No. IV.—THE HUSBAND'S OLD SCHOOL-FELLOW.
We will suppose that you are a young wife, and that your husband is absent in the City during the greater part of the day. One afternoon a card is brought in bearing the inscription:—
CAPTAIN CAULKER.
United Service Club. The Hermitage, Coventry.
Which document is followed closely by a tall, well-groomed, rather portly and florid stranger, with a military moustache, who greets you with the utmost cordiality. "I happened to find myself in this neighbourhood," he says, "and I could not—I really could not—resist this opportunity. My name, I venture to think, is a sufficient introduction?"
It is nothing of the sort—but you are too shy and too polite to admit it, so you merely murmur some incoherency. He detects you at once. "Ah!" he cries, in good-tempered reproach; "I see, I've been too sanguine. Now confess, my dear lady, you haven't a notion who I am!"
Thus brought to bay, you own that you have no clue to your visitor's identity—as yet. "Well—well," he says, tolerantly, "Time is a terrible sponge—though I had hoped that, even after all these years, your dear husband might have occasionally mentioned the name of his old school-chum! I've never forgotten him—no, all through the years I've been in India I've never forgotten dear old WALTER!"
"But my husband's name is WILLIAM!" you say here.
"He was always WALTER to me, Madam, or rather—WATTY. He was so like a favourite young brother of mine, who died young. That drew us together from the first. Did dear old WATTY never tell you how he saved my life once?... No? So like him!—he wouldn't. But he did, though; yes, by Gad, jumped into fifteen foot of water after me, and kept me up when I was going under for the last time. Pardon me, but I see a photograph upon your writing-table—surely, unless I am wrong, that—"
"That is a portrait of my only brother," you will say; "he is out in India with his regiment—perhaps you may have met him there?"
"Thought I knew the face—met him at Simla, several times," says the Captain; "wonderful how small the world is! But have you one of old WATTY's photos? I should so like to see whether the dear old chap has altered ... Ah, I should hardly have known him—and yet, yes, the same cheery, jolly look, I can trace the boy there, I can see my old WATTY again! No friends, my dear Mrs. GOSLING, like those we make in early youth! And he never mentions me now? Ah! well, he has a very charming excuse for forgetting the past—though I shall tell him when I see him that I do think he might have remembered his old school-friend a little better than he seems to have done. Your servant informed me that he was seldom at home quite so early as this, but I thought if I could not see him, I would at least give myself the pleasure of making the acquaintance of his wife, so I just ventured to come in for five minutes."
"WILLIAM will be so disappointed to have missed you," you say, eagerly; "can't you wait and let me give you some tea? He may be back in half an hour."
"In half an hour? Well, 'pon my word, you tempt me very much. I shouldn't like to go away without seeing him, but I must send away my cab first—no, it's not outside, left it at the corner of the road, as I wasn't certain of the number—I s'pose I've got enough silver to—no, I haven't, by Jove! Could you oblige me by change for a—well, really, this is very awkward. I've positively come out with only a shilling—thought it was a sovereign! I shall have to ask dear old WATTY to accommodate me—I've lent him many a half-crown in the old days. Absurd predicament to be in, and if I keep my cabman waiting, I don't know what he mayn't charge me. I took him three hours ago. I tell you what, my dear Mrs. GOSLING; If you'll advance me a sovereign, I could run out and settle with the fellow, and then it won't signify how long I wait for WATTY. Can you? Too good of you, I'm sure! WATTY will chaff me when he hears I've been borrowing like this, ha, ha!" Here your ear, sharpened by affection, catches a well-known turn of the latch-key at your front-door. "Why, how fortunate!" you exclaim, "here is my husband already, Captain CAULKER. He will come in as soon as he has changed his shoes."
"Capital!" cries the Captain. "Look here, Mrs. GOSLING,—I've just thought of a little joke. I want to see if he'll know me. Now you go and talk to him a little, and—presently, you know—say there's a man in the drawing-room, who's come to wind the clocks, and then I'll come in to where you are, and make believe to wind the clock there—do you see? I'd bet anything he won't spot me at first!"
You are young enough to be delighted at the idea of such a pretty little comedy, and you trip away to the study, and archly keep dear WILLIAM in conversation until the Captain is ready to make his appearance. At last, a little impatiently, you give the cue by mentioning that there is a clock-winder in the drawing-room. WILLIAM is amusingly suspicious, and insists on seeing the man. As the scene will be just as funny in the drawing-room, you accompany him thither—but there is no gallant Captain there affecting to wind your charming little Sèvres clock (a wedding present)—he has gone, and—alas! without leaving a timepiece for anybody else to wind. And WILLIAM is most disagreeable and unpleasant about it!