The Master of the Ceremonies Part 29

He took up the cards as he spoke, shuffled them with an easy, graceful movement, the pieces of pasteboard flying rapidly through his hands, before dealing them lightly out upon the table, face upwards, and selecting four thirteens.

"Now," he said, "look here. Your partner holds two trumps--six, nine; your adversaries right and left have knave and ace; B on your right leads trumps--what would you do?"

Barclay knit his brow and took the Colonel's hand, gazing from one to the other thoughtfully, and then, without a word, played the hand, the Colonel selecting those cards that would be played by the others till the hand was half through, when Barclay hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to throw away a trick.

"Why did you do that?" said the Colonel sharply.

"Because by losing that I should get the next two."

"Exactly!" cried the Colonel with his eyes flashing. "That endorses my opinion. Barclay, I shan't play against you if I can help myself.

Money-lending seems to sharpen the wits wonderfully. What a clever old fox you are!"

"One's obliged to be clever now a days, Colonel, if one wants to get on.

Well, I must go. I have to see your neighbours. Rents are very bad to get in."

"I suppose so," said the Colonel drily. "Good-morning."

"I wonder what he makes a year by his play," said Barclay to himself, as he went back to the front door to knock for the third time. "I believe he plays square, too, but he has a wonderful head, and he's practising night and day. Now for old Linnell."

He was shown into Mr Linnell's room the next minute, to find that he was expected, and that he was gravely and courteously received, and his rent paid, so that there was nothing for him to do but say "Good-morning." But Josiah Barclay's conscience was a little uneasy, and in spite of the fact that his tenant was far from being a rich man, there was something in his grave refined manner that won his respect.

"Wish you'd come and see us sometimes, Mr Linnell, just in a friendly way, you know. Chop and gla.s.s o' sherry with Mrs Barclay and me; and you'd join us too, Mr Richard, eh?"

"Thank you, Mr Barclay, no," said Richard's father; "I never go out.

Richard, my son, here, would, I dare say, accept your invitation."

"Oh, but can't you too, eh? Look here, you know, you're a man who loves bits of old china, and I've quite a lot. Really good. Come: when shall it be?"

"Don't press me now, Mr Barclay," said his tenant gravely. "Perhaps some other time."

"Then you're offended, Mr Linnell. You're a bit hipped because of the other lodgers, you know."

"Mr Barclay, I have made no complaints," said the elder Linnell quietly.

"No, you've made no complaints, but you show it in your way, don't you see. It wasn't for me to be too strict in my inquiries about people, Mr Linnell. I'm sorry I offended you; but what can I do?"

"Mr Barclay has a perfect right to do what he pleases with his own house," replied the elder Linnell with dignity. "Good-day."

"Now I could buy that man up a hundred times over," grumbled Barclay as he walked away, richer by many pounds than when he started on his journey that morning; "but he always seems to set me down; to look upon me with contempt; and young Richard is as high and mighty as can be.

Ah, well, wait a bit!--'Can you oblige me with fifty pounds, Mr Barclay, on my note of hand?'--and then p'raps they'll be more civil.

"Things ain't pleasant though, just now. One house made notorious by a murder, and me letting a couple of actresses lodge in another. Well, they pay regular, and I dare say she'll make a good match somewhere before long; but I'm afraid, when the old lady gets to know they're stage people, there'll be a bit of a breeze."

Volume One, Chapter XXI.

d.i.c.k CATCHES SHRIMPS.

There was quite a little crowd at the end of the pier to see Fisherman d.i.c.k and some others busy with boathooks searching for the fragments of Cora Dean's pony carriage, and for want of something better to stare at, the fastening of a rope to first one pair of wheels and then to the other, and the hauling ash.o.r.e, formed thrilling incidents.

Two rich carriage-cloaks were cast ash.o.r.e by the tide, miles away, and the rug was found right under the pier, but there were several articles still missing. Cora's reticule, containing her purse and cut-gla.s.s scent-bottle; a little carriage-clock used by Mrs Dean, who was always very particular about the lapse of time, and that lady's reticule and purse.

It was Fisherman d.i.c.k's special task to search for them when the tide was low, and this he did by going to work as a setter does in a field, quartering the ground and hunting it all over to and fro.

But Fisherman d.i.c.k did his work with a shrimping-net, and one day he took home the little carriage-clock and showed it to his wife.

Another day he found Mrs Dean's reticule, and caught a great many shrimps as well.

Then the tide did not serve for several days, and he had to wait, shaking his head and telling Mrs Miggles he was afraid the sand would have covered everything.

"Then give it up," said Mrs Miggles, who was trying to sew with the little girl in her lap, but was prevented by the tiny thing making dashes at her broad-brimmed silver spectacles, which it kept taking off and flourishing in one little plump hand.

"Well done, little 'un," cried the fisherman, grinning. "No, missus, I don't like being beat."

He went off, looking very serious, with his net over one shoulder, the creel over the other, and after going to and fro patiently waist and often breast deep, he was successful in finding Cora Dean's reticule, with its purse and cut-gla.s.s bottle; and that night he went home amply rewarded, Cora having been very generous, and Mrs Dean saying several times over that she wouldn't have believed that a great rough man like that would have been so honest.

"I declare, Betsy, he's just like a man in a play--the good man who finds the treasure and gives it up. Why, he might have kep' your puss, and my puss too, and n.o.body been a bit the wiser."

That was all that was missing; but every day for a week, during the times that the tide was low, Fisherman d.i.c.k was busy, pushing his shrimping-net before him, and stopping every now and then to raise it, throw out the rubbish, and transfer the few shrimps he caught to his creel.

It was not a good place for shrimping--it was too deep; but he kept on with his laborious task, wading out as far as ever he could go; and more than one of his fellow-mermen grinned at his empty creel.

"Why don't you try the shallows, d.i.c.k?" said one of the blue-jerseyed fellows, who seemed to be trying to grow a hump on his back by leaning over the rail at the edge of the cliff.

"'Cause I like to try the deeps," growled Fisherman d.i.c.k.

"Ah, you want to make your fortune too quick, my lad; that's plain."

d.i.c.k winked, and went home; and the next day he winked, and went out shrimping again, and caught very few, and went home again, put on his dry clothes, and said:

"Give us the babby."

Mrs Miggles gave him the "babby," and d.i.c.k took her and nursed her, smiling down at the little thing as she climbed up his chest, and tangled her little fingers in his great beard; while Mrs Miggles gave the few shrimps a pick over and a shake up before she consigned the hopping unfortunates to the boiling bath that should turn them from blackish grey to red.

"What is it, old man?" said Mrs Miggles; "sperrits?"

Fisherman d.i.c.k shook his head, and began to sing gruffly to the child about a "galliant" maiden who went to sea in search of her true "lovy-er along of a British crew."

"What is it, then--lace?"

Fisherman d.i.c.k shook his head again, and bellowed out the word "crew,"

the little child looking at him wonderingly, but not in the least alarmed.

"I never did see such an oyster as you are, old man," said Mrs Miggles.

"You're the closest chap in the place."

"Ay!" said Fisherman d.i.c.k; and he went on with his song.

He went shrimping off the end of the pier for the delectation of the mincing crowd of promenaders twice more. Lord Carboro' saw him; so did Major Rockley and Sir Harry Payne. Sir Matthew Bray was too busy dancing attendance upon Lady Drelincourt to pay any attention.