The handmaiden at George Vavasor’s lodgings announced “another gent,” and then Mr Scruby entered the room in which were seated George, and Mr Grimes the publican from the “Handsome Man” on the Brompton Road. Mr Scruby was an attorney from Great Marlborough Street, supposed to be very knowing in the ways of metropolitan elections; and he had now stepped round, as he called it, with the object of saying a few words to Mr Grimes, partly on the subject of the forthcoming contest at Chelsea, and partly on that of the contest last past. These words were to be said in the presence of Mr Vavasor, the person interested. That some other words had been spoken between Mr Scruby and Mr Grimes on the same subjects behind Mr Vavasor’s back I think very probable. But even though this might have been so I am not prepared to say that Mr Vavasor had been deceived by their combinations.
The two men were very civil to each other in their salutations, the attorney assuming an air of patronizing condescension, always calling the other Grimes; whereas Mr Scruby was treated with considerable deference by the publican, and was always called Mr Scruby. “Business is business,” said the publican as soon as these salutations were over; “isn’t it now, Mr Scruby?”
“And I suppose Grimes thinks Sunday morning a particularly good time for business,” said the attorney, laughing.
“It’s quiet, you know,” said Grimes. “But it warn’t me as named Sunday morning. It was Mr Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain’t it, Mr Scruby?”
Mr Scruby acknowledged that it was quiet, especially looking out over the river, and then they proceeded to business. “We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last,” said the attorney.
“Of course we must, Mr Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get,—just tell me that? Why, Travers’s name was up on the liberal interest ever so long before the governor had ever thought about it.”
“Nobody is blaming you, Mr Grimes,” said George.
“And nobody can’t, Mr Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain’t another man about the place as could have done half as much. You ask Mr Scruby else. Mr Scruby knows, if ere a man in London does. I tell you what it is, Mr Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows, who lives mostly down by the river, ain’t like your Maryboners or Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don’t it Mr Scruby?”
“It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my experience goes,” said Mr Scruby.
“Of course it do; and there ain’t one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and the short of it is this;—business is business, and money is money.”
“Money is money, certainly,” said Mr Scruby. “There’s no doubt in the world about that, Grimes;—and a deal of it you had out of the last election.”
“No, I hadn’t; begging your pardon, Mr Scruby, for making so free. What I had to my own cheek wasn’t nothing to speak of. I wasn’t paid for my time; that’s what I wasn’t. You look how a publican’s business gets cut up at them elections;—and then the state of the house afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down painting inside and out in my little bill?”
“It doesn’t seem to make much difference how you put it down,” said Vavasor. “The total is what I look at.”
“Just so, Mr Vavasor; just so. The total is what I looks at too. And I has to look at it a deuced long time before I gets it. I ain’t a got it yet; have I, Mr Vavasor?”
“Well; if you ask me I should say you had,” said George. “I know I paid Mr Scruby three hundred pounds on your account.”
“And I got every shilling of it, Mr Vavasor. I’m not a going to deny the money, Mr Vavasor. You’ll never find me doing that. I’m as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow,—I am. Mr Scruby knows me; don’t you, Mr Scruby?”
“Perhaps I know you too well, Grimes.”
“No you don’t, Mr Scruby; not a bit too well. Nor I don’t know you too well, either. I respect you, Mr Scruby, because you’re a man as understands your business. But as I was saying, what’s three hundred pounds when a man’s bill is three hundred and ninety-two thirteen and fourpence?”
“I thought that was all settled, Mr Scruby,” said Vavasor.
“Why you see, Mr Vavasor, it’s very hard to settle these things. If you ask me whether Mr Grimes here can sue you for the balance, I tell you very plainly that he can’t. We were a little short of money when we came to a settlement, as is generally the case at such times, and so we took Mr Grimes’ receipt for three hundred pounds.”
“Of course you did, Mr Scruby.”
“Not on account, but in full of all demands.”
“Now Mr Scruby!” and the publican as he made this appeal looked at the attorney with an expression of countenance which was absolutely eloquent. “Are you going to put me off with such an excuse as that?” so the look spoke plainly enough. “Are you going to bring up my own signature against me, when you know very well that I shouldn’t have got a shilling at all for the next twelve months if I hadn’t given it? Oh Mr Scruby!” That’s what Mr Grimes’ look said, and both Mr Scruby and Mr Vavasor understood it perfectly.
“In full of all demands,” said Mr Scruby, with a slight tone of triumph in his voice, as though to show that Grimes’ appeal had no effect at all upon his conscience. “If you were to go into a court of law, Grimes, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand upon.”
“A court of law? Who’s a going to law with the governor, I should like to know? not I; not if he didn’t pay me them ninety-two pounds thirteen and fourpence for the next five years.”
“Five years or fifteen would make no difference,” said Scruby. “You couldn’t do it.”
“And I ain’t a going to try. That’s not the ticket I’ve come here about, Mr Vavasor, this blessed Sunday morning. Going to law, indeed! But Mr Scruby, I’ve got a family.”
“Not in the vale of Taunton, I hope,” said George.
“They is at the ‘Handsome Man’ in the Brompton Road, Mr Vavasor; and I always feels that I owes my first duty to them. If a man don’t work for his family, what do he work for?”
“Come, come, Grimes,” said Mr Scruby. “What is it you’re at? Out with it, and don’t keep us here all day.”
“What is it I’m at, Mr Scruby? As if you didn’t know very well what I’m at. There’s my house;—in all them Chelsea districts it’s the most convenientest of any public as is open for all manner of election purposes. That’s given up to it.”
“And what next?” said Scruby.
“The next is, I myself. There isn’t one of the lot of ‘em can work them Chelsea fellows down along the river unless it is me. Mr Scruby knows that. Why I’ve been a getting of them up with a view to this very job ever since;—why ever since they was a talking of the Chelsea districts. When Lord Robert was a coming in for the county on the religious dodge, he couldn’t have worked them fellows anyhow, only for me. Mr Scruby knows that.”
“Let’s
