Can You Forgive Her? Part 19

"That's in course. I'm not going to tell you a lie, Mr. Vavasor. You know what's what as well as I do, and a sight better, I expect.

There's a dozen different ways of handling beer, Mr. Vavasor. But what's the use of that, when they can take four or five pounds a day over the counter for their rot-gut stuff at the 'Cadogan Arms,' and I can't do no better nor yet perhaps so well, for a real honest gla.s.s of beer. Stretch it! It's my belief the more you poison their liquor, the more the people likes it!"

Mr. Grimes was a stout man, not very tall, with a mottled red face, and large protruding eyes. As regards his own person, Mr. Grimes might have been taken as a fair sample of the English innkeeper, as described for many years past. But in his outer garments he was very unlike that description. He wore a black, swallow-tailed coat, made, however, to set very loose upon his back, a black waistcoat, and black pantaloons. He carried, moreover, in his hands a black chimney-pot hat. Not only have the top-boots and breeches vanished from the costume of innkeepers, but also the long, particoloured waistcoat, and the birds'-eye fogle round their necks. They get themselves up to look like Dissenting ministers or undertakers, except that there is still a something about their rosy gills which tells a tale of the spigot and corkscrew.

Mr. Grimes had only just finished the tale of his own hard ways as a publican, when the door-bell was again rung. "There's Scruby," said George Vavasor, "and now we can go to business."

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Grimes Gets His Odd Money.

The handmaiden at George Vavasor's lodgings announced "another gent,"

and then Mr. Scruby entered the room in which were seated George, and Mr. Grimes the publican from the "Handsome Man" on the Brompton Road.

Mr. Scruby was an attorney from Great Marlborough Street, supposed to be very knowing in the ways of metropolitan elections; and he had now stepped round, as he called it, with the object of saying a few words to Mr. Grimes, partly on the subject of the forthcoming contest at Chelsea, and partly on that of the contest last past. These words were to be said in the presence of Mr. Vavasor, the person interested.

That some other words had been spoken between Mr. Scruby and Mr. Grimes on the same subjects behind Mr. Vavasor's back I think very probable.

But even though this might have been so I am not prepared to say that Mr. Vavasor had been deceived by their combinations.

The two men were very civil to each other in their salutations, the attorney a.s.suming an air of patronizing condescension, always calling the other Grimes; whereas Mr. Scruby was treated with considerable deference by the publican, and was always called Mr. Scruby. "Business is business," said the publican as soon as these salutations were over; "isn't it now, Mr. Scruby?"

"And I suppose Grimes thinks Sunday morning a particularly good time for business," said the attorney, laughing.

"It's quiet, you know," said Grimes. "But it warn't me as named Sunday morning. It was Mr. Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain't it, Mr. Scruby?"

Mr. Scruby acknowledged that it was quiet, especially looking out over the river, and then they proceeded to business. "We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last," said the attorney.

"Of course we must, Mr. Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get,--just tell me that? Why, Travers's name was up on the liberal interest ever so long before the governor had ever thought about it."

"n.o.body is blaming you, Mr. Grimes," said George.

"And n.o.body can't, Mr. Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain't another man about the place as could have done half as much. You ask Mr. Scruby else. Mr. Scruby knows, if ere a man in London does. I tell you what it is, Mr. Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows, who lives mostly down by the river, ain't like your Maryb.o.n.e.rs or Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don't it Mr.

Scruby?"

"It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my experience goes," said Mr. Scruby.

"Of course it do; and there ain't one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr. Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and the short of it is this;--business is business, and money is money."

"Money is money, certainly," said Mr. Scruby. "There's no doubt in the world about that, Grimes;--and a deal of it you had out of the last election."

"No, I hadn't; begging your pardon, Mr. Scruby, for making so free.

What I had to my own cheek wasn't nothing to speak of. I wasn't paid for my time; that's what I wasn't. You look how a publican's business gets cut up at them elections;--and then the state of the house afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down painting inside and out in my little bill?"

"It doesn't seem to make much difference how you put it down," said Vavasor. "The total is what I look at."

"Just so, Mr. Vavasor; just so. The total is what I looks at too. And I has to look at it a deuced long time before I gets it. I ain't a got it yet; have I, Mr. Vavasor?"

"Well; if you ask me I should say you had," said George. "I know I paid Mr. Scruby three hundred pounds on your account."

"And I got every s.h.i.+lling of it, Mr. Vavasor. I'm not a going to deny the money, Mr. Vavasor. You'll never find me doing that. I'm as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow,--I am. Mr. Scruby knows me; don't you, Mr. Scruby?"

"Perhaps I know you too well, Grimes."

"No you don't, Mr. Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don't know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr. Scruby, because you're a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what's three hundred pounds when a man's bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?"

"I thought that was all settled, Mr. Scruby," said Vavasor.

"Why you see, Mr. Vavasor, it's very hard to settle these things. If you ask me whether Mr. Grimes here can sue you for the balance, I tell you very plainly that he can't. We were a little short of money when we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and so we took Mr. Grimes' receipt for three hundred pounds."

"Of course you did, Mr. Scruby."

"Not on account, but in full of all demands."

"Now Mr. Scruby!" and the publican as he made this appeal looked at the attorney with an expression of countenance which was absolutely eloquent. "Are you going to put me off with such an excuse as that?"

so the look spoke plainly enough. "Are you going to bring up my own signature against me, when you know very well that I shouldn't have got a s.h.i.+lling at all for the next twelve months if I hadn't given it? Oh Mr. Scruby!" That's what Mr. Grimes' look said, and both Mr.

Scruby and Mr. Vavasor understood it perfectly.

"In full of all demands," said Mr. Scruby, with a slight tone of triumph in his voice, as though to show that Grimes' appeal had no effect at all upon his conscience. "If you were to go into a court of law, Grimes, you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon."

"A court of law? Who's a going to law with the governor, I should like to know? not I; not if he didn't pay me them ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence for the next five years."

"Five years or fifteen would make no difference," said Scruby. "You couldn't do it."

"And I ain't a going to try. That's not the ticket I've come here about, Mr. Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed!

But Mr. Scruby, I've got a family."

"Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope," said George.

"They is at the 'Handsome Man' in the Brompton Road, Mr. Vavasor; and I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don't work for his family, what do he work for?"

"Come, come, Grimes," said Mr. Scruby. "What is it you're at? Out with it, and don't keep us here all day."

"What is it I'm at, Mr. Scruby? As if you didn't know very well what I'm at. There's my house;--in all them Chelsea districts it's the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of election purposes. That's given up to it."

"And what next?" said Scruby.

"The next is, I myself. There isn't one of the lot of 'em can work them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr. Scruby knows that. Why I've been a getting of them up with a view to this very job ever since;--why ever since they was a talking of the Chelsea districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county on the religious dodge, he couldn't have worked them fellows anyhow, only for me. Mr. Scruby knows that."

"Let's take it all for granted, Mr. Grimes," said Vavasor. "What comes next?"

"Well;--them Bunratty people; it is they as has come next. They know which side their bread is likely to be b.u.t.tered; they do. They're a bidding for the 'Handsome Man' already; they are."

"And you'd let your house to the Tory party, Grimes!" said Mr. Scruby, in a tone in which disgust and anger were blended.

"Who said anything of my letting my house to the Tory party, Mr.

Scruby? I'm as round as your hat, Mr. Scruby, and as square as your elbow; I am. But suppose as all the liberal gents as employs you, Mr. Scruby, was to turn again you and not pay you your little bills, wouldn't you have your eyes open for customers of another kind? Come now, Mr. Scruby?"