Part 22

I care for nobody, no, not I, And nobody cares for me,

he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the passengers stared upon him on the street. And still the warmth seemed to increase and to become more genial. What was life? he considered, and what he, M’Guire? What even Erin, our green Erin? All seemed so incalculably little that he smiled as he looked down upon it. He would have given years, had he possessed them, for a glass of spirits; but time failed, and he must deny himself this last indulgence.

At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom cab; jumped in; bade the fellow drive him to a part of the Embankment, which he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in motion, concealed the bag as completely as he could under the vantage of the apron, and once more drew out his watch. So he rode for five interminable minutes, his heart in his mouth at every jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing to wake the attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget the Gladstone bag.

At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed; the cab was stopped; and he alighted—with how glad a heart! He thrust his hand into his pocket. All was now over; he had saved his life; nor that alone, but he had engineered a striking act of dynamite; for what could be more pictorial, what more effective, than the explosion of a hansom cab, as it sped rapidly along the streets of London. He felt in one pocket; then in another. The most crushing seizure of despair descended on his soul; and struck into abject dumbness, he stared upon the driver. He had not one penny.

‘Hillo,’ said the driver, ‘don’t seem well.’

‘Lost my money,’ said M’Guire, in tones so faint and strange that they surprised his hearing.

The man looked through the trap. ‘I dessay,’ said he: ‘you’ve left your bag.’

M’Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that black continent at arm’s length, withered inwardly and felt his features sharpen as with mortal sickness.

‘This is not mine,’ said he. ‘Your last fare must have left it. You had better take it to the station.’

‘Now look here,’ returned the cabman: ‘are you off your chump? or am I?’

‘Well, then, I’ll tell you what,’ exclaimed M’Guire; ‘you take it for your fare!’

‘Oh, I dessay,’ replied the driver. ‘Anything else? What’s in your bag? Open it, and let me see.’

‘No, no,’ returned M’Guire. ‘Oh no, not that. It’s a surprise; it’s prepared expressly: a surprise for honest cabmen.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming very close to the unhappy patriot. ‘You’re either going to pay my fare, or get in again and drive to the office.’

It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M’Guire spied the stout figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of Rupert Street, drawing near along the Embankment. The man was not unknown to him; he had bought of his wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of liberality; and such was now the nearness of his peril, that even at such a straw of hope, he clutched with gratitude.

‘Thank God!’ he cried. ‘Here comes a friend of mine. I’ll borrow.’ And he dashed to meet the tradesman. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘Mr. Godall, I have dealt with you—you doubtless know my face—calamities for which I cannot blame myself have overwhelmed me. Oh, sir, for the love of innocence, for the sake of the bonds of humanity, and as you hope for mercy at the throne of grace, lend me two-and-six!’

‘I do not recognise your face,’ replied Mr. Godall; ‘but I remember the cut of your beard, which I have the misfortune to dislike. Here, sir, is a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you, on the single condition that you shave your chin.’

M’Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman, calling out to him to keep the change; bounded down the steps, flung the bag far forth into the river, and fell headlong after it. He was plucked from a watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of Mr. Godall. Even as he was being hoisted dripping to the shore, a dull and choked explosion shook the solid masonry of the Embankment, and far out in the river a momentary fountain rose and disappeared.

THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued)

Somerset in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words. He had, in the meanwhile, applied himself assiduously to the flagon; the plotter began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover on his seat; and with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man rose unsteadily to his feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third grog, insisted that the hour was late and he must positively get to bed.

‘Dear me,’ observed Zero, ‘I find you very temperate. But I will not be oppressive. Suffice it that we are now fast friends; and, my dear landlord, au revoir!’

So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest ceremonies, and some necessary guidance, conducted the bewildered young gentleman to the top of the stair.

Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which Somerset remained in utter darkness; but the next morning when, at a blow, he started broad awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect hurricane of horror and wonder. That he should have suffered himself to be led into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a situation that might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand. That was perhaps a palliation; but it was no excuse. For so wholesale a capitulation of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at once from the relation.

As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a rupture. Zero hailed him with the warmth of an old friend.

‘Come in,’ he cried, ‘dear Mr. Somerset! Come in, sit down, and, without ceremony, join me at my morning meal.’

‘Sir,’ said Somerset, ‘you must permit me first to disengage my honour. Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of complicity; but once for all, let me inform you that I regard you and your machinations \with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no stone unturned to crush your vile conspiracy.’

‘My dear fellow,’ replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, ‘I am well accustomed to these human weaknesses. Disgust? I have felt it myself; it speedily wears off. I think none the worse, I think the more of you, for this engaging frankness. And in the meanwhile, what are you to do? You find yourself, if I interpret rightly, in very much the same situation as Charles the Second (possibly the least degraded of your British sovereigns) when he was taken into the confidence of the thief. To denounce me, is out of the question; and what else can you attempt? No, dear Mr. Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself condemned, under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming and intellectual companion who delighted me last night.’

‘At least,’ cried Somerset, ‘I can, and do, order you to leave this house.’