tip of your nose. Come, stick faithfully by me, and your fortune is made.”
He seemed to have obtained a mysterious influence over me, which it was useless to combat.
“I am willing,” I said with a sigh.
“It is barely half-past three,” said Rimouski, looking at his watch. “There is no train for King’s Cross till 5.13. Let us stroll to the Hanley Arms, and go by the ’bus.”
At Charing Cross we took a cab to Brompton.
“I will now show you the house,” said Rimouski, producing from his breast-pocket a clumsy street door-key.
“You have already taken it then?”
“This child,” answered Rimouski, tapping himself on the breast, “is wide awake; there was no time to be lost. Here we are.”
The house was situated at a short distance from the southern end of the Exhibition building. It was in striking contrast to the palatial edifices which were rising rapidly around it, being small, dingy, and shabby. The back-yard was divided from a large piece of waste ground by a common paling fence.
“Read this,” said Rimouski, pointing to a board—
“Dry Rubbish may be shot here.”
“That will suit our game, won’t it?” said he, laughing and rubbing his hands.
The interior of the house differed in no respect from the interior of other London houses, except that it possessed a large and spacious cellar.
“That is also convenient,” pursued Rimouski, with a grin. “The wine trade, which was unsuccessful at the East-end, will, I think, flourish here. To-morrow a neat plate will be affixed to our door, ‘Rimouski & Railton, Wine Merchants.’ And now, my dear fellow, let us proceed to your lodgings in Brompton, pay your worthy landlady a week’s rent, and remove your portmanteaus. Everybody connected with the enterprise must sleep in this house.”
“How about beds?”
“I will arrange that as we go along. A second-hand dealer in Brompton Row shall send in beds, tables, and such cooking apparatus as persons of our Arcadian tendencies will require. Allons!”
We quitted the house, and proceeded on foot. On our way we purchased the furniture. At an ironmonger’s shop Rimouski ordered shovels, pickaxes, crowbars, a couple of wheelbarrows, and a quantity of planking, the latter to be procured by the obliging tradesman from a neighbouring timber-yard.
“By the way,” said Rimouski to the shopkeeper, “is there a brassfounder’s in the neighbourhood?”
“I doubt if there is, sir,” replied the ironmonger; “but I daresay we can get anything you want in that line across Westminster Bridge.”
“Then I want a couple of pounds of brass filings. And you may as well send me a large washerwoman’s tub and a tin dish or two. I shall also want a spade. I suppose you don’t keep cradles?”
Observing that the worthy tradesman opened his mouth wide with astonishment, Rimouski said, smiling, “I hope you don’t think I mean a child’s cradle—no, no, we are a couple of gay bachelors—I mean a gold-digger’s cradle—”
“Oh—of—of course, sir,” stammered the bewildered tradesman.
“But,” continued Rimouski, frankly, “I daresay you are surprised at the peculiarity of my order. The fact is, my friend here, just arrived from Melbourne, purposes giving some lectures on mining, with practical illustrations.”
“Oh, ah, I see, sir!” exclaimed the tradesman, “and the brass filings are to represent the gold.”
“My friend,” said Rimouski, slapping him on the shoulder, “you have a penetrating genius. Send in all the goods to-morrow by twelve o’clock, and now, good evening. Come along, Peter.”
We settled accounts with my landlady, who did not appear very sorry to lose me. I trust it was because the Exhibition would enable her to relet the lodgings easily; but I fear that young men out of situations are not popular with landladies, being apt to be inconveniently in the way when parlours are dusted and beds made. Our scanty stock of furniture arrived, and we spent the evening in rather a savage style, as people are wont to do on the first night in a new house. Being both of us too fatigued to unroll the carpeting, or put the iron bedsteads together, we spread our beds on the floor, and smoked, reclining on them after the oriental fashion. Rimouski, however, signalised himself as an admirable cook, by preparing an excellent ragout in a frying-pan, which we washed down with a pot of half-and-half from a neighbouring public-house, concluding the evening with some very tolerable whiskey from the same establishment.
Next morning Rimouski rose precisely at six, and, aided by my somewhat awkward assistance, swept out the house (he actually scrubbed the floors of two rooms), laid down the carpets, put the bedsteads together, repaired a defect which he had observed in the kitchen range, lit the fire, and got breakfast ready. Need I add that I regarded him with admiration and astonishment?
“Who would think, Rimouski, after seeing you sauntering down Regent Street in lacquered boots and lavender gloves, that you were capable of all this?”
“My dear fellow,” he replied, tossing a breakfast-cake in the fryingpan as he spoke, “it is simply because I am a man of the world. Half the people so styled are useless fools, who, removed from the appliances of civilisation, would be as unable to help themselves as the gentleman in the old story of the Basket-maker.”
At twelve o’clock our punctual friend, the ironmonger, sent in his assortment of goods. Rimouski, stripped to his shirt, and wearing a pair of corduroy trousers, worked like a horse, shouldering three-inch planks, and inciting me, by his wholesome example, to feats of which I had hitherto deemed myself incapable.
“Now then,” said he, “we are working men, and will adopt workmen’s habits. We will dine punctually at one. To-day we shall be rather later. I have some matters to look to in the cellar; do you, meanwhile, attend to the boiling of the potatoes. Don’t act the part of King Alfred, and burn the bottom out of our new saucepan.”
