MR. LUKE VERNERS put on his boots in his lodging in Albemarle Street, St. James, in a very evil mood. He was in London, and ordinarily liked to be in London although it was a place where a man must remember his manners, where he wasn’t a cock crowing on his dung-hill, but a mighty small atom in a mighty big crowd; but London with his wife and his daughter was a cruel paradox. Why the plague did a man cramp his legs in a coach for all those miles from Lancashire to London if it wasn’t to get away from wife and daughter? And here he was tied to the family petticoats, in London. It was enough to put any man into bad temper.

As a rule, Mr. Verners was a tolerant person. In a squat little volume published in the year 1822 and called “A Man of the World’s Dictionary,” a Virtuous Man is defined as “a being almost imaginary. A name given to him who has the art of concealing his vices and shutting his eyes to those of others,” and so long as the vices of others did not interfere with his own, and so long as the others were of his own order, Mr. Verners was a candidate for virtue, under this definition. But the man born to be a perfect individualist is at a disadvantage when he owns an estate and feels bound by duty to marry and beget an heir: it isn’t the moderns who discovered that marriage clogs selfishness.

Mr. Verners had an heir, but not, as it happened, till Dorothy had come first. If she hadn’t come first, she would not have come at all; but she came, and dazzlingly, and if there is something agreeable in being the father of a beauty, there is also something harassing. A wife, after all, is only a wife, but with a monstrous fine lady of a daughter about the house a man has to mind his p’s and q’s. Mr. Verners was a sort of a gentleman and he minded his p’s and q’s, but he wasn’t above admitting that he looked forward to the day when, Dorothy well and truly married, he could relax to reasonable carelessness at home.

And not only did Dorothy not get married, not only did Whitworth procrastinate and play card games in London instead of the love-game in Lancashire, but Dorothy, instead of waiting patiently, became strangely restive. The queer thing is that her discontent began to show itself soon after she had met Reuben Hepplestall riding in the road one day now a year ago. She hadn’t mentioned the meeting at home. Why should she mention a creature who was outcast? Why give him a second thought? What possible connection could there be between the meeting and this change in her hitherto entirely submissive habit of waiting for Whitworth? None, to be sure, and no doubt Luke was perfectly right when he said it was all the vapors.

“But the vapors,” said Mrs. Verners, “come from Sir Harry’s absence.”

And “Tush,” said Mr. Verners, who was not without his envious sympathy of that rich bachelor in London, and there, for that time, they left it.

But the vapors came again, they turned endemic while Sir Harry continued a parishioner of St. James’, a gay absentee from his estates and his plain duty of marrying Dorothy, and Mr. Verners’ sympathy wore thin. A tolerant man, but a daughter who (he held) moped and a wife who (he told her in set terms) nagged, played the deuce with his tolerance and so, finally, against his better judgment, they were come to London, “To dig the fox out of his earth,” he said. “Aye, but do you fancy the fox will relish it?”

He knew how he, in the character of fox, would have received this hunt. “But we come naturally to London, for clothes for Dorothy and me,” said Mrs. Verners.

“Do we?” he growled. “It’s heads I win and tails you lose every time with a woman. What the hangment do I get except an empty purse?”

If the gods smiled, he got rid of Dorothy, but that wasn’t to be emphasized now any more than was his very firm intention to spend on himself the lion’s share of the contents of that purse. These things were not to be mentioned because it was good to have a grievance against his wife, to throw responsibility for their enterprise on her shoulders, to seem wholly, when he was only half, convinced that they were doing an unwise thing.

“Dorothy must come to London sometimes,” said Mrs. Verners placidly, “and Sir Harry is hardly to be reminded by letter of his negligence, whereas the sight of Dorothy—”

“Well, well,” said Luke, “you’re proud of your poppet.” Secretly, he would have backed the looks of his daughter against those of any woman in the land. “But,” he went on, “we’re in London now, and London’s full of pretty women. Your wench may be the pride of Lancashire, but you’re pitting her here against the full field of the country—”

“Mr. Verners, you are vulgar.”

“I’m stating facts,” he said. “We’re here to catch Whitworth and I am indicating to your woman’s intelligence and your motherly prejudice that the bait you’re offering may not look so juicy here as it did at home where it hadn’t its peer.”

So he insured himself against failure, and the particular source of his ill-humor as he prepared to go out on the day after their arrival in town was not mental but physical. To jam gouty feet, used to roomy riding boots, into natty gear ought to be nothing. In the past it had been nothing, when he had drunk in the London air and found it the well of youth, but, this time, remarkably, the boots pinched unforgettably, and the realization that he hadn’t the resilience of youth, that he was in London yet hipped, in a play-ground yet grave, disheartened Mr. Verners, and it wasn’t till that skilled diplomat, the porter at Almack’s, recognized him instantly with a salute that Mr. Verners felt petulance oozed from him. It was a wonderful salute; it indicated the porter’s joy at seeing Mr. Verners, his regret that Mr. Verners was only an occasional visitor, his personal feeling that, but for the occasional visits of Mr. Verners, the life of the porter of Almack’s Club would not be worth living; it welcomed him home with a captivating, deferential flattery and the mollified gentleman was to meet with further balm inside the club, where play was not running spectacularly high and there were idle members eager for the simple distraction to be had from any face not wearisomely familiar. Besides, Mr. Verners came from Lancashire; London had heard of Lancashire recently and was willing to hear more.

He came in without much assurance, but hesitation fled when he found himself the center of an interest not at all languid.

“Damme, it’s Luke Verners come to town. Business for locksmiths here,” was the coarse-witted welcome of a lord.

“Locksmiths?” asked Verners.

“Ain’t it locksmiths one employs to put bolts and bars on one’s wife’s bedroom?”

“You flatter me, my lord,” said Verners.

The dandy eyed him appraisingly. “Perhaps I do, Verners, perhaps I do. You are past your prime.”

“Does your lordship care to give me opportunity to prove otherwise, with pistols, swords or—her ladyship?” A hot reception? Music in the ears of Mr. Verners, who relished it for its coarseness, for what seemed to him the authentic note of London Town, a greeting spoken propitiously by a lord. And if this was a good beginning, better was to follow. Mr. Seccombe rose from the chair where he was drowsing, recognized Verners with a start and came up to him interestedly. “Rot your chaff, Godalming,” he said. “Verners will give you as good as he gets any day. Tell us the news of the North, man. Are things as queer as they say?”

“What do they say?” asked Luke.

“They speak of steam-engines.”

“Oh, Lord,” groaned Godaiming. “Old Seccombe’s on his hobby-horse.”

“Of steam-engines,” repeated Mr. Seccombe severely, “and of workers whose bread is taken out of their mouths by machinery, so that they are thrown upon the poor-rates that the landlords must pay.”

“Gospel truth, Mr. Seccombe,” said Luke feelingly, “and yond fellow Arkwright, that began it, made a knight and a High Sheriff for doing us the favor of ruining us. What’s the country coming to?”

“Corruption and decay,” said his lordship.

“Is that so sure?” queried Seccombe. “What is your word on that, Verners?”

“Beyond doubt, it is the end of all things when landlords are milked through the poor-rates,” said Luke.

“Yet steam would appear to have possibilities?”

“Oh, Seccombe’s a hopeless crank,” said Godalming.

“Possibilities for whom, Mr. Seccombe?” asked Vemers. “For a barber like this Arkwright? Yes, he throve on steam, but what is that to us? Will steam grow corn?”

“Steam is an infamy,” stated a gentleman called Collinson.

“You do not agree, Seccombe? No, why should you? You own houses in London. Easy for you to play the philosopher. Those of us with land are beginning to watch the trading classes closely, and steam has the appearance of an ally to trade and enemy to us.”

“Then let the alliance be with us, Mr. Collinson,” said Seccombe. “Indeed, I am making no original suggestion. We have had the cases mentioned here of more than one man of our own order who—”

“Traitors! Outcasts!” cried Godalming.

“Or, perhaps, wise men, my lord. I do not know.”

“You don’t know if it is wise to sell your soul to the devil?”

“Personally,” said Mr. Seccombe, “I should regard that transaction as precarious, but not to the present point. There was mentioned the example of one Hepplestall.”

“You have heard of him—here?” Mr. Verners was astonished.

“We were interested to hear,” said Mr. Collinson.

“Of a perversion,” said Godalming.

“Godalming withholds from Mr. Hepplestall the light of his approval,” said Mr. Seccombe, “but—”

“Approve a turn-coat that was once a gentleman? Why, he has dined at Brooks’ and now blacks his sweaty hands with coal. Is there defense for him?” asked Godalming.

“I am prepared to defend him,” said Seccombe.

“Then you’re a Jacobin.” Godalming turned an outraged back.

“Verners will correct me if I am wrong,” said Collinson, “but we hear of Mr. Hepplestall that he has a great steam-driven factory, with a small town at its feet, and by his steam is driving out of trade the older traders in his district. Is that true?”

“Entirely,” said Mr. Verners, “though it staggers me that news of so small a matter has traveled so far and so fast.”

“Some of us have our eyes on steam,” said Seccombe, “and some of us,” he eyed Godalming with severity, “some of us prefer that a power like steam should be in the hands of men of our order.”

“But they cannot be of our order,” protested Verners, scandalized. “They cease, of their own conduct, to be of our order.”

“You do not dispute the facts about Hepplestall?”

“No. It’s your conclusions I find amazing.”

“Oh,” said Godalming, “this isn’t Almack’s Club at all. We’re in France, and Mr. Collinson is wearing a red cap, and Mr. Seccombe has no breeches and—rot me if I ever expected to hear such damned revolutionary sentiments from an Englishman.”

“Will you do me the favor, my lord, to consider the picture Mr. Verners has assented to be veracious?” Mr. Seccombe said, leaning back in his chair and looking like nothing so much as Maclise’s Talleyrand in the Fraser Portraits; elbows on the arms of his chair, hands caressing his stomach, knees wide apart, the sole of one shoe rubbing against the other, a look of placid benignity on his face. “That large factory, dominating a town of cottages where its workers live, under the owner’s eye, and that owner a gentleman who has extinguished the small lower-class manufacturers of his neighborhood. I ask you to consider that picture and to tell me what there is in it that you feel undesirable. To me, my lord, it is an almost feudal picture. The Norman Keep, with a village clustered around its walls, is to my mind the precedent of Mr. Hepplestall’s factory with its workers in their cottages about it. I confess to an admiration of this Hepplestall, whom you regard as a traitor to our order and I as a benefactor to that order. You will hardly assert that our order is unshaken by the deplorable events in France, you will hardly say that, even before that unparalleled outbreak of ruffianism, our order had maintained the high prestige of the Feudal days. A man in whose action I see possibilities of restoring in full our ancient privileges is a man to be approved and to be supported by us. If we do not support him, and others like him, what results? Abandoned by us, he must consort with somebody and he will consort naturally with other steam-power manufacturers, adding to their strength and weakening ours. It seems to me that this steam is a notable instrument for keeping in their places those classes who might one day follow the terrible French example: and the question is whether it is better for us ourselves, men of our order, directly to handle this instrument, or whether we are to trust it in the hands of the manufacturing class. For my own part, I distrust that class, I like a man who grasps his nettles boldly and I applaud Mr. Hepplestall.”

Several men had joined the circle by now, and Mr. Seecombe ended to find himself the center of an attention close but hostile. Phrases such as “rank heresy” and “devil’s advocate” made Mr. Collinson feel heroic when he said, “Speaking for myself, I stand converted by your argument, Seecombe.”

At which Godalming gave the theorist and his supporter the name of “a brace of begad trucklers to Satan,” and such a whoop of applause went up as caused Mr. Seccombe to look round quickly for cover. It was clear that to touch steam was not condoned as an attempt to revitalize the Feudal system: to touch steam was to defile oneself and to propose a defense of a gentleman who stooped to steam was to be unpopular. Mr. Seccombe liked his views very well, but liked popularity better and, catching sight of Whitworth in the crowd, saw in him a means of distracting attention from himself.

“Have you a word on this, Whitworth?” he asked. “You come from Lancashire.”

“My word on this,” he said, “is Mr. Verners’ word. Like him I am the victim of these steaming gentlemen, and I have only to remember my bailiff’s accounts to know how much I am mulcted in poor-rates.”

“Imagine Harry Whitworth perusing an account!” said Godalming.

“One has one’s duties, I believe,” said Sir Harry. “But I have been too long away from Lancashire to be a judge of this matter. I can tell you nothing of Hepplestall and his factory, for this is the first I heard of it, but I can tell you of Hepplestall and a parson.” And he told the tale of Mr. Bantison.

“This is the stuff your hero is made of, Seccombe,” jeered Godalming.

“Not bad stuff,” Seccombe heard an unexpected ally say. “The stuff, as Seccombe put it, that grasps a nettle firmly.”

“Oh,” conceded Sir Harry, “Bantison was nettle enough. But as to steam—!” He shrugged his shoulders, and gave Mr. Seccombe the opening for which he angled.

“It does not appeal to you to go to Lancashire and better Hepplestall’s example?” he asked blandly.

“Good God!” said Sir Harry, and the Club was with him.

“There might be wisdom in a visit to your estates,” said Mr. Seccombe, and the Club was, vociferously, with him. Mr. Seccombe smiled secretly: he had, gently but thoroughly, accomplished his purpose of turning the volatile thought of the Club away from his argument. He had raised a laugh at Whitworth’s expense, a brutal laugh, a “Vae Victis” laugh: he had focused attention on the case of Sir Harry Whitworth.

It was not an unusual case. This society had a leader known, with grotesque inappropriateness, as the First Gentleman in Europe and the First Gentleman in Europe had invented a shoe-buckle. Whitworth tripped over the buckle; he criticized it in ill-chosen company and news of his traitorous disparagement was carried to the Regent. Whitworth was in disgrace.

The usual thing and the discreet thing was to efface oneself for a time, but Harry Whitworth had the conceit to believe himself an ornament that the Prince could not dispense with. He stayed in town, daily expecting to be recalled to court: and the frank laughter of Almack’s was a galling revelation of what public opinion thought of his prospects of recall.

It was a humiliation for a high-spirited gentleman, and an embarrassment. To challenge a Club was to invite more ridicule, while to single out Mr. Seccombe, the first cause of his discomfiture, was equally impossible; Seccombe was too old for dueling; one did not go out with a man old enough to be one’s grandfather. There was Godalming, but, again, he feared ridicule: Godalming’s special offense was that he laughed loudly, but Godalming habitually laughed loudly and one couldn’t challenge for insulting emphasis a man who was naturally emphatic.

Whitworth saw no satisfactory way out of it, till Verners, mindful of Dorothy, supplied an opportunity for retreat.

“I may be able to give Sir Harry some little information about his estates. They are in good hands, and though naturally we in Lancashire would welcome amongst us the presence of so notable a landowner, the estate itself is well managed by his people.” Which was quite a pretty effort in tact from one unaware of Sir Harry’s misfortune, and puzzled by the laughter.

Whitworth snatched at the opportunity, meager as it was. “I will come with you to hear of it, Verners.” Then as he turned, a feeling that he was making a poor show of it tempted him to say, “Gentlemen, I heard you laugh. Next time we meet, next time I visit Almack’s, the laugh will be upon the other side. Godalming, will you wager on it?” He could issue that simulacrum of a challenge, at any rate. Men betted upon anything.

“A thousand guineas that you never come back,” suggested Godalming.

“A thousand that I am back—back, you understand me—in a month.”

“Agreed,” said Godalming. “I back Prinny’s resolution for a thousand for a month.”

“Shall we go, Mr. Verners?” said Sir Harry to the mystified squire, and “Gad, they’re betting on a weather-vane,” murmured Mr. Seccombe in the ear of his friend, Mr. Collinson.