A Double Knot Part 23

"Old style," replied Joseph; "but I say, Buddy, just cast your eye round as they're getting in: the young ladies have been done up to rights."

"I wish someone would find the money to get my old fly done up to rights," said Mr Buddy, who, apparently quite at home, was standing before a shaving-gla.s.s hung against the wall, persuading, with Joseph's brush, a couple of very obstinate little whiskers to stand out straight forward in the direction their owner wished. "'Spose there'll be a wedding, then, some day."

"Well, I dunno," said Joseph.

"Looks like it, if they're having 'em fresh painted," said Mr Buddy, who now touched up his very greasy grey hair, making it stick up in points, in unconscious imitation of that of a clown.

"Here, you'd better look sharp, old man," said Joseph, "they're all ready and waiting, and time's getting on."

"Which we ain't, Joey, or we should be doing better than we are, eh?"

"Ah, we should," said Joseph, making a powder-box squeak as he unscrewed the top; and then taking out the puff, he placed a tea-cloth over his shoulders, and gave his hair a few dabs. "Now then, old man. Have the tea-cloth on?"

"Ah, you may as well," was the reply; and the cloth having been adjusted by Joseph, the little man stood blinking solemnly while his dingy hair was duly powdered and turned white.

"Why, you might stand a bit o' wilet powder c.u.mp'ny nights, Joey," said the flyman, solemnly removing a little white meal from amongst the ruddy pimples of his face with the corner of the cloth in regular use for wiping the tea and breakfast service.

"How am I to stand best vi'let powder out o' what they allow?" replied Joseph. "Flour's just as good, and don't cost me nothing. Now then, look sharp."

As he spoke Joseph pulled open a drawer, from which he drew a drab greatcoat, inside which the little man placed himself, for it was manifestly so much too large that he could hardly be said to have put it on. Then a blue hat-box was pushed off the top of one of the cupboards, out of which a rather ancient hat was extricated, and mounted by the flyman, whose head seemed to have become suddenly wonderfully small; for it was an imposing structure of beaver with very curly brims, apparently kept from coming uncurled by a rigging or series of stays of tarnished silver cord, which ran from the lining up to a Panjandrum-like round b.u.t.ton at the top, also of tarnished silver; while a formidable-looking and very spiky black c.o.c.kade rose something like a patent ventilator from one side.

"That's about the ticket, ain't it, Joey?" said the little man, shaking his head so as to get the big hat in a good state of balance, and b.u.t.toning himself to the chin.

"Yes, that will do, old man."

"The ladies want to know if the carriage has come, Joseph," said Markes, suddenly making her appearance.

"Which you may take your solemn oath it ain't," said Mr Buddy, "for not one inch will that there horse stir till I wakes him up."

"Then do for goodness' sake, man, look sharp and fetch it," exclaimed Markes. "I'm sure it's past the time!"

"Wants five minutes," said Mr Buddy, nodding his head, and having to dart one hand up to save the hat, which came down over his nose, and would have continued its course to the floor. "I say, your old coachman must have had a head like a bull, to have worn that hat without stuffing. There, I'm off. Soon be back. I say, though," he whispered, thrusting back his head, and this time holding on by the rigging of the hat, "if it comes to a wedding, the old gals ought to stand some new togs."

Within a quarter of an hour Mr Isaac Buddy, who had entered the private apartments as flyman, and came out the Honourable Misses Dymc.o.x's coachman, was at the door with the transformed fly. The ladies were duly packed inside, with many tremors as to their dresses, and Joseph, also in a drab greatcoat and a fearful and wonderful hat--the twin-brother of that upon Mr Buddy's head--mounted to the seat. Then the carriage jingled and jangled off--a das.h.i.+ng brougham and pair, with flas.h.i.+ng lights and the windows down, rattling by them, making Buddy's nervous nag shy to the near side, as if he meant to mount the side walk out of the way.

"Rie," whispered Clotilde, with her ruddy lips touching her sister's ear.

"Yes."

"That funny little officer was inside."

"Yes," muttered Marie to herself, "and the tall one as well; and you know it. I wonder who they are?"

Volume 1, Chapter IX.

THE SLAVE OF FORTUNE.

"I say, look here! You know, Litton, I'm the last man on earth to complain; but you know, d.a.m.n it, you don't do your duty by me."

"You don't give me credit for what I do do, Elbraham, 'pon my soul you don't!" said the gentleman addressed--a rather fas.h.i.+onably-dressed, stylish young fellow of eight-and-twenty or thirty, whose hair was closely cropped in the latest style, his well-worn clothes scrupulously brushed, and his hands particularly white.

As he answered he screwed his gla.s.s very tightly into his eyes and gazed at the first speaker--a little, pudgy, high-shouldered man, with a very short neck and a very round head, slightly bald. He was carefully dressed, and a marked point in his attire was the utter absence of everything in the shape of jewellery or ornament. His fat white hands did not display so much as a ring; and though a slight prominence in his vest proclaimed the presence of a watch, it was attached to his person by a guard of the finest black silk. His countenance, however, did not match with the refinement of his attire, for it betrayed high living and sensual indulgence. There was an unpleasant look, too, about his eyes; and if to the least cultured person he had a.s.serted in the most emphatic manner that he was a gentleman, it would not have been believed.

But, all the same, he was a man of mark, for this was Samuel Elbraham, the financier, the man who was reputed to have made hundreds of thousands by his connection with the Khedive. Men in society and on 'Change joked about Elbraham, and said that he was a child of Israel, who went down into Egypt and spoiled the Egyptians for everybody's buying but his own. They called him Potiphar, too, and made it a subject of jest that there was no Potiphar's wife; but they also said that it did not matter, for these were days when people had arisen who knew not Joseph.

Then they laughed, and wondered whether Potiphar of old went in for a theatre, and supplied rare subsidies of hard cash to a manager, and was very fond of taking parties of friends to his private-box to witness the last new extravaganza, after the said friends had dined with him and drunk his champagne.

Somehow or other, it was the friends who ate his dinners and drank his champagne that made the most jokes about him; but though these witticisms, real or would be, came round to him at times, they troubled him very little.

The conversation above commenced took place in Mr Elbraham's library, at the riverside residence at Twickenham, the handsomely-furnished place that he, the celebrated converted Israelite, had taken of Lord Was.h.i.+ngtower, when a long course of ill-luck on the turf had ended in nearly placing his lords.h.i.+p under the turf, for rumour said that his terrible illness was the result of an attempt to rid himself of his woes by a strong dose of a patent sedative medicine.

As Mr Elbraham spoke he hitched up his shoulders, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down in front of the books he never read.

"Not give you credit for what you do?" he retorted. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Don't talk to me like that, Elbraham, please. I'm not your servant."

"Hang it all, then, what the devil are you? I pay you regular wages."

"No. Stop, please. I accept a regulated stipend from you, Elbraham."

"Oh, very good! let's have it like that, then, Mr Rarthur Litton. I took you up, same as I did your bills, when you were so hard hit that you didn't know where to go for a fiver. You made certain proposals and promises to me, and, I ask you, what have you done?"

"More than you give me credit for," was the reply, rather sullenly made.

"You dine with me, you sleep here, and make this place your home whenever you like; and when I look for your help, as I expected, I find that your name is in the papers as the secretary to some confounded Small Fish Protection Society, or as managing director of the Anti-Soap and Soda Laundry Company."

"I'm sure I've done my duty by you, Mr Elbraham," said the young man hotly. "If you want to quarrel and get rid of me, say so."

I don't want to quarrel, and I don't mean to quarrel, Mr Rarthur Litton. I made a bargain with you, and I mean to keep you to it. You boasted to me of your high connections and your _entree_ into good society, and undertook to introduce me into some of the best families, so that I might take the position that my wealth enables me to hold.

Now, then, please, have I paid up like a man?

"Yes; you have," was the sulky response.

"And you've taken jolly good care to draw more than was your due. Now, what have you done?"

"Well, I taught you to dress like something different to a cad."

"Humph! You did knock off my studs and rings and things."

"And I've dined with you till I've got you to be fit to eat your meals in a Christianlike manner."

"Look here, Mr Rarthur, sir," said Elbraham hotly, "is that meant as a sneer?"

"No; of course not."

"Oh!"