The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope

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And now Charley stood once more in that dingy little front
parlour in which he had never yet seen a fire, and once more Mr.
Jabesh M'Ruen shuffled into the room in his big cravat and dirty
loose slippers.

'How d'ye do, Mr. Tudor, how d'ye do? I hope you have brought a
little of this with you;' and Jabesh opened out his left hand,
and tapped the palm of it with the middle finger of his right, by
way of showing that he expected some money: not that he did
expect any, cormorant that he was; this was not the period of the
quarter in which he ever got money from his customer.

'Indeed I have not, Mr. M'Ruen; but I positively must get some.'

'Oh--oh--oh--oh--Mr. Tudor--Mr. Tudor! How can we go on if you
are so unpunctual? Now I would do anything for you if you would
only be punctual.'

'Oh! bother about that--you know your own game well enough.'

'Be punctual, Mr. Tudor, only be punctual, and we shall be all
right--and so you have not got any of this?' and Jabesh went
through the tapping again.

'Not a doit,' said Charley; 'but I shall be up the spout
altogether if you don't do something to help me.'

'But you are so unpunctual, Mr. Tudor.'

'Oh, d--- it; you'll make me sick if you say that again. What
else do you live by but that? But I positively must have some
money from you to-day. If not I am done for.'

'I don't think I can, Mr. Tudor; not to-day, Mr. Tudor--some
other day, say this day month; that is, if you'll be punctual.'

'This day month! no, but this very day, Mr. M'Ruen--why, you got
L18 from me when I received my last salary, and I have not had a
shilling back since.'

'But you are so unpunctual, Mr. Tudor,' and Jabesh twisted his
head backwards and forwards within his cravat, rubbing his chin
with the interior starch.

'Well, then, I'll tell you what it is,' said Charley, 'I'll be
shot if you get a shilling from me on the 1st of October, and you
may sell me up as quick as you please. If I don't give a history
of your business that will surprise some people, my name isn't
Tudor.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr. M'Ruen, with a soft quiet laugh.

'Well, really, Mr. Tudor, I would do more for you than any other
young man that I know, if you were only a little more punctual.
How much is it you want now?'

'L15--or L10--L10 will do.'

'Ten pounds!' said Jabesh, as though Charley had asked for ten
thousand--'ten pounds!--if two or three would do--'

'But two or three won't do.'

'And whose name will you bring?'

'Whose name! why Scatterall's, to be sure.' Now Scatterall was
one of the navvies; and from him Mr. M'Ruen had not yet succeeded
in extracting one farthing, though he had his name on a volume of
Charley's bills.

'Scatterall--I don't like Mr. Scatterall,' said Jabesh; 'he is
very dissipated, and the most unpunctual young man I ever met--
you really must get some one else, Mr. Tudor; you really must.'

'Oh, that's nonsense--Scatterall is as good as anybody--I
couldn't ask any of the other fellows--they are such a low set.'

'But Mr. Scatterall is so unpunctual. There's your cousin, Mr.
Alaric Tudor.'

'My cousin Alaric! Oh, nonsense! you don't suppose I'd ask him to
do such a thing? You might as well tell me to go to my father.'

'Or that other gentleman you live with; Mr. Norman. He is a most
punctual gentleman. Bring me his name, and I'll let you have L10
or L8--I'll let you have L8 at once.'

'I dare say you will, Mr. M'Ruen, or L80; and be only too happy
to give it me. But you know that is out of the question. Now I
won't wait any longer; just give me an answer to this: if I come
to you in the city will you let me have some money to-day? If you
won't, why I must go elsewhere--that's all.'

The interview ended by an appointment being made for another
meeting to come off at two p.m. that day, at the 'Banks of
Jordan,' a public-house in Sweeting's Alley, as well known to
Charley as the little front parlour of Mr. M'Ruen's house. 'Bring
the bill-stamp with you, Mr. Tudor,' said Jabesh, by way of a
last parting word of counsel; 'and let Mr. Scatterall sign it--
that is, if it must be Mr. Scatterall; but I wish you would bring
your cousin's name.'

'Nonsense!'

'Well, then, bring it signed--but I'll fill it; you young fellows
understand nothing of filling in a bill properly.'

And then taking his leave the infernal navvy hurried off, and
reached his office in Somerset House at a quarter past eleven
o'clock. As he walked along he bought the bit of stamped paper on
which his friend Scatterall was to write his name.

When he reached the office he found that a great commotion was
going on. Mr. Snape was standing up at his desk, and the first
word which greeted Charley's ears was an intimation from that
gentleman that Mr. Oldeschole had desired that Mr. Tudor, when he
arrived, should be instructed to attend in the board-room.

'Very well,' said Charley, in a tone of great indifference, 'with
all my heart; I rather like seeing Oldeschole now and then. But
he mustn't keep me long, for I have to meet my grandmother at
Islington at two o'clock;' and Charley, having hung up his hat,
prepared to walk off to the Secretary's room.

'You'll be good enough to wait a few minutes, Mr. Tudor,' said
Snape. 'Another gentleman is with Mr. Oldeschole at present. You
will be good enough to sit down and go on with the Kennett and
Avon lock entries, till Mr. Oldeschole is ready to see you.'

Charley sat down at his desk opposite to his friend Scatterall.
'I hope, Mr. Snape, you had a pleasant meeting at evening prayers
yesterday,' said he, with a tone of extreme interest.

'You had better mind the lock entries at present, Mr. Tudor; they
are greatly in arrear.'

'And the evening meetings are docketed up as close as wax, I
suppose. What the deuce is in the wind, Dick?' Mr. Scatterall's
Christian name was Richard. 'Where's Corkscrew?' Mr. Corkscrew
was also a navvy, and was one of those to whom Charley had
specially alluded when he spoke of the low set.

'Oh, here's a regular go,' said Scatterall. 'It's all up with
Corkscrew, I believe.'

'Why, what's the cheese now?'

'Oh! it's all about some pork chops, which Screwy had for supper
last night.' Screwy was a name of love which among his brother
navvies was given to Mr. Corkscrew. 'Mr. Snape seems to think
they did not agree with him.'

'Pork chops in July!' exclaimed Charley.

'Poor Screwy forgot the time of year,' said another navvy; 'he
ought to have called it lamb and grass.'

And then the story was told. On the preceding afternoon, Mr.
Corkscrew had been subjected to the dire temptation of a boating
party to the Eel-pie Island for the following day, and a dinner
thereon. There were to be at the feast no less than four-and-
twenty jolly souls, and it was intimated to Mr. Corkscrew that as
no soul was esteemed to be more jolly than his own, the party
would be considered as very imperfect unless he could join it.
Asking for a day's leave Mr. Corkscrew knew to be out of the
question; he had already taken too many without asking. He was
therefore driven to take another in the same way, and had to look
about for some excuse which might support him in his difficulty.
An excuse it must be, not only new, but very valid; one so strong
that it could not be overset; one so well avouched that it could
not be doubted. Accordingly, after mature consideration, he sat
down after leaving his office, and wrote the following letter,
before he started on an evening cruising expedition with some
others of the party to prepare for the next day's festivities.

'Thursday morning,--July, 185-.

'MY DEAR SIR,

'I write from my bed where I am suffering a most tremendous
indiggestion, last night I eat a stunning supper off pork chopps
and never remembered that pork chopps always does disagree with
me, but I was very indiscrete and am now teetotally unable to
rise my throbing head from off my pillar, I have took four blu
pills and some salts and sena, plenty of that, and shall be the
thing to-morrow morning no doubt, just at present I feel just as
if I had a mill stone inside my stomac--Pray be so kind as to
make it all right with Mr. Oldeschole and believe me to remain,

'Your faithful and obedient servant,

'VERAX CORKSCREW.

'Thomas Snape, Esq., &c.,

'Internal Navigation Office, Somerset House.'

Having composed this letter of excuse, and not intending to
return to his lodgings that evening, he had to make provision for
its safely reaching the hands of Mr. Snape in due time on the
following morning. This he did, by giving it to the boy who came
to clean the lodging-house boots, with sundry injunctions that if
he did not deliver it at the office by ten o'clock on the
following morning, the sixpence accruing to him would never be
paid. Mr. Corkscrew, however, said nothing as to the letter not
being delivered before ten the next morning, and as other
business took the boy along the Strand the same evening, he saw
no reason why he should not then execute his commission. He
accordingly did so, and duly delivered the letter into the hands
of a servant girl, who was cleaning the passages of the office.

Fortune on this occasion was blind to the merits of Mr.
Corkscrew, and threw him over most unmercifully. It so happened
that Mr. Snape had been summoned to an evening conference with
Mr. Oldeschole and the other pundits of the office, to discuss
with them, or rather to hear discussed, some measure which they
began to think it necessary to introduce, for amending the
discipline of the department.

'We are getting a bad name, whether we deserve it or not,' said
Mr. Oldeschole. 'That fellow Hardlines has put us into his blue-
book, and now there's an article in the _Times_!'

Just at this moment, a messenger brought in to Mr. Snape the
unfortunate letter of which we have given a copy.

'What's that?' said Mr. Oldeschole.

'A note from Mr. Corkscrew, sir,' said Snape.

'He's the worst of the whole lot,' said Mr. Oldeschole.

'He is very bad,' said Snape; 'but I rather think that perhaps,
sir, Mr. Tudor is the worst of all.'

'Well, I don't know,' said the Secretary, muttering _sotto
voce_ to the Under-Secretary, while Mr. Snape read the letter
--'Tudor, at any rate, is a gentleman.'

Mr. Snape read the letter, and his face grew very long. There was
a sort of sneaking civility about Corkscrew, not prevalent indeed
at all times, but which chiefly showed itself when he and Mr.
Snape were alone together, which somewhat endeared him to the
elder clerk. He would have screened the sinner had he had either
the necessary presence of mind or the necessary pluck. But he had
neither. He did not know how to account for the letter but by the
truth, and he feared to conceal so flagrant a breach of
discipline at the moment of the present discussion.

Things at any rate so turned out that Mr. Corkscrew's letter was
read in full conclave in the board-room of the office, just as he
was describing the excellence of his manoeuvre with great glee to
four or five other jolly souls at the 'Magpie and Stump.'

At first it was impossible to prevent a fit of laughter, in which
even Mr. Snape joined; but very shortly the laughter gave way to
the serious considerations to which such an epistle was sure to
give rise at such a moment. What if Sir Gregory Hardlines should
get hold of it and put it into his blue-book! What if the
_Times_ should print it and send it over the whole world,
accompanied by a few of its most venomous touches, to the eternal
disgrace of the Internal Navigation, and probably utter
annihilation of Mr. Oldeschole's official career! An example must
be made!

Yes, an example must be made. Messengers were sent off scouring
the town for Mr. Corkscrew, and about midnight he was found,
still true to the 'Magpie and Stump,' but hardly in condition to
understand the misfortune which had befallen him. So much as
this, however, did make itself manifest to him, that he must by
no means join his jolly-souled brethren at the Eel-pie Island,
and that he must be at his office punctually at ten o'clock the
next morning if he had any intention of saving himself from
dismissal. When Charley arrived at his office, Mr. Corkscrew was
still with the authorities, and Charley's turn was to come next.

Charley was rather a favourite with Mr. Oldeschole, having been
appointed by himself at the instance of Mr. Oldeschole's great
friend, Sir Gilbert de Salop; and he was, moreover, the best-
looking of the whole lot of navvies; but he was no favourite with
Mr. Snape.

'Poor Screwy--it will be all up with him,' said Charley. 'He
might just as well have gone on with his party and had his fun
out.'

'It will, I imagine, be necessary to make more than one example,
Mr. Tudor,' said Mr. Snape, with a voice of utmost severity.

'A-a-a-men,' said Charley. 'If everything else fails, I think
I'll go into the green line. You couldn't give me a helping hand,
could you, Mr. Snape?' There was a rumour afloat in the office
that Mr. Snape's wife held some little interest in a small
greengrocer's establishment.

'Mr. Tudor to attend in the board-room, immediately,' said a fat
messenger, who opened the door wide with a start, and then stood
with it in his hand while he delivered the message.

'All right,' said Charley; 'I'll tumble up and be with them in
ten seconds;' and then collecting together a large bundle of the
arrears of the Kennett and Avon lock entries, being just as much
as he could carry, he took the disordered papers and placed them
on Mr. Snape's desk, exactly over the paper on which he was
writing, and immediately under his nose.

'Mr. Tudor--Mr. Tudor!' said Snape.

'As I am to tear myself away from you, Mr. Snape, it is better
that I should hand over these valuable documents to your safe
keeping. There they are, Mr. Snape; pray see that you have got
them all;' and so saying, he left the room to attend to the high
behests of Mr. Oldeschole.

As he went along the passages he met Verax Corkscrew returning
from his interview. 'Well, Screwy,' said he, 'and how fares it
with you? Pork chops are bad things in summer, ain't they?'

'It's all U-P,' said Corkscrew, almost crying. 'I'm to go down to
the bottom, and I'm to stay at the office till seven o'clock
every day for a month; and old Foolscap says he'll ship me the
next time I'm absent half-an-hour without leave.'

'Oh! is that all?' said Charley. 'If that's all you get for pork
chops and senna, I'm all right. I shouldn't wonder if I did not
get promoted;' and so he went in to his interview.

What was the nature of the advice given him, what amount of
caution he was called on to endure, need not here be exactly
specified. We all know with how light a rod a father chastises
the son he loves, let Solomon have given what counsel he may to
the contrary. Charley, in spite of his manifold sins, was a
favourite, and he came forth from the board-room an unscathed
man. In fact, he had been promoted as he had surmised, seeing
that Corkscrew who had been his senior was now his junior. He
came forth unscathed, and walking with an easy air into his room,
put his hat on his head and told his brother clerks that he
should be there to-morrow morning at ten, or at any rate soon
after.

'And where are you going now, Mr. Tudor?' said Snape.

'To meet my grandmother at Islington, if you please, sir,' said
Charley. 'I have permission from Mr. Oldeschole to attend upon
her for the rest of the day--perhaps you would like to ask him.'
And so saying he went off to his appointment with Mr. M'Ruen at
the 'Banks of Jordan.'

CHAPTER XIX

A DAY WITH ONE OF THE NAVVIES.--AFTERNOON

The 'Banks of Jordan' was a public-house in the city, which from
its appearance did not seem to do a very thriving trade; but as
it was carried on from year to year in the same dull, monotonous,
dead-alive sort of fashion, it must be surmised that some one
found an interest in keeping it open.

Charley, when he entered the door punctually at two o'clock, saw
that it was as usual nearly deserted. One long, lanky, middle-
aged man, seedy as to his outward vestments, and melancholy in
countenance, sat at one of the tables. But he was doing very
little good for the establishment: he had no refreshment of any
kind before him, and was intent only on a dingy pocket-book in
which he was making entries with a pencil.

You enter the 'Banks of Jordan' by two folding doors in a corner
of a very narrow alley behind the Exchange. As you go in, you
observe on your left a little glass partition, something like a
large cage, inside which, in a bar, are four or five untempting-
looking bottles; and also inside the cage, on a chair, is to be
seen a quiet-looking female, who is invariably engaged in the
manufacture of some white article of inward clothing. Anything
less like the flashy-dressed bar-maidens of the western gin
palaces it would be difficult to imagine. To this encaged
sempstress no one ever speaks unless it be to give a rare order
for a mutton chop or pint of stout. And even for this she hardly
stays her sewing for a moment, but touches a small bell, and the
ancient waiter, who never shows himself but when called for, and
who is the only other inhabitant of the place ever visible,
receives the order from her through an open pane in the cage as
quietly as she received it from her customer.

The floor of the single square room of the establishment is
sanded, and the tables are ranged round the walls, each table
being fixed to the floor, and placed within wooden partitions, by
which the occupier is screened from any inquiring eyes on either
side.

Such was Mr. Jabesh M'Ruen's house-of-call in the city, and of
many a mutton chop and many a pint of stout had Charley partaken
there while waiting for the man of money. To him it seemed to be
inexcusable to sit down in a public inn and call for nothing; he
perceived, however, that the large majority of the frequenters of
the 'Banks of Jordan' so conducted themselves.

He was sufficiently accustomed to the place to know how to give
his orders without troubling that diligent barmaid, and had done
so about ten minutes when Jabesh, more punctual than usual,
entered the place. This Charley regarded as a promising sign of
forthcoming cash. It very frequently happened that he waited
there an hour, and that after all Jabesh would not come; and then
the morning visit to Mecklenburg Square had to be made again; and
so poor Charley's time, or rather the time of his poor office,
was cut up, wasted, and destroyed.

'A mutton chop!' said Mr. M'Ruen, looking at Charley's banquet.
'A very nice thing indeed in the middle of the day. I don't mind
if I have one myself,' and so Charley had to order another chop
and more stout.

'They have very nice sherry here, excellent sherry,' said M'Ruen.
'The best, I think, in the city--that's why I come here.'

'Upon my honour, Mr. M'Ruen, I shan't have money to pay for it
until I get some from you,' said Charley, as he called for a pint
of sherry.

'Never mind, John, never mind the sherry to-day,' said M'Ruen.
'Mr. Tudor is very kind, but I'll take beer;' and the little man
gave a laugh and twisted his head, and ate his chop and drank his
stout, as though he found that both were very good indeed. When
he had finished, Charley paid the bill and discovered that he was
left with ninepence in his pocket.

And then he produced the bill stamp. 'Waiter,' said he, 'pen and
ink,' and the waiter brought pen and ink.

'Not to-day,' said Jabesh, wiping his mouth with the table-cloth.
'Not to-day, Mr. Tudor--I really haven't time to go into it to-
day--and I haven't brought the other bills with me; I quite
forgot to bring the other bills with me, and I can do nothing
without them,' and Mr. M'Ruen got up to go.

But this was too much for Charley. He had often before bought
bill stamps in vain, and in vain had paid for mutton chops and
beer for Mr. M'Ruen's dinner; but he had never before, when doing
so, been so hard pushed for money as he was now. He was
determined to make a great attempt to gain his object.

'Nonsense,' said he, getting up and standing so as to prevent
M'Ruen from leaving the box; 'that's d--- nonsense.'

'Oh! don't swear,' said M'Ruen--'pray don't take God's name in
vain; I don't like it.'

'I shall swear, and to some purpose too, if that's your game. Now
look here----'

'Let me get up, and we'll talk of it as we go to the bank--you
are so unpunctual, you know.'

'D--- your punctuality.'

'Oh! don't swear, Mr. Tudor.'

'Look here--if you don't let me have this money to-day, by all
that is holy I will never pay you a farthing again--not one
farthing; I'll go into the court, and you may get your money as
you can.'

'But, Mr. Tudor, let me get up, and we'll talk about it in the
street, as we go along.'

'There's the stamp,' said Charley. 'Fill it up, and then I'll go
with you to the bank.'

M'Ruen took the bit of paper, and twisted it over and over again
in his hand, considering the while whether he had yet squeezed
out of the young man all that could be squeezed with safety, or
whether by an additional turn, by giving him another small
advancement, he might yet get something more. He knew that Tudor
was in a very bad state, that he was tottering on the outside
edge of the precipice; but he also knew that he had friends.
Would his friends when they came forward to assist their young
Pickle out of the mire, would they pay such bills as these or
would they leave poor Jabesh to get his remedy at law? That was
the question which Mr. M'Ruen had to ask and to answer. He was
not one of those noble vultures who fly at large game, and who
are willing to run considerable risk in pursuit of their prey.
Mr. M'Ruen avoided courts of law as much as he could, and
preferred a small safe trade; one in which the fall of a single
customer could never be ruinous to him; in which he need run no
risk of being transported for forgery, incarcerated for perjury,
or even, if possibly it might be avoided, gibbeted by some lawyer
or judge for his malpractices.

'But you are so unpunctual,' he said, having at last made up his
mind that he had made a very good thing of Charley, and that
probably he might go a _little_ further without much danger.
'I wish to oblige you, Mr. Tudor; but pray do be punctual;' and
so saying he slowly spread the little document before him, across
which Scatterall had already scrawled his name, and slowly began
to write in the date. Slowly, with his head low down over the
table, and continually twisting it inside his cravat, he filled
up the paper, and then looking at it with the air of a connoisseur
in such matters, he gave it to Charley to sign.

'But you haven't put in the amount,' said Charley.

Mr. M'Ruen twisted his head and laughed. He delighted in playing
with his game as a fisherman does with a salmon. 'Well--no--I
haven't put in the amount yet. Do you sign it, and I'll do that
at once.'

'I'll do it,' said Charley; 'I'll say L15, and you'll give me L10
on that.'

'No, no, no!' said Jabesh, covering the paper over with his
hands; 'you young men know nothing of filling bills; just sign
it, Mr. Tudor, and I'll do the rest.' And so Charley signed it,
and then M'Ruen, again taking the pen, wrote in 'fifteen pounds'
as the recognized amount of the value of the document. He also
took out his pocket-book and filled a cheque, but he was very
careful that Charley should not see the amount there written.
'And now,' said he, 'we will go to the bank.'

As they made their way to the house in Lombard Street which Mr.
M'Ruen honoured by his account, Charley insisted on knowing how
much he was to have for the bill. Jabesh suggested L3 10s.;
Charley swore he would take nothing less than L8; but by the time
they had arrived at the bank, it had been settled that L5 was to
be paid in cash, and that Charley was to have the three Seasons
for the balance whenever he chose to send for them. When Charley,
as he did at first, positively refused to accede to these terms,
Mr. M'Ruen tendered him back the bill, and reminded him with a
plaintive voice that he was so unpunctual, so extremely
unpunctual.

Having reached the bank, which the money-lender insisted on
Charley entering with him, Mr. M'Ruen gave the cheque across the
counter, and wrote on the back of it the form in which he would
take the money, whereupon a note and five sovereigns were handed
to him. The cheque was for L15, and was payable to C. Tudor,
Esq., so that proof might be forthcoming at a future time, if
necessary, that he had given to his customer full value for the
bill. Then in the outer hall of the bank, unseen by the clerks,
he put, one after another, slowly and unwillingly, four
sovereigns into Charley's hand.

'The other--where's the other?' said Charley.

Jabesh smiled sweetly and twisted his head.

'Come, give me the other,' said Charley roughly.

'Four is quite enough, quite enough for what you want; and
remember my time, Mr. Tudor; you should remember my time.'

'Give me the other sovereign,' said Charley, taking hold of the
front of his coat.

'Well, well, you shall have ten shillings; but I want the rest
for a purpose.'