“It came about in this way. I had married and was going to make my fortune, and therefore (having that laudable end in view) left a good situation in Yorkshire to settle down in Liverpool as a merchant ‘on my own account,’ and commence to make it without delay. I had not much capital, and so I resolved to economise at first.
“In course of time I imagined the tidy brougham and the country house across the Mersey would certainly come; and one serene September evening, many years ago, I was walking up and down St. George’s landing-stage, building castles in the air, wondering whether rents were high at New Brighton, and whether Kate would prefer a pony phaeton to a brougham.
“I am not sorry to add that I still reside in a modest house up Edge-hill way, and that I come to business as Cæsar went to Rome, according to Joe Miller, summa diligentia, on the top of an omnibus.
“I was waiting for Mr. Moses Moss to return at eight p.m. to his office in a street hard by—call it Mersey-street—and for the reason that Moses Moss had a furnished place to let which his advertisement called ‘two spacious counting-rooms’—goodness knows, I never counted much in the shape of coin; and I did not like the situation; nor the narrow, dark staircase; nor the look of the boy of Hebrew extraction who howled ‘Cub id,’ when I knocked, and told me ‘Mr. Boses would be in at eight o’clock;’ but twenty pounds a year was very cheap, so I told my young friend I would call at that time, and look at the ‘counting-room.’
“How well I remember that night! The ferry-boats from the Cheshire shore gliding along with their lights twinkling like glow-worms, the vast hull of the ‘Great Eastern’ just visible in the Sloyne, the squared yards and all-a-taut look of a seventy-four of the old school, showing black and distinct against the daffodil sky, and the lap of the swell against the under timber of the stage—I was inclined to be sentimental; but Mr. Moses Moss claimed my attention, and once more I entered his office and found him awaiting me. He was a little, fat, good-tempered Jew, who spoke decent English, and who, I afterwards found out, was constantly affirming, in season and out of season, that he was no descendant of Abraham.
“‘Hillo, Brunton!’ he cried, jumping from the chair. ‘My lad told me you’d been here. Where have you been these two months and more? Look here, old fellow, I’ve advertised your place; but you can have it on the old terms.’
“‘Some mistake, sir, I believe,’ and I handed him a card bearing the inscription, ‘Charles Harker.’
“He took it and held it to the gaslight, looked at the back, considered it endways, and pondered over it upside down. Then taking the candle his clerk had brought, he held it close to my face.
“‘If you are not disposed to proceed to business, I will bid you good-night,’ said I, greatly annoyed at his manner.’
“‘It’s him, and it ain’t him,” he said aloud. ‘Carl could never look a man in the face as this one does. And yet I don’t see my way through the features.’