The Astonishing History of Troy Town Part 25

"Are you," he gasped--"are you Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys--the Honourable Frederic Augustus Hythe Good--? Heavens!"

"No, sir," said the Honourable Frederic, who had grown a thought pale. "Good _wyn_, sir--Goodwyn-Sandys. What then?"

"I never saw your face before," murmured Mr. Fogo faintly.

"That, sir, if a misfortune, is one which you share with a number of your fellow-men. And permit me to tell you, sir," continued Mr.

Goodwyn-Sandys, with unaccountable change of mood, "that I consider your treatment of my friend Admiral Buzza unworthy of a gentleman, sir--unworthy of a gentleman. Come, Doctor; come, Pellow--I want a word or two more with you about this Club."

And Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys ruffled away, followed by his two slightly puzzled companions.

For the s.p.a.ce of two minutes Mr. Fogo gazed up the road after them.

Then he sighed, took off his spectacles, and wiped them carefully.

"So _that_," he said slowly, "is the man she married."

"Iss, sir."

Mr. Fogo started, turned round on the barrow, and beheld the urchin from the "Man-o'-War."

"Little boy," he said sternly, "your conduct is unworthy of a--I mean, what are you doing here?"

"You've a-been an' squashed a cake," said the boy.

Mr. Fogo gave him a shilling, and hurried away down the road; but stopped once or twice on his homeward way to repeat to himself--

"So _that_--is the man--she married."

It took Admiral Buzza several days to recover his composure; but when he did, the project of the new Club grew with the conjugal disintegration of Troy, and at a rate of progress scarcely inferior.

Within a week or two a house was hired in Nelson Row, a bra.s.s-plate bearing the words "Trojan Club" affixed to the door, and Admiral Buzza installed in the Presidential Chair. The Presidential Chair occupied the right-hand side of the reading-room window, which overlooked the harbour; and the Presidential duties consisted mainly in conning the morning papers and discussing their contents with Mr.

Goodwyn-Sandys, who usually sat, with a gla.s.s of whiskey and the Club telescope, on the left-hand side of the window. Indeed, it would be hard to say to which of the two, the whiskey or the telescope, the Honourable Frederic more sedulously devoted himself: it is certain, at least, that under the Admiral's instruction he soon developed a most amazing familiarity with nautical terms, was a mine of information (almost as soon as the Club invested in a Yacht Register) on the subject of Lord Sinkport's yacht, the auxiliary screw _Niobe_, and swept the horizon with a persistence that made his fellow-members stare.

But the most noticeable feature in this nautical craze was the disproportionate attention which the Honourable Frederic lavished on barques. It was the first rig that he learnt to distinguish, and his early interest developed before long into something like a pa.s.sion.

One morning, for instance, Sam Buzza lounged into the reading-room and observed--

"I say, have you seen that American barque that came in last night-- the _Maritana?_"

"What name?" asked Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, looking up suddenly.

"The _Maritana_, or the _Mariana_, or _Mary Ann_, or something of the--Hullo! what's wrong?"

But the Honourable Frederic had caught up his hat and fled. Half an hour afterwards, when he returned, his usual calm self, the little Doctor took occasion to remark, "Upon my word, you might be a detective, you keep such a look-out on the harbour"--a remark which caused Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys to laugh so consumedly that the Doctor, without exactly seeing the point, began to think he had perpetrated quite a considerable joke.

But let no one imagine that the disruption of Trojan morals avoided heart-burning or escaped criticism. For the line which Mr.

Goodwyn-Sandys declared must be drawn somewhere was found not only to bisect the domestic hearth, but to lead to a surprising number of social problems. It fell across the parallels of our small society, and demonstrated that Mrs. A and Mrs. B could never meet; that one room could not contain the two unequal families X and Y; and that while one rested on the basis of trade, and the other on professional skill, it was unreasonable to expect the apex Mrs. Y to coincide with the apex Mrs. X. Finally the New Geometry culminated in a triumphant process, which proved that while Mrs. Simpson was allowed to imbibe tea and scandal in the company of the great, her husband must sip his gin and water in solitude at home.

We had always been select in Troy; but then, In the old days, _all_ Troy had been included in the term. When Mr. Simpson had spoken of the "Jack of Oaks" (meaning the Knave of Clubs), or had said "fainaiguing" (where others said "revoking"), we had pretended not to notice it, until at length we actually did not. So that a human as well as a philological interest attaches to the date when fashion narrowed the meaning of _c.u.meelfo_ to exclude the Jack of Oaks, and sent Mr. Simpson home to his gin and water.

The change was discussed with some asperity in the bar-parlour of the "Man-o'-War."

"The hupper cla.s.ses in Troy es bloomin' fine nowadays," remarked Rechab Geddye (locally known as Rekkub) over his beer on the night when the resignations of Mr. Buzza Junior and Mr. Moggridge had been received by the "Jolly Trojans."

"Ef they gets the leastest bit finer, us shan't be able to see mun,"

answered Bill Odgers, who was reckoned a wit. "I have heerd tell as Trojans was cousins an' hail-fellow-well-met all the world over; but the hayleet o' this place es a-gettin' a bit above itsel'."

"That's a true word, Bill," interposed Mrs. Dymond from the bar; "an'

to say 'Gie us this day our daily bread,' an' then turn up a nose at good saffron cake es flyin' i' the face o' Pruvvidence, an' no less."

"I niver knawed good to come o' t.i.tled gentry yet," said Bill.

"You doan't say that?" exclaimed Rekkub, who was an admirer of Bill's Radical views.

"I do, tho'. Look at King Richard--him i' the play-actin'. I reckon he was wan o' the hupper ten ef anybody. An' what does he do?

Why, throttles a pair o' babbies, puts a gen'l'm'n he'd a gridge agen into a cask o' wine--which were the spoliation o' both--murders 'most ivery wan he claps eyes on, an' then when he've a-got the jumps an'

sees the sperrits an' blue fire, goes off an' offers to swap hes whole bloomin' kingdom for a hoss--a hoss, mind you, he hadn' seen, let alone not bein' in a state o' mind to jedge hoss-flesh.

What's true o' kings I reckon es true o' Hon'rubbles; they'm all reared up to the same high notions, an' I reckon us'll find et out afore long. I niver seed no good in makin' Troy fash'nubble mysel'."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF POMEROY'S CAT; AND HOW THE MEN AND WOMEN OF TROY ENSUED AFTER PLEASURE IN BOATS.

The historian of Troy here feels at liberty to pa.s.s over six weeks with but scanty record. During that time the Bankshire rose bloomed over Kit's House, peered in at the windows, and found Mr. Fogo for the most part busied in peaceful carpentry, though with a mysterious trouble in his breast that at times drove him afield on venturous perambulations, or to his boat to work off by rowing his too-meditative fit. From these excursions he would return tired in body but in heart eased, and resume his humdrum life tranquilly enough; though Caleb was growing uneasy, and felt it necessary, more than once, to retire apart and "have et out," as he put it, with his conscience.

"Question es," he would repeat, "whether I be justyfied in meddlin'

wi' the Cou'se o' Natur'--'speshully when the Cou'se o' Natur' es sich as I approves. An' s'posin' I bain't, furder question es, whether I be right in receivin' wan pound a week an' a new set o'

small-clothes."

This nice point in casuistry was settled for the time by his waiving claim to the small-clothes, and inserting in his old pair a patch of blue seacloth that contrasted extravagantly with the veteran stuff-- so extravagantly as to compel Mr. Fogo's attention.

"Does it never strike you," he asked one day as Caleb was stooping over the wood-pile, "that the repairs in your trousers, Caleb, are a trifle emphatic? _Purpureus, late qui splendeat_--h'm, h'm-- _adsuitur pannus_. I mean, in the seat of your--"

"Conscience, sir," said Caleb abruptly. "Some ties a bit o' string round the finger to help the mem'ry. I does et this way."

"Well, well, I should have thought it more apt to a.s.sist the memory of others. Still, of course, you know best."

And Mr. Fogo resumed his work, and thought no more about it; but Caleb alternated between moods of pensiveness and fussy energy for some days after.

In Troy, summer was leading on a train of events not to be cla.s.sed among periodic phenomena. It stands on record, for instance--

That Loo began to be played at the Club, and the Admiral's weekly accounts to grow less satisfactory than in the days when he and Mrs.

Buzza were steadfast opponents at Whist.