Mr. Bultitude

“ Mr. Bultitude was greatly staggered by the presumption of so small a boy venturing to address him in this way. He could only stare haughtily.
"You might find a word to say to a fellow!" said the boy in an aggrieved tone. "Look here; come and get your luggage labelled."
"I don't want it labelled," said Paul stiffly, feeling bound to say something. "I'm waiting for a cab to take me home again."
The other gave a loud whistle. "That'll make it rather a short term, won't it, if you're going home for the holidays already? You're a cool chap, Bultitude! ”

“ Mr. Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his heart and a deep sense of degradation. "If my clerks were to see me now!" he thought.
After some minutes of this, Mr. Burdekin stopped them and directed sets to be formed for "The Lancers."
"Bultitude," said Mr. Burdekin, "you will take Miss Mutlow, please."
"Thank you," said Paul, "but—ah—I don't dance."
"Nonsense, nonsense, sir, you are one of my most promising pupils. You mustn't tell me that. Not another word! Come, select your partners." ”

“ Cannot we go where there will be less risk of interruption? You have a study, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir," said the Doctor with terrible grimness, "I have a study—and I have a cane. I can convince you of both facts, if you wish it. If you insult me again by this brazen buffoonery, I will! Be off to your dormitory, sir, before you provoke me to punish you. Not another word! Go!"
And, incredible as it may appear to all who have never been in his position, Mr. Bultitude went. It was almost an abdication, it was treachery to his true self; he knew the vital importance of firmness at this crisis. ”

“ The Doctor couldn't object to that, could he, sir?"
"True," said Mr. Blinkhorn, "true. I was not aware of that. Well then, Bultitude, since you are prevented from performing what you promised to do, I'm sure you won't object to do what is fair and right in the matter?"
"I don't think I quite follow you," said Mr. Bultitude. But he dreaded what was coming next.
"It's very simple. You have taken money from these boys, and if you can't give them value for it, you ought to return all you took from them. I'm sure you see that yourself."
"I don't admit that I owe them anything," said Paul ”

“ Youth, it has been beautifully said, is the springtime of life. Though you may not believe it, you will never be happier than you are now. Our schooldays are——"
But Mr. Bultitude could not tamely be mocked with the very platitudes that had brought him all his misery—he cut the master short in a violent passion. "This is too much!" he cried—"you shall not palm off that miserable rubbish on me. I see through it. It's a plot to keep me here, and you're in it. It's false imprisonment, and I'll write to the Times. I'll expose the whole thing!"
"This violence is only ridiculous," said Mr. Blinkhorn. ”

“ He held out a hand to each with elaborate geniality.
"Ha, Bultitude, my boy, how are you? How are you, Jolland? Come back braced in body and mind by your vacation, eh? That's as it should be. Have you tickets? No? follow me then. You're both over age, I believe. There you are; take care of them."
And before Paul could protest, he had purchased tickets for all three, after which he laid an authoritative hand upon Mr. Bultitude's shoulder and walked him out through the booking hall upon the platform. ”

“ He still had the stone in his hand as he sank back into his chair, smiling with a tolerant superiority.
'Perhaps you will believe me,' he said, impressively, 'when I tell you, old as I am and much as you envy me, I only wish, at this very moment, I could be a boy again, like you. Going back to school wouldn't make me unhappy, I can tell you.'
It is so fatally easy to say more than we mean in the desire to make as strong an impression as possible. Well for most of us that—more fortunate than Mr. Bultitude—we can generally do so without fear of being taken too strictly at our word. ”

“ Chawner and the others might return at any moment—a ring at the bell; they were there! all was over now—no, he was saved, that was Dr. Grimstone's voice in the hall—what an unconscionable time he was taking off his great coat and gloves.
But all comes to the man who waits. In another moment the Doctor looked in, singled out Mr. Bultitude with a sharp glance, and a, 'Now, Bultitude, I will hear you!' and led the way to his study. ”

“ Mr. Bultitude, although he was certainly a merchant, was a fairly successful one—in direct defiance [Pg 5] of the laws of fiction, where any connection with commerce seems to lead naturally to failure in one of the three volumes.
He was an elderly gentleman, too, of irreproachable character and antecedents; no Damocles' sword of exposure was swinging over his bald but blameless head; he had no disasters to fear and no indiscretions to conceal. He had not been intended for melodrama, with which, indeed, he would not have considered it a respectable thing to be connected. ”

“ That no man enter till my tale be done.'
Very possibly Chawner's interference in Mr. Bultitude's private affairs has surprised others besides the victim of it; but the fact is that there was a most unfortunate misunderstanding between them from the very first, which prevented the one from seeing, the other from explaining, the real state of the case. ”

“ Come along, enjoy yourself till you find yourself getting queer—then drop it."
Mr. Bultitude had always detested the man—there was an underbred swagger and familiarity in his manner that made him indescribably offensive; just now he seemed doubly detestable, and yet Paul by a strong effort succeeded in controlling his temper.
He could not afford to make enemies just then, and objectionable as the man was, his astuteness made him a valuable ally; he determined, without considering the risk of making such a confident, to tell him all and ask his advice and help.
"Don't you know me, Paradine?" ”

“ I ain't quite sech a cur as that comes to, particular when a young gent saves me from the 'orrors, and gives me a 'arf-suffering. I'll see you through, you make yourself easy about that.'
Half an hour went slowly by for Mr. Bultitude in his darkness and solitude. The platform gradually filled, as he could tell by the tread of feet, the voices, and the scent of cigars, and at last, welcome sound, he heard the station bell ringing for the up-train.
It ran in the next minute, shaking the cupboard in which Paul crouched, till the brushes rattled. ”

“ Perhaps a similar passiveness on Mr. Bultitude's part was due to a very natural and proper desire to do everything without scandal, and in a legitimate manner; to march out, as it were, with the honours of war. Perhaps it was simple dullness. The fact remains that it was not till then that he saw a way of recovering his lost position, without the disagreeable necessity of disclosing his position to anyone at Crichton House.
He had still—thank Heaven—the five shillings he had given Dick. He had not thrown them away with the other articles in his mad passion. ”

“ But he glanced over the top of the paper at the indignant Paul, who was not accustomed to have his information received in this manner, with less suspicion and a growing conviction that some influence during the [Pg 51] holidays had changed the boy from a graceless young scapegrace into a prig of the first water.
"He's most uncivil"—Mr. Bultitude told himself—"almost insulting, but I'll go on. I'm rousing his curiosity. I'm making way with him; he sees a difference already." And so he applied himself once more.
"You're a smoker, of course, Dr. Grimstone?" he began. ”

“ It makes a calamity doubly hard to bear when one looks back and sees by what a trivial chance it has come upon us, and how slight an effort would have averted it altogether; and Mr. Bultitude cursed his own stupidity as he stood there, rooted to the ground, and saw the hansom (a "patent safety" to him in sober earnest) drive off and abandon him to his fate.
Dr. Grimstone bore down heavily upon him and Jolland, who had by this time come up. He was a tall and imposing personage, with a strong black beard and small angry grey eyes, slightly blood-tinged ”

“ Perhaps, though he did not admit this even to himself, there were more considerations for commuting the sentence of expulsion than those he had mentioned. Boys are not often expelled from private schools, except for especially heinous offences, and in this case there was no real reason why the Doctor should be Quixotic enough to throw up a portion of his income—particularly if he could produce as great a moral effect by other means.
But his clemency was too much for Mr. Bultitude; he threw himself on the bed and raved at the hideous fate in store for him ”

“ I started, almost twitching my arm away from that of the Major's, turning half round, at the same instant, to look him in the face. Bulstrode smiled, but preserved his own self-possession, in the stoical manner common to men of fashion and easy manners, pursuing the discourse.
“I see that my frankness has occasioned you some little surprise,” he added; “but the truth is the truth; and I hold it to be unmanly for a gentleman who has made up his mind to become the suitor of a lady, to make any secret of his intentions;—is not that your own way of thinking, Mr. Littlepage?” ”

“ Paul Bultitude would have found it hard to conceive himself lying down in a hard and grimy coal-truck to escape his son's schoolmaster, but since then he had gone through too much that was unprecedented and abnormal to see much incongruity in his situation—it was all too hideously real to be a nightmare. ”

“ Finally—he did not dare to trust himself to go out to her—he called her name, Felicia Warren's name, gently, and she came directly in.
Whilst alone on the balcony she had wept. Bulstrode could see the trace on her cheeks and she was paler even than when he had struck the pistol from her hand in the gardens of the Casino. She came over to where he stood and said:
"It's not a ruse, Mr. Bulstrode. Girls like me always have ideals. It is fame with some, money with others, dress and a social craze for a lot of them. ”

“ She wore her furs, muff, and big enveloping stole, her hat with fur on it, and a veil. She was not in house or garden trim. The urban air of her toilet was a surprise to Bulstrode, and he took in her readiness for something he had not expected, something great, something decisive.
"It's good of you to come when you must be full of delightful ways of passing your time, Mr. Bulstrode," she said, "and I wanted so much to see you again." ”

“ The traitor shall have his reward!'
All of which simply meant that the Doctor, having once had a small boy taken seriously ill from the effects of overeating himself, was naturally anxious to avoid such an inconvenience for the future. 'Thanks to the fearless honesty of a youth,' continued the Doctor, 'who, in an eccentric manner, certainly, but with, I do not doubt, the best of motives, opened my eyes to the fell evil, I am enabled to cope with it at its birth. Richard Bultitude, I take this occasion of publicly thanking and commending you ”

“ Paul Bultitude's face cleared as he saw his son come in. "There you are, eh?" he said, with evident satisfaction, as he turned in his chair, intending to cut the scene as short as possible. "So you're off at last? Well, holidays can't last for ever—by a merciful decree of Providence, they don't last quite for ever! There, good-bye, good-bye, be a good boy this term, no more scrapes, mind. And now you'd better run away, and put on your coat—you're keeping the cab waiting all this time."
"No, I'm not," said Dick, "Boaler hasn't gone to fetch one yet." ”

“ The Butterworths see a lot of other people, put down the Duke of Green-Erin as a rude, ungrateful man, and forget all about him. One fine day they go to Ascot Races, and there they meet him face to face. He stares a moment and then comes up to Mr. Butterworth, taking something from his pocketbook—something which proves to be a banknote. ”

“ Boltwood. My name is Milt—Milton Daggett. See you have a New York license on your car. We don't see but mighty few of those through here. Glad I could help you."
"Ah yes, Mr. Daggett." Mr. Boltwood was uninterestedly fumbling in his money pocket. Behind Milt Daggett, Claire shook her head wildly, rattling her hands as though she were playing castanets. Mr. Boltwood shrugged. He did not understand. His relations with young men in cheap raincoats were entirely monetary. ”

“ I was vexed to hear that we were to be delayed at Acapulco, and now this has proven our salvation.”
“God grant you are in the right, Mr. Burton.”
“God grant it. Do not fear that I shall fail, Richard. You have reason to be doubly cheerful. Don’t you trust me?”
“As much—more, than any person on earth.”
“Be true to your part, then; take good care of my child—meet me at the isthmus—that is your whole duty.”
“But, Mr. Burton, do you not place yourself in danger? Are you not incurring risks which you ought to share with others? ”

“ Shoes cost about twelve bucks, I reckon. While a better man than you or old moldy-face there has to hit the pike in three-dollar brogans. Sit down, yuh fool!"
⁠This last to Mr. Boltwood, who had stood up, swaying with the car, and struck at him. With a huge arm the man swept Mr. Boltwood back into the seat, but without a word to her father, he continued to Claire:
⁠"And keep your hand where it belongs. Don't go trying to touch that switch. Aw, be sensible! What would you do if the car did stop? I could blackjack you both before this swell-elegant vehickle lost momentum, savvy? ”