‘I don’t see what it has to do with my £500.’
The doctor threw his tobacco-pouch across to him.
‘Have another pipe, and be patient. You’ll see directly. Well, after Ralph Egerton had been buried, it was found that Gurth was his next heir, and came into all the property; and a nice little haul it was. There was a lot of ready money, and some comfortable house property, and no end of stocks and shares.’
‘I didn’t know that Gurth was the heir when I left,’ said Marston.
‘Of course you didn’t. You might not have gone if you had known, eh?’
‘That’s a matter I won’t discuss now,’ answered Marston. ‘All I know is that I’m back again, that I haven’t got a mag in the world, and that, as you and Egerton seem to have done so well, perhaps you’ll come down handsomely for an old friend.’
‘My dear fellow, that’s just where you make the mistake. I am not a rich man. I’ve got a little practice, and I have a carriage and pair for appearance sake, in the hope of working up a better. It isn’t mine. I hire it when I want it, and use it as an advertisement. This house I have lived in since Ralph died here. Gurth let it to me cheap on a long lease. Gurth has behaved very handsomely to me, and, as a matter of fact, that is the reason I have been able to appear well-to-do on a practice which really is not lucrative.’
‘I don’t suppose generosity had much to do with it,’ growled Marston.
‘As you will, my boy. It isn’t worth while discussing the motive—the fact remains. Gurth has done well since you left. I have only done well through Gurth.’
‘I see what you are driving at,’ said Marston. ‘You mean that if I want help Gurth is the man I ought to go to. Well, where is he?’
‘At the bottom of the sea,’ answered the doctor, knocking the ashes out of his pipe.
Ned Marston jumped up in a rage and strode across the room to where Birnie sat.
‘Look here, Oliver Birnie,’ he cried, clutching his arm, ‘this game doesn’t suit me. I’m not to be humbugged by your cool as a cucumber business. I’m back in London, and I’ve got to live. I look for my old friends, and I can find only one of them—you. You owe me £500, statute or no statute—are you going to pay it?’
‘My dear fellow, it was only a gambling debt in the first place, and in the second it’s not recoverable on account of its age.’
‘I only ask you for £500 for this bit of paper. Give me that, and I’ll make a fair start, and go ahead right enough. I’ve got my wits about me, and pluck enough for a dozen man. Give me the money, and you won’t be troubled with me any more.’
‘Sit down and talk sensibly,’ said the doctor quietly, ‘and I’ll see what I can do for an old comrade in distress.’
The doctor and his visitor were closeted together in earnest conversation for over an hour. When Marston went out through the garden gate, Rebecca looked after him with as much scorn as her features could assume.
‘He ain’t been here for no good, I’ll wager,’ she said to herself. ‘If he ain’t got something in his pocket as he didn’t bring in with him my name ain’t Rebeccer.’
Rebecca was quite right. Mr. Marston had something in his pocket that he didn’t bring in with him. It was a cheque for £500.
In spite of his non-lucrative practice, Dr. Birnie evidently had a balance at his banker’s.
CHAPTER VIII. MR. DUCK’S NEW LODGERS.
It is a week since Mr. and Mrs. George Smith have taken up their residence beneath the humble rooftree of Mr. Jabez Duck.
‘Quite the gentleman,’ says Miss Duck, when she discusses the new lodgers with her brother.
‘And quite the lady,’ adds Mr. Duck, upon whom Bess’s bright country face has made a great impression.
‘You’re an idiot, Jabez,’ answers Georgina. ‘She may be a lady in comparison with the persons with whom you are in the habit of associating—housekeepers, cooks, and such like menials—but Mrs. Smith is not a real lady. Anybody could see that with half an eye.’
‘Well, my dear, I’ve got four half eyes, and I say distinctly that a well-bred and well-behaved young woman——’
‘Quite so, Jabez; she is a very nice young woman: but a young woman is not a young lady.’
Mr. Jabez gave premonitory symptoms of a small joke by increasing in shininess. A smile spread up to the roots of his hair.
‘A young woman is not a young lady; but a young lady must be a young woman. Ha, ha!—that’s a paradox.’
‘It may be a paradocks, or a Victoria Docks, or an East India Docks, or any docks you like,’ said Miss Duck, snappishly; ‘but if Mrs. Smith ‘s a lady, I’ll eat my head.’
‘Don’t, my dear,’ exclaimed Jabez, with the premonitory shine bursting forth again. ‘It would be sure to bring on indigestion, and your temper’s awful when your digestion’s bad.’
‘Jabez, you’re a contemptible idiot. Such frivolous tomfoolery may suit the menial classes with which you mix; but don’t bring it into this house, if you please.’
Jabez evidently thought he’d made quite as many small jokes as his sister could stand for one day; so he finished his breakfast in silence and departed citywards.
The menial classes were metaphorically hurled at his head now whenever he and his sister were together; but Jabez was not to be provoked into picking up the gauntlet; and, in spite of all Georgina’s hints, the name of Mrs. Turvey never crossed his lips.
Leaving Mr. Jabez to get to the office by himself, let us walk upstairs to the first floor, and pay a visit to the newly married couple.
We will knock at the door first, for young married couples do not sit on either side of the room, with all the furniture between them as a barricade, like many old married couples do.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith have just finished breakfast. George is sitting in a low chair reading the newspaper, and Bess is on a hassock at his feet, looking up at him and doing a little quiet hero-worship.
Their marriage certificate is a week old. George resided in the apartments long enough to qualify for a licence, and then Bess came up to town and they were married quietly, and went back to spend their honeymoon at Dalston. George has been so good and kind, and Bess has been so happy, it has been quite like fairyland. Wandering about the Park hand in hand, lunching at the pastrycooks’, going to Madame Tussaud’s and to the theatre—it had seemed as if the people who had never got married on the sly and gone into apartments for the honeymoon could never have known what real happiness was.
George let a week go by in unalloyed bliss, then he put his hand in his pocket and counted his change out of the forty pounds he started married life with; he had but twenty left. Directly he made that discovery it was decided to take buses instead of cabs, and to go to the pit instead of the upper boxes, ‘And George dear,’ said Bess, ‘we must be very careful and economical till you get something to do. I think we’ll begin to dine at home instead of going out every day.’
‘Yes, dear, I think we’d better,’ said George. ‘I suppose Miss Duck won’t mind you cooking in the kitchen?’
‘Of course not, dear. Let’s start housekeeping to-day. What shall we have for dinner?’
George suggested lots of things, but they were all too much for two people.
Bess