Evan Harrington | Page 5

the butcher, to whom he confided what he had heard,
and who ejaculated professionally, 'Obstinate as a pig!' As they stood
together they beheld Sally, a figure of telegraph, at one of the windows,
implying that all was just over.
'Amen!' said Barnes, as to a matter-of-fact affair.
Some minutes after, the two were joined by Grossby, the confectioner,
who listened to the news, and observed:
'Just like him! I'd have sworn he'd never take doctor's stuff'; and,
nodding at Kilne, 'liked his medicine best, eh?'
'Had a-hem!--good lot of it,' muttered Kilne, with a suddenly serious
brow.
'How does he stand on your books?' asked Barnes.
Kilne shouldered round, crying: 'Who the deuce is to know?'
'I don't,' Grossby sighed. 'In he comes with his "Good morning,
Grossby, fine day for the hunt, Grossby," and a ten-pound note. "Have
the kindness to put that down in my favour, Grossby." And just as I am
going to say, "Look here,--this won't do," he has me by the collar, and
there's one of the regiments going to give a supper party, which he's to
order; or the Admiral's wife wants the receipt for that pie; or in comes
my wife, and there's no talking of business then, though she may have
been bothering about his account all the night beforehand. Something
or other! and so we run on.'
'What I want to know,' said Barnes, the butcher, 'is where he got his
tenners from?'
Kilne shook a sagacious head: 'No knowing!'

'I suppose we shall get something out of the fire?' Barnes suggested.
'That depends!' answered the emphatic Kilne.
'But, you know, if the widow carries on the business,' said Grossby,
'there's no reason why we shouldn't get it all, eh?'
'There ain't two that can make clothes for nothing, and make a profit
out of it,' said Kilne.
'That young chap in Portugal,' added Barnes, 'he won't take to tailoring
when he comes home. D' ye think he will?'
Kilne muttered: 'Can't say !' and Grossby, a kindly creature in his way,
albeit a creditor, reverting to the first subject of their discourse,
ejaculated, 'But what a one he was!--eh?'
'Fine!--to look on,' Kilne assented.
'Well, he was like a Marquis,' said Barnes.
Here the three regarded each other, and laughed, though not loudly.
They instantly checked that unseemliness, and Kilne, as one who rises
from the depths of a calculation with the sum in his head, spoke quite
in a different voice:
'Well, what do you say, gentlemen? shall we adjourn? No use standing
here.'
By the invitation to adjourn, it was well understood by the committee
Kilne addressed, that they were invited to pass his threshold, and
partake of a morning draught. Barnes, the butcher, had no objection
whatever, and if Grossby, a man of milder make, entertained any, the
occasion and common interests to be discussed, advised him to waive
them. In single file these mourners entered the publican's house, where
Kilne, after summoning them from behind the bar, on the important
question, what it should be? and receiving, first, perfect acquiescence in
his views as to what it should be, and then feeble suggestions of the

drink best befitting that early hour and the speaker's particular
constitution, poured out a toothful to each, and one to himself.
'Here's to him, poor fellow!' said Kilne; and was deliberately echoed
twice.
'Now, it wasn't that,' Kilne pursued, pointing to the bottle in the midst
of a smacking of lips, 'that wasn't what got him into difficulties. It was
expensive luckshries. It was being above his condition. Horses! What's
a tradesman got to do with horses? Unless he's retired! Then he's a
gentleman, and can do as he likes. It's no use trying to be a gentleman if
you can't pay for it. It always ends bad. Why, there was he, consorting
with gentlefolks--gay as a lark! Who has to pay for it?'
Kilne's fellow-victims maintained a rather doleful tributary silence.
'I'm not saying anything against him now,' the publican further
observed. 'It 's too late. And there! I'm sorry he's gone, for one. He was
as kind a hearted a man as ever breathed. And there! perhaps it was just
as much my fault; I couldn't say "No" to him,--dash me, if I could!'
Lymport was a prosperous town, and in prosperity the much-despised
British tradesman is not a harsh, he is really a well-disposed, easy soul,
and requires but management, manner, occasional instalments--just to
freshen the account--and a surety that he who debits is on the spot, to
be a right royal king of credit. Only the account must never drivel.
'Stare aut crescere' appears to be his feeling on that point, and the
departed Mr. Melchisedec undoubtedly understood him there; for the
running on of the account looked