The 'Eighty-Seven

By BARRY PAIN.

N the dining-room at 17, Wilberforce Square, S.W., the Sunday had received its midday consecration. Luncheon had been made dinner, for the same reason that later in the day dinner would be made supper. "We must think of the servants," said Mrs. Trope. She thought of many other things—of the winter sales, for instance, or of the present trouble about Patricia and Edward—but she never quite forgot the servants.

The roast sirloin had passed away, the tart and the Cheddar had followed in their solemn Sabbatical order. Mrs. Trope and her two daughters had retired. There remained now the fruits of the earth in their season—walnuts, to be precise—and the decanters, and Mr. Trope. It was one of Mr. Trope's many good habits to take a glass of port after the luncheon-dinner of Sunday. A silvery-haired gentleman of rather presidential appearance, he paused with the nut-crackers in his fleshy hand—paused and reflected.

There had been an unwonted gloom over the dinner-table, and it had not escaped Mr. Trope's parental eye that Patricia, his elder daughter, had been unable to eat. There was to be an interview with Edward at four, and Mr. Trope foresaw that it would be painful.

But what could be done? Edward was a pleasant young fellow, and old Purdon, his father, had been the intimate friend of Mr. Trope. Edward Purdon under ordinary circumstances would have been always a welcome guest at Mr. Trope's house. But Edward had been insane enough to fall in love with Patricia Trope. He wished to marry her—and he had three hundred a year. Was Patricia to be taken from the easeful and dignified life of 17, Wilberforce Square, S.W., to be plunged into a penurious struggle and a suburban insignificance? Clearly not. "I'm only doing what I know to be best for you," Mr. Trope had said to his daughter.

"I know," said Patricia, who was heartbroken, but much too proud to weep. "But I wish you wouldn't."

So as he cracked his last walnut, Mr. Trope, being kindly of heart, tried to think of one or two complimentary phrases by which he might soften the blow to Edward. Patricia might go away for a holiday for a while, and he'd buy her a present; she had said some weeks before that she would like a string of pearls, and she should have them. It is not only the cruel who give stones to those who are crying for bread.

The door opened softly, but Mr. Trope did not look round. Parlourmaids are sometimes anxious to begin their Sunday afternoons as early as possible; Mr. Trope had observed it on previous occasions. "It's all right, Willis," he said, "you can clear. Just take my port through into the library, and"

But it was not Willis; it was Mrs. Trope.

"John, dear," she said, "the thought has occurred to me that if we continued her dress allowance" "Four hundred instead of three. No, Agnes, no use. She simply couldn't live on it. It's no kindness to let her try. When I married you, I bad a thousand a year and prospects—which have been more than fulfilled. There's a right way and a wrong way. Here's a girl; one day she wants, naturally enough, a string of pearls, which you may call two hundred and fifty sovereigns, and the next day she wants to go off on three hundred a year. Ab-so-lutely preposterous!"

"Of course," said Mrs. Trope, "I don't understand these money matters, and never did. I've been wise enough to leave that to you, John. I'm sure I don't even know how much money we've got. But it is so difficult to know what to do for the best. Poor Patricia! She's gone off to her room, and I'm afraid she really is crying this time, and Martia—you know how devoted she is to her sister—is quite depressed too; she just sits at the piano, without playing anything, and saying that money is nothing but a curse."

"Then she's a very silly child," said Mr. Trope presidentially, "and you can tell her so from me. Why, bless my soul, anybody would think I was going to kill the young man. I'm not even going to forbid him the house—not even that. Patricia will see him every now and then, say once every three months. I'm not obstinate about it. If he sticks to business properly, in another eight or ten years—if they're still of the same mind—he may be in a position to marry Patricia, and nobody will be better pleased than myself. Why, I like the young fellow, and I liked his father before him—an able man, old Purdon, if he'd only have kept clear of speculation. You go and see Patricia, and tell her things are not so bad as she thinks. No engagement of any kind at present, that's all I say. And I'll take my port into the library; Willis will be waiting to clear."

The old gentleman grasped the decanter and his glass with great care, and passed through the door at the further end of the dining-room. In the library a bright wood fire was burning, and a chair of seductive ease had been drawn up to it. Beside the chair on a low table were the Sunday papers, and there was still room on the table for a decanter and a glass. Mr. Trope lowered himself with dignity into the easy-chair.

If Mr. Trope had continued his usual Sabbath procedure, he would have taken two glasses of port, neither more nor less, glanced through one newspaper, and subsided for the space of one hour into a contented and refreshing slumber.

To-day he had too much on his mind to be able to interest himself in newspapers. They remained folded on the table; but he poured out a glass of port, sipped it, and said "Ah-h!"

What a wine it was!

It was not the oldest port in his cellar, for he still had a comfortable provision of the '78 which he himself had laid down. He had known that grand and historic port, the '47, but that had come to him from his father's cellars. The last bottle had gone now. The wine that he tasted now was the '87, surely, he thought, own sister to the '47.

Mr. Trope had laid down the '87 also, thirty dozens of it. But this bottle did not belong to that original lot. It came from a case which he had bought at a sale in '96, and although of the same year, it was of a different shipper. That wise man, Mr. Trope, had decanted it himself.

The real port-drinkers, he reflected with a pious melancholy, were dying out. Men that he knew were proud that they never touched it, thereby showing gross ignorance and a poor, ramshackle physique. Others contented themselves with that insignificant and emasculated thing, a wood-port; we are a decadent race, and the doctor is abroad in the land.

Mr. Trope sipped again—and again. Yes, it was a queer thing that he should be drinking that bottle of '87; for he had bought it with the intention of giving it back to the original owner. Poor old Purdon! He had watched his books, his pictures, his silver, his cellar dispersed among the people who had the money to buy them. Very good prices had been made, and old Purdon was pleased. All debt would be cleared, and there would still be enough to give Edward a start in life. "Glad you had the '87," he whispered to Mr. Trope, who had only bought it to give it back to his friend again. Before he had the chance—that very night—Purdon was stricken down, and two days later was dead.

So Mr. Trope, in his habitual health, was drinking his dead friend's port preparatory to spoiling the life of his dead friend's son. But that was an absurd way to put it. It was wine he'd bought and paid for (he filled his glass again). And back it would have gone into his old friend's cellar if death had not intervened. He had acted generously, certainly he had. He preferred to act generously.

Still … well, a man's first duty was surely to protect his own daughter's interests—to protect her against herself, if need were.

The glass of port winked a ruby eye at the fire. The fire winked a golden eye back at the port again. It was almost as if these inanimate things conversed together.

"Of course, I don't know how much money he has," spluttered the fire. "I only came to-day."

"I know him well," the port winked back. "A very warm man, Mr. Trope. Could afford to do a lot of things that he won't do."

Mr. Trope extinguished that ruby eye by the natural process of imbibition, but still that feeling of Sabbath-afternoon contentment, due to arrive with the second glass, remained out of sight. His wife and daughters had been gloomy, and gloom is infectious. Gloom of the very deepest pervaded the innocent and businesslike mind of Mr. Trope.

What did it matter? We gathered things together, an investment here, and an investment there, a few dozens of a vintage of this year or that, but they would all be dispersed in the end—by a sale resultant on failure, or by death, against whichever success is powerless. We may buy things and pay for them, but they are never our own absolutely; at the most, we are only tenants for life. Thirty dozen of the '87 originally, and eleven that had been old Purdon's—he'd never live to drink it all, never. And he'd no son to inherit it, and girls didn't understand it. Oh dear, oh dear!

It was at this point that Mr. Trope asked himself if he had had his second glass of port. He may, or may not, have known the correct answer to this riddle. But he filled his glass again.

Possibly the breaking of one habit caused another to snap, for Mr. Trope found himself wondering if it was worth while to cling to the last halfpenny till the last moment. Could he buy anything that he would enjoy more than the happiness of those he loved best? The train of thought thus started took upon itself a rosy glow; it warmed and pleased him. He'd do it. Yes, by Jove! he would. And now he would close his eyes and get those few moments of slumber so valuable on Sunday afternoons to strenuous, generous natures who have

The door opened, and Mary (it being Willis's Sunday out) announced Mr. Edward Purdon.

"Bring another glass, Mary. How'do, Edward, my boy?"

Edward Purdon was rather good-looking, quite manly, very shy, and desperately respectful. When the point was reached, he put his case with most lamentable modesty and diffidence.

"So they've raised you twenty-five, have they?" said papa. "That's satisfactory, as far as it goes. But if I permit this, you'll have to be very careful. You see, your income and Patricia's four hundred together only come to seven hundred and twenty-five. Not much margin there."

"Patricia's four hundred!—I didn't know she had any money, sir."

"I know you didn't. No more did she. For that matter, no more did I until—until quite recently. But it makes all the difference. Otherwise I couldn't have listened to you—not for a moment—much though we all like you, Edward. As it is, living very simply, you might be able to manage, and I'm willing that you should try. (The glass, Mary? Oh, yes. Fill it.) And I think there is a toast we might drink."

And with that toast Mr. Trope finished his shameless and irregular third glass of port. And then while Edward was doing his best to say a few of the right things that the occasion demanded, Mr. Trope rose from his place.

"I'll send Patsey to you," he said.

When Mr. Trope entered the drawing-room, Patricia had a book, her mother had some embroidery, and Martia was seated at the piano; but nobody was getting on with anything, and they all raised hopeless eyes towards the master of the house.

"Patsey," said her father, "there's a young man in the library wants to talk to you."

Patricia gave one gulp. "You don't mean—you haven't sent him away?"

"If you want him sent away, you'll have to do it yourself. I think it's highly probable he'll stop to supper, if you ask him prettily; and if you'd like a string of pearls for a wedding present, I'll think about it."

The next moment Patricia was kissing her father frantically and exclaiming: "Oh, Mummy!" and "It can't be true!" and "Martia, Martia!" And the moment after she was in the library.

"Then, dear," said Mrs. Trope, still agape with astonishment, "after all, you're"

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Trope, "I've made some sort of an arrangement which removes the principal difficulty. Give us a tune, Martia."

"If I could only play, sing, dance and yell for joy all at once, you darling!"

"Dear me," said Mr. Trope, "everybody seems to be very excited."

It all happened more than a year ago.

Mr. Trope's habits have resumed their regularity. The port which is now being taken into 17, Wilberforce Square—well, that is some which Mr. Trope is laying down for his grandson.