All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story

"Sit down and let us talk – my honest – trustee!"

Mr. Bunker dropped into a chair.

In all the conversations and dramatic scenes made up in his own mind to account for the possession of the houses, it had never occurred to him that the fact of his having been a trustee would come to light. All were dead, except himself, who were concerned in that trust: he had forgotten by this time that there was any deed: by ignoring the trust he simplified, to his own mind, the transfer of the houses; and during all these years he had almost forgotten the obligations of the trust.

"What do you mean?" he stammered.

"Virtuous uncle! I mean that I know all. Do you quite understand me? I mean really and truly all. Yes: all that there is to know – all that you hide away in your own mind and think that no one knows."

"What – what – what do you know?"

"First, I know which the houses are – I mean my houses – my mother's houses. The house in Stepney Green that you have let to Miss Kennedy is one; a house in Beaumont Square – do you wish to know the number? – is another; and a house in Redman's Row – and do you want to know the number of that? – is the third. You have collected the rents of those houses and paid those rents to your own account for twenty years and more."

"Go on. Let us hear what you pretend to know. Suppose they were Caroline's houses, what then?" He spoke with an attempt at bounce; but he was pale, and his eyes were unsteady.

"This next. These houses, man of probity, were not my mother's property to dispose of as she pleased."

"Oh! whose were they, then?"

"They were settled upon her and her heirs after her; and the property was placed in the hands of two trustees: yourself, my praiseworthy; and a certain John Skelton, of whom I know nothing. Presumably, he is dead."

Mr. Bunker made no reply at all. But his cheek grew paler.

"Shall I repeat this statement, or is that enough for you?" asked Harry. "The situation is pretty, perhaps not novel: the heir has gone away, probably never to come back again; the trustee, sole surviving, no doubt receives the rents. Heir comes back. Trustee swears the houses are his own. When the trustee is brought before a court of law and convicted, the judge says that the case is one of peculiar enormity, and must be met by transportation for five-and-twenty years; five – and – twenty – years, my patriarch! think of that, in uniform and with short hair."

Mr. Bunker said nothing. But by the agitation of his fingers it was plain that he was thinking a great deal.

"I told you," cried Harry. "I warned you, some time ago, that you must now begin to think seriously about handcuffs and prison, and men in blue. The time has come now, when, unless you make restitution of all that you have taken, action will be taken, and you will realize what it is that people think of the fraudulent trustee. Uncle Bunker, my heart bleeds for you."

"Why did you come here?" asked his uncle, piteously. "Why did you come here at all? We got on very well without you – very well and comfortably, indeed."

This seemed a feeble sort of bleat. But, in fact, the Bunker's mind was for the moment prostrated. He had no sound resistance left.

"I offered you," he went on, "twenty-five pounds – to go. I'll double it – there. I'll give you fifty pounds to go, if you'll go at once. So that there will be an end to all this trouble."

"Consider," said Harry, "there's the rent of Miss Kennedy's house – sixty-five pounds a year for that; there's the house in Beaumont Square – fifty for that; and the house in Redman's Row at five-and-twenty at least: comes to a hundred and forty pounds a year, which you have drawn, my precious uncle, for twenty-one years at least. That makes, without counting interest, two thousand nine hundred and forty pounds. And you want to buy me off for fifty pounds!"

"Not half the money – not half the money!" his uncle groaned. "There's repairs and painting – and bad tenants; not half the money."

"We will say, then," lightly replied his nephew, as if nine hundred were a trifle, "we will say two thousand pounds. The heir to that property has come back; he says, 'Give me my houses, and give me an account of the discharge of your trust.' Now" – Harry rose from the table on which he had been sitting – "let us have no more bounce: the game is up. I have in my pocket – here," he tapped his coat-pocket, "the original deed itself. Do you want to know where it was found? Behind a safe at the Brewery, where it was hidden by your brother-in-law, Bob Coppin, with all the country notes which got Josephus into a mess. As for the date I will remind you that it was executed about thirty-five years ago, when my mother was still a girl and unmarried, and you had recently married her sister. I have the deed here. What is more, it has been seen by the chief accountant at the Brewery, who gave it me. Bunker, the game is up."

He moved toward the door.

"Have you anything to say before I go? I am now going straight to a lawyer."

"What is the – the – lowest – O good Lord! – the very lowest figure that you will take to square it? Oh! be merciful; I am a poor man, indeed a very poor man, though they think me warm. Yet I must scrape and save to get along at all."

"Two thousand," said Harry.

"Make it fifteen hundred. Oh! fifteen hundred to clear off all scores, and then you can go away out of the place; I could borrow fifteen hundred."

"Two thousand," Harry repeated. "Of course, besides the houses, which are mine."

"Besides the houses? Never. You may do your worst. You may drag your poor old uncle, now sixty years of age, before the courts, but two thousand besides the houses? Never!"

He banged the floor with his stick, but his agitation was betrayed by the nervous tapping of the end upon the oil-cloth which followed the first hasty bang.

"No bounce, if you please." Harry took out his watch. "I will give you five minutes to decide; or, if your mind is already made up, I will go and ask advice of a lawyer at once."

"I cannot give you that sum of money," Bunker declared; "it is not that I would not; I would if I could. Business has been bad; sometimes I've spent more than I've made; and what little I've saved I meant always for you – I did, indeed. I said, 'I will make it up to him. He shall have it back with – '"

"One minute gone," said Harry, relentlessly.

"Oh! this is dreadful. Why, to get even fifteen hundred I should have to sell all my little property at a loss; and what a dreadful thing it is to sell property at a loss! Give me more time to consider, only a week or so, just to look round."

"Three minutes left," said Harry the hardened.

"Oh! oh! oh!" He burst into tears and weeping of genuine grief, and shame, and rage. "Oh, that a nephew should be found to persecute his uncle in such a way! Where is your Christian charity? Where is forgiving and remitting?"

"Only two minutes left," said Harry, unmoved.

Then Bunker fell upon his knees: he grovelled and implored pardon; he offered one house, two houses, and twelve hundred pounds, fifteen hundred pounds, eighteen hundred pounds.

"One minute left," said Harry.

Then he sat down and wiped the tears from his eyes, and in good round terms – in Poplar, Limehouse, Shadwell, Wapping, and Ratcliff Highway terms – he cursed his nephew, and the houses, and the trust, and all that therein lay, because, before the temptation came, he was an honest man, whereas now he should never be able to look Stepney in the face again.

"Time's up," said Harry, putting on his hat.

In face of the inevitable, Mr. Bunker showed an immediate change of front. He neither prayed, nor wept, nor swore. He became once more the complete man of business. He left the stool of humiliation, and seated himself on his own Windsor chair before his own table. Here, pen in hand, he seemed as if he were dictating rather than accepting terms.

"Don't go," he said. "I accept."

"Very good," Harry replied. "You know what is best for yourself. As for me, I don't want to make more fuss than is necessary. You know the terms?"

"Two thousand down; the three houses; and a complete discharge in full of all claims. Those are the conditions."

"Yes, those are the conditions."

"I will draw up the discharge," said Mr. Bunker, "and then no one need be any the wiser."

Harry laughed. This cool and business-like compromise of felony pleased him.

"You may draw it up if you like. But my opinion of your ability is so great, that I shall have to show the document to a solicitor for his approval and admiration."

Mr. Bunker was disconcerted. He had hoped – that is, thought – he saw his way; but never mind. He quickly recovered and said, with decision:

"Go to Lawyer Pike, in the Mile End Road."