The Firm of Girdlestone

“These hopes are,” said the major, in a low voice, leaning forward and taking his companion’s little ring-covered hand in his thick, pudgy fingers, “that you will have pity upon me; that you will –”

“Go to the divil!” roared the major, springing furiously to his feet, while the German’s head disappeared like a Jack-in-the-box. “Forgive the warmth of me language,” the veteran continued, apolo­getically, “but me feelings overcame me. Will you be mine, Lavinia? I am a plain ould soldier, and have little to offer you save a faithful heart, and that is yours, and always will be. Will you make the re­mainder of me life happy by becoming me wife?” He endeavoured to pass his arm round her waist, but she sprang up from the sofa and stood upon the rug, facing him with an amused and somewhat tri­umphant smile upon her buxom features.

“Lavinia,” said he, “you have been straight with me, and, bedad, I’ll be so with you? When I first thought of you I was down in the world, and, much as I admired you, I own that your money was an inducement as well as yoursilf. I was so placed that it was impossible for me to think of any woman who had not enough to keep up her own end of the game. Since that time I’ve done bether. How I got it is neither here nor there, but I have a little nist-egg in the bank and see me way to increasing it. You tell me your money’s gone, and I tell you I’ve enough for two; so say the word, acushla, and it’s done.”

“What! without the money?”

“Damn the money?” exclaimed Major Tobias Clutterbuck, and put his arm for the second time around his companion. This time it remained there. What happened after that is neither my business nor the reader’s. Couples who have left their youth behind them have their own little romance quite as much as their juniors, and it is occasionally the more heartfelt of the two.

“What a naughty boy to swear!” exclaimed the widow at last. “Now I must give you a lecture since I have the chance.”

“We’ll manage, dear,” she said, looking roguishly up into his face. “I told you that my money was all in the Agra Bank that broke.”

“You did, worse luck!”

“But I didn’t tell you that I had drawn it all out before it broke, Toby dear. It was too bad to put you to such a trial, wasn’t it? but re­ally I couldn’t resist the temptation. Toby shall have money enough without betting, and he shall settle down and tell his stories, and do what he likes without anything to bother him.”

before the last guests had muffled themselves up and the last han­som dashed away from the door. The major lingered behind to bid farewell, and then rejoined his German friend, who had been com­pelled to wait at the door for the latchkey.

“And been took – received by her?”

“Dat Is gloriful!” Von Baumser cried, clapping his hands. “Three hochs for Frau Scully, and another one for Frau Clutterbuck. We must drink a drink on it; we truly must.”

So interesting was this liquid highway to Tom’s practical mind, that he would often stand at the head of the wharf when his work was done and smoke a meditative pipe. It was a quiet spot, which had once been busy enough, but was now superseded by new quays and more convenient landing-places. All over it were scattered great rusty anchors, colossal iron chains, deserted melancholy boilers, and other debris which are found in such places, and which might seem to the fanciful to be the shells and skeletons of strange mon­sters washed up there by the tide. To whom do these things belong? Who has an interest in them? Of what use are they? It appeared to Tom sometimes as if the original owners and their heirs must have

From this coign of vantage a long reach of the river was visible, and Tom sitting there would watch the fleets of passing vessels, and let his imagination wander away to the broad oceans which they had traversed, and the fair lands under bluer skies and warmer suns from which they had sailed. Here is a tiny steam-tug panting and toiling in front of a majestic three-master with her great black hulk towering out of the water and her masts shooting up until the top­mast rigging looks like the delicate web of some Titanic spider. She is from Canton, with tea, and coffee, and spices, and all good things from the land of small feet and almond eyes. Here, too, is a Mes­sagerie boat, the French ensign drooping daintily over her stern, and her steam whistle screeching a warning to some obstinate lighters, crawling with their burden of coal to a grimy collier whose steam­winch is whizzing away like a corncrake of the deep. That floating palace is an Orient boat from Australia. See how, as the darkness falls, a long row of yellow eyes glimmer out from her sides as the light streams through her countless portholes. And there is the Rot­terdam packet-boat coming slowly up, very glad to get back into safe waters again, for she has had a wildish time in the North Sea. A coasting brig has evidently had a wilder time still, for her main­topmast is cracked across, and her rigging is full of the little human mites who crawl about, and reef, and splice, and mend.

All day Tom stood at the hatchway of the Black Eagle, checking the cargo as it was hoisted out of her, while McPherson and his mot­ley assistants, dock labourers, seamen, and black Kroomen from the coast, worked and toiled in the depths below. The engine rattled and snorted, and the great chain clanked as it was lowered into the hold.

and the mate, both fairly tired by their day’s work, prepared to ac­cept the captain’s invitation, and to meet him up in his quarters. The mate dived down into his cabin, and soon reappeared with his face shining and his long hair combed into some sort of order.