The Adventures of Philip

offered hospitality kindly enough, but how was poor Philip to pay railway

  expenses for servants, babies, and wife? In this strait Tregarvan from abroad,

  having found out some monstrous design of Russ??of the Great Power of which he

  stood in daily terror, and which, as we are in strict amity with that Power, no

  other Power shall induce me to name??Tregarvan wrote to his editor, and

  communicated to him in confidence a most prodigious and nefarious plot against

  the liberties of all the rest of Europe, in which the Power in question was

  engaged, and in a postscript added, "By the way, the Michaelmas quarter is due,

  and I send you a cheque," O precious postscript!

  "Didn't I tell you it would be so?" said my wife, with a self-satisfied air.

  "Was I not certain that succour would come?"

  And succour did come, sure enough; and a very happy little party went down to

  Brighton in a second-class carriage, and got an extraordinarily cheap lodging,

  and the roses came back to the little pale cheeks, and mamma was wonderfully

  invigorated and refreshed, as all her friends could have seen when the little

  family came back to town, only there was such a thick dun fog that it was

  impossible to see complexions at all.

  When the shooting season was come to an end, the parliamentary agents who had

  employed Philip, came back to London; and, I am happy to say, gave him a cheque

  for his little account. My wife cried, "Did I not tell you so?" more than ever.

  "Is not everything for the best? I knew dear Philip would prosper!"

  Everything was for the best, was it? Philip was sure to prosper, was he? What do

  you think of the next news which the poor fellow brought to us? One night in

  December he came to us, and I saw by his face that some event of importance had

  befallen him.

  "I am almost heart-broken," he said, thumping on the table when the young ones

  had retreated from it. "I don't know what to do. I have not told you all. I have

  paid four bills for him already, and now he has ??he has signed my name."

  "Who has?"

  "He at New York. You know," said poor Philip. "I tell you he has put my name on

  a bill, and without my authority."

  "Gracious heavens! You mean your father has for??" I could not say the word.

  "Yes," groaned Philip. "Here is a letter from him;" and he handed a letter

  across the table in the doctor's well-known handwriting.

  "Dearest Philip," the father wrote, "a sad misfortune has befallen me, which I

  had hoped to conceal, or at any rate, to avert from my dear son." For you,

  Philip, are a participator in that misfortune through the imprudence??must I say

  it???of your father. Would I had struck off the hand which has done the deed,

  ere it had been done! But the fault has taken wings and flown out of my reach.

  Immeritus, dear boy, you have to suffer for the delicta majorum. Ah, that a

  father should have to own his fault; to kneel and ask pardon of his son!

  "I am engaged in many speculations. Some have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes:

  some have taken in the most rational, the most prudent, the least sanguine of

  our capitalists in Wall Street, and promising the greatest results have ended in

  the most extreme failure! To meet a call in an undertaking which seemed to offer

  the MOST CERTAIN PROSPECTS of success, which seemed to promise a fortune for me

  and my boy, and your dear children, I put in amongst other securities which I

  had to realize on a sudden, a bill, on which I used your name. I dated it as

  drawn six months back by me at New York, on you at Parchment Buildings, Temple;

  and I wrote your acceptance, as though the signature were yours. I give myself

  up to you. I tell you what I have done. Make the matter public. Give my

  confession to the world, as here I write, and sign it, and your father is

  branded for ever to the world as a ?? Spare me the word!"

  "As I live, as I hope for your forgiveness, long ere that bill became due??it is

  at five months' date, for 386l. 4s. 3d. value received, and dated from the

  Temple, on the fourth of July??I passed it to one who promised to keep it until

  I myself should redeem it! The commission which he charged me was enormous,

  rascally; and not content with the immense interest which he extorted from me,

  the scoundrel has passed the bill away, and it is in Europe, in the hands of an

  enemy."

  "You remember Tufton Hunt? Yes. You most justly chastised him. The wretch lately

  made his detested appearance in this city, associated with the lowest of the

  base, and endeavoured to resume his old practice of threats, cajoleries, and

  extortions! In a fatal hour the villain heard of the bill of which I have warned

  you. He purchased it from the gambler, to whom it had been passed. As New York

  was speedily too hot to hold him (for the unhappy man has even left me to pay

  his hotel score) he has fled??and fled to Europe??taking with him that fatal

  bill, which he says he knows you will pay. Ah! dear Philip, if that bill were

  but once out of the wretch's hands! What sleepless hours of agony should I be

  spared! I pray you, I implore you, make every sacrifice to meet it! You will not

  disown it? No. As you have children of your own??as you love them??you would not

  willingly let them have a dishonoured"

  "Father."

  "I have a share in a great medical discovery, [Note: ?ther was first employed, I

  believe, in America: and I hope the reader will excuse the substitution of

  Chloroform in this instance.??

  W. M. T.

  ] regarding which I have written to our friend, Mrs. Brandon, and which is sure

  to realize an immense profit, as introduced into England by a physician so well

  known??may I not say professionally? respected as myself. The very first profits

  resulting from that discovery I promise, on my honour, to devote to you. They

  will very soon far more than repay the loss which my imprudence has brought on

  my dear boy. Farewell! Love to your wife and little ones.??G. B. F."

  CHAPTER VIII. NEC PLENA CRUORIS HIRUDO.

  The reading of this precious letter filled Philip's friend with an inward

  indignation which it was very hard to control or disguise. It is no pleasant

  task to tell a gentleman that his father is a rogue. Old Firmin would have been

  hanged a few years earlier, for practices like these. As you talk with a very

  great scoundrel, or with a madman, has not the respected reader sometimes

  reflected, with a grim self-humiliation, how the fellow is of our own kind; and

  homo est? Let us, dearly beloved, who are outside??I mean outside the hulks or

  the asylum??be thankful that we have to pay a barber for snipping our hair, and

  are entrusted with the choice of the cut of our own jerkins. As poor Philip read

  his father's letter, my thought was: "And I can remember the soft white hand of

  that scoundrel, which has just been forging his own son's name, putting

  sovereigns into my own palm when I was a schoolboy." I always liked that

  man:??but the story is not de me??it regards Philip.

  "You won't pay this bill?" Philip's friend indignantly said, then.

  "What can I do?" says poor Phil, shaking a sad head.

  "You are not worth
five hundred pounds in the world," remarks the friend.

  "Who ever said I was? I am worth this bill: or my credit is," answers the

  victim.

  "If you pay this, he will draw more."

  "I daresay he will:" that Firmin admits.

  "And he will continue to draw, as long as there is a drop of blood to be had out

  of you."

  "Yes," owns poor Philip, putting a finger to his lip. He thought I might be

  about to speak. His artless wife and mine were conversing at that moment upon

  the respective merits of some sweet chintzes which they had seen at Shoolbred's,

  in Tottenham Court Road, and which were so cheap and pleasant, and lively to

  look at! Really those drawing-room curtains would cost scarcely anything! Our

  Regulus, you see, before stepping into his torture-tub, was smiling on his

  friends, and talking upholstery with a cheerful, smirking countenance. On

  chintz, or some other household errand, the ladies went prattling off: but there

  was no care, save for husband and children, in Charlotte's poor little innocent

  heart just then.

  "Nice to hear her talking about sweet drawing-room chintzes, isn't it?" says

  Philip. "Shall we try Shoolbred's, or the other shop?" And then he laughs. It

  was not a very lively laugh.

  "You mean that you are determined, then, on??"

  "On acknowledging my signature? Of course," says Philip, "if ever it is

  presented to me, I would own it." And having formed and announced this

  resolution, I knew my stubborn friend too well to think that he ever would shirk

  it.

  The most exasperating part of the matter was, that however generously Philip's

  friends might be disposed towards him, they could not in this case give him a

  helping hand. The doctor would draw more bills, and more. As sure as Philip

  supplied, the parent would ask; and that devouring dragon of a doctor had

  stomach enough for the blood of all of us, were we inclined to give it. In fact,

  Philip saw as much, and owned everything with his usual candour. "I see what is

  going on in your mind, old boy!" the poor fellow said, "as well as if you spoke.

  You mean that I am helpless and irreclaimable, and doomed to hopeless ruin. So

  it would seem. A man can't escape his fate, friend, and my father has made mine

  for me. If I manage to struggle through the payment of this bill, of course he

  will draw another. My only chance of escape is, that he should succeed in some

  of his speculations. As he is always gambling, there may be some luck for him

  one day or another. He won't benefit me, then. That is not his way. If he makes

  a coup, he will keep the money, or spend it. He won't give me any. But he will

  not draw upon me as he does now, or send forth fancy imitations of the filial

  autograph. It is a blessing to have such a father, isn't it? I say, Pen, as I

  think from whom I am descended, and look at your spoons, I am astonished I have

  not put any of them in my pocket. You leave me in the room with 'em quite

  unprotected. I say it is quite affecting the way in which you and your dear wife

  have confidence in me." And with a bitter execration at his fate, the poor

  fellow pauses for a moment in his lament.

  His father was his fate, he seemed to think, and there were no means of averting

  it. "You remember that picture of Abraham and Isaac in the doctor's study in Old

  Parr Street?" he would say. "My patriarch has tied me up, and had the knife in

  me repeatedly. He does not sacrifice me at one operation; but there will be a

  final one some day, and I shall bleed no more. It's gay and amusing, isn't it?

  Especially when one has a wife and children." I, for my part, felt so indignant,

  that I was minded to advertise in the papers that all acceptances drawn in

  Philip's name were forgeries; and let his father take the consequences of his

  own act. But the consequences would have been life imprisonment for the old man,

  and almost as much disgrace and ruin for the young one, as were actually

  impending. He pointed out his clearly enough; nor could we altogether gainsay

  his dismal logic. It was better, at any rate, to meet this bill, and give the

  doctor warning for the future. Well: perhaps it was; only suppose the doctor

  should take the warning in good part, accept the rebuke with perfect meekness,

  and at an early opportunity commit another forgery? To this Philip replied, that

  no man could resist his fate: that he had always expected his own doom through

  his father: that when the elder went to America he thought possibly the charm

  was broken; "but you see it is not," groaned Philip, "and my father's emissaries

  reach me, and I am still under the spell." The bearer of the bowstring, we know,

  was on his way, and would deliver his grim message ere long.

  Having frequently succeeded in extorting money from Dr. Firmin, Mr. Tufton Hunt

  thought he could not do better than follow his banker across the Atlantic: and

  we need not describe the annoyance and rage of the doctor on finding this black

  care still behind his back. He had not much to give; indeed the sum which he

  took away with him, and of which he robbed his son and his other creditors, was

  but small: but Hunt was bent upon having a portion of this; and, of course,

  hinted that, if the doctor refused, he would carry to the New York press the

  particulars of Firmin's early career and latest defalcations. Mr. Hunt had been

  under the gallery of the House of Commons half a dozen times, and knew our

  public men by sight. In the course of a pretty long and disreputable career he

  had learned anecdotes regarding members of the aristocracy, turf-men, and the

  like; and he offered to sell this precious knowledge of his to more than one

  American paper, as other amiable exiles from our country have done. But Hunt was

  too old, and his stories too stale for the New York public. They dated from

  George IV., and the boxing and coaching times. He found but little market for

  his wares; and the tipsy parson reeled from tavern to bar, only the object of

  scorn to younger reprobates who despised his old-fashioned stories, and could

  top them with blackguardism of a much more modern date.

  After some two years' sojourn in the United States, this worthy felt the

  passionate longing to revisit his native country which generous hearts often

  experience, and made his way from Liverpool to London; and when in London

  directed his steps to the house of the Little Sister, of which he expected to

  find Philip still an inmate. Although Hunt had been once kicked out of the

  premises, he felt little shame now about re-entering them. He had that in his

  pocket which would insure him respectful behaviour from Philip. What were the

  circumstances under which that forged bill was obtained? Was it a speculation

  between Hunt and Philip's father? Did Hunt suggest that, to screen the elder

  Firmin from disgrace and ruin, Philip would assuredly take the bill up? That a

  forged signature was, in fact, a better document than a genuine acceptance? We

  shall never know the truth regarding this transaction now. We have but the

  statements of the two parties concerned; and as both of them, I grieve to say,

  are entirely unworthy o
f credit, we must remain in ignorance regarding this

  matter. Perhaps Hunt forged Philip's acceptance: perhaps his unhappy father

  wrote it: perhaps the doctor's story that the paper was extorted from him was

  true, perhaps false. What matters? Both the men have passed away from amongst

  us, and will write and speak no more lies.

  Caroline was absent from home when Hunt paid his first visit after his return

  from America. Her servant described the man, and his appearance. Mrs. Brandon

  felt sure that Hunt was her visitor, and foreboded no good to Philip from the

  parson's arrival. In former days we have seen how the Little Sister had found

  favour in the eyes of this man. The besotted creature, shunned of men, stained

  with crime, drink, debt, had still no little vanity in his composition, and gave

  himself airs in the tavern parlours which he frequented. Because he had been at

  the University thirty years ago, his idea was that he was superior to ordinary

  men who had not had the benefit of an education at Oxford or Cambridge; and that

  the "snobs," as he called them, respected him. He would assume grandiose airs in

  talking to a tradesman ever so wealthy; speak to such a man by his surname; and

  deem that he honoured him by his patronage and conversation. The Little Sister's

  grammar, I have told you, was not good; her poor little h's were sadly

  irregular. A letter was a painful task to her. She knew how ill she performed

  it, and that she was for ever making blunders.

  She would invent a thousand funny little pleas and excuses for her faults of

  writing. With all the blunders of spelling, her little letters had a pathos

  which somehow brought tears into the eyes. The Rev. Mr. Hunt believed himself to

  be this woman's superior. He thought his University education gave him a claim

  upon her respect, and draped himself and swaggered before her and others in his

  dingy college gown. He had paraded his Master of Arts degree in many thousand

  tavern parlours, where his Greek and learning had got him a kind of respect. He

  patronized landlords, and strutted by hostesses' bars with a vinous leer or a

  tipsy solemnity. He must have been very far gone and debased indeed when he

  could still think that he was any living man's better:??he, who ought to have

  waited on the waiters, and blacked boots's own shoes. When he had reached a

  certain stage of liquor he commonly began to brag about the University, and

  recite the titles of his friends of early days. Never was kicking more

  righteously administered than that which Philip once bestowed on this miscreant.

  The fellow took to the gutter as naturally as to his bed, Firmin used to say;

  and vowed that the washing there was a novelty which did him good.

  Brandon soon found that her surmises were correct regarding her nameless

  visitor. Next day, as she was watering some little flowers in her window, she

  looked from it into the street, where she saw the shambling parson leering up at

  her. When she saw him he took off his greasy hat and made her a bow. At the

  moment she saw him, she felt that he was come upon some errand hostile to

  Philip. She knew he meant mischief as he looked up with that sodden face, those

  bloodshot eyes, those unshorn, grinning lips.

  She might have been inclined to faint, or disposed to scream, or to hide herself

  from the man, the sight of whom she loathed. She did not faint, or hide herself,

  or cry out; but she instantly nodded her head and smiled in the most engaging

  manner on that unwelcome, dingy stranger. She went to her door; she opened it

  (though her heart beat so that you might have heard it, as she told her friend

  afterwards). She stood there a moment archly smiling at him, and she beckoned

  him into her house with a little gesture of welcome. "Law bless us" (these, I

  have reason to believe, were her very words)??"Law bless us, Mr. Hunt, where

  ever have you been this ever so long?" And a smiling face looked at him