“I’ll make it three hundred, because I like your manner.”
“Oh, you dear good generous soul!” she cried.
He paid in rather greasy-looking banknotes, and, later on, married her, and thus secured a return of the amount.
The Albert Edward estate was announced as specially suitable for newly married people, and these came, in pairs, attracted by the title and by the health statistics of the neighbourhood; a few carping critics pointed out that the agreeable figures were due to the sparsity of the population, but no one troubled to follow the argument. Meanwhile Mr. Rollinson ordered that building should go on with haste to meet the demands of would-be tenants, who, by an ingenious scheme of payments, became in a term of years responsible owners of the property, and he only relinquished the task when children began to arrive and the dwellings, in consequence, showed signs of wear and tear. He then went to Finsbury Park, and laid out the Princess Alice estate; later he proceeded to Hammersmith, and planned and carried out the Duke of Edinburgh estate. These houses might be exhibited at the present day, a tribute to Rollinson’s loyalty and industry, but for the interference of borough officials. By the time these steps were taken, Mr. Rollinson had disengaged himself from interest in the various properties, but one can understand the pain given by the action of the authorities to a man whose official letter paper bore the heading, “Not for an Age, but for all Time.”
Ernest Napoleon, the son, was born in ’43, and the event is registered at the church in Hart Street, Bloomsbury; his father, despite activities concerning new dwellings, preferred to reside in an older quarter of town. Mr. Rollinson found time to take a part in public life, and I have ascertained that he was one of 170,000 special constables sworn in at the time of the threatened Chartist riots; unfortunately, on the day of the meeting at Kennington Common, he was suffering from a slight headache, and he advised his neighbour, Dr. Fennell, to order him to stay in bed. Friendship between himself and his medical man increased as Mr. Rollinson spoke of his fortunate investments.
“Want you to do me a great favour, George,” asked Dr. Fennell, meeting him one day near the Museum. “My idea is that I ought very soon to be able to retire, and cultivate a garden in the country. But progress in my profession is slow.”
“You’re as safe as ’ouses,” remarked Mr. Rollinson,—“safe as some ’ouses, I mean—providing you’re not fool enough to go in for speculation.”
“Speculation,” declared the doctor warmly, “is the last vice I should indulge in. All I want you to do, the next time you see a good thing in prospect, is just to let me come in with you. I’ve five thousand pounds put by, and—call me ambitious, or what you will—I should like to make it ten. Promise me you’ll do your best.”
“Can’t guarantee success, mind you!”
“My dear George,” protested the other, “give me credit for a fair amount of common sense.”