Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best ebook reader txt) 📗

In a former chapter we described, to some extent, the person and belongings of a very poor man with five thousand a year. Let us now make the acquaintance of a very rich one with an income of five hundred.

He has already introduced himself to the reader under the name of Samuel Twitter.

On the night of which we write Mrs Twitter happened to have a "few friends" to tea. And let no one suppose that Mrs Twitter's few friends were to be put off with afternoon tea--that miserable invention of modern times--nor with a sham meal of sweet warm water and thin bread and butter. By no means. We have said that Samuel Twitter was rich, and Mrs Twitter, conscious of her husband's riches, as well as grateful for them, went in for the substantial and luxurious to an amazing extent.

Unlimited pork sausages and inexhaustible buttered toast, balanced with muffins or crumpets, was her idea of "tea." The liquid was a secondary point--in one sense--but it was always strong. It was the only strong liquid in fact allowed in the house, for Mr Twitter, Mrs Twitter, and all the little Twitters were members of the Blue Ribbon Army; more or less enthusiastic according to their light and capacity.

The young Twitters descended in a graduated scale from Sammy, the eldest, (about sixteen), down through Molly, and Willie, and Fred, and Lucy, to Alice the so-called "baby"--though she was at that time a remarkably robust baby of four years.

Mrs Twitter's few friends were aware of her tendencies, and appreciated her hospitality, insomuch that the "few" bade fair to develop by degrees into many.

Well, Mrs Twitter had her few friends to tea, and conviviality was at its height. The subject of conversation was poverty. Mrs Loper, a weak-minded but amiable lady, asserted that a large family with 500 pounds a year was a poor family. Mrs Loper did not know that Mrs Twitter's income was five hundred, but she suspected it. Mrs Twitter herself carefully avoided giving the slightest hint on the subject.

"Of course," continued Mrs Loper, "I don't mean to say that people with five hundred are _very_ poor, you know; indeed it all depends on the family. With six children like you, now, to feed and clothe and educate, and with everything so dear as it is now, I should say that five hundred was poverty."

"Well, I don't quite agree with you, Mrs Loper, on that point. To my mind it does not so much depend on the family, as on the notions, and the capacity to manage, in the head of the family. I remember one family just now, whose head was cut off suddenly, I may say in the prime of life. A hundred and fifty a year or thereabouts was the income the widow had to count on, and she was left with five little ones to rear. She trained them well, gave them good educations, made most of their garments with her own hands when they were little, and sent one of her boys to college, yet was noted for the amount of time she spent in visiting the poor, the sick, and the afflicted, for whom she had always a little to spare out of her limited income. Now, if wealth is to be measured by results, I think we may say that that poor lady was rich. She was deeply mourned by a large circle of poor people when she was taken home to the better land. Her small means, having been judiciously invested by a brother, increased a little towards the close of life, but she never was what the world esteems rich."

Mrs Twitter looked at a very tall man with a dark unhandsome countenance, as if to invite his opinion.

"I quite agree with you," he said, helping himself to a crumpet, "there are some people with small incomes who seem to be always in funds, just as there are other people with large incomes who are always hard-up. The former are really rich, the latter really poor."

Having delivered himself of these sentiments somewhat sententiously, Mr Crackaby,--that was his name,--proceeded to consume the crumpet.

There was a general tendency on the part of the other guests to agree with their hostess, but one black sheep in the flock objected. He quite agreed, of course, with the general principle that liberality with small means was beautiful to behold as well as desirable to possess--the liberality, not the small means--and that, on the other hand, riches with a narrow niggardly spirit was abominable, but then--and the black sheep came, usually, to the strongest part of his argument when he said "but then"--it was an uncommonly difficult thing, when everything was up to famine prices, and gold was depreciated in value owing to the gold-fields, and silver was nowhere, and coppers were changed into bronze,--exceedingly difficult to practise liberality and at the same time to make the two ends meet.

As no one clearly saw the exact bearing of the black sheep's argument, they all replied with that half idiotic simper with which Ignorance seeks to conceal herself, and which Politeness substitutes for the more emphatic "pooh," or the inelegant "bosh." Then, applying themselves with renewed zest to the muffins, they put about ship, nautically speaking, and went off on a new tack.

"Mr Twitter is rather late to-night, I think?" said Mr Crackaby, consulting his watch, which was antique and turnipy in character.

"He is, indeed," replied the hostess, "business must have detained him, for he is the very soul of punctuality. That is one of his many good qualities, and it is _such_ a comfort, for I can always depend on him to the minute,--breakfast, dinner, tea; he never keeps us waiting, as too many men do, except, of course, when he is unavoidably detained by business."

"Ah, yes, business has much to answer for," remarked Mrs Loper, in a tone which suggested that she held business to be an incorrigibly bad fellow; "whatever mischief happens with one's husband it's sure to be business that did it."

"Pardon me, madam," objected the black sheep, whose name, by the way, was Stickler, "business does bring about much of the disaster that often appertains to wedded life, but mischief is sometimes done by other means, such, for instance, as accidents, robberies, murders--"

"Oh! Mr Stickler," suddenly interrupted a stout, smiling lady, named Larrabel, who usually did the audience part of Mrs Twitter's little tea parties, "how _can_ you suggest such ideas, especially when Mr Twitter is unusually late?"

Mr Stickler protested that he had no intention of alarming the company by disagreeable suggestions, that he had spoken of accident, robbery, and murder in the abstract.

"There, you've said it all over again," interrupted Mrs Larrabel, with an unwonted frown.

"But then," continued Stickler, regardless of the interruption, "a broken leg, or a rifled pocket and stunned person, or a cut windpipe, may be applicable to the argument in hand without being applied to Mr Twitter."

"Surely," said Mrs Loper, who deemed the reply unanswerable.

In this edifying strain the conversation flowed on until the evening grew late and the party began to grow alarmed.

"I do hope nothing has happened to him," said Mrs Loper, with a solemnised face.

"I think not. I have seen him come home much later than this--though not often," said the hostess, the only one of the party who seemed quite at ease, and who led the conversation back again into shallower channels.

As the night advanced, however, the alarm became deeper, and it was even suggested by Mrs Loper that Crackaby should proceed to Twitter's office--a distance of three miles--to inquire whether and when he had left; while the smiling Mrs Larrabel proposed to send information to the headquarters of the police in Scotland Yard, because the police knew everything, and could find out anything.

"You have no idea, my dear," she said, "how clever they are at Scotland Yard. Would you believe it, I left my umbrellar the other day in a cab, and I didn't know the number of the cab, for numbers won't remain in my head, nor the look of the cabman, for I never look at cabmen, they are so rude sometimes. I didn't even remember the place where I got into the cab, for I can't remember places when I've to go to so many, so I gave up my umbrellar for lost and was going away, when a policeman stepped up to me and asked in a very civil tone if I had lost anything. He was so polite and pleasant that I told him of my loss, though I knew it would do me no good, as he had not seen the cab or the cabman.

"`I think, madam,' he said, `that if you go down to Scotland Yard to-morrow morning, you may probably find it there.'

"`Young man,' said I, `do you take me for a fool!'

"`No, madam, I don't,' he replied.

"`Or do you take my umbrellar for a fool,' said I, `that it should walk down to Scotland Yard of its own accord and wait there till I called for it?'

"`Certainly not, madam,' he answered with such a pleasant smile that I half forgave him.

"`Nevertheless if you happen to be in the neighbourhood of Scotland Yard to-morrow,' he added, `it might be as well to call in and inquire.'

"`Thank you,' said I, with a stiff bow as I left him. On the way home, however, I thought there might be something in it, so I did go down to Scotland Yard next day, where I was received with as much civility as if I had been a lady of quality, and was taken to a room as full of umbrellas as an egg's full of meat--almost.

"`You'd know the umbrellar if you saw it, madam,' said the polite constable who escorted me.

"`Know it, sir!' said I, `yes, I should think I would. Seven and sixpence it cost me--new, and I've only had it a week--brown silk with a plain handle--why, there it is!' And there it was sure enough, and he gave it to me at once, only requiring me to write my name in a book, which I did with great difficulty because of my gloves, and being so nervous. Now, how did the young policeman that spoke to me the day before know that my umbrellar would go there, and how did it get there? They say the days of miracles are over, but I don't think so, for that was a miracle if ever there was one."

"The days of miracles are indeed over, ma'am," said the black sheep, "but then that is no reason why things which are in themselves commonplace should not appear miraculous to the uninstructed mind. When I inform you that our laws compel cabmen under heavy penalties to convey left umbrellas and parcels to the police-office, the miracle may not seem quite so surprising."

Most people dislike to have their miracles unmasked. Mrs Larrabel turned from the black sheep to her hostess without replying, and repeated her suggestion about making inquiries at Scotland Yard--thus delicately showing that although, possibly, convinced, she was by no means converted.

They were interrupted at this point by a hurried knock at the street door.

"There he is at last," exclaimed every one.

"It is his knock, certainly," said Mrs Twitter, with