That Boy Of Norcott's

“What, do you mean to tell me that you can stand the haughty airs and proud pretensions of the young Jewess?”

“I mean to tell you that I know nothing of the Fräulein Oppovich but what is amiable and good.”

“What do I care for amiable and good? I want a girl to be graceful, well-mannered, pleasing, lively to talk, and eager to listen. There, now, don’t get purple about the cheeks, and flash at me such fiery looks. Here’s the champagne, and we ‘ll drink a bumper to her.”

“Take some other name for your toast, or I ‘ll fling your bottle out of the window.”

“You will, will you!” said he, setting down his glass, and measuring me from head to foot.

“I swear it”

“I like that spirit, Digby; I’ll be shot if I don’t,” said he, taking my hand, which I did not give very willingly. “You are just what I was some fifteen or twenty years ago, – warm, impulsive, and headstrong. It’s the world – that vile old mill, the world – grinds that generous nature out of one! I declare I don’t believe that a spark of real trustfulness survives a man’s first moustaches, – and yours are very faint, very faint indeed; there ‘s a suspicion of smut on the upper lip, and some small capillary flourishes along your cheek. That wine is too sweet. I ‘ll return to the Bordeaux.”

“I grieve to say I have no more than that bottle of it. It was some I bought when I was ill and threatened with ague.”

“What profanation! anything would be good enough for ague. It is in a man’s days of vigorous health he merits cherishing. Let us console ourselves with Rodiger. Now, boy,” said he, as he cleared off a bumper from a large goblet, “I ‘ll give you some hints for your future, far more precious than this wine, good as it is. Gustave de Marsac, like Homer’s hero, can give gold for brass, and instead of wine he will give you wisdom. First of all for a word of warning: don’t fall in love with Sara. It’s the popular error down here to do so, but it’s a cruel mistake. That fellow that has the hemp-trade here, – what’s his name, – the vulgar dog that wears mutton-chop whiskers, and fancies he’s English because he gets his coats from London? I ‘ll remember his name presently, – he has all his life been proposing for Sara, and begging off – as matters go ill or well with the House of Oppovich; and as he is a shrewd fellow in business, all the young men here think they ought to ‘go in’ for Sara too.”

I should say here that, however distasteful to me this talk, and however willingly I would have repressed it, it was totally out of my power to arrest the flow of words which with the force of a swollen torrent came from him. He drank freely, too, large goblets of champagne as he talked, and to this, I am obliged to own, I looked as my last hope of being rid of him. I placed every bottle I possessed on the table, and, lighting my cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the result.

“Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby?” cried he, at last, after a burst of abuse on Fiume and all it contained that lasted about half an hour.

“I seldom sit up so late,” was my cautious reply; “but I must own I have seldom such a good excuse.”

“You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. Do you remember Duvergier saying in the Chambre, as an apology for being late, ‘I dined with DeMarsac’?”

“I cannot say I remember that.”

“How could you? You were an infant at the time.” Away he went after this into reminiscences of political life, – how deep he was in that Spanish marriage question, and how it caused a breach, – an irreparable breach between Guizot and himself, when that woman, “you know whom I mean, let out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought not to have confided it to her. I know all that as well as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who is guarded, who is self-possessed at all times?”

Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and little interested in it besides, I brought him back to Fiume, and to the business that was now about to be confided to me.

“Ah, very true; you want your instructions. You shall have them, not that you ‘ll need them long, mon cher. Six months – what am I saying? – three will see it all up with; Hodnig and Oppovich.”

“What do you mean?” cried I, eagerly.

“Just simply what I say.”

It was not very easy for me to follow him here, but I could gather, amidst a confused mass of self-glorification, prediction, and lamentation over warnings disregarded, and such like, that the great Jew house of “Nathanheimer” of Paris was the real head of the firm of Hodnig and Oppovich.

“The Nathanheimers own all Europe and a very considerable share of America,” burst he out “You hear of a great wine-house at Xeres, or a great corn-merchant at Odessa, or a great tallow-exporter at Riga. It’s all Nathanheimer! If a man prospers and shows that he has skill in business, they ‘ll stand by him, even to millions. If he blunders, they sweep him away, as I brush away that cork. There must be no failures with them. That’s their creed.”

He proceeded to explain how these great potentates of finance and trade had agencies in every great centre of Europe, who reported to them everything that went on, who flourished, and who foundered; how, when enterprises that promised well presented themselves, Nathanheimer would advance any sum, no matter how great, that was wanted. If a country needed a railroad, if a city required a boulevard, if a seaport wanted a dock, they were ready to furnish each and all of them. The conditions, too, were never unfair, never ungenerous, but still they bargained always for something besides money. They desired that this man would aid such a project here, or oppose that other there. Their interests were so various and widespread that they needed political power everywhere, and they had it.

One offence they never pardoned, never condoned, which was any, the slightest, insubordination amongst those they supported and maintained. Marsac ran over a catalogue of those they had ruined in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfort, and Vienna, simply because they had attempted to emancipate themselves from the serfdom imposed upon them. Let one of the subordinate firms branch out into an enterprise unauthorized by the great house, and straightway their acceptances become dishonored, and their credit assailed. In one word, he made it appear that from one end of Europe to the other the whole financial system was in the bands of a few crafty men of immense wealth, who unthroned dynasties, and controlled the fate of nations, with a word.

He went on to show that Oppovich had somehow fallen into disgrace with these mighty patrons. “Some say that he is too old and too feeble for business, and hands over to Sara details that she is quite unequal to deal with; some aver that he has speculated without sanction, and is intriguing with Greek democrats; others declare that he has been merely unfortunate; at all events, his hour has struck. Mind my words, three months hence they ‘ll not have Nathanheimer’s agency in their house, and I suspect you ‘ll see our friend Bettmeyer will succeed to that rich inheritance.”

Rambling on, now talking with a vagueness that savored of imbecility, now speaking with a purpose-like acuteness and power that brought conviction, he sat till daybreak, drinking freely all the time, and at last so overwhelming me with ‘strange revelations that I was often at a loss to know whether it was he that was confounding me, or that I myself had lost all control of right reason and judgment.

“You’re dead beat, my poor fellow,” said he at last, “and it’s your own fault. You ‘ve been drinking nothing but water these last two hours. Go off to bed now, and leave me to finish this bottle. After that I ‘ll have a plunge off the end of the mole, cold enough it will be, but no ice, and you ‘ll find me here at ten o’clock with a breakfast appetite that will astonish you.”

I took him at his word, and said “Good-night.”

CHAPTER XXIV. MY INSTRUCTIONS

My friend did not keep his self-made appointment with me at breakfast, nor did I see him for two days, when we met in the street.

“I have gone over to the enemy,” said he; “I have taken an engagement with Bettmeyer: six thousand florins and all expenses, – silver florins, mon cher; and if you’re wise,” added he in a whisper, “you ‘ll follow my lead. Shall I say a word for you?”

I thanked him coldly, and declined the offer.

“All right; stick to gratitude, and you’ll see where it will land you,” said he, gayly. “I’ve sent you half a dozen letters to friends of mine up yonder;” and he pointed towards the North. “You ‘ll find Hunyadi an excellent fellow, and the Countess charming; don’t make love to her, though, for Tassilo is a regular Othello. As for the Erdödis, I only wish I was going there, instead of you; – such pheasants, such women, such Tokay, their own vintage! Once you ‘re down in Transylvania, write me word whom you ‘d like to know. They ‘re all dear friends of mine. By the way, don’t make any blunder about that Hunyadi contract The people here will want you to break it, – don’t, on any account. It’s the finest bargain ever was made; splendid timber, magnificent bark, and the cuttings alone worth all the money.”

He rattled out this with his own headlong speed, and was gone before I well knew I had seen him.

That evening I was ordered to Herr Oppovich’s house to receive my last instructions. The old man was asleep on a sofa, as I entered, and Sara seated at a table by the fire, deeply engaged in accounts.

“Sit down, Herr Owen,” – she had ceased to call me Von Owen, – “and I will speak to you in a minute.”

I was not impatient at the delay, for I had time to gaze at her silken hair, and her faultless profile, and the beautiful outline of her figure, as, leaning her head on her hand, she bent over the table.

“I cannot make this come right, – are you clever at figures?” asked she.

“I cannot say it is my gift, but I will do my best to aid you.” And now we were seated side by side, poring over the same page; and as she had placed one taper finger next the column of figures, I did so likewise, thinking far less of the arithmetic than of the chance of touching her hand with mine.

“These figures are somewhat confusing,” she said. “Let us begin at the top, – fourteen hundred and six hundred, make two thousand, and twelve hundred, three thousand two hundred, – now is this a seven or a three?”

“I’d say a three.”

“I ‘ve called it a seven, because M. Marsac usually writes his sevens in this way.”

“These are De Marsac’s, then?” asked I.

“And why ‘De,’ may I ask?” said she, quickly; “why not Marsac, as I called him?”

“I took his name as he gave it me.”

“You know him, then? Oh, I had forgotten, – he called on you the night he came. Have you seen him since?”

“Only passingly, in the street”

“Had he time to tell you that he has been dismissed?”

“Yes; he said he was now in Mr. Bettmeyer’s office.”

“Shall I tell you why?” She stopped, and her cheek became crimson, while her eyes sparkled with an angry fire that actually startled me. “But let us finish this. Where were we?” She now leaned her head down upon her hands, and seemed overcome by her emotion. When she looked up again, her face was perfectly pale, and her eyes sad and weariful. “I am afraid we shall wake him,” said she, looking towards her father; “come into this room here. So this man has been talking of us?” cried she, as soon as we had passed into the adjoining room. “Has he told you how he has requited all my father’s kindness? how he has repaid his trustfulness and faith in him? Speak freely if you wish me to regard you as a friend.”

“I would that you might, Fräulein. There is no name I would do so much to win.”