Toppleton's Client Part 9

"I intended something of the sort," returned the spirit, extricating himself from the head of Aunt Sallie, and ensconcing himself on the paper-weight on Hopkins' desk. "But I didn't have time. You see, immediately after the trial a perfect avalanche of litigants from other offices slid into mine, and within a week I was so overwhelmed with business that I had to hire the rest of this floor here to find room for my papers. It was painful to me, too, to observe that those who had heard of my fame, but who had never seen me, were manifestly disappointed, when taking their departure at the close of a first interview, at having found me so much less great than they had been led to believe by the public estimate of my abilities. Nevertheless, cases of the most intricate sort were fairly dumped into my hands by the cart-load, and, worst of all, I found that eminence brought with it other responsibilities which I was ill-prepared to meet. I was constantly in receipt of requests to lecture on subjects of a variety that would have appalled the fiend himself, and worse than all I was called into consultation by the Crown in certain litigation of international importance. For a time I tried to go it alone, and by a.s.siduous devotion to study to fit myself for the responsibilities which my fame had brought me, but it was impossible. I broke down in less than a month; but having tasted the joys of prominence I was not strong enough to resist the temptation to prolong it indefinitely, and, without thinking of the means, I committed myself to certain undertakings which were utterly beyond my intellectual strength to accomplish, and then, when brought face to face with failure and disgrace, there was but one thing left for me to do, and that I did.

"I summoned the fiend. The mere expression of a desire to see him was sufficient to bring him into my presence, and time and time again did I subject my poor body for ambition's sake to the dreadful interchange of spirits.

"From without I watched my development from mediocrity to fame with a joyous interest, not unmixed, however, with regret, for, at such moments as were permitted me to enjoy the undivided possession of myself, I could not but feel conscious of a diminution of physical strength which detracted materially from my happiness; and yet when day after day I saw my name in print, and noted that I was regarded as one of the most marvellous intellectual products of the day, I could not bring myself to the point where I could renounce everything I had gained, and withdraw to the contented life of the recluse. Let a man once taste a living immortality, Hopkins, and I care not how strong his character may be, he would part with all that he holds most dear sooner than he would renounce that.

"And so it went on for a full year. I became the leading light of the English bar; I astonished the world as a public orator; so potent were my arguments that in court or on the hustings none were able to resist me. At public dinners I was the speaker who alone could hold the feasters when the seductions of the wine cup awaited the cessation of my eloquence. Had I been able to extend the hours of my days from twenty-four to ten times twenty-four, I could not have responded to all the calls that were made upon my time. Then as if to show the world that one profession was too small to hold the boundless qualities of my genius, I startled the English reading public with a novel, the depth and power of which stirred the soul of the most _blase_ of novel-readers, and the presses of my publisher were taxed to the utmost to supply the demand for my work; then came a volume of poems which caused my name to be mentioned as a possible successor to the laureateship; then a series of essays on scientific and philosophical subjects which were nearly my undoing, since my omniscient self, as I came to call the fiend who was responsible for my greatness, was absent upon one occasion when I was called upon unexpectedly to receive a delegation of Scottish scientists, who had travelled from Edinburgh to London to consult with me in regard to certain propositions advanced in my book. What they thought of me Heaven only knows. You see, Hopkins, as far as my original self was concerned there wasn't an atom of scientific knowledge in my body, and to tell you the truth I hadn't even read my book, concerning which these unwelcome grey beards had come from Edinburgh to speak."

"I should like to have been on hand to hear you," said Hopkins with a laugh. "You must have felt like Damocles!"

"I was worse off than Damocles. He was face to face with nothing but death. I was having a _tete-a-tete_ with dishonour. Damocles had a sword suspended over his head, held in place by a hair, I had a Krupp cannon over mine, held in place by Heaven knows what."

"How did you get out of it?" queried Hopkins. "Summon the fiend?"

"What, summon that deadly green thing before those men, and change places with him in the presence of witnesses? I fancy not. I have been a complete hall-marked fool in many respects, Hopkins, but my idiocy never went as far as that. The only thing left for me to do was to acquiesce in nine things that those fellows said, and look doubtful at the tenth and say I didn't know about that; my inherent love of compromise and my ingenuity in that direction stood me in good stead upon that occasion.

It was a narrow squeak, but I got through all right. The _savants_ went back to Edinburgh somewhat disappointed, I presume, with the new sun on the scientific horizon. And you ought to have seen how the fiend laughed when I told him about it the next time I saw him! He fixed it all right, however, by sitting down and writing a letter to my late visitors and answering every one of their questions, and asking them a few additional ones, to answer which I fancy put them to their trumps.

"After making me famous as scientist, novelist and lawyer, the fiend induced a political bee to enter my cap, and one day after an absence of a week from my body, during which period of time I was utterly in the dark as to its whereabouts, I was appalled to see it reel in at the door in a maudlin state that revolted me.

"'Well,' I said as soon as I was able to speak,' what new disgrace is this you have put upon me? Am I to make my mark now as an inebriate, or is this simply a little practical joke you are putting upon my sensibilities? If it is the latter, it is a mighty poor joke.'

"'No,' returned the fiend, who I am pleased to say showed some sense of shame at the plight he had got me into this time. 'No, this is not a practical joke, nor do I wish to ruin your reputation for sobriety. I regret this apparent liquidation of your system quite as much as you do, not because I care what others say, though. It is because I find it much harder to manage your body under these present circ.u.mstances. When one leg wants to go dancing down Pall Mall, and the other evinces a strange desire to walk gravely off in the direction of Scotland Yard, it is a most difficult thing for a mind not thoroughly in sympathy with either of them to drive them down the Strand in that modest, una.s.suming fashion which alone enables one to avoid police supervision. I've had the devil's own time with this weak corse of yours, and if I had known how abominably light-headed and airy-legged a little strong drink made you, I never should have had you stand for Parliament--'

"'Stand for Parliament?' I cried, aghast at the new honour which was being thrust upon me. 'Have I been standing for Parliament?'

"'Well, not exactly' laughed the fiend. 'You've been sort of held up for Parliament; you haven't been able to stand up without wobbling for five days; in fact, not since you tried to do your duty by your const.i.tuency, and take a little something at your own expense with a few rounds of doubtful voters. You were nearly defeated, my boy, because of your disgusting inability to cope with the flowing bowl, but I managed to pull you through. The temperance people voted to a man against you, but the other interests stood by you pretty well, and you now represent your old neighbours in--'

"'My old neighbours,' I moaned. 'Have I been made to appear to my old neighbours in the light of a dissipated politician when all my life long I had been known to them as a sober--'

"'Don't dwell on that point, my good fellow,' interrupted the fiend.

'Forget it. In forgetfulness of what you have been, and in consideration of what you have become, lies happiness. By the way--have you a mother living?'

"'Yes,' I answered, numb with anxiety for fear of what was coming. 'You haven't disgraced me in her eyes, have you?'

"'Oh, no,' returned the fiend. 'But a lady claiming to be your mother visited me during the campaign, and was very indignant because I failed to recognize her--that cost you some votes, but not enough to change the result. She didn't look a bit like you, and I was afraid the opposition was putting up some game on us, so I just laughed her off.'

"'You--you laughed her off--you mean to tell me,' I stammered, 'that when my mother came to my political headquarters to see her son, he refused to recognize her, and laughed her off?'

"'Oh, come,' said the fiend indignantly, 'don't get angry. Remember one thing, please. You are now a member of Parliament, a great Lawyer, a famous Scientist, a Novelist and an Orator. It is I who have made you so. If you don't like what I've done, we'll call the arrangement off, and you can make a spectacle of yourself in the eyes of the world. I hate an ingrate. You couldn't expect me to know a lady whom I never even saw before, and when I have a big scheme on foot I do not intend to have it spoiled for want of caution. If I made you seem an undutiful son, I am sorry for it, and will strive to make amends next time I meet your mother. I'll write a formal apology if you desire, but I don't wish to hear any more of your sentimental nonsense. Much has to be sacrificed in achieving greatness, and you have got therewith just about as little personal inconvenience as any man in history. Stop your snivelling, or I'll desert your cause, and what that means even you can grasp.'

"With these words," concluded the spirit, "he departed, and left me to sleep off the effects of a seven days' campaign in which my moral welfare had been sacrificed to the thirst of at least four hundred doubtful voters. Credited with a seat in Parliament, I found my name debited with the crime of intemperance, lack of self-respect, and a gross affront to my own mother; a fine record for one week in which in my own consciousness I was unable to recollect doing anything that could not have been done with propriety by a candidate for canonization."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Toppleton, deeply moved by the horror of the weary spirit's story. "It strikes me that canonization in the form in which it was used on the Sepoys in '57 would be mild punishment for that Nile-green brute that got you into this. To tell you the truth, Sallie, the fearful justice of your cause is almost enough to make me withdraw entirely. I should hate to be called upon to prosecute a defendant of the nature of your verdant visitor."

CHAPTER IX.

THE CROWNING ACT OF INFAMY.

"HEAR me to the end, Hopkins, I beseech you," said the exile earnestly.

"Of course the fiend strikes you as a being to be avoided, but I do not believe that he is now as powerful and as terrible as he was in the days gone by. Long confinement to a purely mortal sphere must necessarily have weakened his supernatural powers, and it strikes me that properly managed by a young and aggressive lawyer, our case against him would be won in an instant. At all events, do not compel me to leave my story unfinished. I am sure that when you hear of the crowning act of infamy of which my evil genius was guilty, you will not hesitate a moment in making up your mind that duty summons you to aid me."

"Very well," rejoined Hopkins. "Go on with the tale, only do not be too sanguine as to its results in convincing me that I am the man to extricate you from this horrid plight."

"After I had attended one or two meetings of the House of Commons," said the exile, resuming the thread of his story, "I enjoyed the experience so much that I almost forgave the fiend for having so nearly ruined me with all my old friends; and having written, in accordance with his promise, a truly beautiful letter to my mother, explaining away the harsh treatment she had suffered at the hands of her now ill.u.s.trious son on the ground of his not being quite himself on that occasion--a state of mind due to too close attention to work and study--I quite forgave him for that unpleasant episode in my campaign. My mother too overlooked the affront, and wrote me a most affectionate epistle, stating that I might trample upon her most cherished ideals with her entire acquiescence if my taking that course would ensure to her the receipt of so loving and touching a letter as the one I had sent her. The fiend and I both had to smile, on receiving my mother's note, to observe that the dear old lady attributed my ability to express myself in such beautiful terms to the poetic traits I had inherited from her.

"'She's very proud of her dear boy,' sneered the fiend.

"'In spite of his brutality at the committee-room,' I retorted; and then we both grinned, for each truly believed that he had got the better of the other."

"It was a pretty close contest," said Hopkins. "But on the whole the laugh seems to be on you."

"It certainly was the first time I tried to speak in Parliament,"

returned the spirit. "Such a failure was never seen. I was to take part in a very important debate, and when the hour came for me to get on my feet and talk, I was my weak-kneed self and utterly unacquainted even with the side I was expected to take. The fiend had promised to do all the talking, and on this occasion failed to materialize. I spoke for ten minutes in an incoherent fashion, mouthing my words so that no one could understand a syllable that I uttered. It was a fearful disappointment to my friends in the House and in the galleries; the latter being packed when it was understood that I was to speak. Of course, when the fiend appeared later on, he straightened it all out, and the printed speech which he dictated and which I wrote was really a fine effort and did our party much good. But these little embarra.s.sments were tragedies to me, and at every new success I quailed before the possibilities of disastrous failure at the next effort. In but one respect was I entirely free from the fiendish influence, and that was in the matter of my love. From that phase of my life the fiend kept himself apart, and it was the only joyous oasis to be found in the boundless desert of my misery. To the fiend, Sunday was literally a day of rest, for upon that day he never approached me, and I devoted it to calling upon the woman I loved.

"She was a beautiful woman, the only daughter of a retired city merchant, and fond of the admiration of successful men. That she loved me before I attained to eminence in the various professions in which the fiend had compelled me to dabble, I had much reason to believe; but I had never ventured to make love to her in dead earnest, because I feared for the result. She had often said to me that while she should never marry for riches and position, she did not intend to fall in love with any man just because he had neither, and that no man need ever propose marriage to her who was not reasonably sure of a successful career. It was not selfishness that led her to think and speak in this manner, but a realizing sense of the unhappy fact that mediocrity married is as hopeless as a broken-winded race-horse in harness. There is plenty of ambition but no future, and as she often said, 'Where hopelessness comes, happiness dwelleth not!'"

"A daughter of Solomon, I wot," interrupted Toppleton.

"Yes," said the spirit, with a sigh for her he had lost, "and rather superior to the old gentleman in a great many ways. Of course I understood, and, lacking achievement in my profession, discreetly held my tongue on the subject of matrimony, taking good care, however, when I called never to let any other fellow outstay me, unless perchance he was some poor drivelling idiot from whose immediate present the laurel was further removed than from my own. She understood me, I think, though I never put that point to a practical test by a proposal of marriage. This was the state of affairs at the time of my first meeting with the fiend, and for a year subsequent to that ill-starred night upon which he first crossed my path I let matters take their own course, waiting a favourable opportunity to ask the great question, upon the answer to which hung all my future happiness. I could see that with my increasing fame, her interest in me waxed; but as every pa.s.sing day brought new and undreamed-of distinctions she grew more and more reserved toward me--a most feminine trait that, Hopkins. When a woman begins to love a man in dead earnest, in nine cases out of ten she will make him feel that he is utterly abhorrent to her, and it's a good thing she does, because it makes him look carefully into his own character in an endeavour to discover and to root out all the undesirable features thereof. It is this that enables love to redeem men whom the world considers irredeemable, so, of course, I had no feeling of discouragement at her growing coldness, for, understanding women, I knew exactly what it meant. I think I was more or less of an enigma to her."

"I should think it likely," said Toppleton. "If she really knew you, she must have been mightily surprised at your sudden strides towards universal genius. It's a wonder to me that she did not suspect the enigma, and give it up."

"Yes," returned the spirit. "It was very embarra.s.sing to me when she expressed her surprise at my progress, and asked me how I did it, and other questions equally hard to answer. And then her father, who was always more or less insufferable, now became absolutely insulting--that is, his new found appreciation of my virtues led him into making a.s.sertions which galled me, he little knew how much--a.s.sertions to the effect that to look at me no one would suspect that I had more than ordinary intelligence; that to hear me talk one would never suppose I could make a speech of any kind, much less set the world on fire by my eloquence; and finally, that no man after this could tell him that it was possible to judge of the future by the past, or the past by the present, for he had always thought me foredoomed to failure, and I had achieved success, and, having achieved success, gave no present evidence that I deserved it."

"He had the making of the accepted mother-in-law in him," said Hopkins.

"What could have induced you to fall in love with the daughter of a man like that?"

"She was a superb woman, that's what," rejoined the spirit with enthusiasm, "and when I think of the happiness that the Nile-green shade first placed within my reach and then s.n.a.t.c.hed from me, I regret that the soul is immortal, and that I am not all-powerful, for it would please me to grind his soul into absolute nothingness.

"It was at least a year and two months subsequent to my first meeting with him," continued the spirit as soon as his overwrought feelings would permit, "that he first broached the subject of matrimony. He had attended a grand ball at the house of the Earl of Piccadilly and was the lion of the occasion owing to his stand in certain recent Parliamentary crises. His readiness in debate had gained him a high position, and his natural grace of manner--that is, _my_ natural grace of manner--had helped him to a hold on the affections of those with whom he was a.s.sociated, for, as he grew more accustomed to my figure and got his angles comfortably rounded off to fit my curves, he managed to subdue that horrible aspect he had a.s.sumed with such fearful effect in the trial of Baskins _v._ Baskins, and when geniality was the attribute most likely to help him on he was geniality personified. The ball was ostensibly one of the Earl of Piccadilly's usual series of annual functions, but in reality it was given for the purpose of introducing me into society. From all accounts, it was a grand affair, and I seemed to have made as fine an impression as a social debutant as I had in the law courts, in the field of literature, and in the House of Commons. If the fiend spoke truly that night, when he returned and handed my fatigued body over to me for a rest, I made a marked success; all the ladies were raving about me; I was a divine dancer, though before that night my feet had never tripped to the strains of a waltz, polka, or any other terpsich.o.r.ean exercise. I pleased the dowagers as well as the maids, and had, in short, become an eligible--that is I had become as desirable a matrimonial _parti_ as an unt.i.tled person could hope to be, and the fiend remarked with a sly wink that it was not beyond the range of possibilities that the Premier would bestow upon me one of the peerages at his disposal when the proper time came.

"'Bachelorhood is pardonable in a young man,' said my evil genius upon this occasion, 'but we must marry if we are to reach the pinnacle of success. There is a solidity about the married man's estate that bachelorhood lacks, and I rather think I can make a match that will push us ahead.'

"'I don't think I need your a.s.sistance,' I replied. 'In fact I prefer that some of the things which pertain to myself shall be left entirely in my own hands. In matters of the affections I can take care of myself.'

"'Very well,' was the fiend's response. 'Have your own way about it, only take my advice and get married. We need a wife.'

"'We?' I cried. 'We! I just want you to understand, my dear sir, that the p.r.o.noun doesn't fit the case. _I_ may need a wife and _you_ may need a wife, but if you think I'm going into any co-operative scheme with you in that matter you are less omniscient than usual. Remember that please and let us have nothing more to say on the subject.'"

"That was a very proper stand for you to take," said Hopkins, gravely.

"Though I think that, under the circ.u.mstances, you should have given up all ideas of marriage. No woman would have you, knowing that you were not yourself at times; and then having as little control over your other self as you seem to have had, you would often have found yourself in hot water for flirting with other women, when, in reality, your own self was as innocent as a mountain daisy."

"I know I did wrong in thinking of marriage, Hopkins," returned the spirit, "but if you had ever met the woman I loved, you would have loved her too--yes, even if you were a confirmed celibate. I don't believe a Cardinal, sir, would have hesitated between his hat and her. My sole justification was her loveliness, and then the fiend's ready acquiescence in my statement that in that matter he must hold aloof gave me confidence that I might safely take the step I had so long and so ardently desired to take.

"Weeks pa.s.sed by, and in everything save the courtship of Miss Hicksworthy-Johnstone I gave myself unreservedly over to the fiend, who began suddenly to take an interest in my personal appearance which he had never before manifested. He laid in a fine supply of clothes--dress suits, walking suits, lounging suits--suits in fact of every description and of the finest texture. Shirts and collars, and ties of the choicest sort were imported by him from Paris, and on my hands I now observed he was beginning to wear kid gloves of fashionable type. His hats and shoes were distinctly in the mode, and his jewelry, as far as it went, was of unexceptionable taste and quiet elegance. In fact, Toppleton, I began to be something of a dandy. This I attributed to the natural vanity of my other self. I, too, was proud of that graceful form, but I never thought enough about it to go about arraying it in a fashion which neither Solomon nor the lily of the field could ever have approached. I cared nothing for gloves save as a means to a warm finger's end, and it made no difference to me whether my hat was of the style of '48, or plucked fresh from the French Emperor's own block. As long as my head was covered I was satisfied. Patent leather shoes I could never bring myself to buy, because they had always seemed to me to go hand in hand either with poverty or laziness. To a man who cannot afford shoe blacking or who is too lazy to black his own boots, patent leathers, I thought, were a boon; but I never cla.s.sed myself under either head, and wore the regular foot gear of the plain but honest son of toil.