When at Christmas time Robert Gregory heard that one of the springs which were supposed to open the secret door was found, he gave up for a time even the pretence of looking for anything to do; but not very long afterwards he met an old friend, and most unexpectedly went into a business with him, and that perhaps the only one which could have been named for which he was really fitted.
He had one day, as was his usual custom, entered a public-house where he was well known, and had gone into the bar parlour, where he was sitting reading the paper, smoking his pipe, and drinking a glass of spirits and water, when another man entered the room, looked carelessly at Gregory, then more attentively, and finally burst out,—
"Hallo, Robert? is that you? How fares the world with you all this time?"
"By Jove, Fielding! is that you? How are you, my boy?"
They greeted each other warmly, for they had been a great deal together in the time when Gregory was in London, and their satisfaction at meeting was mutual. After a while, they sat down before the fire, ordered fresh glasses of spirits and water, and prepared for a long talk over all that had happened since they had parted some four years ago—Robert to return to his father at Canterbury, Fielding to continue for a short time longer the reckless life they were living about town.
"Now, Gregory," Fielding said, "let me hear what you have been doing first."
Robert, in reply, related pretty accurately the whole of his life since he had left London.
"Well, that is a rum start," his companion said when he had finished his story. "And you really think that you will some day come in for all this money?"
"I do," Robert answered. "As I have told you they are trying down there now, and have a good chance; but if that fails, I mean to try for it myself. And now what have you been doing?"
"The easiest way to answer would be to tell you what I have not been doing. You left us in the winter, and I held on, as I had been doing before, till the next Derby Day; but I dropped so much upon that, that I had to make myself scarce for a bit. Then I came back again, and set to work to earn my living, and very hard work I found it."
"I should think so," Robert Gregory put in. "I have been trying to get something to do for the last three months, and I am no nearer, as far as I can see, than when I began. How did you set about it?"
"To tell you the truth, Robert, I found it rather up-hill work at first. I worked for the papers for a bit,—went to all the fires, and the inquests, and the hospitals, and sent accounts to all the dailies. Of course at first they did not often put them in, still they did sometimes, and after a month or two they came to take them pretty regularly. At last I did what I really very seldom did do; but I was very hard-up, and I sent an account of a fire which only existed in my imagination. Well, it turned out that there was a row about it, and of course that put an end to that line. It was winter then, and I was very hard-up, and was glad to earn a few shillings a week as super at one of the pantomimes. Then I happened to meet with a man with a few pounds, and together we set up a very profitable business—advertising to find situations for clerks and servants. They paid us five shillings to enter their names in our books; then we answered every advertisement that appeared in any of the papers for that sort of thing, and sent them to look after the situations. If they got them, they paid us thirty per cent, on the first year's earnings, down on the nail. There were three or four of us in that game. I kept the head office, and they took places in other parts, and each of them wanted clerks at ￡150 a year. It was a capital dodge, and we made a lot of money; but at last it got blown upon, and we had to give it up.
"Then I did the ladies employment business. Lessons given for a guinea, and constant employment guaranteed when the art was learnt. We used to send them a book on illuminating, which by the gross cost us twopence each. None of the ladies, as it turned out, ever became perfect enough for us to give them employment; but that was their fault you know, not ours. Well, that paid uncommonly well for a bit. After that, I tried no end of moves, and did sometimes well, sometimes badly; still I was not often without a sovereign in my pocket. At last I took up my present line; I have been at it now a year and a half, and I mean to stick to it."
"What is it?" Robert Gregory asked rather curiously, for his companion had the look of a well-to-do man, although perhaps rather of a sporting cut. He wore a good substantial great-coat with a velvet collar, a very good hat, put rather on one side of his head, and a quiet scarf, with a gold pin representing a jockey's cap and whip.
"I am a betting man," Fielding said. "I make a book on all the races. I have certain places—public-houses, quiet streets, and so on—where I am always to be found at regular hours of the day, and I do a very fair business."
"And do you always win, Fielding?"
"Not always; occasionally one gets hit hard, but nineteen times out of twenty, if one is careful, one wins. The great thing is always to have enough in hand to pay your losses the day after the race; and as one receives all the money when the bets are made, two or three months before a race, it is hard if one cannot do that. In this way I have got a good name, am looked upon as a safe man, and so am getting a good business together.
"What do you make on an average a week?"
"Well, on an average, five or six pounds—more than that a good deal in the season, but very little just at this time of year; in a month or so I shall be beginning again."
"I should like to join you, Fielding," Robert said, eagerly.
"Aye, but what capital could you put in? I acknowledge I could do very well with a partner who would take one end of the town while I took the other. I could easily double the business. But I should want a good sum of money with one. I have been, as I told you, a year and a half at it, and have got a good connection together."
"How much do you call a good sum?"
"That would depend upon the man," Fielding answered. "I have known you well, and I am sure we should pull well together. I would take a hundred pounds with you; not for my own use, mind, but to lay in a bank in our joint names. You see it makes the beginning of an account, and we could pay in there all we took, and settle our losses by cheques, which looks much better, and would give us a much better name altogether."
"I should have difficulty in getting a hundred pounds," Robert said; and indeed the sixty pounds the pony carriage had fetched had melted away very fast; for Robert had spent a large amount in this daily search for employment, and Sophy often wondered to herself, with a little sigh, how Robert could possibly spend as much money as he did. "No, Fielding, I am sure I could not manage a hundred, but I think I could go as far as sixty."
"Suppose you think it over, Gregory, and see what you can do. Let us meet here again to-morrow at the same time, and then we will enter into it again; and I will bring you some of my old books to show you that what I say is correct."
"Very well," Robert said, and they parted to meet again next day.
That evening Robert told Sophy what had occurred, and said that it seemed to him an opportunity for getting on which might not occur to him again, but that he would be guided entirely by her.
Sophy was a little alarmed at the thought of their whole available capital being embarked; but she assented cheerfully to the proposal, as she was delighted at anything which seemed likely to occupy Robert's time and thoughts, and prevent him being driven, from sheer want of something to do, to spend his time in drinking. So the next day the grand pianoforte was sent to an auction-room to be sold; it fetched fifty-five pounds, and with this and twenty-five of their former stock Robert joined Fielding as a partner, leaving a solitary ten pounds only in Sophy's charge. But as she was now regularly giving lessons six hours a day, she had very little occasion to break in upon this, as the thirty-six shillings she earned quite covered her household expenses; and she was now able to go to her work with a light heart, knowing that her absence from home no longer drove her husband to spend his time in public-houses.
The firm of Gregory and Fielding flourished; in a short time they had plenty to do; and as the spring came on and the racing season began, they had their hands quite full. At first they went about together; and then, when Robert became known to Fielding's connection, the one took the east end of the town, the other the west, meeting twice a day at some middle point to compare their books and see how they stood. They now, too, started as racing prophets and commission agents, and advertised in the sporting papers, and by the end of April they were making a large income. How large a portion of the money they received would be clear profit, they could not tell until the races were over, so they agreed to draw five pounds a week each, and to pay the rest into the bank to draw from as required. Sophy knew Robert was doing well; for he again begged her to give up teaching, and generally gave her four pounds out of the five he drew every week for the expenses. This was, as she told him double what they spent; but he said that he was making that, and therefore gave it to her; that he did not want to know how it went, but any she could save she might put by with her own earnings, in case of a rainy day.
For the first two months after Robert Gregory had commenced his work, his wife did not see much of him, for his business now often kept him out the whole evening; and when he came back late he was seldom quite sober, and he was frequently not up when she started to her work at nine o'clock. This went on until, in the middle of March, the news came that the secret of the door was found, and Robert was in such a state of excitement at what he considered the certainty of the missing will being found, that he was quite unable to attend to his business, so Fielding agreed to give him a holiday at any rate until he heard of the result. These three days Robert spent in going about from public-house to public-house treating every one he knew; telling them all it was probable that this was the last time he should see them, as he was about to come into an immense fortune. Proportionate therefore to his exultation, was the disappointment when the news came that the secret chamber had been entered, and that the will was not there. Sophy had never seen him in a rage before, indeed she had never seen any one really in a passion, and she was thoroughly frightened and horror-struck............