Part 79 (1/2)
”I've got a good husband, sir,” said she, with mild dignity, and pointed to a thin, sour personage opposite, with his nose in a newspaper. Deep in some public question, he ignored this little private inquiry.
”That's unlucky,” said Bolt, ”for here am I, just landed from Victoria, and money in both pockets. And where do you think I am going now? to Chester, to see my father and mother, and show them I was right after all. They wanted me to go to school; I wouldn't. Leathered me; I howled, but wouldn't spell; I was always bad to beat. Next thing was, they wanted to make a tanner of me. I wouldn't. 'Give me fifty pounds and let me try the world,' says I. THEY wouldn't. We quarreled. My uncle interfered one day, and gave me fifty pounds. 'Go to the devil,' said he, 'if you like; so as you don't come back.' I went to Sydney, and doubled my fifty; got a sheep-run, and turned my hundred into a thousand. Then they found gold, and that brought up a dozen ways of making money, all of 'em better than digging. Why, ma'am, I made ten thousand pounds by selling the beastliest lemonade you ever tasted for gold-dust at the mines. That was a good swop, wasn't it? So now I'm come home to see if I can stand the Old Country and its ways; and I'm going to see the old folk. I haven't heard a word about them this twenty years.”
”Oh, dear, sir,” said the meek woman, ”twenty years is a long time. I hope you won't find them dead an' buried.”
”Don't say that; don't say that!” And the tough, rough man showed a grain of feeling. He soon recovered himself, though, and said more obstreperously than ever, ”If they are, I disown 'em. None of your faint-hearted people for me. I despise a chap that gives in before eighty. I'm Ben Bolt, that is bad to beat. Death himself isn't going to bowl me out till I've had my innings.”
”La, sir; pray don't talk so, or you'll anger them above, and, ten to one, upset the train.”
”That's one for me, and two for yourself, ma'am.”
”Yes, sir,” said the mild soul. ”I have got my husband with me, and you are only a bachelor, sir.”
”How d'ye know that?”
”I think you'd ha' been softened down a bit, if you'd ever had a good wife.”
”Oh, it is because I speak loud. That is with bawling to my shepherds half a mile off. Why, if I'm loud, I'm civil. Now, young man, what is YOUR trouble?”
Henry started from his reverie, and looked astonished.
”Out with it,” shouted Mr. Bolt; ”don't sit grizzling there. What with this lady's husband, dead and buried in that there newspaper, and you, that sets brooding like a hen over one egg, it's a Quaker's meeting, or nearly. If you've been and murdered anybody, tell us all about it. Once off your mind, you'll be more sociable.”
”A man's thoughts are his own, Mr. Bolt. I'm not so fond of talking about myself as you seem to be.”
”Oh, I can talk, or I can listen. But you won't do neither. Pretty company YOU are, a-hatching of your egg.”
”Well, sir,” said the meek woman to Henry, ”the rough gentleman he is right. If you are in trouble, the best way is to let your tongue put it off your heart.”
”I'm sure you are very kind,” said Henry, ”but really my trouble is one of those out-of-the-way things that do not interest people. However, the long and the short is, I'm an inventor. I have invented several things, and kept them dark, and they have paid me. I live at Hillsborough.
But now I have found a way of grinding long saws and circular saws by machinery, at a saving of five hundred per cent labor. That saving of labor represents an enormous profit--a large fortune; so I have patented the invention at my own expense. But I can't work it without a capitalist. Well, I have ransacked London, and all the moneyed men shy me. The fools will go into railways, and bubbles, and a lot of things that are blind chance, but they won't even study my drawings and figures, and I made it clear enough too.”
”I'm not of their mind then,” said Bolt. ”My rule is never to let another man work my money. No railway shares nor gold mines for Ben Bolt. My money goes with me, and I goes with my money.”
”Then you are a man of sense; and I only wish you had money enough to go into this with me.”
”How do you know how much money I've got? You show me how to turn twenty thousand into forty thousand, or forty thousand into eighty thousand, and I'll soon find the money.”
”Oh, I could show you how to turn fifteen thousand into fifty thousand.”
He then unlocked his black bag, and showed Bolt some drawings that represented the grinders by hand at work on long saws and circular saws. ”This,” said he, ”is the present system.” He then pointed out its defects. ”And this,” said he, ”is what I propose to subst.i.tute.” Then he showed him drawings of his machines at work. ”And these figures represent the saving in labor. Now, in this branch of cutlery, the labor is the manufacturer's main expense. Make ten men grind what fifty used, you put forty workmen's wages in your pocket.”
”That's tall talk.”
”Not an inch taller than the truth.”
Mr. Bolt studied the drawings, and, from obstreperous, became quite quiet and absorbed. Presently he asked Henry to change places with him; and, on this being complied with, he asked the meek woman to read him Henry's figures, slowly. She stared, but complied. Mr. Bolt pondered the figures, and examined the drawings again. He then put a number of questions to Henry, some of them very shrewd; and, at last, got so interested in the affair that he would talk of nothing else.
As the train slackened for Birmingham, he said to Henry, ”I'm no great scholar; I like to see things in the body. On we go to Hillsborough.”
”But I want to talk to a capitalist or two at Birmingham.”