“Why, somebody said to him the other day, ‘How is it you never take your seat on the Borough Bench when you’re in town?’ ‘Pas si bete,’ replied Leatham; ‘every time I fine a man or send one down I make at least one enemy, and they count at elections.’ So it is with your informal spouting, Beaumont. You make a lot of admirers, perhaps, among a lot of greasy, dirty, unwashed mill-hands, who shout themselves hoarse about a policy they don’t understand, and they bring you a dirty, greasy guinea or so if they get into trouble with an equally dirty, greasy mill-girl. But who prepares the conveyances and mortgages and settlements for the big-pots? We don’t, anyhow. Why! Leatham himself takes his work to that sheaf of parchment skins, old Heatherington, who has consistently voted against him ever since he first contested the borough. Politics don’t pay, Beaumont, at least, not your sort.”
“Ah! well, Sam, suppose we say I like ’em. I think they’re my only serious dissipation. You know I don’t go in much for beer and skittles, and am bored at a ballet. Supposing we call politics my little vice. You don’t want them all yourself, Sam.”
Certainly no one could with justice accuse Sam Storth of having any enthusiasms political or otherwise. He called himself a Conservative, and plumed himself on his gentility, and had undoubtedly an uncle in holy orders, to whom, on occasion, he would casually allude. He chose his associates, so far as he could, among the jeunesse doree of the wealthy manufacturers and merchants of the town, who patronised a Bond Street tailor—“can’t get a decent cut in the country, don’t you know,”—were much concerned about the fit of their boots and the colour of their ties and gloves; affected a languid drawl, crawled on the sunny side of New Street of a Saturday morning, found life a “doosid bore,” avoided a reference to the paternal mill or counting-house themselves, and thought any such reference by others uncommon bad form; held commissions in the Yeomanry or Volunteers and were rigorous in the use of their pseudo… military titles in season and out of season; had a club of their own, from which the retailer of the goods their fathers manufactured were jealously excluded; and, in a word, were as innocent a set of sucking young snobs, without knowing it, as one could well wish to encounter. As Storth had lived much in London before condescending upon Huddersfield, he was rather a favourite at this club, though he had to surmount a certain amount of prejudice arising from his connection with that low Radical chap, Beaumont.
In person, the junior partner of the firm of Beaumont and Storth was small, stout and stodgy, with a broad, flat nose, and eyes that a disparaging critic had likened to boiled onions. In address he was suavely deferential to the verge of obsequiousness to the local magnates, who liked the implied homage of his voice and look, and voted him a sensible young fellow who knew his place. In revenge for his own lackeydom he bullied and swore at his clerks and the waiters and the billiard-markers who ministered to his needs, and they, too, no doubt, had their opinion of Mr. Sam Storth. He was careful in his dress, without being an exquisite, took in the “Daily Telegraph” and “Bell’s Life,” affected a patriotic interest in the national sport, and played a very judicious hand at whist and other games, as the young nabobs of the club knew to their cost. He had the reputation, in a darkly, mysterious way, of being somewhat of a Lothario among the women, and it was known that he had access to the green-room of the local theatre. But if, indeed, Sam were a sad dog, of which this veracious history alleges nothing, he was a very discreet sad dog, and never imperilled his reputation by any open indiscretion. He was careful, too, to attend church every Sunday morning, and uttered the responses with that modulated fervour that is the hall-mark of good breeding, having neither the perfunctoriness of custom or inattention nor the warmth of spiritual exaltation.
How two men so diverse as Edward Beaumont and Sam Storth came to be partners in the same business had puzzled many, but the explanation was simple enough. Beaumont had been in want of a managing clerk, and a mutual acquaintance had recommended Storth as a safe chamber-man, and a safe chamber-man or desk-lawyer Storth proved himself to be. He made no pretence of knowing more law than had sufficed to satisfy the not very exacting examiners of Carey Street; but he had a very considerable endowment of the not very common faculty called common-sense.
“Law, sir,” was Storth’s favourite axiom, delivered oracularly, “law is the embodiment of common-sense,” and though the reader can scarcely be expected to believe it, Common law is largely common-sense. At all events with common-sense and a tincture of technicalities and a very considerable knowledge of the shady side of human nature, and a very small opinion of that nature in the general. Storth’s did very well the kind of work that Beaumont wanted him for, and left that somewhat fastidious young gentleman free to lift his voice in the courts without being harassed by the petty details of a lawyer’s practice. Beaumont thought Sam a soulless little animal, but shrewd and steady; Storth thought Beaumont a stuck-up enthusiast with a bee in his bonnet, but a good hand with a brief, and as they saw very little of each other except business hours, there was little friction in the busy office of the well-established and prosperous firm of Beaumont and Storth.
But if there was no friction there was no cordiality between the partners. Beaumont’s attitude to Storth was almost of good-humoured contempt. Storth retaliated with undisguised scorn for his partner’s unpracticability and want of worldly wisdom.
“What do you want sitting in the Town Council?” he grumbled at times. “There’s no honour in it. Why, hang it, the barber fellow that shaves me sits on the Town Council.”
“And a very good councillor he makes, too. Why not? Does he shave you any the worse for being on the Council. I’m sure his opinion on matters municipal is none the worse for his being a barber. Shaving is really, if you think of the matter dispassionately, a most reputable occupation. The profession of a barber, you cannot call it a trade, is an ancient and an honourable one. It was formerly, as you know connected with the profession of a surgeon. Probably the barbers cut the surgeons, and that led to a split. But if you reflect you will see that most exceptional qualities are required by a good barber. Sobriety is indispensable cleanliness, which everyone knows to be nearer to godliness than many people attain, some degree of polish and a pleasing loquacity and an intelligent acquaintance with the topics of the day. People trust their barber more than their lawyer, for would you offer your bared throat to anyone armed with a deadly weapon, unless you had the supremest confidence in him? Surely we can confide the gas-pipes and water-pipes of a town to a man to whom we entrust our own wind-pipes. I protest your barber is a most inestimable profession brother.”
“Oh! dry up,” said Storth, “you aren’t in court now. Beaumont, I say again, you get neither profit nor kudos from being in the Council, and it takes up a lot of your time. But that’s a small matter. Do you think, now, it will add to your professional or social status or do you or the office a blessed scintilla of good, to take the chair for that fellow Bradlaugh, as I see you are advertised to do?”