[IF I DID NOT LOVE HER, I WOULD NOT GO AWAY.]
The entrance of George Naldret and young Mr. Million gives a new turn to the conversation, and to the aspect of affairs. George Naldret needs but a very few words of introduction. He is like his father was when his father was a young man. More comely-looking because of the difference in their ages, but his little bit of English whisker is after the same model as his father's, and his hair is also of a light sandy colour. His head is well shaped, and he has contracted his father's habit of rubbing one side of it with his two-foot rule when he is in earnest. When he came into the world, his mother declared that he was as like his father as two peas, which statement, regarded from a purely grammatical point of view, involved a contradiction of ideas. But grammar stands for nothing with some. Poor folk who have received imperfect education are not given to hypercriticism. It is not what is said, but what is meant. George's father and his father's father had been carpenters before him, and as he has taken after them, he may be said to have become a carpenter by hereditary law. Mrs. Naldret was satisfied. To have a trade at one's finger-ends, as she would have expressed it, is not a bad inheritance.
Young Mr. Million was named after his father, James, and was therefore called young Mr. Million to prevent confusion. His father and his father's father had been brewers, or, more correctly speaking, in the brewing interest before him, and he was supposed to take after them. There was this difference, however, between him and George Naldret. George Naldret was a thoroughly good carpenter, but it cannot be said that young Mr. Million was a thoroughly good brewer. In point of fact, he was not a brewer at all, for he knew no more of the trade than I do. He knew a good glass of beer when he was drinking it, but he did not know how to make it; as George knew a good piece of carpentering work when it was before him; but then George could produce a similar piece of work himself. George took pride in his trade; young Mr. Million looked down upon his because it was a trade--he thought it ought to be a profession. Although he and his were the last who should have thought unkindly of it, for from the profits of the family brewery a vast fortune had been accumulated. Estates had been bought; position in society had been bought; a seat in the House had been bought; perhaps, by and by, a title would be bought: for eminence deserves recognition. And a man can be eminent in so many different ways. One maybe an eminent tea-dealer, or an eminent chiropodist, or an eminent dentist, if one's profits are large enough. The seat in the House was occupied at the present time by Mr. James Million senior, whose chief business in the Senate appeared to be to look sharply after his own interests and those of his class, and to vote as he was bid upon those indifferent questions of public interest which did not affect the profits of his brewery, and which were not likely to lessen his income from it. For Mr. Million's brewery, being an old-established institution, had become a sacred 'vested interest,' which it was absolute sacrilege to touch or interfere with. And it is true that 'vested interests' are ticklish questions to deal with; but it happens, now and then, in the course of time, that what is a 'vested interest' with the few (being fed and pampered until it has attained a monstrous growth) becomes a vested wrong to the many. Then the safety of society demands that something should be done to stop the monstrous growth from becoming more monstrous still. The name of Million was well known in the locality in which the Naldrets resided, for a great many of the beershops and public-houses in the streets round about were under the family thumb, so to speak, and it was more than the commercial lives of the proprietors were worth to supply any liquids but those that Million brewed to the thirsty souls who patronised them. And nice houses they were for a man to thrive upon--worthy steps upon the ladder of fame for a man to grow Eminent by!
Young Mr. Million was a handsome-looking fellow, with the best of clothes, and with plenty of money in his purse. Having no career marked out for him pending the time when he would have to step into his father's shoes, he made one for himself. He became a merchant in wild oats--a kind of merchandise which is popularly considered to be rather a creditable thing for young men to speculate in; and it was a proof of his industry that he was accumulating a large supply of the corn--having regard probably to its future value in the market. But in this respect he was emulated by many who deem it almost a point of honour to have their granaries well supplied with the commodity.
As the young men enter the room, Bessie's eyes brighten. She knows George's footsteps well, and has not recognised the other. George enters first, and he has drawn Bessie to him and kissed her, and she him, before she sees young Mr. Million. When she does see that heir to the family brewery, she gently releases herself from George's embrace, and stands a little aside, with a heightened colour in her face. The action is perfectly natural, and just what a modest girl would do in the presence of a comparative stranger--as young Mr. Million must have been, necessarily, he being so high in the social scale, and she so low. The young gentleman, in the most affable manner, shakes hands all round, and gives them good evening.
'Meeting George as I was strolling this way,' he says, accepting the chair which Mrs. Naldret offers him, 'and having something to say to him, I thought I might take advantage of his offer to step in, and rest for a minute or so.'
Had he told the exact truth, he would have confessed that he had no idea of coming into the house until he heard from old Ben Sparrow, at whose shop he had called, that Bessie was at Mrs. Naldret's, and that, meeting George afterwards, he had walked with him to the door, and had accepted a casual invitation to walk in, given out of mere politeness, and almost as a matter of form.
'You have the Trumpet there, I see,' continues young Mr. Million, addressing the master of the house; 'is there anything particular in it?'
'No, sir,' replies Jim, 'nothing but the usual things--strikes, elections, and that like. There's always plenty stirring to fill a newspaper.'
'That there is,' says the young brewer; 'I'm sorry to hear of the strikes spreading. They make things bad in every way.'