Max Pemberton

“ Maclaren asked—I had the dialogue from the seaman himself—being in a hurry as those who walk the ways of love usually are.
"My respects to your honour," replied the fellow, "but the ketch Bowery, moored off the pier-head, 'ud be glad to see your honour if convenient, and if not, maybe to-morrow?"
"What the devil does the man mean?" cried his lordship, but the seaman plucking up courage continued,—
"An old friend of your honour's for sure he is, my guv'ner, Abraham Burrow, what you had the acquaintance of in New York city." ”

“ I shall be cut at every club, as I'm a living man."
The girl listened to him, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of it. "Did you never stop to think," said she, "when you left America, like the coward you were, that people would laugh at me, too, and I should never be able to look my friends in the face again? Why, even in the newspapers they held me up to ridicule when my heart was breaking. You speak of suffering; well, I have suffered."
Her mood changed, as the mood of women does—suddenly. The feminine instinct warred against the actress, and prevailed. ”

“ Another half-hour's rowing brought him a sight of the pier; he shouted out with a laugh that might have come from a jackal when he saw that the steamer was moored against it, and that smoke was pouring heavily from her funnels.
"Men," he said, "if you catch that boat, I'll give you two hundred and fifty pounds!" and later on their lethargy moved him to such disjointed exclamations as "For the love of heaven, get on to it!" "Now, then, a little stronger—fine fellows, all of you—a marriage depends upon this." "I'll give you a gold watch apiece, as I'm alive." ”

“ It may be that the impulse of sentiment, working deep down in the heart of the ostensibly commercial character, forbids me to cry some of these wares in the market-place with any vigour; it may be that the play of chance moves the mind of the jewel-buyer to a prejudice against them. In any case, they lie in my safe unhonoured and unsung—and, lacking that which Sewell called the "precious balsam" of reputation, are merely so much carbon or mineral matter giving light to iron walls which give no light again. ”

“ Those who had much to do did it slowly, that they might enjoy leisure to blow whistles or to shout; those who had little atoned by great displays of ineffective activity. Some ran wildly to and fro near the steamer; others bawled incomprehensible ejaculations, and incited, both those who were to leave by the ship, and those who were not, to hurry, or they would be late. ”

“ It was to me first of all that Lord Maclaren related the history of it, and, despite my advice to the contrary, laid it upon me that I should tell none in his lifetime. He is dead now, and the publication of the story will throw a light upon much that is well worth investigating. It may also help me to sell the pearls, which is infinitely more important, as any unprejudiced person will admit. ”

“ Lord Maclaren, illustrious nobleman and great sportsman"—she was quoting from an American paper—"go and tell them that for ten days you have humbled yourself to me, and have begged my pity on your knees. Go and tell them that my crew have held their sides when the parts have been changed, and you have been the woman. Oh, they shall know, don't mistake that; your wife shall read it on her wedding tour. ”

“ Come with me to an hotel; there's a good fellow—but let's have a cognac first; I'm shivering like a child with a fever."
I gave him some brandy at a bar, and after that we took a four-wheeled cab—he insisting on the privacy—and drove to a private hotel in Cecil-street, Strand. They did not know him there, and I engaged a room for him and ordered dinner, taking these things upon myself, since he was as helpless as a babe. After the meal he seemed somewhat better, and I telegraphed to Ramsgate for his man, though it was impossible that the fellow could be with him until the following morning. ”

“ Everything comes to him who can wait, and I am not in a hurry. As to the others, which have been the pivots of romance or serious story, they may well lie as they are while they serve my memory in the jotting down of some of these mysteries.
And that they do serve it I have no measure of doubt. Here, for instance, is a little bag of pearls and diamonds. It contains a black pearl from Koepang, so rich in silvery lustre, and so perfect in shape, that it should be worth eight hundred pounds in any market in Europe ”

“ For the stones which have no history I am not an apologist. Some day, those excellent people who now decry them in every salon where jewels are discussed, will give up the hope of attempting to buy them cheaply ”

“ Peter's, in Kent; and she wished to avoid a public wedding in view of the recent death of her sister, whose beauty was no less remarkable than her own. Maclaren's visit was but the prelude to the purchase of a present, and the business was made the easier since he had the simplest notions as to his requirements. He had recently come from America—without a wife mirabile dictu—and there had seen a curious anchor bracelet. The wristband of this bauble was formed of a plain gold cable, the anchor itself of pearls and diamonds ”

“ When he went to America in 1888 the whole of the prophets gave him six months of celibacy; but he cheated them, and returned without a wife. True, a copy of an American society paper was passed round the club, where the men learnt with surprise that New York had believed this elderly Don Juan to be engaged to Evelyn Lenox, "the lady of the unlimited dollars," as young Barisbroke of the Bachelors' called her ”

“ The Society papers lacked enough information to lie about it. The principal actors held their tongues, and in due time the West forgot, for a new scandal arose, and the courts supplied the craving for the doubtful, which is a part of polite education nowadays. ”