CHAPTER II.
MR. SANDFORD’S SECRETARY.
THIS was what had happened in the meantime, while John had been about his other work. The man whom he had so readily taken up, knowing nothing of him except harm, had begun with quite an élan of sympathetic industry while the young man was with him. It was his nature so to do; had John remained with him all the time he would have continued so, with a generous desire to second and carry out all his wishes. But, when left alone to his work, his interest flagged. He settled everything in the most neat and orderly way, for he was always orderly, always ready to arrange and keep a certain symmetry in his surroundings, a kind of gratifying occupation which was not work.
When he had spread out his ink, his pens, his pencil, and ruler, his blotting-paper, and all the scraps he had to copy on the table before him, he began his work, and wrote on for half-an-hour at least with the air of a man who knew no better pleasure. But when he got to the conclusion of the page he laid down his pen and began to think. He had a quickly working mind, readily moved by any suggestion, taking up a cue and running on from it in lines of thought which amused him sometimes with a certain appearance of originality, enough to impose upon any chance listener, and always upon himself. This led him into mental amplifications of the text that was before him, and gave him a certain pleasure at first even in his work of copying. He thought of two or three things which he felt would be great improvements upon John’s plan as he went on, and at the end of each page he mused for an hour or so upon that and a hundred other subjects into which it ran. And then he roused up suddenly and turned the leaf and wrote a few sentences more; and then it occurred to him that it was time to eat something, as his breakfast had been a very light one.
He went out accordingly, having still money in his pocket, to get his luncheon, and lingered a little to wash down the hot and savoury sausage which was agreeable to a stomach not in very good order, and met Joe, who was hanging about on the outlook for his mate. Joe returned with him to pilot his friend safely through the little-known streets to the room in which John, in his simplicity, had believed his protégé would be safe from all such influences, and went in with him to bear him company. Then, after March had rested from these fatigues, his comrade aroused his interest not unskilfully.
‘I ’eard him say,’ remarked Joe, ‘as them papers would make ‘is fortin.’
‘So he thinks, poor lad; and I hope they may, for he’s a good lad and has been very kind to me.’
‘Droll to think you can make a fortin’ by writin’ on bits of paper,’ said Joe, touching John’s notes with his grimy hand (and indeed that opinion is shared by many people), ‘is it story-books, or wot is it!’
Mr. March laughed with genuine enjoyment, leaning back in his chair.
‘No, you ignoramus,’ he said; ‘don’t you see its figures, calculations, things you can understand still less than story-books? It’s a great scheme, Joe, my fine fellow, for turning the water out of the river and making the floods into dry land.’
‘You’re laughing at a poor fellow, guv’nor. I aint no scholard. And what’ll be done with the land? Will he farm it, or build on’t, or what’ll he do with it, when he’s got it? Doin’ away with the river would be little good, as I can see.’
‘Joe, you are a donkey,’ said his mate; ‘don’t you know there’s floods every year, and water in the houses, and water on the fields, and destruction everywhere. And this young fellow is an engineer, and means to put a stop to that.’
‘Oh!’ said Joe. Then, after a pause, he added, ‘It ’ud be the landlords o’ them places that would get the profit o’ that.’
‘Landlords and everybody; it would be a great advantage to the country, and would make our young man’s fortune, as he says.’
‘If I was you,’ said Joe, ‘I’d go on ahead with that. If it’s you that’s writing it out, you’ll go shares in the profits, I reckon.’
March resumed his pen at this incentive and began once more to write.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his hand, ‘not shares; for I have really nothing to do with it except to copy it; but I’ve no doubt he will pay me, and pretty well too——’
‘I daresay,’ said Joe, ‘if he’s that sort of a cove for finding out things, as he has a many more in his head as well as this.’
‘I should think most likely,’ said the elder man. ‘He’s got a good brain—and plenty of energy, and fond of his profession—which is a good thing, Joe. Neither you nor I have been fond of our professions, unfortunately for us.’
‘I ain’t got one—not even a trade. I was brought up to hang about, and do odd jobs. I never had no justice in my bringing-up.’
‘Ah, that was a pity,’ said his companion; ‘perhaps, however, it wouldn’t have mattered much. Hanging about is the trade of a great many men, Joe, more successful men than you and me.’
‘It depends on the nature o’ the jobs you gets,’ Joe remarked. He drew his chair a little nearer to the writing-table. ‘I’d get on with that there work, guv’nor, if I was you,’ he said, with a nudge; ‘if there’s a fortune in it for one, there might be a fortune in it for two.’
March looked at him hazily with an afternoon look of drowsiness and languor; but he was tickled by the advice thus given, and resumed the so-easily-relinquished work. Joe, so to speak, sat or stood over him all day, encouraging and stimulating. The work went on slowly, as John remarked in the evening, but still it went on. The next day and the next passed in much the same way, except that Joe, ‘hanging about’ as usual, managed to meet his comrade on his way to instead of after luncheon, and so secured a clear head and less drowsy condition for the afternoon. At last, chiefly by the exertions of this very unusual overseer, the work was concluded, and then Joe spoke his mind more clearly.
‘It’s you as has had most part of this work, guv’nor, but it’s he as’ll get the pay.’
‘That’s the way of this world, Joe,’ said his comrade. But he added after a moment, with a magnanimous air, ‘Not in this case, however—for I have only copied, I have not invented—though I may have given a few hints.’
He had given these hints only to himself, various suggestions having occurred to him in the course of his copying, which in some instances he had inserted with the wildest ignorance of practicability in his text.
‘I make no doubt,’ said Joe, ‘as the best of it come out o’ your head, guv’nor. You was always the one as had the brains; and it’s you as should profit by it. A young fellow like that’s got no occasion to make his fortune at his age. It ain’t good for him. When you make your fortune like that right off, it puffs you up with pride, and it stops you doing more. Ain’t that true? Why, you knows it is;—chaplains and parsons and all that sort say so. It’s good for you to be kep’ down when you’re young. It would be a thousand pities to spoil a young fellow’s life like, with getting everything that he wants first thing afore he’s had any experience. That’s what has always been said to me.’
‘There is some truth in it, no doubt,’ said March.
‘A deal of truth, guv’nor. I suppose, now, you’ve just got to take them papers to somebody as deals in things like that, and get money for ’em down on the nail?’
‘He will take them to some great engineering firm,’ said the other. ‘And probably he would not part with them for a sum “down on the nail,” as you say. Such a scheme as this he’d be sure to have some share in it. He would superintend the carrying out of his plans, if you understand that. It might be years of work for him, and the most excellent beginning. I should think he deserved it, too,’ said John’s amanuensis, looking round approvingly, ‘for there is every evidence that he’s a fine fellow, and I know he has been very kind to me.’
‘And you might be very kind to ’im, in that way,’ said Joe.
‘I could be—kind to him? I don’t think I’ve very much in my power one way or other,’ said March, with a smile and a sigh.
‘Guv’nor,’ said Joe, ‘you never was one as took things upon you. Give up to other folks, that was allays what you would do. But what’s the good? You don’t get no thanks for it. If I was in your place—as I’m a donkey, and good for nothing, but you ain’t, and could do a lot if you liked—I know what I’d do.’
March smiled benignantly enough upon the poor dependent, whose flatteries were not unpleasant to him.
‘And what would you do, if you were me, which is not a very likely change?’ he said.
‘No, it ain’t likely. Them as is born asses, dies asses—and t’other way too. It ain’t for me to tell a clever man like you, and that has got a fine education, and born a gentleman.’
‘Alas!’ said March, shaking his head; ‘alas! it hasn’t come to much, has it? Your mate, my poor fellow, and one without a friend but you, or a chance in the wide world——’
‘Don’t say that, guv’nor. Here’s a chance, if I ain’t more of a born ass than ever I thought—a chance for a fortune, and for doing the young fellow a good turn. How’s he, at his age, to show up a big thing like this? There’s nobody as would believe it of him. They’d say, “Oh, get along, you boy.” They’d never take him in earnest at all.’
‘I do him a good turn! I, a broken man, without character or anything; without a friend! and he a fine, respectable young fellow, well thought of, and clever, and knowing more than I ever knew at my best. That’s nonsense, Joe.’
‘Not if you’ll think a bit, guv’nor; I hear him say them papers is my fortune—and then I hears him ’eave a sigh. He’s not one of the pushing ones, he isn’t. He knows as they’re worth a deal, but he hasn’t the face to say “Look here, you give me so much for this.” Guv’nor, I know you’re a man as will do a deal for a friend. Why don’t you take ’em just as they lies there, and take ’em to some person as deals in that sort of thing, and just up and ask ’em what’ll they give for this? “There’s a young un,” says you, “as understands everything about it and is just the man to work ’em out.” If I were in your place, guv’nor, that’s what I would do.’
‘But, my good fellow,’ said March, ‘those papers belong to the young man here, not to me.’
‘Guv’nor,’ said Joe, ‘I don’t doubt as the best that’s in that long story as you’re writing out there comes out o’ your own ’ead. It stands to reason as you know more about it than a young feller like ’im.’
The philosophical gull, who never learned wisdom, was touched by this in the most assailable point.
‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘Joe,—though how you’ve found it out I can’t tell—that I have carried out a suggestion or two, and put in something that seemed to me the logical consequence of what he said. But nothing practical, for I don’t understand the practical part. And how does that sort of thing give me any real claim?’
‘Guv’nor,’ repeated Joe, ‘you needn’t tell me. I know you, and how you’re always giving up to other folks. It’s half yours and more, I’ll be bound. And the best you could do for the young ’un is just what I tells you. I’m practical, I am. If it was anything in my way, I’d do it like a shot; but it ain’t in my way. The outsides o’ things has a deal of power in this world. You in your fine respectable suit, you can go where you please like a prince. But me, it’s “Be off with you—get along with you;” they won’t say nothing of that sort to you. And you’ll just make the young man’s fortune, that’s what you’ll do. Say as he’s the very one to look after the works and knows all the practical part. They ought to settle something handsome on you at once as your share and take him on as foreman, or whatever it is; and in that way you’d both get the best of it and all done well.’
The convict philosopher shook his head. He rose up from the table and put the papers away. He admired the neatness of his own manuscript extremely, and he was of opinion that he had done John a great deal of good by the suggestions which he had worked out and the additions which he had made. It was possible that Joe might be right, and that the best thing he could do for his young employer was what the poor faithful fellow had suggested. He had himself a great admiration, after having been deprived of it so long, of his respectable suit and appearance, and there was a great deal of plausibility, he thought, in what the man said. But it was still clear to him that John might not think so. He was not very rigid himself upon any point of morals, after his long practice in thinking everything over, and blurring out to his own satisfaction the lines of demarcation between right and wrong; but he could understand that the young man, not having his experience, might think otherwise; and he had even a sympathy for his want of philosophical power in that respect. So he put everything aside very tidily, and put his hand upon Joe’s arm and drew him away, shaking his head, but not angry at the good fellow’s insistence. There was something in it—and it might doubtless be under certain circumstances the most kind thing that could be done for the young man. Still there was the difficulty that the young man might not see it in that light. And Mr. March accordingly put up the papers, and taking Joe by the arm, with a benevolent smile and a shake of the head, led him away.
It has been said that John’s rooms were in Westminster, not far from Great George Street, where the offices of Messrs. Barrett were, and where, as the reader needs not to be informed, various other engineers’ offices are to be seen. March’s eye caught the names involuntarily as he passed by. It was not that he was trifling with temptation, for he did not consider Joe’s suggestion as temptation. He was only turning over the possibilities in his mind, and merely as a matter of amusement, an exercise of fancy, just as he might have counted how many white horses passed in the street, or which windows were curtained and which not, he read over to himself the names on the doors. Messrs. Barrett’s was one which he weighed but afterwards rejected, as not liking the sound of it. Another quite near had a name that pleased him better—Messrs. Spender and Diggs. What a ludicrous combination! He laughed to himself at it, as it caught his eye. Spender and Diggs—it was highly suggestive, which was a thing dear to his mind at ease. It clung to his memory. He turned it round the other way to see how it would sound. Diggs and Spender: that was still more absurd.
And all the time Joe’s voice was running on with arguments, the form of which, simple and subtle and couched in that language of the rough which is always more or less picturesque, amused his companion much. Joe had penetrated sufficiently into the mind of his mate to know how to address him. And that mind began to work upon the matter, with the amusing addition of the name of Spender and Diggs thrown in, and a great deal of pleasurable occupation in a question entirely characteristic and full of the difficulties he loved.
The result was that March appeared in the morning as the landlady had said, and spent a short time, but only a very short time in John’s sitting-room. The copy was completed, carefully folded up, and put in a large envelope. All John’s notes, the originals, were scrupulously left in their place, and in perfect order. For in some points his conscience was of scrupulous nicety, and John’s notes were certainly his own and not to be tampered with. As he was going out with the large envelope in his breast pocket, John’s landlady appeared with the remonstrance which had been on her lips for some days.
‘You, sir, I’ve got no objections—a gentleman that’s pleasant spoken and respectable even if he ain’t my lodger, but only a friend, that’s a different thing:—— but your—— that man——’
‘My servant?’ said March, with a quick sense of the comicality of the situation.
‘Well, sir,’ said the woman, with hesitation; ‘I wouldn’t keep on a man like that in my service if I was you.’
‘He is not as bad as he seems,’ the philosopher said, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘but I foresaw your objections, and you shall never see him more.’
‘If that’s so, of course, there isn’t another word to be said.’
‘That’s so; you may calculate upon it as a certainty,’ the pleasant spoken gentleman said; and with a wave of his hand and a chuckle of enjoyment he went away.
The events thus described will explain the scene which John to his consternation and amazement encountered when he stepped into Mr. William’s room at the office, and found himself confronted by both members of the firm.