The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies

"Would you give him up?" he hissed suddenly.

Polly's pretty face took a look of terror. "I couldn't, sir! He'd kill me! He's such a jealous brute, you've no idea."

"Yes, but suppose I took you away from here?" he whispered eagerly. "Somewhere where he couldn't find you – South America, Africa, somewhere thousands of miles across the seas."

"Oh, sir, you frighten me!" whispered Polly, cowering before his ardent eyes, which shone in the dimly lit passage.

"Would you come with me?" he hissed. She did not answer; she shook herself free and ran into the kitchen, trembling with a vague fear.

CHAPTER IV

THE CRASH

One morning, earlier than his earliest hour of demanding his shaving-water, Tom rang the bell violently and asked the alarmed Polly what had become of Mr. Roxdal.

"How should I know, sir?" she gasped. "Ain't he been in, sir?"

"Apparently not," Tom answered anxiously. "He never remains out. We have been here three weeks now, and I can't recall a single night he hasn't been home before twelve. I can't make it out." All enquiries proved futile. Mrs. Seacon reminded him of the thick fog that had come on suddenly the night before.

"What fog?" asked Tom.

"Lord! didn't you notice it, sir?"

"No, I came in early, smoked, read, and went to bed about eleven. I never thought of looking out of the window."

"It began about ten," said Mrs. Seacon, "and got thicker and thicker. I couldn't see the lights of the river from my bedroom. The poor gentleman has been and gone and walked into the water." She began to whimper.

"Nonsense, nonsense," said Tom, though his expression belied his words. "At the worst I should think he couldn't find his way home, and couldn't get a cab, so put up for the night at some hotel. I daresay it will be all right." He began to whistle as if in restored cheerfulness. At eight o'clock there came a letter for Roxdal, marked "immediate," but as he did not turn up for breakfast, Tom went round personally to the City and Suburban Bank. He waited half-an-hour there, but the manager did not make his appearance. Then he left the letter with the cashier and went away with anxious countenance.

That afternoon it was all over London that the manager of the City and Suburban had disappeared, and that many thousand pounds of gold and notes had disappeared with him.

Scotland Yard opened the letter marked "immediate," and noted that there had been a delay in its delivery, for the address had been obscure, and an official alteration had been made. It was written in a feminine hand and said: "On second thoughts I cannot accompany you. Do not try to see me again. Forget me. I shall never forget you."

There was no signature.

Clara Newell, distracted, disclaimed all knowledge of this letter. Polly deposed that the fugitive had proposed flight to her, and the routes to Africa and South America were especially watched. Some months passed without result. Tom Peters went about overwhelmed with grief and astonishment. The police took possession of all the missing man's effects. Gradually the hue and cry dwindled, died.

CHAPTER V

FAITH AND UNFAITH

"At last we meet!" cried Tom Peters, while his face lit up in joy. "How are you, dear Miss Newell?" Clara greeted him coldly. Her face had an abiding pallor now. Her lover's flight and shame had prostrated her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. It flashed upon her that this man – Roxdal's boon companion – must know far more than he had told to the police. She remembered how Everard had spoken of him, with what affection and confidence! Was it likely he was utterly ignorant of Everard's movements? Mastering her repugnance, she held out her hand. It might be well to keep in touch with him; he was possibly the clue to the mystery. She noticed he was dressed a shade more trimly, and was smoking a meerschaum. He walked along at her side, making no offer to put his pipe out.

"You have not heard from Everard?" he asked. She flushed. "Do you think I'm an accessory after the fact?" she cried.

"No, no," he said soothingly. "Pardon me, I was thinking he might have written – giving no exact address, of course. Men do sometimes dare to write thus to women. But, of course, he knows you too well – you would have put the police on his track."

"Certainly," she exclaimed indignantly. "Even if he is innocent he must face the charge."

"Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?"

"I do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids drooped with a quiver. "Don't you?"

"I have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for doubt. Oh, this wicked curse of money – tempting the noblest and the best of us."

The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. From the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no reason to put faith in Everard; his criminality, his faithlessness, were too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of Peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened into feelings so warm, that when Tom gave freer vent to the love that had been visible to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him.

It is only in books that love lives for ever. Clara, so her father thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy affection and casting it from her heart. He invited the new lover to his house, and took to him at once. Roxdal's somewhat supercilious manner had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn factor. With Tom the old man got on much better. While evidently quite as well informed and cultured as his whilom friend, Tom knew how to impart his superior knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return. Those who are most conscious of defects of early education are most resentful of other people sharing their consciousness. Moreover, Tom's bonhomie was far more to the old fellow's liking than the studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole Tom made more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter. Nevertheless, Clara was by no means unresponsive to Tom's affection, and when, after one of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke of the happy turn things had taken, and how, for the second time in their lives, things had mended when they seemed at their blackest, her heart swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she fell sobbing into her father's arms.

Tom calculated that he made a clear five hundred a year by occasional journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the marriage. It was fixed for May-day, and the honeymoon was to be spent in Italy.

CHAPTER VI

THE DREAM AND THE AWAKENING

But Clara was not destined to happiness. From the moment she had promised herself to her first love's friend, old memories began to rise up and reproach her. Strange thoughts stirred in the depths of her soul, and in the silent watches of the night she seemed to hear Everard's accents, charged with grief and upbraiding. Her uneasiness increased as her wedding-day drew near. One night, after a pleasant afternoon spent in being rowed by Tom among the upper reaches of the Thames, she retired to rest full of vague forebodings. And she dreamt a terrible dream. The dripping form of Everard stood by her bedside, staring at her with ghastly eyes. Had he been drowned on the passage to his land of exile? Frozen with horror, she put the question.

"I have never left England!" the vision answered.

Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.

"Never left England?" she repeated, in tones which did not seem to be hers.

The wraith's stony eyes stared on, but there was silence.

"Where have you been then?" she asked in her dream.

"Very near you," came the answer.

"There has been foul play then!" she shrieked.

The phantom shook its head in doleful assent.

"I knew it!" she shrieked. "Tom Peters – Tom Peters has done away with you. Is it not he? Speak!"

"Yes, it is he – Tom Peters – whom I loved more than all the world."

Even in the terrible oppression of the dream she could not resist saying, woman-like:

"Did I not warn you against him?"

The phantom stared on silently and made no reply.

"But what was his motive?" she asked at length.

"Love of gold – and you. And you are giving yourself to him," it said sternly.

"No, no, Everard! I will not! I will not! I swear it! Forgive me!"

The spirit shook its head sceptically.

"You love him. Women are false – as false as men."

She strove to protest again, but her tongue refused its office.

"If you marry him, I shall always be with you! Beware!"

The dripping figure vanished as suddenly as it came, and Clara awoke in a cold perspiration. Oh, it was horrible! The man she had learnt to love, the murderer of the man she had learnt to forget! How her original prejudice had been justified! Distracted, shaken to her depths, she would not take counsel even of her father, but informed the police of her suspicions. A raid was made on Tom's rooms, and lo! the stolen notes were discovered in a huge bundle. It was found that he had several banking accounts, with a large, recently deposited amount in each bank. Tom was arrested. Attention was now concentrated on the corpses washed up by the river. It was not long before the body of Roxdal came to shore, the face distorted almost beyond recognition by long immersion, but the clothes patently his, and a pocket-book in the breast-pocket removing the last doubt. Mrs. Seacon and Polly and Clara Newell all identified the body. Both juries returned a verdict of murder against Tom Peters, the recital of Clara's dream producing a unique impression in the court and throughout the country, especially in theological and theosophical circles. The theory of the prosecution was that Roxdal had brought home the money, whether to fly alone or to divide it, or whether, even for some innocent purpose, as Clara believed, was immaterial; that Peters determined to have it all, that he had gone out for a walk with the deceased, and, taking advantage of the fog, had pushed him into the river, and that he was further impelled to the crime by love for Clara Newell, as was evident from his subsequent relations with her. The judge put on the black cap. Tom Peters was duly hung by the neck till he was dead.

CHAPTER VII

BRIEF RÉSUMÉ OF THE CULPRIT'S CONFESSION

When you all read this I shall be dead and laughing at you. I have been hung for my own murder. I am Everard G. Roxdal. I am also Tom Peters. We two were one. When I was a young man my moustache and beard wouldn't come. I bought false ones to improve my appearance. One day, after I had become manager of the City and Suburban Bank, I took off my beard and moustache at home, and then the thought crossed my mind that nobody would know me without them. I was another man. Instantly it flashed upon me that if I ran away from the Bank, that other man could be left in London, while the police were scouring the world for a non-existent fugitive. But this was only the crude germ of the idea. Slowly I matured my plan. The man who was going to be left in London must be known to a circle of acquaintance beforehand. It would be easy enough to masquerade in the evenings in my beardless condition, with other disguises of dress and voice. But this was not brilliant enough. I conceived the idea of living with him. It was Box and Cox reversed. We shared rooms at Mrs. Seacon's. It was a great strain, but it was only for a few weeks. I had trick clothes in my bedroom like those of quick-change artistes; in a moment I could pass from Roxdal to Peters and from Peters to Roxdal. Polly had to clean two pairs of boots a morning, cook two dinners, &c., &c. She and Mrs. Seacon saw one or the other of us every moment; it never dawned upon them they never saw us both together. At meals I would not be interrupted, ate off two plates, and conversed with my friend in loud tones. A slight ventriloquial gift enabled me to hold audible conversations with him when he was supposed to be in the bedroom. At other times we dined at different hours. On Sundays he was supposed to be asleep when I was in church. There is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would have occurred that one man was troubling himself to be two (and to pay for two, including washing). I worked up the idea of Roxdal's flight, asked Polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that arrived on the morning of my disappearance. As Tom Peters I mixed with a journalistic set. I had another room where I kept the gold and notes till I mistakenly thought the thing had blown over. Unfortunately, returning from here on the night of my disappearance, with Roxdal's clothes in a bundle I intended to drop into the river, it was stolen from me in the fog, and the man into whose possession it ultimately came appears to have committed suicide, so that his body dressed in my clothes was taken for mine. What, perhaps, ruined me was my desire to keep Clara's love, and to transfer it to the survivor. Everard told her I was the best of fellows. Once married to her, I would not have had much fear. Even if she had discovered the trick, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and often does not want to. I made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the Star and Garter. I might have told the judge he was an ass, but then I should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than death. The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has committed murder or I suicide. What is certain is that I have cheated the gallows.

Santa Claus

A STORY FOR THE NURSERY

Although Bob was asleep on the doorstep the children in the passage talked so loudly that they woke him up. They did not mean to do it, for they were nice, clean, handsome children. Bob was always pretty dirty, so nobody knew if he was pretty clean. He was not a dog, though you might think so from his name and the way he was treated. Nobody cared for Bob except Tommy whom he could fight one-hand. The lucky nice clean children had jam to lick, but Bob had only Tommy. Poor Tommy!

Bob sat up on his stony doorstep, drawing his rags around him. His toes were freezing. When you have no boots it is awkward to stamp your feet. That is why they are so cold. Bob's idea of heaven was a place with a fire in it. He lived before Free Education and his ideas were mixed.

Bob heard the children inside talking about Santa Claus and the presents they expected. Bob gathered that he was a kind-hearted old gentleman, and he thought to himself: "If I could find out Santa Claus's address, I'd go and arx 'im for some presents too." So he waited outside, shivering, till a pretty little girl and boy came out, when he said to them: "Please, can you tell me where Santa Claus lives?"

The little girl and boy drew back when he spoke to them, because they had strict orders to keep their pinafores clean. But when they heard his strange question, they looked at each other with large eyes. Then their pretty faces filled with smiling sunshine, and they said: "He lives in the sky. He is a spirit."

Bob's face fell. "Oh, then I carn't call upon 'im," he said. "But 'ow is it I never gets no presents like I 'ears yer say you does?"

"Perhaps you are not a good child," said the little girl gravely.

"Yes, look how you've torn your clothes," said the little boy reprovingly.

"Well, but 'ow is you goin' to get presents from the sky?"

"We hang up our stockings to-night, just before Christmas, and in the night Santa Claus fills them," they explained, and just then the maid came out and led them away.

Now Bob understood. He had never had any stockings in his life. He felt mad to think how much else he had missed through the want of a pair. If he could only get a pair of stockings to hang up, he might be a rich boy and dine off bread and treacle. He wandered through the courts and alleys looking for stockings in the gutters and dustbins. They were not there. Old boots were to be found in abundance though not in couples (which was odd); but Bob soon discovered that people never throw away their stockings. At last he plucked up courage and begged from house to house, but nobody had a pair to spare. What becomes of all the old stockings? Not everybody hoards treasure in them. Bob met plenty of kind hearts; they offered him bread when he asked for a stocking.

At last, weary and footsore, he returned to his doorstep and pondered. He wondered if he could cheat Santa Claus by making a pair out of a piece of newspaper he had picked up. But perhaps Mr. Claus was particular about the material and admitted nothing under cotton. He thought of stepping deeply into the mud and caking a pair, but then he could only remove them at night by brushing them off in little pieces; he feared they would stick too tight to come off whole. He also thought of painting his calves with stripes from "wet paint," on the off chance that Mr. Claus would drop the presents carelessly down along his legs. But he concluded that if Mr. Claus lived in the sky he could look down and see all he was doing. So he began to cry instead.

"What are you crying about?" said a quavering voice, and Bob, startled, became aware of a wretched old creature dining on the doorstep at his side.

"I ain't got no stockings," he sobbed in answer.

"Well, I'll give you mine," said his neighbour.

Bob hesitated. The poor old woman looked so brokendown herself, it seemed mean to accept her offer.

"Won't you be cold?" he asked timidly.

"I shan't be warmer," mumbled the old woman. "But then you will."

"No, I won't have them, thank you kindly, mum," said Bob stoutly.

"Then I'll tell you what to do," said the old woman, who was really a fairy, though she had lost both wings – they had been amputated in a surgical operation. "It's easy enough to get stockings if you only know how. Run away now and pick out any person you meet and say, 'I wish that person's stockings were on my feet.' You can only wish once, so be careful, especially, not to wish for a pair of blue stockings, as they won't suit you."

She grinned and vanished. Bob jumped up and was about to wish off the stockings of the first man he met, when a horrible thought struck him. The man had nice clothes and looked rich, but what proof was there he had stockings on? Bob really could not afford to risk wasting his wish. He walked about and looked at all the people – the men with their long trousers, the women with their trailing skirts; and the more he walked, the more grew his doubt and his agony. A terrible scepticism of humanity seized him. They looked very prim and demure without, these men and women, with their varnished boots and their satin gowns, but what if they were all hypocrites, walking about without stockings! Night came on. Half distracted by distrust of his kind, he wandered on to the docks, and there to his joy he saw people coming off a steamer by a narrow plank. As they walked the ladies lifted up their skirts so as not to tumble over them, and he caught several glimpses of dainty stockings. At last he selected a lady with very broad stockings, that looked as if they would hold lots of Mr. Claus's presents, and wished. Instantly he felt very funny about the feet, and the lady wobbled about so in her big boots that she overbalanced herself and fell into the water and was drowned.

Bob ran back to his doorstep, and when it was dark slipped off his stockings carefully and hung them up on the knocker. And – sure enough! – in the morning they were fall of fine cigars and Spanish lace. Bob sold the lace for a penny, but he kept the cigars and smoked the first with his penn'uth of Christmas plum-duff.

Moral: – England expects every man to pay his duty.

A Rose of the Ghetto

One day it occurred to Leibel that he ought to get married. He went to Sugarman the Shadchan forthwith.

"I have the very thing for you," said the great marriage-broker.

"Is she pretty?" asked Leibel.

"Her father has a boot and shoe warehouse," replied Sugarman enthusiastically.

"Then there ought to be a dowry with her," said Leibel eagerly.

"Certainly a dowry! A fine man like you!"

"How much do you think it would be?"

"Of course it is not a large warehouse; but then you could get your boots at trade price, and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the leather."

"When could I see her?"

"I will arrange for you to call next Sabbath afternoon."

"You won't charge me more than a sovereign?"

"Not a groschen more! Such a pious maiden! I'm sure you will be happy. She has so much way-of-the-country [breeding]. And, of course, five per cent on the dowry?"

"H'm! Well, I don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought, with a consolatory sense of outwitting the Shadchan.

On the Saturday Leibel went to see the damsel, and on the Sunday he went to see Sugarman the Shadchan.

"But your maiden squints!" he cried resentfully.

"An excellent thing!" said Sugarman. "A wife who squints can never look her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. Who would quail before a woman with a squint?"

"I could endure the squint," went on Leibel dubiously, "but she also stammers."

"Well, what is better, in the event of a quarrel? The difficulty she has in talking will keep her far more silent than most wives. You had best secure her while you have the chance."

"But she halts on the left leg," cried Leibel, exasperated.

"Gott in Himmel! Do you mean to say you do not see what an advantage it is to have a wife unable to accompany you in all your goings?"

Leibel lost patience.

"Why, the girl is a hunchback!" he protested furiously.

"My dear Leibel," said the marriage-broker, deprecatingly shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his palms. "You can't expect perfection!"

Nevertheless, Leibel persisted in his unreasonable attitude. He accused Sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him.

"A fool of you!" echoed the Shadchan indignantly, "when I give you a chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter. You will make a fool of yourself if you refuse. I daresay her dowry would be enough to set you up as a master-tailor. At present you are compelled to slave away as a cutter for thirty shillings a week. It is most unjust. If you only had a few machines you would be able to employ your own cutters. And they can be got so cheap nowadays."

This gave Leibel pause, and he departed without having definitely broken the negotiations. His whole week was befogged by doubt, his work became uncertain, his chalk-marks lacked their usual decision, and he did not always cut his coat according to his cloth. His aberrations became so marked that pretty Rose Green, the sweater's eldest daughter, who managed a machine in the same room, divined, with all a woman's intuition, that he was in love.

"What is the matter?" she said in rallying Yiddish, when they were taking their lunch of bread and cheese and ginger-beer, amid the clatter of machines, whose serfs had not yet knocked off work.

"They are proposing me a match," he answered sullenly.

"A match!" ejaculated Rose. "Thou!" She had worked by his side for years, and familiarity bred the second person singular. Leibel nodded his head, and put a mouthful of Dutch cheese into it.

"With whom?" asked Rose. Somehow he felt ashamed. He gurgled the answer into the stone ginger-beer bottle, which he put to his thirsty lips.

"With Leah Volcovitch!"