Part 26 (1/2)
”By the soul of Sir Edward c.o.ke, I am serious! But look you, my friend!
this is not a matter where it is convenient to have a tender-footed conscience. You see these fellows on the ground, all d---d clever, and so forth; but you and I are of a different order. I have had a cla.s.sical education, seen the world, and mixed in decent society; you, too, had not been long a member of our club before you distinguished yourself above us all. Fortune smiled on your youthful audacity. You grew particular in horses and dress, frequented public haunts, and being a deuced good-looking fellow, with an inborn air of gentility and some sort of education, you became sufficiently well received to acquire in a short time the manner and tone of a--what shall I say?--a gentleman, and the taste to like suitable a.s.sociates. This is my case too! Despite our labours for the public weal, the ungrateful dogs see that we are above them; a single envious breast is sufficient to give us to the hangman.
We have agreed that we are in danger; we have agreed to make an honourable retreat; we cannot do so without money. You know the vulgar distich among our set. Nothing can be truer,--
”'Hanging is 'nation More nice than starvation!'
You will not carry off some of the common stock, though I think you justly might, considering how much you have put into it. What, then, shall we do? Work we cannot, beg we will not; and, between you and me, we are cursedly extravagant! What remains but marriage?”
”It is true,” said Clifford, with a half sigh.
”You may well sigh, my good fellow. Marriage is a lackadaisical proceeding at best; but there is no resource. And now, when you have got a liking to a young lady who is as rich as a she-Craesus, and so gilded the pill as bright as a lord mayor's coach, what the devil have you to do with scruples?”
Clifford made no answer, and there was a long pause; perhaps he would not have spoken so frankly as he had done, if the wine had not opened his heart.
”How proud,” renewed Tomlinson, ”the good old matron at Thames Court would be if you married a lady! You have not seen her lately?”
”Not for years,” answered our hero. ”Poor old soul! I believe that she is well in health, and I take care that she should not be poor in pocket.”
”But why not visit her? Perhaps, like all great men, especially of a liberal turn of mind, you are ashamed of old friends, eh?”
”My good fellow, is that like me? Why, you know the beaux of our set look askant on me for not keeping up my dignity, robbing only in company with well-dressed gentlemen, and swindling under the name of a lord's nephew. No, my reasons are these: first, you must know, that the old dame had set her heart on my turning out an honest man.”
”And so you have,” interrupted Augustus,--”honest to your party; what more would you have from either prig or politician?”
”I believe,” continued Clifford, not heeding the interruption, ”that my poor mother, before she died, desired that I might be reared honestly; and strange as it may seem to you, Dame Lobkins is a conscientious woman in her own way,--it is not her fault if I have turned out as I have done. Now I know well that it would grieve her to the quick to see me what I am. Secondly, my friend, under my new names, various as they are,--Jackson and Howard, Russell and Pigwiggin, Villiers and Gotobed, Cavendish and Solomons,--you may well suppose that the good persons in the neighbourhood of Thames Court have no suspicion that the adventurous and accomplished ruffler, at present captain of this district, under the new appellation of Lovett, is in reality no other than the obscure and surnameless Paul of the Mug. Now you and I, Augustus, have read human nature, though in the black letter; and I know well that were I to make my appearance in Thames Court, and were the old lady (as she certainly would, not from unkindness, but insobriety,--not that she loves me less, but heavy wet more) to divulge the secret of that appearance--”
”You know well,” interrupted the vivacious Tomlinson, ”that the ident.i.ty of your former meanness with your present greatness would be easily traced; the envy and jealousy of your early friends aroused; a hint of your whereabout and your aliases given to the police, and yourself grabbed, with a slight possibility of a hempen consummation.”
”You conceive me exactly!” answered Clifford. ”The fact is, that I have observed in nine cases out of ten our bravest fellows have been taken off by the treachery of some early sweetheart or the envy of some boyish friend. My destiny is not yet fixed. I am worthy of better things than a ride in the cart with a nosegay in my hand; and though I care not much about death in itself, I am resolved, if possible, not to die a highwayman. Hence my caution, and that prudential care for secrecy and safe asylums, which men less wise than you have so often thought an unnatural contrast to my conduct on the road.”
”Fools!” said the philosophical Tomlinson; ”what has the bravery of a warrior to do with his insuring his house from fire?”
”However,” said Clifford, ”I send my good nurse a fine gift every now and then to a.s.sure her of my safety; and thus, notwithstanding my absence, I show my affection by my presents,--excuse a pun.”
”And have you never been detected by any of your quondam a.s.sociates?”
”Never! Remember in what a much more elevated sphere of life I have been thrown; and who could recognize the scamp Paul with a fustian jacket in gentleman Paul with a laced waistcoat? Besides, I have diligently avoided every place where I was likely to encounter those who saw me in childhood. You know how little I frequent flash houses, and how scrupulous I am in admitting new confederates into our band; you and Pepper are the only two of my a.s.sociates--save my _protege_, as you express it, who never deserts the cave--that possess a knowledge of my ident.i.ty with the lost Paul; and as ye have both taken that dread oath to silence, which to disobey until indeed I be in the jail or on the gibbet, is almost to be a.s.sa.s.sinated, I consider my secret is little likely to be broken, save with my own consent.”
”True,” said Augustus, nodding; ”one more gla.s.s, and to bed, Mr.
Chairman.”
”I pledge you, my friend; our last gla.s.s shall be philanthropically quaffed,--'All fools, and may their money soon be parted!'”
”All fools!” cried Tomlinson, filling a b.u.mper; ”but I quarrel with the wisdom of your toast. May fools be rich, and rogues will never be poor!
I would make a better livelihood off a rich fool than a landed estate.”
So saying, the contemplative and ever-sagacious Tomlinson tossed off his b.u.mper; and the pair, having kindly rolled by pedal applications the body of Long Ned into a safe and quiet corner of the room, mounted the stairs, arm-in-arm, in search of somnambular accommodations.