The Adventures of Dick Maitland | Page 3

interviews between Mrs
Maitland and "Mr Jonas", as the clerks in his father's office had learned
to call him; for the said Mr Jonas had succeeded to the executorship of
many wills--Mr Maitland's among them--as well as the other portions
of his father's business; and so great had been the zeal and interest that
he had displayed during the necessary negotiations, that Mrs Maitland
had been most favourably impressed. Indeed Jonas Cuthbertson had
honestly earned the very high opinion that Mrs Maitland had formed of
him, displaying not only interest and zeal but also a considerable
amount of acumen in the matter of Dick's placing. For, when Mrs
Maitland, perhaps very naturally, expressed the wish that Dick should
begin his studies under the guidance of some eminent Harley Street
specialist, the solicitor strenuously opposed the idea, not only upon the
score of expense, but also because, as he argued, Dick would certainly
acquire a wider knowledge of diseases and their cure--and acquire it
much more quickly--under some hard-working practitioner among the
East-End poor of London; and that, as he very truly pointed out, was
the great desideratum in such a case as Dick's, far outweighing the

extra hard work and the sordid surroundings to which Mrs Maitland
had at first so strenuously objected. Moreover, Dick agreed with the
solicitor; and in the end the maternal objections were overcome, careful
enquiries were instituted, and finally Dick found himself installed as a
pupil in the somewhat Bohemian establishment of Doctor Julian
Humphreys, M.D., M.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., and several other letters of the
alphabet. And, queer though the arrangement was in many respects, it
proved eminently satisfactory to Dick; for Dr Humphreys was not only
an extraordinarily able physician and surgeon, but also marvellously
clever and learned outside the bounds of his profession, gentle and
tender- hearted as a woman, and a thoroughly good fellow all round, in
the best and highest sense of the term. As for Dick, he displayed from
the outset a quite exceptional aptitude for the noble profession which
he had chosen; study, instead of being irksome, was a pleasure--almost
a passion--with him; his nerves were steel, he never for a moment lost
his head even when assisting at the most sickening operation; his touch
was light and sure; and knowledge seemed to come to him intuitively.
No wonder that Doctor Humphreys persistently predicted a brilliant
and successful career for his pupil.
Upon his arrival home Dick found his mother in such an acute state of
distress that for the first few moments of their interview she seemed to
be quite incapable of making any intelligible statement: she could do
nothing but weep copiously upon her stalwart son's shoulder and gasp
that they were ruined--utterly and irretrievably ruined! At length,
however, the lad managed to extract from Mrs Maitland the statement
that she had seen, in the previous morning's papers, an account of the
suicide of Mr Jonas Cuthbertson, a solicitor; and, judging from the
name and other particulars given in the published account, that it must
be their Mr Cuthbertson, she had hurried up to town and called at
Cuthbertson's chambers, where her worst apprehensions had received
complete and terrible confirmation. From the particulars supplied by
Mr Herbert, Cuthbertson's chief clerk, it appeared that "Mr Jonas", after
walking worthily in his father's footsteps for two years, had become
infected with the gambling craze, and, first losing all his own money,
had finally laid hands upon as much of his clients' property as he could
obtain access to, until, his ill luck still pursuing him, he had lost that

also, and then had sought to evade the consequences of his misdeeds by
blowing out his brains with two shots from a revolver. This final act of
folly had been perpetrated two days before the account of it in the
papers had fallen under Mrs Maitland's notice, and in the interim there
had, of course, been time only to make a very cursory examination into
the affairs of the suicide, but that examination had sufficed to reveal the
appalling fact that every available security, both of his own and of his
clients, had disappeared, while sufficient evidence had been discovered
to show pretty clearly what had led to their disappearance.
This was the sum and substance of Mrs Maitland's somewhat
incoherently told story, and when Dick had heard it through to the end
he had no reason to doubt its truth; but manifestly it was not at all the
sort of story to be taken upon trust, it must be fully and completely
investigated, if only for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not
anything, however small, was to be saved from the wreck; accordingly,
after partaking of a hasty lunch, young Maitland wended his way to the
City, and there had a