ALMOST immediately after the colonial merchant—the wholesale trader in sardines and tea-leaves from a shanty—had departed, there came another. They might almost have passed each other on the stairs.

It was none other than the Counsel learned in the Law, the pride and prop of his family, the successful barrister, Mr. Christopher Campaigne.

“Good heavens!” cried Leonard, “what is the matter with this man?” For his uncle dropped speechless, limp, broken up, into a chair, and there lay, his hands dangling, his face filled with terror and care. “My dear Uncle Christopher,” he said, “what has happened?”

“The worst,” groaned the lawyer—“the very worst. The impossible has happened. The one thing that I guarded against. The thing which I feared. Oh, Leonard! how shall I tell you?”

Come with me to the chambers where the Professor of Oratory was preparing, as in a laboratory, his great effects of laughter and of tears. It was morning—high noon. He was engaged upon what is perhaps the most fascinating branch of a most delightful profession—a speech of presentation. Before him, in imagination, stood the mug; beside him the recipient; and in front of him a vast hall filled with sympathetic donors. Such a speech is the enunciation and the magnifying of achievements. It must be illustrated by poetical quotations; the better known and the more familiar they are, the more effective they will prove. The speaker should tell one funny story at least; he must also contrive, but not obtrusively—with modesty—to suggest his own personal importance as, if anything, superior to that of the recipient; he must not grovel before greatness.

All these points the professional manufacturer of oratory understood and had at his fingers’ ends. He was quite absorbed in his work, insomuch that he paid no kind of attention to footsteps outside, nor even, at first, to an angry voice in the outer office, which, as we have seen, was only protected by the boy, who had nothing else to do, unless the reading of Jack Harkaway’s adventures be considered a duty.

“Stand out of my way!” cried the voice, apparently infuriated. “Let me get at him!”

The professional man looked up wonderingly. Apparently a row on the stairs. But his own door burst open, and a young man, quite a little man, with hot cheeks and eyes aflame, rushed in brandishing a stick. The orator sprang to his feet, seizing the office ruler. He leaned over his table, six feet three in height, with this formidable weapon in his hand, and he faced the intruder with calm, cold face.

We must not blame the assailant; doubtless he was of tried and proved courage, but he was only five feet five. Before that calm face of inquiry, on which there was no line of terror or of repentance, his eyes fell. The fire and fury went out of him quite suddenly. Perhaps he had not developed his Æsthetic frame by rude exercise. He dropped his stick, and stood irresolute.

“Oh,” said his enemy quietly, “you think better about the stick, do you? The horse-whipping is to stand over, is it? Now, sir”—he rapped the table horribly with the ruler, so that the little man trembled all over; the adventure unexpectedly promised pain as well as humiliation—“what do you mean? What do you come here for, making this infernal racket? What——”

Here he stopped short, because to his unspeakable dismay he saw standing in the doorway none other than his own son, Algernon, and Algernon’s face was not good to look at, being filled with shame, amazement, and bewilderment—with shame because he understood, all in a moment, that his father’s life had been one long lie, and that by this way, and none other, the family income had been earned. Had not his friend on the way told him that the man Crediton was known in certain circles as the provider of good after-dinner speeches for those who could afford to pay for them?—how it was whispered that the rare and occasional evenings on which the speeches were crisp and fiery and witty and moving all through were those for which Crediton had supplied the whole?—and how for his own speech, about which he had been most shamefully treated, he had paid twenty guineas? So that he understood without more words, and looked on open-mouthed, having for the moment no power of speech or utterance.

The father first recovered. He went on as if his son was not present.

“Who are you, sir, I say, who come to my quiet office with this blackguard noise? If you don’t tell me on the spot, I will take you by the scruff of your miserable little neck and drop you over the banisters.”

“I—I—I wrote to you for a speech.”

“What speech? What name? What for?”

His client, whose eyes at first were blinded by excess of wrath, now perceived to his amazement that Mr. Crediton was none other than his friend’s father, whom, indeed, he had met at the family mansion in Pembridge Crescent.

“Good Lord!” he cried, “it’s—it’s Mr. Campaigne!”—he glanced from father to son, and back again—“Mr. Campaigne!”

“And why not, sir—why not? Answer me that.”

Again the ruler descended with a sickening resonance.

“Oh, I don’t know why not. How should I know?” the intruder stammered. “It’s no concern of mine, I’m sure.”

“Then come to the point. What speech? What name? What for?”

“The Company of Cartmakers. The speech that you sent me—it arrived by post.”

“A very good speech, too. I did send it. Much too good for you or for the fee you paid. I remember it. What is the matter with it? How dare you complain of it!”

“The matter, sir—the matter,” he stammered, feeling much inclined to sit down and cry, “is that you sent the same speech to the proposer. Mine was the reply. The same speech—do you hear?—the same speech to the proposer as to me, who had to reply. Now, sir, do you realise—— Oh, I am not afraid of your ruler, I say;” but his looks belied his words. “Do you understand the enormity of your conduct?”

“Impossible! How could I do such a thing—I who have never made a mistake before in all my professional career?” He looked hard at his son, and repeated the words “professional career.” “Are you sure of what you say?” He laid down his ruler with a very serious air. “Are you quite sure?”

“Certain. The same speech, word for word. Everything—every single thing—was taken out of my mouth; I hadn’t a word to say.”

“How did that happen, I wonder? Stay, I have type-written copies of both speeches—the toast and the reply. Yes, yes, I always keep one copy. I am afraid I do understand how I may have blundered.” He opened a drawer, and turned over some papers. “Ah, yes, yes. Dear me! I sent out the second copy of your speech to the other man instead of his own. Here is his own duplicate—the two copies—which fully explains it. Dear, dear! Tut, tut, tut! I fear you were unable to rise to the occasion and make up a little speech for yourself?”

“I could not; I was too much astonished, and I may add disgusted, to do—er—justice to myself.”

“No doubt—no doubt. My clients never can do justice to their own genius without my help. Now sit down, sir, and let us talk this over for a moment.”

He himself sat down. His son meanwhile stood at the open door, still as one petrified.

“Now, sir, I confess that you have reason to complain. It was a most unfortunate accident. The other man must have observed something wrong about the opening words. However, most unfortunate.” He opened a safe standing beside him, and took out a small bundle of cheques. “Your cheque arrived yesterday morning. Fortunately, it is not yet paid in. I return it, sir—twenty guineas. That is all I can do for you except to express my regret that this accident should have occurred. I feel for you, young gentleman. I forgive your murderous intentions, and I assure you, if you will come to me again, I will make you the finest after-dinner orator in the town. And now, sir, I have other clients.”

He rose. The young man put the cheque in his pocket.

“It will be,” he said grandly, “my duty to expose you—everywhere.” He turned to his companion. “To expose you both.”

“And yourself, dear sir—and yourself at the same time.”

The Agent rattled the keys in his pocket, and repeated the words, “Yourself at the same time.”

“I don’t care—so long as I expose you.”

“You will care when you come to think about it. You will have to tell everybody that you came to me to buy a speech which you were about to palm off as your own. There are one or two transactions of the same nature standing over, so to speak. Remember, young gentleman, there are two persons to be exposed: myself, whom the exposure will only advertise, and you yourself, who will be ruined as an orator—or anything else.”

But the young man was implacable. He had his cheque back. This made him stiffer and sterner.

“I care nothing. I could never pretend again to be an orator after last night’s breakdown. I was dumfoundered. I could say nothing: they laughed at me, the whole Hall full of people—three hundred of them—laughed at me—and all through you—through you. I’ll be revenged—I’ll make you sorry for last night’s business—sick and sorry you shall be. As for you——” He turned upon Algernon.

“Shut up, and get out,” said his friend. “Get out, I say, or——”

Algernon made room for him, and the aggrieved client marched out with as much dignity as he could command.

Left together, father and son glared at each other icily. They were both of the same height, tall and thin, and closely resembling each other, with the strong type of the Campaigne face; and both wore pince-nez. The only difference was that the elder of the two was a little thin about the temples.

The consciousness of being in the wrong destroyed the natural superiority of the father. He replied with a weak simulacrum of a laugh.

“Surely the situation explains itself,” he said feebly, opening the door for explanation.

“Am I to understand that for money you write—write—write speeches for people who pretend—actually pretend—that they are their own?”

“Undoubtedly. Did not your friend confess to you why he was coming here?”

“Well—of course he did.”

“And did you remonstrate with him on account of his dishonesty?”

Mr. Algernon Campaigne shirked the question, and replied by another. “And do you regard this mode of money-making—I cannot call it a profession—this mode—honourable—a thing to be proud of?”

“Why not? Certain persons with no oratorical gifts are called upon to speak after dinner or on other occasions. They write to me for assistance. I send them speeches. I coach them. In fact, I am an oratorical coach. They learn what they have to say, and they say it. It is a perfectly honourable, laudable, and estimable way of making money. Moreover, my son, it makes money.”

“Then, why not conduct this—this trade—openly under your own name?”

“Because, in the nature of things, it is a secret business. My clients’ names are secret. So also is the nature of our transactions.”

“But this place is not Lincoln’s Inn. How do you spare the time from your law work?”

“My dear boy, there has been a little deception, pardonable under the circumstances. In point of fact, I never go to Lincoln’s Inn. There is no practice. I’ve got a garret which I never go near. There never has been any practice.”

“No practice?” The young man sank helplessly into a chair. “No practice? But we have been so proud all along of your distinguished career.”

“There has never been any legal practice at all. I adopted this line in the hope of making a little money at a time when the family was pretty hard up, and it succeeded beyond my expectations.”

Algernon sat down and groaned aloud.

“We are done for. That—that little beast is the most spiteful creature in the world, and the most envious. He is mad to be thought clever. He has published some things—I believe he bought them. He goes about; he poses. There isn’t a man in London more dangerous. He will tell everybody. How shall we face the storm?”

“People, my son, will still continue to want their after-dinner speeches.”

“I am thinking of my sister, myself, and our position. What will my mother say? What will our friends say? Good Lord! we are all ruined and shamed. We can never hold up our heads again. What on earth can we say? How can we get out of it? Who will call upon us?”

The parent was touched.

“My dear boy,” he said humbly, “I must think the matter over. There will be trouble, perhaps. Leave me for the present, and—still for the present—hold your tongue.”

His son obeyed. Then Mr. Crediton resumed his work, but the interruption was fatal. He was fain to abandon the speech of presentation, and to consider the prospect of exposure. Not that any kind of exposure would destroy his profession, for that had now become a necessity for the convenience of the social life—think what we should suffer if all the speeches were home-made!—but there was the position of his wife and family: the reproaches of his wife and family: the lowering of his wife and family in the social world. It would be fatal for them if he were known as a secret purveyor of eloquence; secrecy can never be considered honourable or ennobling: dress it up as you will, the cloven foot of fraud cannot be disguised.

He went out because he was too much agitated to keep still or to do any work, and he wandered through the streets feeling pretty small. How would the exposure come? This young fellow had been brought to the house; he called at the house; he came to their evenings and posed as poet, story-teller, orator, epigrammatist; he knew a whole lot of people in their set: he could certainly make things very disagreeable. And he was in such a rage of disappointment and humiliation—for he had broken down utterly and shamefully—that he certainly intended to be nasty.

After a tempestuous youth in company with his brother, this man had settled down into the most domestic creature in the world. Twenty-five years of domestic joys had been his portion; they were made possible by his secret profession. His wife adored and believed in him; his children, while they despised his Æsthetics, respected his law. In a word, he occupied the enviable position of a successful barrister, a gentleman of good family, and the owner of a good income. This position was naturally more than precious: it was his very life. At home he was, in his own belief, a great lawyer; in his office he was Mr. Crediton the universal orator. They were separate beings; and now they were to be brought together. Crediton would be known to the world as Campaigne, Campaigne as Crediton. He was a forlorn and miserable object indeed.

As he passed along the street he discovered suddenly that he was passing one of the entrances to Bendor Mansions. A thought struck him.

“I must ask someone’s advice,” he murmured. “I cannot bear the trouble all alone and unsupported. I will tell Leonard everything.”

Leonard sprang to his feet, astonished at this extraordinary exhibition of despair.

“My dear uncle Christopher!” he exclaimed, “what does this mean? What has happened?”

The unhappy man, anxious to take counsel, yet shrinking from confession, groaned in reply.

“Has anything happened at home? My aunt? My cousins?”

“Worse—worse. It has happened to me.”

“Well.... But what has happened? Man, don’t sit groaning there. Lift up your head and tell me what has happened.”

“Ruin,” he replied—“social ruin and disgrace. That is all. That is all.”

“Then, you are the second member of our truly fortunate family who has been ruined this very day. Perhaps,” Leonard added coldly, “it might be as well if you could let me know what form your ruin has taken.”

“Social ruin and disgrace. That is all. I shall never be able to look anyone in the face any more.”

“What have you done, then?”

“I have done only what I have been doing blamelessly, because no one ever suspected it, for five-and-twenty years. Now it has been found out.”

“You have been doing something disgraceful for five-and-twenty years, and now you have been found out. Well, why have you come to me? Is it to get my sympathy for disgracing your name?”

“You don’t understand, Leonard.”

He lost his temper.

“How the devil am I to understand if you won’t explain? You say that you are disgraced——”

“Let me tell you all—everything—from the beginning. It came from knocking about London with my brother Fred. He was a devil: he didn’t care what he did. So we ran through our money—it wasn’t much—and Fred went away.”

“I have heard why. A most shameful business.”

“Truly, yes. I always told him so. Since he came home, however, we have agreed not to mention it.”

“Go on. You were left with no money.”

“I had just been called. I was engaged. I wanted to get married.”

“You rapidly acquired an extensive practice——”

“No—no. That is where the deception stepped in. My dear nephew, I never had any practice at all. If any cases had been sent to me I could not have taken them, because, you see, I never opened a law-book in my whole life.”

“You—never—opened—a law-book? Then—how——”

“I loathed the sight of a law-book. But I was engaged—I wanted to be married—I wanted to live, too, without falling back on your mother.”

“Pray go on.”

“I knew a man who wanted to get a reputation for an after-dinner speaker. He heard me make one or two burlesque speeches, and he came to me. After a little conversation, we talked business. I wrote him a speech. It succeeded. I wrote him another. That succeeded. He leaped into fame—leaped, so to speak, over my back—oratorical leap-frog—by those two speeches. Then my price ran up. And then I conceived the idea of opening out a new profession. For five-and-twenty years I have pretended to go to chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, and I have gone to an office in Chancery Lane, where, under another name, I have carried on the business of providing speeches for all occasions.”

“Good Heavens!” cried Leonard. “And this is the man of whom we were proud!” His face had been darkening from the beginning, and it was now very hard and dark. “I understand, I suppose. The beginning of the story I had heard already. You got through your fortune in company with your brother—in riotous living.”

“Quite so—quite so.”

“Was there not something about a cheque?”

“Fred’s affair—not mine.”

“Your brother says it was your affair. Don’t think I want to inquire into the horrid story. I have found quite enough shame and degradation among my family without wanting to know more.”

“If Fred says that, it is simply disgraceful. Why, everybody knew—but, as you say, why rake up old scandals?—at the time when it happened. But why, as you say——”

“Why, indeed? Except to make quite sure that there is no longer a shred of family pride possible for us. I now learn, on your own confession, that you entered upon a general course of imposition, and deception, by which you have managed to live ever since, and to maintain your family with credit because you have escaped detection.”

“Excuse me. I don’t call it deception. Nobody is deceived, except pleasantly. Is it wrong to present a fellow-creature in an agreeable and quite unexpected character before the world? Can you blame me for raising the standard of after-dinner oratory? Can you blame me for creating reputations by the dozen?”

“I make no doubt that you persuaded yourself that it was laudable and honourable. Nevertheless——”

“You must consider how it grew. I told you I was myself a good after-dinner speaker. I was hard up. Then this man—old friend, now a Colonial Judge—came to me for help. I wrote him a speech, and he bought it—that is to say, he lent me ten pounds for it—really he bought my secrecy. That’s how it began. Money was necessary. There was an unexpected way of making money. So it spread.”

“I have no doubt that the practice of imposition was duly paid for.”

“You must consider—really. There is nothing envied so much as the reputation of good after-dinner speaking. I supply that reputation. People go where they are likely to hear good speeches. I supply those speeches.”

“I do not deny the position. But you are, nevertheless, helping a man, for money, to deceive the world.”

“To deceive the world? Not at all. To delight the world. Why, I am a public benefactor. I open the purses at charity dinners, I send the people home in good temper. Do you think the people care two pins who is speaking if they can be amused?”

“Then, why this secrecy?”

“Why not?” He walked about the room, swinging his arms, and turning from time to time on Leonard as he made his points and pronounced his apology. “Why not? I ask. You talk as if some fraud was carried on. Nobody is defrauded; I earn my fees as much as any barrister. Look you, Leonard: my position is unique, and—and—yes, honourable, if you look at it rightly.”

“Honourable! Oh!”

“Yes; I am the Universal After-Dinner Speaker. I supply the speeches for every occasion. I keep up the reputation of the City for eloquence. Why, we were rapidly sinking; we were already acknowledged to be far below the American level. Then I came. I raised the standard. Our after-dinner speeches—mine—are becoming part of our national greatness. Why? Because I, sir—I, Christopher Campaigne—took them in hand.”

“Yet, in secrecy.”

“I carry on this business alone—I myself—hitherto without recognition. The time may come when the national distinctions will be offered to the—in fact, the After-Dinner Demosthenes.”

“You look so far forward?”

“I confess that the work is light, easy—to me, at least—and pleasant. It is also well paid. People are willing to give a great deal for such a reputation as I can make for them. Nobody ever wants to see me. Nobody knows who I am. Nobody wants to know. That is natural, come to think of it. The whole business is done by correspondence. I work for none but persons of wealth and position. Confidence is respected on both sides. Sometimes the whole of a dinner, so to speak, passes through my hands. I have even known occasions on which I have sat unrecognised at a dinner-table, and listened to my speeches being delivered well or ill through the whole evening. Imagine, if you can, the glow and glory of such an evening.”

“I can imagine a ruddy hue—of shame. After five-and-twenty years of deception, however, there is not much shame left. What has happened now? You have been found out, I suppose?”

“Yes; I have been found out. There was a little mistake. I sent a man the wrong speech—the response instead of the proposer’s speech. To the proposer I sent the same speech in duplicate. I cannot imagine how the mistake was possible, but it happened. And you may imagine the feelings of the poor young man who heard his own brilliant speech which was in his pocket actually delivered, a few words only changed, by the man whom he was about to answer. When his turn came he rose; he was overcome; he blurted out three or four words, and sat down.”

“Oh! And then?”

“In the morning he came to beard me in my own den. He had never seen me before, but he knew my address. He came with a big stick, being a little man. Ho, ho! and he marched in flourishing his stick. You should have seen him when I stood over him with the office ruler.” He laughed again, but at the sight of Leonard’s dark face he checked his sense of humour. “Well, the misfortune was that I know the fellow at home, and he comes to our place, and knows me, and, worse than that, my own son, Algernon, was with him to see fair——”

“Oh, Algernon was with him. Then, Algernon knows?”

“Yes, he knows. I packed off the fellow, and had it out with Algernon. It was a tough business. I’m sorry for Algernon. Perhaps, he won’t put on quite so much side, though. Yes,” he repeated thoughtfully, “I had it out with that young man. He knows now what the real profession is.”

“Well, what next?”

“I don’t know what next.”

“Shall you continue your trade of deception and falsehood?”

“Shall I go into the workhouse?”

“Upon my word, it would be better.”

His uncle rose and took up his hat.

“Well, Leonard, if you have nothing but reproaches, I may as well go. I did think that you would consider my position—my very difficult position. I have at least supported my family, and I have confided the whole to you. If you have nothing to say except to harp upon deception—as if that mattered—I may as well go.”

“Stop! let’s consider the thing. Is there no other way of livelihood?”

“None. The only question is whether I am to conduct the business henceforth under my own name or not.”

“I don’t know that I can advise or help in any way. Why did you come to me?”

“I came for advice—if you have any to give. I came because this misfortune has fallen upon me, and you are reputed to be wise beyond your years.”

“The fact of your occupation is misfortune enough.”

“Well? You have nothing more to say? Then I must go.”

He looked so miserable that Leonard forgot his indignation, and inclined his heart to pity.

“You are afraid of exposure,” he said, “on account of your wife and children.”

“On their account alone. For my own part, I have done no wrong, and I fear no exposure.”

They were brave words, but he was as the donkey in the lion’s skin. He spoke valiantly, but his knees trembled.

“I should think,” Leonard replied, “that this young man, for his own sake, would be careful not to spread abroad his experience, because he would expose himself as well as you. He proposed deliberately to impose upon the audience, as his own, an oration prepared by another man and bought by himself. That is a position, if it were known and published, even less dignified than your own. I think that Algernon should put this side of the case to him strongly and plainly.”

“He may leave himself out and whisper rumours abroad.”

“Algernon should warn him against such things. If, however, the man persists in his unholy ambition to obtain a false reputation, he will probably have to come to you again, since there is no other practitioner.”

Mr. Crediton jumped in his chair.

“That’s the point. You’ve hit it. That’s the real point. I’m glad I came here. He’s not only got his ambition still, but he’s got his failure to get over. He must come to me. There is no other practitioner. He must come. I never thought of that.” He rubbed his hands joyously.

“He may not be clever enough to see this point. Therefore Algernon had better put it to him. If Algernon fails, you must make a clean breast to your wife and daughter, and send it round openly among your personal friends that you are willing to supply speeches confidentially. That seems the only way out of it.”

“The only way—the only way, Leonard. There will be no clean breast at all, and that venomous beast will have to come to me again. I am so glad that I came here. You have got more sense than all the rest of us put together.”