I INTERVIEW MR. BRENTIN—HIS SYMPATHY AND INTEREST—SIR ANTHONY HIPKINS AND THE YACHT AMARANTH—WE DETERMINE TO LOOK OVER IT

I soon began to see that, out of so conventional an atmosphere as Medworth Square, I was not likely to gather any great profit to my scheme; that, if my idea were ever to bear fruit, I must set to work among my own particular friends in my own way.

On thinking them over, I determined to approach Mr. Julius C. Brentin first, an American gentleman whom I knew to be above prejudice, and to whom I could talk with perfect freedom and security.

He is a man of about fifty-five, a Californian, of medium height (which, like many Americans, he always pronounces heighth), with black hair, black eyebrows, and a small black mustache. He carries cigars loose in every pocket, and he will drink whiskey with you with great good-humor till the subject of the immortality of the soul crops up, when he suddenly becomes angry, suspicious, and, finally, totally silent. And that subject he always introduces himself, though for what reason I never can conceive, unless it be to quarrel and part. I had met him in the street a day or two before, when he told me he had recently married a New York young lady and was staying at the “Victoria”; he begged me to come and call, and on going there I found him chewing a green cigar in the smoking-room, his hat on the bridge of his pugnacious nose, and a glass of Bourbon whiskey beside him.

He reached me out a hand from the depths of his breeches pocket, as though he had just found it there and desired to make me a present of it, and pulled me down by his side. Then he gave me a long, black cigar out of his waistcoat pocket, worked his own round to the farther corner of his mouth, while with a solemn gesture he pointed to his trousers, carefully turned up over small patent-leather boots.

“Mr. Blacker,” he said, “observe my pants. I am endeavoring to please Mrs. Brentin; I am striving to be English. You English invariably turn up the bottom of your pants; it is economical and it is fashionable, don’t yer know.” And Mr. Brentin winked at me a glittering, beady black eye.

I hoped Mrs. Brentin was quite well, and he replied:

“Mrs. Brentin has gone way off to Holborn, sir; she has organized an expedition with Mrs. William Chivers, ay socially prominent Philadelphian, in search of the scene of the labors of your Mrs. Gamp. From there she goes to the Marshalsea, to discover traces of Little Dorrit. She knows your Charles Dickens by heart, sir, and she follows him ayround. This is her first visit to the old country, and I humor her tastes, which are literary and high-toned, by staying at home and practising the English accent. I have studied the English accent theoretically, and I trace it to the predominance among your people of the waist muscles. We as a nation are deficient in waist muscles. So I stay at home and exercise them in the refined society of any stranger who can be indooced to talk with me. It is a labor of some difficulty, Mr. Blacker, which is gradually driving me to drink; for the strangers in this hotel are shy, and apt to regard me in the unflattering light of ay bunco-steerer.”

Mr. Brentin sighed, drank, and worked his jaw and cigar with the solemnity of a cow masticating.

“At other times, sir,” he drawled, “I stroll a block or two, way down the Strand. I compose my features and endeavor to assoom the vacant expression of ay hayseed or countryman. I have long desired to be approached by one of your confidence-trick desperadoes, but my success so far has been mighty small. They keep away from me, sir, as though I had the grippe. I apprehend, Mr. Blacker, that in my well-meant efforts to look imbecyle, I only look cunning. If they would only try me with the green-goods swindle, I should feel my time was not being altogether misspent. It is plaguy disheartening, and I might as well be back in Noo York for all the splurge I am making over here. And how have you been putting in your time, sir, since last year, when we went down to the Durby—I should say, the Darby—together?” he asked, turning his head my way.

On any other day, I have no doubt, I should have given Mr. Brentin a spirited and somewhat lengthy sketch of my doings during the last year and a half; but my recent failures in Medworth Square had taught me the value of time, and I plunged at once into the real object of my visit.

Directly, in rapid, clear-cut outline, I began to make my scheme clear, Mr. Brentin turned and looked at me; from the rigid lines of my speaking countenance he saw at once I was in earnest, and transferred his gaze to his pants and boots. Once only he gave me another rapid look, an ocular upper-cut, apparently to satisfy himself of my sincerity, when my mask spoke so strongly of enthusiasm and determination I felt I had completely reassured him, and was, in fact, gradually overhauling his will. As I went on, he began to breathe gustily through his nose and give a series of small kicks with his varnished toe, indications of growing ardor for the enterprise and a desire to immediately set about it that simply enchanted me.

When I descended to details, it was my turn to watch him. The cigar he was chewing was a complete indicator of his frame of mind. As I spoke of half a dozen resolute men with revolvers, it rose to the horizontal; when I mentioned the steam-yacht and a bolt for the harbor, it drooped like a trailed stick; while, as I sketched our rapid flight to the Greek Archipelago and division of the spoil, it stuck up like a peacock’s tail, a true standard of revolt against the narrowness and timidity of our modern life.

The American mind works so quickly I was not at all surprised when Mr. Brentin suddenly sat up, took the cigar out of his mouth, and hurled it to the other end of the smoking-room.

Bravo! for I knew it signified away with prejudice, away with conventionality, away, above all, with fear! It was a silent, triumphant “Jacta est alea, Rubicon transibimus!”

Then he turned to me.

“Mr. Blacker,” he excitedly whispered, “by the particular disposition of Providence there is a party now lying up-stairs, ay titled gentleman with an enlarged liver, the fruit of some years spent in your colonial service, who owns and desires to part with one, at all events, of the instruments of this enterprise of ours.”

“The yacht?”

“The steam-yacht, sir. It is called the Amaranth, and lies at this moment at Ryde.”

“What is the owner’s name?”

“He was good enough to introdooce himself to me one afternoon last week in the parlor as Sir Anthony Hipkins.”

“Hipkins? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Sir,” replied Mr. Brentin, “I know very little of your titled aristocracy, but I admit it did not sound right to me. However, I talked it over with my friend, the clerk in the bureau, and he assured me that Hipkins is his real name; that he has been for some years judge on the Gold Coast, and, by the personal favor of your Queen Victoria, has been lately elevated to the dignity of knighthood, as some compensation for his complaint caught in the service. He had the next room to us, but the midnight groaning-act in which he occasionally indulged was too much for Mrs. Brentin, and we were forced to shift.”

“Has he spoken to you about his yacht?”

“He introdooced himself right here in the parlor, and offered it me for three thousand pounds.”

“What did you say?”

“I presented him to Mrs. Brentin right away, as I invariably do when I want an inconvenient request refused. She explained that ay steam-yacht was very little use to her in the journeys she is at present taking about this city in search of the localities of Charles Dickens. Whereupon Judge Hipkins, who impressed me as being brainy, immediately replied, ‘What about Yarmouth and little Em’ly’”

“What did Mrs. Brentin say to that?”

“Why, sir, Mrs. Brentin thought three thousand pounds too much to pay for the privilege of approaching Yarmouth by sea; more especially as she is a bad sailor, and commences to be sick at her stomach before leaving the kay-side. Now, however, Mr. Blacker,” he said, rising, “we will, if you please, go and find Sir Anthony Hipkins, and we will buy his steam-yacht.”

The rapidity of the American mind somewhat alarmed me; still, I felt there was nothing for it but to follow Mr. Brentin. He went straight to the bureau, and, on inquiring for Sir Anthony, learned he was up-stairs ill in bed, and that his wife was with him.

As we went up in the lift, Mr. Brentin winked at me. “It is in our favor, sir, that the judge is sick; we will be sympathetic, but we will not offer more than two thousand five hundred pounds.”

We found No. 246, and Mr. Brentin knocked. A deep groaning voice called to us to come in.

“The judge must be real bad if he has sent for his wife,” observed Mr. Brentin. “On reflection, we will try him with two thousand. Come right alawng in, sir, and I will present you.”

I followed him into the bedroom, and there we found Sir Anthony lying, propped up in bed. He was a long, gaunt man, with a grizzling beard, a hook-nose, like a tulwar, and a quantity of rough, brown hair turning gray. By his side was sitting a small, dry, prim old lady, reading from a book, with gold pince-nez, and notwithstanding our entrance she went steadily on.

“Stop that now, Nanny,” Sir Anthony called, fretfully, stretching his hand out of the bed over the page, “and let us hear what these men want.”

“Sir Anthony and Lady Hipkins,” said Mr. Brentin, politely, with a bow to each, his hat in his hand, “permit me to present to you my young friend, Mr. Vincent Blacker. He is in want of a yacht, and though he has his eye on several, would be glad to learn particulars of yours before concluding.”

Sir Anthony rolled his bony head on the pillow and groaned. Directly he withdrew his hand from the page the dry old lady went on with her reading in a curious, dull, flat voice. Mr. Brentin came to the foot of the bed, and, leaning his arms on the brass rail, surveyed him sympathetically.

“Are you too sick, judge,” he asked, “to discuss business matters with us?”

“And in the eleventh year of Joram, the son of Ahab—” droned her ladyship.

“Go away, Nanny,” shouted Sir Anthony, pointing to the opposite door; “go into the next room, or go out and take a walk.”

Mr. Brentin opened the door, and, after putting the Bible on the bed under Sir Anthony’s big nose, Lady Hipkins left the room quietly, as she was directed.

“You’re Mr. Brentin, ain’t you?” asked the judge. “Beg your pardon for not recognizing you. What did you say your friend’s name was?”

Mr. Brentin explained that I was Mr. Vincent Blacker, a gentleman of position and the highest integrity, an officer in Queen Victoria’s militia.

“Oh, ah!” said the judge, sitting up in bed and scratching his legs ruefully. “And he wants to buy a yacht?”

“He has almost concluded for the purchase of one,” Mr. Brentin replied, “but I have suggested he should wait—”

The judge began most unexpectedly to laugh, bending his head between his knees and stifling his merriment with the counterpane.

“The judge is better,” observed Mr. Brentin, with a wave of his hand. “The presence of gentlemen who sympathize with his complaint, and the likelihood of completing—”

“It’s too damn ridiculous,” laughed the judge, “to be caught shamming Abraham like this, by George! Serves me right. You see, Mr. Blacker, after three years of the Gold Coast I was naturally anxious to see whether London had greatly altered in my absence, and, consequently, neglected to go and reside at Norwood with her ladyship. Whereupon her ladyship wrote, demanding the reason of my lengthy stay in the metropolis. What was I to do but say I was too ill to move, but that the minute I was well enough—” Sir Anthony went off laughing again, and I laughed too.

“But that midnight groaning-act of yours, judge,” asked the shocked Brentin, “which so much disturbed and alarmed Mrs. Brentin and myself?”

“Oh, that was genuine enough,” chuckled Sir Anthony; “but it was more the thought of having to go to Norwood and attend the concerts at the Crystal Palace than any actual physical pain.”

Mr. Brentin’s visage clouded over, and he grew sombre and grave. With true American chivalry, he could not bear the idea of any one imposing on a woman, especially an old and plain one.

“However,” said the judge, “I’m rightly punished by her ladyship’s descending on me and forcing me to go to bed—not to mention the Book of Kings, and all my smoke cut off.”

“This will be ay lesson to you, judge, I trust,” observed Mr. Brentin, sternly.

“First and second lesson, by George! And now let’s talk about the yacht. Your friend wants to buy a yacht?”

I must say I was a good deal alarmed at Brentin’s coolness and precipitancy in so readily bringing me forward as purchaser of the Amaranth, and, as I listened to their conversation, quite made up my mind not to bind myself irrevocably to anything. Three, or even two, thousand pounds! My idea was doubtless a remarkable one, but I had no notion of backing it to that amount—at all events, with my own money. So, with an air of sham gravity, I listened, assuming as solid an air of wealth as I could on so short a notice, determined at the last moment to make the necessary fatal objections, which would finally effectually prevent my being saddled with the thing.

The judge explained that the yacht had only just been left him by an uncle who had died very suddenly in the “Albany”; that it was in complete order, ready victualled and manned; that it had usually been sent round to the Riviera, and joined there overland by his uncle, who spent the winter months on board till the advent of spring enabled him to return to London; that there it was lying at Ryde, awaiting his orders, and that he had accidentally heard that Captain Evans, in default of instructions, was actually employing it for excursions on his own behalf, and taking the Ryde people for trips in the Solent and runs over to Bournemouth at so much a head when the weather was favorable; which would all have to be accounted for, added the judge, of course. It was a large yacht, of about four hundred tons, and, rather than be bothered with it, the judge would let it go for three thousand pounds.

“Why don’t you go down and see it,” he asked, “before you decide? And, if I were you, I wouldn’t let Evans know you are coming; if it’s a fine day, you are sure to catch him at some of his little games, and that’ll give you a hold over him.”

“Three thousand pounds is ay large sum of money, judge,” objected Mr. Brentin.

“Not bad; but then it’s a large yacht. Now look here, don’t you haggle with me,” he went on, irritably, “because I don’t like it. You can either take it or leave it. I won’t let it go for a penny less. Rather than that, I’ll go and live on board and spend my time crossing between Portsmouth and the island. I should be safe from her ladyship, at any rate, for even coming up in the lift upsets her.”

We shook his hand and left him composing himself to receive Lady Hipkins again. She was walking up and down the corridor as we came out, and Mr. Brentin went up to her and bowed.

“The judge is real bad, ma’am,” he said, with great gravity, “and should not be left. He has been explaining to us what a comfort you and your reading are to him, and how much he looks forward to being taken down to Norwood and nursed back to his former robust health at your hands. If I may venture to advise, you should procure a hotel conveyance as soon as possible and drive him way down home by easy stages. The air in this city, ma’am, is not good for ay man of the judge’s temperament and physique.”

“You have a kind face,” her ladyship answered, in her strange, flat voice, “and mean kindly, I am sure. But I am extremely deaf, and have not heard one word you have said. Perhaps you would kindly write it down for me?” she added, handing him a little book.

“It’s of no consequence,” bawled Mr. Brentin through his hands. “Good-afternoon!”

“Why doesn’t the old shakes carry a trumpet” he said, angrily, as we went down-stairs. “What’s the matter with a trumpet?”

In the hall, before leaving him, I hastened to explain I had no thought of expending three thousand pounds in the purchase of Sir Anthony’s or any yacht whatsoever; that my contribution to the expedition would be the idea, and so many of the resolute men as I could lay hands on among my friends.

“That will be all right, Mr. Blacker,” Brentin loftily replied; “I will see after the yacht portion of the affair. It can be made good to me, if I run short, out of the boodle, and, if it all fails, I have no doubt I shall have my money value in excitement. In the meantime, sir, let us waltz in and secure the yacht, to begin with. If you will be free in the morning, we will descend upon Ryde and Captain Evans. If we find him going to sea, so much the better; we shall have the opportunity of testing the sailing capacities of the Amaranth. Good-day to you, sir. I have to thank you for infusing my exhossted veins with a breath of the true spirit of the forty-niners, who made the State of California what she is. The holding up of ay Sacramento bank will be nothing to this, sir, if we don’t spile—that is, spoil—it.”