Piccadilly Part 11

"No," said Spiffy. "I must say on the whole my experience of the world in this respect is, that it is not so black as it is painted. It is true that I attribute its grat.i.tude chiefly to laziness. For instance, in my own case, so long as I hold the position I do in society, people who insisted upon being ungrateful to me would find it hard work. By the way, I observe you don't go out as much as you used--how's that?" This was no business of Spiff's, so I said sublimely, "Because the aristocracy bore me, and the middle cla.s.ses grate upon my nerves.--But about this little girl: she is rather an ally of mine, so you must see that her friend, Miss Rumsort, has the card."

"It is too bad!" broke out Spiffy. "The way that girl and her married sister are trying to take the world by storm is intolerable. It does not matter whether they know the people they apply to or not, it is always the same story. She pretends she is tremendously in love with Larkington because he goes everywhere, and her sister looks sentimental, and tries to work upon your feelings about 'poor Amy,' whose only object in life is to meet him; but it is all a dodge to get asked. She cares no more for Larkington than for me. Now, I'll be bound Wild Harrie put something about _very particular reasons_ in her note to you."

"Well," said I, astonished at Spiffy's penetration, and at the new views of life he was placing before me, "I must admit that that phrase did occur."

"Of course it did; why, it is one of the regular forms of 'extorting invitations under false pretences.' I want the police to interfere, but it seems, although they are doubtless begging-letters, containing fraudulent misrepresentations, there is some difficulty about bringing them within the terms of the Act."

"Never mind--live and let live--send her the invitation. It seems to me, my dear Spiffy, that you and the Bodwinkles and Miss Rumsort are all in the same line of life, so you should not be too hard upon her. As a matter of policy, social adventurers should do what they can for each other."

Spiffy's face flushed, for if he had lost the conscience, he still retained the consciousness, of a gentleman, and he felt the reproach.

Just at this moment, Mr Wog, who had been elected an honorary member of the "Piccadilly," and was standing, unconsciously to us, listening to our conversation, struck in, and averted the retort which was rising to Spiffy's lips.

"I guess," he said, turning to Spiffy, for whose talents he evidently entertained a high admiration, "that I could give you a few hints, from my own experiences in New York, that might help you in your line of business. My own, sir, in that city, was quite similar to yours in this.

You operate at night in Mayfair, and by day 'On 'Change.' Well, sir, I had two spheres of operation, one was on Wall Street, and the other on Fifth Avenue. In fact, I may say that Wall Street is the broad and flowery road that leads to Fifth Avenue. The trouble with operators in this country is, they don't understand how to do things on a large scale. Now the first thing I did when I went to do business in New York, was to keep a judge."

"To keep a judge?" said Spiffy with amazement.

"Why, yes. How can you operate freely if you are afraid of the law?

Besides his regular monthly allowance, my judge gets a percentage on every one of my financial enterprises which are fraudulent according to the letter of the statute. Then it costs me a good deal to manage to get all my lawsuits tried in his court. Besides, I have to keep a number of members of both the Houses of the Legislature at Albany regularly retained, and to put a big pile on one side for lobby operations at Was.h.i.+ngton, to say nothing about keeping the pockets of police and custom-house officers and other small fry well lined. The press alone swallows up the fifth of all I make. How do you suppose I could ever have accomplished my celebrated combination by which I got four large railroads under my control, and sold a secret issue of twenty millions of stock for fifteen millions, without ever paying one dime of it to any of the companies, if I had not stopped the mouths of the lawyers, politicians, and newspapers with greenbacks? Why, sir, I have ruined more whole families in one day by one of my financial operations, than any other man in the United States has in a month; and by the extraordinary novelty, grandeur, variety, and success of my undertakings, I have won the admiration, envy, and respect of the majority of my countrymen."

Spiffy seemed deeply impressed by the superior force and originality of conception displayed by Mr Wog--no indication of these qualities appearing on his calm exterior. "Of what nature are your operations in Fifth Avenue?" he asked.

"Oh, purely social," Mr Wog replied. "You see the aristocracy of New York require to be approached in a very special way. You can enter into the ranks of the upper ten, either by becoming a pillar of a fas.h.i.+onable church, or by driving the fastest trotters and handsomest four-in-hand teams in Central Park, or by the help of Mr Pink."

"By the help of Mr Pink?" said I, interrogatively.

"Yes. He corresponds to our friend Spiffy here. He is the s.e.xton of St Grace's, the most fas.h.i.+onable church in New York; and when you have made your pile, and want to start in fas.h.i.+onable life, and don't know who to invite, he makes out your list, and puts the invitations to your first ball in the prayer-books of the congregation. It imparts a sort of odour of sanct.i.ty to our entertainments, which is exceedingly gratifying to our most refined circles."

"I suppose," said I, "now that your social and financial position are secured, you will run for Congress."

"Sir," said Mr Wog, sternly, "when I explained to you the nature of my commercial success, it was to convey to you the idea of my smartness, not of my meanness. I am not aware of having said anything to lead you to suppose that I could so far degrade myself as to become a politician."

"What a comfort it will be," I remarked, "when the rotten old despotisms of Europe, and the political ambitions that belong to them, shall have crumbled to the dust, and when we have instead the free and glorious inst.i.tutions of the West, which seem to offer nothing to tempt a man from the enn.o.bling pursuit of hard cas.h.!.+" But Mr Wog failed to appreciate the force of my remark, as he was intently endeavouring to catch the purport of a very private conversation carried on by a group a few yards off, towards which he gradually edged, in the hope that he might be able either to acquire or impart some interesting information.

Spiffy looked more humbled and crestfallen than I had ever seen him; but remembering that he had still a score unsettled, in consequence of the remark which Mr Wog's arrival had interrupted, he said, maliciously,--

"By the way, what is the real state of the case about you and Lady Ursula? I don't apologise for asking, as I am sure you must want the right version to be known both for your sake and hers."

"The right version is simply that I neither am at this moment nor ever have been engaged to Lady Ursula."

"Then why did you tell Helter you were, and why are you pulling the family through their difficulties?"

"Because Helter was provoking me almost as much as you are, though I admit that is no reason why I should not have told the truth. As for the motives which actuate me in meddling in those pecuniary transactions in which you and Lady Broadhem are implicated, I am afraid you would not understand them if I were to attempt to explain them. It is a complicated business altogether. We shall get through it most satisfactorily by each minding our own share of it," I said significantly, and I walked off to a table where Broadhem was writing letters. I had not seen him since my interview with his sister. He looked gloomy and discontented, and gave me a cold glance of recognition. "How are you, Broadhem? I suppose Lady Ursula told you the result of our conversation," I said in a low tone, and took a chair by his side.

He nodded sulkily, and showed a disposition to cut me. My last few words with Spiffy had not left me in a mood to be cut unresistingly, so I said sharply, "Well, I hope both you and Lady Broadhem will contradict the perfectly unfounded report you were the means of spreading. I need not say that I shall do my share, and I trust that you will profit by the lesson you have received not to interfere in matters of this sort again."

"I tell you what it is, Frank," said Broadhem, who felt that somehow I was more to blame than he was, but who was taken aback by my turning the tables upon him so suddenly; "if it was not that duelling is exploded, and that it would be against my principles at any rate, I would shoot you."

"By way of helping to clear your property of its enc.u.mbrances," I added.

"Your mother has put everything into my hands, and I can do pretty much what I please with the whole family."

"Can you?" said Broadhem, with a grim smile. "The only thing that consoles me in the whole affair is, that you will find that you have got a little score to settle with my mother. If you knew her as well as I do, you would not antic.i.p.ate the interview with pleasure. As for Ursula, I suppose she knows her own business best, but I don't envy her the life she is likely to lead either."

"The alarming interview you threaten me with gives me no uneasiness," I said, "but perhaps it may be as well that you should let Lady Broadhem know that the fact of my not being engaged to her daughter will not interfere with the arrangements I am making to put the money matters of the family right."

"Why! you can't mean that!" said Broadhem, thunderstruck at this unexpected announcement; and he looked at me with a glance of affectionate interest. "You must be mad."

"Did your sister tell you so?" I asked.

"Once she did make a mysterious speech, and I really think she meant to imply something of the sort. However, of course, I am only joking. I need not say I hope, under the circ.u.mstances, it will be long before you recover your sanity."

"Are you going to the Bodwinkles' to-morrow?" said I, doing a little of Bower and Sc.r.a.per's work.

"Good gracious, no! I am bored to death with having to answer the question. The trouble my mother has taken to get those people invitations is something amazing. She even wanted me to go, though she does not approve of b.a.l.l.s, and never let me learn to dance."

"Let me introduce you to Miss Geary. You are not too old to begin."

"No," said Broadhem; "I have started on the other tack, and people would say it was inconsistent; besides, none of the young thinking men of the day dance, even though they may not be religious. I don't suppose that there is a single man in the Century dances."

This observation struck me as so preposterous that I could only account for it by supposing that, for the first time in his life, Broadhem had condescended to "chaff."

"Not 'a man' in the ideal sense, I daresay; but the boys are not more backward in this century than in any former one."

"Boys!" said Broadhem, indignantly; "there are no boys in the 'Century;'

the 'Century' is a club that meets twice a-week. I don't go on Sunday nights myself; but some Thursday night I will take you," and Broadhem plunged back into the correspondence in which I had interrupted him, while I strolled home down Piccadilly moralising on--the Century.

I don't frequent b.a.l.l.s now, but I went to Bodwinkle's for a variety of reasons. One was, that I knew I should see everybody, and have an opportunity of informing the public correctly about my own affairs.

Another, that I should be able to talk over some business matters with Bodwinkle, at a moment when he might possibly be more pliant than I usually found him in the City.

Every soul was at Bodwinkle's--coroneted carriages filled the square; a crowd of draggled men and women formed a line six or eight deep on each side of the awning, and between them fine ladies hurried across the pavement, encouraged and complimented by familiar linkmen, and very particular that the 'Morning Post' reporter, seated at a table in the hall, should take down their names accurately. The stairs were so crowded that Bodwinkle, who looked like one of his own footmen, and stood at the top of them, facing his wife, was red and apoplectic from pressure. His "lady," as I heard one of his City friends call her, had achieved the greatest object of her ambition in this life, which consisted in grinning vacantly, and curtsying perpetually to people she had never seen in her life before, and every one of whom despised her for entertaining them.

"Curious idea of the climax of earthly enjoyment," I remarked to Lady Veriphast, who was so tightly wedged between the banisters and a rather highly-scented amba.s.sador from Central Asia, that she spoke with difficulty; "I suppose it must be a pleasure to be at the top of one's own ladder, like our hostess there, when so many are trying to climb it."

"Do _not_ philosophise in that ridiculous way; don't you see I am suffering agonies?" said Lady Veriphast, in a tone of suppressed anguish. "Pinch this horrid barbarian in front of me or I shall faint."

"Madam," I overheard a well-known voice say in a nasal tone close to me, "allow me to remark, that for a hand, arm, and wrist, I have not seen anything since I have been in England like that owned by your daughter Mary;" and Mr Wog complacently edged himself from the side of Lady Mundane to that of the daughter he had eulogised, and who audibly asked Sc.r.a.per to get between her and that horrid man.

"Just what one deserves for coming to such a place," said Lady Mundane furiously, who, by the way, had repeatedly asked Wog to her own parties.

"I have often remarked, sir," said Mr Wog, who I think overheard this observation, turning to me, "that the ladies in your country allow quite a singular effect to be produced in their hair. If you will cast your eye down the stair you will observe a young person on the landing, the parting of whose hair, for the s.p.a.ce of one inch on either side, is black, while the two large bunches on her temples are red. That, sir, is a phenomenon I have not remarked in my own country."

"Don't you know how it happens?" said that spiteful old Lady Catchpole, whose eyes twinkled with malice as she explained to Mr Wog that, when the hair had been thoroughly dyed it could only recover its natural colour by this slow process, but that usually the effect was concealed by a _postiche_; and she looked hard at Lady Veriphast, whose hair was suspiciously _crepe_, and who wished it to be supposed that she blushed because she was still under the pressure of the Asiatic amba.s.sador.

"What is the exact meaning of the term _postiche_?" asked Mr Wog, who observed Lady Veriphast's confusion, and whose thirst for information seemed to increase with his powers of making himself disagreeable; "I guess it must mean some kind of wig."

"No," said Lady Catchpole; "anything false which is well made up we call a _postiche_; it need not be exactly a wig."

"Nor yet a Tory," interrupted Wog, with more readiness than I gave him credit for. "I calculate you should call a Liberal Conservative a _postiche_. It seems to me the most popular political platform in this country at your next elections is going to be _postiche_."