CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAM BECOMES A HOUSEHOLDER
WHAT Mr. Matters would have thought of Sam as he charged breezily into the office a few minutes later we shall never know, for Mr. Matters died in the year 1910. Mr. Cornelius thought him perfectly foul. After one swift, appraising stare through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he went so far as to share this opinion with his visitor.
“I never give to beggars,” he said. He was a venerable old man with a white beard and bushy eyebrows, and he spoke with something of the intonation of a druid priest chanting at the altar previous to sticking the knife into the human sacrifice. “I do not believe in indiscriminate charity.”
“I will fill in your confession book some other time,” said Sam. “For the moment, let us speak of houses. I want to take Mon Repos in Burberry Road.”
The druid was about to recite that ancient rune which consists of the solemn invocation to a policeman, when he observed with considerable surprise that his young visitor was spraying currency in great quantities over the table. He gulped. It was unusual for clients at his office to conduct business transactions in a manner more suitable to the Bagdad of the Arabian Nights than a respectable modern suburb. He could hardly have been more surprised if camels laden with jewels and spices had paraded down Ogilvy Street.
“What is all this?” he asked, blinking.
“Money,” said Sam.
“Where did you get it?”
He eyed Sam askance. And Sam, who, as the heady result of a bath, shave, breakfast and the possession of cash, had once more forgotten that there was anything noticeable about his appearance, gathered that here was another of the long line of critics who had failed to recognise his true worth at first sight.
“Do not judge me by the outer crust,” he said. “I am shabby because I have been through much. When I stepped aboard the boat at New York I was as natty a looking young fellow as you could wish to see. People nudged one another as I passed along the pier and said, ‘Who is he?’”
“You come from America?”
“From America.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Cornelius, as if that explained everything.
“My uncle,” said Sam, sensing the change in the atmosphere and pursuing his advantage, “is Mr. John B. Pynsent, the well-to-do millionaire of whom you have doubtless heard.... You haven’t? One of our greatest captains of industry. He made a vast fortune in fur.”
“In fur? Really?”
“Got the concession for providing the snakes at the Bronx Zoo with earmuffs, and from that moment never looked back.”
“You surprise me,” said Mr. Cornelius. “Most interesting.”
“A romance of commerce,” agreed Sam. “And now, returning to this matter of the house——”
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Cornelius. His voice, as he eyed the money on the table, was soft and gentle. He still looked like a druid priest, but a druid priest on his afternoon off. “For how long a period did you wish to rent Mon Repos, Mr.—er——”
“Shotter is the name.... Indefinitely.”
“Shall we say three months rent in advance?”
“Let us say just those very words.”
“And as to references——”
Sam was on the point of giving Mr. Wrenn’s name, until he recollected that he had not yet met that gentleman. Using his shaving brush and razor and eating food from his larder seemed to bring them very close together. He reflected.
“Lord Tilbury,” he said. “That’s the baby.”
“Lord Tilbury, of the Mammoth Publishing Company?” said Mr. Cornelius, plainly awed. “Do you know him?”
“Know him? We’re more like brothers than anything. There’s precious little Lord Tilbury ever does without consulting me. It might be a good idea to call him up on the phone now. I ought to let him know that I’ve arrived.”
Mr. Cornelius turned to the telephone, succeeded after an interval in getting the number, and after speaking with various unseen underlings, tottered reverently as he found himself talking to the great man in person. He handed the instrument to Sam.
“His Lordship would like to speak to you, Mr. Shotter.”
“I knew it, I knew it,” said Sam. “Hello! Lord Tilbury? This is Sam. How are you? I’ve just arrived. I came over in a tramp steamer, and I’ve been having all sorts of adventures. Give you a good laugh. I’m down at Valley Fields at the moment, taking a house. I’ve given your name as a reference. You don’t mind? Splendid! Lunch? Delighted. I’ll be along as soon as I can. Got to get a new suit first. I slept in my clothes last night.... Well, good-bye. It’s all right about the references,” he said, turning to Mr. Cornelius. “Carry on.”
“I will draw up the lease immediately, Mr. Shotter. If you will tell me where I am to send it——”
“Send it?” said Sam surprised. “Why, to Mon Repos, of course.”
“But——”
“Can’t I move in at once?”
“I suppose so, if you wish it. But I fancy the house is hardly ready for immediate tenancy. You will need linen.”
“That’s all right. A couple of hours shopping will fix that.”
Mr. Cornelius smiled indulgently. He was thoroughly pro-Sam by now.
“True American hustle,” he observed, waggling his white beard. “Well, I see no objection, if you make a point of it. I will find the key for you. Tell me, Mr. Shotter,” he asked as he rummaged about in drawers, “what has caused this great desire on your part to settle in Valley Fields? Of course, as a patriotic inhabitant, I ought not to be surprised. I have lived in Valley Fields all my life, and would not live anywhere else if you offered me a million pounds.”
“I won’t.”
“I was born in Valley Fields, Mr. Shotter, and I love the place, and I am not ashamed to say so.
“‘Breathes there the man with soul so dead,’” inquired Mr. Cornelius, “‘Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned as home his footsteps he hath turn’d from wandering on a foreign strand?’”
“Ah!” said Sam. “That’s what we’d all like to know, wouldn’t we?”
“‘If such there breathe,’” proceeded Mr. Cornelius, “‘go mark him well! For him no minstrel raptures swell. High though his titles, proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim, despite those titles, power, and pelf, the wretch, concentred all in self——’”
“I have a luncheon engagement at 1:30,” said Sam.
“‘——Living, shall forfeit fair renown, and, doubly dying, shall go down to the vile dust from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonour’d and unsung.’ Those words, Mr. Shotter——”
“A little thing of your own?”
“Those words, Mr. Shotter, will appear on the title page of the history of Valley Fields, which I am compiling—a history dealing not only with its historical associations, which are numerous, but also with those aspects of its life which my occupation as house agent has given me peculiar opportunities of examining. I get some queer clients, Mr. Shotter.”
Sam was on the point of saying that the clients got a queer house agent, thus making the thing symmetrical, but he refrained.
“It may interest you to know that a very well-known criminal, a man who might be described as a second Charles Peace, once resided in the very house which you are renting.”
“I shall raise the tone.”
“Like Charles Peace, he was a most respectable man to all outward appearances. His name was Finglass. Nobody seems to have had any suspicion of his real character until the police, acting on information received, endeavoured to arrest him for the perpetration of a great bank robbery.”
“Catch him?” said Sam, only faintly interested.
“No; he escaped and fled the country. But I was asking you what made you settle on Valley Fields as a place of residence. You would seem to have made up your mind very quickly.”
“Well, the fact is, I happened to catch sight of my next-door neighbours, and it struck me that they would be pleasant people to live near.”
Mr. Cornelius nodded.
“Mr. Wrenn is greatly respected by all who know him.”
“I liked his razor,” said Sam.
“If you are going to Tilbury House it is possible that you may meet him. He is the editor of Pyke’s Home Companion.”
“Is that so?” said Sam. “Pyke’s Home Companion, eh?”
“And Mr. Wrenn’s niece? A charming girl, I thought.”
“I scarcely know her,” said Mr. Cornelius indifferently. “Young women do not interest me.”
The proverb about casting pearls before swine occurred to Sam.
“I must be going,” he said coldly. “Speed up that lease, will you. And if anyone else blows in and wants to take the house, bat them over the head with the office ruler.”
“Mr. Wrenn and I frequently play a game of chess together,” said Mr. Cornelius.
Sam was not interested in his senile diversions.
“Good morning,” he said stiffly, and passed out into Ogilvy Street.