I think I mentioned in a former “Memoir” that we had had a billiard-table put up. It was Harry’s idea. He is very fond of a game of billiards himself, and is not at all a bad player, so I have heard from the gentlemen who play with him. Of course, he didn’t go to the expense for himself, you may be sure of that, but as an improvement to the house. The way it came about was this. There was an old fellow who used our house named Jim Marshall. He was quite a character in his way. He was very stout, and walked lame with one leg, and was full of queer sayings. Not a bad fellow; but he had to be kept in his place, or else he would presume. He was hand-and-glove, as the saying is, with almost everybody in the neighbourhood, rich and poor alike. He was a capital whist-player, knew all about horses and dogs, and could sing a good song. He was a bachelor, and lived all by himself in a tumbledown old house, where he had hundreds of pounds’ worth of curiosities, old pictures, old furniture, and old books, the place being so crammed from kitchen to attic that sometimes when he went home a little the worse for his evening’s amusement, he wasn’t able to steer himself, as Harry called it, across the things to get to bed, and would go to sleep in an old steel fender, with his head on a brass coal-scuttle for a pillow.
Jim Marshall was a broker—that is to say, he went all about the neighbourhood to sales and bought things for gentlemen, and sometimes for himself. All round our village there are old-fashioned houses and farms full of old-{197}fashioned furniture and china, and things of that sort, that nowadays are very much run after, and fetch a good price. Old Jim knew everybody’s business and what everybody had got, because he used to do their business for them. These people, if they wanted anything, would tell Jim to look out for it for them, and if they wanted to sell anything they always sent for Jim, and he would find a purchaser for them on the quiet.
The neighbourhood round our place is full of people who have gone down since railways came in, because we are too near to London, and London has taken all the local trade. A lot of people lived and kept up appearances on what their fathers made before them—business people I mean—and when that was gone they had to give up their style and go into smaller houses, which, of course, they moved away to do, nobody who has been grand and looked up to for years in a place caring to look small there.
This gradual decay of the neighbourhood (not where we live—the railway has made us—but little towns and places round about) was a good thing for Jim, as there were lots of good old houses selling off their furniture and things, and he had lots of customers in London who wanted Chippendale and Sheraton and Adam’s furniture, and old books, and old clocks, and old china, and old silver ornaments; and these houses being in the country, there weren’t many brokers at the sales, so Jim was able to pick up plenty of bargains for his customers, and make a good thing for himself as well.
Plenty of ladies and gentlemen who came to our house, and got to know of Marshall being always at sales, would give him their address, and tell him always to send them a catalogue, if there was anything good going. Mr. Saxon, the author, I know, got a bookcase through Jim, a real old Chippendale for eleven pounds that was worth sixty pounds if it was worth a penny, and we have some fine old-fashioned things at the ‘Stretford Arms’ that Jim Marshall got us at sales.
You had only to say to Jim Marshall that you wanted a thing, and he would never rest till he got it for you. He would go into the grandest house in the neighbourhood and ask to see the gentleman, and say, “I say, sir, what{198} will you take for your sideboard? I’ve a customer that wants one.”
“Hang your impudence, Marshall!” the gentleman would say. “Do you think I keep a furniture shop?”
“No offence, sir,” Jim would say. “Only remember, when you do want to part with it, I’m in the market.” That was how he would begin. Presently he would call on the gentleman again, and say he knew of a magnificent sideboard, two hundred years old, in an old farmhouse, that could be got cheap. And he would go on about it until, perhaps, he would work the gentleman up to buy the other sideboard and let him have the one he had a customer for, and he would make a nice thing out of the two bargains for himself.
He was very clever at it, because he knew the fancies of different people, and how to work on them. But the most impudent thing he ever did was with an old lady, who had a lovely pair of chestnut horses. A gentleman who was staying at our hotel one day saw them go by, and he said, “By Jove, that’s a fine pair of horses!—that’s just the pair I want.”
Jim Marshall was standing by at the time, and he said, “I’ll try and get ’em for you.” And he shouted, and waved his stick, and yelled at the coachman, who thought something was wrong, and pulled up.
Jim hobbled off till he came to the carriage, then raised his hat to the old lady, and said, “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but if you want to sell your horses, I’ve a customer for them.”
“What!” shrieked the old lady. And she shouted to the coachman to drive on, and pulled the window up with a bang.
Jim came back, not looking a bit ashamed of himself; and he said, “I’ve broken the ice. Now, sir, how much am I to go to for them horses?”
“The idea!” I said, for I had seen and heard everything; “as if old Mrs. —— would be likely to part with them! I do believe Jim you’d go up to a clergyman in church, and ask him what he’d take for his surplice!”
Jim smiled at that. It flattered his vanity, because{199} nothing pleased him so much as being made out a smart fellow before London gentlemen.
“I’ll have them horses, Mrs. Beckett,” he said, “if the gentleman’ll go to a price.”
“Well,” said the gentleman, “I’m not in a hurry. I’ve got a very good pair now; but if they could be got for one hundred and twenty pounds, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Is that an order?” said Jim.
“Yes,” said the gentleman, “I’ll give one hundred and twenty pounds.”
“You’ll get a bargain if you get them at that,” said Jim, “for I know from the coachman as the lady paid over two hundred pounds for ’em, and they weren’t dear at that. But I’ll see what I can do.”
The gentleman got those horses through Jim, and he got them for the one hundred and twenty pounds. And it was only through a third party letting out the secret that I heard afterwards how it was done, and I’m not going to tell because it was told me in confidence; but I may say the old lady’s coachman was always being treated by Jim in a very generous manner. And soon after that, one of the horses took to showing temper in a way he had never done before, and the coachman told the old lady that sometimes after a certain age horses that had been very quiet developed a vice.
Jim Marshall had a great “pal,” as he called him, in our local veterinary surgeon—rather a fast young fellow, who was the great sporting authority, and was supposed to know more about horses and dogs than anybody in the county. I believe he was very clever—he certainly did wonders for our pony when it was ill—but he was too fond of betting, and going to London for a day or two, and coming back looking very seedy, so that he was generally hard up. Soon after the old lady’s horses had changed their ways so suddenly, the veterinary and old Jim were standing outside our house, when they saw old Mr. Jenkins, the old lady’s gardener, who had been with her for thirty years, come in. He was coming to see me about some fruit, which we wanted to buy of him for preserving, and about supplying us with vegetables from the kitchen garden.{200}
Mr. Jenkins was, of course, asked into our parlour, and while he was there, in walks the veterinary, and they began to talk, till the conversation got on the horses. “Ah!” said the veterinary, “they’re a nice pair, but they aren’t quite the sort for your lady. I watched the mare go by the other day, and there was something about her I didn’t like. I dare say she’s all right in double harness, but I wouldn’t care to drive her myself in single.”
Then he began to tell stories about carriage accidents and runaway horses, till Mr. Jenkins turned quite pale, and said he should never know another minute’s peace while his mistress was out with “them animals.”
He went back, and you may be sure he told the lady all he had heard, and made the most of it. And the old lady was made quite nervous, and sent for the coachman, and the coachman said of course it wasn’t his place to say anything; but, if he was asked his honest opinion, he couldn’t say that he always felt quite safe with the horses himself. However, he should always be careful and do his best to prevent an accident.
A week after that, Jim Marshall got the horses for a hundred pounds. The old lady sent to him to come and take them, and he found her a nice quiet pair, that somebody else wanted to sell. I expect he did very well out of the transaction, and so did the old lady’s coachman.
This will show you what sort of a man Jim Marshall was, and how useful he could be to anybody who wanted anything. He got us our billiard-table, and it was in this way. Harry was saying one night that, as soon as he could afford it, he would have a billiard-room; but he couldn’t yet, as the table would cost such a lot of money, if it was by a good maker.
“Nonsense!” said Marshall; “do you want a good billiard-table?”
“Well,” said Harry, “I do want one, but I can’t afford——”
“It isn’t a question of affording. If I can get you one as good as new, with all the fittings complete—balls, cues, and everything—will you go to fifty pounds?”
“Certainly,” said Harry.
“Then get your billiard-room ready.{201}”
Harry knew Marshall would keep his word. So we made a room at the back, with a little alteration, into a billiard-room. And as soon as it was ready Marshall said, “All right. The table is coming down from London to-morrow.”
And it did come, and a beautiful table it was, and as good as new. Harry said it couldn’t have been played on many times, and must have cost a lot of money when it was new. Marshall, it seems, knew of a young gentleman in London, who had come into some money, and fitted up a billiard-room in his house, and then taken a fit into his head to travel. And when he came back he didn’t want to live in a house any more, but was going to have chambers, and he wanted to get rid of a lot of his things. How Marshall did it, I don’t know; but, at any rate, we got our table and everything complete for fifty pounds.
Having a billiard-table was very nice for some things. Gentlemen who stayed at the hotel—artists, and such like—found it a great comfort on wet days and long evenings, and several of the young gentlemen from the houses round about would come in, and get up a game at pool, and it certainly did the house good in that way, though it brought one or two customers that I didn’t care about at all—young fellows who were too clever by half, as Harry said, and who came to make money at the game, and I don’t think were very particular how they made it.
Harry said, when we put the table up, that we should have to be careful, and keep the place select, as, if a billiard-room wasn’t well looked after, it soon got to be a meeting-place for the wrong class of customers.
When the table was first put up, Mr. Wilkins and Graves, the farrier, and one or two more of that sort, thought it was being put up for them.
Mr. Wilkins said he thought it was a better game than bagatelle, and he should have to practise, and then he would soon give Harry a beating.
Harry said, “You can practise as much as you like, Wilkins; but it’ll be sixpence a game if you play anybody, two shillings an hour if you practise, and a guinea if you cut the cloth.”
You should have seen Wilkins’s face at that!{202}
“Two shillings an hour!” he said; “I thought you were putting it up for the good of the house.”
A nice idea, wasn’t it, that we had gone to the expense of a billiard-room and a table, and were going to engage a boy to mark, and all for the amusement of Mr. Wilkins and his friends! That is the worst of old customers. They don’t advance with the business, and they seem to think that they are to have their own way in everything.
The day after the table was up Harry asked Mr. Wilkins to come and look at it. The balls were put on the table, Harry having been knocking them about to try the cushions.
Of course, Wilkins must take up a cue, and show how clever he was. “See me put the white in the pocket off the red,” he said. He hit the white ball so hard, that it jumped off the cushion and went smash through the window.
“Wilkins, old man,” said Harry, “I think you’d better practice billiards out on the common. This place isn’t big enough for you.”
I shall always remember our opening the billiard-room, from the young fellow who came to us to be our first marker.
We were going to have a boy—one who could fill up his time about the house—at first; but, as a matter of fact, our first billiard-marker, though he didn’t stay long, was a young fellow named Bright—“Charley Bright,” everybody about the place called him.
Poor Charley! His was a sad story. When we first knew him, he was living in one room over Mrs. Megwith’s shop. Mrs. Megwith has a little drapery and stationery shop, and sells nearly everything. He was quite the gentleman. You could tell that by the way he spoke, and by his clothes, which, though they were shabby, were well cut and well made, and you could see that he had once been what is called a “swell.”
He was very tall and very good-looking. He had dark, sparkling eyes, and always a high colour, and very pretty curly, dark hair. But, oh............