I hate law details as cordially as my readers can, and therefore I shall content myself with stating that Mr. Pike’s management at the end, not of three days, but of two weeks, was so admirable that Uncle Jack was drawn out of prison and my father extracted from all his liabilities by a sum two thirds less than was first startlingly submitted to our indignant horror,—and that, too, in a manner that would have satisfied the conscience of the most punctilious formalist whose contribution to the national fund for an omitted payment to the Income Tax the Chancellor of the Exchequer ever had the honor to acknowledge. Still, the sum was very large in proportion to my poor father’s income; and what with Jack’s debts, the claims of the Anti-Publisher Society’s printer, including the very expensive plates that had been so lavishly bespoken, and in great part completed, for the “History of Human Error,” and, above all, the liabilities incurred on “The Capitalist;” what with the plant, as Mr. Peck technically phrased a great upas-tree of a total, branching out into types, cases, printing-presses, engines, etc., all now to be resold at a third of their value; what with advertisements and bills that had covered all the dead-walls by which rubbish might be shot, throughout the three kingdoms; what with the dues of reporters, and salaries of writers, who had been engaged for a year at least to “The Capitalist,” and whose claims survived the wretch they had killed and buried; what, in short, with all that the combined ingenuity of Uncle Jack and Printer Peck could supply for the utter ruin of the Caxton family (even after all deductions, curtailments, and after all that one could extract in the way of just contribution from the least unsubstantial of those shadows called the shareholders),—my father’s fortune was reduced to a sum of between seven and eight thousand pounds, which being placed at mortgage at four per cent, yielded just L372 10s. a year: enough for my father to live upon, but not enough to afford also his son Pisistratus the advantages of education at Trinity College, Cambridge. The blow fell rather upon me than my father, and my young shoulders bore it without much wincing.
This settled to our universal satisfaction, I went to pay my farewell visit to Sir Sedley Beaudesert. He had made much of me during my stay in London. I had breakfasted and dined with him pretty often; I had presented Squills to him, who no sooner set eyes upon that splendid conformation than he described his character with the nicest accuracy, as the necessary consequence of such a development for the rosy pleasures of life. We had never once retouched on the subject of Fanny’s marriage, and both of us tacitly avoided even mentioning the Trevanions. But in this last visit, though he maintained the same reserve as to Fanny, he referred without scruple to her father.
“Well, my young Athenian,” said he, after congratulating me on the result of the negotiations, and endeavoring again in vain to bear at least some share in my father’s losses, “well, I see I cannot press this further; but at least I can press on you any little interest I may have in obtaining some appointment for yourself in one of the public offices. Trevanion could of course be more useful; but I can understand that he is not the kind of man you would like to apply to.”
“Shall I own to you, my dear Sir Sedley, that I have no taste for official employment? I am too fond of my liberty. Since I have been at my uncle’s old Tower, I account for half my character by the Borderer’s blood that is in me. I doubt if I am meant for the life of cities; and I have odd floating notions in my head that will serve to amuse me when I get home, and may settle into schemes. And now to change the subject: may I ask what kind of person has succeeded me as Mr. Trevanion’s secretary?”
“Why, he has got a broad-shouldered, stooping fellow, in spectacles and cotton stockings, who has written upon ‘Rent,’ I believe,—an imaginative treatise in his case, I fear, for rent is a thing he could never have received, and not often been trusted to pay. However, he is one of your political economists, and wants Trevanion to sell his pictures, as ‘unproductive capital.’ Less mild than Pope’s Narcissa, ‘to make a wash,’ he would certainly ‘stew a child.’ Besides this official secretary, Trevanion trusts, however, a good deal to a clever, good-looking young gentleman who is a great favorite with him.”
“What is his name?”
“His name? Oh! Gower,—a natural son, I believe, of one of the Gower family.”
Here two of Sir Sedley’s fellow fine gentlemen lounged in, and my visit ended.
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