Part 28 (2/2)

His cigars, too, were of a cheap quality which even his clerks would be ashamed to offer their friends. Indeed, while all connected with the house in Old Broad Street possessed an air of solid prosperity, the head of the firm was usually of a penurious and hard-up aspect, as though he had a difficulty in making both ends meet. His smart electric brougham he used only once a week to take him to the City and back again. At other times he strolled about the streets so shabby as to pa.s.s unnoticed by those desirous of making his acquaintance and worming themselves into his good graces; or else he would idle in the park where he pa.s.sed for a lounger who, crowded out by reason of his age, was down on his luck.

Samuel Statham loved the Park. Often and often he would get into conversation with the flotsam and jetsam of London life--the unemployed, and the men who, in these days of hustle, alas! find themselves too old at forty. The ne'er-do-wells he knew quite well, and they believed him to be one of themselves. But he was ever on the look-out for a deserving case--the starving, despondent man with wife and children hungry at home. He would draw the man's story from him, hear his complaint against unfair treatment, listen attentively to his wrongs, and pretending all the time to have suffered in a similar way himself.

Usually the man would, in the end, invite him to the home or the lodging-house where his wife and children were, and then, on ascertaining that the case was genuine, he would suddenly reveal himself as the good Samaritan.

To such men he gave himself out as Mr Jones, agent of a benevolent society which was nameless, and which did its work without advertis.e.m.e.nt, and extracted a pledge of secrecy. By such means many a dozen honest, hard-working men, who through no fault of their own had been thrown out of employment, had been ”put upon their legs” again and gained work, and yet not one of them ever suspected that the shabby, down-at-heel man Jones was actually the millionaire Samuel Statham, who lived in the white house in fall view of the seat whereon they had first met.

Even from Rolfe he sought to conceal this secret philanthropy, yet the young man had guessed something of it. He had more than once caught him talking to strange men whose pinched faces and trim appearance told the truth.

The man whose vast wealth had brought him nothing but isolation and loneliness, delighted in performing these good works, and in rescuing the unfortunate wives and families of the deserving ones who were luckless. He loved to see the brightness overspread those dark, despairing faces, and to hear the heartfelt thanks which he was told to convey to the mythical ”society.”

Never but once did he allow a man to suspect that the money he gave came from his own pocket. That single occasion was when, after giving a man whom he believed to be deserving a sovereign, he next evening found him in the park the worse for liquor.

He said nothing that night, but a few days later, when he met him, he gave him a piece of his mind which the plausible good-for-nothing would not quickly forget.

”Such frauds as you,” he had said, ”prevent people from a.s.sisting the deserving poor. I've made inquiry into your story, and found it false from beginning to end. You have no wife, and the four children starving and ill that you described to me do not exist. You live for the most part in the bar of the `Star,' off the Edgware Road, and on the night after I gave you the money you were so drunk that they wouldn't serve you. Such men like you,” he went on with withering sarcasm, his grey beard bristling as he spoke, and his fist clenched fiercely, ”are a disgrace to the human race, for you are a liar, a drunkard, and a blackguard--a man who deserves the death that will, I hope, overtake you--death in the gutter.”

And he turned upon his heel, leaving the accused man standing staring at him open-mouthed, utterly unable to offer a single word in self-defence.

This secret charity was Sam Statham's only recreation. By it he made many friends whom he had taken out of the slums--friends who were perhaps more devoted and true to him than those to whom he had given financial ”tips,” and who had made many thousands thereby. In many a modest home was Mr Jones a welcome guest whenever he called to see how ”his friends” were progressing, and many a time had he drunk a humble gla.s.s of bitter ”sent out” for by his thankful and devoted host who was all unconscious of who his guest really was. The world would have laughed at the idea of a working man standing Samuel Statham a gla.s.s of ale.

One case was old Sam's particular pride. About eighteen months before, in the park one day, he came across a despairing but well-educated, middle-aged man, who at first was not at all communicative, but whose bearing and manner was that of refinement and culture. Three times they met, and it was very evident that the sad-faced man was starving.

At last Sam offered to ”stand him” a meal, and over it the man told a pathetic story, how that he was a fully-qualified medical man in practice in York, but owing to his unfortunate habit of drinking he had lost everything, sold his practice, and had been compelled to leave the city. The proceeds of his practice had soon gone in drink, and now, with all the bitter remorse upon him, he and his wife and two small children were faced with starvation. Friends and relations would not a.s.sist him because of his intemperance. There was only one way out of it all, he declared--suicide.

Sam had taken him in hand. He had seen the wife and children, and then explained, as usual, that he was Mr Jones. Small sums he first gave them, and finding that his charity was never abused, and that the doctor withstood the temptation to drink, he had gone to an agency, the address of which he had found in the _Lancet_, and bought a comfortable little practice with a furnished house in West Norwood, where the doctor and his family were now installed and doing well.

In West Norwood to-day that doctor is the most popular and the most sought after. His practice is ever increasing, and already he has nearly repaid the whole of the sum which Mr Jones lent him, and has been compelled to take an a.s.sistant.

The doctor is still in ignorance, however, for he has never identified Mr Jones with Statham the millionaire. But was it surprising that at his house no guest was more welcome than the man who had rescued him from ruin and from death?

Truly money, if properly applied, can do much to alleviate the sufferings of the world, and as it is the ”root of all evil,” so it is also the root of all good.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

TELLS OF THE THREE.

”Well?”

”Weel?” asked Duncan Macgregor, who was seated in an easy att.i.tude in Sam Statham's library. At the table sat the millionaire himself, while near by, in the enjoyment of a cigar, sat old Levi. The latter was still in his garb of service, but his att.i.tude was certainly more like that of his master's intimate friend than that of butler.

It was from his thin lips that the query had escaped in response to a fact which the Scot had emphasised with his hairy fist.

”Well,” exclaimed Statham after a pause, ”and what do you suppose should be done, Mr--”

”Macgregor--still Duncan Macgregor,” exclaimed the bearded man, concluding the millionaire's sentence. ”That's the verra thing that puzzles me, mon. P'raps we'd best wait a wee bittie an' see.”

Levi dissented. He knew that whatever his position in that strange household, his master always listened to him and took his advice-- sometimes when it involved the risk of many thousands. He was a kind of oracle, for generally when Ben came there to consult his brother upon some important point, the old servant remained in the room to hear the discussion and to give his dry but candid opinion.

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