One morning Mr Enoch Blurt sat on a high stool in his brother’s shop, with his elbows on a screened desk, his chin in his hands, and a grim smile on his lips.
The shop was a peculiar one. It had somewhat the aspect of an old curiosity shop, but the predominance of stuffed birds gave it a distinctly ornithological flavour. Other stuffed creatures were there, however, such as lizards, frogs, monkeys, etcetera, all of which straddled in attitudes more or less unlike nature, while a few wore expressions of astonishment quite in keeping with their circumstances.
“Here am I,” soliloquised Mr Blurt with a touch of bitterness, “in the position of a shop-boy, in possession of a shop towards which I entertain feelings of repugnance, seeing that it has twice ruined my poor brother, and in regard to the details of which I know absolutely nothing. I had fancied I had reached the lowest depths of misfortune when I became a ruined diamond-merchant, but this is a profounder deep.”
“Here’s the doctor a-comin’ down-stairs, sir,” said an elderly female, protruding her head from the back shop, and speaking in a stage-whisper.
“Very well, Mrs Murridge, let him come,” said Mr Blurt recklessly.
He descended from the stool, as the doctor entered the shop looking very grave. Every expression, save that of deep anxiety, vanished from Mr Blurt’s face.
“My brother is worse?” he said quickly.
“Not worse,” replied the doctor, “but his case is critical. Everything will depend on his mind being kept at ease. He has taken it into his head that his business is going to wreck while he lies there unable to attend to it, and asked me earnestly if the shop had been opened. I told him I’d step down and inquire.”
“Poor Fred!” murmured his brother sadly; “he has too good reason to fancy his business is going to wreck, with or without his attendance, for I find that very little is doing, and you can see that the entire stock isn’t worth fifty pounds—if so much. The worst of it is that his boy, who used to assist him, absconded yesterday with the contents of the till, and there is no one now to look after it.”
“That’s awkward. We must open the shop how ever, for it is all-important that his mind should be kept quiet. Do you know how to open it, Mr Blurt?”
Poor Mr Blurt looked helplessly at the closed shutters, through a hole in one of which the morning sun was streaming. Turning round he encountered the deeply solemn gaze of an owl which stood on a shelf at his elbow.
“No, doctor, I know no more how to open it than that idiot there,” he said, pointing to the owl, “but I’ll make inquiries of Mrs Murridge.”
The domestic fortunately knew the mysterious operations relative to the opening of a shop. With her assistance Mr Blurt took off the shutters, stowed them away in their proper niche, and threw open the door to the public with an air of invitation, if not hospitality, which deserved a better return than it received. With this news the doctor went back to the sick man.
“Mrs Murridge,” said Mr Blurt, when the doctor had gone, “would you be so good as mind the shop for a few minutes, while I go up-stairs? If any one should come in, just go to the foot of the stair and give two coughs. I shall hear you.”
On entering his brother’s room, he found him raised on one elbow, with his eyes fixed wildly on the door.
“Dear Fred,” he said tenderly, hurrying forward; “you must not give way to anxiety, there’s a dear fellow. Lie down. The doctor says you’ll get well if you only keep quiet.”
“Ay, but I can’t keep quiet,” replied the poor old man tremulously, while he passed his hand over the few straggling white hairs that lay on but failed to cover his head. “How can you expect me to keep quiet, Enoch, when my business is all going to the dogs for want of attention? And that boy of mine is such a stupid fellow; he loses or mislays the letters somehow—I can’t understand how. There’s confusion too somewhere, because I have written several times of late to people who owe me money, and sometimes have got no answers, at other times been told that they had replied, and enclosed cheques, and—”
“Come now, dear Fred,” said Enoch soothingly, while he arranged the pillows, “do give up thinking about these things just for a little while till you are better, and in the meantime I will look after—”
“And he’s such a lazy boy too,” interrupted the invalid,—“never gets up in time unless I rouse him.—Has the shop been opened, Enoch?”
“Yes, didn’t the doctor tell you? I always open it myself;” returned Enoch, speaking rapidly to prevent his brother, if possible, from asking after the boy, about whose unfaithfulness he was still ignorant. “And now, Fred, I insist on your handing the whole business over to me for a week or two, just as it stands; if you don’t I’ll go back to Africa. Why, you’ve no idea what a splendid shopman I shall make. You seem to forget that I have been a successful diamond-merchant.”
“I don’t see the connection, Enoch,” returned the other, with a faint smile.
“That’s because you’ve never been out of London, and can’t believe in anybody who hasn’t been borne or at least bred, within the sound of Bow Bells. Don’t you know that diamond-merchants sometimes keep stores, and that stores mean buying and selling, and corresponding, and all that sort of thing? Come, dear Fred, trust me a little—only a little—for a day or two, or rather, I should say, trust God, and try to sleep. There’s a dear fellow—come.”
The sick man heaved a deep sigh, turned over on his side, and dropped into a quiet slumber—whether under the influence of a more trustful spirit or of exhaustion we cannot say—probably both.
Returning to the shop, Mr Blurt sat down in his old position on the stool and began to meditate. He was interrupted by the entrance of a woman carrying a stuffed pheasant. She pointed out that one of the glass eyes of the creature had got broken, and wished to know what it would cost to have a new one put in. Poor Mr Blurt had not the faintest idea either as to the manufacture or cost of glass eyes. He wished most fervently that the woman had gone to some other shop. Becoming desperate, and being naturally irascible, as well as humorous, he took a grimly facetious course.
“My good woman,” he said, with a bland smile, “I would recommend you to leave the bird as it is. A dead pheasant can see quite as well with one eye as with two, I assure you.”
“La! sir, but it don’t look so well,” said the woman.
“O yes, it does; quite as well, if you turn its blind side to the wall.”
“But we keeps it on a table, sir, an’ w’en our friends walk round the table they can’t ’elp seein’ the broken eye.”
“Well, then,” persisted Mr Blurt, “don’t let your friends walk round the table. Shove the bird up against the wall; or tell your friends that it’s a humorous bird, an’ takes to winking when they go to that side.”
The woman received this advice with a smile, but insisted nevertheless that a “noo heye” would be preferable, and wanted to know the price.
“Well, you know,” said Mr Blurt, “that depends on the size and character of the eye, and the time required to insert it, for, you see, in our business everything depends on a life-like turn being given to an eye—or a beak—or a toe, and we don’t like to put inferior work out of our hands. So you’d better leave the bird and call again.”
“Very well, sir, w’en shall I call?”
“Say next week. I am very busy just now, you see—extremely busy, and cannot possibly give proper attention to your affair at present. Stay—give me your address.”
The woman did so, and left the shop while Mr Blurt looked about for a memorandum-book. Opening one, which was composite in its character—having been used indifferently as day-book, cashbook, and ledger—he headed a fresh page with the words “Memorandum of Transactions by Enoch Blurt,” and made the following entry:—
“A woman—I should have said an idiot—came in and left a pheasant, minus an eye, to be repaired and called for next week.”
“There!” exclaimed the unfortunate man, shutting the book with emphasis.
“Please, sir,” said a very small sweet voice.
Mr Blurt looked over the top of his desk in surprise, for the owner of the voice was not visible. Getting down from his stool, and coming out of his den, he observed the pretty face and dishevelled head of a little girl not much higher than the counter.
“Please, sir,” she said, “can you change ’alf a sov?”
“No, I can’t,” said Mr Blurt, so gruffly that the small girl retired in haste.
“Stay! come here,” cried the repentant shopman. The child returned with some hesitation.
“Who trusted you with half a sov?”
“Miss Lillycrop, sir.”
“And who’s Miss Lillycrop?”
“My missis, sir.”
“Does your missis think that I’m a banker?” demanded Mr Blurt sternly.
“I dun know, sir.”
“Then why did she send you here?”
“Please, sir, because the gentleman wot keeps this shop is a friend o’ missis, an’ always gives ’er change w’en she wants it. He stuffs her birds for her too, for nothink, an’ once he stuffed a tom-cat for ’er, w’ich she was uncommon fond of, but he couldn’t make much of a job of it, ’cause it died through a kittle o’ boilin’ water tumblin’ on its back, which took off most of the ’air.”
While the child was speaking Mr Blurt drew a handful of silver from his pocket, and counted out ten shillings.
“There,” he said, putting the money into the child’s hand, “and tell Miss Lillycrop, with my compliments—Mr Enoch Blurt’s compliments—that my brother has been very ill, but is a little—a very little—better; and see, there is a sixpence for yourself.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” exclaimed the child, opening her eyes with such a look of surprised joy that Mr Blurt felt comforted in his difficulties, and resolved to face them like a man, do his duty, and take the consequences.
He was a good deal relieved, however, to find that no one else came into the shop during the remainder of that day. As he sat and watched the never-ceasing stream of people pass the windows, almost without casting a glance at the ornithological specimens that stood rampant there, he required no further evidence that the business had already gone to that figurative state of destruction styled “the dogs.” The only human beings in London who took the smallest notice of him or his premises were the street boys, some of whom occasionally flattened their noses on a pane of glass, and returned looks of, if possible, exaggerated surprise at the owl, while others put their heads inside the door, yelled in derision, and went placidly away. Dogs also favoured him with a passing glance, and one or two, with sporting tendencies, seemed about to point at the game inside, but thought better of it, and went off.
At intervals the patient man called Mrs Murridge to mind the shop, while he went up-stairs. Sometimes he found the invalid dozing, sometimes fretting at the thoughts of the confusion about his letters.
“If they all went astray one could understand it,” he would say, passing his hand wearily over his brow, “because that would show that one cause went on producing one result, but sometimes letters come right, at other times they don’t come at all.”
“But how d’you find out about those that don’t come at all?” asked his brother.
“By writing to know why letters have not been replied to, and getting answers to say that they have been replied to,” said the invalid. “It’s very perplexing, Enoch, and I’ve lost a deal of money by it. I wouldn’t mind so much if I was well, but—”
“There, now, you’re getting excited again, Fred; you must not speak about business matters. Haven’t I promised to take it in hand? and I’ll investigate this matter to the bottom. I’ll write to the Secretary of the General Post-Office. I’ll go down to St. Martin’s-le-Grand and see him myself, and if he don’t clear it up I’ll write letters to the Times until I bu’st up the British Post-Office altogether; so make your mind easy, Fred, else I’ll forsake you and go right away back to Africa.”
There was no resisting this. The poor invalid submitted with a faint smile, and his brother returned to the shop.
“It’s unsatisfactory, to say the least of it,” murmured Mr Blurt as he relieved guard and sat down again on the high stool. “To solicit trade and to be unable to meet the demand when it comes is a very false position. Yet I begin to wish that somebody would come in for something—just for a change.”
It seemed as if somebody had heard his wish expressed, for at that moment a man entered the shop. He was a tall, powerful man. Mr Blurt had just begun to wonder what particular branch of the business he was going to be puzzled with, when he recognised the man as his friend George Aspel.
Leaping from his stool and seizing Aspel by the hand, Mr Blurt gave him a greeting so hearty that two street boys who chanced to pass and saw the beginning of it exclaimed, “Go it, old ’un!” and waited for more. But Aspel shut the door in their faces, which induced them to deliver uncomplimentary remarks through the keyhole, and make unutterable eyes at the owl in the window ere they went the even tenor of their way.
Kind and hearty though the greeting was, it did not seem to put the youth quite at his ease, and there was a something in his air and manner which struck Mr Blurt immediately.
“Why, you’ve hurt your face, Mr Aspel,” he exclaimed, turning his friend to the light. “And—and—you’ve had your coat torn and mended as if—”
“Yes, Mr Blurt,” said Aspel, suddenly recovering something of his wonted bold and hearty manner; “I have been in bad company, you see, and had to fight my way out of it. London is a more difficult and dangerous place to get on in than I had imagined at first.”
“I suppose it is, though I can’t speak from much experience,” said Mr Blurt. “But come, sit down. Here’s a high stool for you. I’ll sit on the counter. Now, let’s hear about your adventures or misadventures. How did you come to grief?”
“Simply enough,” replied Aspel, with an attempt to look indifferent and easy, in which he was only half-successful “I went into a music-hall one night and got into a row with a drunk man who insulted me. That’s how I came by my damaged face. Then about two weeks ago a fellow picked my pocket. I chased him down into one of his haunts, and caught him, but was set upon by half a dozen scoundrels who overpowered me. They will carry some of my marks, however, for many a day—perhaps to their graves; but I held on to the pick-pocket in spite of them until the police rescued me. That’s how my clothes got damaged. The worst of it is, the rascals managed to make away with my purse.”
“My dear fellow,” said Mr Blurt, laughing, “you have been unfortunate. But most young men have to gather wisdom from experience.—And now, what of your prospects? Excuse me if I appear inquisitive, but one who is so deeply indebted to you as I am cannot help feeling interested in your success.”
“I have no prospects,” returned the youth, with a tone and look of bitterness that was not usual to him.
“What do you mean?” asked his friend in surprise, “have you not seen Sir James Clubley?”
“No, and I don’t intend to see him until he has answered my letter. Let me be plain with you, Mr Blurt. Sir James, I have heard from my father, is a proud man, and I don’t much (half) like the patronising way in which he offered to assist me. And his insolent procrastination in replying to my letter has determined me to have nothing more to do with him. He’ll find that I’m as proud as himself.”
“My young friend,” said Mr Blurt, “I had imagined that a man of your good sense would have seen that to meet pride with pride is not wise; besides, to do so is to lay yourself open to the very condemnation which you pronounce against Sir James. Still further, is it not possible that your letter to him may have miscarried? Letters will miscarry, you know, at times, even in such a well-regulated family as the Post-Office.”
“Oh! as to that,” returned Aspel quickly, “I’ve made particular inquiries, and have no doubt that he got my letter all right.—But the worst of it is,” he continued, evidently wishing to change the subject, “that, having lost my purse, and having no account at a banker’s, I find it absolutely necessary to work, and, strange to say, I cannot find work.”
“Well, if you have been searching for work with a black eye and a torn coat, it is not surprising that you have failed to find it,” said Mr Blurt, with a laugh. “But, my dear young friend and preserver,” he added earnestly, “I am glad you have come to me. Ah! if that ship had not gone down I might have—well, well, the proverb says it’s of no use crying over spilt milk. I have still a little in my power. Moreover, it so happens that you have it in your power to serve me—that is to say, if you are not too proud to accept the work I have it in my power to offer.”
“A beggar must not be a chooser,” said Aspel, with a light laugh.
“Well, then, what say you to keeping a shop?”
“Keeping a shop!” repeated Aspel in surprise.
“Ay, keeping a shop—this shop,” returned Mr Blurt; “you once told me you were versed in natural history; here is a field for you: a natural-historical shop, if I may say so.”
“But, my dear sir, I know nothing whatever about the business, or about stuffing birds—and—and fishes.” He looked round him in dismay. “But you are jesting!”
Mr Blurt declared that he was very far from jesting, and then went on to explain the circumstances of the case. It is probable that George Aspel would have at once rejected his proposal if it had merely had reference to his own advantage, and that he would have preferred to apply for labour at the docks, as being more suitable work for a sea-king’s descendant; but the appeal to aid his friend in an emergency went home to him, and he agreed to undertake the work temporarily, with an expression of face that is common to men when forced to swallow bitter pills.
Thus George Aspel was regularly, though suddenly, installed. When evening approached Mrs Murridge lighted the gas, and the new shopman set to work with energy to examine the stock and look over the books, in the hope of thereby obtaining at least a faint perception of the nature of the business in which he was embarked.
While thus engaged a woman entered hastily and demanded her pheasant.
“Your pheasant, my good woman?”
“Yes, the one I left here to-day wi’ the broken heye. I don’t want to ’ave it mended; changed my mind. Will you please give it me back, sir?”
“I must call the gentleman to whom you gave it,” said Aspel, rather sharply, for he perceived the woman had been drinking.
“Oh! you’ve no need, for there’s the book he put my name down in, an’ there’s the bird a-standin’ on the shelf just under the howl.”
Aspel turned up the book referred to, and found the page recently opened by Mr Blurt. He had no difficulty in coming to a decision, for there was but one entry on the page.
“This is it, I suppose,” he said. “‘A woman—I should say an idiot—left a pheasant, minus’—”
“No more a hidyot than yourself, young man, nor a minus neither,” cried the woman, swelling with indignation, and red in the face.
Just then a lady entered the shop, and approached the counter hurriedly.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, almost in a shriek of astonishment, “Mr Aspel!”
“Mr Aspel, indeed,” cried the woman, with ineffable scorn,—“Mr Impudence, more like. Give me my bird, I say!”
The lady raised her veil, and displayed the amazed face of Miss Lillycrop.
“I came to inquire for my old friend—I’m so grieved; I was not aware—Mr Aspel—”
“Give me my bird, I say!” demanded the virago.
“Step this way, madam,” said Aspel, driven almost to distraction as he opened the door of the back shop. “Mrs Murridge, show this lady up to Mr Blurt’s room.—Now then, woman, take your—your—brute, and be off.”
He thrust the one-eyed pheasant into the customer’s bosom with such vigour that, fearing a personal assault, she retreated to the door. There she came to a full stop, turned about, raised her right hand savagely, exclaimed “You’re another!” let her fingers go off with the force of a pea-cracker, and, stumbling into the street, went her devious way.
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