Marion Fay: A Novel

by Anthony Trollope

Early in the day he walked into Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird's office, and saw Mr. Tribbledale seated on a high stool behind a huge desk, which nearly filled up the whole place. He was rather struck by the smallness and meanness of Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird's premises, which, from a certain nobility belonging to the Quaker's appearance, he would have thought to be spacious and important. It is impossible not to connect ideas after this fashion. Pogson and Littlebird themselves carried in their own names no flavour of commercial grandeur. Had they been only known to Hampstead by their name, any small mercantile retreat at the top of the meanest alley in the City might have sufficed for them. But there was something in the demeanour of Zachary Fay which seemed to give promise of one of those palaces of trade which are now being erected in every street and lane devoted in the City to business. Nothing could be less palatial than Pogson and Littlebird's counting-house. Hampstead had entered it from a little court, which it seemed to share with one other equally unimportant tenement opposite to it, by a narrow low passage. Here he saw two doors only, through one of which he passed, as it was open, having noticed that the word "Private" was written on the other. Here he found himself face to face with Tribbledale and with a little boy who sat at Tribbledale's right hand on a stool equally high. Of these two, as far as he could see, consisted the establishment of Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird. "Could I see Mr. Fay?" asked Hampstead.

"Business?" suggested Tribbledale.

"Not exactly. That is to say, my business is private."

Then there appeared a face looking at him over a screen about five feet and a-half high, which divided off from the small apartment a much smaller apartment, having, as Hampstead now regarded it, the appearance of a cage. In this cage, small as it was, there was a desk, and there were two chairs; and here Zachary Fay carried on the business of his life, and transacted most of those affairs appertaining to Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird which could be performed in an office. Messrs. Pogson and Littlebird themselves, though they had a room of their own, to which that door marked "Private" belonged, were generally supposed to be walking on 'Change as British merchants should do, or making purchases of whole ships' cargos in the Docks, or discounting bills, the least of which would probably represent £10,000. The face which looked over the barrier of the cage at Lord Hampstead was of course that of Zachary Fay. "Lord Hampstead!" he said, with surprise.

"Oh, Mr. Fay, how do you do? I have something I want to say to you. Could you spare me five minutes?"

The Quaker opened the door of the cage and asked Lord Hampstead to walk in. Tribbledale, who had heard and recognized the name, stared hard at the young nobleman,—at his friend Crocker's noble friend, at the lord of whom it had been asserted positively that he was engaged to marry Mr. Fay's daughter. The boy, too, having heard that the visitor was a lord, stared also. Hampstead did as he was bid, but remembering that the inhabitant of the cage had at once heard what had been said in the office, felt that it would be impossible for him to carry on his conversation about Marion without other protection from the ears of the world. "It is a little private what I have to say," remarked Hampstead.

The Quaker looked towards the private room. "Old Mr. Pogson is there," whispered Tribbledale. "I heard him come in a quarter of an hour ago."

"Perhaps thou wouldst not mind walking up and down the yard," said the Quaker. Hampstead of course walked out, but on looking about him found that the court was very small for the communication which he had to make. Space would be required, so that he might not be troubled by turning when he was in the midst of his eloquence. Half-a-dozen steps would carry him the whole length of King's Court; and who could tell his love-story in a walk limited to six steps?

"Perhaps we might go out into the street?" he suggested.

"Certainly, my lord," said the Quaker. "Tribbledale, should any one call before I return, and be unable to wait for five minutes, I shall be found outside the court, not above fifty yards either to the right or to the left." Hampstead, thus limited to a course not exceeding a hundred yards in one of the most crowded thoroughfares of the City, began the execution of his difficult task.