when mr. effingham found himself with fifty pounds in his pocket outside the bank where he had changed sir charles mitford's cheque, he could scarcely contain his exultation. his dealings with bankers had been few, and not always satisfactory. he had had cheques in his possession which he had been too bashful to present in his own proper person, but had employed a little boy to take to the counter while he waited round the corner of an adjacent street; he had had cheques which he had presented himself, but the proceeds of which, when asked "how he would have," he had always taken in gold, as a more convenient and untraceable medium. on the present occasion, however, he had walked boldly in; had rapped on the counter, to the horror and dismay of the old gentleman behind banking-firm, passing through the public office on his way to the private parlour, peered at mr. effingham. under his bushy-grey eyebrows curiously; but mr. effingham did not mind that. the porter sitting on a very hard stool just inside the swing doors rubbed his nose and winked significantly at the policeman in plain clothes stationed just outside the swing-doors, whose duty was to help rich old-lady customers in and out of their carriages. both porter and policeman stared very hard at mr. effingham, and mr. effingham returned the stare with all the eye-power at his command what did he care? they might call him back and inspect the cheque if they liked, and then they would see what they would get for attempting to molest a gentleman.
in his character of gentleman, mr. effingham felt that his costume was scarcely so correct as it might have been; in fact, that in the mere quality of being weather-tight it was lamentably deficient. so his first proceeding was to visit an outfitter's, and then and there to procure what he termed "a rig-out" of the peculiar kind most in accordance with his resonant taste. the trousers were of such an enormous check pattern that, as the jew tailor humorously remarked, "it would take two men to show it;" the hat shone like a bad looking-glass; the coat, though somewhat baggy in the back, was glossy, and had a cotton-velvet collar; and the lowther-arcade jewelry glistened in the midst of a bird's-eye scarf of portentous height and stiffness.
his outer man satisfied, mr. effingham thought it time to attend to his inner; and accordingly turned into a city chop-house of renown, where his elegant appearance made an immense impression on the young stockbroking gents and the junior clerks from the banks and mincing-lane houses, who commented, in no measured tones, and with a great deal of biting sarcasm, on the various portions of his costume. either not hearing or not heeding this banter, mr. effingham ordered a point steak and potatoes and a pint of stout; all of which he devoured with an appearance of intense relish. an old gentleman sitting in the same box opposite to him had a steaming glass of fragrant punch, the aroma of which ascended gratefully into mr. effingham's nostrils and almost impelled him to order a similar jorum; but prudence stepped in, and he paid his bill and departed, not that he did not intend to indulge in that after-dinner grog, which was customary with him whenever he had the money to pay for it himself, or the luck to get anybody to pay for it for him; but he wished to combine business with pleasure; and so started off for another tavern nearer the west end, where he knew the combination could be accomplished.
the chosen place of mr. effingham's resort, though properly designated the brown bear, was known to all its frequenters as "johnson's," from its proprietor's name. it was a commonplace public-house enough, in a street leading out of the strand, and sufficiently near the large theatres and newspaper offices for its parlour to be the resort of actors and press-men of an inferior grade. the more eminent in both professions "used" the rougepot in salad yard, a famous old place that had been a house of call for actors, wits, and men-of-letters for generations, and where strangers seldom penetrated. the habitués of "johnson's" were mostly young men just affiliated to their professions, and not particularly careful as to their associates; so that you frequently found in johnson's parlour a sprinkling of questionable characters, men who hung on to the selvage of theatrical life, betting-book keepers, and card-sharpers. the regular frequenters did not actually favour these men, but they tacitly allowed their presence, and occasionally would join in and listen to their conversation, from which they gleaned new notions of life.
when mr. effingham pushed open the parlour-door and looked into the room on the afternoon in which he had conducted his banking operation with such signal success, the place was almost deserted. the large corner-boxes by the fire, where the professional gentlemen usually congregated, were empty; but at a table in the far end of the room were seated two men, at sight of whom mr. effingham's face brightened. they were flashily-dressed, raffish-looking men, smoking rank cigars, and busily engaged in comparing betting-books.
"hollo!" said one of them, looking up at the noise made by the opening of the door; "i'm blessed if here ain't d'ossay butler! and the regular d'ossay cut too--sprucer than ever; might pass for the count himself, d'ossay!"
"what's happened to the little cove now, i wonder?" said the other, a thin man with a shaved face and a tall hat, which he had great difficulty in keeping on his head; "what's happened to him now? has he stood-in on a steeple-chase, or robbed a bank? look at his togs! what a slap-up swell he is!"
mr. effingham received these compliments with great equanimity, sat down by his friends, and seeing their glasses empty, said: "any lap? i'm game to stand anything you like to put a name to;" rang the bell for the waiter, and ordered three nines of brandy hot.
"what an out-and-out little cove it is!" repeated the first man with great admiration. "well, tell us, d'ossay, all about it. how did it come off? what was it?"
"come off!" said mr. effingham; "what do you mean? nothing's come off that i know of; at least nothing particular. you know that gentleman in the city that i told you of, griffiths?" he asked, with a private wink at the man in the high hat.
"i know him fast enough," replied that worthy with a nod, partly confirmatory, partly to keep the tall hat on his head. "did he pull through in that matter?"
"pull through!" said mr. effingham; "he won a lot of money; and as i'd given him the office, and put him on a good thing, he said he'd behave handsome; and he didn't do amiss, considerin.'"
"what did he part with?" asked the first man.
"a tenner."
the first man's eyes glistened, and he instantly made up his mind to borrow half-a-sovereign if he could get it---five shillings if he could not---of effingham before they parted.
"ah, and so you went and rigged yourself out in these swell togs, d'ossay, did you, at once? you always had the notions of a gentleman, and the sperrit of a gentleman, that's more. i wish you'd put me on to something of that kind; but, there, it wants the way to carry it out; and i haven't got that, i know well enough."
while this speech was in progress, mr. effingham had caught the eye of the tall man, and winking towards their friend, pointed over his shoulder at the door. the tall man repeated the nod that did the double duty, and after looking up at the clock, said, "you'd better be off jim; you'll be just in time to catch that party down at peter crawley's, if you look sharp."
jim, thus admonished, finished his grog and took his leave, asking mr. effingham if he could have "half a word" with him outside; which half-word resulted in the extraction of a half-sovereign, as jim had predetermined.
"now for it," said griffiths, as soon as effingham returned, "i'm death to hear all that's happened, only that fool wouldn't go. wanted something, of course, outside, eh? ah, thought so. what did you square him for?"
"half-a-couter."
"you appear to be making the shiners spin, master d'ossay; that swell at the west end must have bled pretty handsome. tell us all about it. what did he stand?"
"well, i won't try and gammon you. he stood fifty."
"what, on the mere gab? without your showing him the stiff, and only telling him you knew about it? fifty quid! that's a cow that'll give milk for many a long year, master d'ossay, if only properly handled. come, hand us over what you promised for putting you on. by george!" he added, as effingham drew a bundle of notes from his pocket, "how nice and crisp they sound!"
"there's your termer," said effingham, selecting a note from the roll and handing it to his friend; "i'm always as good as my word. that squares us up so far."
"no fakement about it, is there?" said mr. griffiths, first holding the note up to the light, then spreading it flat on the table, and going carefully over it back and front. "i've been dropped in the hole too often by flimsies not to be precious careful about 'em. no. matthew marshall--all them coily things in the water-mark and that; all right. i think you ought to make it a little more; i do, indeed."
"make it a little more! i like that. why, what the devil could you have done without me? it's true you first heard of the coppered stiff from tony; but you didn't trouble a bit about it. who set all the boys to hunt up this cove? who found him at last? and who walked in as bold as brass this morning, and checked him out of fifty quid without a stitch of evidence? why, you daredn't have gone to his crib, to start with; and if you had, he'd never have seen you; the flunkey would have kicked you out for an area-sneak or a gonoph. why, even i had some bother to get in; so what would have become of you?"
mr. effingham was only a little man, but he swelled so with self-importance as, in the eyes of his companion, to look very big indeed. he bounced and swaggered and spoke so loud as quite to quell the unfortunate griffiths, who began, with due submission, to apologize for his own shortcomings and deprecate his friend's wrath.
"well, i know all that fast enough, and i only just hinted; but you're down upon a cove so. however, it's a fine thing for us both, ain't it? he'll be as good as a bank to us for years to come, will this swell."
"i'm not so sure of that," said mr. effingham thoughtfully.
"how do you mean, not so sure of that?" asked griffiths.
"well, you see, he's a long way off being a fool; he's not half so soft as tony led us to believe. he downed on me once or twice as quick as lightning; and i think it was only my way of putting it, and his being taken sudden on the hop, that made him shell out."
"you think that after he's thought the matter over he'll fancy he's been a flat?"
"well, not exactly that. you see the higher a fellow climbs the worse it is when he falls. this mitford wouldn't have cared a cuss for this thing in the old days; he'd have stood the racket of it easy. but it's different now; he's a big swell; its 'sir charles' and 'my lady,' pony-phe-aton and 'orses and grooms, nice wife, and all that. he'd come an awful smasher if anything was to trip him up just now, and he knows it. that's our hold upon him."
"and that's what will make it easy for us to squeeze him."
"no, not entirely. that very fear of being blown upon, of having to bolt or stand a trial--my eye! how blue he turned when i mentioned norfolk island to him!--that very fear will make him most anxious to get rid of every chance of coming to grief, to prevent any one being able to lay hold of him."
"there's only one way for him to do that, and that's to burn the bill."
"yes; but he must get it first, and that's what he'll want, you may take your oath. the next time i go to him, it'll be, 'where is it? let me see it! name your outside price, and let me have it!' that's what he'll say."
"likely enough; and what'll you say then?"
"cussed if i know!" said mr. effingham ruefully. "if i say i haven't got it, he'll stop the supplies until i bring it; if i say i can't get it, not another mag from him."
"you must fall back on the bounce, like you did to-day, and tell him you know of there bein' such a thing, and that you won't keep your mouth shut unless you're paid for it."
"oh, you're a leery cove, griffiths, you are!" said mr. effingham with great disgust. "you never heard of attemptin' to extort money, did you? you don't think he'd ring the bell and send for a bobby, do you?"
"no, i don't. he wouldn't have the pluck."
"oh, but i do though; and as you see it's me that the bobby would lay hold of, i'm rather pertickler about it. besides, it's not such a pleasant thing finding yourself at bow street; for even if one could square this mitford and get him not to prosecute, there'd be heaps of bobbies there to prove previous convictions. clark of the g's getting up: 'known as d'ossay butler, your worship. i had him for passing base coin in '43;' and all that kind of game. no, no, griffiths! bounce won't do, my boy; won't do a bit."
"what will do, then? what shall we try? shall we shy up the sponge and think ourselves lucky to have got this fifty, and never try him any more? that seems hard lines with such a chance."
"it would be; and we won't do it. no; there's only one thing to be done--we must go the whole hog; we must have the bill."
"ah! and we must have lamb and green peas in febooary; and a patent shofle cab to ride in, so as not to tire ourselves; and pockets full of 'alf-bulls to toss with! we must; but you see we 'aven't, d'ossay, my boy! and as for getting' that bill, we're done at the very first step: we don't know who's got it."
"you fool! if we did know who'd got it we'd have it, fast enough. there ain't many of 'em that could keep it away from me!"
"you are a plucked 'un!" said griffiths, regarding him with admiration; "i can't help sayin' so, though you do lose your temper and call your friends ugly names. no; i don't think there is many as could keep you off it if you knew where it was. but how we're ever to find that i can't tell."
"let's go over the business all again," said effingham. "it was tony that always had a fancy for that bit of stiff. he stuck to it when it wasn't worth more than the stamp and the paper it was wrote on; but he always thought something would come of this mitford, and then it would be a first-class screw to put on him, and make him do as tony liked. but you see he died before anything turned up; and though he told you about the stiff, he didn't say where it was."
"he wouldn't. i asked him scores of times; but he always said 'time enough for that,' he says, or 'that'll keep;' he says. he was a mistrustful cove was tony,--always suspecting people."
"ah, he'd seen a good deal of the world, griffiths. what an infernal nuisance i hadn't got back from yankeeland before he popped off! i'd have had it out of him. who took his traps after his death?"
"well, old lyons had 'em, i think. there wasn't much; two or three boxes and a little dressin'-case,--for tony, though not such a swell as you, d'ossay, was always natty and spruce,--and a walkin'-stick or two. old lyons had lent tony money, and stood in with him generally; and after he stepped it, old lyons cleared off the things."
"do you know where to find old lyons?"
"reethur! why?"
"we'll go there next week when i come back to town. you may take your oath he's got the bill; and if he's heard nothing about mitford's fortune, we may get it for next to nothing."
