I think of them sometimes, and wish I didn't--who any time during half their life might have retired on twenty thousand a year. If I were to go to any one of them, and settle an annuity of a hundred a year upon him, the moment my back was turned he'd sell it out and totter up to Threadneedle Street with the proceeds. It's in our blood. I shall gamble on my death-bed, die with the tape in my hand."
He kicked the fire into a blaze. A roaring flame made the room light again.
"But that won't be just yet awhile," he laughed, "and before it does, I'll be the richest man in Europe. I keep my head cool--that's the great secret." Leaning over towards me, he sunk his voice to a whisper, "Drink, Paul--so many of them drink. They get worried; fifty things dancing round and round at the same time in their heads. Fifty questions to be answered in five minutes. Tick, tick, tick, taps the little devil at their elbow. This going down, that going up. Rumor of this, report of that. A fortune to be lost here, a fortune to be snatched there. Everything in a whirl! Tick, tick, tick, like nails into a coffin. God! for five minutes' peace to think. Shut the door, turn the key. Out comes the bottle. That's the end. All right so long as you keep away from that. Cool, quick brain, clear judgment--that's the secret."
"But is it worth it all?" I suggested. "Surely you have enough?"
"It means power, Paul." He slapped his trousers pocket, making the handful of gold and silver he always carried there jingle musically.
"It is this that rules the world. My children shall be big pots, hobnob with kings and princes, slap them on the back and call them by their Christian names, be kings themselves--why not? It's happened before. My children, the children of old Noel Hasluck, son of a Whitechapel butcher! Here's my pedigree!" Again be slapped his tuneful pocket. "It's an older one than theirs! It's coming into its own at last! It's money--we men of money--that are the true kings now. It's our family that rules the world--the great money family; I mean to be its head."
The blaze died out, leaving the room almost in darkness, and for awhile we sat in silence.
"Quiet, isn't it?" said old Hasluck, raising his head.
The settling of the falling embers was the only sound about us.
"Guess we'll always be like this, now," continued old Hasluck. "Old woman goes to bed, you see, immediately after dinner. It used to be different when _she_ was about. Somehow, the house and the lackeys and all the rest of it seemed to be a more natural sort of thing when _she_ was the centre of it. It frightens the old woman now she's gone. She likes to get away from it. Poor old Susan! A little country inn with herself as landlady and me fussing about behind the bar; that was always her ambition, poor old girl!"
"You will he visiting them," I suggested, "and they will be coming to stop with you."
He shook his head. "They won't want me, and it isn't my game to hamper them. I never mix out of my class. I've always had sense enough for that."
I laughed, wishing to cheer him, though I knew he was right. "Surely your daughter belongs to your own class," I replied.
"Do you think so?" he asked, with a grin. "That's not a pretty compliment to her. She was my child when she used to cling round my neck, while I made the sausages, calling me her dear old pig. It didn't trouble her then that I dropped my aitches and had a greasy skin. I was a Whitechapel butcher, and she was a Whitechapel brat. I could have kept her if I'd liked, but I was set upon making a lady of her, and I did it. But I lost my child. Every time she came back from school I could see she despised me a little more. I'm not blaming her; how could she help it? I was making a lady of her, teaching her to do it; though there were moments when I almost hated her, felt tempted to snatch her back to me, drag her down again to my level, make her my child again, before it was too late. Oh, it wasn't all unselfishness; I could have done it. She would have remained my class then, would have married my class, and her children would have been my class. I didn't want that. Everything's got to be paid for.
I got what I asked for; I'm not grumbling at the price. But it ain't cheap."
He rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe. "Ring the bell, Paul, will you?" be said. "Let's have some light and something to drink.
Don't take any notice of me. I've got the hump to-night."
It was a minute or two before the lamp came. He put his arm upon my shoulder, leaning upon me somewhat heavily.
"I used to fancy sometimes, Paul," he said, "that you and she might have made a match of it. I should have been disappointed for some things. But you'd have been a bit nearer to me, you two. It never occurred to you, that, I suppose?"
