Hunted Down | Page 5

suffered a great loss.'
'In money?' said I.
He laughed at my ready association of loss with money, and replied,
'No, in talent and vigour.'
Not at once following out his allusion, I considered for a moment.
'HAS it sustained a loss of that kind?' said I. 'I was not aware of it.'
'Understand me, Mr. Sampson. I don't imagine that you have retired. It
is not so bad as that. But Mr. Meltham - '
'O, to be sure!' said I. 'Yes! Mr. Meltham, the young actuary of the
"Inestimable."'
'Just so,' he returned in a consoling way.
'He is a great loss. He was at once the most profound, the most original,
and the most energetic man I have ever known connected with Life
Assurance.'
I spoke strongly; for I had a high esteem and admiration for Meltham;

and my gentleman had indefinitely conveyed to me some suspicion that
he wanted to sneer at him. He recalled me to my guard by presenting
that trim pathway up his head, with its internal 'Not on the grass, if you
please - the gravel.'
'You knew him, Mr. Slinkton.'
'Only by reputation. To have known him as an acquaintance or as a
friend, is an honour I should have sought if he had remained in society,
though I might never have had the good fortune to attain it, being a
man of far inferior mark. He was scarcely above thirty, I suppose?'
'About thirty.'
'Ah!' he sighed in his former consoling way. 'What creatures we are! To
break up, Mr. Sampson, and become incapable of business at that time
of life! - Any reason assigned for the melancholy fact?'
('Humph!' thought I, as I looked at him. 'But I WON'T go up the track,
and I WILL go on the grass.')
'What reason have you heard assigned, Mr. Slinkton?' I asked,
point-blank.
'Most likely a false one. You know what Rumour is, Mr. Sampson. I
never repeat what I hear; it is the only way of paring the nails and
shaving the head of Rumour. But when YOU ask me what reason I
have heard assigned for Mr. Meltham's passing away from among men,
it is another thing. I am not gratifying idle gossip then. I was told, Mr.
Sampson, that Mr. Meltham had relinquished all his avocations and all
his prospects, because he was, in fact, broken- hearted. A disappointed
attachment I heard, - though it hardly seems probable, in the case of a
man so distinguished and so attractive.'
'Attractions and distinctions are no armour against death,' said I.
'O, she died? Pray pardon me. I did not hear that. That, indeed, makes it
very, very sad. Poor Mr. Meltham! She died? Ah, dear me! Lamentable,

lamentable!'
I still thought his pity was not quite genuine, and I still suspected an
unaccountable sneer under all this, until he said, as we were parted, like
the other knots of talkers, by the announcement of dinner:
'Mr. Sampson, you are surprised to see me so moved on behalf of a
man whom I have never known. I am not so disinterested as you may
suppose. I have suffered, and recently too, from death myself. I have
lost one of two charming nieces, who were my constant companions.
She died young - barely three-and-twenty; and even her remaining
sister is far from strong. The world is a grave!'
He said this with deep feeling, and I felt reproached for the coldness of
my manner. Coldness and distrust had been engendered in me, I knew,
by my bad experiences; they were not natural to me; and I often
thought how much I had lost in life, losing trustfulness, and how little I
had gained, gaining hard caution. This state of mind being habitual to
me, I troubled myself more about this conversation than I might have
troubled myself about a greater matter. I listened to his talk at dinner,
and observed how readily other men responded to it, and with what a
graceful instinct he adapted his subjects to the knowledge and habits of
those he talked with. As, in talking with me, he had easily started the
subject I might be supposed to understand best, and to be the most
interested in, so, in talking with others, he guided himself by the same
rule. The company was of a varied character; but he was not at fault,
that I could discover, with any member of it. He knew just as much of
each man's pursuit as made him agreeable to that man in reference to it,
and just as little as made it natural in him to seek modestly for
information when the theme was broached.
As he talked and talked - but really not too much, for the rest of us
seemed