Mammon and Co Part 25

"I don't know that I altogether like that," said Jack in what Kit called his "scruple voice," which always irritated her exceedingly.

"A child," she said once, "could give points to Jack in dissimulation."

To Alington also the scruple voice did not seem a thing to be taken very seriously.

"I really do not see that that need concern you," he said, after his usual pause. "In fact, I thought we had settled to dismiss such matters for me to manage as I choose. You consented to be on my board. As a business matter, I am quite willing to give you this sum in return for your services. Now, the shareholders would not, I think, rate you at that figure. Shareholders know nothing about business; I do."

Jack laughed.

"How unappreciated I have been all these years!" he said. "I think I shall put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Times: 'A blameless Marquis is willing to be a director of anything for a suitable remuneration.'"

Mr. Alington held up his hand, a gesture frequent with him.

"Ah! that I should object to very strongly," he said. "Consider your remuneration a retaining fee, if you like, but we must keep our directors exclusive. I cannot have you joining any threepenny concern that may be going about, or, indeed, any concern at all. Carmel--you belong to Carmel," he said thoughtfully.

Jack took a copy of the Mining Weekly from the table.

"Have you seen this?" he asked. "There is a column about the Carmel mines, all most favourable, and written, I should say, by someone who knows."

Mr. Alington did not appear particularly interested.

"I am glad they have put it in this week," he said. "They promised to make an effort."

"You have seen it? Don't you think it is good?"

"I wrote it--practically, at least, I wrote it. The City editor, at any rate, was kind enough to write it under my suggestions--I might say under my dictation."

"One can't have too many friends," observed Conybeare.

"Well, I can hardly call him a friend. I never set eyes on him till two days ago, and then he was more an enemy. He called and tried to blackmail me."

"My dear Alington, what have you been doing?" asked Jack.

Mr. Alington paused and laughed gently.

"He tried to blackmail me not because I had been doing anything, but because I had not done something--because I had not offered him shares, in fact; but I squared that very easily."

"You paid him?" asked Jack.

"Of course. He was comparatively cheap, and he became like Balaam. He came to curse, and he went away blessing me and the mine, and Australia and you, with a small cheque in his pocket and copious notes for this article to which you have been referring."

"Do you mean to say that you are liable to be called on by any City editor, and made to give him money not to crab the mine?" asked Jack incredulously.

"Well, not by any City editor," said Mr. Alington, "though I wish I was, but certainly by a fair percentage. It is a most convenient custom. When one is doing things, as I am, on a fairly large scale, it matters to me very little whether I pay the Mining Weekly a hundred pounds or so. That article is worth far more to me than that, just as you, my dear Conybeare, are worth far more to me than the paltry sum I give you as my director and chairman."

Mr. Alington spoke with silken blandness, yet with an under-current of proprietorship, as if he was a pupil-teacher delivering an address to school children, and was telling them beautiful little stories with morals.

"I see you are surprised," he went on. "But really there is nothing surprising about it. A paper gives an opinion; what matter whose--mine or the editor's? The editor probably knows nothing about it, so it is mine. And if a small cheque change hands over the opinion, that is the concern of me and my balance. It is worth my while to pay it, and it appears to be worth the editor's while to accept it. I only wish the custom went further--that one could go direct to the Times, say, and ask what is their price for a column. Sometimes one can do that--I don't mean with the Times--but it is always a little risky. I was very anxious, for instance, last week to get a good notice of this prospectus of ours in the City Journal, and I did what was perhaps rather rash, though it turned out excellently. Mr. Metcalfe, their second editor, is slightly known to me, and I know him to be poor and blessed with a large family. Poor men so often are. He has a son whom he wants to send to Oxford."

Mr. Alington paused again, with a look on his face like that which the embodied spirit of Charity Organization may be supposed to wear when it hears of a really deserving case. Jack listened quite attentively, though long speeches were apt to bore him. He felt as if he was learning his business.

"The lad is a charming young fellow," went on Charity Organization; "clever too, and likely to get an exhibition or scholarship. Well, I asked his father to call on me, and offered him two hundred pounds for such an article as appears in the Mining Weekly which you have in your hand. He was indignant, most indignant, and wondered how I had the face to make such an offer. He said he would not do what I had suggested for twice the money. I took that, rightly, to mean that he would, and I gave it him. Four hundred pounds will help very considerably, as I pointed out to him, in his son's expenses at Oxford. And he went away, after a little further conversation, with tears of grat.i.tude in his eyes--tears of grat.i.tude, my dear Conybeare. Two days afterwards there appeared in the City Journal a very nice article, if I may say so, considering I wrote the greater part of it myself--really a very nice article about Carmel. And I was glad to help the young fellow, to give him a chance--very glad. I told his father so, putting it in exactly that way."

Mr. Alington sighed gently and modestly at this reminiscence, like a retiring man humbly thankful for the opportunity of aiding in a good work, and Jack for a moment was puzzled. Then, remembering he was dealing with a man of business, he laughed. The thing was excellently recited with praiseworthy gravity.

"The stage has lost an actor," he observed, "even if the world has gained a director. Admirable, my dear Alington. But why, why keep it up with me? I a.s.sure you I am not shocked."

Mr. Alington looked up in surprise.

"An actor? Not shocked? Keep it up?" he queried. "I do not understand."

"You are inimitable," said Jack.

Mr. Alington got up.

"You don't understand me," he said with a certain warmth, "and you wrong me. I gather from your words that you have doubts of my sincerity. By what right, if you please?"

Jack was grave in an instant.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I see that I was in the wrong."

The heat died out of Mr. Alington's face; there was no reproach in his mild, benignant eye. A kind, Christian gentleman looked gently at Jack.

"It is granted willingly," he said. "But please, my dear Conybeare, do not make such mistakes in the future. Let me ask you to a.s.sume that I am sincere till you have the vaguest cause for supposing I am not. The English law a.s.sumes a man's innocence till he is proved guilty. That is all I ask. Treat me as you would treat a suspect. But when you have such cause, please come to me and state it. Much harm can be done by nursing a suspicion, by not trying to clear it up. Harm, you will remember, was nearly done to me in that way before. Luckily, I had an opportunity of explaining her error to Lady Conybeare."

Jack had an uncomfortable sense that this man, for all the blandness of his respectability, could show claws. He suspected that claws had been shown quite unmistakably to Kit on the occasion to which Mr. Alington so delicately alluded, for she had come upstairs, after her talk with him in the hall, with the distinct appearance of having been severely scratched. But Mr. Alington only paused long enough to let the bare justice of his demand sink in.

"Let me explain," he went on. "You have suspected me of insincerity, and, luckily, you have stated your suspicion with great frankness, beyond the reach of mistake. This is my case: I wanted very much an article by Metcalfe in the City Journal, and when he called that morning, I was prepared to pay as much as two hundred pounds for it, but not more. Eventually I paid him four hundred pounds, twice that sum, partly, no doubt, because it was necessary that he should not be able to say that I had attempted to bribe him; but I must demand that you believe that the fact of my thereby giving the young fellow a good chance made me pay that sum willingly. I did not haggle over it, though I am perfectly certain I could have got what I wanted for less. You believe this?"

Jack found himself saying that he believed this, and Mr. Alington grew even more silken and seraphic.

"I was delighted to do it," he said, "and in my private accounts I have entered two hundred and fifty pounds as a cheque to Metcalfe senior for business purposes, one hundred and fifty pounds as charity. It was charity. I entered it as such."

"Certainly you must have made a friend of Metcalfe senior, and junior if he only knew," said Jack.

"Yes, I am delighted to have done so. I have also incidentally made Metcalfe senior a--a confederate. From a business point of view that also pleases me. How marvellously all things work together for good! It comes in the morning lesson to-day."

Jack felt it difficult to know what decorum demanded of him. Bribing and the morning lesson in one breath were a little hard to reconcile. But if you have a.s.sumed and stated that you believe a man to be an actor, and if he a.s.sures you he is not, and you beg his pardon, it must be understood that you accept his _bona fides_. At any rate, you have to appear to do so, and Jack, who did not consider himself more than an amateur, found the task difficult, under the eye of one who was capable of such astonishing histrionic feats, who could act so containedly before no scenery and a sceptical audience. That unctuous voice quoting the lesson for the day was a miracle, and the miracle, like that of the barren fig-tree, seemed so unnecessary. However, everyone has an inalienable right to pose, and it is the point of good manners to a.s.sume that n.o.body exercises it.

Mr. Alington rose with a sort of soft alacrity, and walked across to the window. Sheets of rain were still flung against the streaming panes, and the glory of the garden was battered and beaten. A thick vapour, half steam, half mist, rose from the water of the river, warmed by its summer travel, but his careful eye detected a break on the horizon.

"We shall have a fine afternoon," he said to Jack. "With your leave, therefore, I will get the prospectus, for I shall be glad to run over a few points with you."

Jack looked out over the drenched landscape.

"I bet you a sovereign it does not clear," he said.

Mr. Alington took a little green morocco note-book from his pocket.