CHAPTER VII—THE FLEDGLING CAPITALIST
IN Sam’s opinion, nobody had suffered. Mr. Travers lost nothing, because the corner house had conquered Minnifie at sight, and he would not in any case have bought the white elephant which Travers had for sale. Calverts had got as much as they expected to get for the houses, or they would not have sold, while the beneficiary under the late owner’s will was a charity, and Sam hoped that charity was charitable enough not to look a gift-horse in the mouth: if it wasn’t, it ought to be. As to the purchasers, who had certainly paid more for the property than they need have done, that was what purchasers were for. Why did smart business men exist if not to exploit purchasers?
All this was highly comforting, but to confess the need for comfort was to admit to disquiet, and he found that it was one thing to argue in this strain with his conscience, and another to boast to Anne of his achievement. Women don’t understand business, and he had an uneasy feeling that the ethics of the transaction would not satisfy Anne. He decided that he had better not tell her, that he must resist his impulse of surprising her with the gift of a seal-skin coat, and remained a capitalist under the rose. There was no hurry, and perhaps his next stroke, when it came, would be under conditions that would bear the limelight of her scrutiny.
But repression was not all. Justify himself as he would, chuckle over his gains as he did, the matter searched him deeply and reacted sharply in two ways, of which the first began as that old expedient of sinners, conscience-money. There are defaulters who find absolution for themselves by sending notes, under initials, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by having them acknowledged with impressiveness in the personal columns of the Times. That was not Sam’s way: he did not do good deeds by stealth, and his conscience-money did not go out of the family. He used it philanthropically, but it was philanthropy and ten per cent, to begin with, and in the end it was very much more than ten per cent. It was the Chappie Bill Posting and Window-Cleaning Company.
He thought that he could, without exciting Anne’s suspicions, tell her that his savings had reached ten pounds, and proposed to spend that sum for the benefit of George Chappie.
Inspired, perhaps, by his household gods, George was facing life bravely, and won a minor place in Anne’s good graces when he and Madge produced a firstborn son, who had the remarkable quality of looking exactly like the infant Samuel, whose name he bore. But George had not, in her opinion, deserved Sam’s generosity to this extent.
“You’re over-good to them,” she said. “You’ve made a man and woman of a pair of wastrels, and I’d let them alone to make their own way now.”
“Do you think it will be much of a way?” asked Sam. “They’re the sort that need help.”
“Aye,” she said, “they’ll lean on you all right. They’re good at leaning.”
“Well,” said Sam, drawing himself up. “Let them lean.”