The Fourth Generation. Walter Besant
my boy – pure genius. When you get your speech you will be proud of me. What’s a practice at the Bar compared with a practice at the after-dinner table? And now, Fred, why Barlow?”
“Well, you remember what happened?” His brother nodded, and dropped his eyes. “Absurd fuss they made.”
“Nobody has heard anything about you for five-and-twenty years.”
“I took another name – a fighting name. Barlow, I called myself – Joseph Barlow. Joe – there’s fight in the very name. No sympathy, no weakening about Joe.”
“Yes. For my own part, I took the name of Crediton. Respectability rather than aggressiveness in that name. Confidence was what I wanted.”
“Tell me about the family. Remember that it was in 1874 that I went away – twenty-five years ago.”
His brother gave him briefly an account of the births and deaths. His mother was dead; his elder brother was dead, leaving an only son.
“As for Algernon’s death,” said the speech-merchant, “it was a great blow. He was really going to distinguish himself. And he died – died at thirty-two. His son is in the House. They say he promises well. He’s a scholar, I believe; they say he can speak; and he’s more than a bit of a prig.”
“And about the old man – the ancient one – is he living?”
“Yes. He is nearly ninety-five.”
“Ninety-five. He can’t last much longer. I came home partly to look after things. Because, although the estate goes to Algernon’s son – deuced bad luck for me that Algernon did have a son – there’s the accumulations. I remembered them one evening out there, and the thought went through me like a knife that he was probably dead, and the accumulations divided, and my share gone. So I bundled home as fast as I could.”
“No – so far you are all right. For he’s hearty and strong, and the accumulations are still rolling up, I suppose. What will become of them no one knows.”
“I see. Well, I must make the acquaintance of Algernon’s son.”
“And about this great Firm of yours?”
“Well, it’s a – as I said – a great Firm.”
“Quite so. It must be, with Fred Campaigne at the head of it.”
“Never mind the Firm, but tell me about this astonishing profession of yours.”
The Professor smiled.
“Fortunately,” he said, “I am alone. Were there any competition I might be ruined. But I don’t know: my reputation by this time stands on too firm a basis to be shaken.”
“Your reputation? But people cannot talk about you.”
“They cannot. But they may whisper – whisper to each other. Why, just consider the convenience. Instead of having to rack their brains for compliments and pretty things and not to find them, instead of hunting for anecdotes and quotations, they just send to me. They get in return a speech just as long as they want – from five minutes to an hour – full of good things! In this way they are able to acquire it at a cheap, that is, a reasonable rate, for next to nothing, considering the reputation of wit and epigram and sparkles. Then think of the company at the dinner. Instead of having to listen to a fumbler and a stammerer and a clumsy boggler, they have before them a speaker easy in his mind, because he has learned it all by heart, bright and epigrammatic. He keeps them all alive, and when he sits down there is a sigh to think that his speech was so short.”
“You must give me just such a speech.”
“I will – I will. Fred, you shall start with a name that will make you welcome at every City Company’s dinner. It will help you hugely over your enormous transactions for the Firm. Rely on me. Because, you see, when a man has once delivered himself of a good speech, he is asked to speak again: he must keep it up; so he sends to me again. Look here” – he laid his hands upon a little pile of letters – “here are yesterday’s and to-day’s letters.” He took them up and played with them as with a pack of cards. “This man wants a reply for the Army. This is a return for Literature. This is a reply for the House of Commons. The Ladies, the American Republic, Science, the Colonies – see?”
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