THE ENGAGEMENT OF VANGUARD HEMMINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2493, 25 December 1901, Page 62

THE ENGAGEMENT OF VANGUARD HEMMINGS.

By W. Pett Ridgk. Master Hemmingt-; stood on the tailboard of his van holding the' rope as his driver whipped up the pair of horses down Kennington road. He looked anxiously out at ■ the open back of the van as though eager for the sight of someone ; with his disengaged hand he moved his peaked cap in order tc prove to himself that it was in working order and'-eady for the action of salute. A short girl hi the pavement, whom he recognised as a di&tant relative, but not so distant, perhaps, as he sometimes wished, gave up dispute with a smallei girl for the possession of a hoop to wihich she had no legal claim, and chased the pair-horse van, to Master Hemmings's great annoyance. "Cheer, illbert !" she cried 'breathlessly . "Be off," ordered Master Hemmings. "How ye gettin' on?'" asked the hastening girl. "When are they goin' to make a porter of ye? You don't grow fast enough. ' "Are you going to leave off running after my van, or ain't youV" asked Albert, bending forward tiireateningly. He glanced at the numbers on the shops, and his irritation increased. "I s'pose I can foller it if I like." "Whip be'ind, mate, ' called Albert to his driver. The small girl, slackening her speed at this, dropped back with a shout of defiance, cut short by danger from a bicycle which a lady was trying to ride. Albert Hemmings swung out on the rope without releasing his foothold on the tailboard as the van neai'ed No. 589 ; he looked anxiously at the fruiterer's shop which 'bore this number, and on the instant snatched off his cap. "Stop 'ere, mate," he cried. "I want some apples." The driver obeyed, and, as Albert jumped down jfith a practised air, and went across the pavement, refilled and lighted his pipe with a patient air. There were already two customers in the small shop, but for these Albert had no eyes ; it was the tall, gene-rously-proportioned young woman near the fruit-piled counter who engaged all his admiration. "I've tried exercise," she was saying to the lady .clients, who, having made their purchases and placed them in net bags, seemed to have no other business for the day of an urgent character. "I've tried vinegar. I've tired those tablets they advertise. I've tried nearly everything, but nothing don't seem to make no difference. What do you think, now, I am round the wai&t'f ' "Twenty -six," gues&ed one of the ladies. "Twenty-seven." hazarded the other. '"j-wenty-eight," she sa.o. with melancholy triumph, "and when I was a girl of 16 I was the slimmest of the slim." It seemed to Albert that there was something like heterodoxy in all this talk. Surely when a young woman was so admirable, the more there was of her the better. He coughed, and the young woman looked round. "Good morning," he said, blushing. '"How are you this morning V\ "Mustn't grumble.' she &aid. "What can we do for you'/" This unseemly haste in ai riving at essentials discouraged Albert. Hitherto there had always, in bne absence of customers, been friendly conversation before business matters were reached. "Want a penn'orth of your best apples." he said rather frigidly. "The best, mind. Three of yesterday's didn't turn out so satisfactory as I could have wished. ' "I don't' make the apples," she retorted. "If you did," he said appeasingly, "they'd all be perfect like yourself." One of the women whispered something to the other, and the otneir replied that it was all the doings of the Board School. The young lady of the shop seemed pleased, and she selected the small hard apples with a critical air, rejecting some and placing the chosen fruit in a brown bag which had on it the words "Leah Abrahams." "How's bisness?" asked the boy. "Slack," answered Miss Abrahams. "Saturdays and Sundays are the only days they've got aiw money in this. nei#h<boui--hood. If I'd a bit of capital I'd move along into the New Kent road." "I live near the New Kent road." "That," she said lightly, "of course, is another reason why I want to move there," and winked at the two women. "When I'm a junior porter," he said, flushing with delight, "they'll pay me a mattei of 14 bob a week besides what I pick up." "I know," said Miss Abrahams, humorously, "what'U be the first thing you'll pick up." "What's that?" "A sweetheart," said Miss Abrahams. The boy waited a moment, as though half inclined to burst out with an urgent remark, but the two women came forward to take a hand in the game of raillery, and, perceiving this, he lifted his cap again, and, turning, went out of the shop. His driver upbraided him. lazily for his prolonged absence from, the post of duty, but bribed by one of the apples, drove on contentedly. Albert Hemmings, absorbed in reminiscence of the most satisfactory words of Miss Abrahams, did not touch his fruit, but gazed 'back thoughtfully at the shop, and allowed a boy on a grocer's cycle to assist himself by holding on to the van without , a word of reproof. During his three sets

JotJ ot deliveries that day, Albert gave himself joy by the thought of life with Mrs Hemmuigs, nee Abrahams, at a fruit emporium in New Kent road : he as inspector on his railway in braided uniform returning from work, and she as tihe alert businesslike woman standing under a semi-circle of gas-lights in white globes, and waiting for him with a welcoming smile. Upon discovery that three cases had during the- day been given jp without -signature," his mate, die driver, prophesied that Albert would no more become a junior porter than he'd learn to fly, a hopeless view, which checked Alb^t's gay aspirations and restored him to calm. He did not go out that evening to assist his companions in noisy demonstrations at quiet corners, but stayed indoors, to the great concern of his mother, who had hitherto upbraided him for not doing this. He had purchased a penny handbook galled "Ettiquette for Gentlemen." and this absorbed his attention ; it hurt him to find that the one rule'of "which he had obtained possession— that in regard to th« lifting of ms ca.pwas but one of the hundreds that had to be observed, in dealings with the opposite sex. In walking with them, for instance, you nar 1 always to take particular care "to take the outside position ; riding with them in a carriage a man had to sit with his back to the horses ; the penny book could 1 scarce find words to express its contempt ! for those who ventured to interrupt a lady until she had quite finished speaking. The game of cards to be played when you called and found the young lady out was so con- [ fusing that it made his head ache ; he passed on to the ohapter headed "Proposals of Marriage."' Here he was pained to find that the well-bred woy of going to work was to carefully conceal your aspirations from the lady herself, but to go to her father and state the whole case frankly, but with respect. Albert had once seen old Mr Abrahams, and he trembled to think of what might happen were he to ask that acute gentleman to give him anything. Once, however, the parent's consent had been obtained, yon were free to address your application to the young lady, which you, did in an impassioned sentence which occupied nearly the whole of one page. At half-past 10 his mother snatched the penny book from his hands and sent him to bed. j At the station on the following morning there was the making of history. A cheque-book was reported missing from an aged portmanteau delivered the previous day by Albert's cartman ; the owner of the portmanteau had thoughtfully left it unlocked.- and had placed the cheque-book on the very top of its contents, being apparently of a kind disposition and anxious to avoid the giving of trouble. For the investigation of »aiis Albert and his driver had to be interrogated separately by a magisterial chief clerk, who seemed' anxious { to convey the impression that in him was combined the judicial instincts of the law courts with the acumen of Scotland Yard, ami Albert emerged from the examination with an uneasy feeling that he had only jn>t e&caped capital punishment. The van foreman reported to the chief clerk that he had searched hi^h and low for the missing book ; it appeared, however, that in his anxiety to go to these extremes he had omitted to look in the van. There in the corner Albert found it that morning as they drove out on their Surrey-side round. He was about to call to his driver the glad news of his discovery <rhen he opened the oblong book ; the first page was filled I in for £200. "Pay to self or bearer," said the cheque commandingly, "the sum of £200." "I s'spose," called his driver from the front of the van, "I s'.spose you won't be i 'appy unless you make your usual call."' "I'll just look in. mate,"' said Albert in a low tone. He slipped the book in his jacket pocket. This time Miss Abrahams had no customers, and she was engaged in dusting the fruit with a feathered whisk. Rather flippantly, as Albert thought, she flicked his face with this as he entered ; at the present moment this frivolity seemed singularly out of place ; but he consoled himself with the thought that girls often sobered down after marriage. "You were talking yesterday," he said, when his usual purchase had been effected, "of a shop or establishment or what not in the New Kent roaid." "Did I?"' asked Miss Abrahams, opening i her large dark eyes wonderingly. "I'd forgot." "What," stammered the boy, nervously, j and feeling at bis- jacket, " what might j be the sum required fer — fer such a purpose, may I ask?" Miss Abrahams looked up at the ceiling of the shop and computed. "You couldn't do anything worth doing," she said presently, after having wrestled with a. mathematical problem, "for le«-s> , tLan fifty pounds." ''What could you do with two 'undied?" he asked boldly.' "You're making f un ot •me," said Miss Abrahams. "I shan't like you if you make fun of me." "I'm speaking serious," declared the boy. " I'm in a position to lend you a matter of two 'undred pounds.'" "Have you come into some money?" "Yes." Miss Abrahams looked at him searchingly for a few moments. "I "hall have to ask father," she said, "and see what he says. He'd turn round and nag me like anything if I went and put my foot into it. S'posing you call again this evening." "This evening '11 suit me." "Any -time after eight. Perhaps you'll take a bit of s-upper." The boy flushed red with gratification. Here was he about to become a member of the family ; to have arrived within sight of this entrancing stage was well aa orth any slight infraction of his duty to his employers. After all, "finding's keepings," as the boy& used lo say at his board school. People shouldn't be He looked at the younjj; ■>< mum's Knge white hand*. "Who gave yi>u that ring?'' he Aemundul sharnly.

"That?" said Miss Abrahams. "Oh, that was given me by a relative." "Only a rel'tive?" "Only a relative. His name is Woolf." "Proper place for him," said the boy, satirically, "is in the Zoo. My name," he added with pride, "my name is Elbert." "We don't get a chance of choosing our names for ourselves," said the lady ; "we have to put up with what's given us. Look at me, for instance — I think the name of Abrahams is simply horrid." 'You can easily change it,'' suggested the boy, shyly. "You are a one for chaff," she said. To Albert's great annoyance it was at this >ncouraging moment that his cartman, ever a slow, clumsy man, put his head inside the shop and, still rasped by the precise cross-examination at office, demanded whether Albert proposed to stay for the rest of the year. To this there could be but one answer. Albert shook' hands with Miss Abrahams, and flattered himself that he detected something like affection in her strong grasp. She said that 6he should be thinking over what he > had said the whole of the day, and that he was not to be a minute later than eights His cartman, on resuming his high seat behind the pair of horses, shouted some badinage over his shoulder to the boy, intended to give annoyance ; but it only gave to him satisfaction and the precious feeling that he had become as important as any full-grown man. That evening romance took his arm as he j hurried head down along Kernington road ; romance lighted the street ; romance made the wind and the rain attractive. He arrived at the closed shop in rather a damp condition, with the wet streaming from the cricketing cap which he had substituted for the official head-covering as being more ! suitable for a private call. He rapped at the shop door, and for a time no reply came ; the tears were coming near to his eyes when he heard a shuffling within, and the door was unbolted. "Go off," said Miss Abrahams's father. "But I've called " , "Just what I complain of. It's early closin' evenin\ and I don't open my shops for a prince of royal bloods." "But I'm not a prince of royal blood," urged Albert fervently. "I've called to see Miss Abrahams about a loan of two 'undred pound " "My dear old fellow," said Mr Abrahams, ' effusively, "come in, come in, come in. Don't stand out there in the lams. You'll get- yourself wet already. I thought you was joost an ordinary man. Why don't . you gariy umbrellas?" went on Mr Abrahams with a fatherly air of concern. "I sell you ■ nice umbrella at my oder shop for tree shillings and elevenpence. Bettei a* new."' "Is she in?" "My daughter in? She is upstairs making supper. Wipe your Boot on the mat and follow me. Follow the olt v mau," said Mr Abrahams with a sudden burst of joviality, "and you can't go wrong. ' If Miss Abrahams had appeared pleasant to look upon by daytime in the s>hop below, she this evening, to the partial eyes of Albeit, looked stouter and more entrancim; than ever. The importance of the occasion had encouraged her to put on the •costume she wore when her cousin in Covent Garden Market 'obtained orders foi the play, on which occasions JJiss Abrahams could bear herself in the upper circle with the best of them, throAving now and again a look of pained surprise at the gallery and saying bitter things about those below her in the pit. She Avore jewellery, too, this evening, and on her wrist a Avatch, and as she fr:ed sausages at the fire she looked a very elegant young woman indeed. "I thought you Avere going to be late, the said, turning genially. '"What a night, too, isn't it? You'd "better change your boots and put on a pair of father's slippers and have a good dry at the fire." "I'm a. Jew," said her father as he selected the oldest pair, "but I'm not a bigoted Jew. If my friends like sausages they have them to eat. Besides, they ar6 cheap." "You'll have to t«ke v* as you find u<\ said Miss Abrahams apologetically, as she brought the excited frying pan to the white clothed table. "Father and me live very quiet. I'm housekeeper." "He'll have to do Avithout you some day," said the boy, with his mouth full. Mr Abrahams had to put doAvn his knife and fork to laugh exhaustedly at this. "Now," said Miss Abrahams, with a winning air of reproof, "don't you begin your nonsense. As a matter of fact I s'pose it Avon't be long before we have to eat some of your wedding cake. Has Miss Right conic along yet?" "She's on her Avay," he replied, eating stolidly. "Thought as much, she said acutely. "I have -no objections." said her father impressively, "to early marriages if there is plenty of money about. It is all an affair of* L.s.d. If a young man has plenty >f money, I feay ' Blesa you. It he has no money, I say, 'My fellow, don t you go darkening my doorways.' " It seemed to Albert Hemmings that this Avas a strictly correct attitude for a father to adopt, and" he nodded emphatic approval. Mr Abrahams, after some thought, offered to fetch for him half a glass of beer, but Albert declined this, and Mr Abrahams did not insist. "Money," said the father, "is the great want of "the age. If I had at these moments, say, £200, I could " ■ "Let's finish supper first," suggested his daughter. "Albert, don't be sparing with the butter." The boy had never enjoyed a meal so^ thoroughly. It was good to be treatedas a groAvn-up guest ; it was better tc- be so near this adorable young person and to see her beaming upon him Avhenever he succeeded in catching her eye. Any slights anxiety that he might have had in regard to the cheque book Avas svepb aAvay by this. -And now," said the father, drawing the chairs neat to the fire, "joking apart, let ) us all sit ourselves 'in a friendly Avay and [ talk business. 1 always say theie is time

for inerriness and time for seriousness. Have a ceegar, my boy?"' "No thanks,"' said Albert ; "I'm quite comfortable as I am." I "If you won't, you won't," remarked Mr Abrahams, with cheerful resignation. "They cost money. It would be pounds in my pockets if I had never learned to smoke. I can't smoke your cheap ceegars ; nothing less than seven for a shilling suits me." "How is business?"' asked the boy, with a manly air. "How do you find everything in general?" "There is grade want of cabital," said MiAbrahams, solemnly. "I have three places to keep going, and" it takes me all my time. What was your occupation?" "I hold," said Albert^ "a position in a railway company. It's not good at present, but I've got very good prospects, and I get a pass once a year to the seaside. ''For two?"' asked Mies Abrahams. "Rather," he said. "And," went on the old gentleman very pleasantly, "if it is not a rude que&tion, how much precisely do you receive per annum?" "'I don't know that I've ever reckoned it out to per annum. Per week it's eight bob,'" he said boldly— "eight wee bob and a bit exira for overtime. That bit extra," liere he looked at Miss Abrahams, "vliat bit extra mother lets me keep." ' "But this two 'underd.' explained Miss Abrahams, "hae been left to you, hasn't it?" "You can put it that way," said the boy, with reserve. • "What I say is these," leclared Mr Abrahams, walking up and down the room and speaking as one who defied the argiiment of all the world : "it shows great business capacity on your part, my good jap, to invest these moneys in so wise and gautiouc a manner. Some foolish persons go j and put their savings in the Post Office." "Not good enough," said the boy. "The very words 1 was about to make use of,"' said the old gentleman, with ecstacy. "Others they go and put it all in mad, mad schemes." "Too risky," remarked Albert. "Right again," said Mr Abrahams, stopping to pat him on the back approvingly. "What you do are these. You first of all find honest man. That's the x first thing you do. Honest man struggling to keep roof over his heads and over his daughter's heads. You think il over, you talk to your parents " ' "Well, as a matter of fact " "And," Le went on hastily, "you come at last to a wise decision. Then you proceed very naturally io call upon this i honest man. You say I have two hundred , pounds. How much per cent, will I give ', you for him, eh?" "As ' to that," said the boy to M2&S ' Abrahams, 'Td rather act as friend to : friend, and " I "s "No, no; no!" said the father emphatic- , ally. "Friendship is one thing and busi- \ ress ;<s another. -Never mil rhem, my dear friend. We are now talking business. I make answer to youi 1 question as follows : -Four per cen*., I say.' • "More than that, father." "¥our and a-haif per cent, I mean."' "Can't yon," asked the boy, anxious to act well the pan of a man of business — "cant you spring a bit on that?" j "If I give you five per cent.," declared ; Mr Abrahams pathetically, "I rob myself. | I rob lny daughter." j "Then make it four and a-"alf," said Albeit. ; "Your hand upon ;t,'" cried Mr Abrahams rapturously. They shook hands, and Albert also shook hands — to make the agreement doubly secure— with Miss Abrahams. "Remains only one small item. When is it possible to see the money? lam a blunt man of business,' he explained, "and I speak what is in my head. When is it possible to see the money?"' "Now," said the boy, red-faced with excitement, "this very minute." "Good," exclaimed Mr Abrahams. "Leah, mv love, clear the table." 'This done the three seated themselves, and Albeit, large with importance, took from the inside pocket of his short jacket the cheque bookT Tearing the first slip at the perforation he threw it across to Mr -Abrahams. . - "What you call this?" said the old gentleman. ''Leah, my glasses." "A cheque fer two 'underd pound." -Bui.— but. it is not signed." '"It's got no signature to -it," corroborated Miss Abrahams. "Doe? that." stammered the boy nervously. "does that make any difference?" "Difference," roared Mr Abrahams. "My fine fellow, do you .hink you are making funs of us?" •'No," declared the boy honestly. '•if 011 come here," went on the old gentleman, "and you eat your supper, and you take up our time, and now " "But do yon mean— do you mean to say tha+ cheque ain't use at all?' For answer Mr Abrahams tore the slip in s-veral pieces nd threw them ovei the boy. Albert found bis cricketing cap and made his way abashed towards the door. •'Come oack." >creamed Mr Abrahams, "Don't yougo off with my best slippers already, you ' "Father!" The boy took off tlie slippers awkwardly and put on his damp boots. Then with a sob he opened the door and ran downstair* In the shop he had to wait because it was daik there. Overhead he cou.d hear the indignant voice of Mr Abrahams. "I'm bringing a light, little boy, said Miss Abrahams, appearing with a candle. "Don't cry like that. ' rv "How— how am I to cry. tlienf "Where did you get that cheque book/ . Albert between his tears explained. '\ou 11 take it back this evening," she said, m a motherly way, "and give it up to your people. "Yes, mi&&." "I wonder." she said. as she unlocked tne. . shop door— "I wonder -n hat nttde you do it : . "Because I — because I wanted to many ! you." She stopped a laugh ar.d, stooping, j ■ kissed his forehead. ' "Some rlav you'll i;io« up and get married. But," she added in a whisper, "you , jrjil cJaepsg a heuer &irl than »&." <.