TIMMONS'S TEA AND LEIGH'S DINNER.

Mr. John Timmons's tea was a very long and unsociable meal. It took hours, and not even the half-dozen red-herrings brought to him by Mrs. Stamer in the fish-basket were allowed to assist at it. They lay in dense obscurity on the floor of the marine-store. Tunbridge Street was now as silent as the grave.

It was after eleven o'clock and John Timmons had not yet emerged from his cellar. All the while he had been below a strong pungent smell of burning, the dry sulphurous smell of burning coke, had ascended from below, with now and then noise of a hand-bellows blowing a fire, but no steam or sound or savour of cooking. Now and again there was the noise of stirring a fire, and now and again the noise of a tongs gripping and loosing and slipping on what a listener might, in conjunction with other evidence, take to be pieces of coke. From time to time the man below might be heard to breathe heavily and sigh. Otherwise he uttered no sound. If the subterranean stoker desired secrecy he had his wish, for there was no one in or near the place listening.

But if no one was listening to the stoker some one was watching the exterior of the marine-store in Tunbridge Street. A short time before eleven o'clock a man dressed in seedy black cloth, with short iron-grey, whiskers and beard, and long iron-grey hair and wearing blue spectacles, turned into the street, and sat down in a crouching position on the axle-tree of a cart, whose shafts, like a pair of slender telescopes, pointed to the dim summer stars, or taken together the cart and man looked like a huge flying beetle, the body of the cart being the wings, the wheels the high elbowed legs, the man the body of the insect and the two long shafts the antennae thrust upwards in alarm.

When it was about a quarter past eleven John Timmons emerged from the cellar, carrying in one hand a dark lantern, with the slide closed. When he found himself in his upper, or ground-floor chamber, or shop, or store, he drew himself to his full height, and, with head advanced sideways, listened awhile.

There was no sound. He nodded his head with satisfaction. Then he went cautiously to the wicket, and with a trowel began digging up the earth of the floor, which was here dark and friable and dry. It was, old sand from a foundry, and could be moved and replaced without showing the least trace of disturbance. Timmons did not use the lamp. He had placed it beside him on the ground with the slide closed.

After digging down about a foot he came upon a small, old, courier-bag, which he lifted out, and which contained something heavy. The bag had been all rubbed over with grease and to the grease the dark sand stuck thickly. Out of this bag he took a small, heavy, cylindrical bundle of chamois leather. Then he restored the bag to the hole, shovelled back the sand and smoothed the floor, rose and stood a minute hearkening, with the cylinder of chamois rolled-up leather in his hand.

This hiding-place had been selected and contrived with great acuteness. It was so close to the foot of the shutters that no one looking in through the ventilators at any angle could catch sight of it. The presence of the moulder's sand at the threshold was explained by the fact that no other substance was so good for canting heavy metal objects upon. Superficial disturbances were to be expected in such a floor, and it was impossible to tell superficial disturbances from deep ones. Once the sand was re-levelled with a broom-handle, used as a striker is used in measuring corn, it was impossible to guess whether any disturbance had recently taken place. In concealing and recovering anything here the operator's ear was within two inches of the street, and he could hear the faintest sound outside. The threshold was not a likely place to challenge examination in case of search.

Timmons now walked softly over his noiseless floor, carrying his lantern in one hand and the roll of leather in the other, until he got behind the old boiler of the donkey engine. Here he slid back the slide of the lantern and unrolled the leather. The latter proved to be a belt about a palm deep, and consisting of little bags or pockets of chamois leather, clumsily but securely sewn to a band of double chamois.

There were a dozen of those little pockets in all; six of them contained some heavy substance. Each one closed with a piece of string tied at the mouth. Timmons undid one and rolled out on his hand a thick lump of yellow metal about the size of the large buttons worn as ornaments on the coats of coachmen. It was not, however, flat, but slightly convex at one side and almost semi-spherical on the other.

He smiled a well-satisfied smile at the gold ingot, and weighed it affectionately in his black, grimy palm, where the gold shone like a yellow unchanging flame. Timmons gave the ingot a loving polish with his sleeve, dropped it back into its bag, and re-tied the string. Then out of each of his trousers' pockets he took a similar ingot or button, weighed each, and looked at each with affectionate approval, and secured each in one of the half-dozen vacant leather bags.

"Two pounds two ounces all together," he whispered. "I have never been able to get more than fifteen shillings an ounce for it, taking it all round at fifteen carats. His offer is as good as thirty shillings an ounce, which leaves a margin for a man to get a living out of it, if the dwarf is safe. If I had had only one deal with him, I'd feel he's safe, but he has done nothing but talk grand and nonsense up to this, and----" Timmons paused and shook his head ominously. He did not finish the sentence, but as he stood weighing the belt up and down in his hand, assumed suddenly a more pleasant look, and whispered with a smile exhibiting his long yellow teeth: "But after this deal to-night he can't draw back or betray me. That's certain, anyhow."

He unbuttoned his waistcoat, strapped the belt round his lank, hollow waist, blew out the lantern, and walking briskly, crossed the store, opened the wicket and stepped into the deserted street. He closed and locked the door behind him, and turning to his left walked rapidly among the carts and vans to London Road.

Before he disappeared, the elderly man with grizzled hair and whiskers, dressed in seedy black cloth, emerged from the shadow of the cart and kept stealthily and noiselessly in the rear of the marine-store dealer. John Timmons was on his way to keep his important business appointment with Leigh in Chetwynd Street, Chelsea, and the low-sized man with blue spectacles was following, shadowing Timmons.

When Leigh left Curzon Street that evening, he made his way into Piccadilly first, and thence westward in a leisurely way, with his head held high and a look of arrogant impudence and exultation on his face. He turned to the left down Grosvenor Place. He was bound to Chetwynd Street, but he was in no humour for short cuts or dingy streets.

He was elated. He walked with his head among the stars. All the men he met were mud and dross compared with him. Whatever difficulty he set himself before melted into nothingness at his glance. If it had suited him to set his purpose to do what other men counted impossible, that thing should be done by him. No political party he led should ever be out-voted, no army he commanded defeated, no cause he advocated extinguished. These creatures around him were made of clay, he of pure spirit, that saw clearly where the eyes of mere men were filled with dust and rheum.

This clock upon which he was engaged would be the eighth wonder of the world when completed. He had not yet done all the things he spoke of, had not yet introduced all the movements and marvels he had described to the groundlings. But the clock was not finished. Why it was not well begun. By and by he would set about those figures of time. They would require a new and vastly complicated movement and great additional power, but to a man of genius what was all this but a bagatelle, a paltry thing he could devise in an hour and execute by and by?

Already the clock was enormously complicated, and although it seemed simple enough, as simple as playing cats-cradle when he was near it, when he could see the cause and application of all its parts and instantly put any defect to rights, still when he was away from it for a long time, part of it seemed to stop and sometimes the whole of it, and--this was distracting, maddening--the power seemed to originate at the escapements, and the whole machine would work backward against his will until the enormous weights in the chimney, out of which he got his power, were wound up tight against the beams, until the chains seemed bursting and the beams tearing and the wheels splitting and dashing asunder. And all the while the escapements went flying in reverse so fast as to dazzle him and make him giddy, and then, when all seemed lost and the end at hand, some merciful change would occur and the accursed reversed movement would die away and cease, and after a pause of unspeakable joy the machine would start in its natural and blessed way again and he would cry out and weep for happiness at the merciful deliverance.

Hah! He felt in thinking of these sufferings about the clock as though the movement were going to be reversed now.

Leigh paused for a moment, and looked around him to bring himself back to the actual world.

"Hah!" he whispered. "I know why I feel so queer. It's the want of food. I have had no food to-day--for the body any way--except what she gave me. What food she gave me for the soul! My soul was never full fed until to-day."

He resumed his course, and, without formulating his destination, directed his steps instinctively towards the restaurant where he usually dined.

"But this alchemy?" his thoughts went on, "this miracle gold? What of it?" He dropped his chin upon his chest and lapsed into deep thought. The boastful and confident air vanished from his eyes and manner. He was deep sunk in careful and elaborate thought.

The position looks simple if regarded in one way. Here this man Timmons calls on him and says:--

I am a marine store dealer, and all kinds of old metal come into my hands. I buy articles of iron and copper and lead and brass and tin and zinc. I buy old battered silver electro-plate and melt it down for the silver. Silver is not worth the attention of a great chemist like you. But sometimes I come across gold. It may reach my hands in one way or several ways. It may turn up in something I am melting. It may be gilding on old iron I buy. You are not to know all the secrets of my trade as a marine store dealer, which is a highly respectable if not an exalted trade. Now gold, no matter how or where it may be, is worth any man's consideration. The gold that comes my way is never pure. It averages half or little more than half alloy. You are a great chemist. I cannot afford time to separate the gold from the alloy. I cannot spare time to go about and sell it. Every man to his trade; I am a marine-store dealer, you are a great chemist. What will you give me for ingots fifteen carats fine?

The value of gold of fifteen carats to sell is two pounds thirteen shillings and a penny. Gold is the only thing that never changes its price. Any one who wants pure gold must give four pounds four shillings and eleven pence halfpenny for it. Fifteen twenty-fourths! The value of fifteen twenty-fourths of that sum is two pounds thirteen and a penny. The alloy counts as dross and fetches nothing----

"Hah! Yes," thought Leigh interrupting his retrospect with a start as he found himself at the door of the restaurant where he proposed dining, "I must have food for the body. Food for the soul, if taken too largely or alone, kills the body, no matter how strong and shapely and lithe it may be. I shall think this matter out when I have eaten. I shall think it out over a cigar and coffee."

He ordered a simple meal and ate it slowly, taking great comfort and refreshment out of the rest and meat. He had a little box all to himself. He was in no humour for company, and it was long past the dinner time in this place, so that the room was comparatively deserted.

When he had finished eating he ordered coffee and a cigar, and putting his legs up on the seat, rested his elbow on the table, lit his cigar and resumed his cogitations in a more vigorous and vocal manner, using words in his mind now instead of pictures.

"Let me see. Where was I? Oh, I recollect. Timmons can't spare time for chemistry or metallurgy and doesn't care to deal with so valuable a metal as gold, even if he had the time. I understand all about metals and chemistry and so on. I entertain the suggestion placed before me and turn it round in my mind to see what I can make of it. I get hold of a superb idea.

"Of course, after extracting the metal from the alloy, when I had the virgin gold in my hand I should have to find a market for it, to sell it. The time has not yet come for absolutely forming my figures of time in metal. Wax will do even after I begin the mere drudgery of the modelling.

"Well, if I were to offer considerable quantities of gold for sale in the ordinary way, I should have to mention all about John Timmons, and that would be troublesome and derogatory to my dignity, for then it would seem as though I were doing no more than performing cupelling work for this man Timmons.

"The whole volume of science is open to me. I am a profound chemist. I am theoretically and practically acquainted with the whole science from the earliest records of alchemy down to to-day. I agree with Lockyer, that according to the solar spectrum some of the substances we call elements have been decomposed in the enormous furnaces of the sun. I hold instead of their being seventy elements there is but one, in countless modifications, owing to countless contingencies. What we call different elements are only different arrangements of one individual element, the one element of nature, the irreducible unit of the creation, the primal atom. This is a well-known theory, but no one has proved it yet.

"I stand forth to prove it, and how better can I prove it than by realizing the dream of the old transmuters of metals. Alikser is not a substance. The philosopher's stone is not a thing you can carry in your pocket. It is no more than a re-arrangement of primal atoms. What we call gold is, let us say, nothing more than crystallized electricity, and I have found the secret of so bringing the atoms of electricity together that they fall into crystals of pure gold. Up to this the heat of the strongest furnaces have not been able to volatilize one grain of metallic gold: all you have to do to make metallic gold is to solidify it out of its vapourous condition, say electricity or hydrogen, what you please.

"How this is done is my great discovery, my inviolate secret. The process of manufacture is extremely expensive, I cannot share the secret with anyone, lest I should lose all the advantage and profit of my discovery, for no patent that all the government of earth could make with brass and steel would keep people from making gold if they could read how it may be done.

"Pure gold is value for a halfpenny less than four pounds five shillings an ounce Troy. I will sell you pure gold, none of your childish mystery gold with its copper, and silver, and platinum clumsiness that will not stand the fire, but pure gold that will defy any test wet or dry, or cupel, for four pounds the ounce. Come, will you buy my Miracle Gold at four pounds the ounce Troy?"

Leigh struck the table triumphantly with his hand, and uttered the question aloud. His excitement had carried him away from the table, and the restaurant. He was nowhere he could name. He was in the clouds challenging no one he could name to refuse so good an offer. He was simply in the lists of immortality, throwing down the gage to universal man.

No one was present to accept or decline his offer. No one caught the words he uttered. But the sound of the blow of his fist upon the table brought a waiter to the end of the box. Leigh ordered more coffee and another cigar. When they had been brought and he was once more alone, his mind ran on:--

"That is one view of it, that is the view I should offer to my customers and to the world of my position. But what kept me so from closing with this Timmons was the consideration that everyone who heard my version of the matter might not accept it.

"The clock is out-growing me, and often I feel giddy and in a maze with it. A clock cannot fill all my life and satisfy all a man's heart. At the time I began it years ago I fancied it would suffice. I fancied it would keep my heart from preying on itself. But now the mechanism is often too much for me when it is not before my eyes. It wears, and wears, and wears the mind, as it wears, and wears, and wears itself.

"When this man Timmons came to me first, I thought of putting the clock to a use I never contemplated when I started making it. Since I began to think of making the clock of use in my dealings with this Miracle Gold, I have seen her; I have seen this Edith Grace, who staggered me in my pursuit of Miracle Gold and filled my veins with fire I never knew before. What fools we men are! And I who have not the proportions of a man, what a fool ten thousand times multiplied! She shrank from me as though I were a leper, I who am only a monster! I would give all the gold that ever blazed before the eye-balls of men to have a man's fair inches and straight back! I! I! I! What am I that I should have feelings? Why, I am worse than the vilest lepers that rotted without the city gate. They, even they, had had their days of wholesomeness and strength before the plague fell upon them. I was predestined from birth to stand in odious and grotesque blackness against the sun, to seem in the eyes of all women a goblin spewed out of the maw of hell!"

He paused. The clock struck. He sprang to his feet.

"Ten!" he said aloud. He said to himself: "Ten o'clock, and I have a good deal to do before Timmons comes at midnight."

Suddenly he paused on his way to the door of the restaurant, and stood in deep thought. Then he resumed his way to the door and when he got out into the street, said half aloud:

"Strange that I should have forgotten all about that. Have I much to do before midnight? I told her--the other, the more wonderful and more beautiful one of the same mould, the one with the heart, the lady of the two--that I should decide about the gold between the time I was speaking to her and the same time next week. She did not shrink from me as if I were a leper, this second one of the two. Stop, I have no time to think this matter out now. I have a week. I will take all steps as though I had not seen her in that room. What a pitiful, mean cad that Hanbury is! Why, he's lower than a leper! He's more contemptible than even I!"

He cleared his mind of all doubts and concentrated it upon what he had to do before meeting John Timmons. He hurried along and in a few minutes let himself into his house with his latch-key.

There was no voice or even light to greet him in his home. As he ascended the stairs he thought: "If tombs were only as roomy as this house I shouldn't mind being done with daylight and the world, and covered up. Now, I'd give all I own in this world to have a comfortable mind like Williams, my friend the publican, over the way. Ha-ha-ha!" His hideous laugh, now shrill like the squeal of grating metal, now soft and flabby and gelatinous like the flapping of a wet cloth, echoed in the impenetrable darkness around him.

"If Hanbury were only here now and had a knife--in ten minutes I'd know more than any living man. Ha-ha-ha!"