CHAPTER XLIX

MR. O’DICEY AGAIN

SCARCELY were our Banker’s scattered thoughts recalled and restored to the line of masonry, ere another catastrophe befel him, more fearful than the first. This, we need hardly say, was the arrival of Mr. O’Dicey’s “little bill,” for the experienced reader will doubtless wonder what has become of it all this time. Like all gambling-given bills, it was never to be negotiated, merely taken as a matter of memory, and to be renewed interminably. Now, however, it appeared with a certain mystical bit of paper attached to the left-hand corner, intimating that there were “no effects.”

Worst of all, it was brought to their bank by one of Dibworth’s saucy clerks, who flourished it triumphantly as he handed it over the counter. There it was, with the ill-written but too palpable signature of our friend, while the date corresponded with the time of his absence.

Scorer the cashier’s few remaining hairs stood on end when he saw it, but thinking the appended slip of paper would be sufficiently, if not more than sufficiently explanatory, and not caring to indulge the bearer with an exclamation, he carried it into the lion’s den, and laid it on the old scratched and battered leather table without note or comment.

Our unsuspicious friend was thumbing the interest tables of his “Banker’s Sure Guide, or Monied Man’s Assistant,” calculating eighty-seven days’ interest at eleven and a quarter per cent. on Doughey the baker’s note for fifteen pounds, and thinking Scorer’s presentation was merely a matter of reference, he completed his arithmetic before taking it up. The reader may imagine the start and stare he gave as he gradually saw and mastered the awkward phenomenon. He even forgot his favourite apophthegm of sivin and four being elivin, and dived right into the middle of the subject, “Dishonoured! ha? Jasper! ho! what’s this, hey?” exclaimed he, appealing imploringly to the clerk.

“Don’t know, sir, I’m sure,” replied Mr. Scorer. “It’s just as it came from Dibworth & Co.”

“Dibworth & Co.!” exclaimed our half-frantic friend, “Dibworth & Co.! why what in the name of all that is ugly has Jasper to do with Dibworth & Co.?”

Mr. Scorer stood mute.

“Oh dear! oh dear!” continued our Banker, wringing his fat hands as he threw himself back in his old semicircular chair. “Oh dear! oh dear! fear there’s mischief in the wind for our old ’stablished house— ’stablished sivinteen ’underd and sivinty-four,” and diving into his coat-pocket, he fished up a well-used chocolate-coloured bandana, and buried his face in its folds. All his visions of greatness seemed again to vanish at a moment—cows, pigs, poultry, and all.

Meanwhile Mr. Scorer returned through the bank, and telling the messenger with the utmost nonchalance, that the bill would be “duly attended to,” he passed on through the little door leading into the house, and communicated with Mrs. Goldspink, who forthwith came hurrying to her husband.

He was still in the bandana, with the ill-omened document before him, which seemed to prevent his looking up, so Mrs. Goldspink began attributing his indisposition to the stuffyness of the little room and the too liberal hashed goose and toasted cheese supper he had indulged in over night; in which speculation, however, she was suddenly interrupted by the sick man exclaiming: “No, no, it’s not the hashed goose, it’s not the hashed goose, it’s that!” taking a sly peep out of the corner of the kerchief, as he poked the bill towards her.

Mrs. Goldspink was then transfixed.

“Bless us, what could it all mean! Jasper putting his name to a bill! She couldn’t believe it—and yet it was his handwriting—what could it mean?”

“Mean!” gasped the man of money—“mean! Oh dear! I’m afraid he’s been robbed—got into the hands of the sharpers. The hunting horses were bad enough, but these racing ones, I fear, are far worse. Help me into the house,” continued he, rising from his chair with averted head from the bill, and hurrying out of his den, he passed through the bank into the parlour. There sat the delinquent himself, reading “Bell’s Life” with the greatest complacency, little dreaming of the consternation he was causing his worthy parents. They both at him at once—What had he been doing? What had he been about? Giving a bill, a thing he had been charged never to do! never to put his name to paper! “Oh dear! what did it all mean?”

Jasper, though considerably surprised, affected to treat the matter lightly.

“Oh dear! oh yes, oh yes, oh dear, all right” (hesitated he)—“no, it was a mistake. He knew what it was. Mr. O’Dicey would put it all right. It was merely a memorandum—a-a-a.”

“Memorandum!” exclaimed the Banker, “why it’s a regularly drawn and accepted bill, protested too; a thing that’s frightful to contemplate, to say nothing of the amount, which was perfectly appalling.”

“Oh yes,” Jasper admitted it was large, but then it was not a real transaction, not a thing that was meant to be acted upon.

“Acted upon! why it has been acted upon,” interrupted the Banker, “go and look at it yourself and see,” and Jasper, glad of an excuse to get away, repaired to the office, where an inspection immediately recalled unpleasant recollections of the past—the sumptuous dinner, the honest major, the cards, the grill, and the double or quits, which led to the dreadful document before him. Then, further reflection recalled O’Dicey’s repeated assurance that the bill was a mere matter of form, just to keep matters straight, should never be negotiated, and so on; and, unwilling to believe that so frank and generous a gentleman could be guilty of anything unhandsome, he determined to treat the matter as a mistake, and try to get it put right without further interference. Accordingly, after many scratchings of the head and eye-wanderings up to the ceiling, he wrote him the following letter:—

“Mayfield, Nov. 13, 1858.

“Dear O’Dicey,—By some strange unlucky mistake, the memorandum or bill which I signed at Roseberry Rocks, on the night of your agreeable dinner-party, has been negotiated and returned to our bank dishonoured. As you will remember, it was expressly understood at the time it was given, that it was merely a sort of memorandum of the state of the game at the close of the evening’s amusement, so that we might know how we stood when we began again, I wish you would have the goodness to get it withdrawn, so that we may again stand as we were. It isn’t pleasant to have one’s paper floating about, as I’m sure you will agree; besides which, it may be detrimental to the Bank. Please, therefore, look it up, and oblige, Dear O’Dicey, very truly yours,

“Jasper Goldspink.

Mr. O’Dicey being a gentleman of large practice in the sharking way, carrying on business as well in the French capital as the English, and at most of the fashionable watering-places, was not quite so easily found as a dishonoured bill rendered desirable; and Dibworth’s clerk looked in several times in passing to inquire after its safety, and at length hinted that the holder, who had given full value for it, would like to have it back, in order to take proceedings before any reply was received from the worthy. During all this time, our Banker was kept on the rack of suspense, now half inclined to dispute its validity altogether, now a quarter or so inclined to pay it and be done with it, hoping, though an expensive lesson, that it would make Jasper more cautious in future.

At last the fever of anxiety was somewhat allayed by the receipt of the following answer:

“Dear Goldspink,—Yours of the 13th, addressed to Roseberry Rocks, after following me to various places, till it is stained with the variation of each post-office, at last reached me at the Rag and Famish Club, as I was passing through town, and I lose not a moment in writing to say, that it is quite a mistake your bill having got into circulation, for it ought to have been Captain Gammon’s bill, and not yours, I having settled with the other parties in cash, so as to enable me to hold yours, till, as you say, the amount was either played off or the bill taken up at your utmost convenience. I now see, on looking among my disorderly papers, that I have given up the wrong one. This is unfortunate, but I fear it cannot now be helped; and perhaps the best way will be for you quietly to withdraw your bill, and keep it till we all meet again, and give you your well-deserved revenge. I must say that I never saw a man lose his money with a better grace than you did; unless, indeed, it was our friend Captain Gammon. Meanwhile, in great haste to save the post, believe me, dear Goldspink, yours very sincerely,

“John O’Dicey.

“Sivin and four’s eleven, and ninety-nine, is a ’underd and ten, and sivin’s a ’underd and sivinteen, this is the most audaciously inconsistent letter I ever read in my life!” exclaimed our Banker on perusing it. “A man talking about thousands as if they were sea-sand, and then belonging to a beggarly club, where they most likely have their knives and forks chained to the table, and sivinty-sivin’s a ’underd and ninety-four, the whole thing’s a reg’lar swindle, and I’ll go before my Lord Size, and prove it.” So saying, he threw down the letter in disgust, and produced an extensive sheet of paper to summon Mr. Saplington to his presence. Jasper did not like the idea of this, for he had often heard O’Dicey, when capering on the gentle milk-white horse of morality, denouncing the mean-spirited wretches who only play to win money, and expatiating on the disadvantages through life to a young man repudiating or disputing his debts of honour; a doctrine that O’Dicey used to enforce by pointing out sundry examples of parties whom he used to say he wouldn’t touch with a pair of tongs, the parties however generally looking at O’Dicey as if they would not touch him either. Jasper therefore tried to keep the parental hand from the paper. He thought he could get matters put right. He had a good opinion of O’Dicey, who had always stood his friend, and endeavoured to keep him right when other parties wanted to cheat him. He couldn’t believe that there was anything intentionally wrong.

The words “Rag and Famish” however, stuck in old sivin-and-four’s throat. He could not get over them. He could not imagine that any good could possibly come of such a forlorn combination. “Rag and Famish” seemed to him to be the lowest pit of human degradation. He had no doubt it was a low cellar somewhere about Saffron Hill, or St. Giles’s, constantly under the ken of the police. There was no saying but Jasper himself might go there next. “No, no; no Rags and Famishes for him. He was a substantial man, and could afford beef, mutton, and broad cloth.”

Our friend Jasper, however, still worked the other way. He was afraid of the exposure—afraid of the slow-pointing of scorn proclaiming him a man who did not pay his debts. This too, just as he was going to alight upon the turf with Garlandale. Seeing, therefore, that O’Dicey’s letter held out an overture for further correspondence, and that the substitution of his bill for Captain Gammon’s had been accidental, it occurred to Jasper that the best thing to do would be to get the Captain’s bill, and so set it off against his own little acceptance. Accordingly he wrote to “Dear O’Dicey,” thanking him for his explanation, and asking him to send him Captain Gammon’s bill to Mayfield. How O’Dicey laughed when he read the letter, and took the worthless document out of his desk to place in an envelope with “Mr. O’D.’s kind regards” written inside. “Wish you joy of it, old boy,” said he, as he chucked the letter containing it into the pillar post at the Derby Station. Then when Jasper got it, he felt doubly triumphant, triumphant at having retrieved his position, and triumphant at having proved a true prophet. It was clear his father didn’t understand the men of the present generation—was quite one of the past. What could be fairer or kinder than Mr. O’Dicey’s conduct?—nothing, he was sure. He carried the bill into the bank with a swagger, telling Scorer, as he handed it over, to let it be “looked to,” meaning, presented for payment. Scorer descended upon it all fours as it were, for he was unused to such amounts, and moreover suspected something was wrong; but after straining his eye-balls, and scanning every word, every figure, every mark, he could find no fault with its form, so looking up at our friend, he gave an emphatic, “Yes, Sir;” saying to himself, “I wish you may get it.”

Up, then, went the bill to London, along with the other bank documents, and Jasper felt quite relieved in his mind, and easy as to the result. Indeed he began to think himself somewhat of a conjuror. “Sharp” being the word in the City, the bill was journeying comfortably up Cornhill, in one of those easy black note-cases peculiar to stamped paper, and presently passed into the glibly gliding door of Grumpy and Stumpey’s extensive establishment.

There were gentlemen in every variety of pecuniary activity, those in front, counting nice crisp five pound notes, or shovelling about sovereigns; those in the rear passing them inward, and those further back noting them down. All were as busy as bees. A double line of customers—clients, we believe, is now the term—pressed onwards to the counter, or whatever they call that barrier, some looking extremely unlike the money they were entrusted with. Still they were recognised, their behests fulfilled, and the door swung again on their easy retreat. It seemed almost as if the golden age was returned, and money was to be had for asking. But stop; not quite so quick. We are now at the receipt of custom. The big bald-headed gentleman, with the clean linen and black satin vest, suddenly starts, like a setter crossing a scent, and stands electrified as he gets into the middle of our messenger’s presentation.— “What’s this!” exclaims he, weeding out the unlucky acceptance, and holding it up for inspection. “Gammon again!” exclaimed he with astonishment, “Won’t do! most impudent man in existence;” whereupon he contradicted his assertion of having Gammon’s acquaintance, by appending a bit of paper to the bill, with the words “not known” upon it; whereas, it is clear, the office should have been “better known than trusted.” However, the bill was handed back to the clerk, who received it with the indifference peculiar to strangers, and carried it back to their firm to retransmit to the country. That evening’s post saw it flying back.

Our Banker was not surprised to see it again, for he had lived too long in the world, and had scraped and screwed at shillings and sixpences too hard to believe that thousands were to be raised in this off-hand sort of way; moreover, he did not see how Captain Gammon’s bill being paid would absolve Jasper from his obligations, and altogether he was very much perplexed, and wished that Cracknel Cauldfield’s appointments had never been found—he would then have jogged on to the end of his tether, and let all ambitious villa-building projects alone. No pigeon pies, no brawn, no bacon, no cooing doves or murmuring rills, could equal the soft music of £ s. d.

It was clear that Jasper had been grievously imposed upon, and it was bad to part with so much money. If it had been hundreds he might perhaps have got over it, but thousands—thousands, were awkward counting. Then to dispute the thing on the ground of its being a gambling transaction, and having the holder coming into court to swear that he was ignorant of the facts and had given full value for the bill, on the strength of Jasper’s most respectable name, would be like throwing cold water on the Bank, already sufficiently damaged by Dibworth’s impudent clerk’s talking about it, as if he was going to stop payment. Indeed he almost feared they might make a run upon it as it was, for there is nothing so ticklish as the fame of a bank. At last he made up his mind to pay and be done with it, but only on the express condition that Jasper eschewed cards, and above all promised him never to have anything to do with the Rag and Famish Club. “Promise me, promise me faithfully, Jasper,” said he, with tears in his eyes, “never to have anything to do with that terrible club! I dread the very name—it must be a shocking, a frightful place—a place where they would very likely cut you up into quarters and drop you quietly over Blackfriars Bridge in the dead of the night, or shoot you through the head and bury you in the back kitchen, as somebody did Mr. Manning or Mr. Manning did somebody, I forget which way it was.”

And Jasper, who had no more taste for losing his cash than his father, and thought he saw his way to great wealth on the turf, readily promised all that was asked.

And so, what with fear of Dibworth and the fame of their most respectable bank—above all, of the Rag and Famish Club—the beloved cash at length retired the worthless piece of paper. So far, however, as the latter influence was concerned, the worthy man might have saved his money, for it turns out on inquiry that Mr. O’Dicey does not belong to the Rag.

And now, having floundered so long in the muddy waters of impurity, let us expand our wings and mount into the lofty regions of high life.