The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ note, and here’s one from the Prince, still unopened.”

      “Ay, to be sure. I ‘m certain you ‘ll excuse me, Hans,” said Dalton, putting on his spectacles, while he assumed a manner of condescending urbanity very puzzling to the poor dwarf. “Why, Nelly dear, this is French. Give me that note of Lady Hester’s, and do you take this. Oh, by my conscience, I ‘m no better off now! The devil such writing as this ever I seen! It’s all ‘m’s’ and ‘w’s’ every bit of it You’ll keep them both for the evening, my dear. Hans will dine with us, and I ‘ll go out to look for a bit of fish, and see if I can find another pleasant fellow to round off the table with us. God be with old Kilmurray M’Mahon, where I could have had twenty as easy as two, and each of them a good warrant for four bottles, besides! Is n’t it a droll world?” muttered he, as he took down his hat and descended the stairs. “A good dinner, and only a cripple for company! Faix! I ‘m like the chap in the Bible, that had to ask the beggars and the blaguards when he could n’t get better.” And with this very wise reflection, Peter Dalton hummed a Jig to himself as he took his way to the fish-market.

      CHAPTER V. A HAPPY DAY FOR PETER DALTON

      A youthful heir never experienced a more glorious burst of delight on the morning of his twenty-first birthday, than did Peter Dalton feel as he sauntered down the principal street of Baden. It was with a step almost elastic, and his head high, that he went along; not humbly returning the “Good-day” of the bowing shopkeeper, but condescendingly calling his worthy creditors – for such nearly all of them were – by their Christian names, he gave them to believe that he was still, as ever, their kind and generous patron.

      There was scarcely a shop or a stall he did not linger beside for a minute or two. Everywhere there was something not only which he liked, but actually needed. Never did wants accumulate so rapidly! With a comprehensive grasp they extended to every branch of trade and merchandise, – ranging from jewelry to gin, and taking in all, from fur slippers to sausages.

      His first visit was to Abel Kraus, the banker and moneylender, – a little den, which often before he had entered with a craven heart and a sinking spirit; for Abel was a shrewd old Israelite, and seemed to read the very schedule of a man’s debts, in the wrinkles around his mouth. Dalton now unbarred the half door and stalked in, as if he would carry the place by storm.

      The man of money was munching his breakfast of hard eggs and black bread, – the regulation full diet of misers in all Germany, – when Peter cavalierly touched his hat and sat down. Not a word did Abel speak. No courtesies about the season or the weather, the funds or the money-market, were worth bestowing on so poor a client; and so he ate on, scarcely deigning even a glance towards him.

      “When you ‘ve done with the garlic, old boy, I ‘ve some work for you,” said Dalton, crossing his arms pretentiously.

      “But what if I do not accept your work? What if I tell you that we shall have no more dealings together? The two last bills – ”

      “They’ll be paid, Abel, – they’ll be paid. Don’t put yourself in a passion. Times is improving, – Ireland ‘s looking up, man.”

      “I think she is,” muttered the Jew, insolently; “she is looking up like the beggar that asks for alms yonder.”

      “Tear and ages!” cried Dalton, with a stroke of his fist upon the table that made every wooden bowl of gold and silver coin jump and ring again, – “tear and ages! take care what you say! By the soul in my body, if you say a syllable against the old country, I ‘ll smash every stick in the place, and your own bones, besides! Ye miserable ould heathen! that has n’t a thought above sweating a guinea, – how dare you do it?”

      “Why do you come into my counting-house to insult me, saar? Why you come where no one ask you?”

      “Is it waiting for an invitation I’d be, Abel? Is it expecting a card with ould Kraus’s compliments?” said Dalton, laughing. “Sure, isn’t the place open like the fish-market, or the ball-room, or the chapel, or any place of diversion? There, now; keep your temper, old boy. I tell ye, there’s luck before ye! What d’ye think of that?” And, as he spoke, he drew forth one of the bills, and handed it across the counter; and then, after gloating, as it were, over the changed expression of the Jew’s features, he handed a second, and a third.

      “These are good papers, Herr von Dalton; no better! The exchange, too, is in your favor; we are giving – let me see – ten and three-eighths ‘Convenzions-Gelt’.”

      “To the devil I fling your three-eighths!” cried Dalton. “I never forgot the old song at school that says, ‘Fractions drives me mad.’”

      “Ah, always droll, – always merry!” cackled out Abel. “How will you have these moneys?”

      “In a bag, – a good strong canvas-bag!”

      “Yes, to be sure, in a bag; but I was asking how you ‘d have them. I mean, in what coin, – in what for ‘Gelt.’”

      “Oh, that’s it!” cried Dalton. “Well, give me a little of everything. Let me have ‘Louis’ to spend, and ‘Gros-chen’ to give the beggars. Bank-notes, too, I like; one feels no regretting parting with the dirty paper that neither jingles nor shines: and a few crown pieces, Abel; the ring of them on a table is like a brass band!”

      “So you shall, – so you shall, Herr von Dalton. Ha, ha, ha! you are the only man ever make me laugh!”

      “By my conscience, then, it’s more than you deserve, Abel; for you’ve very often nearly made me cry,” said Dalton, with a little sigh over the past, as he recalled it to his memory.

      The Jew did not either heed or hear the remark; for, having put away the remnant of his frugal breakfast, he now began a very intricate series of calculations respecting interest and exchange and commission, at which poor Dalton gazed in a most complete mystification.

      “Fourteen hundred and sixty-three, at ten three-eighths, – less cost of commission; I will not charge you the one per cent – ”

      “Charge all that’s fair, and no favor, old boy.”

      “I mean that I will not treat the Herr von Dalton like a stranger – ”

      “I was going to say, treat me like a Christian,” said Dalton, laughing; “but maybe that’s the most expensive thing going.”

      “Always droll, – always have his jest,” cackled Abel. “Now there’s an agio on gold, you pay five kreutzers for every Louis.”

      “By George! I ‘ll take a ship-load of them at the same price.”

      “Ha! U mean you pay that over the value,” said the Jew.

      “Faix! I often promised to pay more,” said Dalton, sighing; “and what’s worse, on stamped paper too!”

      As the Jew grew deeper in his figures, Dalton rambled on about Ireland and her prospects, for he wished it to be supposed that his present affluence was the long-expected remittance from his estates. “We ‘ll get right yet,” muttered he, “if they ‘ll only give us time; but ye see, this is the way it is: we’re like an overloaded beast that can’t pull his cart through the mud, and then the English comes up, and thrashes us. By course, we get weaker and weaker – licking and abusing never made any one strong yet. At last down we come on our knees with a smash. Well, ye ‘d think, then, that anybody with a grain of sense would say, ‘Take some of the load off the poor devil’s back – ease him СКАЧАТЬ