The Prime Minister | Page 6

of it, on horseback or on foot, at home over his book or after the mazes of the dance,--was he dressed otherwise than with perfect care. Money and time did it, but folk thought that it grew with him, as did his hair and his nails. And he always rode a horse which charmed good judges of what a park nag should be;--not a prancing, restless, giggling, sideway-going, useless garran, but an animal well made, well bitted, with perfect paces, on whom a rider if it pleased him could be as quiet as a statue in a monument. It often did please Ferdinand Lopez to be quiet on horseback; and yet he did not look like a statue, for it was acknowledged through all London that he was a good horseman. He lived luxuriously too,--though whether at his ease or not nobody knew,--for he kept a brougham of his own, and during the hunting season, he had two horses down at Leighton. There had once been a belief abroad that he was ruined, but they who interest themselves in such matters had found out,--or at any rate believed that they had found out,--that he paid his tailor regularly: and now there prevailed an opinion that Ferdinand Lopez was a monied man.
It was known to some few that he occupied rooms in a flat at Westminster,--but to very few exactly where the rooms were situate. Among all his friends no one was known to have entered them. In a moderate way he was given to hospitality,--that is to infrequent but when the occasion came, to graceful hospitality. Some club, however, or tavern perhaps, in the summer, some river bank would be chosen as the scene of these festivities. To a few,--if, as suggested, amidst summer flowers on the water's edge to men and women mixed,--he would be a courtly and efficient host; for he had the rare gift of doing such things well.
Hunting was over, and the east wind was still blowing, and a great portion of the London world was out of town taking its Easter holiday, when on an unpleasant morning, Ferdinand Lopez travelled into the city by the Metropolitan railway from Westminster Bridge. It was his custom to go thither when he did go,--not daily like a man of business, but as chance might require, like a capitalist or a man of pleasure,--in his own brougham. But on this occasion he walked down the river side, and then walked from the Mansion House into a dingy little court called Little Tankard Yard, near the Bank of England, and going through a narrow dark long passage got into a little office at the back of a building, in which there sat at a desk a greasy gentleman with a new hat on one side of his head, who might perhaps be about forty years old. The place was very dark, and the man was turning over the leaves of a ledger. A stranger to city ways might probably have said that he was idle, but he was no doubt filling his mind with that erudition which would enable him to earn his bread. On the other side of the desk there was a little boy copying letters. These were Mr Sextus Parker,-- commonly called Sexty Parker,--his clerk. Mr Parker was a gentleman very well known and at the present moment favourably esteemed on the Stock Exchange. 'What, Lopez!' said he. 'Uncommon glad to see you. What can I do for you?'
'Just come inside,--will you?' said Lopez. Now within Mr Parker's very small office there was a smaller office, in which there were a safe, a small rickety Pembroke table, two chairs, and an old washing-stand with a tumbled towel. Lopez led the way into this sanctum as though he knew the place well, and Sexty Parker followed him.
'Beastly day, isn't it?' said Sexty.
'Yes,--a nasty east wind.'
'Cutting one in two, with a hot sun at the same time. One ought to hybernate at this time of the year.'
'Then why don't you hybernate?' said Lopez.
'Business is too good. That's about it. A man has to stick to it when it does come. Everybody can't do like you;--give up regular work, and make a better thing of an hour now and an hour then, just as it pleases you. I shouldn't dare go in for that kind of thing.
'I don't suppose you or any one else know what I go in for,' said Lopez, with a look that indicated offence.
'Nor don't care,' said Sexty;--'only hope it's something good, for your sake.' Sexty Parker had known Mr Lopez well, now for some years, and being an overbearing man himself,--somewhat even of a bully if the truth be spoken,--and by no means apt to give way unless hard pressed, had often tried his 'hand'