A Son of Hagar Part 49

Drayton's sullen face was immovable.

"By the way," said Hugh, elevating his voice and affecting a sudden flow of spirits, "I owe you my personal thanks for your exertions. What do you drink--brandy?"

Going to the door, he called for a bottle of brandy and gla.s.ses.

"Then, again, on Monday night," he added, turning into the room, "you did me the honor to visit my own house."

Drayton was still standing.

"I know you," he said. "Shall I tell you your name?"

Hugh smiled with undisturbed humor. "That also will be unnecessary," he said; and leisurely drew off his gloves.

"What d'ye want? I ain't got no time to waste--that's flat."

"Well, let me see, it's just ten o'clock," said Hugh Ritson, taking out his watch. "I want you to earn twenty pounds before twelve."

Mr. Drayton gave vent to a grim laugh.

"I'll pound it as I'm fly to what that means! You're looking to earn two hundred before midnight."

Mr. Drayton gave Hugh a sidelong glance of great astuteness.

Hugh lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.

"Money is not my object."

"Oh, it ain't, eh? Well, I'm not afraid for you to know as it's mine--very much so." And Mr. Drayton gave vent to another grim laugh.

Mrs. Drayton entered the room at this moment, and set down the brandy, two gla.s.ses, and a water-bottle on the deal table.

"Let me offer you a little refreshment," and Hugh took up the brandy and poured out half a tumbler.

"Thankee, thankee!"

"Water? Say when."

But Mr. Drayton stopped the dilution by s.n.a.t.c.hing up his tumbler. His manner had undergone a change. The watchfulness of a ferocious creature dogged and all but trapped gave way to reckless abandonment, bravado and audacity.

"What's the lay?" he said, with a chuckle.

"To accompany a lady to Kentish Town Junction, and see her safe into the midnight train--that's all."

Drayton laughed outright.

"Of course it is," he said.

"The lady will be here shortly before midnight."

"Of course she will."

Hugh Ritson's face lost its smiles.

"Don't laugh like that--I won't have it!"

Mr. Drayton made another application to the spirit bottle, and then leaned toward Hugh Ritson over the arm of his chair.

"Look here," he said, "it's just a matter o' thirty years gone August since my mother put me into swaddling clothes, and deng my b.u.t.tons if I'm wearing 'em yet!"

"What do you mean, my friend?" said Hugh.

Drayton chuckled contemptuously.

"Speak out plain," he said. "Give the work its right name. I ain't afraid for you to say it. A man don't give twenty pounds for the like o'

that. Not if he works for it honest, same as me. I'm a licensed victualer, and a gentleman--that's what I am, if you want to know."

Hugh Ritson repudiated all unnecessary curiosity, whereupon Mr. Drayton again had recourse to the spirit bottle, mentioned afresh his profession and pretensions, and wound up by a relative inquiry, "And what do you call yourself?"

Hugh did not immediately gratify Mr. Drayton's curiosity.

"Quite right, Mr. Drayton," he said; "I know all about you. Shall I tell you why you went to c.u.mberland?"

Remarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, Mr. Drayton took out of his pocket a goat-skin tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to charge a discolored meerschaum pipe.

"Thirty years ago," said Hugh Ritson, "a young lady tried to drown herself and her child. She was rescued and committed to an asylum. Her child, a son, was given into the care of the good woman with whom she had lodged."

Mr. Drayton interrupted. "Thankee; but, as the wice-chairman says, 'we'll take it as read,' so we will."

Hugh Ritson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. Drayton smoked vigorously: "You have never heard of your mother from that hour to this; but one day you were told by the young girl whom circ.u.mstances had cast on your foster-mother's care, that among the mountains of c.u.mberland there lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary resemblance.

That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your mother were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the misfortune to be poor."

"And I'm not afraid for anybody to know it," interrupted Mr. Drayton.

"Come to the point honest. Look here, we are like two hyenas I saw one day at the Zoo. One got a bone in his tooth at feeding time, and blest if the other didn't fight for that bone I don't know how long and all."

"Well," continued Hugh Ritson, with a dubious smile that the cloud of smoke might have hidden from a closer observer, "being a man of spirit, and not without knowledge of the world, having inherited brains, in short, from the parents who bequeathed you nothing else--"

Mr. Drayton puffed volumes, then poured himself half a tumbler of the raw spirit and tossed it off.

--"You determined on seeing if, after all, this were only a fortuitous resemblance."

Mr. Drayton raised his hand. "I am a licensed victualer, that's what I am, and I ain't flowery," he said, in an apologetic tone; "I hain't had the chance of it, being as I'd no schooling--but, deng me, you've just hit it!" And the gentleman who could not be flowery shook hands effusively with the gentleman who could.

"Precisely, Mr. Drayton, precisely," said Hugh Ritson. He paused and watched Drayton closely. That worthy had removed his pipe, and was staring, with stupid eyes and open mouth, into the fire.

"But you found nothing."

"How d'ye know?"