The Millionaire

by Barry Pain

THE MILLIONAIRE

By Barry Pain

THERE is more than one sort of millionaire. There is the millionaire who is quite anxious that the world shall know that he is a millionaire, and there is the millionaire who is quite as anxious that the general public shall not know that or anything else about him. There is the millionaire who has social ambitions, and the millionaire who has none. There is the man of pleasure who has fluked into fortune and wants to employ his million to get himself more pleasure, and there is the man who has worked into affluence and can see no use for a million except to make another million.

James Tablett was the latter kind of millionaire. He had started down low and worked up high. And he had accomplished everything single-handed; he was unmarried and had never had a partner in his business; he had never slapped anybody on the shoulder; he had never asked anybody to take a drink; he played his own game, and he played it for money and for nothing else but money; he never wanted to live in a better house, or to belong to a smart club, or to even wear a better coat—and he was worse dressed than his junior clerk; he never attended a theatre; he did not care about yachting, and he thought racing immoral. By the time he had made his million people might have accused him of several things—and such is human nature that they did accuse him of a good many—but no one suggested that James Tablett was suffering from swelled head. He did not spend a thousandth part of his income, would not be photographed, told the journalists to go to hell, and kept himself to himself.

The consequence was that many people never knew that James Tablett was a millionaire at all. For instance, on one occasion, when he was engaged in some particularly delicate financial operation, he felt himself rather run down, a most unusual feeling with him. He remembered that somebody had spoken to him about the fine air of Margate. It was a Saturday night, and rather late, but he managed to catch the last 'bus to Victoria. He inquired for the next train to Margate, and was told that there would be quite a nice train on the following morning.

James Tablett seldom wanted anything, but when he did want something he had to have it. He turned on the porter, who was smiling at his discomfiture, and said: "If there ain't a train, you'll have to make one. Where do you go to settle these things?" He went to Margate by a special, walked to the principal hotel in the small hours, with a brown paper parcel containing his pajamas and a tooth brush under his arm, and asked the night porter for a cheap bedroom. The night porter shirked the responsibility; he put a question or two. "Very natural," said James Tablett, who was not unreasonable. He put down half a sovereign, chiefly in sixpences, borrowed a pair of slippers and went off to his room. And when he went away one of the few hotel servants that he tipped was that night porter.

In London he lived at a hotel. He had no money to spare, so he said, and with him time was money. He could not be bothered with the details of housekeeping, and it suited him better to let the hotel look after all such matters. It was a private hotel in a back street, where they knew nothing of him except that his money was good, and they had found that out only by practical experience. Had the proprietress of that hotel been told that No. 6 was a millionaire she would have smiled incredulously; millionaires did not come her way.

But the truth is, as I have said, there is more than one sort of millionaire. When James Tablett bought a halfpenny paper—which was not often, because he could see the papers at his club—and paid for it with a penny, he took good care that he had his halfpenny change. He was not a miser; when he really wanted anything he had to have it, whatever it might cost. But he rarely wanted anything, and he never paid for anything that he did not want.

He had a certain number of more or less distant relatives. When he was a poor struggler they did nothing for him, and seemed unaware of his existence; when he became wealthy they came round and attempted civility. But they soon realized the impossibility of being civil to a man who always treated them with calculated rudeness and plain-spoken contempt. "Go away," said James to his cousin, a canon of the Church. "I don't want you to send me any pheasants. I don't want you to write to me and I don't want you to talk to me. I shall never give any of you anything while I am alive, and I shall never leave any of you anything when I am dead. Tell 'em so. I don't want anything to do with you. Go away."

They went away and discussed the situation. James would leave his money to somebody; if not to them, with their claim of kinship, to whom, then? The question was not an easy one to answer. It was very unlikely that the millionaire's money would go to any charitable or philanthropic institution. He was suspicious of every form of charity or philanthropy, and considered it did more harm than good. He had made many acquaintances in the course of business, but there was not a man alive who could flatter himself that he was James Tablett's intimate friend. He was a bachelor of fifty years' standing and detested women; there was no probability that he would ever many. As the Canon said, somewhat wistfully, it was really a very open question.

The Canon had a son, and the son knew a man, and the man had a friend by name Joshua Spalding.

Joshua was a man of some redundant independent means and no profession of a regular kind. He employed himself a good deal in strange speculations. He took a fervent interest in the business of other people, and believed that one day he should make a big coup; he had made one or two little coups already. When, in the circuitous way that I have indicated, he came to hear about James Tablett, he was very interested indeed; for Joshua had a good memory, and he recalled that many, many years ago he had kicked James Tablett, when they were boys together at a grammar school. And now James had blossomed into a millionaire, and the destination of his money after his death was an open question! The situation was worth thinking about.

"A suspicious man, I think you said," remarked Joshua to his friend and informant, Augustus Pepperel, solicitor.

"I should imagine so," replied Augustus. "I hardly know the Canon myself, but his boy talked a good deal about Tablett, and seemed rather amused with the way Tablett had sat on his governor. You know what young men are nowadays. No reverence for their fathers at all. Everything treated» as a joke. It used to be very different when I was a boy."

"Very different," Joshua assented, a little impatiently. "It is pretty certain that the Canon would have got nothing anyhow; Tablett will marry. These old idiots get flattered by the apparent liking of some young girl; and there must be any amount of women after him."

"I don't think so. I gather that there is nothing about Tablett to make people guess he is very wealthy. Then, again, he never goes into society. Also, it would be the same as it was with the Canon; Tablett would be shrewd enough to see that the girl was after the dibs, and that would be the end of her chances."

A little later Joshua observed that he rather liked the looks of the Canon's son. He was probably a little frivolous, as Augustus had said, but he had a nice, open face. Personally, Joshua said that he liked a nice, open face. He threw out a few other hints that, if Augustus should ever introduce the boy, the boy would be welcomed.

Augustus replied that he wondered what Joshua had got in his head. And he did not introduce the boy. But Joshua managed to make his acquaintance, anyway. He made himself a very genial and pleasant companion, in spite of the disparity in their years. And he talked about Tablett.

A fortnight later Joshua was ready to begin his campaign.

James Tablett was walking slowly down Cheapside. He wore a shabby gray overcoat, for, though it was not cold, he was a cold-blooded man. His hat was shabby and needed brushing. His umbrella was shabby and bulgy. He looked to be worth fourpence.

He was on his way to his luncheon, and Tablett's luncheon was a fixed and immovable feast. He always took it at the same hour, and at the same uninviting tea shop; and it always consisted of one glass of milk and one scone. This simple fare, together with his undying pleasure in the notice that any attendant accepting a gratuity would be instantly dismissed, satisfied his midday needs and sent him back to work in an improved temper.

This morning his temper was particularly in want of improvement. An article in an important financial paper had concerned itself a good deal with Tablett, and had not treated him nicely at all; without being actually libelous, it implied that Tablett was a dirty, cunning little thief who sat where he could not be seen and pulled the strings of dubious enterprises in which the public lost money and Tablett found it. It concerned itself with his history, and showed that he had been the prime mover in a lot of shady deals, with which his connection had not so far been a matter of public knowledge.

He was not a particularly thin-skinned man, but the article annoyed him; it was not good for business; and it was so absolutely true that the only thing he could do was to treat it with contempt; a libel action was not to be thought of. He asked nothing but to be allowed to make money in his own way and to keep his name out of his transactions. The privilege was denied him. It was too bad. He went to his luncheon in a temper that might have ruined the character of his glass of milk.

But, as it happened, Tablett was not destined to drink any glass of milk that morning.

Suddenly a large hand slapped him on the shoulder and a jovial voice exclaimed: "Jimmy Tablett, by all that's holy!"

The man who had addressed him was Joshua Spalding—Joshua in new and resplendent clothes, with diamond rings on his hands and a fat gold watchchain across his waistcoat.

Tablett stared at him. "I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance."

Joshua Spalding remained unabashed.

"But you have, Jimmy. It's forty years or so since I set eyes on you, but I should have known you anywhere. Why, we were at Whittington together. Do you remember licking a little chap called Spalding, for cheek? Well, I'm Spalding; and I haven't a doubt you did me a lot of good." It will be observed that Joshua had slightly edited the facts of that boyish encounter.

"I was certainly at Whittington," Tablett confessed. "I seem to have some vague recollection of the name of Spalding."

"You shall recollect it a good deal better before I have done with you. Look here, now; don't take offense at what I'm going to say, but I can see that the world has not been treating you over and above well. Clerking's not much of work, is it? Oh, you needn't tell me! Your appearance gives it away. I can spot a clerk anywhere. You were off to your luncheon, I'll be bound. How long do they give you? An hour?"

Tablett was almost amused. He was never quite amused. He decided for the time to let his old schoolfellow go on with his blunder.

"Well," said Tablett, "as a matter of fact, I was just going to lunch, but I don't generally take an hour. There's so much to do."

"I've no doubt of it, and the willing horse gets driven the hardest. I remember how infernally conscientious you were as a boy. Off to a bread-shop, I suppose."

"Yes; I know a reasonable place where you can get a scone and——"

"You'll have no scone to-day. You're coming to lunch with me. Salmon, and a grilled cutlet, and a bottle of the best. All very simple, but better than a scone, I fancy. Sha'n't let you say no. You can't think how glad I am to meet somebody from the old shop."

The millionaire stammered his thanks.

"And if you are a few minutes late in getting back it won't matter. I'll guarantee you're punctual enough generally. Look here, if they sack you, I'll find you a berth myself, and it shall be better than the berth you've left. That's a promise."

Tablett was not unwilling. Here, for the first time in his life, he seemed to have found someone who was anxious to do him an act of disinterested kindness. He disapproved of heavy luncheons and of champagne, but—well, this was exceptional. Before they reached the restaurant he was chatting quite freely about his old schooldays. All thoughts of that very unpleasant article in the financial paper had passed out of his head. He approached to geniality.

At the appearance of the champagne he became a little nervous. "I shouldn't like anybody who knew me to catch me drinking this," he said.

"Bad for the afternoon's work?" suggested Spalding.

"That and other things. The fact is, we disapprove of champagne at this hour in the City. We—well, we disapprove of it."

Joshua Spalding said he was sorry he did not know more about the City. He felt sure it must be so interesting. He had never been any good at business. He had enough to live on, and he amused himself. Once or twice he had tried a little speculation, and it had not always come off.

Spalding had the sense to tell the truth on any point where he could. The best liars sometimes forget the absolute necessity for this. He never told any lie at all that would or could be found out. Nobody needs good credit more than the liar, and he should take trouble to get it.

Tablett's disapproval of champagne was rather of the habit than of the wine. Recognizing that he was now in for it, and that he might as well have the enjoyment if he risked the stigma, he took his share nobly.

Later in the luncheon he became aware that his old schoolfellow was trying as delicately as possible to lend him a fiver. He felt half-inclined to take it.

It would, perhaps, be too much to say that Tablett's heart warmed toward his host, but it certainly rose several degrees above its customary zero. He thought to himself how staggered Spalding would be if he knew the truth. In the meantime, Spalding thought how immensely staggered Tablett would be under similar circumstances.

Two or three times toward the end of luncheon Tablett had an impulse to proclaim himself no starveling clerk but a man of great fortune. He wanted to talk about the men he could buy up, and the amount of one single cheque that he had written that morning; briefly, he wanted to brag. These impulses were mere champagne; he recognized them as such, and restrained them.

It was half-past two when he rose to go; this meant that he would return to his office one hour later than his normal time; it also meant that by now his private secretary had definitely decided that Tablett must have dropped dead. He thanked his host heartily.

"And look me up to-morrow. I won't ask you to my home, because it's not much of a place. But come to this address in the afternoon, and we'll have a cup of tea. It's my business place. I dare say they'll let me out for a few minutes."

As he walked back to his office his eye was brighter than usual, and his leaden face had turned crimson in spots. He was still smoking the excellent Havana that Spalding had handed him. He felt slightly and not unpleasantly excited. A business acquaintance stopped him.

"Hullo, Mr. Tablett! Just back from your solicitor's?"

"Me? No. What for?"

"Nothing; but if the Mirror had said about me what it said about you this morning, I should have laid the foundations of my libel action by now."

"Then you'd have been a fool, Mr. Soames," said Tablett, furiously. "At least, you'd have acted foolishly—I did not intend to speak offensively. What's the use of fighting men of straw? You lose your money, for you would never get a penny. out of them. They're a set of rogues and blackmailers. I treat the Mirror as all decent people do—with contempt."

Mr. Soames shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, it's no business of mine," he said, as he moved away.

"One moment, Soames. About those Instantaneas—I'll see you get yours all right."

"Thanks, but I haven't applied for any. I changed my mind at the last moment—so many irons in the fire just now."

Tablett was very angry, chiefly with himself. He had lost his head and said the wrong thing to Soames. The proprietors of the Mirror were, and were known to be, substantial men. The Mirror had always had the very highest character, and it weighed a good deal with the investing public. The attempt to conciliate Soames had been a weakness and a blunder. It had given Soames the chance to hint that he did attach importance to the Mirror's disclosures; a week before Soames would have jumped at those Instantaneas. It would have been much better if he had said he had been to his solicitors, and was taking action. That would have given him time, at any rate.

Being angry, James Tablett now made another mistake. He sacked his private secretary for a trivial fault. And the secretary went away reflecting that he had a good deal of interesting information about James Tablett for sale, and wondering where would be the best place to sell it.

The great lights of the financial world are right in considering it to be a mistake to drink champagne at luncheon.

Spalding remained at the restaurant a little longer, sipping his coffee and reading again an article that he had clipped out of the current issue of the Mirror, It referred to Mr. James Tablett, and was strongly expressed. Spalding was quite content so far. The millionaire was well disposed toward him, and had never for a moment suspected that Spalding knew him to be a millionaire. At this moment Spalding expected to pull off his coup in a month; in reality, it took him double- that time.

The next afternoon Joshua Spalding went to the office of the Anglo-American Financial Investment Syndicate. As a matter of fact, the syndicate was Tablett, and Tablett was the syndicate. Ushered into Tablett's room, Spalding became smiling, but somewhat shamefaced.

"What an ass I've made of myself!" he exclaimed. "What on earth must you think of me?"

"Then you've discovered that I'm not a thirty-shilling clerk, after all! How did you find it out?"

"Heard two men in the train talking about you. At least, I felt pretty certain it must be you, and when I asked the way from the policeman outside——"

"I see. Then you won't try to lend me a fiver to-day?"

"I apologize for that, you know. 1'll never judge by appearances again."

"You needn't apologize at all," said Tablett, seriously. "You believed me to be poor, and yet you were kind to me; when I was poor I met with precious little kindness. You're the only man who has been civil to me for a long time past, without expecting to get something out of it. I think very well of you. Come and have a cup of tea. And, by the way, what was it those men were saying about me?"

"Yes, I'd meant to tell you that. It rather amused me. They said that some financial paper—I forget the name—had approached you with two articles about you, one eulogistic and one damnatory. The editor said that for fifty pounds you could choose which should be printed in the paper. Then they said you handed the man his fifty, and declared you preferred the damnatory article, on the ground that his praise would do you more harm than his blame. I suppose there isn't a word of truth in it."

"Not perhaps so very far away," replied Tablett.

"I thought it almost good enough to send to some paper."

"Send it, by all means, if you like. Now tell me plainly what I can do for you."

"Nothing, Jimmy, nothing. I've got all the money I want for the sort of life I lead. Give me a cup of tea and call it quits."

The two men met almost daily after that. Every day Spalding's hold got stronger and stronger. He showed the utmost tact and discretion. He was never subservient, and he mixed criticism with his flattery. He stuck to his statement that he wanted nothing. And by the end of two months he had declined a seat on the board of a big company and refused two certain ways that Tablett pointed out to him of making a large sum of money quickly. And he pulled off his coup. He stayed on for a week afterward for the sake of decency, and then went back to his home in the country.

He told himself that he could count on the fingers of his two hands the lies that he had told to Tablett. The rest had been all pure tact. He was so pleased that he wanted to talk about it. At least, he wanted to talk about the results of the coup. The means by which these results had been obtained he described, with some inaccuracy, one night to his friend, Augustus Pepperel, at the moment when whiskey had warmed and opened their hearts.

"How did it first come about?" asked Pepperel. "You didn't know the man."

"I had been at school with him. In our schooldays I had been of a good deal of assistance to him one way and another, and I suppose he's got a devil of a memory. At any rate, he saw me in the street and ran after me. He would have me dine with him that night. We got on rippingly together. One clean forgot he was a millionaire; he wasn't boisterous exactly, but he was splendid company. I liked the poor old chap immensely."

"Same age as yourself, ain't he?" asked Pepperel, who was naturally depressed at his friend's good luck.

"As far as years go, yes. But he's not strong, you know; he's very far from being strong. He's got a beautiful nature. I liked him for himself and nothing else. He offered me things, but I would never take them; I liked him for his own sake. Then one day he took me to his solicitor's—I never dreamed what for—and there and then made the will leaving me everything, as I have told you. I'm not what you would call an emotional man, but that touched me, Augustus. Yes, within the last few weeks my whole fortune has been altered; I'm the heir to a million."

"It's not in your pocket yet. The cracked pitcher goes the oftenest to the well. He may outlive you, Joshua, my boy."

"He was refused by an insurance office twenty years ago. His face is a sort of blue-lead color, and he can't run up stairs. He has overworked and underfed himself all his life. He's a man that worries, and worry kills. I know his doctor is most anxious about him. Of course, I should be very sorry if anything were to——"

"Never mind about that," said Augustus Pepperel. "Would you take a five-pound note for your chance of ever coming into this money?"

"Oh, go to the devil!"

"That's no answer."

"No, of course not."

"Well, I'd be sorry to pay more."

James Tablett was every bit as ill as Joshua Spalding had supposed. Eighteen months after he died, while Joshua was still in the enjoyment of rude health. So far the coup had come off exactly.

What spoiled it was that three months before his death James Tablett went hopelessly bankrupt. He had lost the confidence of the public, and this catastrophe he followed up by losing his head and doing foolish things. He was moving in the down-hill direction when Joshua made the first steps toward his great coup.

There are several morals in this story, and the patient collector of such things may hunt for them.