”
“Don’t know who you are. What’s yer name?”
“I’m Mr Cruden, the new secretary.”
“Oh, you’re ’im, are yer? Yes, you’ve got to address them there envellups, and ’e’ll be up in the morning.”
This was depressing. Reginald’s castles in the air were beginning to tumble about his ears in rapid succession. The bare room he could excuse, on the ground that the Corporation was only just beginning its operations. Doubtless the carpet was on order, and was to be delivered soon. He could even afford not to afflict himself much about this vulgar, irreverent little boy, who was probably put in, as they put in a little watch-dog, to see to the place until he and his staff of assistants rendered his further presence unnecessary. But it did chill him to find that after his long journey, and his farewell to his own home, no one should think it worth while to be here to meet him and install him with common friendliness into his new quarters. However, Mr Medlock was a man of business, and was possibly prevented by circumstances over which he had no control from being present to receive him.
“Where’s the housekeeper?” demanded he, putting down his bag and relieving himself of his overcoat.
“’Ousekeeper! Oh yus,” said the boy, with a snigger; “no ’ousekeepers ’ere.”
“Where are my rooms, then?” asked Reginald, beginning to think it a pity the Corporation had brought him down all that way before they were ready for him.
“Ain’t this room big enough for yer?” said the boy; “ain’t no more ’sep’ your bedroom—no droring-rooms in this shop.”
“Show me the bedroom,” said Reginald.
The boy shuffled to the door and up another flight of stairs, at the head of which he opened the door of a very small room, about the size of one of the Wilderham studies, with just room to squeeze round a low iron bedstead without scraping the wall.
“There you are—clean and haired and no error. I’ve slep’ in it myself.”
Reginald motioned him from the room, and then sitting down on the bed, looked round him.
He could not understand it. Any common butcher’s boy would be better put up. A little box of a bedroom like this, with no better testimonial to its cleanliness and airiness than could be derived from the fact that the dirty little watch-dog downstairs had occupied it! And in place of a parlour that bare gaunt room below in which to sit of an evening and take his meals and enjoy himself. Why ever had the Corporation not had the ordinary decency to have his permanent accommodation ready for him before he arrived?
He washed himself as well as he could without soap and towel, and returned to the first floor, where he found the boy back on his old stool, and once more absorbed in his paper.
The reader looked up as Reginald entered.
“Say, what’s yer name,” said he, “ever read Tim Tigerskin?”
“No, I’ve not,” replied Reginald, staring at his questioner, and wondering whether he was as erratic in his intellect as he was mealy in his countenance.
“’Tain’t a bad ’un, but ’tain’t ’arf as prime as The Pirate’s Bride. The bloke there pisons two on ’em with prussic acid, and wouldn’t ever ’ave got nabbed if he ’adn’t took some hisself by mistake, the flat!”
Reginald could hardly help smiling at this appetising résumé.
“I want something to eat,” he said. “Is there any place near here where I can get it?”
“Trum’s, but ’is sosseges is off at three o’clock. Better try Cupper’s—he’s a good ’un for bloaters; I deals with ’im.”
Reginald felt neither the spirit nor the inclination to make a personal examination into the merits of the rival caterers.
“You’d better go and get me something,” he said to the boy; “coffee and fish or cold meat will do.”
“No fear; I ain’t a-goin’ for nothing,” replied the boy. “I’ll do your errands for a tanner a week and your leavings, but not no less.”
“You shall have it,” said Reginald. Whereupon the boy undertook the commission and departed.
The meal was a dismal one. The herrings were badly over-smoked and the coffee was like mud, and the boy’s conversation, which filled in a running accompaniment, was not conducive to digestion.
“I’d ’most a mind to try some prussic in that corfee,” said that bloodthirsty young gentleman, “if I’d a known where the chemist downstairs keeps his’n. Then they’d ’a said you’d poisoned yourself ’cos you was blue coming to this ’ere ’ole. I’d ’a been put in the box at the inquige, and I’d ’a said Yes, you was blue, and I thought there was a screw loose the minit I see yer, and I’d seen yer empty a paper of powder in your corfee while you thort nobody wasn’t a-looking. And the jury’d say it was tempory ’sanity and sooiside, and say they considers I was a honest young feller, and vote me a bob out of the poor-box. There you are. What do you think of that?”
“I suppose that’s what the man in The Pirate’s Bride ought to have done,” said Reginald, with a faint smile.
“To be sure he ought. Why, it’s enough to disgust any one with the flat, when he goes and takes the prussic hisself. Of course he’d get found out.”
“Well, it’s just as well you’ve not put any in my coffee,” said Reginald. “It’s none too nice as it is. And I’d advise you, young fellow, to burn all those precious story-books of yours, if that’s the sort of stuff they put into your head.”
The boy stared at him in horrified amazement.
“Burn ’em! Oh, Walker!”
“What’s your name?” demanded Reginald.
“Why, Love,” replied the boy, in a tone as if to say you had only to look at him to know his name.
“Well then, young Love, clear these things away and come and make a start with these envelopes.”
“No fear. I ain’t got to do no envellups. You’re got to do ’em.”
“I say you’ve got to do them too,” said Reginald, sternly; “and if you don’t choose to do what you’re told I can’t keep you here.”
The boy looked up in astonishment.
“You ain’t my governor,” said he.
“I am, though,” said Reginald, “and you’d better make up your mind to it. If you choose to do as you’re told we shall get on all right, but I’ll not keep you here if you don’t.”
His tone and manner effectually overawed the mutinous youngster. He could not have spoken like that unless he possessed sufficient authority to back it up, and as it did not suit the convenience of Mr Love just then to receive the “sack” from any one, he capitulated with the honours of war, put his Tim Tigerskin into his pocket, and placed himself at his new “governor’s” disposal.
The evening’s work consisted in addressing some two hundred or three hundred envelopes to persons whose names Mr Medlock had ticked in a directory, and enclosing prospectuses therein. It was not very entertaining work; still, as it was his first introduction to the operations of the Corporation, it had its attractions for the new secretary. A very fair division of labour was mutually agreed upon by the two workers before starting. Reginald was to copy out the addresses, and Master Love, whose appetite was always good, was to fold and insert the circulars and “lick up” the envelopes.
This being decided, the work went on briskly and quietly. Reginald had leisure to notice one or two little points as he went on, which, though trivial in themselves, still interested him. He observed for one thing that the largest proportion of the names marked in the directory were either ladies or clergymen, and most of them residing in the south of England. Very few of them appeared to reside in any large town, but to prefer rural retreats “far from the madding crowd,” where doubtless a letter, even on the business of the Corporation, would be a welcome diversion to the monotony of existence. As to the clergy, doubtless their names had been suggested by the good Bishop of S—, who would be in a position to introduce a considerable connection to his fellow-directors. Reginald also noticed that only one name had been marked in each village, it doubtless being assumed that every one in these places being on intimate terms with his neighbour, it was unnecessary to waste stamps and paper in making the Corporation known to two people where one would answer the same purpose.
He was curious enough to read one of the circulars, and he was on the whole pleased with its contents. It was as follows:—
“Select Agency Corporation, Shy Street, Liverpool.—Reverend Sir,” (for the ladies there were other circulars headed “Dear Madam”), “The approach of winter, with all the hardships that bitter season entails on those whom Providence has not blessed with sufficient means, induces us to call your attention to an unusual opportunity for providing yourself and those dear to you with a most desirable comfort at a merely nominal outlay. Having acquired an enormous bankrupt stock of winter clothing of most excellent material, and suitable for all measures, we wish, in testimony to our respect for the profession of which you are an honoured representative, to acquaint you privately with the fact before disposing of the stock in the open market. For £3 we can supply you with a complete clerical suit of the best make, including overcoat and gloves, etcetera, etcetera, the whole comprising an outfit which would be cheap at £10. In your case we should have no objection to meet you by taking £2 with your order and the balance any time within six months. Should you be disposed to show this to any of your friends, we may say we shall be pleased to appoint you our agent, and to allow you ten per cent, on all sales effected by you, which you are at liberty to deduct from the amount you remit to us with the orders. We subjoin full list of winter clothing for gentlemen, ladies, and children. Money orders to be made payable to Cruden Reginald, Esquire, Secretary, 13, Shy Street, Liverpool.”
“Hullo!” said Reginald, looking up excitedly, “don’t fold up any more of those, boy. They’ve made a mistake in my name and called me Cruden Reginald instead of Reginald Cruden. It will have to be altered.”
“Oh, ah. There’s on’y a couple of billions on ’em printed; that won’t take no time at all,” said Master Love, beginning to think longingly of Tim Tigerskin.
“It won’t do to send them out like that,” said Reginald.
“Oh yes, it will. Bless you, what’s the odds if you call me Tommy Love or Love Tommy? I knows who you mean. And the governor, ’e is awful partickler about these here being done to-night. And we sent off millions on ’em last week. My eye, wasn’t it a treat lickin’ up the envellups!”
“Do you mean to say a lot of the circulars have been sent already?”
“’Undreds of grillions on ’em,” replied the boy.
Of course it was no use after that delaying these; so Reginald finished off his task, not a little vexed at the mistake, and determined to have it put right without delay.
It was this cause of irritation, most likely, which prevented his dwelling too critically on the substance of the circular so affectionately dedicated to the poor country clergy. Beyond vaguely wondering where the Corporation kept their “bankrupt” stock of clothing, and how by the unaided light of nature they were to decide whether their applicants were stout or lean, or tall or short, he dismissed the matter from his mind for the time being, and made as short work as possible of the remainder of the task.
Then he wrote a short line home, announcing his arrival in as cheerful words as he could muster, and walked out to post it. The pavements were thronged with a crowd of jostling men and women, returning home from the day’s work; but among them all the boy felt more lonely than had he been the sole inhabitant of Liverpool. Nobody knew him, nobody looked at him, nobody cared two straws about him. So he dropped his letter dismally into the box, and turned back to Shy Street, where at least there was one human being who knew his name and heeded his voice.
Master Love had made the most of his opportunities. He had lit a candle and stuck it into the mouth of an ink-bottle, and by its friendly light was already deep once more in the history of his hero.
“Say, what’s yer name,” said he, looking up as Reginald re-entered, “this here chap” as scuttled a ship, and drowned twenty on ’em. ’E was a cute ’un, and no error. He rigs hisself up as a carpenter, and takes a tile off the ship’s bottom just as the storm was a-coming on; and in corse she flounders and all ’ands.”
“And what became of him?” asked Reginald.
“Oh, in corse he stows hisself away in the boat with a lifebelt, and gets washed ashore; and he kills a tiger for ’is breakfast, and—”
“It’s a pity you waste your time over bosh like that,” said Reginald, not interested to hear the conclusion of the heroic Tim’s adventures; “if you’re fond of reading, why don’t you get something better?”
“No fear—I like jam; don’t you make no error, governor.”
With which philosophical albeit enigmatical conclusion he buried his face once more in his hands, and immersed himself in the literary “jam” before him.
Reginald half envied him as he himself sat listless and unoccupied during that gloomy evening. He did his best to acquaint himself, by the aid of papers and circulars scattered about the room, with the work that lay before him. He made a careful tour of the premises, with a view to possible alterations and improvements. He settled in his own mind where the directors’ table should stand, and in which corner of the private room he should establish his own desk. He went to the length of designing a seal for the Corporation, and in scribbling, for his own amusement, the imaginary minutes of an imaginary meeting of the directors. How would this do?
“A meeting of directors of the Select Agency Corporation”—by the way, was it “Limited”? He didn’t very clearly understand what that meant. Still, most companies had the word after their name, and he made a note to inquire of Mr Medlock whether it applied to them—“was held on October 31st at the company’s offices. Present, the Bishop of S— in the chair, Messrs Medlock, Blank, M.P., So-and-so, etcetera. The secretary, Mr Cruden, having been introduced, took his seat and thanked the directors for their confidence. It was reported that the receipts for the last month had been (well, say) £1,000, including £50 deposited against shares by the new secretary, and the expenses £750. Mr Medlock reported the acquisition of a large bankrupt stock of clothing, which it was proposed to offer privately to a number of clergymen and others as per a list furnished by the right reverend the chairman. The following cheques were drawn:—Rent for offices for a month, £5; printing and postage, £25; secretary’s salary for one month, £12 10 shillings; ditto, interest on the £50 deposit, 4 shillings 2 pence; office-boy (one month), £2; Mr Medlock for bankrupt stock of clothing, £150; etcetera, etcetera. The secretary suggested various improvements in the offices and fittings, and was requested to take any necessary steps. After sundry other routine business the Board adjourned.”
This literary experiment concluded, Reginald, who after the fatigues and excitement of the day felt ready for sleep, decided to adjourn too.
“Do you stay here all night?” said he to Love.
“Me? You and me sleeps upstairs.”
“I’m afraid there’s no room up there for two persons,” said Reginald; “you had better go home to-night, Love, and be here at nine in the morning.”
“Go on—as if I ’ad lodgin’s in the town. If you don’t want me I know one as do. Me and the chemist’s boy ain’t too big for the attick.”
“Very well,” said Reginald, “you had better go up to bed now, it’s late.”
“Don’t you think you’re having a lark with me,” said the boy; “’tain’t eleven, and I ain’t done this here Tigerskin yet. There’s a lump of reading in it, I can tell you. When he’d killed them tigers he rigged hisself up in their skins, and—”
“Yes, yes,” said Reginald. “I’m not going to let you stay up all night reading that rot. Cut up to bed now, do you hear?”
Strange to say, the boy obeyed. There was something about Reginald which reduced him to obedience, though much against his will. So he shambled off with his book under his arm, secretly congratulating himself that the bed in the attic was close to the window, so that he would be able to get a jolly long read in the morning.
After he had gone, Reginald followed his example, and retired to his own very spare bed, where he forgot all his cares in a night of sound refreshing sleep.