Sir Harry Trench. His godfather, my dear sir, his godfather.
TRENCH Just so. The pleasantest fellow for his age you ever met. He offers us his house at St Andrews for a couple of months, if we care to pass our honeymoon there. [He hands Sartorius another letter.] It’s the sort of house nobody can live in, you know; but it’s a nice thing for him to offer. Dont you think so?
SARTORIUS {dissembling a thrill at the titles] No doubt. These seem very gratifying, Dr Trench.
TRENCH Yes, arnt they? Aunt Maria has really behaved like a brick. If you read the postscript youll see she spotted Cokane’s hand in my letter. [Chuckling] He wrote it for me.
SARTORIUS {glancing at Cokane] Indeed! Mr Cokane evidently did it with great tact.
COKANE [returning the glance] Dont mention it.
TRENCH [gleefully] Well, what do you say now, Mr Sartorius? May we regard the matter as settled at last?
SARTORIUS Quite settled. [He rises and offers his hand. Trench, glowing with gratitude, rises and shakes it vehemently, unable to find words for his feelings.]
COKANE [coming between them] Allow me to congratulate you both. [He shakes hands with the two at the same time,]
SARTORIUS And now, gentlemen, I have a word to say to my daughter. Dr Trench: You will not, I hope, grudge me the pleasure of breaking this news to her: I have had to disappoint her more than once since I last saw you. Will you excuse me for ten minutes?
COKANE [in a flush of friendly protest] My dear sir : can you ask?
TRENCH Certainly.
SARTORIUS Thank you. [He goes out.]
TRENCH [chuckling again] He wont have any news to break, poor old boy: she’s seen all the letters already.
COKANE I must say your behavior has been far from straightforward, Harry. You have been carrying on a clandestine correspondence.
LICKCHEESE [stealthily] Gentlemen —
TENCH & COKANE [Turning — They had forgotten his presence] Hallo!
LICKCHEESE [coming between them very humbly, but in mortal anxiety and haste] Look here, gentlemen. [To Trench] You, sir, I address myself to more particlar. Will you say a word in my favor to the guvnor? He’s just given me the sack; and I have four children looking to me for their bread. A word from you, sir, on this happy day, might get him to take me on again.
TRENCH [embarrassed] Well, you see, Mr Lickcheese, I dont see how I can interfere. I’m very sorry, of course.
COKANE Certainly you cannot interfere. It would be in the most execrable taste.
LICKCHEESE Oh, gentlemen, youre young; and you dont know what loss of employment means to the like of me. What harm would it do you to help a poor man? Just listen to the circumstances, sir. I only —
TRENCH [moved, but snatching at an excuse for taking a high tone in avoiding the unpleasantness of helping him.] No: I had rather not. Excuse my saying plainly that I think Mr Sartorius is not a man to act hastily or harshly. I have always found him very fair and generous; and I believe he is a better judge of the circumstances than I am.
COKANE [inquisitive] I think you ought to hear the circumstances, Harry. It can do no harm. Hear the circumstances by all means.
LICKCHEESE Never mind, sir: it aint any use. When I hear that man called generous and fair! well, never mind.
TRENCH [severely] If you wish me to do anything for you, Mr Lickcheese, let me tell you that you are not going the right way about it in speaking ill of Mr Sartorius.
LICKCHEESE Have I said one word against him, sir? I leave it to your friend: Have I said a word?
COKANE True: True. Quite true. Harry: be just.
LICKCHEESE Mark my words, gentlemen: He’ll find what a man he’s lost the very first week’s rents the new man’ll bring him. Youll find the difference yourself, Dr Trench, if you or your children come into the property. Ive took money there when no other collector alive would have wrung it out. And this is the thanks I get for it! Why, see here, gentlemen! Look at that bag of money on the table. Hardly a penny of that but there was a hungry child crying for the bread it would have bought. But I got it for him, screwed and worried and bullied it out of them. I look here, gentlemen : I’m pretty seasoned to the work; but theres money there that I couldnt have taken if it hadnt been for the thought of my own children depending on me for giving him satisfaction. And because I charged him four-and-twenty shillin’ to mend a staircase that three women have been hurt on, and that would have got him prosecuted for manslaughter if it had been let go much longer, he gives me the sack. Wouldnt listen to a word, though I would have offered to make up the money out of my own pocket aye, and am willing to do it still if you will only put in a word for me.
TRENCH [aghast] You took money that ought to have fed starving children! Serve you right! If I had been the father of one of those children, I’d have given you something worse than the sack. I wouldnt say a word to save your soul, if you have such a thing. Mr Sartorius was quite right.
LICKCHEESE [Staring at him, surprised into contemptuous amusement in the midst of his anxiety.] Just listen to this! Well, you are an innocent young gentleman. Do you suppose he sacked me because I was too hard? Not a bit on it: It was because I wasnt hard enough. I never heard him say he was satisfied yet: No, nor he wouldnt, not if I skinned em alive, I dont say he’s the worst landlord in London: He couldnt be worse than some; but he’s no better than the worst I ever had to do with. And, though I say it, I’m better than the best collector he ever done business with. Ive screwed more and spent less on his properties than anyone would believe that knows what such properties are. I know my merits, Dr Trench, and will speak for myself if no one else will.
COKANE What description of properties? Houses?
LICKCHEESE Tenement houses, let from week to week by the room or half room aye, or quarter room. It pays when you know how to work it, sir. Nothing like it. It’s been calculated on the cubic foot of space, sir, that you can get higher rents letting by the room than you can for a mansion in Park Lane.
TRENCH I hope Mr Sartorius hasnt much of that sort of property, however it may pay.
LICKCHEESE He has nothing else, sir; and he shews his sense in it, too. Every few hundred pounds he could scrape together he bought old houses with houses that you wouldnt hardly look at without holding your nose. He has em in St Giles’s: He has em in Marylebone: He has em in Bethnal Green. Just look how he lives himself, and youll see the good of it to him. He likes a low death-rate and a gravel soil for himself, he does. You come down with me to Robbins’s Row; and I’ll shew you a soil and a death-rate, so I will! And, mind you, it’s me that makes it pay him so well. Catch him going down to collect his own rents! Not likely!
TRENCH Do you mean to say that all his property all his means come from this sort of thing?
LICKCHEESE Every penny of it, sir. [Trench, overwhelmed, has to sit down.]
COKANE [looking compassionately at him] Ah, my dear fellow, the love of money is the root of all evil.
LICKCHEESE Yes, sir; and we’d all like to have the tree growing in our garden.
COKANE [revolted] Mr Lickcheese:
