That’s me. Who’ll you be?
Hunt. Hunt the Runner, sir; Hunt from Bow Street; English warrant.
Lawson. There’s a place for a’ things, officer. Come your ways to my office with me and this guid wife.
Brodie (aside to Jean, as she passes with a curtsey). How dare you be here? (Aloud to Smith.) Wait you here, my man.
Smith. If you please, sir. (Brodie goes out, C.)
Brodie. What the devil brings you here?
Smith. Confound it, Deakin! Not rusty?
Brodie. (And not you only: Jean too! Are you mad?
Smith. Why, you don’t mean to say, Deakin, that you have been stodged by G. Smith, Esquire? Plummy old George?)
Brodie. There was my uncle the Procurator —
Smith. The Fiscal? He don’t count.
Brodie. What d’ye mean?
Smith. Well, Deakin, since Fiscal Lawson’s Nunkey Lawson, and it’s all in the family way, I don’t mind telling you that Nunkey Lawson’s a customer of George’s. We give Nunkey Lawson a good deal of brandy – G. S. and Co.’s celebrated Nantz.
Brodie. What! does he buy that smuggled trash of yours?
Smith. Well, we don’t call it smuggled in the trade, Deakin. It’s a wink and King George’s picter between G. S. and the Nunks.
Brodie. Gad! that’s worth knowing. O Procurator, Procurator, is there no such thing as virtue? (Allons! It’s enough to cure a man of vice for this world and the other.) But hark you hither, Smith; this is all damned well in its way, but it don’t explain what brings you here.
Smith. I’ve trapped a pigeon for you.
Brodie. Can’t you pluck him yourself?
Smith. Not me. He’s too flash in the feather for a simple nobleman like George Lord Smith. It’s the great Capting Starlight, fresh in from York. (He’s exercised his noble art all the way from here to London. “Stand and deliver, stap my vitals!”) And the North Road is no bad lay, Deakin.
Brodie. Flush?
Smith (mimicking). “Three graziers, split me! A mail, stap my vitals! and seven demned farmers, by the Lard – ”
Brodie. By Gad!
Smith. Good for trade, ain’t it? And we thought, Deakin, the Badger and me, that coins being ever on the vanish, and you not over sweet on them there lovely little locks at Leslie’s, and them there bigger and uglier marine stores at the Excise Office…
Brodie (impassible). Go on.
Smith. Worse luck!.. We thought, me and the Badger, you know, that maybe you’d like to exercise your helbow with our free and galliant horseman.
Brodie. The old move, I presume? The double set of dice?
Smith. That’s the rig, Deakin. What you drop on the square you pick up again on the cross. (Just as you did with G. S. and Co.’s own agent and correspondent, the Admiral from Nantz.) You always was a neat hand with the bones, Deakin.
Brodie. The usual terms, I suppose?
Smith. The old discount, Deakin. Ten in the pound for you, and the rest for your jolly companions every one. (That’s the way we does it!)
Brodie. Who has the dice?
Smith. Our mutual friend, the Candleworm.
Brodie. You mean Ainslie? – We trust that creature too much, Geordie.
Smith. He’s all right, Marquis. He wouldn’t lay a finger on his own mother. Why, he’s no more guile in him than a set of sheep’s trotters.
(Brodie. You think so? Then see he don’t cheat you over the dice, and give you light for loaded. See to that George, see to that; and you may count the Captain as bare as his last grazier.
Smith. The Black Flag for ever! George’ll trot him round to Mother Clarke’s in two twos.) How long’ll you be?
Brodie. The time to lock up and go to bed, and I’ll be with you. Can you find your way out?
Smith. Bloom on, my Sweet William, in peaceful array. Ta-ta.
Mary. O Willie, I am glad you did not go with them. I have something to tell you. If you knew how happy I am, you would clap your hands, Will. But come, sit you down there, and be my good big brother, and I will kneel here and take your hand. We must keep close to dad, and then he will feel happiness in the air. The poor old love, if we could only tell him. But I sometimes think his heart has gone to heaven already, and takes a part in all our joys and sorrows; and it is only his poor body that remains here, helpless and ignorant. Come, Will, sit you down, and ask me questions – or guess – that will be better, guess.
Brodie. Not to-night, Mary; not to-night. I have other fish to fry, and they won’t wait.
Mary. Not one minute for your sister? One little minute for your little sister?
Brodie. Minutes are precious, Mary. I have to work for all of us, and the clock is always busy. They are waiting for me even now. Help me with the dad’s chair. And then to bed, and dream happy things. And to-morrow morning I will hear your news – your good news; it must be good, you look so proud and glad. But to-night it cannot be.
Mary. I hate your business – I hate all business. To think of chairs, and tables, and foot-rules, all dead and wooden – and cold pieces of money with the King’s ugly head on them; and here is your sister, your pretty sister, if you please, with something to tell, which she would not tell you for the world, and would give the world to have you guess, and you won’t? – Not you! For business! Fie, Deacon Brodie! But I’m too happy to find fault with you!
Brodie. “And me a Deacon,” as the Procurator would say.
Mary. No such thing, sir! I am not a bit afraid of you – nor a bit angry neither. Give me a kiss, and promise me hours and hours to-morrow morning?
Brodie. All day long to-morrow, if you like.
Mary. Business or none?
Brodie. Business or none, little sister! I’ll make time, I promise you; and there’s another kiss for surety. Come along. (They proceed to push out the chair, L.C.) The wine and wisdom of this evening have given me one of my headaches, and I’m in haste for bed. You’ll be good, won’t you, and see they make no noise, and let me sleep my fill to-morrow morning till I wake?
Mary. Poor Will! How selfish I must have seemed! You should have told me sooner, and I wouldn’t have worried you. Come along. (She goes out, pushing chair.)
Brodie. Now for one of the Deacon’s headaches! Rogues all, rogues all! (Goes to clothes-press and proceeds to change his coat.) On with the new coat
