THE TORN TELEGRAM

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XXV, 23 June 1894, Page 586

THE TORN TELEGRAM

/I Tale of the

By

Dalrymple Belgrave.

BHIL CALDICOT sat in a carriage in the Underground Railway thinking over his position, which was not a very satisfactory one. He was returning from a visit to hu stockbrokers, and he realized that it was the last visit on the same errand that he would ever pay them. He had just succeeded in getting to the end of his capital. Income three hundred a year, expenditure about five hundred a year, meant many of these visits. What, after all, waa a couple of hundred pounds ? Only about £8 a year, he would argue, and he would gaily go into the city and feel himself quite the business man.

When these proceedings began to make rather a hole in his income he took to reinvesting his mpney so as to get a larger interest for it. After these reinvestments there were always nice little sums of odd money that could not be invested. These sums he could either spend with a light heart or he could invest them in speculations that seemed even mor* hazardous than those he made in the city, namely —in backing horses. He began to take a good deal of interest in racing, just at the time when taking such an interest was likely to lie most fatal to him. His visits to the city became more and more frequent. His invested capital grew smaller and smaller, ana like the flame on the top of a sticky it at last seemed to give a jump into the air and disappear into space. One morning he found himself with a cheque for one hundred pounds ten and sixpence and no moneys invested anywhere. He was a barrister, but his professional'income had varied from five to six pounds per annum for prosecuting prisoners at his county sessions, while his annual professional exEenditure varied from fifty to sixty pounds a year, which e spent in going circnit, and having chambers in the Temple. It was a comfort to think that he could save that amount by not going circuit, and giving up his chambers. But then that consolation was dashed by the reflection that as he would have no income to save that sum of money out of he would not be much benefited by his economy. Thd more be thought of his position the less he liked it; and he was so wrapt up in his unpleasant train of thought that he paid very little heed to where he was. * Well,mind you go to Barmouth,’ somebody said almost in his ear, and oddly enough these words just fitted in with his thoughts. Barmouth races were in two days’ time, and he had arranged to stay with a friend who lived near, and go to them. The words were spoken by a little hard-faced man, who though he was dressed rather poorly, looked obviously a gentleman. Beside him was a fat, smooth faced young man with a peculiarly innocent and simple expression of countenance. The two had been whispering together very earnestly, and the elder seemed to be about to get ou at the next station. ■ A-, and let ns hope that we will do a good stroke of burin jm there,’ he added. ‘You will find my dodge will make ’em open their mouths about Beggarman. Gyp Stanley is sure to be there, and clever though he is I say he is just the sort to rise to our fly.* * Well, good-bye till after the meeting, for we mustn’t be pals there,’ answered the young man. * Yes, Master Gyp found out about the trial and let his patrons have the information straight enough. They shall have something else from him at Barmouth,* said the other as they shook hands. Phil Caldicot paid very little attention to this conversation. He was wondering whether or no he should go to Barmouth. It was a jolly meeting, and he was sure to have a pleasant time of it in the country house where he was going to stay, but for a man with his last hundred pounds in his pocket and a very indistinct notion as to where any more money was to come from, a racecourse was the most dangerous place he could visit. Then at his friend Tom Western's house he would be certain to meet Jennie Western, his friend’s sister. If he had only met her some years before, when he had not begun to nibble at bis capital or waste the best years of bis life in idling, things might

have been very different, but he had only met her for the first time the last winter, and for the future the less he saw of her the better. He had fallen in love with her, but he had no right to ask her to share in the long uphill fight he would have to wage against fortune before he could hope to make up for the folly of his last eight years. It would have been better for him, he thought, if he had spent his money more recklessly than he had done instead ot wasting so much time in coming to his last hundred Kunds. If he had been ruined years before he might have en in a better position than he was that day. At all events, he would have been more accustomed to being without money. As it was, he ought to let the Westerns know that he was a pauper, and would have to leave the country, and try and earn a living in some distant colony. Indeed, he ought at once to telegraph to them to say that he could not stay with them for the Barmouth races. He got out at Charing Cross and turned his steps to the nearest post-office. At the corner of Villiers-street, however, he almost ran into the arms of a man whom he wanted to meet, an old Cambridge friend, who bad just come back from the Transvaal with, it waa said, a large fortune. Phil felt in better spirits as soon as he saw him, for the idea occurred to him at once that the country where his friend had made so much money would be just the place for him. He found his friend very pleased to see him and ready to listen to him and give him advice. He took a more cheerful view of the ease than Phil did, as men are apt to do when they hear of their friends’ troubles. * You have a hundred pounds—why, my dear fellow, three years ago I had the greatest trouble to raise that sum of money to get out to South Africa, and deuced lucky I thought myself when I got it.* ■ Then you advise me to follow your example and go out there.’ said Phil cheerfully. * No, old chap, candidly I don’t. Things are pretty bad out there, and moat of the people who have made their money have cleared out of the country. I know a better gold mine than any one on the Wilwaterstrand fields. Go to Barmouth.’ * What, to find a gold mine?* asked Phil. * No, but to find a woman who owns one, and, what is a good deal better, half a million invested in the three per

cents. She started a hotel at Johannesburg— went in for claims and shares—made a pot of money, cleared out at the right time, and as she was a Barmouth girl, and was a barmaid in a hotel there, she took a fancy to buy a place near there. •• She writes to me that the people are stuck up and stupid, and won t call, and that she is dull and hates England. She is a widow. Her husband is dead all right, and 1 yo ? ,ike * ’ hot if T ou “k* her.’ Phil shook his head, for he was not at ail taken with the idea, a'nd be thought of Jenny Western. ‘Honestly, old fellow, it is worth thinking of. She isn’t half a bad sort, and she will be snapped up as soon as people get to know all about her coin. As it is, it’s a mpital chance for you, and if you go to Barmouth County Ball to-morrow night you will meet a fat, good-looking b,g b,Bok and oorered with diamonds; She wi!l have about six months of the yield ot the South African diamond mines on her.* • I don’t care about the enterprise,’ said Phil. • Curious,

though, that you should mention it, for I am just going to telegraph to Western, who was at Trinity with us, who lives near there, to say that I won't come to him.* * Western is going to the ball, I happen to know, for there is a fellow I met at my dub—Ribstone of the Stock Exchange—who is going to stay with him. Ribstone is going to marry Western's sister, so they say. I have relations near there, and bear all the gossip of the place.* * I don’t believe she would ever think of marrying that fellow,* said Phil. But he remembered that Ribstone had been a good deal wit h the Westerns when they had been in town in the early part of the season. * Well, they say it is a settled thing. Girls do marry those sort of fellows, and quite right, too. There is nothing like money, and plenty of it; so take my tip and go in for the widow. 1 forgot, Mallet is her name—Kitty Mullet—and a good sort she is, too. Goodbye and good luck. Mind you go to Barmouth,’ said his friend, as he jumped into a cab.

Phil told himself it waa all nonsense about Jenny being engaged to Ribstone, but for all that he did not disbelieve it quite. At all events, he would go there and see, and if she were—well, by Jove, he would go in for the widow. * Mind you go to Barmouth ’ —that is what the man said at the train, and now the other echoed the very same words—well, he would go and see what came of it. Tom Western was the owner of an old place that had belonged to his family for generations, and had a property which brought him in about £1,500 a year. He was unmarried, and his sister Jenny acted as mistress of his house. She knew, however, that her tenure was a very insecure one, as her brother was sure to marry. Her father had been rather an extravagant man, and had left his daughter very little, the property being strictly entailed. As the mistress of a country house, Jenny had been accustomed to hold a certain position, to entertain guests, to have horses and carriages, and, generally, to have the command of a good deal of her brother’s income, almost as much as if she shared it.

Phil thought to himself as he sat down to dinner at Western Hall the day he arrived there that she was the last girl who could be expected to marry a. poor man. None the fess he was extremely angry with her, and he watched her talking away to Mr Ribstone and drawing him out on the subject on which he liked best to talk, namely, the things that he owned, and the things he intended to buy, his yacht, his horses in training at Newmarket, place on the Thames, and his hunting box in Leicestershire, and the country seat near Barmouth he had looked at and hoped to buy. All his money was new, and he had seen it made, but it had not been made by his brains, but by his iather, who bad left him everything. Phil scowled across the table, and the daughter of the clergyman of the village, whom he had taken into dinner, found him anything but a pleasant companion. After the ladies had left he did not add much to the pleasure of the evening, for he did his best to pick a quarrel with Mr Ribstone, and though he drank a good deal of wine it did not make him any pleasanter a companion. Mr Ribstone talked about racing and his hotses and his bets. He had some horses at Newmarket, and bet very

heavily. His enemies said, though he was so rich, he was ready to do B ? y dirty triok to win money, “nd that he was as much of a knave as waa compatible with bis being almost a fool. He seemed to be particularly proud of having backed the favourite for the Cambridgeshire, which was to be run the next week, for a large sum of money, before the owner had got his commission on. ’ I heard about the trial half-an-hour after it was run, and when old Hardiman tried to back it he found I had the cream of the market. You see I knew he’d run his horse, so I wasn’t afraid to forestall him,’ said Ribstone. * I think it is infernally bad form for any man to employ touts to watch another man’s horses, and that it is particularly dishonourable for an owner to do so,’ said Phil. ‘Perhaps your opinion about owners would be more valu•m®L“ y° u *md ever owned a racehorse yourself,’ answered Mr Ribstone with a sneer that made Phil long to throw a glass of wine in his face. Tom Western put a stop to any

more quarrelling by suggesting that if they would have no more wine they had better ioin the ladies, as they would have to start soon for the ball. Before they started Phil had a little spar with Jenny. ■ I hear you nave a great addition to the neighbourhood in the shape of a golden widow.* * I don’t think she is much of an addition—she is atrociously vulgar, and no one will eall on her,* Jenny answered, with a good deal of spite and bitterness in her voice. * I heard that she was pleasant and good natured and I should say that she would be a great catch for anyone. Let ns see, with the exception of Tom, I don’t think you have any bachelor squires? * Perhaps she may be preyed upon by some dissipated younger son, who has no self-respect and fo too idle to work for a living,* answered Jenny, viciously. * I don’t think it is worse for a man to marry for money than it is for a woman,* said Phil. * A man, if he has any courage in him, will work for his living, and a woman qan’t, but some men are too contemptible to work,’ Jenny answered, with an angry flush on her face.

Tom Western interrupted them to say the carriage was at the door, and Phil had little more to say till they arrived at the ball.

In the ballroom Phil had no difficulty in making out Mrs Mullet from bis friend’s description, and he soon managed to be introduced to her. He danced one dance with her and sat out several others. They got on very well, and soon

became very confidential. * They don’t cotton to me about here, and I don’t wonder at it, Lord I look at that gal who just passed ns. She is a pretty gal, ain’t she, and ain’t she just proud, too —she almost looks at me as if I were dirt,’ she said, as Jenny and her partner walked through the passage where they were sitting. Jenny was about the last person Phil wished to talk about, so he did not answer. * Are you any relation to Sir Paul Caldicot 1’ she asked. Phil said that he was Sir Paul’s younger brother. * Well, yon are better family than those Westerns. I know all about the county, as well I might, for I began life as a barmaid at the hotel round the corner. I was fool enough to come here, yon say ; well, so I was, though I guess whenever I went they wouldn’t think I was any great shakes in the way of birth. And I said I will go back to the old country and be a boss there, and so I mean still, but it is a longer job than I thought. Well, about yourself, now—you said just now you were thinking of going out yonder. Have yon done anything—l mean people who go out there don’t usually have a thousand a year and a certificate of good character from the parson of their parish. They are generally a bit under a cloud.’ Phil said he hadn't the thousand, but he fancied he could get some sort of certificate of good character. * Ah, well, that’s satisfactory. It’s a pity you ain’t an elder son; but there is Mr Hardiman come to dance the lancers with me. He ain’t altered much these twenty years since he used to stop at the hotel.’ Phil noticed a man of about sixty in evening clothes, and recognized him as the elder of the two men he had seen the day before in the train. As they drove home Phil and Jenny both seemed to be in very high spirits, but, as a matter of fact, Jenny’s maid found her mistress in floods of tears, while Phil snarled at Mr Ribstone in the smoking room until that gentleman walked off to bed in a rage. The next day’s races at Barmouth will not soon be forgotten. The racing was good, but a curious incident that took place in the ring will for a long time be a matter of turf gossip. Phil Caldicot saw a good deal of that incident. In the ring at Barmouth there is a lettered blackboard on which telegrams are fixed. Hovering near the board was a dark, half good looking man, with very black whiskers and moustache, a broken nose, and a pair of black eyes that seemed to take in everything that was going on in the ring, and to notice everybody who was there. He was an impudent, flash looking fellow, who looked less like an honest man than most of the men about him, and yet there was an air of bonhomme and good nature about him. The gentleman was Gyp Stanley. Captain Stanley he would sometimes call himself, though unless

you were very young and very green he would laugh merrily in your face if you asked him what regiment he had belonged to. He had received one or two telegrams, and he had cast those sharp black eyes of his over the other envelopes displayed on the board. Presently Mr Hardiman, who was dressed in the shabby, brown great coat and pot hat which be wore when Phil first saw him, passed by. * There is a telegram on the board for you, Mr Hardiman,’ said Stanley. * What the devil do you mean by talking to me, you scoundrel I’ was the response to this speech. * Hope old Beggarman Is going strong and well—that was a nice trial he run the other day,* said Gyp, with an impudent grin on his face, perfectly unmoved by the snub. Mr Hardiman walked up to the board, took up the telegram, tore open the 'envelope, and as he read the message he uttered a curse, and tearing the pink paper he threw the pieces on the ground, and walked away with the air of a man who has read some very disagreeable news. It happened that the pieces he threw down fell just by the feet of Gyp Stanley. Gyp was watching him—he generally seemed, somehow or other, to be watching most people. He was of an inquisitive turn of mind. He pioked up the bits of paper and pieced them together and read the message:—* Dobson Compton to Hardiman, Grandstand, Barmouth. Beggarman broken down badly in his gallop this morning. Case hopeless.* Gyp Stanley felt inclined to echo Mr Hardiman’s curse.

Hidden behind a bush he had some weeks before witnessed * Baggarman's ’ trial and learned that the horse looked like being a certainty for the Cambridgeshire. He had put his patrons on to the horse and stood to win a nice stake on it. Well, anyhow, he had got early information. He slipped across the ring to the corner of the grandstand and the paddock railings, where Jim Groves, the big bookmaker, had taken up his position, whispered to him what he had seen, and showed him the telegram. Groves took a glance at Hardiman, who was standing by himself looking very upset and angry. * Thought he’d have been a bit wiser than to have chucked that about, but you can never tell what a man will do when be gets a regular facer,’ said Groves, * and that’s what he has had.' Gyp then went up to Mr Ribstone, to whom he imparted the same information which he had given to the bookmaker. Mr Ribstone looked unwholesome when he heard it, but he acted promptly, and at once went up to a man who generally betted for him on commission, and told him to lay all he could against Beggarman. At Barmouth there is very often a good deal of betting on future events, as the meeting is largely attended by the bookmaking fraternity, who like to enjoy the sea breezes and make a sort of holiday affair of it, though they are always ready to mix up business with pleasure. That year there was an unusually large number of owners of race horses and backers present, and there bad been already a good deal of speculation about the Cambridgeshire, though the layers had not shown much wish to meddle with the favourite Beggarman. Suddenly, however, a change came over the spirit of the dream, and the ominous voice of Jim Groves—he was called the undertaker, because he was always so certain to lay against a * dead 1 un ’—was heard offering 7 to 1 on the field for the Cambridgeshire. Mr Ribstone's commissioner echoed the cry, and offered 100 to 12. A few backers came to the rescue, but in another minute 12 to 1 was offered. People looked at Mr Hardiman, but he made no sign of coming to the rescue. He seemed to be very angry and put out about something. Suddenly he rushed up to Mr Ribstone as if he could control himself no longer. * You infernal thief, that fellow is betting for you, isn’t be ?' he said, pointing to Ribstone’s oommissidner. * What do you mean by talking to me like that, Mr Hardiman t* said Ribstone, looking very nervous and uncomfortable. ‘Mean—why, that my training ground is infested by your touts—that you forestalled me when 1 wanted to back my horse, and now when I hear that he has broken down I find that you have the same information.* Then he put bis hand in his pocket and uttered another exclamation. * Why, you have employed some scoundrel to pick my pocket and get my telegram. You ought to be

kicked off the turf, and, by George, I will do It for you,’ and taking his enemy by the scruff of the neck Mr Hardiman began to propel him bp a series of kicks toward the gate that led from the ring into the course. The spectacle of one prominent turfite kicking another out of a grand stand is likely to excite considerable attention. Everyone in the ring, and a good many people in the carriages on the other side of the course, noticed the incident. Phil Caldicot had been in the enclosure and witnessed the incident in which Mr Ribstone had played so uncomfortable a part without feeling much compassion for him. When he beard about Beggarman having broken down be rossembered the conversation be had heard in the railway carriage, and as he thought over it he noticed the smooth faced man he bad seen talking to Hardiman saunter up to Groves, the bookmaker. He was near enough to bear him back Beggarman for £lOO at 30 to 1. Then be saw him go up co Ribstone’s commissioner and then to another bookmaker. Phil had changed his cheque before he left London and he had won another £l2O, for, when he had determined to marry the widow, if she would have him, and he believed she would, and money, therefore, was of no importance to him, his luck turned. As he watched the smooth faced man the whole meaning of the scene that was being played suddenly flashed across him and he determined to take the tip that chance had given him, and going up to a bookmaker whom be knew would be able to pay a large sum of money and who had just offered 30 to 1 against Beggariuan, he took those odds to £2OO. Then he crossed the course. Should he go and talk to the widow, who was in a wagonette dispensing luncheon to a small though not particularly select circle of friends, or should he go back to Tom Western’s drag, where Jonny Western was ! She seemed somehow different that morning from what she was the evening before, and her face did not wear the same defiant look. The drag was just opposite the grand stand, and she had witnessed Mr Ribstone’s discomfiture. If only Beggarman would win the race be would never make a bet again, but would go off to seek his fortune in some land where success was not so hard to gain by one who had a small capital and plenty of pluck and enevgy. And if he went to Jenny like a man and told her that he was going to fight bard to make up for lost time instead of scowling and snarling as he had done the evening before, maybe she would be kinder to him. There was another who watched the kicking episode, and let it to a certain extent influence her life, and that was the golden widow. She had been a good deal taken by two men she had met at the ball the evening before—Phil and Hardiman. The latter she felt really liked her better than the former, and she liked him almost as well as she did Phil, though it was a pity he was not a little younger. When she saw him begin to kick Kibstone she had thought that there was plenty of spirit left in him. When he sent his enemy sprawling on to the tuif she declared to herself that be was quite young enough for her, and that she would take the first opportunity of letting him know that he could have her and her quarter of a million of money for the asking. So when Hardiman came round to her carriage she asked him to dinner that evening, and after dinner it was all settled. * I liked you before, but when I saw you go for that chap I said you were the man for my money,* she said, as they sat talking comfortably together after the proposal had been suggested by her. made by him, and accepted. Phil Caldicot won £6,000 and bought a cattle ranch in Texas, and Jenny Western married him, and has never regretted taking that rather rash step.