Clutterbuck

“ Bailey thoughtfully. "By the way," he went on, "there's another thing; old Clutterbuck's got to have it."
"Oh, damn and blast old Clutterbuck," said the Prime Minister, jumping up from his chair as some men do when they see a black cat. "Oh, it's perfectably intolerable! Whether it's Charlie, or whether it's Mary, or whether it's Bozzy, or whether it's you, you shoot out that word 'Clutterbuck' the moment you've got the range. The only man in London who has the decency to spare me Clutterbuck is the Peabody Yid." ”

“ He was almost incoherent in his rapidity. Charlie was back at the Plâs; he had seen Mrs. Clutterbuck a moment—he had not told her. How had the constituency taken it, oh how had they taken it?
"Like a lot of animals," said William Bailey with vivid memories of the night, "and not quiet animals either; like a lot of wolves," he said.
Mr. Clutterbuck was heart-broken. "Couldn't something——" he began.
"Oh, no!" said William Bailey, really put out by the futility of the phrase that was coming. "No! Nothing! It's all over. When you're defeated, retreat in good order—keep your train intact. ”

“ Carey told him that name, she laughed discreetly, for the eccentricities of Mr. William Bailey, though they were not always harmless, were never without point to women of Mrs. Carey's superficial character. She saw nothing in them but matter for her own amusement.
Nothing perhaps struck Mr. Clutterbuck more in the great society he had entered than the superb ease which distinguished it. Every member of that world seemed free to pursue his own appetite or inclination without restraint of form, and yet the whole was bound by just that invisible limit which is the framework of good breeding. ”

“ Clutterbuck in some astonishment referred to their conversation of the night before.
Mr. Boyle laughed as soundly as a sick man can, coughed rather violently after the laugh, and said: "Oh, I'd forgotten all about it—it doesn't matter. I've seen Benskin this morning, and there's no hurry."
"My dear Boyle," said Mr. Clutterbuck warmly.
Mr. Boyle waved him away with his hand. "My dear fellow," he said, "don't let's have any explanations. I saw you didn't like the look of it, and, after all, what does it matter? If one has to carry on for a day or two one can always find what one wants. ”

“ Boyle, looking earnestly at the fire, said abruptly:
"What I have come about to-night, Mr. Clutterbuck, is a business proposition." Having said this, he extended the fore and middle fingers of his right hand in the gesture of an episcopal benediction, and tapped them twice upon the palm of his left; which done, he repeated his phrase: "A business proposition"; cleared his throat and said no more.
Mr. Clutterbuck's reply to this was to approach a chiffonier, to squat down suddenly before it in the attitude of a frog, to unlock it, and to bring out a cut glass decanter containing whiskey. ”

“ Clutterbuck's platform and had seemed, even to the keen eye of Charlie Fitzgerald, to be an inoffensive plutocrat, insisted upon receiving the candidate and his wife as his guests at Bongers End during the last days of the struggle.
"It will save your husband," he said to Mrs. Clutterbuck, "those long night journeys to Croydon which a man at his age cannot afford to despise, and will give Mrs. Stephens and myself and my two sons and my daughter Clara and Miss Curle the very greatest pride and pleasure." ”

“ Clutterbuck, to do everything that could possibly be done, and if he failed, to form some further plan. He was careful not to use any of the cars—he had used them quite enough lately, and the weather was foul. He took the train in the common fashion and drove from Victoria straight to Barnett House. The telephone had prepared them for his visit, and the Duke of Battersea, always the kindest and the warmest of friends to the young men of his rank, took him affectionately into the inner room, and heard all he might have to say. ”

“ He had hardly tasted his glass of sherry when the publican said to him with cheerful respect:
"Well, sir, I see you've started another hare, and I wish you luck, sir. Here's to the People!"
Mr. Clutterbuck turned pale; but when the publican had finished his glass and wiped his mouth with his finger, he did not fail to add:
"Here's to you, sir, and the Putrid Ruby Mines, whatever they may be, and good luck to the lot!"
Oh the agony of an isolated man! Oh, passion of humanity, when it can find no fellow on whom to repose! ”

“ We couldn't ask a man like you to stand, for instance, Mr. Clutterbuck, because the work has got so hard; but it's a great pity. It all gets handed over to the young journalists and the lawyers." He went on to rattle off with ease and familiarity a dozen great names in the City connected with the Liberal benches and with the Conservative in the old free trade days, names that were the names of gods to the astonished Mr. Clutterbuck, who had never heard them pronounced in so everyday a fashion before. ”

“ How can men speak such lies? Lieutenant Clutterbuck! I know--he told me the same story. It would have been much easier, so much franker, had he said outright he was tired of his--friendship for me and wished an end to it. I should have liked him the better had he been so frank. But that he should tell you the same story. Oh! it is despicable--and you believe it?" she challenged me. "You believe that story. You believe, too, I went to a trysting with Cullen on Castle Down, the night you came, and kept it secret from you and let you run the peril of your life. ”

“ He was contented with himself, he appreciated, not without justice, the rapidity and the sureness of his judgment; he withdrew the paper from his cuffs, put on his City coat and his best City hat, and determined to afford himself a meal worthy of so excellent a transaction. But genius, however lucid and immediate, is fated to endure toil as much as it is to enjoy vision; and this excellent speculation, greatly and deservedly as it was to enhance Mr. Clutterbuck's commercial reputation, was not yet safe in harbour. ”

“ The ice on the artificial lake supported with ease the Japanese ducks, its inhabitants, and Mr. Clutterbuck rose from bed, a man advanced in the Commonwealth and younger by ten years.
He was in no haste to read the great news, but he was down before his secretary or his wife. He could not forbear to glance casually at the Times, which lay unopened on the breakfast table. He scanned the honours list in a casual fashion and made sure that he had missed his name. He went out and spoke to the stable-boy in a very happy voice, as of one who can easily arrange and uplift [Pg 204] the lives of others ”

“ At the police station Mr. Clutterbuck felt his first movement of emotion at the sight of a policeman who was coming in mackintoshes out of the door, and who saluted with promptitude and respect.
The first polling booth to which they came contained none but the officials, but it was Mr. Clutterbuck's duty to enter, to look cheerful and to shake them by the hand.
"Nothing doing here?" he wheezed with an uneasy smile.
"There've been a few," said the chief with an indifference that did not betray his own politics. "They're not coming very fast. The weather's against 'em." ”

“ Clutterbuck tore its cover thoughtlessly enough in the expectation of discovering some minor successes or perhaps an unfortunate but necessary surrender of men and guns, when a leaded paragraph in large type and at the very head of the first column, struck him almost as with a blow. With a dramatic suddenness that none save a very few in the highest financial world could have expected, negotiations for peace had opened and the enemy had laid down their arms. ”

“ I asked. "Must I grope about in the dark, and all among the hyenas and lions? Hang it all, let me wait till morning!"
"The thing is, it's a new idea; and if Strong sees you removing one post, he'll remove another, and Clutterbuck a third, and you split your chances. They may look under the right post while you are busy unearthing the wrong one!"
"You seem to be very cocksure of your posts, old chap!" I said, laughing.
Jack's answer astonished me.
"Do as I tell you," he said; "and begin with the erratic post in the thorn bush. I have a very strong idea about that post." ”

“ Of all courses precipitation is the worst. Mr. Clutterbuck occupied himself with other matters; worked hard at the Warra-Mugga report, mastered it; sold Perterssens for Warra-Muggas (a very wise transaction) ; and returned home in a thoughtful mood by a late train.
The first news with which Mrs. Clutterbuck greeted him was the sudden and serious illness of Mr. Boyle, who was lying between life and death at 15 John Bright Gardens. ”

“ Old Buffle was unseated three times."
"I should die of it!" said Mr. Clutterbuck with a groan.
"No you won't," said Mr. Bailey. "The Lord shall make your enemies your footstool; or, at any rate, His agent on earth will give you a good day's sport with them. Meanwhile you go on with those Ruby Mines. And, wait a minute, there's something to do to keep your mind off it meanwhile: there's a good agency in Fetter Lane; they have a lot of first-rate men. I remember a man called [Pg 246] Bevan who did some very good work for an enemy of mine a little time ago. ”

“ Clutterbuck's disposal for £250.
Mr. Clutterbuck's gratitude knew no bounds. He was accustomed to the hard, dry, unimaginative temper of our English houses, and there swam in his eyes that salt humour which survives, alas! so rarely in the eyes of men over forty. He shook the Baron's left hand warmly—the right was occupied with the stump of the cigar—he reiterated his obligation, and came back to his own office with the gaiety of boyhood.
He found M. de Czernwitz a very different man of business from the unhappy fellow who had now gone to his account. ”

“ Boyle had, now for the fourth time, replenished his glass, Mr. Clutterbuck, who could by this time survey the whole scheme in a lucid and organised fashion, repeated the number of eggs, to wit, one million, and after a considerable pause repeated also the fundamental proposition that it was a question of how much and upon what terms.
Mr. Boyle, staring at the fire and apparently obtaining some help from it, made answer: "A thousand."
A lesser man than Mr. Clutterbuck would perhaps have professed astonishment at so large a sum ”

“ He told me the sequel of the story which Clutterbuck had related in my lodging at St. James's Street.
"I was waiting for him outside here on the beach," said he; "and when the door was closed behind him, he came straight towards me. 'And where am I to sleep to-night, Dick?' said he. I told him that he could have my bed over at New Grimsby, but he refused it. 'I'm damned if I sleep in a rat-hole,' he said, 'when by putting my pride in my pocket I can sleep in my own bed; and with my help he clambered on to an outhouse, and so back into his own room." ”

“ I concurred. "The only thing is," I added, "the rascal will get out, now, and not come on to Bremen."
"That doesn't matter a bit," said Jack; "let him; it will save us trouble; we don't want him now, for we have the picture, which is all he took from us barring Clutterbuck's letter, of which we each have a couple of copies, besides one apiece by heart."
"He may come on to England after us," I said. Jack laughed.
"I don't believe it. He wouldn't dare. This last fright would put him off even if he had contemplated it. As a matter of fact, I don't believe he ever meant digging. ”

“ The motor's ready and the Missus'll be coming down at once." Then he whispered as the suggestion required: "Brandy? All's Mum!"
Mr. Clutterbuck refused it, and in a few moments his host had returned with a decanter of the inspiring beverage. Mr. Clutterbuck gulped a great mouthful fearfully, choked, and suffered, but he was grateful, and the more grateful for the rapidity with which Mr. Stephens suddenly rapt the dangerous friend away.
They went out together to the car. Within a quarter of an hour his hostess and Mrs. Clutterbuck had joined them. ”

“ No, indeed, I will not go down to Tresco! I am not the traveller who has ridden into your wood upon the Great West Road."
Lieutenant Clutterbuck took up his hat when he had finished his story,
"The girl, besides, is not worth a thought," said he.
"I am not thinking of her," said I. Of Lieutenant Clutterbuck, of myself, above all of Dick Parmiter, I was thinking, but not at all of Helen Mayle. I drew the map towards me. Clutterbuck stopped at the door, came back and again leaned over my shoulder. ”

“ Clutterbuck had no doubt been exaggerated in the numerous [Pg 78] conversations upon it which had enlivened her drawing-room; if so, it was an error upon the right side, and her instinct told her that she could not be much to blame in giving such a man the opportunity to enter into the fuller life of his country.
Every rank in our carefully ordered society has its conventions; one, which will doubtless appear ridiculous to many of my readers, is that which forbids, among the middle classes, the extension of a warm invitation to people whom one never happens to have seen. ”

“ Maple, who, in a voice worthy of that occasion or of any other, addressed the workers as his fellows and his equals—for had he not himself begun life as a working man?—and reiterated with manly enthusiasm, not only the legitimate praise accorded them by the exhausted Mr. Clutterbuck, but his own frequently expressed admiration of their self-denial, zeal, sincerity, conviction, spontaneous, unflagging hope and indomitable courage. ”