Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Volume 2 of 3

“Faix, then, my honey,” cried the Irishman, forgetting all university language, “and, if ye donʼt, ‘twill be a quare job for the bones on the knuckles of Manus OʼToole.”

While all four were enjoying their oysters – for Cradock, being a good–natured fellow, did not withhold his assistance – a sharp rap–rap announced the postman, and Mr. OʼToole returned from the door with a large square letter, sealed with the coat of arms of the company. “Ship–letther, and eightpence to pay, begorra. Gintlemen, will we take it?”

“How is it addressed?” asked two or three.

“Most gintaal. ‘To the sanior clerk or junior partner of the firm of Wibraham, Fookes, and Co., Coal Merchants,’ and thatʼs meself, if itʼs nobody.”

“Then itʼs you to pey the eightpence,” cried the Durham man.

“Do yer think, then, itʼs me who canʼt do it?” answered Mr. OʼToole, angrily. And then he broke open the letter and read:

“P. & O. steamer Will o’ the Wisp, off the Start Point. —Sunday.

“Respected and beloved Partners, – His Royal Highness the Pasha of Egypt, having resolved to light with gas the interior of the Pyramids, also to provide hot–water bottles for the comfort of his household–brigade, principally female, and to erect extensive gas–cooking premises, where hot crocodile may always be had, has entrusted me with the whole arrangements, and the entire supply of coal, with no restriction except that the Nile shall not be set on fire.

“Interested as you are in the success of our noble firm, you will thank, instead of blaming me, for an apparently unceremonious departure. By an extraordinary coincidence, Mr. Fookes has also been summoned peremptorily to Constantinople, to contract with the Sultan for warming the sacks of the ladies who are, from time to time, deposited in the Bosporus.

“Therefore, gentlemen, the entire interest of the London branch is left in your experienced hands. Be steady, I entreat you; be diligent, be methodical. Above all things, remember that rigid probity, and the strictest punctuality in meeting payments, are the very soul of business, and that an ounce of practice is worth a pound of precept. But I have the purest confidence in you. I need not appeal to the honour of four university men. From my childhood upward, I have admired those admirable institutions, and the knowledge of life imparted by them. ‘Quid leges sine moribus?’ Excuse me; it is all the Latin I know.

“There is a raw Irishman among you, rather of the physical order; if he is violent, expel him. Every gentleman will be entitled to his own deal desk, upon discharge of the bill, which he will find made out in his name, in the drawer thereof. And now farewell. I have been prolix in the endeavour to be precise.

“There are no funds in hand for the London branch, but our credit is unbounded. Push our united interests, for I trust you to the last farthing. I hope to find you with coffers full, and commercial honour untainted, on the 31st of February prox.

“Believe me, Gentlemen, ever your affectionate partner,

    “Hearty Wibraham, D.C.L.

“P.S. – If none of my partners know the way to enter an order, the office–boy will instruct the manager of the firm. – H. W.”

“Consummate scoundrel!” exclaimed the little Cantab, with the beard of an oyster in his throat.

“Detasteable heepocrite!” cried the representative of Durham.

“Raw Irishman! Oh then the powers! And the punch of the head I never giv’ him, a week will be next Saturday.” Mr. OʼToole danced round the room, caught up the desks like dolls, and dashed all their noses together. Then he summoned the landlord, and pelted him out of the room and up the stairs with oyster–shells, the books, and the whisky–bottle, and two pewter–pots after his legs, as he luckily got round the landing–place. The terrified man, and his wife worse frightened, locked themselves in, and then threw up a window and bawled out for the police.

Cradock, feeling ashamed of the uproar, seized OʼToole by the collar; and the Durham man, being sedate and steady, grasped him on the other side. So they lifted him off the ground, and bore him even into Hyde Park, and there they left him upon a bench, and each went his several way. The police, according to precedent, were in time to be too late.

CHAPTER X

Cradock Nowell shivered hard, partly from his cold, and partly at the thought of the bitter life before him. He had Amyʼs five and sixpence left, an immutable peculium. In currency his means were limited to exactly four and ninepence. With the accuracy of an upright man (even in the smallest matters), he had forced upon Mr. OʼToole his twopence, the quaternary of that letter. Also he had insisted upon standing stout, when thirst increased with oysters. Now he took the shillings four, having lost all faith in his destiny, and put one in each of his waistcoat pockets; for he had little horse–shoes upwards, as well as the straight chinks below. This being done, he disposed of his ninepence with as tight a view to security.

All that day he wandered about, and regretted Issachar Jupp. Towards nightfall, he passed a railway terminus, miserably lighted, a disgrace to any style of architecture, teeming with insolence, pretence, dirt, discomfort, fuss, and confusion. Let us call it the “Grand Junction Wasting and Screwing Line;” because among railway companies the name is generally applicable.

In a window, never cleaned since the prorogation of Parliament, the following “Notice” tried to appear; and, if you rubbed the glass, you might read it.

“Wanted immediately, a smart active young man, of good education. His duties will not be onerous. Wages one pound per week. Uniform allowed. Apply to Mr. Killquick, next door to the booking–office.”

Cradock read this three times over, for his wits were dull now, and then he turned round, and felt whether all his money was safe. Yes, every blessed halfpenny, for he had eaten nothing since the oysters.

“Surely I am an active young man, of good education,” said Crad to himself, “although not very smart, perhaps, especially as to my boots; but a suit, all uniform, allowed, will cure my only deficiency. I could live and keep Wena comfortably upon a pound a week. I hope, however, that they cash up. Railway companies have no honour, I know; but I suppose they pay when they canʼt help it.”

Having meditated with himself thus much, he went, growing excited on the way – for now he was no philosopher – to the indicated whereabouts of that lineʼs factotum, Mr. Killquick. Here he had to wait very nearly an hour, Mr. Killquick being engaged, as usual, in the companyʼs most active department, arranging very effectually for a collision down the line. “Successfully,” I would have said; but, though the accident came off quite according to the most sanguine, or sanguinary expectation, the result was a slur on that companyʼs fame; only three people being killed, and five–and–twenty wounded.

“Now, young man,” asked Mr. Killquick, when all his instructions were on the wires, “what is your business with me?”

Cradock, having stated his purpose, name, and qualifications, the traffic–manager looked at him with interest and reflection. Then he said impressively, “You can jump well, I should think?”

“I have never yet been beaten,” Crad answered, “but of course there are many who can beat me.”

“And run, no doubt? And your sight is accurate, and your nerves very good?”

“My nerves are not what they were, sir; but I can run fast and see well.”

“Why do you shiver so? That will never do. And the muscles of his calf are too prominent. We lost No. 6 through that.”

“It is only a little cold I have caught. It will go off in a moment with regular work.”

“You have no relation, I suppose, in any way connected with the law? No friends, I mean, of litigious tendencies?”

“Oh no. I have no friends whatever; none, I mean, in London, only one family, far in the country, to care at all about me.”

“No father or mother to make a fuss, eh? No wife to prevent your attending to business?”

“No, sir, nothing of the sort. I am quite alone in the world; and my life is of no importance.”

“Wonderful luck,” muttered Mr. Killquick; “exactly the very thing for us! And I have been so put out about that place, it has got such a reputation. Poor Morshead cannot get through the work any longer by himself. And the coroner made such nasty remarks. If we kill another man there before Easter, the Times will be sure to get hold of it. Young man,” he continued in a louder tone, “you are in luck this time, I believe. It is a very snug situation; only you must look sharp after your legs, and be sure you never touch spirits. Not given to blue ruin, I hope?”

“Oh no. I never touch it.”

“Thatʼs right. I was afraid you did, you look so down in the mouth. You can give us a reference, I suppose?”

“Yes, to my landlady, Mrs. Ducksacre, a most respectable person, in trade in Mortimer–street.”

“Good,” replied Mr. Killquick; “you mustnʼt be alarmed, by the way, by any foolish rumours you may hear as to dangers purely imaginary. Your predecessor lost his life through the very grossest carelessness. You are as safe there as in your bed, unless your nerves happen to fail you. And, when that is the case, I should like to know,” asked the traffic–manager indignantly, “which of us is not in danger, even in coming down–stairs?”

“What will my duties be, then?” asked Cradock, with some surprise.

“Why, you are not afraid, are you?” Mr. Killquick looked at him contemptuously.

“No, I should rather hope not,” replied Cradock, meeting him eye to eye, so that the wholesale smasher quailed at him; “there is no duty, even in a powder–mill, which I would shrink from now.”

“Ah, terrible things, those powder–mills! A perfect disgrace to this age and country, their wanton waste of human life. How the Legislature lets them go on so, is more than I can conceive. Why, they think no more of murdering and maiming a dozen people – ”

“Please, sir,” cried one of the clerks, coming down from the telegraph office, “no end of a collision on the Slayham and Bury Branch. Three passengers killed, and twenty–five wounded, some of them exceedingly fatally.”

“Bless my heart if I didnʼt expect it. Told Sykes it would be so. Howʼs the engine, Jemmy?”

“Sheʼs all right, sir; jumped over three carriages, and went a header into a sand–hill. Driver cased in glass, from vitrifaction of the sand. Stoker took the hot water – a thing he ainʼt much accustomed to.”