Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/399

28, 1863.] The return trip in the cab was performed in gloomy silence. Reuben was sunk in the depths of despondency; Charles the waiter was sulky with disappointment, while the epithet “accomplice” rankled in his bosom. As soon as the cab arrived at the hotel, he took Reuben tightly by the arm, and led him into Mr. Clucking’s private room.

“Well, what success?” said that gentleman.

“Reg’lar sell, sir,” answered the waiter, sulkily. “Instead of advancing the money, Mr. Cox shoved us out of the house, and called me a foul name, which I’ll make him pay for.”

“Well, Mr. Fowler,” said Mr. Clucking, “and what do you say?”

“I can only say,” sighed poor Reuben, “that it was an unlucky mistake. We went to the wrong Mr. Cox.”

“And I fear,” replied Mr. Clucking, “that I’ve got the wrong Mr. Fowler. Now, sir,” continued he in his City voice, “this is a serious matter. You run up a bill at an hotel, you have an expensive dinner at a restaurant, and then you’ve no money, no references, no anything. And look here, sir,” said Mr. Clucking, taking up the evening paper, and reading aloud, ‘We understand that the police are actively engaged in endeavouring to trace the whereabouts of a person who has lately succeeded in committing several extensive hotel robberies. The party suspected is about thirty years of age, tall, dark complexioned, and frequently assumes the dress and appearance of a member of the clerical profession.’ Anthony!” shouted Mr. Clucking.

“Sir!”

“Fetch a constable. Now, Mr. Fowler, I don’t wish to do anything unpleasantly, but I should prefer a magistrate adjudicating in your case. There, you can read the description in the paper.”

“Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted Reuben, after glancing at the paper for a few moments. “I am saved! my character is saved!” And the poor fellow sunk into a chair, and fairly blubbered with excitement.

“The man’s crazy, I do believe,” said Mr. Clucking. “Never mind the policeman, Anthony. Hang it, I’ll let the poor devil go.”

“I am not mad!” exclaimed Reuben, recovering his excitement. “Read this.”

Mr. Clucking read among the shipping news: ‘Chanticleer, s.s. for Hamburgh, fouled her screw in Gravesend Reach, and has returned to London for repairs.’ How does that affect you?”

“A great deal,” answered Reuben. “My sister is on board—governess to Count Cochinski.”

“Count Cochinski! Why that accounts for that Frenchman turning up again this evening. He wished me good-bye last night. Anthony, my compliments to Monsieur Crêvecœur, and if he’s in the billiard room, I shall be happy to speak to him.”

In a few minutes Anthony returned, ushering in a little gentleman with a closely-cut beard and moustache, attired in a pea jacket and straw hat, à l’Anglaise.

“Why, Crêvecœur, my dear friend,” said Clucking, “I did not recognise you in that rig.”

“Ah, my friend,” replied Crêvecœur, with a shrug, “what better shall I vear? I reserve my white cap and apron for the kitchen; I array myself in my paletôt and varnished boots for the Boulevards; behold me now, attired for your filthy steam-vessels.”

“Well, Crêvecœur, I suppose you are sorry to return to our barbarous island?”

“What else can I call a country,” smiled the Frenchman, “where they have pockets to their billiard tables?”

Mr. Clucking laughed. He then said, “Crêvecœur, what is the name of the Count’s governess?”

“Ah, ah, you naughty man, you Clucking; you are married man; you want to know; I shall tell Mistress Clucking.”

“I want to know seriously. This gentleman, her brother, is in a difficulty.”

“You her brother!” said Crêvecœur, with a profound bow. “I salute you as brother to the most lovely, enchanting young lady these eyes have seen. Clucking, I must have a bottle of wine: we will drink the health of Miss Leonora Fowler.”

The name at once satisfied Mr. Clucking as to the identity of his unlucky guest; and as Crêvecœur remembered to have seen him with his sister on board the Chanticleer, all former disagreeable occurrences were speedily forgotten. Mr. Clucking paid Charles, the waiter, the amount of his master’s bill, with a douceur for himself, and the remainder of the evening was passed by all parties pleasantly enough.

Count Cochinski was staying with his suite at Mivart’s Hotel. Thither Reuben proceeded on the following morning, and received a loving embrace from Leonora, into whose willing ear he poured a recital of all his sufferings on the previous day.

“You dear old thing,” she said, “and it was all through my dragging you up from your quiet curacy to naughty London! How fortunately it has happened that that horrid screw should break when it did. And you shall not lose the money, for the Count will lend it me.”

“The Count!”

“Yes, I am sure he will. He is so kind. Oh, you can’t think how kind he was going down to Gravesend: if he had been my husband he could not have been more attentive.”

“Perhaps he will be one of these days,” said Reuben, slyly.

“You naughty Reu, to talk so to a poor governess,” said Leonora, blushing scarlet. “However, I will ask him.”

In twenty minutes she returned in triumph with a slip of paper in her hand. It was a cheque for twenty pounds on a London banker, signed by the Count’s secretary and countersigned by himself.

Reuben’s prophecy came true. In six months from that time Leonora became the Countess Cochinski. When the engagement was first made public, Crêvecœur felt it deeply. He had conceived an intense though secret passion for Leonora, and for several weeks was so affected as to be unable to perform his culinary duties. He had hoped to wed her himself, and display her charms to the eyes of envious neighbours in his