Jacob's Ladder. Oppenheim Edward Phillips

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “You’ve never seen her smile,” Jacob said gloomily, as he rose to his feet. “However, she may get more reasonable after the first shock has passed away… Time we started for the City, eh, Dick?”

      They motored through the old-fashioned villages and along the quiet country lanes, towards where the wide-flung arms of the great city crept out like tentacles of hideous brick and mortar, to gather in her children. This morning ride was to both of them a never-ending source of delight. Jacob especially had the air of a schoolboy when he remembered the punctual train, his punctual appearance at the dingy warehouse in Bermondsey Street, his inevitable sallying forth, half-an-hour later, with a list of names in his pocket, a few samples of leather in his bag, and the stock phrases of the market packed into his head by the never-satisfied Mr. Smith.

      “A free man, Dick,” he observed, taking his cigar from his mouth and drawing a long breath of content. “A free man at thirty-four years of age. It’s wonderful!”

      “If it only lasts!” Dauncey muttered, with a touch of his old pessimism.

      “You can cut that out, old fellow,” Jacob insisted firmly. “I gave Pedlar a cheque for thirty-eight thousand pounds yesterday, and that left me fifty-five thousand of the original hundred thousand. Since then I have received bonds to the registered par value of four hundred thousand pounds, which are being sold to-day in New York at eight times their par value. Then there was a quarterly dividend cheque yesterday for nine thousand pounds. You’ll admit the money’s there.”

      “Can’t deny facts,” Dauncey agreed, with returning cheerfulness.

      “As regards your personal position,” Jacob went on, “I made my will yesterday and I left you five hundred a year.”

      “Jacob!”

      Jacob patted his friend on the shoulder.

      “I’ve only told you this, old chap,” he went on, “because I want you to lift up your head when you walk, remember that you owe nobody anything, and that, whatever measure of bad luck you may have, you are outside all risk of financial trouble for the rest of your life. It’s a wonderful feeling, that, Dick. Half the men you meet in life admit that they have their fits of depression, their dark days, their anxieties. If you analyse these, you will find that nearly every one of them is financial. The man who is free from all financial cares for himself and his family should walk about with a song on his lips the whole of the day. You and I are in that position, Dick, and don’t let us forget it.”

      Dauncey drew in a deep breath of realisation, and his face for a moment glowed.

      “Jacob,” he confided, “I don’t feel that I could ever be unhappy again. I have what I always dreamed of – Nora and the kids and freedom from anxiety. But you – where will life lead you, I wonder? I have reached the summit of my ambitions. I’m giddy with the pleasure of it. But you – it would be horrible if you, with all your money, were to miss happiness.”

      Jacob smiled confidently.

      “My dear Dick,” he said, “I am happy – not because I have twelve suits of clothes coming home from Savile Row to-day, not because of this Rolls-Royce car, my little flat at the Milan Court, my cottage at Marlingden, with Harris there for gardener now, and Mrs. Harris with not a worry in the world except how to make me comfortable. I am happy not because of all these things, but because you and I together are going to test life. I have the master key to the locked chambers. I am ready for adventures.”

      “I have about as much imagination as an owl,” Dauncey sighed.

      Jacob’s eyes were fixed upon the haze which hung over the city.

      “When I speak of adventures,” he went on, “I do not mean the adventures of romance. I mean rather the adventures of the pavement. Human beings interest me, Dick. I like to see them come and go, study their purposes, analyse their motives, help them if they deserve help, stand in their way if they seek evil. These are the day-by-day adventures possible to the man who is free from care, and who mixes without hindrance with his fellows.”

      “I begin to understand,” Dauncey admitted, “but I still don’t quite see by what means you are sure of coming into touch with interesting people.”

      Jacob knocked the ash from his cigar.

      “Dick,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, “you are a very superficial student of humanity. A story such as mine attracts the imagination of the public. Every greedy adventurer in the world believes that the person who has acquired wealth without individual effort is an easy prey. I expect to derive a certain amount of amusement from those who read of my good fortune and seek to profit by it. That is why I had no objection to telling my story to the reporters, why I let them take my photograph, why I gave them all the information they wanted about the payment of my creditors in full and my sudden wealth. All that we need now is the little West End office which I am going to take within the next few days, and a brass plate upon the door. The fly will then sit still and await the marauding spiders.”

      Dauncey smiled with all the enthusiasm of his new-found sense of humour.

      “Five hundred a year,” he murmured, “to be henchman to a bluebottle!”

      CHAPTER VI

      The acquisition of West End premises presented no particular difficulty, and in a few weeks’ time behold a transformed and glorified Jacob Pratt, seated in a cushioned swivel chair before a roll-top desk, in an exceedingly handsomely appointed office overlooking Waterloo Place. The summit of one of his ambitions had been easily gained. The cut of his black morning coat and neat grey trousers, the patent shoes and spats, his irreproachable linen, and the modest but beautiful pearl pin which reposed in his satin tie were indications of thoughtful and well-directed hours spent in the very Mecca of a man’s sartorial ambitions. Standing by his side, with a packet of correspondence in his hand, Dauncey, in his sober, dark serge suit, presented a very adequate representation of the part of confidential assistant and secretary to a financial magnate.

      “Nothing but begging letters again this morning,” he announced; “four hospitals; the widow of an officer, still young, who desires a small loan and would prefer a personal interview; and the daughter of a rural dean down in the country, pining for London life, and only wanting a start in any position where good looks, an excellent figure, and a bright and loving disposition would be likely to meet with their due reward.”

      “Hm!” Jacob muttered. “Pitch ’em into the waste-paper basket.”

      “There are a packet of prospectuses – ”

      “Send them along, too.”

      “And a proposal from a Mr. Poppleton Watts that you should endow a national theatre, for which he offers himself as actor manager. You provide the cash, and he takes the whole responsibility off your shoulders. The letter is dated from the Corn Exchange, Market Harborough.”

      “Scrap him with the rest,” Jacob directed, leaning back in his chair. “Anything more you want for the place, Dick?”

      The two men looked around. There were rows of neatly arranged files, all empty; an unused typewriter; a dictaphone and telephone. The outer office, where Dauncey spent much of his time, was furnished with the same quiet elegance as the inner apartment. There seemed to be nothing lacking.

      “A larger waste-paper basket is the only thing I can suggest,” Dauncey observed drily.

      Then came the sound for which, with СКАЧАТЬ