Tony Butler. Lever Charles James
imposing-looking man, who, seated indolently in a deep armchair, was busily engaged in reading the “Times.” A glance over the top of the paper was sufficient to assure this great official that it was not necessary to interrupt his perusal of the news on the stranger’s account, and so he read on undisturbed.
“I have a letter here for Sir Harry Elphinstone,” began Tony; “can I deliver it to him?”
“You can leave it in that rack yonder,” said the other, pointing to a glass-case attached to the wall.
“But I wish to give it myself, – with my own hand.”
“Sir Harry comes down to the office at five, and, if your name is down for an audience, will see you after six.”
“And if it is not down?”
“He won’t see you; that ‘s all.” There was an impatience about the last words that implied he had lost his place in the newspaper, and wished to be rid of his interrogator.
“And if I leave my letter here, when shall I call for the answer?” asked Tony, diffidently.
“Any time from this to this day six weeks,” said the other, with a wave of the hand to imply the audience was ended.
“What if I were to try his private residence?” said Tony.
“Eighty-one, Park Lane,” said the other, aloud, while he mumbled over to himself the last line he had read, to recall his thoughts to the passage.
“You advise me then to go there?”
“Always cutting down, always slicing off something!” muttered the other, with his eyes on the paper. “‘For the port-collector of Hallihololulo, three hundred and twenty pounds. Mr. Scrudge moved as amendment that the vote be reduced by the sum of seventy-four pounds eighteen and sevenpence, being the amount of the collector’s salary for the period of his absence from his post during the prevalence of the yellow fever on the coast. The honorable member knew a gentleman, whose name he was unwilling to mention publicly, but would have much pleasure in communicating confidentially to any honorable gentleman on either side of the House, who had passed several days at Haccamana, and never was attacked by any form of yellow fever.’ That was a home-thrust, eh?” cried the reader, addressing Tony. “Not such an easy thing to answer old Scrudge there?”
“I’m a poor opinion on such matters,” said Tony, with humility; “but pray tell me, if I were to call at Park Lane – ”
The remainder of his question was interrupted by the sudden start to his legs of the austere porter, as an effeminate-looking young man with his hat set on one side, and a glass to his eye, swung wide the door, and walked up to the letter-rack.
“Only these, Willis?” said he, taking some half-dozen letters of various sizes.
“And this, sir,” said the porter, handing him Tony’s letter; “but the young man thinks he ‘d like to have it back;” while he added, in a low but very significant tone, “he’s going to Park Lane with it himself.”
The young gentleman turned round at this, and took a Tery leisurely survey of the man who contemplated a step of such rare audacity.
“He ‘s from Ireland, Mr. Darner,” whispered the porter, with a half-kindly impulse to make an apology for such ignorance.
Mr. Darner smiled faintly, and gave a little nod, as though to say that the explanation was sufficient; and again turned towards Tony.
“I take it that you know Sir Harry Elphinstone?” asked he.
“I never saw him; but he knew my father very well, and he ‘ll remember my name.”
“Knew your father? And in what capacity, may I ask?”
“In what capacity?” repeated Tony, almost fiercely.
“Yes; I mean, as what – on what relations did they stand to each other?”
“As schoolfellows at Westminster, where he fagged to my father; in the Grenadier Guards afterwards, where they served together; and, last of all, as correspondents, which they were for many years.”
“Ah, yes,” sighed the other, as though he had read the whole story, and a very painful story too, of change of fortune and ruined condition. “But still,” continued he, “I ‘d scarcely advise your going to Park Lane. He don’t like it. None of them like it!”
“Don’t they?” said Tony, not even vaguely guessing at whose prejudices he was hinting, but feeling bound to say something.
“No, they don’t,” rejoined Mr. Darner, in a half-confidential way. “There is such a deal of it, – fellows who were in the same ‘eleven’ at Oxford, or widows of tutors, or parties who wrote books, – I think they are the worst, but all are bores, immense bores! You want to get something, don’t you?”
Tony smiled, as much at the oddity of the question as in acquiescence.
“I ask,” said the other, “because you’ll have to come to me: I ‘m private secretary, and I give away nearly all the office patronage. Come upstairs;” and with this he led the way up a very dirty staircase to a still dirtier corridor, off which a variety of offices opened, the open doors of which displayed the officials in all forms and attitudes of idleness, – some asleep, some reading newspapers, some at luncheon, and two were sparring with boxing-gloves.
“Sir Harry writes the whole night through,” said Mr. Damer; “that’s the reason these fellows have their own time of it now;” and with this bit of apology he ushered Tony into a small but comfortably furnished room, with a great coal-fire in the grate, though the day was a sultry one in autumn.
Mr. Skeffington Darner’s first care was to present himself before a looking-glass, and arrange his hair, his whiskers, and his cravat; having done which, he told Tony to be seated, and threw himself into a most comfortably padded arm-chair, with a writing-desk appended to one side of it.
“I may as well open your letter. It’s not marked private, eh?”
“Not marked private,” said Tony, “but its contents are strictly confidential.”
“But it will be in the waste-paper basket to-morrow morning for all that,” said Darner, with a pitying compassion for the other’s innocence. “What is it you are looking for, – what sort of thing?”
“I scarcely know, because I ‘m fit for so little; they tell me the colonies, Australia or New Zealand, are the places for fellows like me.”
“Don’t believe a word of it,” cried Darner, energetically. “A man with any ‘go’ in him can do fifty thousand times better at home. You go some thousand miles away – for what? to crush quartz, or hammer limestone, or pump water, or carry mud in baskets, at a dollar, two dollars, five dollars, if you like, a day, in a country where Dillon, one of our fellows that’s under-secretary there, writes me word he paid thirty shillings for a pot of Yarmouth bloaters. It’s a rank humbug all that about the colonies, – take my word for it!”
“But what is there to be done at home, at least by one like me?”
“Scores of things. Go on to the Exchange, – go in for a rise, go in for a fall. Take Peruvian Twelves – they ‘re splendid – or Montezuman mining script. I did a little in Guatemalas last week, and I expect a capital return by next settling-day. If you think all this too gambling, get named director of a company. There’s the patent phosphorus blacking, will give fifty pounds for a respectable chairman; or write a novel, – that’s the easiest thing in life, and pays wonderfully, – Herd and Dashen give a thousand down, and double the money for each edition; and it’s a fellow’s own fault if it ain’t a success. Then there’s patent medicine and scene-painting, – any one can paint a scene, all done with a great brush – this fashion; and you get up to fifteen, ay, twenty pounds a week. By the way, are you active?”
“Tolerably so. Why do you ask?” said Tony, smiling at the impetuous incoherence of the other’s talk.
“Just hold up this newspaper – so – not so high – there. Don’t