The Mississippi Bubble Part 4

"Have it then at any rate, and be civil!" cried the older man. "You seem a swaggering sort, with your talk of love and luck, and such are sure to get their combs cut early enough here among Englishmen. I'll not tolerate your allusion to a lady you have never met, and one I honor deeply, sir, deeply!"

"I am but a young man started out to seek his fortune," said John Law, his eye kindling now for the first time, "and I should do very ill if I evaded that fortune, whatsoever it may be."

"Then you'll take back that talk of Mrs. Lawrence!"

"I have made no talk of Mrs. Lawrence, sir," said Law, "and even had I, I should take back nothing for a demand like yours. 'Tis not meet, sir, where no offense was meant, to crowd in an offensive remark."

Pembroke said nothing. The situation was ominous enough at this point. A sudden gravity and dignity fell upon the young men who sat there, schooled in an etiquette whose first lesson was that of personal courage.

"Sirrah!" cried Beau Wilson, "I perceive your purpose. If you prove good enough to name lodgings where you may he found by my friends, I shall ask leave to bid you a very good night."

So speaking, Wilson flung out of the room. A silence fell upon those left within.

"Sirs," said Law, a moment later, "I beg you to bear witness that this is no matter of my seeking or accepting. This gentleman is a stranger to me. I hardly got his name fair."

"Wilson is his name, sir," said Pembroke, "a very good friend of us all.

He is of good family, and doth keep his coach-and-four like any gentleman. For him we may vouch very well."

"Wilson!" cried Law, springing now to his feet. "'Tis not him known as Beau Wilson? Why, my dear sirs, his father was friend to many of my kin long ago. Why, sir, this is one of those to whom my mother bade me look to get my first ways of London well laid out."

"These are some of the ways of London," said Pembroke, grimly.

"But is there no fashion in which this matter can be accommodated?"

Pembroke and Castleton looked at each other, rose and pa.s.sed him, each raising his hat and bowing courteously.

"Your servant, sir," said the one; and, "Your servant, sir," said the other.

CHAPTER V

DIVERS EMPLOYMENTS OF JOHN LAW

"And when shall I send these garments to your Lordship?" asked the haberdasher, with whom Law was having speech on the morning following the first night in London.

"Two weeks from to-day," said Law, "in the afternoon, and not later than four o'clock. I shall have need for them."

"Impossible!" said the tradesman, hitherto obsequious, but now smitten with the conviction regarding the limits of human possibilities.

"At that hour, or not at all," said John Law, calmly. "At that time I shall perhaps be at my lodgings, 59 Bradwell Street, West. As I have said to you, I am not clad as I could wish. It is not a matter of your convenience, but of mine own."

"But, sir," expostulated the other, "you order of the best. Nothing, I am sure, save the utmost of good workmanship would please you. I should like a month of time upon these garments, in order to make them worthy of yourself. Moreover, there are orders of the n.o.bility already in our hands will occupy us more than past the time you name. Make it three weeks, sir, and I promise--"

His customer only shook his head and reiterated, "You heard me well."

The tailor, sore puzzled, not wishing to lose a customer who came so well recommended, and yet hesitating at the exactions of that customer, sat with perplexity written upon his brow.

"So!" exclaimed Law. "Sir Arthur Pembroke told me that you were a clever fellow and could execute exact any order I might give you. Now it appears to me you are like everybody else. You prate only of hardships and of impossibilities."

The perspiration fairly stood out on the forehead of the man of trade.

"Sir," said he, "I should be glad to please not only a friend of Sir Arthur Pembroke, but also a gentleman of such parts as yourself. I hesitate to promise--"

"But you must promise," said John Law.

"Well, then, I do promise! I will have this apparel at your place on the day which you name. 'Tis most extraordinary, but the order shall be executed."

"As I thought," said John Law.

"But I must thank you besides," resumed the tradesman. "In good truth I must say that of all the young gentlemen who come hither--and I may show the names of the best n.o.bility of London and of some ports beyond seas--there hath never stepped within these doors a better figure than yourself--nay, not so good. And I am a judge of men."

Law looked at him carelessly.

"You shall make me none the easier, nor yourself the easier, by soft speech," said he, "if you have not these garments ready by the time appointed. Send them, and you shall have back the fifty sovereigns by the messenger, with perhaps a coin or so in addition if all be well."

"The air of this n.o.bility!" said the tailor, but smiling with pleasure none the less. "This is, perhaps, some affair with a lady?" he added.

"'Tis an affair with a lady, and also with certain gentlemen."

"Oh, so," said the tailor. "If it he, forsooth, an enterprise with a lady, methinks I know the outcome now." He gazed with professional pride upon the symmetrical figure before him. "You shall be all the better armed when well fitted in my garments. Not all London shall furnish a properer figure of a man, nor one better clad, when I shall have done with you, sir."

Law but half heard him, for he was already turning toward the door, where he beckoned again for his waiting chair.

"To the offices of the Bank of England," he directed. And forthwith he was again jogging through the crowded streets of London.

The offices of the Bank of England, to which this young adventurer now so nonchalantly directed his course, were then not housed in any such stately edifice as that which now covers the heart of the financial world, nor did the location of the young and struggling inst.i.tution, in a by-street of the great city, tend to give dignity to a concern which still lacked importance and a.s.suredness. Thither, then, might have gone almost any young traveler who needed a letter of credit cashed, or a bill changed after the fashion of the pa.s.sing goldsmiths.

Yet it was not as mere transient customer of a money-changer that young Law now sought the Bank of England, nor was it as a commercial house that the bank then commanded attention. That bank, young as it was, had already become a pillar of the throne of England. William, distracted by wars abroad and factions at home, found his demands for funds ever in excess of the supply. More than that, the people of England discovered themselves in possession of a currency fluctuating, mutilated, and unstable, so that no man knew what was his actual fortune. The shrewd young financier, Montague, chancellor of the exchequer, who either by wisdom or good fortune had sanctioned the founding of the Bank of England, was at this very time addressing himself to the question of a recoinage of the specie of the realm of England. He needed help, he demanded ideas; nor was he too particular whence he obtained either the one or the other.

John Law was in London on no such blind quest as he had himself declared. He was here by the invitation, secret yet none the less obligatory, of Montague, controller of the financial policy of England.

And he was to meet, here upon this fair morning, none less than my Lord Somers, keeper of the seals; none less than Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician of his time; none less than John Locke, the most learned philosopher of the day. Strong company this, for a young and unknown man, yet in the belief of Montague, himself a young man and a gambler by instinct, not too strong for this young Scotchman who had startled the Parliament of his own land by some of the most remarkable theories of finance which had ever been proposed in any country or to any government. As Law had himself arrogantly announced, he was indeed a philosopher and a mathematician, young as he was; and these things Montague was himself keen enough to know.

It promised, then, to be a strange and interesting council, this which was to meet to-day at the Bank of England, to adjust the value of England's coinage; two philosophers, one pompous trimmer, and two gamblers; the younger and more daring of whom was now calmly threading the streets of London on his way to a meeting which might mean much to him.

To John Law, adventurer, mathematician, philosopher, gambler, it seemed a natural enough thing that he should be asked to sit at the council table with the ablest minds of the day and pa.s.s upon questions the most important. This was not what gave him trouble. This matter of the coinage, these questions of finance--they were easy. But how to win the interest of the tall and gracious English girl whom he had met by chance that other morn, who had left no way open for a further meeting; how to gain access to the presence of that fair one--these were the questions which to John Law seemed of greater importance, and of greater difficulty in the answering.

The chair drew up at the somber quarters where the meeting had been set.

Law knew the place by instinct, even without seeing the double row of heavy-visaged London constabulary which guarded the entrance. Here and there along the street were carriages and chairs, and multiplied conveyances of persons of consequence. Upon the narrow pavement, and within the little entrance-way that led to the inner room, there bustled about important-looking men, some with hooked noses, most with florid faces and well-fed bodies, but all with a certain dignity and sobriety of expression.

Montague himself, young, smooth-faced, dark-eyed, of active frame, of mobile and pleasing features, sat at the head of a long table. The high-strung quality of his nervous system was evidenced in his restless hands, his att.i.tude frequently changed.

At the left of Montague sat Somers, lord keeper; older, of more steady demeanor, of fuller figure, of bold face and full light eye, a politician, not a ponderer. At the right of Montague, grave, silent, impa.s.sive, now and again turning a contemplative eye about him, sat that great man. Sir Isaac Newton, known then to every n.o.bleman, and now to every schoolboy, of the world. A gem-like mind, keen, clear, hard and brilliant, exact in every facet, and forsooth held in the setting of an iron body. Gentle, unmoved, self-a.s.sured, Sir Issac Newton was calm as morn itself as he sat in readiness to give England the benefit of his wisdom.

Beyond sat John Locke, abstruse philosopher, a man thinner and darker than his _confrere_, with large full orb, with the brow of the student and the man of thought. In dignity he shared with the learned gentleman sitting near him.