William Jordan, Junior

by J. C. Snaith

“I—I intend to make all the reparation that lies in my power,” said the young man, whose face was that of a ghost.

“Yes; somehow I expected you would do that,” said his mentor, “but if you do you will be found out.”

“I think I would choose to have it so,” said the young man, with gaunt eyes.

“No, my son,” said his mentor firmly, “that is just what you can’t afford. If you are found out there is no saying what will happen to you. You see Octavius is a very good chap; makes a god of what he calls honour, and so on, and that makes him a bit of a fanatic in some things. I really don’t know where this would land you if you were found out. I’ve lied about it already; I am absolutely up to the neck in lies. I dare say he half suspects me; and in any case I am quite likely to lose my billet. But one thing he can’t do, Luney, he can’t bring it home to me. And now, my son, we have got to take care that he doesn’t bring it home to you.”

“I—I think, Jimmy, the courage will be given to me to accept the entire responsibility of my action,” said the young man.

“Well, you see,” said James Dodson, with an odd look in his face, “you are such an extraordinary chap altogether, that I’m thinking the consequences might be too much for you. In any case you would have to go from here; and if you once go from here you will never get another billet—not as long as you live will you ever get another billet. And Octavius being, as I say, a bit of a fanatic in some things, it might even be worse for you than that.”

“But,” said William Jordan, “I—I think the power will be furnished to me to submit to the consequences of my action.”

“I don’t quite know what you mean,” said James Dodson, “you have such an odd way of expressing yourself. But I am going to give you my advice in plain English. Mum is the word. I defy anything to be proved against you if you keep your mouth shut. If you do I won’t deny that James Dodson may lose his billet. But in any case he has it about him to get another; while, as I say, if you come to lose yours you are done for altogether. No, Luney, whatever you do you must not appear in this. The consequences may be so much more than you know; and you are not a chap who can stand up against them. If you will give the money to me I will restore it; but I shall use my own judgment as to how and when to put it back. You see I have already half persuaded Octavius that he has left the money somewhere else; that he has mislaid it, or that he has never had it. You see he is such an absent-minded sort of blighter, that by a bit of firm and judicious handling he might be persuaded that the money never existed. And I will do him this credit, my son; he would far rather it never had existed than that a thing like this should have happened in the house of Crumpett and Hawker.”

The immediate result of this curious and unlooked-for intervention was that the unhappy young man, although declining to incriminate his mentor by handing the money over to him to be restored at his discretion, also refrained, for the time being, from replacing it himself, because such a course, in Jimmy Dodson’s opinion, would tell heavily against himself.

“You see I’ve told such lies to Octavius,” said Jimmy Dodson, “that he might easily come to believe that the money was not there at all. But if it returns to the exact spot where he thinks he left it, he will naturally come to suspect me as having some sort of a hand in it, and he will know then—like the d——d old fool that he is—that I have been trying to argue him clean out of his own reason.”