CHAPTER XII
BINDLE AGREES TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE
I
AS the intervals between Mr. Hearty's invitations for Sunday evenings lengthened, Bindle became a more frequent visitor at Dick Little's flat, where he could always be sure of finding jovial kindred spirits.
Both Mrs. Hearty and Millie missed Bindle, and broadly hinted the fact to Mr. Hearty; but he enjoyed too well his Sunday evening hymns to sacrifice them on the altar of hospitality. Millie in particular resented the change. She disliked intensely the hymn-singing, and she was greatly attached to "Uncle Joe."
At Dick Little's flat Bindle found ample compensation for the loss of Mr. Hearty's very uncordial hospitality.
"Mrs. Bindle ain't at 'er best Sunday evenin's," he had confided to Dick Little. "'Er soul seems to sort of itch a bit an' 'er not able to scratch it."
He was always assured of a welcome at Chelsea, and the shout that invariably greeted his entrance flattered him.
"Different from ole 'Earty's 'Good-evenin', Joseph,'" he would remark. "I'd like 'Earty to meet this little lot."
One Sunday evening, about nine o'clock, Bindle made his way round to the flat, and found Dick Little alone with his brother Tom, who was spending the week-end in town. Bindle had not previously met Tom Little, who, however, greeted him warmly as an old friend.
"P'r'aps I'd better be goin'," suggested Bindle tentatively, "seein' as you're"
"Not a bit of it," broke in Dick Little; "sit down, mix yourself a drink; there are the cigars."
Bindle did as he was bid.
"We were talking about Gravy when you came in," remarked Tom Little.
"An' very nice too, with a cut from the joint an' two vegs.," remarked Bindle pleasantly.
Dick Little explained that "Gravy" was the nickname by which Mr. Reginald Graves was known to his fellow-undergraduates. "We're about fed up with him at Joe's," Tom Little added.
"An' 'oo might Joe be, sir, when 'e's at 'ome, an' properly labelled?" enquired Bindle.
"It's St. Joseph's College, Oxford, where my 'brother is," explained Dick Little.
In the course of the next half-hour Bindle learned a great deal about Mr. Reginald Graves, who had reached Oxford by means of scholarship, and considered that he had suffered loss of caste in consequence. His one object in life was to undo the mischief wrought by circumstances. He could not boast of a long line of ancestry; in fact, on one occasion when in a reminiscent mood he had remarked:
"I had a grandfather"
"Had you?" was the scathing comment of another man. The story had been retailed with great gusto among the men of St. Joseph's.
Reginald Graves was a snob, which prompted him to believe that all men were snobs. Burke's Peerage and Kelly's Landed Gentry were at once his inspiration and his cross. He used them constantly himself, looking up the ancestry of every man he met. He was convinced that his lack of "family" was responsible for his unpopularity.
In his opinion, failing "blood" the next best thing to possess was money, and he lost no opportunity of throwing out dark and covert hints as to the enormous wealth possessed by the Graves and Williams families, Williams being his mother's maiden name.
His favourite boast, however, was of an uncle in Australia. Josiah Williams had, according to Graves, emigrated many years before. Fortune dogged his footsteps with almost embarrassing persistence until, at the time that his nephew Reginald went up to Oxford, he was a man of almost incredible wealth. He owned mines that produced fabulous riches, and runs where the sheep were innumerable.
Graves was purposely vague as to the exact location of his uncle's sheep-stations, and on one occasion he spent an unhappy evening undergoing cross-examination by an Australian Rhodes scholar. However, he persisted in his story, and Australia was a long way off, and it was very unlikely that anyone would be sufficiently interested to unearth and identify all its millionaires in order to prove that Josiah Williams and his millions existed only in the imagination of his alleged nephew.
Graves was a thin, pale-faced young man with nondescript features and an incipient moustache. Furthermore, he had what is known as a narrow dental arch, which gave to his face a peevish expression. When he smiled he bared two large front teeth that made him resemble a rabbit. His hair was as colourless as his personality. He was entirely devoid of imagination, or, as Tom Little phrased it, "What he lacked in divine fire, he made up for in damned cheek."
He led a solitary life. When his fellow undergraduates deigned to call upon him it was invariably for the purpose of a "rag."
Trade was the iron that had entered his soul; he could never forget that his father was a grocer and provision merchant in a midland town. His one stroke of good luck, that is as he regarded it, was that no one at St. Joseph's was aware of the fact. Had he possessed the least idea that the story of his forebears was well known at St. Joseph's it would have been to him an intolerable humiliation.
Subservient, almost fawning with his betters, he was overbearing and insulting to his equals and inferiors: since his arrival at St. Joseph's his "scout" had developed a pronounced profanity. Rumour had it that Graves was not even above the anonymous letter; but there was no definite evidence that those received by certain men at St. Joseph's found their inspiration in the brain of Reginald Graves.
Nothing would have happened, beyond increased unpopularity for Graves, had it not been for an episode out of which Graves had come with anything but flying colours, and which had procured for him a thrashing as anonymous as the letters he was suspected of writing.
He was a favourite with Dr. Peter, the Master of St. Joseph's, and this, coupled with the fact that the Master was always extremely well-informed as to the things that the undergraduates would have preferred he should not know, aroused suspicion.
One day Travers asked Graves to dinner, and over a bottle of wine confided to him the entirely fictitious information that he was mixed up in a divorce case that would make the whole of Oxford "sit up." Next day he was sent for by Dr. Peter, who had heard "a most disturbing rumour," etc. Travers had taken the precaution of confiding in no one as to his intentions. Thus the source of Dr. Peter's information was obvious.
The men of St. Joseph's were normal men, broad of mind and brawny of muscle; they had, however, their code, and it was this code that Graves had violated. Tom Little had expressed the general view of the college when he said that Graves ought to be soundly kicked and sent down.
"Now, Bindle," remarked Dick Little, "you're a man of ideas: what's to be done with Gravy?"
"Well, sir, that depends on exes. It costs money to do most things in this world, and it'll cost money to make Mr. Gravy stew in his own juice."
"How much?"
"Might cost"—Bindle paused to think—"might cost a matter of twenty or thirty quid to do it in style."
"Right-oh! Out with it, my merry Bindle," cried Tom Little. "Travers and Guggers alone would pay up for a good rag, but it must be top-hole, mind."
"Yes," said Bindle, with a grin; "it 'ud be top-'ole right enough." And Bindle's grin expanded.
"Out with it, man," cried Dick Little. "Don't you see we're aching to hear?"
"Well," said Bindle, "if the exes was all right I might sort o' go down an' see 'ow my nephew, Mr. Gravy, was gettin' on at"
With a whoop of delight Tom Little sprang up, seized Bindle round the waist, and waltzed him round the room, upsetting three chairs and a small table, and finally depositing him breathless in his chair.
"You're a genius, O Bindle! Dick, we're out of it with the incomparable Bindle."
Dick Little leaned back in his easy chair and gazed admiringly at Bindle, as he pulled with obvious enjoyment at his cigar.
"Course I never been a millionaire, but I dessay I'd get through without disgracin' meself. The only thing that 'ud worry me 'ud be 'avin' about 'alf a gross o' knives an' forks for every meal, an' a dozen glasses. But I'm open to consider anythink that's goin'."
"The only drawback," remarked Little, "would be the absence of the millions."
"That would sort o' be a obstacle," admitted Bindle.
After a pause Dick Little continued, "If you were to have your expenses paid, with a new rig-out and, say, five pounds for yourself, do you think that for three or four days you could manage to be a millionaire?"
"Don't you worry," was Bindle's response.
"What about the real Josiah Williams?" Dick Little had enquired.
"All fudge, at least the millions are," his brother replied. "The unspeakable Reggie could not repudiate the relationship without giving the whole show away. It's immense!" He mixed himself another whiskey-and-soda. "I'll talk it over with Travers and Guggers and wire you on Wednesday. Good-bye, Bindle." And he was gone.
That night Bindle stayed late at Little's flat, and talked long and earnestly. As he came away he remarked:
"Of course you'll remember, sir, that millionaires is rather inclined to be a bit dressy, and I'd like to do the thing properly. Maybe, with some paper inside, I might even be able to wear a top 'at."
II
One Tuesday afternoon, when Reginald Graves entered his rooms, he found awaiting him a copy of The Oxford Mail, evidently sent from the office; on the outside was marked, "See page 3."
He picked up the packet, examined it carefully, and replaced it upon the table. He was in all things studied, having conceived the idea that to simulate a species of superior boredom was to evidence good-breeding. Although alone, he would not allow any unseemly haste to suggest curiosity. Having removed his hat and coat and donned a smoking-jacket and Turkish fez—he felt that this gave him the right touch of undergraduate bohemianism—he picked up the paper, once more read the address, and, with studied indifference, removed, it could not be said that he tore off, the wrapper. He smoothed out the paper and turned to the page indicated, where he saw a paragraph heavily marked in blue pencil that momentarily stripped him of his languorous self-control. He read and reread it, looked round the room as if expecting to find some explanation, and then read it again. The paragraph ran:
"A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
"Australia has been brought very closely into touch with this ancient city by the munificence of the late Mr. Cecil Rhodes and his scheme of Scholarships, which each year brings to our colleges gifted scholars, and to the playing-fields and boats magnificent athletes. It is interesting to note that we are shortly to have a visit from Mr. Josiah Williams, the Australian millionaire and philanthropist, whose wealth is said to be almost fabulous, and whose sheep-runs are famous throughout the Antipodes.
"It would appear that we have often eaten of his mutton—that is, of the sheep that he has reared to feed the Empire—and now we are to have the privilege of welcoming him to Oxford.
"We understand that Mr. Williams is to remain in our city for only a few days, and that his main purpose in coming is to visit his nephew Mr. Reginald Graves, of St. Joseph's College. Mr. Williams is, we gather, to be entertained by his nephew's fellow-undergraduates at Bungem's, so famous for its dinners and suppers, and it is mooted that the Corporation may extend its hospitality to so distinguished a citizen of the Empire. Thus are the bonds of Empire cemented.
"It would appear that Mr. Josiah Williams has engaged a suite of rooms at the Sceptre, where he will experience the traditional hospitality of that ancient English hostelry.
"Mr. Williams arrives to-morrow, Wednesday, and we wish him a pleasant stay."
Reginald Graves gasped. It was his rule never to show emotion, and in his more studied moments he would have characterised his present attitude as ill-bred.
"Damn!" It was not his wont to swear. His pose was one of perfect self-control. He was as self-contained as a modern flat, and about as small in his intellectual outlook. He was just on the point of reading the paragraph for the fifth time when the door of his room burst open, admitting Tom Little, Dick Travers, and Guggers.
"Congrats., Gravy. So the old boy's turned up," cried Little, waving a copy of The Oxford Mail in Graves's face.
"Joe's is going to do him proud," broke in Travers. "You've seen the Mail? We'll give him the time of his life."
"Gug-gug-good egg!" broke in Guggers, so named because of his inability to pronounce a "g" without a preliminary "gug-gug" accompanied by inconvenient splashings. It had become customary at St. Joseph's to give Guggers plenty of space in front, whenever he approached a "g." Tom Little called it "G room."
"We're gug-gug-going to give him a gug-gug-gorgeous time."
"We'll have him drunk from morn till dewy eve," cried Tom Little, "and extra drunk at night. Oh, my prophetic soul!"
"Gravy, where's your sense of hospitality?" cried Travers. Reggie reluctantly produced whisky, a syphon, and some glasses.
"By gug-gug-gosh!" cried Guggers, semi-vapourising the remains of a mouthful of whisky and soda, "won't it be a rag! Bless you, Gug-Gug-Gravy for having an uncle."
Tom Little explained that they had been to the Sceptre and discovered that Mr. Josiah Williams would arrive by the 3.3 train, and that St. Joseph's was going down in a body to meet him. Graves, of course, would be there.
"I have heard nothing," said Graves. "I—I don't understand. If he writes of course I'll go."
"You'll jolly well gug-gug-go, any old how, or we'll carry you down," cried Guggers in a menacing voice, looking down at Graves from his six-foot-three of muscle and bone.
Graves looked round him helplessly. What 'was he to do? Could he disown this uncle? Should he explain that the whole thing was an invention, and that he had never possessed a rich uncle in Australia? Was it possible that by some curious trick there really was a Josiah Williams, Australian millionaire and philanthropist? If these men would only go and leave him alone to think!
Then suddenly there presented itself to his mind the other question: what would Josiah Williams be like? Would he be hopelessly unpresentable? Would he humiliate him, Reginald Graves, and render his subsequent years at St. Joseph's intolerable? How he wished these fellows would go!