II
A BENEVOLENT CHARACTER
A youth came into the small tobacconist's and inquired, across the counter, whether there happened to be in the neighbourhood a branch establishment of a well-known firm (mentioned by name) dealing in similar goods and guaranteeing to save the consumer thirty-three per cent. He required the information, it appeared, because he contemplated buying a packet of cigarettes.
No, said the proprietor (after he finished his speech and the youth had gone), not quite the limit. Near to the edge, I admit; but remembering my friend, Mr. Ardwick, I can't say it's what you'd call the highest possible. It was a privilege to know Ardwick; he was, without any doubt whatsoever, a masterpiece. I've give up all hopes of ever finding his equal.
He was a customer here at the time Mrs. Ingram had the shop—and when I say customer, of course I don't mean that he ever handed over a single halfpenny. Mrs. Ingram had only been a widow for about a twelvemonth, and naturally enough she liked gentlemen's society; and Ardwick, after he got his compensation out of the County Council—that, by the by, was one of his triumphs—he had nothing else to do, and he became very much attached to that chair what you're sitting on now. He'd call in to have a look at the morning paper, and read it through from start to finish; later in the day he'd call to see the evening paper, and keep tight hold of it till he'd come to the name of the printers at the foot of the last page. Between whiles he'd pretend to make himself handy at dusting the counter, and help himself to a pipe of tobacco, out of the shag-jar. It was a pretty sight to see old Ardwick, before he left of an evening, talk, as he filled a pocket with matches out of the stand, about the way the rich robbed the poor.
Having caught sight of Mrs. Ingram's pass-book that she was sending to the bank—he offered to post it, and walked all the way to Lombard Street and stuck to the twopence—Ardwick makes up his mind to take the somewhat desperate step of proposing to Mrs. I.
“Very kind of you,” she says, “but I fancy, Mr. Ardwick, you're a shade too stingy to run in double harness with me. Poor Ingram,” she says, “was always freehanded with his money, and if I should ever get married again it will have to be to some one of a similar disposition. But thank you all the same,” she says, “for asking!”
Ardwick ran across his friend Kimball in Downham Road that evening and lent him a match, and said Kimball was the very party he wanted to meet. They had a long, confidential sort of talk together outside the fire-station, and they came to such high words that a uniformed man, who was talking to one of his girls, threatened to turn the hose on them. The two strolled down Kingsland Road in a cooler frame of mind, and when they said “Good-night” at the canal bridge Kimball promised to do the best for Mr. Ardwick that lay in his power. Kimball explained that he was not going to do it out of friendship, but mainly because his wife had recently docked his allowance, and, in consequence, he felt a grudge against the sex in general.
“I promise you,” said Mr. Ardwick, still shaking his hand, “that you won't lose over the transaction.”
“Knowing you as I do,” remarked Kimball, “I quite recognise that it'll take a bit of doing to make anything out of it.”
Mr. Ardwick was in the shop, here, the following afternoon. Mrs. Ingram felt surprised to see him at that hour, and she locks up the till pretty smartly and moves the box of World-Famed Twopenny Cheroots.
“Something you said, Mrs. Ingram,” he began, “has been worryin' of me, and I've called round to talk it over. You seem to have got the impression in your mind that I'm, if anything, a trifle close with my money. I should like to convince you, ma'am, that you are doing me an injustice, and to prove it I'm going to adopt a very simple plan.”
“Have you brought back that watch of mine I gave you to get mended?”
“One topic at a time,” urged Mr. Ardwick. “My idea of benevolence is something wider and broader than that of most people.” He glanced at the clock. “What I propose to do is this. To the first customer what enters this shop after half-past three I shall present the sum of five pound.”
“Five what?”
“Five quid,” he said, in a resolute sort of manner. “The first one, mind you, after half-past three. It wants two minutes to the half-hour now. All you've got to do, ma'am, is to stand where you are, and to judge whether I'm a man of a generous disposition or whether I'm the opposite.”
As the clock turned the half-hour an old woman came in and put down four farthings for snuff; when she had gone Mr. Ardwick mentioned that he knew for a fact that the clock was a trifle fast. An elderly gentleman in workhouse clothes came for a screw of tobacco; Mr. Ardwick pointed out to Mrs. Ingram that he never proposed to extend his offer to those supported by the State. Kimball arrived at twenty-five minutes to, and Mr. Ardwick glared at him privately for not keeping the appointment. Kimball bought a box of wooden matches, and was leaving the shop when Mr. Ardwick called him.
“My man,” he said, “your face and your general appearance suggest you are not one of those who are termed favourites of fortune. Tell me, now, have you ever been the recipient, so to speak, of a stroke of luck?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir,” said Kimball, answering very respectfully.
“Never had a windfall of any kind? No sudden descent of manna from above? Very well, then.” Mr. Ardwick took out his cheque-book and asked Mrs. I. for pen and ink. “Be so kind as to give me your full name, and it will be my pleasure to hand you over a handsome gift. I hope you will lay out the sum to the best advantage, and I trust it may prove a turning-point, a junction as it were, in your life!”
Mr. Ardwick was talking across the counter to Mrs. Ingram about the pleasures of exercising charity, and the duty of those who possessed riches towards them who had none, when a most horrible idea seemed to occur to him, and he darted out of the shop like a streak of lightning. In Kingsland Road he just caught a motor-omnibus that was going towards the City, and on the way through Shoreditch he complained, whilst he mopped his forehead, because the conductor did not make the bus go quicker. Near Cornhill there was a block of traffic, and he slipped down and ran for his life. As he came near the bank he caught sight of Kimball descending the steps. Mr. Ardwick threw himself, exhausted, across a dustbin on the edge of the pavement, and burst into tears.
He mentioned to me afterwards that it was not so much the loss of the money that affected him as the knowledge that a fellow man had broke his word. That was what upset Mr. Ardwick. He tried to explain all this at the time to a City constable.
“You get away home,” advised the City constable, “and try to sleep it off. That's your best plan. Unless you want me to take you down to Cloak Lane for the night.”
Mr. Ardwick felt very much hurt at this insinuation on his character, because, partly on account of his principles and partly because he hated giving money away, he was strict teetotal; but the remark furnished him with an idea, and he acted on it without a moment's delay. He returned to Dalston Junction, and there, by great good luck, he found Kimball—Kimball smoking a big cigar and trying to persuade a railway-porter to accept one. Mr. Ardwick went up to him and took the cigar.
“I congratulate you 'eartily,” he said, slapping Kimball on the shoulder in a jolly sort of way. “There isn't many that could brag of having done Samuel Ardwick in the eye, but I always admit it when I come across my superior. There's only one favour I want you to grant.”
“You gave me the cheque, and I've got a perfect right to it. What we may have agreed upon beforehand has nothing whatever to do with the matter.”
“All I ask you to do,” went on Mr. Ardwick, “is to allow me to celebrate the occasion by inviting you to have a little snack at a restaurant close by. A meal, I mean. A proper dinner. Food, and a bottle of something with it.”
“This don't sound like you,” remarked Kimball.
“I shan't make the offer twice,” warned Mr. Ardwick.
Kimball strolled along with him rather reluctantly and somewhat suspiciously up Stoke Newington Road. Mr. Ardwick stopped outside an Italian eating-place, had a good look at the prices of everything in a brass frame near the doorway, gave a deep sigh, and led the way in.
It was here that, in my opinion, Mr. A. made a blunder; he admitted himself to me later that he was not acquainted with the quality of the wine or the capacity of his friend Kimball. The foreign waiter, being told confidentially that price was an object, recommended a quarter-bottle of what he called Vin Ordinaire at sevenpence. It was only when Kimball was starting on the fourth of these that Mr. Ardwick discovered he could have sent out for a full bottle at the cost of one-and-nine. He himself took no food and no beverage of any description, but just sat back, smoking the cigar, totting up the expenses, and keeping a watchful eye on his guest.
“Is it a fruity wine?” asked Mr. Ardwick, when the last quarter-bottle was opened. Kimball lifted up his glass.
“I shouldn't like to say there was much of that about it,” he answered. “As a matter of fact, it doesn't taste of anything.”
“But surely it goes to your head!”
“It goes to my head,” agreed Kimball, “because I put it there; but it don't seem to have any effect on the brain. Sheer waste of my time, so far as I can gather.”
“Look here!” said Mr. Ardwick, with a determined effort. “I want to have a quiet talk with you. I've stood this very excellent meal, and it's only right you should do something for me in return.”
“Anything within reason.”
“I'm not the man to ask you to do anything else. You've had your little joke at my expense and now my suggestion is that you hand across the five pounds, and we'll both have a good laugh over the transaction. I admit you played your part uncommonly well. You ran it rather close, and if you'd been a minute or so later, my lad, you'd have found the bank closed, and then I could have stopped payment.”
“I got there,” said Kimball, “at one minute past four, and the doors were shut!”
Mr. Ardwick settled up, and told Kimball exactly what he thought of him.
“Imposing on generosity,” he said heatedly—“that's your game!”
He went off home to write a letter to the bank, and to recognise that matters had, after all, turned out better than he might have expected. In the evening he made his usual call here, dressed up special, and evidently anxious to find out what sort of an effect his display of benevolence had made on Mrs. I.
“I can't help seeing,” she said confidentially, taking the evening paper from another customer and handing it to Mr. Ardwick, “that I've, all along, done you an injustice. I liked your conversation, and I had no fault to find with your general behaviour; but somehow I had an idea that you rather over-did the economical.”
“If I come across a really deserving case,” remarked Mr. Ardwick modestly, “I'm prepared to give away my last penny. I don't say I scatter my money broadcast, but when I do give I give liberally and with both hands.”
“I was telling the poor man,” said Mrs. Ingram, “that he ought to feel very much indebted to you. You've stood him on his feet, so to speak, and, whatever it may lead to, he's only got you to thank.”
“Don't make too much of a mere trifle.”
“I advised him to put half of it away in the Post Office, and use the other half to rig himself out in a new suit and look respectable.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Mr. Ardwick, rather anxiously, “but when did you say all this to him?”
“About a hour or so ago,” she replied, “when he came in and asked me to change the cheque for him. Knowing all the circumstances, of course I didn't hesitate a single moment!”
I was doing a bit of debt-collecting at the time, said the proprietor of the tobacconist's shop, and that was how I became acquainted with Mrs. Ingram. She felt grateful over my success with what was undoubtedly a tough job, and one word led to another, and eventually I consented to propose to her. She'll be down directly. Wait and have a glance at her, and tell me if you think I acted wisely.