The Lower Life

Prologue

. I. SATURDAY evening at the Barbaric Club — the evening when five score or so of the best-known Bohemians in London sit down to their dinner at six, and, fleeting the time carelessly with jest and song, have scarcely risen from their places at the stroke of midnight. Baldwin Blake, the convivial baritone from the Savoy, was in the chair. On his right hand, in the place of honour, sat his guest, Mr. Benjamin Cohen, known to the wide world as "Benjy" Cohen, the self-made man whose sudden fame had sprung up like a mushroom in the City of London, who touched no enterprise that he did not profit from, and whose marvellous Asbestos Companies were the financial topic of the hour. A full-faced, black-whiskered, rubicund, and B jovial man, this Benjy Cohen. A man who, when his hard day's work was done, delighted to unbend.

He did not aspire to be a man of fashion, for he knew his limitations ; but he wished to buy his way into Bohemian society. So he had caused Baldwin Blake to be allotted shares in one of his Asbestos Companies, and had told him when to sell them at a profit ; and this invitation to join the Barbarians at dinner was Baldwin Blake's thank-offering for the favour. Some of the Barbarians might despise him as a vulgar person and a money-grubber ; but most of them were ambitious of his acquaintance. At the worst he was a curiosity ; at the best he was a possible patron of the arts. One young man in particular desired to know him. His name was Arnold Brabant, and he was a barrister with whom briefs were not as yet abundant. " If there's a chance later, you might introduce me to Mr. Cohen," he whispered to the singer, as the throng drifted along the passage from the bar towards the dining-room.

"Why, certainly, dear boy, with pleasure," was the reply ; and Arnold humbly took his appointed seat at one of the lower tables. He was a young man whom a woman would have considered handsome ; serious, with clear-cut features, firm mouth, dark hair, and keen and eager eyes ; a Bohemian by accident rather than by nature ; a young man whom his friends held to be clever, though there was little proof of it as yet. Some day and somehow, it was generally agreed, Arnold Brabant would come to the front and stay there ; and the look upon his face was the look of a man who was impatient of delays, and wanted to come to the front in a hurry. Talkative enough as a rule, to-night he ate his dinner and drank his coffee and liqueur and whisky-and-soda afterwards in thoughtful silence, his eyes wandering from time to time towards the head of the high table, as though he believed that the secret of early success in life was to be found there.

Meanwhile the evening progressed, and the usual programme followed the removal of the cloth. " Brother Barbarians," said Baldwin Blake, bang ing the table with the huge and heavy club which served him for a chairman's hammer, " I call upon brother Bannister for our very old favourite, the song of the Polka that became a Choir-boy." That popular song was duly rendered and rewarded with applause. There followed other songs, and solos on the piano, the flute, the 'cello, the mandolin, all by professional musicians ; humorous recitations by professional comedians ; stump oratory by a professional showman ; humorous anecdotes by a professional entertainer ; lightning sketches by a professional caricaturist. A professional conjurer also performed some startling card-tricks, and created much amusement by losing the ace of diamonds, and discovering it in the vicinity of Benjy Cohen's shirt-cuff.

"I thought I should find it there," he said. " These eminent financiers always keep the best cards up their sleeves." And the eminent financier was not in the least offended. Warmed by the constant relays of generous beverages, and enlivened by the unaccus tomed company, he waxed enthusiastic. "Capital, capital!" he cried. "The Barbaric does the thing in style, gentlemen. If only there were petticoats in it, it would be a better show than they give you at the Empire." At any rate, it was a longer show than they give you at the Empire. Accompanied by the smoke of tobacco and the steam of grog, it lasted, with hardly a break, from half-past seven till half-past eleven o'clock. Some of the men— principally actors— had to leave early; but their places were filled by others who began dropping in at ten, so that the great dining-hall was always packed.

Not until midnight did the rooms begin to empty. Then there was a movement of members who lived in the suburbs, and had last trains to catch ; of members who had bound themselves by pledges to their wives ; of members who wished to avoid a head-ache in the morning. But there still remained more than a sprinkling, and when Benjy Cohen was pressed to stay, he showed no symptom of reluctance. "Stay?" he jovially repeated. "I'll stay with you all night long, if you like. In the morning, business ; in the evening, fun without vulgarity : that's my motto." So, while the buzz of Bohemian conversation grew fainter and less animated in the supper-room and in the bar, Baldwin Blake mustered a few stragglers, and brought them together in a corner of the dining-room, not forgetting the promise which he had made to Arnold Brabant.

"Waiter," he called, "bring cigars and large brandies-and-sodas. Brabant, you must join us. Alexis Broome, Pyne, and Walter Temple, you must join us too ; " and he had quickly collected a company of determined night-birds to listen to the great financier while he unbent. There were some ten or a dozen of them — actors, painters, black-and-white draughtsmen, journalists, musicians, men of letters. They pushed a table back, and wheeled their armchairs round, and made a ring like the semicircle of the Moore and Burgess minstrels, with Benjy Cohen seated in the place which custom has assigned to " Mr. Johnson." It was the seat of honour, and therefore the proper seat for him. He was the one rich man in the room — living in Onslow Square, while the wealthiest of the others could only afford a house in Bedford Park — and it was inevitable that he should be known for a rich man wherever he was met.

It was not merely the weight of his watch-chain, the glitter of his diamond studs, the gloss of his silk hat, and the fur lining of his overcoat, that pro claimed the fact aloud. Beyond all this, he had the indefinable air of the man who, provided that sufficient cause were shown, would be ready to sit down ostentatiously at any moment, and draw whatever cheque might be required. He had also the air of a man who is accustomed to dominate any assembly in which he finds himself — to domi nate genially, if possible, but to dominate in any case. That night he dominated genially. He was at the very centre and head-quarters of Bohemia — the Bohemia that asserts itself bravely, and does not pretend to be anything more than what it is. Above his head, decorating the wall, were displayed a weird collection of Afghan knives, and Indian tomahawks, and spears and bows and arrows and masks from the South Sea Islands trophies which Bohemian explorers and war-corre spondents had brought home from foreign lands.

From the adjacent bar came the voices of in toxicated revellers, monotonously droning the words of a senseless comic song — " The fly is on the turmut, And it's all my eye For I To try To knock fly off the turmut." The men to whom he talked were, with only two or three exceptions, men without a bank account. And, in the midst of these surroundings, the eminent financier discoursed, in his friendliest manner and his loudest voice, of money — of the importance of possessing it, and of the ridiculous ease with which it was to be procured. How the subject came to be started, is uncertain. Perhaps Arnold Brabant knew. At any rate, the sound conversational rule of getting every man to talk upon his hobby had prevailed, and before half an hour had passed, funny stories had died out, and the poor men were listening, in meek amazement, to a long series of rhetorical questions which the rich man was putting to them.

" Why don't you young men make money ? " he was exclaiming. " That's what I should like to know. Is it because you look down upon money, or is it because you don't know how money's made ? " Some of the men answered frivolously, for there had been comparatively little soda with the brandy. Others — and Arnold Brabant was one of these — kept silence, on the off-chance that by listening they might hear of something to their advantage. Benjy Cohen pursued his theme. "If you look down on money, you're a pack of fools ; and if you want to know the reason why, I'll tell you. But first of all, I'll ask you this : Why isn't literature properly respected in this country ? Why aren't the arts properly looked up to in this country ? " In vain he paused for a reply. He had so imposed himself upon the company that no one intervened to say a good word for either art or letters.

They were all too curious to hear what the rich man had to say against them, and their curiosity was very quickly gratified. The indictment was of a damning and comprehensive character. " Of course you all know the reason just as well as I do. It's because the artist and the man of letters don't very often make a thousand a year. That's the one damning fact about them that the British public can't get over. It sees writers and painters travelling in third-class railway carriages, and going about in omnibuses instead of cabs. It observes that they don't give many dinner-parties, and can't make satisfactory marriage settlements. It picks up the papers, and reads that they get grants from a charitable fund to pay their doctors' bills, and send them away to the seaside for change of air. Consequently, as I tell you, the British public has a considerable contempt for literature and art."

It was not in the best taste ; good taste is hardly to be expected from a self-made man who has been drinking ; but the speaker's intentions were obviously good. Moreover, this was the sort of man whom the freak might take at any time to build a picture gallery, or run a theatre, or found a newspaper. Then he would be useful to impecunious Bohemians. Therefore, though some of the shafts went home, the young men gave him their attention with tolerant good-humour as he proceeded to enlarge upon what seemed to him to be the great reproach of letters. "That isn't how things ought to be, gentlemen, is it ? That reproach ought to be removed, gentlemen, oughtn't it ? You ought to remove it. You ought to be raking in your thousands a year instead of your hundreds. And why not ? Why shouldn't you make money just as well as an old buffer like me, who's hardly been to school in his life ?

Can any one of you tell me a satisfactory reason why you shouldn't ? " "Waiter, bring more large brandies-and-sodas,"was Baldwin Blake's answer to his question ; and, with half a dozen inquiring pairs of eyes fixed upon him, Benjy Cohen halted in the midst of his interrogatives to drink. He had reached the stage at which the effect of brandies-and-sodas increases in geometrical rather than in arithmetical progression. When he resumed, his speech was thicker and his sentences were shorter than before. He had a tendency to leave out the verbs. " Never was such a time for making money in the City. As easy as shelling peas. As easy as picking up sovereigns out of the gutter." An old man spoke — the one old man who was included in the group of roysterers — the white bearded patriarch of the club, an impoverished survival of an earlier Bohemian age, who had a reputation for making pertinent remarks.

He had slept serenely through the greater part of the conversation, but its concluding words aroused him to retort. " Mr. Benjamin Cohen," he said, slowly, gravely, and with a dignity which brandy-and-soda was powerless to abate, " any d d fool can pick up sovereigns out of the gutter. What we are all looking for is a nice kind gentleman to go round with us, and show us which is the gutter with the sovereigns in it." There was silence, for the patriarch had voiced the general sentiment, and to the young and more sanguine there seemed a chance that a " tip " for the Asbestos Market might be elicited. None came, however. Benjy Cohen only winked, and leered, and laughed aloud, and slapped his thigh, and said — "To show you the gutter with the sovereigns in it ! Ha, ha ! That's good. You want a nice kind gentleman to show you which is the gutter with the sovereigns in it !

You ask Baldwin Blake. He's the man who knows. You know which is the gutter with the sovereigns in it, don't you, Baldwin Blake?" Baldwin Blake chuckled the self-satisfied chuckle which becomes the man who has pocketed a large sum of money without having been obliged to work for it. But there were no tips for any of the Barbarians to take advantage of that night. Benjy Cohen was no longer in a state in which his tips, though he had scattered them broadcast, would have inspired much confidence. He accepted a final brandy-and-soda, and then, at a quarter past three in the morning, his host helped him into a cab, and gave the driver the direction of Onslow Square. "An amusing old bounder!" That was the general verdict. The evening's incident would be a good story to remember and to tell — and nothing more.

Not an incident to take seriously in any way. But Arnold Brabant's keen eyes were keener than ever as he lit his cigar on Adelphi Terrace, and strolled slowly up the Strand in the moonlight towards his chambers in the Temple, soliloquizing as he went. " I wonder," he was saying to himself, " I wonder whether it is worth while to appeal from Benjy drunk to Benjy sober. I must sit up for another hour or two, and think about it." II. His chambers were on the fourth floor in Middle Temple Lane ; they were dingy chambers, economi cally furnished, with a low ceiling and an uneven floor that undulated like the waters of a troubled ocean. There were neither curtains nor blinds ; and the carpet was a cheap brown felting, with two or three cheap mats strewn upon it. The few pictures on the drab panelled walls were photo graphs of College groups — the Exeter Eight, the Exeter Torpid, the Exeter undergraduates massed on the steps outside the dining-halL The only in dications of extravagance were books — ugly, yellow bound law-books in one case, and in another fiction, poetry, belles lettres.

A girl's portrait, framed in red morocco leather, stood in the centre of the mantelpiece between a broken spill-case and a cracked tobacco-jar. Lighting his lamp, and drawing some soda-water from a syphon, Arnold Brabant sat down in a leather-seated armchair with broken springs, and passed the situation in review. First of all, he con sidered his own prospects. They were not such bad prospects for a man with modest needs. With one foot in the Old Bailey and the other in Bohemia, he earned about two hundred pounds a year — quite enough for a bachelor of simple tastes to live upon while he waited for the chance of making more. And the chance would come. Every one told him so ; and he flattered himself that he was not the sort of man who was likely to muff his chance when it arrived. Only, at the bar men's chances so often did not come till they were middle-aged.

"Too poor till too late" was the reason why so many illustrious Queen's Counsel had never married, but lived miser ably in chambers, swilling port and telling each other improper stories. Arnold Brabant thought of this, and was miserable. Then he looked at the picture on the mantelpiece, and was stirred to indignation. " Poor Helen ! It's a cruel shame that we should have to live in hope, and wait like this ! " It had never seemed so cruel as it did that night, with the rich man's eloquence still ringing in his ears. " Never was such a time for making money in the City ! As easy as shelling peas ! As easy as picking up sovereigns out of the gutter ! " The irony of it! Gold pouring in upon this ignorant, unmannerly vulgarian, who doubtless knew no better use for gold than to squander it on race horses, and loose women, and champagne, and vain glorious display ; while he, whose tastes were trained to delicate and refined enjoyment, who longed to travel, and to surround himself with beautiful things, who entertained ambitions, could not even earn enough to marry and keep a house together !

What a thing money was ! He closed his eyes, and let his mind play with the glorious possibilities which such wealth as Benjy Cohen's would bring within his reach — the house he would live in, the books, and pictures, and porcelain, and curios he would buy. He would winter at Rome, and go to Athens in the spring ; he would buy a yacht and cruise in the Ægean ; he would scramble in the Alps and Pyrenees ; he would come home and stand for Parliament. Above all, money meant that Helen would be always with him, sharing his pleasure, shedding sunshine where she stepped, and making life a continual feast of joy. But the reverie, though beautiful, was brief. He pulled himself out of it with a sudden effort of the will. For he knew that the man who lets vague day-dreams carry him too far is not the man who is most likely to get the things on which his heart is set.

" This is waste of time," he said to himself ; and focussed his mind upon the more practical aspects of his case. Was not the chance that he was looking for even now within his reach ? Not in the shape in which he had expected it, perhaps, but still in a shape as useful for his purpose ? Could not his introduction to the Asbestos King be made to serve his ends ? One thing was certain. It was within the power of Benjy Cohen to make any man's fortune, if he chose, merely by giving him advice. And Benjy Cohen had ridiculed the young men at the Barbaric Club because they took no steps to make their fortunes. Suppose a young man came to him, striking while the iron was hot, reminding him of the rash words he had spoken at the hour when he unbent. Was there not a chance that he would be willing to help such a young man just as he had helped Baldwin Blake ?

Surely there was. The man was vulgar, but at least he seemed to be good-natured. At least a tip could be got out of him ; and a tip meant ready money. And if one tip, then why not several ? A beginning — that was all he wanted. Show him how to begin, and then he could look after himself. Put his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, and he would climb it to the top. He was quite sure of that. For he was keen — deadly keen. As he had so often told himself, he was not the man to muff his chances. The same brains which would bring him to the front in the Law Courts would bring him to the front in the City. It was only a matter of bringing them to bear on other difficulties, and using them to solve other problems. And a man saw the reward of his labours sooner in the City than at the bar ; and that was what he wanted.

He must make haste to be rich for Helen's sake— for both their sakes, indeed. "So that's settled," he judiciously concluded. " On Monday I go up to the City, and appeal from Benjy drunk to Benjy sober." He drank another glass of soda-water, and then went to bed. Sleep was slow in coming, but when it came it lasted till midday. Again on the Sunday he thought the matter out, and nothing happened to shake his resolution. In the afternoon he went to see Helen at Black heath. Her father was a doctor there — a struggling practitioner, who could afford to give no portion to his daughter. They walked together under the great trees in Greenwich Park ; and Helen built castles in the air, just as though she had divined his thoughts, and talked of the beautiful life that they would live when he succeeded.

" It's always going to be romantic," she said. " We won't let the romance die out with the honey moon. And don't think that I mind waiting, Arnold. Even if it's ten years, I won't mind waiting." It was a temptation to tell her of his hopes and schemes ; but prudence warned him to be silent. She might misunderstand and argue, quote proverbs, say that gambling was immoral, and that the proof was that the people who gambled sometimes lost their money. He would not love her the less, but rather the more, for speaking so illogically. Such c timid scruples would increase her charm. But why frighten her, and so unnerve himself? Better to wait until he could surprise and dazzle her with the accomplished fact. Then all her objections would be silenced in advance, because she would see happiness within her reach.

"You shan't have to wait ten years, dear. Be sure of that," he answered confidently ; and she never suspected that he was keeping any secret from her. But when he travelled back by the last train to town, he was more fixed in his resolve than ever. So Sunday passed, and Monday dawned, and Arnold Brabant brushed his silk hat, and put on his frock-coat, and started upon his expedition. He could not have told why, but he felt instinctively that that day was to be a land-mark in his life. The time of year was early June, and the warm sun shining after a shower made even the streets of London beautiful. The asphalt pavement had a golden sheen, and the evaporating moisture steamed up from it like incense ; the yellows and reds and greens of the omnibuses glittered gaily. Even the clerks and type-writers, going on their errands, seemed to find time to cheer up, and be glad of the coming of spring.

They laughed to themselves, as though at some secret joy, as they hurried about their business, and every now and again one saw them quicken their pace involuntarily, as though to walk in time to the ringing melodies of piano-organs. And Arnold Brabant, like the rest, and even more than most of them, was cheered by the influence of the morning air. His heart was light ; his step was brisk and vigorous ; his grip upon his Malacca walking-stick was like the adventurer's upon his sword. He felt like Alexander preparing to conquer a new world, like Columbus starting to discover a new continent. And, at least in one respect, the analogy was just ; for when once he had passed the turning that leads to the Old Bailey, he entered upon a region in which he had never set his foot before. St. Paul's Cathedral !

He remembered having heard men speak of the wonderful view you had of it if you looked backwards when you came down Ludgate Hill on a 'bus. But he had no eye for its architecture now. Though he knew he was too early for his purpose, and had time upon his hands, it did not occur to him to walk in and dally in its aisles. It seemed more natural in his present mood to seek a wine-bar, though wine-bars were no usual haunts of his. Skirting St. Paul's Churchyard, he found one near the General Post-Office. His brain was in a whirl ; he drank a glass of old brown sherry, and let his mind play freely round the romantic possibilities that awaited him in this modern Eldorado. It might be happiness and fortune ; it might be rudeness and rebuff. There did not seem to be a third alternative. But time was flying, and he was off again, pushing his way along the crowded pavement of Cheapside, where the churches are hidden away among the houses, as though the overwhelming worldliness of the City of London cowed them, until he came to the confused confluence of six swollen streams of traffic in the front of the Royal Exchange.

The Royal Exchange ! Like so many a stranger before him, he thought it was the Stock Exchange, and, pausing to read the scriptural inscription carved in the centre of the architrave — " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof" — wondered whether it had been set there with any ironical intent. Probably not. Irony, like poetry, was the consolation of the poor. It would not be understood by the wealthy, who sold things in the dearest market. Such people took life serenely, and had no need for bitter sayings. But what matter ? This was no time for maundering speculation. He must hurry on through the thickening crowd, past the Bank of England to Old Broad Street. ■21 The Stock Exchange ! He passed its mean and paltry entrance without even suspecting what it was. Speculators, with anxious faces, stood un comfortably in its porch, like prisoners waiting for the verdict.

Busy brokers, many of them hatless, with open note-books in their hands, passed in and out of the swing-doors. A gorgeous waiter, with gold braid upon his hat, bawled double-barrelled names continually through a speaking-tube. News paper boys hung about the edge of the pavement, crying the contents of fifth-rate financial prints. " Portrait and biography of the Asbestos King ! " was one of the cries that reached Arnold Brabant's ears. But his mind was set upon the task imme diately before him, and he walked rapidly on until he reached the house where Mr. Benjamin Cohen hatched the schemes that filled his purse with gold. "At last," he said to himself. "Now for the appeal to Benjy sober." And he sustained his courage with a hackneyed poetical quotation — the first poetical quotation, per haps, that had ever been heard within the walls of that big prosaic building — " He either fears his fate too much, Or his desert is small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To gain, or lose it all 1 " For he was acting audaciously, and he knew it.

Every circumstance helped to make him sensible of his audacity. Even the lift-attendant seemed to eye him with suspicion. What on earth, he seemed to be wondering, is this young fellow doing in the City in a frock-coat ? Doesn't he know that the correct costume for Old Broad Street is a short jacket or a morning coat ? There was an army of clerks to be encountered, and they seemed even more suspicious than the lift-attendant. They glared at Arnold Brabant from behind their bright brass grating, and held a whispered consultation, and raised a series of polite objections. " I fancy Mr. Cohen has just gone out," said the first. "Mr. Cohen is very much engaged for the moment. Have you an appointment with him ? " asked a second. "Will you be so good as to write your name and the nature of your business on this piece of paper ?

" said a third. Such were the objections in their order. Per sistence and even falsehood were necessary to over come them ; but at last, after a period of waiting in an ante-room — a cold and gloomy place,furnished with a table covered with green baize, and twelve solid mahogany leather-seated chairs — he was admitted. Mr. Cohen was sober now — so sober that, except for the puffiness of his neck, it was hard to believe that he was ever otherwise. His manner was no longer bluff, but pompous — the manner of a man who wishes it to be clearly understood that his time is valuable, and that to call on him and waste it is to incur a serious responsibility. He did not remember who Arnold Brabant was, but greeted him with a stiff bow, and the words — " You wished to see me ! What can I do for you, sir ?

" It was embarrassing ; but, after all, Arnold had expected to be embarrassed. Alexander had not conquered the old world nor had Columbus discovered the new without embarrassments. He also would not shrink from them. The thought of Helen, though she certainly would have disapproved of what he was doing, gave him courage ; perhaps the old brown sherry also helped. He reminded the financier of the convivial evening at the Barbaric Club, and blurted out that what he wanted was a tip. Benjy Cohen laughed. It was the laugh of a man who had heard that joke before, but was willing to be amused by it as often as it reappeared. "For tips, young man," he said, "you should go to the outside brokers. There's Mr. Jacob Johnson's office round the corner. He'll give you plenty of tips, and you'll regret them all."