“You see, it’s absolutely necessary that my girls should marry well,” Mrs. Friedberg said confidentially. “Business has been bad of late—there has been a slump in the trade, you know,—and Ben’s position is not what it used to be. Of course, I can’t expect them all to do as well as Adeline; but I must see that they are properly provided for. Otherwise, I am sure that there is no one I should like better for a son-in-law than you, Dave, having known your poor pa when he was a barmitzvah[6] boy, and you from the time you were eight days old.”
David Salmon smiled good-humouredly. He was a curly-headed young fellow of about five and twenty, with nothing but his good looks and easy-going temperament to recommend him. Mrs. Friedberg would have liked him very much as a husband for Maud or Lottie, had it not been for his unfortunate aptitude for spending money as quickly as he earned it.
He had just returned from South Africa, where, instead of making a fortune, as he had intended doing, he had lost the little money he had possessed. Yet he was not by any means despondent, for in the dim future there loomed forth largely, a hope—the substantial hope of an ample balance at the bankers, and immunity from certain blue documents which found their way to his address with irritating persistency.
On the strength of this hope, he played bluff on board ship with the nonchalance of a millionaire, and when it came to squaring up, proffered a gold nugget as security. The nugget was not his—it had been committed to his care by Bernie Franks, and was intended as a present for Bernie’s daughter,—but it brought him luck, and, by the time he landed at Southampton, he was over £30 in pocket.
He had never troubled to consider what he would have done if he had lost the nugget or part of its value. It was characteristic of David Salmon never to think of the consequences of any rash act of his. If he muddled into a scrape, he managed to muddle out of it again somehow; and always relied on his indomitable bounce to carry him through.
It was by means of a letter of introduction from Ben Friedberg, that he had made the acquaintance of Bernie Franks. The financier lived by himself in a house that was little more than a shanty, and subsisted on a sum which the least of his clerks would have considered very poor salary. Most people were of opinion that money-grabbing had turned his brain. He was certainly eccentric and miserly, and looked on all men with suspicion. David Salmon found it hard to convince him that he wanted nothing out of him, and that, although he possessed scarcely a brass farthing of his own, he would not accept a penny from the financier, either as a loan or as a gift. By dint of perseverance, he won himself into the old man’s good graces; and by the time he left the Cape, was quite satisfied with the result of their acquaintance. So far as actual money was concerned, he was not one penny the richer; but he had gained Bernie Frank’s consent to his marriage with his daughter Celia, and therein lay the fulfilment of his great hope.
“I should certainly have liked to marry one of your girls,” he said to Mrs. Friedberg; “but I’ve scarcely a sixpence to bless myself with, so of course I must marry some one with money. I regard it as almost providential that Celia Franks should be under your very roof. I hadn’t the slightest idea, when I left Capetown, that I should find her with you.”
“Yes, it is lucky for you, David,” returned Mrs. Friedberg, complacently. “You will find it much easier to do your courting here than you would if she were in Durlston. I am sure you have my best wishes, and I will do all I can to help you. I can’t say more than that, can I?”
“No, indeed not; and I’ll give you a very handsome present on my wedding-day. I shall be able to afford it then; for, however niggardly Bernie Franks may be about his own personal expenditure, he is generous enough where Celia is concerned. He has promised to give her a dowry of thirty thousand pounds—providing she marries a Jew; and there will be the prospect of a fortune at his death.”
“Providing she marries a Jew!” repeated Mrs. Friedberg, as she paused in the act of threading a needle. “That is a very sensible stipulation, and I think that Celia ought to be made aware of it. She has been talking a good deal about a young Christian fellow in Durlston—a doctor, I believe; I hope she hasn’t any idea of marrying him, though.”