第 5 页

"Oh, my hat!" said Seale; " and I thought that man was a millionaire."

"I wish," said Charteris, " you could have seen him when I did. I was up at the back of the Egba country with a Commission, and we picked up the wood-smoke of his cooking one day in the dusk. We had missed the village we were trying for, and had no fancy for collecting fever by squatting out in the bush. So we pushed on, and came upon a few chimbeques in a clearing. A thing that called itself a white man was in one of them, and that was Hankin. He was down with black-water fever, and when the doctor had done a turn with him, I went in to stand my watch. He wasn't an inviting spectacle, and if you knew what black-water fever is which you don't you'd understand why. But he was a white man, or had been white once, and out there one feels a sort of kin ship to one's colour. So I sat by the poor devil and heard his yarn; and when he asked me a bit of a favour, I couldn't very well refuse it, because, you see, he asked when he was in the very act of pegging out. He wanted me to pick up this youngster of his as I was going home, and hand her over to you."

But why to me of all people?"

"Hankin said," replied the other, stolidly, "that he knew you thought you'd some claim on him, and that therefore he considered he'd a claim on you. I said I didn't see the force of his argument. He said that was his palaver, and would I do what I was asked, or have a very nasty taste left on my conscience by refusing? So of course I was forced to say ' Yes,' and there was an end of the matter. The Hausas buried him at sunrise, and we marched on."

"But what on earth am I to do with the brat? I'm making a poor enough show of keeping my self. I had er expectations once, but they haven't come off yet, and I'm more largely dipped than I care to think about. I'm only a poor brute of a bank clerk with half-nothing a year by way of pay. It strikes me you've done some body a pretty mean turn."

"How could I help myself?" said Charteris, with a shrug. " I didn't know you from Adam, and Hankin shoved the job on to me at a peculiar time. You haven't seen a man die the way he did, in a bush hut, with no one round but savages, or else you'd understand. I can quite imagine it's an unpleasant surprise to you; but you know you needn't take over the youngster."

"What?" said Seale, quickly, " you'll keep her on yourself?"

Captain Charteris laughed harshly. " I shall drag out my own leave here in England mostly on tick, and then get back to the Coast again. Man, I haven't thirty pounds in the world. I couldn't afford to be saddled with a dog. I sup pose it comes to this: we shall both repudiate her."

And the result will be?"

"Workhouse, I suppose."

What a ghastly thing to think about!"

"My dear sir, we can gather comfort from knowing it's no fault of ours. It's a case of 'sins of the fathers.' Hankin shouldn't have been a blackguard; or if he was, he shouldn't have married; or if he did marry, he shouldn't have allowed Nancy to step out into the world. If he's any sense of decency left, Hankin ought to be squirming in Hell this minute at the thought of the mischief he's brought about."

Seale hit the table in front of him so that the cigar ashes jumped.

"This is a horrible business anyway," he said, "but it's got to be put an end to. The more we think over it, the worse it gets. You and I have no legal responsibility; so we'll just hand over this calamitous brat to the police, and shuffle clear of the whole matter. Where have you stowed her?"

At the ' Metropole.' We'll go there one-time if you like."

"Yes," said Seale, and strode noisily out of the room.

They exchanged only one remark on the way across.

"She's a taking little beggar," said Charteris, "though I don't think she cares much for me." Upon which Seale broke out against him with sudden violence and profanity, and insisted on the subject being dropped. And after that they marched down Northumberland Avenue in silence.

"It's right up at the top," said Charteris, as they walked into the hall of the hotel. " I econo mised in the matter of rooms. So we may as well go up by the lift. Shall I tell the porter to have a four-wheeler ready in five minutes?"

"Oh, do anything you like," said Seale. " No, you needn't bother about that now, though. There are cabs always ready. Here, come along; there's a lift just going up."

Two minutes later Captain Charteris opened a door and showed Seale a pretty child of six asleep in a deep armchair. She woke as they came into the room, nodded to Charteris, and stared at his companion critically. For once in his life Seale was tongue-tied before a lady. He somehow or other felt unutterably mean, though (as he care fully explained to himself) there was no just cause for this feeling. And as an effect, all initiatory small talk left him. There was a long silence in the room, and it was the child who first broke it.

"You must be the gentleman," said she to Seale, " who is going to take care of me?"

"No," he answered sullenly, " I am not."

"Oh," said Nancy, leaning back in her chair again, " I am sorry for that."

Seale could not help asking " Why?"

"Because," came the answer, " I like you. I like you better than him," she added with a nod across at her steamer escort.

"This is gratifying," said Charteris. " But I am afraid, young lady, that it is a rather useless avowal. Now we've come to take you out for a drive somewhere. So suppose you put on your hat and jacket."

"Can't," said Nancy, cheerfully. " I've not begun to dress myself yet. I'm not growed up enough for that. But you," she said with a nod at Scale, " can put on my things for me if you like. They're all lying there on that sofa. Shoes first."

"Oh, look here," said Charteris, " we'd better ring for the stewardess chambermaid, I mean."

"No," said Seale; " I may as well do what I can for the kid. Hang it, man! let me do some thing. God knows I'm feeling brute enough as it is."

So with infinite pains and clumsiness he put on Nancy's outdoor raiment, and when he had fin ished, he stepped back to overlook his handiwork.

Well?" she said.

What?" he asked.

Don't I look nice?"

"Ye-es, I suppose you do. Yes, distinctly you do."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"I don't understand."

"The others," said Nancy, judicially, "when they dressed me, and when I was good, and when I looked nice, always gave me a kiss to finish up."

Charteris laughed.

Scale turned on him savagely with a " Drop that!" Then he stooped and took hold of the child's hand and said, " Come on."

"Kiss first," said Nancy. " I've been good."

Shamefacedly Seale pecked at her with his mouth, and Charteris laughed again. " I wouldn't do it," said Charteris, " if I were you. That sort of thing leaves a nasty taste afterwards when you remember she is rigged in workhouse uniform, you know."

Seale kissed the child again, this time more scientifically. " Now, look here," he said, " we'll just drop that foolishness, please, for always. If you think I'm going to let this jolly little beggar go to the parish pauper shop, you're badly mistaken. What will become of her in the end, I'm damned if I know; but for the present, and until something turns up, I'm going to take her off to my own rooms; and my landlady and I'll dry-nurse her between us. We shall probably make a poor enough job of it, because funds are very scarce; but I guess we're about the only opening Nancy has before her at present. Come along, Nancy, and we'll drive off in a rubbertired hansom to my palatial chambers."

"I say," said Charteris, as they were going back along the corridors, " you're rather a good sort, you know."

Seale turned upon him with a sudden glow of passion. " I'm about the most unlucky brute in London this minute," he cried, " and if there's one man I ought to hate, that's you. You've landed me in the devil of a mess, and there's no getting out of it. You knew what she was; you'd seen her; and I don't think you did the fair thing not telling me beforehand. Of course, I thought that being Hankin's kid, she'd be well, just fit for the workhouse. How was I to know that she was like this?"

"You're a bit unreasonable."

"I'm not going to argue with you," said Seale. "The thing's done, and I've got no use for you any further."

"I don't quite take your meaning."

"Well, it's this, Captain Charteris: what little I've seen of you will last me the rest of my time. You may say good-bye to Nancy if you like, but you needn't bother to shake hands with me. I wish you were at the devil."

When a young man of twenty-three delibr ately adds to his bachelor household an attractive young lady of six summers, who speaks foreign languages and possesses a history, attention is naturally drawn to the performance. Scale's acquaintances, especially the feminine portion of them, were first curious, and then shocked; and out of sheer justice to Nancy he had to tell one or two of them the true story of Hankin. The news spread through that small fraction of Lon don which knew Seale, and the regard with which it had previously regarded him changed with a very short prelude. It is no use giving dinners to a young man with no expectations who has deliberately chosen to cumber himself with a scamp's brat; and if you have daughters, it is a mad thing to ask to your dances a wretched fellow whom it would be the utmost misfortune for your daughter to fall in love with. And so the invitations ceased with brisk unanimity; and as Seale had been accustomed to much going out and about, he saw fit to do it now on his own resources, which of course cost money.

How he managed to keep going for the next seven years is a matter best known to himself and Nancy, who at an early stage was initiated into the art of circumventing res angusta domi and living at the rate of twice one's income. But there is a certain amount of enjoyment to be derived from sailing close to the wind, and a camaraderie grew up between the two of them that was very pleasant in its completeness. At the same time, that he might not accuse him self of hoodwinking youth, Seale used to instil morality as he went along.

"Y' know we're awful blackguards, old lady, having things and not paying for them the way we do," he would say; " and I ought to be kicked for showing a kid like you the style it's managed."

Upon which Nancy would retort: All right, Ted, I quite understand. But it's me that's to blame, not you. If there was no me to fritter money over, you'd live on your pay and have a lot left over. So as far as you're concerned, it doesn't count."

And then after Seale had solemnly assured her that she was completely wrong, and that he (by reason of his seniority) carried the sin of the pair of them on his own shoulders, they would go off to a theatre, or West for dinner, by way of get ting rid of the taste of the lecture.

But this style of living, ingenious though it may be, is liable to be brought to an end from the outside; and when the conclusion did finally come, Scale's only matter for surprise was that it had not arrived several years earlier.

"Old lady," said Seale, one day when he had lit up his cigar after dinner, in the big chair beside the fireplace, " the bank's given me the chuck."

"Phe-ew!" said Nancy.

"At least they've told me of another billet that's open, and said that if I don't resign nicely and take it with a smile, I shall probably find myself out of a job altogether. The manager seemed to think that my ideas of personal finance were too florid to be quite healthy in a mere bank clerk."

"Where's the new billet?"

Seale laughed. " In a place you've heard of before Lagos. One year on duty and six months' leave, with steamer fare paid home and back. Three hundred a year and allowances to draw all the time."

"My!" said Nancy, " what a lot! It's a heap more than you're getting now. We'll go, eh?"

You won't, anyway."

Why not? Don't we do everything together? I shall come and keep house for you, and save you lots. You can't keep house a bit, Ted."

"Shall have to. I Nancy, come here, old girl."

Nancy came across the hearthrug, and sat her self upon his knee, and lay back luxuriously.

"Nancy, I've been an awful brute to you. I've kept you here because I liked having you, when you ought to have been away at school with other girls, learning things."

"I have been learning," said Nancy, stoutly. "I've had lessons with you nearly every day. I can read, and write, and mend socks, and do accounts, and order a dinner. Isn't that enough?"

"Nowhere near," said Seale. " You're growing up, you see. You're thirteen now, and you'll be in long frocks in a year or so, with your hair in a knob, and the Lord knows what else; and there are things a girl ought to learn that I can't teach; and well, I'm a dam' bad lot, old lady, and if you go away to a decent school, you'll learn that is so."

"Ter-waddle," said Nancy. Didn't you sad dle yourself with me, and doesn't that prove you to be the best man in the world? 'Tisn't as if I'd never seen any others of the boys. I've met 'em, lots of 'em, and that's why I know what I say's right. And besides, it would never make any difference to me whether you were the big gest sweep on earth, or the biggest angel. You're just my Ted, and that's all I care about."

"Yes; but, Nancy, you couldn't go to the Gold Coast, anyway. You'd lose all your good looks for one thing "

Don't care."

"But I do. I'm proud of them, if you are not. And besides, you'd spoil all the arrangements. This way: you see I get allowances for one only. If you went, there'd be your steamer fare to pay, and an establishment to keep up. And that would run away with all the cash. Whereas if I go alone, I shall get everything paid; come back with all my screw saved; and then you and I can spend the six months' leave on the jolliest spree imaginable."