CHAPTER XXIX.—ON THE ADVANTAGES OF READY MONEY.

ARCHIE BROWN was the only son of Mr. John Brown, the eminent contractor. Mr. John Brown had been a man of simple habits and no tastes. When a working navvy he had acquired a liking for oatmeal porridge, and up to the day of his death, when he had some twenty thousand persons in his employment, each of them earning money for him, he never rose above this comestible. He lived a thoroughly happy life, taking no thought about money, and having no idea, beyond the building of drinking fountains in his native town, how to spend the profits realized on his enormous transactions.

Now, as the building of even the most complete system of drinking fountains, in a small town in Scotland, does not produce much impression upon the financial position of a man with some millions of pounds in cash, and making business profits to the extent of two hundred thousand a year, it was inevitable that, when a brick one afternoon fell on Mr. John Brown’s head and fractured his skull so severely as to cause his death, his only son should be left very well provided for.

Archie Brown was left provided with some millions in cash, and with property that yielded him about one hundred pounds a day.

Up to the day of his father’s death he had never had more than five hundred a year to spend as pocket-money—he had saved even out of this modest sum, for he had scarcely any more expensive tastes than his father, though he had ever regarded sole à la Normande as more palatable than oatmeal porridge as a breakfast dish.

He had never caused his father a moment’s uneasiness; but as soon as he was given a bird’s eye view, so to speak, of his income, he began to ask himself if there might not be something in the world more palatable even than sole à la Normande.

In the course of a year or two he had learned a good deal on the subject of what was palatable and what was not; for from the earliest records it is understood that the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil may be found on the one tree.

He began to be talked about, and that is always worth paying money for—some excellent judges say that it is the only thing worth paying money for. Occasionally he paid a trifle over the market price for this commodity. But then he knew that he generally paid more than the market price for everything that he bought, from his collars, which were unusually high, down to his boots, which were of glazed kid, so that he did not complain.

He found that, after a while, the tradespeople, seeing that he paid them cash, treated him fairly, and that the person who supplied him with cigars was actually generous when he bought them by the thousand.

People who at first had fancied that Mr. Archibald Brown was a plunger—that is, a swindler whom they could swindle out of his thousands—had reason to modify their views on the subject after some time. For six months he had been imposed upon in many directions. But with all the other things which had to be paid for, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil should, he knew, be included. Imported in a fresh condition this was, he knew, expensive; but he had a sufficient acquaintance with the elements of fruit-culture to be well aware of the fact that in this condition it is worth very much more than the canned article.

He bought his knowledge of good and evil fresh.

He was no fool, some people said, exultantly.

These were the people whose friends had tried to impose on him but had not succeeded.

He was no fool, some people said regretfully.

These were the people who had tried to impose on him but had not succeeded.

Harold had always liked Archie Brown, and he had offered him much advice—vegetarian banquets of the canned fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The shrewd outbursts of confidence in which Archie indulged now and again, showed Harold that he was fast coming to understand his position in society—his friends and his enemies.

Harold, after some further persuasion, got into the hansom which Archie had hailed, and was soon driving down Piccadilly to the spacious rooms of the latter—rooms furnished in a wonderful fashion. As a panorama of styles the sitting-room, which was about thirty feet square, with a greenhouse in the rear, would have been worth much to a lecturer on the progress or decadence of art—any average lecturer could make the furniture bear out his views, whether they took one direction or the other.

Two cabinets which had belonged to Louis XV were the finest specimens known in the world. They contained Sèvres porcelain and briar-root pipes. A third cabinet was in the purest style of boarding house art. A small gilt sofa was covered with old French tapestry which would have brought five pounds the square inch at an auction. Beside it was the famous Four-guinea Tottenham Armchair in best Utrecht velvet—three-nine-six in cretonne, carriage paid to any railway-station in the United Kingdom.

A chair, the frame of which was wholly of ivory, carved in Italy, in the seventeenth century, by the greatest artist that ever lived, apparently had its uses in Archie Brown’s entourage, for it sustained in an upright position a half-empty soda-water bottle—the bottle would not have stood upright but for the high relief in the carving of the flowing hair of the figure of Atalanta at one part of the frame. Near it was an interesting old oak chair that was for some time believed to have once belonged to King Henry VIII.

In achieving this striking contrast to the carved ivory, Mr. Brown thought that he had proved his capacity to appreciate an important element in artistic arrangement. He pointed it out to Harold without delay. He had pointed it out to every other person who had visited his rooms.

He also pointed out a picture by one Rembrandt which he had picked up at an auction for forty shillings. A dealer had subsequently assured him that if he wanted a companion picture by the same painter he would not guarantee to procure it for him at a lower figure than twenty-five guineas—perhaps it might even cost him as high as thirty; therefore—the logic was Archie’s—the Rembrandt had been a dead bargain.

Harold looked at this Burgomaster’s Daughter in eighteenth century costume, and said that undoubtedly the painter knew what he was about.

“And so does Archie, tarty chip,” said his host, leading him to one of the bedrooms.

“Now it’s half past seven,” said Archie, leaving him, “and dinner will be served at a quarter to eight. I’ve never been late but once, and Achille was so hurt that he gave me notice. I promised that it should never occur again, and it hasn’t. He doesn’t insist on my dressing for dinner, though he says he should like it.”

“Make my apologies to Achille,” said Harold.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” said Archie seriously—“at least I think it won’t.”

Harold had never been in these rooms before—he wondered how it had chanced that he came to them at all. But before he had partaken of more than one of the hors d’ouvres—there were four of them—he knew that he had done well to come. Achille was an artist, the Sauterne was Chateau Coutet of 1861, and the champagne was, as Archie had promised it should be, Heidsieck of 1884. The electric light was artfully toned down, and the middle-aged butler understood his business.

“This is the family trough,” said Archie. “I say, Harry, isn’t it one better than the oatmeal porridge of our dads—I mean of my dad; yours, I know, was always one of us; my dad wasn’t, God bless him! If he had been we shouldn’t be here now. He’d have died a pauper.”

Harold so far forgot himself as to say, “Doesn’t Carlyle remark somewhere that it’s the fathers who work that the sons—ah, never mind.”

“Carlyle? What Carlyle was that? Do I know him?” asked Archie.

“No,” said Harold, shaking his head.

“He isn’t a tarty chip, eh?”

“Tart, not tarty.”

“Oh. Don’t neglect this jelly. It’s the best thing that Achille does. It’s the only thing that he ever repeats himself in. He came to me boasting that he could give me three hundred and sixty-five different dinners in the year. ‘That’s all very well,’ said I, ‘but what about Leap Year?’ I showed him there that his bluff wouldn’t do. ‘Pass’ said I, and he passed. But we understand one another now. I will say that he has never repeated himself except in this jelly. I make him give it to me once a week.”

“You’re right,” said Harold. “It is something to think about.”

“Yes, while you’re in front of it, but never after,” said Archie. “That’s what Achille says. ‘The true dinner,’ says he, ‘is the one that makes you think while you’re at it, but that never causes you a thought afterwards.’”

“Achille is more than an artist, he is a philosopher,” said Harold. “What does he call this?” he glanced at the menu card. “‘Glace à la chagrin d’Achille’ What does he mean by that? ‘The chagrin of Achilles’? Where does the chagrin come in?”

“Oh, he has some story about a namesake of his,” said Archie. “He was cut up about something, and he wouldn’t come out of the marquee.”

“The tent,” cried Harold. “Achilles sulked in his tent. Of course, that’s the ‘chagrin d’Achille.’”

“Oh, you heard of it too? Then the story has managed to leak out somehow. They always do. There’s nothing in it. Now I’ll tell you all about the show. Try one of these figs.”

Harold helped himself to a green fig, the elderly butler placed a decanter of claret on the table, and disappeared with the noiselessness of a shadow.