The Tale of Timber Town

“And while we’re waiting,” said the Pilot, “I’d be much obliged if you’d show me the book where you keep the record of all the monies I’ve put into your bank.”

The clerk conferred with another clerk, who went off somewhere and returned with a heavy tome, which he placed with a bang on the counter.

The Jew turned over the broad leaves with a great rustling. “This inspection of our books is purely optional with us, Captain, but with an old customer like yourself we waive our prerogative.”

“Very han’some of you, very han’some indeed. How does she stand?”

The clerk ran his fingers down a long column of figures, and said, “There are a number of deposits in Miss Rose’s name. Shall I read the amounts?”

“I’ve got the receipts in my strong-box. All I want is the total.”

“Ten thousand, five hundred pounds,” said the clerk.

“And there’s this here new lot,” said the Pilot.

“Ten thousand, seven hundred and fifty altogether.”

The Pilot drew the heavy account book towards him, and verified the clerk’s statements. Then he made a note of the sum total, and said, “I’ll take that last receipt now, if it’s ready.”

The clerk reached over to a table, where the paper had been placed by a fellow clerk, and handed it to the gruff old sailor.

“Thank you,” said Pilot Summerhayes. “Now I can verify the whole caboodle at my leisure, though I hate figures as the devil hates holy water.” He placed the receipt in his inside pocket and buttoned up his coat. “Good-day,” he said, as he turned to go.

“I wish you good morning, Captain.”

The Pilot glanced back; his face wearing a look of amusement, as though he thought the clerk’s effusiveness was too good to be true. Then he nodded, gave a little chuckle, and walked out through the swinging, glass doors.

The Jew watched the bulky sailor as he moved slowly, like a ship leaving port in heavy weather, with many a lurch and much tacking against an adverse wind. By the expression on the Semitic face you might have thought that Isaac Zahn was beholding some new and interesting object of natural history, instead of a ponderous and grumpy old sailor, who seemed to doubt somewhat the bona fides of the Kangaroo Bank. But the truth was that the young man was dazzled by the personality of one who might command such wealth; it had suddenly dawned on his calculating mind that a large sum of money was standing in the name of Rose Summerhayes; he realised with the clearness of a revelation that there were other fish than Rachel Varnhagen in the sea of matrimony.

The witching hour of lunch was near at hand. Isaac glanced at the clock, the hands of which pointed to five minutes to twelve. As soon as the clock above the Post Office sounded the hour, he left the counter, which was immediately occupied by another clerk, and going to a little room in the rear of the big building, he titivated his person before a small looking-glass that hung on the wall, and then, putting on his immaculate hat, he turned his back upon the cares of business for one hour.

His steps led him not in the direction of his victuals, but towards the warehouse of Joseph Varnhagen. There was no hurry in his gait; he sauntered down the street, his eyes observing everything, and with a look of patronising good humour on his dark face, as though he would say, “Really, you people are most amusing. Your style’s awful, but I put up with it because you know no better.”

He reached the door of Varnhagen’s store in precisely the same frame of mind. The grimy, match-lined walls of the merchant’s untidy office, the litter of odds and ends upon the floor, the antiquated safe which stood in one corner, all aroused his pity and contempt.

The old Jew came waddling from the back of the store, his body ovoid, his bald head perspiring with the exertion he had put himself to in moving a chest of tea.

“Well, my noble, vat you want to-day?” he asked, as he waddled to his office-table, and placed upon it a packet of tea, intended for a sample.

“I just looked round to see how you were bobbing up.”

“Bobbin’ up, vas it? I don’t bob up much better for seein’ you. Good cracious! I vas almost dead, with Packett ill with fever or sometings from that ship outside, and me doin’ all his vork and mine as well. Don’t stand round in my vay, ven you see I’m pizzy!” Young Isaac leisurely took a seat by the safe, lighted a cigarette, and looked on amusedly at the merchant’s flurry.

“You try to do too much,” he said. “You’re too anxious to save wages. What you want is a partner to keep your books, a young man with energy who will look after your interests – and his own. You’re just wearing yourself to skin and bone; soon you’ll go into a decline, and drop off the hooks.”

“Eh? Vat? A decline you call it? Me? Do I look like it?”

The fat little man stood upright, and patted his rotund person.

“It’s the wear and tear of mind that I fear will be fatal to you. You have brain-tire written large over every feature. I think you ought to see a doctor and get a nerve tonic. This fear of dying a pauper is rapidly killing you, and who then will fill your shoes?”

“My poy, there is one thing certain —you won’t. I got too much sense. I know a smart feller when I see him, and you’re altogetter too slow to please me.”

“The really energetic man is the one who works with his brains, and leaves others to work with their hands.”

“Oh! that’s it, eh? Qvite a young Solomon! Vell, I do both.”

“And you lose money in consequence.”

“I losing money?”

“Yes, you. You’re dropping behind fast. Crookenden and Co. are outstripping you in every line.”

“Perhaps you see my books. Perhaps you see theirs.”

“I see their accounts at the bank. I know what their turn-over is; I know yours. You’re not in it.”

“But they lose their cargo – the ship goes down.”

“But they get the insurance, and send forward new orders and make arrangements with us for the consignors to draw on them. Why, they’re running rings round you.”

“Vell, how can I help it? My mail never come – I don’t know vat my beobles are doing. But I send orders, too.”

“For how much?”

“Dat’s my pizz’ness.”

“And this is mine.” The clerk took a sheet of paper from his pocket.

“I don’t want to know your pizz’ness.”

“But you’d like to know C. and Co.’s.”

“Qvite right. But you know it – perhaps you know the Devil’s pizz’ness, too.”

Young Zahn laughed.

“I wish I did,” he said.

“Vell, young mans, you’re getting pretty near it; you’re getting on that vay.”

“That’s why it would be wise to take me into your business.”

“I dare say; but all you vant is to marry my taughter Rachel.”

“I want to marry her, that’s true, but there are plenty of fish in the sea.”

“And there are plenty other pizz’ness besides mine. You haf my answer.”

The bank-clerk got up. “What I propose is for your good as well as mine. I don’t want to ruin you; I want to see you prosper.”

“You ruin me? How do you do that? If I change my bank, how do you affect me?”

“But you would have to pay off your overdraft first.”

“That vill be ven the manager pleases – but as for his puppy clerk, dressed like a voman’s tailor, get out of this!”

The young man stood, smiling, by the door; but old Varnhagen, enacting again the little drama of Luther and the Devil, hurled the big office ink-pot at the scheming Isaac with full force.

The clerk ducked his head and ran, but the missile had struck him under the chin, and his immaculate person was bespattered from shirt-collar to mouse-coloured spats with violet copying-ink. In this deplorable state he was forced to pass through the streets, a spectacle for tittering shop-girls and laughing tradesmen, that he might gain the seclusion of his single room, which lay somewhere in the back premises of the Kangaroo Bank.

CHAPTER XVI

The Wages of Sin

As Pilot Summerhayes turned up the street, after having deposited his money, he might well have passed the goldsmith, hurrying towards the warehouse of Crookenden and Co. to receive the wages of his sin.

In Tresco’s pocket was the intercepted correspondence, upon his face was a look of happiness and self-contentment. He walked boldly into the warehouse where, in a big office, glazed, partitioned, and ramparted with a mighty counter, was a small army of clerks, who, loyal to their master, stood ready to pillage the goldsmith of every halfpenny he possessed.

But, with his blandest smile, Benjamin asked one of these formidable mercenaries whether Mr. Crookenden was within. He was ushered immediately into the presence of that great personage, before whom the conducting clerk was but as a crushed worm; and there, with a self-possession truly remarkable, the goldsmith seated himself in a comfortable chair and beamed cherubically at the merchant, though in his sinful heart he felt much as if he were a cross between a pirate and a forger.

“Ah! you have brought my papers?” said the merchant.

“I’ve brought my papers,” said the goldsmith, still smiling.

Crookenden chuckled. “Yes, yes,” he said, “quite right, quite right. They are yours till you are paid for them. Let me see: I gave you £50 in advance – there’s another £50 to follow, and then we are quits.”

“Another hundred-and-fifty,” said Tresco.

“Eh? What? How’s that? We said a hundred, all told.”

“Two hundred,” said Tresco.

“No, no, sir. I tell you it was a hundred.”

“All right,” said Tresco, “I shall retain possession of the letters, which I can post by the next mail or return to Mr. Varnhagen, just as I think fit.”

The merchant rose in his chair, and glared at the goldsmith.

“What!” cried Tresco. “You’ll turn dog? Complete your part of the bargain. Do you think I’ve put my head into a noose on your account for nothing? D’you think I went out last night because I loved you? No, sir, I want my money. I happen to need money. I’ve half a mind to make it two-hundred-and-fifty; and I would, if I hadn’t that honour which is said to exist among thieves. We’ll say one-hundred-and-fifty, and cry quits.”

“Do you think you have me in your hands?”

“I don’t think,” replied the cunning goldsmith. “I know I’ve got you. But I’ll be magnanimous – I’ll take £150. No, £160 – I must pay the boatmen – and then I’ll say no more about the affair. It shall be buried in the oblivion of my breast, it shall be forgotten with the sins of my youth. I must ask you to be quick.”

“Quick?”

“Yes, as quick as you conveniently can.”

“Would you order me about, sir?”

“Not exactly that, but I would urge you on a little faster. I would persuade you with the inevitable spur of fate.”

The merchant put his hand on a bell which stood upon his table.

“That would be of no use,” said Benjamin. “If you call fifty clerks and forcibly rob me of my correspondence, you gain nothing. Listen! Every clerk in this building would turn against you the moment he knew your true character; and before morning, every man, woman and child in Timber Town would know. And where would you be then? In gaol. D’you hear? – in gaol. Take up your pen. An insignificant difference of a paltry hundred pounds will solve the difficulty and give you all the comfort of a quiet mind.”

“But what guarantee have I that after you have been paid you won’t continue to blackmail me?”

“You cannot possibly have such a guarantee – it wouldn’t be good for you. This business is going to chasten your soul, and make you mend your ways. It comes as a blessing in disguise. But so long as you don’t refer to the matter, after you have paid me what you owe me, I shall bury the hatchet. I simply give you my word for that. If you don’t care to take it, leave it: it makes no difference to me.”

The fat little merchant fiddled nervously with the writing materials in front of him, and his hesitation seemed to have a most irritating effect upon the goldsmith, who rose from his chair, took his watch from his pocket, and walked to and fro.

“It’s too much, too much,” petulantly reiterated Mr. Crookenden. “It’s not worth it, not the half of it.”

“That’s not my affair,” retorted Tresco. “The bargain was for £200. I want the balance due.”

“But how do I know you have the letters?” whined the merchant.

“Tut, tut! I’m surprised to hear such foolishness from an educated man. What you want will be forthcoming when you’ve drawn the cheque – take my word for that. But I’m tired of pottering round here.” The goldsmith glanced at his watch. “I give you two minutes in which to decide. If you can’t make up your mind, well, that’s your funeral. At the end of that time I double the price of the letters, and if you want them at the new figure then you can come and ask for them.”

He held his watch in his hand, and marked the fleeting moments.

The merchant sat, staring stonily at the table in front of him.

The brief moments soon passed; Tresco shut his watch with a click, and returned it to his pocket.

“Now,” he said, taking up his hat, “I’ll wish you good morning.”

He was half-way to the door, when Crookenden cried, “Stop!” and reached for a pen, which he dipped in the ink.

“He, he!” he sniggered, “it’s all right, Tresco – I only wanted to test you. You shall have the money. I can see you’re a staunch man such as I can depend on.”

He rose suddenly, and went to the big safe which stood against the wall, and from it he took a cash-box, which he placed on the table.

“Upon consideration,” he said, “I have decided to pay you in cash – it’s far safer for both parties.”

He counted out a number of bank notes, which he handed to the goldsmith.

Tresco put down his hat, put on his spectacles, and counted the money. “Ten tens are a hundred, ten fives are fifty, ten ones are ten,” he said. “Perfectly correct.” He put his hand into the inner pocket of his coat, and drew out a packet, which was tied roughly with a piece of coarse string. “And here are the letters,” he added, as he placed them on the table. Then he put the money into his pocket.

Crookenden opened the packet, and glanced at the letters.

Tresco had picked up his hat.

“I am satisfied,” said the merchant. “Evidently you are a man of resource. But don’t forget that in this matter we are dependent upon each other. I rely thoroughly on you, Tresco, thoroughly. Let us forget the little piece of play-acting of a few minutes ago. Let us be friends, I might say comrades.”

“Certainly, sir. I do so with pleasure.”

“But for the future,” continued Crookenden, “we had better not appear too friendly in public, not for six months or so.”

“Certainly not, not too friendly in public,” Benjamin smiled his blandest, “not for at least six months. But any communication sent me by post will be sure to find me, unless it is intercepted by some unscrupulous person. For six months, Mr. Crookenden, I bid you adieu.”

The merchant sniggered again, and Benjamin walked out of the room.

Then Crookenden rang his bell. To the clerk who answered it, he said:

“You saw that man go out of my office, Mr. Smithers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If ever he comes again to see me, tell him I’m engaged, or not in. I won’t see him – he’s a bad stamp of man, a most ungrateful man, a man I should be sorry to have any dealings with, a man who is likely to get into serious trouble before he is done, a man whom I advise all my young men to steer clear of, one of the most unsatisfactory men it has been my misfortune to meet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s all, Mr. Smithers,” said the head of the firm. “I like my young men to be kept from questionable associates; I like them to have the benefit of my experience. I shall do my best to preserve them from the evil influence of such persons as the man I have referred to. That will do. You may go, Mr. Smithers.”

Meanwhile, Benjamin Tresco was striding down the street in the direction of his shop; his speed accelerated by a wicked feeling of triumph, and his face beaming with an acute appreciation of the ridiculous scene in which he had played so prominent a part.

“Hi-yi!” he exclaimed exultingly, as he burst into the little room at the back of his shop, where the Prospector was waiting for him, “the man with whips of money would outwit Benjamin, and the man with the money-bags was forced to shell out. Bill, my most esteemed pal, the rich man would rob the poor, but that poor man was Benjamin, your redoubtable friend Benjamin Tresco, and the man who was dripping with gold got, metaphorically speaking, biffed on the boko. Observe, my esteemed and trusty pal, observe the proceeds of my cunning.”

He threw the whole of his money on the table.

“Help yourself,” he cried. “Take as much as you please: all I ask is the sum of ten pounds to settle a little account which will be very pressing this evening at eight o’clock, when a gentleman named Rock Cod and his estimable mate, Macaroni Joe, are dead sure to roll up, expectant.”

The digger, who, in spite of his return to the regions of civilisation, retained his wildly hirsute appearance, slowly counted the notes.

“I make it a hundred-and-sixty,” he said.

“That’s right,” said Tresco: “there’s sixty-seven for you, and the balance for me.”

Bill took out the two IOUs, and placed them on the table. They totalled £117, of which Benjamin had paid £50.

“I guess,” said the Prospector, “that sixty-seven’ll square it.” He carefully counted out that sum, and put it in his pocket.

Benjamin counted the balance, and made a mental calculation. “Ninety-three pounds,” he said, “and ten of that goes to my respectable friends, Rock Cod and Macaroni. That leaves me the enormous sum of eighty-three pounds. After tearing round the town for three solid days, raising the wind for all I’m worth and almost breaking my credit, this is all I possess. That’s what comes of going out to spend a quiet evening in the company of Fortunatus Bill; that’s what comes of backing my luck against ruffians with loaded dice and lumps on their necks.”

“Have you seen them devils since?” asked the Prospector.

“I’ve been far too busy scrapin’ together this bit of cash to take notice of folks,” said Benjamin, as he tore up the IOUs and threw them into the fireplace. “It’s no good crying over spilt milk or money lost at play. The thing is for you to go back to the bush, and make good your promise.”

“I’m going to-morrow mornin’. I’ve got the missus’s money, which I’ll send by draft, and then I’ll go and square up my bill at the hotel.”

“And then,” said Benjamin, “fetch your swag, and bunk here to-night. It’ll be a most convenient plan.”

“We’re mates,” said the Prospector. “You’ve stood by me and done the ’an’some, an’ I’ll stand by you and return the compliment. An’ it’s my hope we’ll both be rich men before many weeks are out.”

“That’s so,” said Benjamin. “Your hand on it.”

The digger held out his horny, begrimed paw, which the goldsmith grasped with a solemnity befitting the occasion.

“You’ll need a miner’s right,” said the digger.

“I’ve got one,” said Tresco. “Number 76032, all in order, entitling me to the richest claim in this country.”

“I’ll see, mate, that it’s as rich as my own, and that’s saying a wonderful deal.”

“Damme, I’ll come with you straight away!”

“Right, mate; come along.”

“We’ll start before dawn.”

“Before dawn.”

“I’ll shut the shop, and prospect along with you.”

“That’s the way of it. You an’ me’ll be mates right through; and we’ll paint this town red for a week when we’ve made our pile.”

“Jake! Drat that boy; where is he? Jake, come here.”

The shock-headed youth came running from the back yard, where he was chopping wood.

“Me and this gentleman,” said his master, “are going for a little excursion. We start to-morrow morning. See? I was thinking of closing the shop, but I’ve decided to leave you in charge till I return.”

The lad stood with his hands in his pockets, and blew a long, shrill whistle. “Of all the tight corners I was ever in,” he said, “this takes the cake. I’ll want a rise in wages – look at the responsibility, boss.”

The goldsmith laughed. “All right,” he said. “You shall have ten shillings a week extra while I’m away; and if we have luck, Jake, I’ll make it a pound.”

“Right-oh! I’ll take all the responsibility that comes along. I’ll get fat on it. And when you come back, you’ll find the business doubled, and the reputation of B. Tresco increased. It’ll probably end in you taking me in as partner – but I don’t care: it’s all the same to me.”

The goldsmith made an attempt to box the boy’s ear, but Jake dodged his blow.

“That’s your game, is it?” exclaimed the young rogue. “Bash me about, will you? All right – I’ll set up in opposition!”

He didn’t wait for the result of this remark, but with a sudden dart he passed like a streak of lightning through the doorway, and fled into the street.

CHAPTER XVII

Rachel’s Wiles

Rachel Varnhagen walked down the main street of Timber Town, with the same bustling gait, the same radiant face, the same air of possessing the whole earth, as when the reader first met her. As she passed the Kangaroo Bank she paused, and peered through the glass doors; but, receiving no responsive glance from the immaculately attired Isaac, who stood at the counter counting out his money, she continued her way towards her father’s place of business, where she found the rotund merchant in a most unusual state of excitement.

“Now, vat you come bothering me this morning, Rachel? Can’t you see I’m pizzy?”

“I want a cheque, father.”

“You get no cheque from me this morning, my child. I’ve got poor all of a sudden. I’ve got no cheques for nopody.”

“But I have to get things for the house. We want a new gourmet boiler – you know you won’t touch currie made in a frying-pan – a steamer for potatoes, and half-a-dozen table-knives.”

“Don’t we haff no credit? What goot is my name, if you can’t get stew-pans without money? Here I am, with no invoices, my orders ignored as if I was a pauper, and my whole piz’ness at a standstill. Not one single letter do I get, not one. I want a hundred thousand things. I send my orders months and months ago, and I get no reply. My trade is all going to that tam feller, Crookenden! And you come, and ask me for money. Vhen I go along to the Post Master, he kvestion me like a criminal, and pring the Police Sergeant as if I vas a thief. I tell him I nefer rob mail-bags. I tell him if other peoples lose letters, I lose them too. I know nothing aboudt it. I tell him the rascal man is Crookenden and Co. – he should take him to prison: he contracts for mails and nefer delivers my letters. I tell him Crookenden and Co. is the criminal, not me. Then he laff, but that does not gif me my letters.”

During this harangue, Rachel had stood, the mute but pretty picture of astonishment.

“But, father,” she said, “I want to go to the bank. I want to speak to Isaac awfully, and how can I go in there without some excuse!”

“I’ll gif you the exguse to keep out! I tell you somethings which will make you leave that young man alone. He nefer loaf you, Rachel – he loaf only my money.”

“Father! this worry about the mail has turned you silly.”

“Oh, yes, I’m silly when I throw the ink-pot at him. I’ve gone mad when I kick him out of my shop. You speak to that young man nefer again, Rachel, my tear; you nefer look at him. Then, by-and-by, I marry you to the mos’ peautiful young man with the mos’ loafly moustache and whiskers. You leaf it to your poor old father. He’ll choose you a good husband. When I was a young man I consult with my father, and I marry your scharming mamma, and you, my tear Rachel, are the peautiful result. Eh? my tear.”

The old man took his daughter’s face between his fat hands, and kissed her on both cheeks.

“You silly old goose,” said Rachel, tenderly, “you seem to think I have no sense. I’m not going to marry Isaac yet– there can’t be any harm in speaking to him. I’m only engaged. Why should you be frightened if I flirt a little with him? You seem to think a girl should be made of cast-iron, and just wait till her father finds a husband for her. You’re buried up to your eyes in invoices and bills of lading and stupid, worrying things that drive you cranky, and you never give a thought to my future. What’s to become of me, if I don’t look out for myself? Goodness knows! there are few enough men in the town that I could marry; and because I pick out one for myself, you storm and rage as if I was thinking of marrying a convict.”