Part 30 (1/2)

”Sir,--In answer to your application on behalf of Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy, we beg to inform you that, under the administration of a paternal aunt who died intestate, your client is ent.i.tled to two thousand five hundred pounds eight s.h.i.+llings and sixpence, Three per Cents.; one thousand five hundred pounds nineteen s.h.i.+llings and fourpence, Three per Cents., Reduced; one thousand pounds, Long Annuities; five hundred pounds, Bank Stock; three thousand five hundred pounds, India Stock, besides other securities, making up about ten thousand pounds, which we are prepared to transfer over to Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy's direction forthwith.”

Here was a windfall! It quite took away my breath.

At dusk came my gentleman beggar, and what puzzled me was how to break the news to him. Being very much overwhelmed with business that day, I had not much time for consideration. He came in rather better dressed than when I first saw him, with only a week's beard on his chin; but, as usual, not quite sober. Six weeks had elapsed since our first interview. He was still the humble, trembling, low-voiced creature, I first knew him.

After a prelude, I said, ”I find, Mr. F., you are ent.i.tled to something; pray, what do you mean to give me in addition to my bill, for obtaining it?” He answered rapidly, ”Oh, take half; if there is one hundred pounds, take half--if there is five hundred pounds, take half.”

”No, no; Mr. F., I don't do business in that way, I shall be satisfied with ten per cent.”

It was so settled. I then led him out into the street, impelled to tell him the news, yet dreading the effect; not daring to make the revelation in my office, for fear of a scene.

I began hesitatingly, ”Mr. Fitz-Roy, I am happy to say that I find you are ent.i.tled to ... ten thousand pounds!”

”Ten thousand pounds!” he echoed. ”Ten thousand pounds!” he shrieked.

”Ten thousand pounds!” he yelled; seizing my arm violently. ”You are a brick--Here, cab! cab!” Several drove up--the shout might have been heard a mile off. He jumped in the first.

”Where to?” said the driver.

”To a tailor's, you rascal!”

”Ten thousand pounds! ha, ha, ha!” he repeated hysterically, when in the cab; and every moment grasping my arm. Presently he subsided, looked me straight in the face, and muttered with agonizing fervor, ”What a jolly brick you are!”

The tailor, the hosier, the boot-maker, the hair-dresser, were in turn visited by this poor pagan of externals. As by degrees under their hands he emerged from the beggar to the gentleman, his spirits rose; his eyes brightened; he walked erect, but always nervously grasping my arm--fearing, apparently, to lose sight of me for a moment, lest his fortune, should vanish with me. The impatient pride with which he gave his orders to the astonished tradesman for the finest and best of everything, and the amazed air of the fas.h.i.+onable hairdresser when he presented his matted locks and stubble chin, to be ”cut and shaved,” may be _acted_--it cannot be described.

By the time the external transformation was complete, and I sat down in a Cafe in the Haymarket opposite a haggard but handsome thoroughbred-looking man, whose air, with the exception of the wild eyes and deeply browned face, did not differ from the stereotyped men about town sitting around us, Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy had already almost forgotten the past. He bullied the waiter, and criticised the wine, as if he had done nothing else but dine and drink and scold there all the days of his life.

Once he wished to drink my health, and would have proclaimed his whole story to the coffee-room a.s.sembly, in a raving style. When I left he almost wept in terror at the idea of losing sight of me. But, allowing for these ebullitions--the natural result of such a whirl of events--he was wonderfully calm and self-possessed.

The next day, his first care was to distribute fifty pounds among his friends, the cadgers, at a ”house of call” in Westminster, and formally to dissolve his connection with them; those present undertaking for the ”fraternity,” that for the future he should never be noticed by them in public or private.

I cannot follow his career much further. Adversity had taught him nothing. He was soon again surrounded by the well-bred vampires who had forgotten him when penniless; but they amused him, and that was enough.

The ten thousand pounds were rapidly melting when he invited me to a grand dinner at Richmond, which included a dozen of the most agreeable, good-looking, well-dressed dandies of London, interspersed with a display of pretty b.u.t.terfly bonnets. We dined deliciously, and drank as men do of iced wines in the dog-days--looking down from Richmond Hill.

One of the pink-bonnets crowned Fitz-Roy with a wreath of flowers; he looked--less the intellect--as handsome as Alcibiades. Intensely excited and flushed, he rose with a champagne gla.s.s in his hand to propose my health.

The oratorical powers of his father had not descended on him. Jerking out sentences by spasms, at length he said, ”I was a beggar--I am a gentleman--thanks to this--”

Here he leaned on my shoulder heavily a moment, and then fell back. We raised him, loosened his neckcloth--

”Fainted!” said the ladies--

”Drunk!” said the gentlemen--

He was _dead_!

A FAs.h.i.+ONABLE FORGER.

I am an attorney and a bill-discounter. As it is my vocation to lend money at high interest to extravagant people, my connection princ.i.p.ally lies among ”fools,” sometimes among rogues ”of quality.” Mine is a pursuit which a prejudiced world either holds in sovereign contempt, or visits with envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness; but to my mind, there are many callings, with finer names, that are no better. It gives me two things which I love--money and power; but I cannot deny that it brings with it a bad name. The case lies between character and money, and involves a matter of taste. Some people like character; I prefer money.

If I am hated and despised, I chuckle over the ”per contra.” I find it pleasant for members of a proud aristocracy to condescend from their high estate to fawn, feign, flatter; to affect even mirthful familiarity in order to gain my good-will. I am no Shylock. No client can accuse me of desiring either his flesh or his blood. Sentimental vengeance is no item in my stock in trade. Gold and bank-notes satisfy my ”rage;” or, if need be, a good mortgage. Far from seeking revenge, the worst defaulter I ever had dealings with cannot deny that I am always willing to accept a good post-obit.