These facts—which must be familiar to many of my readers—I only recall in order to show what influence they had in the surprising revolutions of fortune which enabled Mr. Clutterbuck to pass from ease to affluence, and launched him upon public life.
The business which Mr. Clutterbuck had inherited from his father was a small agency chiefly concerned with the Baltic trade. This business had declined; for Mr. Clutterbuck's father had failed to follow the rapid concentration of commercial effort which is the mark of our time. But Mr. Clutterbuck had inherited, besides the business, a sum of close upon ten thousand pounds in various securities: it was upon the manipulation of this that he principally depended, and though he maintained the sign of the old agency at the office, it was the cautious buying and selling of stocks which he carefully watched, various opportunities of promotion in a small way, commissions, and occasional speculations in kind, that procured his constant though somewhat irregular income. To these sources he would sometimes add private advances or covering mortgages upon the stock of personal friends.
It was a venture of the latter sort which began the transformation of his life.
The last negotiations of the war were not yet wholly completed, nor had the coronation of his present Majesty taken place when, in the early summer of 1902, a neighbour of the name of Boyle called one evening at Mr. Clutterbuck's house.
Mr. Boyle, a man of Mr. Clutterbuck's own age, close upon fifty, and himself a bachelor, had long enjoyed the acquaintance both of Mr. Clutterbuck and of his wife. Some years ago, indeed, when Mr. Boyle resided at the Elms, the acquaintance had almost ripened into friendship, but Mr. Boyle's ill-health, not unconnected with financial worries, and later his change of residence to 15 John Bright Gardens had somewhat estranged the two households. It was therefore with a certain solemnity that Mr. Boyle was received into the neat sitting-room where the Clutterbucks were accustomed to pass the time between tea and the hour of their retirement.
They were shocked to see how aged Mr. Boyle appeared: he formed, as he sat there opposite them, the most complete contrast with the man whose counsel and support he had come to seek. For Mr. Clutterbuck was somewhat stout in figure, of a roundish face with a thick and short moustache making a crescent upon it. He was bald as to the top of his head, and brushed across it a large thin fan of his still dark hair. His forehead was high, since he was bald; his complexion healthy. But Mr. Boyle, clean-shaven, with deep-set, restless grey eyes, and a forehead ornamented with corners, seemed almost foreign; so hard were the lines of his face and so abundant his curly and crisp grey hair. His gestures also were nervous. He clasped and unclasped his hands, and as he delivered—at long intervals—his first common-place remarks, his eyes darted from one object to another, but never met his host's: he was very ill.
His evident hesitation instructed Mrs. Clutterbuck that he had come upon some important matter; she therefore gathered up the yellow satin centre, upon the embroidery of which she had been engaged, and delicately left the room.
When she had noiselessly shut the door behind her, Mr. Boyle, looking earnestly at the fire, said abruptly:
"What I have come about to-night, Mr. Clutterbuck, is a business proposition." Having said this, he extended the fore and middle fingers of his right hand in the gesture of an episcopal benediction, and tapped them twice upon the palm of his left; which done, he repeated his phrase: "A business proposition"; cleared his throat and said no more.
Mr. Clutterbuck's reply to this was to approach a chiffonier, to squat down suddenly before it in the attitude of a frog, to unlock it, and to bring out a cut glass decanter containing whiskey. The whiskey was Scotch; and as Mr. Clutterbuck straightened himself and set it upon the table, he looked down upon Mr. Boyle with a look of property and knowledge, winked solemnly and said: