The Romance of Giovanni Calvotti | Page 8

off and smoked, and I am my own man again. (Regard once more the beautiful English idiom, and the smiling soul which so soon after battle can take delight in verbal felicities.)
Now I will go on with my story. It takes a long time to write. It will be twelve months to-morrow since I last looked at the pages of this narrative. I may not touch it again after to-day for a year. Who knows?
I went to Mr. Gregory's house in West-bourne Terrace on Friday, and I continued to go there on Friday evenings until the close of the season. Mr. Gregory is no more my patron, only: he is now my friend, and his friendship is firm and true. I shall be honest in saying that to me those Friday evenings were very beautiful. It was so great a change from the hungry and lonely nights in my attic, to find myself back again with ladies and gentlemen, myself well dressed and at home, and no longer hungry. There I was admired and fêted, and all people made much of me. I played and sang, and the people talked of my pictures, and everywhere I was asked out, until I could have spent my every hour in those calm social dissipations which make up so large a share of life in all refined societies. For my friend Gregory is a man of refinement--within himself--and his friends are all artistic and literary.. But why should I talk about him? Everybody knows him. Gregory the millionaire; Gregory the connoisseur in wines, in pictures, in old violins, in pottery; the Connoisseur in humanity at whose gatherings the wisest and the most charming meet each other. Gregory the ship-builder, iron-master, coal-owner; architect of himself--a splendid edifice. That such a man should have bought my pictures was of itself a fortune to me. I am on my way to get riches, and my balance at-the bank is already respectable. Why, then, should I be at battle with Madame Circumstance? You shall see.
One day at the beginning of this year he called to see me. I was hard at work making the best of the few hours of light. He sat and watched for a full hour, talking very little. At last he said--
'I can trust you, Calvotti. I want you to do me a service.'
'I am very heartily glad to hear it,' I answered.
'You won't understand what I want you to do unless I tell you the whole story,' he said, after a pause. Then he remained silent for some time.
'Put down your brushes and listen,' he went on.
I obeyed him. He lit a cigar, poured out a glass of claret, crossed his legs, and talked easily, though at times I could see that he felt strongly.
'I have had a good many friendly acquaintances in my life, and one friend: he died five years ago. I was abroad at the time, in Russia, laying down a railway. My friend, whom everybody supposed to be fairly well-to-do, died poor. There was one lump sum of money in my hands, placed there by him for investment, and that was almost all he had. By some terrible mischance, the acknowledgment I had given for this lump sum was lost, and his relatives were in ignorance of it. Six months after his death I came home, and finding that nothing had been said of the money he had entrusted to my care, I went to his lawyer and spoke to him about it. My friend had been a widower for the last dozen years. He had three children, and no other relatives in the world. After the sale of his effects, poor fellow, the two girls disappeared utterly. The son, who was a reckless, good-for-nothing scamp, was my poor friend's favourite, and whatever the old man died possessed of went by will to him with a mere injunction to look after his sisters. He had not been heard of for more than a year, but was believed to be somewhere in Italy. The scoundrel professed to be a painter, and might have made a decent sign-writer, if he hadn't been a drunkard. I could not find even him, and the girls have been advertised for, vainly. Now, the lawyer has just received a letter from this young ne'er-do-weel, who wants to borrow money. I will tell you what I want you to do. If this scamp learns that ten thousand pounds belong to him, he will take every penny, though he left the girls to starve. But I want things so managed that he shall share with his sisters--a thing he will be very reluctant to do. Now, will you go to Naples, find this man out, get to know from him the whereabouts of his sisters, manoeuvre