Post Haste

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.

Chapter Ten.

A Mystery Cleared Up

When night had fairly hung its sable curtains over the great city, Mr Blurt descended to the shop.

“Now, Mr Aspel, I’ll relieve you. The lady you sent up, Miss Lillycrop, is, it seems, an old friend of my brother, and she insists on acting the part of nurse to-night. I am all the better pleased, because I have business to attend to at the other end of the town. We will therefore close the shop, and you can go home. By the way, have you a home?”

“O yes,” said Aspel, with a laugh. “A poor enough one truly, off the Strand.”

“Indeed?—that reminds me: we always pay salaries in advance in this office. Here is a sovereign to account of your first quarter. We can settle the amount afterwards.”

Aspel accepted the coin with a not particularly good grace.

“Now then, you had better—ha—excuse me—put up the shutters.”

Instantly the youth pulled out the sovereign and laid it on the counter.

“No, sir,” he said firmly; “I am willing to aid you in your difficulties, but I am not willing to become a mere shop-boy—at least not while there is man’s work to be had.”

Mr Blurt looked perplexed. “What are we to do?” he asked.

“Hire a little boy,” said Aspel.

“But there are no little boys about,” he said, looking out into the street, where the wind was sending clouds of dust and bits of straw and paper into the air. “I would do it myself, but have not time; I’m late as it is. Ah! I have it—Mrs Murridge!”

Calling the faithful domestic, he asked if she knew how to put up the shutters, and would do it. She was quite willing, and set about it at once, while Mr Blurt nodded good-night, and went away.

With very uncomfortable feelings George Aspel stood in the shop, his tall figure drawn up, his arms crossed on his broad breast, and his finely formed head bent slightly down as he sternly watched the operation.

Mrs Murridge was a resolute woman. She put up most of the shutters promptly in spite of the high wind, but just as she was fixing the last of them a blast caught it and almost swept it from her grasp. For two seconds there was a tough struggle between Boreas and the old woman. Gallantry forbade further inaction. Aspel rushed out just in time to catch Mrs Murridge and the shutter in his strong arms as they were about to be swept into the kennel. He could do no more, however, than hold them there, the wind being too much even for him. While in this extremity he received timely aid from some one, whom the indistinct light revealed as a broad-shouldered little fellow in a grey uniform. With his assistance the shutter was affixed and secured.

“Thank you, friend, whoever you are,” said Aspel heartily, as he turned and followed the panting Mrs Murridge.

But the “friend,” instead of replying, seized Aspel by the arm and walked with him into the shop.

“George Aspel!” he said.

George looked down and beheld the all but awe-stricken visage of Philip Maylands.

Without uttering a word the former sat down on the counter, and burst into a fit of half-savage laughter.

“Ah, then, you may laugh till you grow fat,” said Phil, “but it’s more than that you must do if I’m to join you in the laugh.”

“What more can I do, Phil?” asked Aspel, wiping his eyes.

“Sure, ye can explain,” said Phil.

“Well, sit down on the counter, and I’ll explain,” returned Aspel, shutting and locking the door. Then, mounting the stool, he entered into a minute explanation—not only in reference to his present position and circumstances but regarding his recent misfortunes.

Phil’s admiration and love for his friend were intense, but that did not altogether blind him to his faults. He listened attentively, sympathetically but gravely, and said little. He felt, somehow, that London was a dangerous place compared with the west of Ireland,—that his friend was in danger of something vague and undefined,—that he himself was in danger of—he knew not what. While the two were conversing they heard a step in the now quiet street. It advanced quickly, and stopped at the door. There was a rustling sound; something fell on the floor, and the step passed on.

“It’s only a few letters,” said Aspel; “Mr Blurt explained matters to me this morning. They seem to have been a careless lot who have managed this business hitherto. A slit was made in the door for letters, but no box has ever been attached to the slit. The letters put through it at night are just allowed to fall on the floor, as you see, and are picked up in the morning. As I am not yet fully initiated into my duties, and don’t feel authorised to open these, we will let them lie.—Hallo! look there.”

The last words were uttered in a low, soft tone. Phil Maylands glanced in his friend’s face, and was directed by his eyes to a corner near the front door, where, from behind the shelter of an over-stuffed pelican of the wilderness, two intensely bright little eyes were seen glistening. The gradual advance of a sharp nose revealed the fact that their owner was a rat!

No Red Indian of the prairie ever sat with more statuesque rigidity, watching his foe, than did these two friends sit watching that rat. They were sportsmen, both by nature and practice, to the backbone. The idiotic owl at their elbow was not more still than they—one point only excepted: Phil’s right hand moved imperceptibly, like the hour-hand of a watch, towards a book which lay on the counter. Their patience was rewarded. Supposing, no doubt, that the youths had suddenly died to suit its convenience, the rat advanced a step or two, looked suspicious, became reassured, advanced a little farther and displayed its tail to full advantage. After smelling at various objects, with a view, no doubt, to supper, it finally came on the letters, appeared to read their addresses with some attention, and, seizing one by a corner, began apparently to open it.

At this point Phil Maylands’ fingers, closing slowly but with the deadly precision of fate, grasped the book and hurled it at the foe, which was instantly swept off its legs. Either the blow or the fright caused the rat to fly wriggling into the air. With a shriek of agonised emotion, it vanished behind the pelican of the wilderness.

“Bravo, Phil! splendidly aimed, but rather low,” cried Aspel, as he vaulted the counter and dislodged the pelican. Of course the rat was gone. After a little more conversation the two friends quitted the place and went to their respective homes.

“Very odd and absolutely unaccountable,” observed Mr Blurt, as he sat next morning perusing the letters above referred to, “here’s the same thing occurred again. Brownlow writes that he sent a cheque a week ago, and no one has heard of it. That rascal who made off with the cash could not have stolen it, because he never stole cheques,—for fear, no doubt, of being caught,—and this was only for a small amount. Then, here is a cheque come all right from Thomson. Why should one appear and the other disappear?”

“Could the rats have made away with it?” suggested Aspel, who had told his patron of the previous night’s incident.

“Rats might destroy letters, but they could not eat them—at least, not during the few hours of the night that they lie on the floor. No; the thing is a mystery. I cannot help thinking that the Post-Office is to blame. I shall make inquiries. I am determined to get to the bottom of it.”

So it ever is with mankind. People make mistakes, or are guilty of carelessness, and straightway they lay the blame—not only without but against reason—on broader shoulders than their own. That wonderful and almost perfect British Post-Office delivers quickly, safely, and in good condition above fourteen hundred millions of letters etcetera in the year, but some half-dozen letters, addressed to Messrs Blurt and Company, have gone a-missing,—therefore the Post-Office is to blame!

Full of this idea Mr Enoch Blurt put on his hat with an irascible fling and went off to the City. Arrived at St. Martin’s-le-Grand he made for the principal entrance. At any other time he would have, been struck with the grandeur of the buildings. He would have paused and admired the handsome colonnade of the old office and the fine front of the new buildings opposite, but Mr Blurt could see nothing except missing letters. Architecture appealed to him in vain. Perhaps his state of irritability was increased by a vague suspicion that all Government officials were trained and almost bound to throw obstacles in the way of free inquiry.

“I want,” said he, planting himself defiantly in front of an official who encountered him in the passage, “to see the—the—Secretary, the—the—Postmaster-General, the chief of the Post-Office, whoever he may be. There is my card.”

“Certainly, sir, will you step this way?”

The official spoke with such civility, and led the way with such alacrity, that Mr Blurt felt it necessary to think exclusively of his wrongs lest his indignation should cool too soon. Having shown him into a comfortable waiting-room, the official went off with his card. In a few minutes a gentleman entered, accosted Mr Blurt with a polite bow, and asked what he could do for him.

“Sir,” said Mr Blurt, summoning to his aid the last rags of his indignation, “I come to make a complaint. Many of the letters addressed to our firm are missing—have been missing for some time past,—and from the inquiries I have made it seems evident to me that they must have been lost in passing through the Post-Office.”

“I regret much to hear this,” returned the gentleman, whom—as Mr Blurt never ascertained who he was—we shall style the Secretary, at all events he represented that officer. “You may rely on our doing our utmost to clear up the matter. Will you be kind enough to give me the full particulars?”