Stephen Hudson

“ Ramsey’s face was set and cold, but all his capacity for insolent indifference did not enable him to conceal his annoyance. His eyes flashed with anger.
“I think we ought to be going; it is getting rather late. We don’t want to be swept out with the dust, do we?” He addressed Madame de Corantin.
“Oh, I am in no hurry, Mr. Ramsey,” she replied. “It gives me great pleasure to see Mr. Froelich again. I was obliged to leave Paris so suddenly, and never had an opportunity of showing him how much I appreciated his kindness to me.”
Ramsey said nothing, but he glared at Bobby vindictively. ”

“ Reiss considers himself ill treated by Fate. It is because since the War he regards himself as a ruined man. Half his fortune remains; but Mr. Reiss, though he hates the rich, despises the merely well-off. Of a man whose income would generally be considered wealth he says, “Bah! He hasn’t a penny.” Below this level every one is “a pauper”; now he rather envies such pitiable people because “they’ve got nothing to lose.” His philosophy of life is simple to grasp, and he can never understand why so many people refuse to accept it. ”

“ Bobby will not easily forget those first few weeks of the War.
Then gradually he pulled himself together, and unable to escape the influence by which he was surrounded, he tried to take his little part in the common effort. But his training was against him. At forty-five years of age it is no easy task for any man to put the past behind him and begin afresh; for Bobby to have done so would have needed a strength of will and character which he never at any time in his life possessed. ”

“ Sir Matthew Bale is tall and slender; his head is well placed on his shoulders, he has clear-cut features, a firm mouth with excellent teeth, and is clean-shaven. Although he is over fifty, he has plenty of hair, originally sandy, but now tinged with grey, which he parts at the side and brushes straight back from the forehead. He dresses with a certain quiet elegance, and he has a way of drawing down his cuffs as he talks to you, and of placing the tips of his fingers together so that you notice his nicely kept nails. ”

“ Mr. Reiss goes slowly to the writing-table and sits down. Taking a blank cheque from a pocket-book he always carries, he fills it in and passes it to the boy without speaking.
“I don’t like taking it, uncle. I don’t, really—”
Mr. Reiss half turns round. He still says nothing, he does not even grunt. He knows that there are times when silence is golden. Moreover, he knows that money talks.
A few minutes later Mr. Adolf Reiss is again sitting alone, gazing into the fire. And he has another grievance against Life.
The philosophy of Mr. Reiss is a natural result of his early environment. ”

“ He wondered how long Ramsey would be staying in Paris, and what effect his presence would have on his intercourse with Madame de Corantin. Would he be able to see as much of her or would she drop him in favour of Ramsey. The thought tortured him, but it wormed its way more and more into his brain. Bobby had very little confidence in his powers of pleasing; it was a common experience of his to be thrown over in favour of men much less attractive to women than Ramsey. ”

“ Maurice Blum was not a person with whom Bale could afford to quarrel. Wherefore he mastered his resentment and accepted the change of the name of the firm to Blum & Co., and the incidental reduction of his income that change implied with a smile on his face in spite of the bitterness in his heart.
To a man less adroit than he, the change in the partnership might well have constituted a serious check in his upward career, but once more Bale’s native resourcefulness asserted itself. ”

“ Clancey looked at him.
“Oh, Russian, is she? Corantin, Corantin. Let me see. I seem to remember the name somehow.”
“No, do you?” Bobby’s voice betrayed his interest.
“I must think about it,” said Clancey. He pulled out his watch. “I think it is time I got back to the War Office. I’ll see about the commission, Froelich, and let you know.”
“This is where I live,” said Bobby, handing him a card. “Do look me up. I do want that commission, and as quickly as possible.” ”

“ Reiss time to consider comfort, but for Art, in the form of pictures and other saleable commodities, he has a certain respect. Such things if bought judiciously have been known to increase in value in the most extraordinary manner, and as this generally happens long after their creators are dead, he leaves living artists severely alone. The essence of successful speculation is to limit your liability.
Mr. Reiss is a short, stoutish, ungainly man past seventy, and he suffers from chronic indigestion. He is one of those people of whom it is difficult to believe that they ever were young. ”

“ But he likes to talk about boots, and a recurring subject of conversation with him is the difficulty of finding a man who really understands doing them properly. He knows a great deal about blacking and brushes, and is no mean authority on the art of boning or polishing or varnishing refractory footgear of all kinds. To look at him one would think Baxendale has never had a day’s illness in his life, but as a matter of fact he has never been well since any one can remember. ”

“ They went out of the restaurant and separated in the street, Bobby taking his way towards his rooms in Down Street. He was wondering whether perhaps luck had come his way, and whether Clancey would reveal to him some means of finding Madame de Corantin. If he did, damn the commission!
That evening, as on all others, Bobby was bored to death; the habits of twenty years were not to be thrown off in a day. It was impossible for him to go to bed before the small hours, and not knowing how else to kill time he dropped in at the Savoy restaurant. ”

“ He knows the value of money, but he enjoys spending it. He lives in princely style, but he is not exactly a snob and he prides himself on his independence. His hobby is what he calls “picking winners”—men, not horses. He likes to “spot” some young fellow who he thinks has it in him to get on, then he backs him. He believes that nothing succeeds like success, having tested the truth of the saying himself. When something disagreeable has to be done, he does it and damns the consequences but he does not shrink from them.
One afternoon old Peter Knott went to see the famous art dealer. ”

“ If there were one man in all his acquaintance whom he would have preferred that Madame de Corantin should not know, it was Alistair Ramsey. Bobby had known him for a good many years. The acquaintance dated back to a period when Ramsey was a comparatively young man of fashionable manner and appearance on half-commission with a firm of stockbrokers. Even then he aspired to smart society, but this social recognition involved an expenditure considerably beyond his earning capacity. ”

“ It’s a bad time for selling, isn’t it, Stephen?”
“The worst.”
“What do you advise?”
“I never advise; people must make up their minds for themselves.” Then, as though it were an after-thought: “What sort of pictures are they?”
“There are a Corot, a Mauve, and a Daubigny, I believe. The Corot is said to be a particularly good one.”
“Um—what does she want for them?”
“I don’t think poor Mary has any idea about the price; she asked me, but there’s one thing I won’t do, and that’s to be mixed up in an art deal—”
Ringsmith’s eyes flashed; he flicked the ash off his cigar angrily. ”

“ Of course, like her friend Lady Whigham, she joined several committees, but she was rather disappointed to find the meetings less sociable than she expected. What Mrs. Dobson likes is a friendly, chat over a cup of tea; when you sit formally round a green table, you never seem to get to know any one properly.
“It’s so much nicer,” she said to Maud, the eldest unmarried daughter, a bouncing young woman of generous proportions, “to have something at your own house. My idea is to make a pleasure of charity. The most disagreeable things can be got through pleasantly. ”

“ Tarleton was compelled to admit that Klein had proved to be an acquisition.
“What did I tell you?” cried Sir Matthew triumphantly. “Trust me to find the right man, Mr. Tarleton, trust me. I always believe in demanding the impossible and I generally get it. If you’re modest, you get left.”
Tarleton could vouch for the truth of this observation, and he disliked the chairman more than ever.
In due course the committee held its first sitting. ”

“ At such times he gave one the impression of a massive fixture which could be about as easily moved as a grand piano, and his hosts would resign themselves to their fate.
If any one had the temerity to provoke him to discussion, he would wait patiently for an opening, and once he secured it, would maintain his opinion steadily, the even, dispassionate voice slowly wearing down all opposition. ”

“ Dobson knew nothing about art, and supposed that the only reason why people ever were artists was because they were too poor to be anything else, she heartily agreed to the suggestion, coming as it did through Lady Whigham, and being so exactly the form of charity that she approved. ”

“ People who are hard up are “wasters.” No one has any business to be hard up; “respectable” men live on what they’ve got. If any one were to ask him how people are to live within their means when they’ve not got any, he would reply with the word “bunkum” and clinch the argument with a grunt. It will be understood that conversation with Mr. Adolf Reiss is not easy. ”

“ About this time Oswald Tarleton was sent for by his chief, and informed that he had been selected for the secretaryship of Sir Matthew Bale’s committee.
“This is a very weighty committee, Mr. Tarleton,” said the permanent secretary of the department. “The Government’s policy in regard to enemy trading and proceedings under the Defence of the Realm Act will largely depend upon the result of its deliberations. In Sir Matthew Bale I have every reason for believing that you will find a most able, and at the same time a most agreeable, chairman.” ”

“ Peter Knott stuck his eyeglass into his eye and slowly read the letter.
“I say, Stephen, this must be the wrong letter. It’s from those wheelworks of yours, telling you they’ve got so many orders they can’t execute them, and that there’s a new contract from the Government. They want to extend the works.”
“Well, damn it! doesn’t that mean more money, and the Government takes pretty nearly all the profit. You seem to forget that money’s wanted in business. I shall have to shut up shop if this goes on. D’you think giving employment to hundreds of workmen isn’t worth something, too? ”

“ Some of his schemes for insuring the safety of his capital, for the resettlement of the greater part of the income by trustees—for combining, in fact, a maximum of growing power for the fortune with a minimum of enjoyment for the heir—were really marvels of ingenuity.
But since the War his thoughts have taken a different turn. Half his fortune has gone. He is too old now to catch up again. It’s all over with money-making. The most he can hope for is to keep “the little that is left.” If only Percy had been older and had a son, he could settle the money upon his great-nephew. ”

“ Peter Knott said afterwards that Baxendale took him aside and confided to him that he wasn’t at all pleased with the house. It faced west instead of south, and the drawing-room was so large one could never buy enough furniture to put in it, whereas his smoking-room was a rotten little hole you couldn’t swing a cat in. Besides, it really was a mistake living in town; the country was much better for the health and less expensive on the whole, even if you had shooting and entertained a good deal. ”

“ The chairman settled himself in his chair opposite his secretary, pulled down his cuffs, put the tips of his fingers together, and held forth.
“Mr. Tarleton, we have got to make a success of this committee. I need hardly tell you how important it is and that upon it depend vital questions of Government policy. I am not going too far in saying that the future of the Government itself depends to a large extent upon the guidance which we shall be able to afford them as the result of our labours.” ”