Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“Of course; and by that time we may want a little more liquor in the decanter, – eh! old boy?” said Beecher, laughing joyfully.

“To be sure, vaary mush more liquor as you want it.”

“What a brick!” said Beecher, clapping him on the shoulder in all the ecstasy of delight.

“Dere!” said the Jew, as he finished writing, “all is done; only to say where it be paid, – what bank at London.”

“Well, that is a bit of a puzzle, I must own!” said Beecher, rubbing his chin with an air of doubt and hesitation.

“Where do de Lord Lackington keep his account?” asked the Jew; and the question was so artfully posed that Beecher Answered promptly, —

“Harmer and Gore’s, Lombard Street, or Pall Mall, whichever you like.”

“Hanper and Gore. I know dem vaary well, – that will do; you do sign your name dere.”

“I wish I could persuade you that Annesley Beecher would be enough, – eh?”

“You write de name as der Davis say, and no oder!”

“Here goes, then! ‘In for a penny,’ as the proverb says,” muttered he; and in a bold, dashing hand, wrote “Lackington” across the bill.

“Ah!” said the Jew, as he examined it with his glass, and scanned every letter over and over; “and now, vat you say for de Cuyp, and de Mieris, and de Ostade, – vill you take ‘era all, as I say?”

“I ‘ll think over it, – I ‘ll reflect a bit first, Master Stein. As for pictures, they ‘re rather an encumbrance when a man has n’t a house to hang them in.”

“You have de vaary fine house in town, and an oder vaary fine house in de country, beside a what you call box – shoot-box – ”

“Nothing of the kind, Lazarus. I haven’t a thing as big as the crib we are standing in. Your mind is always running upon my brother; but there’s a wide difference between our fortunes, I assure you. He drew the first ticket in the lottery of life; and, by the way, that reminds me of something in Grog’s letter that I was to ask you.” And Beecher took the epistle from his pocket and ran his eye over it. “Ah! here it is! ‘Ask Stein what are the average runs at rouge-et-noir, what are the signs of an intermitting game, and what are the longest runs he remembers on one color?’ Can you answer me these?”

“Some of dem I have here,” said Stein, taking down from a shelf a small vellum-bound volume, fastened with a padlock and chain, the key of which he wore attached to his watch. “Here is de grand ‘arcanum,’” said he, laughing; “here are de calculs made in de experience of forty-one year! Where is de man in Europe can say as mush as dat? In dis book is recounted de great game of de Duc de Brancas, where he broke de bank every night of de week till Saturday, – two million tree hundred tousand francs! Caumartin, the first croupier, shot hisself, and Nogeot go mad. He reckon de moneys in de casette, for when he say on Friday night, ‘Monseigneur,’ say he, ‘we have not de full sum here, – there’s one hundred and seventy tousand francs too little,’ de Duc reply, ‘Never mind, mon cher Monsieur Nogeot, I am noways pressed, – don’t distress yourself, – only let it be pay before I go home to bed.’ Nogeot lose his reason when he hear it. Ah! here is de whole ‘Greschichte,’ and here de table of chances.”

Beecher gazed on the precious volume as Aladdin might have done on the lamp. It was the mystic key to untold riches. With that marvellous book a man needed no more in life; there lay all the “cabals,” all the “martingales,” that years of intense toil and deep study had discovered. To win that knowledge, too, what hearts had been broken, what desolation, what death! It was a record of martyrs in his eyes, and he really regarded it with a sort of rapturous veneration.

Old Lazarus did not fail to detect the expression of wonderment and admiration. He saw depicted there the glowing ecstasy that all the triumphs of high art could not call up. The vigorous energy of Wouvermans, the glowing coloring of Cuyp, the mellow richness of Mieris, had not touched that nature which now vibrated in every chord to the appeal of Fortune. It was the submissive worship of a devotee before some sacred relic! Stein read that gaze, and tracked its every motive; and with a solemn gesture he clasped the volume and locked it.

“But you are surely going to show me – I mean, you are about to tell me the answer to these questions?”

Stein shook his head dubiously, as he said: “Dat is my Kleinod, my idol, – in dat book lie de secret of secrets, and I say to myself, ‘Lazarus, be poor, be destitute, be houseless to-morrow, and you know how to get rich if you will.’ De great law of Chances – de rule dat guide what we call ‘Luck’ – dere it is written! I have but to say I will have, and I have! When I die, I will burn it, or have it lay wit me in my grave.”

“It’s not possible you could do this!” cried Beecher, in horror: far less of indignation had it cost him to hear that any one should carry out of the world with him the cure of cancer, of cholera, or some such dread scourge of poor humanity. The black-hearted selfishness of such a crime seemed without a parallel, and for a second or two, as he looked at the decrepid object before him, and saw the lonely spot, the isolation, and the propitious moment, a strange wild thought flashed across his mind that it might be not only pardonable, but praiseworthy, to seize upon and carry it off by force.

Whether the old man read what was passing within him is hard to say, but he returned the other’s look as steadily and as fiercely, and Beecher felt abashed and cowed.

“I’ ll tell you what, Stein,” said he, after a pause, “I ‘ll buy that same old volume of yours, just for the curiosity of the thing, and I ‘ll make you a sporting offer, – I ‘ll give you ten thousand francs for it!”

A low wailing whistle of utter contempt was all the Jew replied.

“Well, it’s a splendid bid, if you come to think of it; for, just suppose it be everything you say – and I own I can’t believe it is, – but suppose it were, who is to guarantee the continuance of these great public play-tables? All the Governments of Europe are setting their faces against them, – not a year passes without one or two being closed. This very spring there was a talk of suppressing play at Baden. Who can tell what the first outbreak of fanatic zeal may effect?”

“No, no. So long as men live, dey will do tree tings, – make love, make war, and gamble. When dey give up dese, de world shut up.”

There was a truthful force about this Beecher felt could not be gainsaid, and he stood silent and confuted. There was another appeal that he had not tried, and he resolved to neglect nothing that gave even the faintest chance of success. He addressed himself to the Jew’s goodness of heart, – to the benevolence that he knew must have its home in his nature. To what end, therefore, should he carry to the grave, or destroy, a secret that might be a blessing to thousands? He depicted, not without knowledge, some of the miseries of the man “forgotten of Fortune,” – the days of fevered anxiety, – the nights of agonizing torture, as, half maddened by his losses, he played wildly, recklessly on, – suicide in all its darkest forms ever present to his aching faculties, while all this time one glance within that little book would save him. And he wound up all by a burst of enthusiastic praise of a man who could thus transmit happiness to generations unborn.

“I never wish to sell dat book. I mean it alway to die wit myself! but if you will give me one tousand pounds, it is yours. If you delay, I will say two tousands.”

“Done – I take it. Of course a bill will do – eh?”

“Yaas, I will take a bill, – a bill at tree months. When it is yours, I will tell you dat you are de luckiest man in all Europe. You have dere, in dat leetle volume, all man strive for, fight for, cheat for, die for!”

As he said this, he sat down again at his desk to write the acceptance Beecher was to sign; while the other, withdrawing into the window recess, peered eagerly into the pages of the precious book.

“Mind,” said the Jew, “you no let any one see de ‘Cabal.’ If it be once get abroad, de bank will change de play. You just carry in your head de combinations, and you, go in, and win de millions dat you want at de time.”

“Just so,” said Beecher, in ecstasy, the very thought of the golden cataract sending a thrill of rapture through him. “I suppose, however, I may show it to Davis?”

“Ach, der Davis, yaas, – der Davis can see it,” said the Jew, with a laugh whose significance it were very hard to interpret. “Dere now,” said Stein, handing him the pen, “write de name dere as on de oder.”

“Still Lackington, I suppose – eh?” asked Beecher.

“Yaas, – just de same,” said Stein, gravely.

“‘Just as good for a sheep as a lamb,’ as the proverb says,” muttered Beecher. And he dashed off the name with a reckless flourish. “I ‘ll tell you one thing, Master Stein,” said he, as he buttoned up the magic volume in the breast of his coat, “if this turn out the good dodge you say it is, I ‘ll behave handsomely to you. I pledge you my word of honor, I’ll stand to you for double – treble the sum you have got written there. You don’t know the fellow you’re dealing with, – very few know him, for the matter of that, – but though he has got a smart lesson or two in life, he has good stuff in him still; and if– I say if, because, of course, all depends on that—if I can give the bank at Hamburg a spring in the air with the aid of this, I ‘ll not forget you, old boy.”

“You make dem all spring in de air! – Ems, Wiesbaden, Baden – all go up togeder!” And the Jew laughed with the glee of a demon.

“Not that I want to hurt any one, – not that I ‘d like to squeeze a fellow too hard,” broke in Beecher, suddenly, for a quick thrill of superstitious fear – the gambler’s innate conscience – shot through him, and made him tremble to think that by a chance word or thought he might disgust the Fortune he would propitiate. “No, no; my motto is, ‘Live and let live!’ There’s room for us all!” And with the utterance of a sentiment he believed so truly generous, he took leave of the Jew, and departed.

CHAPTER V. A VILLAGE NEAR THE RHINE

It was at a little village called Holbach, about fifteen miles from the right bank of the Rhine, Grog Davis had taken up his quarters while awaiting the arrival of his daughter. Near as it was to that great high-road of Europe, scarcely out of earshot of whizzing steamers and screaming trains, the spot was wonderfully secluded and unvisited. A little trout-stream, known to a few, who treasured the secret like fishermen, made the inn resorted to in the months of May and June; but for the rest of the year the “Golden Hook” had few customers, and the landlord almost abdicated his functions till spring came round again. The house, originally intended for a mill, was built over the river itself, so that the indolent angler might actually have fished from the very window. The pine-clad mountains of Nassau enclosed the narrow glen, which straggled irregularly along for miles, now narrowing to a mere strip, now expanding into little plains of fertile meadow-land, with neat cottages and speckled cattle scattered around them. A narrow belt of garden flanked the river, on whose edge a walk of trellised vines was fashioned, – a charming spot in the sultry heat of summer, with its luxuriant shade above and the rippling stream below. Davis had seen the place years before in some hurried Journey; but his retentive mind carried a full memory of the spot, and he soon found that it comprised all he was in search of, – it was easy of access, secret, and cheap.

Only too well pleased to meet with a guest at this dead season of the year, they gave up to him the choicest apartment, and treated him with every solicitude and attention.

His table was supplied well, almost luxuriously; the good wine of Ettleberg given in liberal profusion; the vine alley converted into a pistol gallery for his use; and all for such a sum per diem as would not have satisfied a waiter at the Clarendon. But it was the calm seclusion, the perfect isolation that gratified him most. Let him stroll which way he would, he never chanced upon a traveller. It was marvellous, indeed, how such a place could have escaped that prying tribe of ramblers which England each year sends forth to wrangle, dispute, and disparage everything over Europe; and yet here were precisely the very objects they usually sought after, – beautiful scenery, a picturesque peasantry, and a land romantic in all its traits and traditions.

Not that Grog cared for these: rocks, waterfalls, ruins, leafy groves, or limpid streams made no appeal to him, He lived for the life of men, their passions and their ambitions. He knew some people admired this kind of thing, and there were some who were fond of literature; others liked pictures; others, again, fancied old coins. He had no objection. They were, if not very profitable, at least, harmless tastes. All he asked was, not to be the companion of such dreamers. “Give me the fellow that knows life,” would he say; and I am afraid that the definition of that same “life” would have included some things scarcely laudable.

If the spot were one to encourage indolence and ease, Davis did not yield to this indulgence. He arose early; walked for health; shot with the pistol for practice; studied his martingale for the play-table; took an hour with the small-sword with an old maître d’armes whom he found in the village; and, without actually devoting himself to it as a task, practised himself in German by means of conversation; and, lastly, he thought deeply and intently over the future. For speculations of this kind he had no mean capacity. If he knew little of the human heart in its higher moods, he understood it well in its shortcomings and its weaknesses; to what temptations a man might yield, when to offer them, and how, were mysteries he had often brooded over. In forecastings of this order, therefore, Davis exercised himself. Strange eventualities, “cases of conscience,” that I would fain believe never occurred to you, dear reader, nor to me, arose before him, and he met them manfully.

The world is generous in its admiration of the hard-worked minister, toiling night-long at his desk, receiving and answering his twenty despatches daily, and rising in the House to explain this, refute that, confirm the other, with all the clearness of an orator and all the calmness of a clerk; but, after all, he is but a fly-wheel in that machine of government of which there are some hundred other component parts, all well fitting and proportioned. Précis writers and private secretaries cram, colleagues advise him. The routine of official life hedges him in his proper groove; and if not overcome by indolence or affected by zeal, he can scarcely blunder. Not so your man of straits and emergency, your fellow living by his wits, and wresting from the world, that fancies it does not want him, reward and recognition. It is no marvel if a proud three-decker sail round the globe; but very different is our astonishment if a cockboat come safely from the China Seas, or brave the stormy passage round the Cape. Such a craft as this was Grog, his own captain: himself the crew, he had neither owner nor underwriter; and yet, amidst the assembled navies of the world, he would have shown his bunting!

The unbroken calm of his present existence was most favorable to these musings, and left him to plan his campaign in perfect quiet Whether the people of the inn regarded him as a great minister in disgrace come, by hard study, to retrieve a lost position, a man of science deeply immersed in some abstruse problem, or a distinguished author seeking isolation for the free exercise of his imagination, they treated him not only with great respect, but a sort of deference was shown in their studious effort to maintain the silence and stillness around. When he was supposed to be at his studies, not a voice was heard, not a footfall on the stairs. There is no such flattery to your man of scapes and accidents, your thorough adventurer, as that respectful observance that implies he is a person of condition. It is like giving of free will to the highwayman the purse he expected to have a fight for. Davis delighted in these marks of deference, and day by day grew more eager in exacting them.

“I heard some noise outside there this morning, Carl,” said he to the waiter; “what was the meaning of it?” For a moment or two the waiter hesitated to explain; but after a little went on to speak of a stranger who had been a resident of the inn for some months back without ever paying his bill; the law, singularly enough, not giving the landlord the power of turning him adrift, but simply of ceasing to afford him sustenance, and waiting for some opportunity of his leaving the house to forbid his re-entering it. Davis was much amused at this curious piece of legislation, by which a moneyless guest could be starved out but not expelled, and put many questions as to the stranger, his age, appearance, and nation. All the waiter knew was that he was a venerable-looking man, portly, advanced in life, with specious manners, a soft voice, and a benevolent smile; as to his country, he could n’t guess. He spoke several languages, and his German was, though peculiar, good enough to be a native’s.

“But how does he live?” said Davis; “he must eat.”

“There’s the puzzle of it!” exclaimed Carl; “for a while he used to watch while I was serving a breakfast or a dinner, and sallying out of his room, which is at the end of the corridor, he ‘d make off, sometimes with a cutlet, – perhaps a chicken, – now a plate of spinach, now an omelette, till, at last, I never ventured upstairs with the tray without some one to protect it. Not that even this always sufficed, for he was occasionally desperate, and actually seized a dish by force.”