The Temptation of the Devil.

The atmosphere of the little room at the back of Tresco’s shop was redolent of frying chops. The goldsmith was cooking his breakfast.

As he sneezed and coughed, and watered at the eyes, he muttered, “This is the time of all others that I feel the lack of Betsy Jane or a loving wife.”

There was the sound of a foot on the narrow stairs, and Jake Ruggles appeared, his hair still damp from his morning ablutions and his face as clean as his muddy complexion would permit.

“’Mornin’, boss.”

“Good morning, my lad.”

“Chops?”

“Chops and repentance,” said the goldsmith.

“Whatyer givin’ us?” asked Jake, indignant. “Who’s takin’ any repentance this morning?—not me, you bet.”

“There’s a game called Euchre, Jake—never play it. There is likewise a game called Kitty, which is worse. You can lose more money in one night at one of these games than you can earn in six months.”

“Speak f’yerself,” said the irreverent Jake. “I own I wasn’t at a temp’rance meetin’ las’ night, but I was in bed long before you come home.”

“I was attending a sick friend,” said Benjamin, dishing up the chops. “I confess I was kept out a little late.”

“Must ’a’ bin the horrors—I hope ’e didn’t die.”

“You are mistaken, my brilliant youth. But I own it was something not unlike it. My friend was drugged while having a friendly game of chance with men he deemed to be respectable. One of them dosed his liquor, while another rooked him with loaded dice, and what with one thing and another he was fleeced of all his cash, and was hocussed into the bargain.”

“An’ what was you doin’ there?”

“I? I was being rooked too, but either the drug was the wrong sort to hocuss me, or I overturned my glass by accident, but I escaped with the loss of a few pounds.”

“Hocuss yer grandmother!” Jake’s ferret-like eyes looked unutterable scorn. “Your bloomin’ hocuss was brandy.” “The mind of Youth is perverse and foolish,” said the goldsmith, as he poured out the tea. “When the voice of Experience and the voice of Wisdom say, ‘Eschew cards, abjure dice, avoid men with lumps on their necks and revolvers in their pockets,’ sapient Youth says, ‘The old man’s goin’ dotty.’ But we shall see. Youth’s innings will come, and I bet a fiver—no, no, what am I thinking of?—I stake my honour that Youth’s middle stump gets bowled first ball.”

Three years before Tresco had arrived in Timber Town, and had started business on borrowed money. Everything had favoured him but his own improvidence, and on the eve of what he believed to be a financial boom, he found himself in what he described as “a cleft stick.” The quarter’s rent was a fortnight overdue, the interest on his mortgaged stock must be paid in a few days; and in addition to this he was now saddled with a debt of honour which, if paid, would leave him in a bankrupt condition.

Rising from his half-finished meal, he put on his apron, went into the workshop, and sat down at his bench.

The money which he had held for satisfying the immediate calls of his creditors was squandered, and in the course of the morning he might expect a visit from his landlord, demanding payment.

He might put the digger from his mind—a man drugged overnight would not trouble him next day. The thought gave him relief, and he took up his tool and began to engrave a monogram on a piece of silver. The outlines of the letters were marked in pencil, and the point of his graver deftly ploughed little furrows hither and thither, till the beauty of the design displayed itself.

Jake had opened the shop and taken down the shutters. The goldsmith had lighted his pipe, and the workshop had assumed its usual air of industry, when a rapping was heard on the glass case which stood on the counter of the shop.

Benjamin, glad to welcome so early a customer, rose with a beaming face, and bustled out of the workshop.

Bill the Prospector stood before him.

“Good morning!” Tresco’s greeting was effusively delivered. “I hope I see you well.”

“A bit thick in the head, mate,” said the digger, “but not much the worse, ’cept I ain’t got so much as a bean to get a breakfast with.”

“Come in, come in,” exclaimed Benjamin, as he ushered the digger into the back room, where such chops as had escaped the voracious appetite of Jake Ruggles remained upon the table.

“Sit down, my friend; eat, and be well filled,” said the goldsmith. “I’ll brew another pot of tea, and soon our Richard will be himself again.”

The dissipated digger ate half a chop and a morsel of bread and, when the tea was ready, he drank a cupful thirstily.

“Try another,” suggested Tresco, holding the teapot in his hand. “You’re a marvel at making a recovery.”

The digger complied readily.

“That’s the style,” said the goldsmith. “There’s nothing like tea to counteract the effects of a little spree.”

“Spree!” The digger’s face expressed indignation which he did not feel equal to uttering. “The spree remained with the other parties, likewise the dollars.” He emptied his cup, and drew a long breath.

“I reckon we struck a bit of a snag,” said Benjamin, “four of ’em in a lump.”

“They properly cleaned me out, anyway,” said the digger. “I ain’t got so much as sixpence to jingle on a tombstone.”

He fumbled in his pockets, and at length drew out two pieces of crumpled paper. These he smoothed with his rough begrimed hands, and then placed them on the table. They were Tresco’s IOUs. “I suppose you’ll fix these ’ere, mate,” said he.

Benjamin scratched his head.

“When I’ve squared up my hotel bill an’ a few odds and ends,” explained the digger, “I’ll be makin’ tracks.”

Tresco looked on this man as a veritable gold-mine, in that he had discovered one of the richest diggings in the country. To quarrel with him therefore would be calamitous: to pay him was impossible, without recourse to financial suicide.

“What does it amount to?” he asked, bending over the bits of dirty paper. “H’m, £117—pretty stiff little bill to meet between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m. Suppose I let you have fifty?”

The digger looked at the goldsmith in astonishment.

“If I didn’t want the money, I’d chuck these bits o’ paper in the fire,” he exclaimed. “S’fer as I’m concerned the odd seventeen pound would do me, but it’s the missis down in Otago. She must ’ave a clear hundred. Women is expensive, I own, but they mustn’t be let starve. So anty up like a white man.”

“I’ll try,” said Tresco.

“If I was you I’d try blanky hard,” said the digger. “Act honest, and I’ll peg you off a claim as good as my own. Act dishonest, an’ you can go to the devil.”

Tresco had taken off his apron, and was putting on his coat. “I’ve no intention of doing that,” he said. “How would it be to get the police to make those spielers disgorge?—you’d be square enough then.”

“Do that, and I’ll never speak to you again. I’ve no mind to be guy’d in the papers as a new chum that was bested by a set of lags.”

“But I tell you they had loaded dice and six-shooters.”

“The bigger fools we to set two minutes in their comp’ny.”

“What if I say they drugged you?”

“I own to bein’ drunk. But if you think to picture me to the public as a greenhorn that can be drugged first and robbed afterwards, you must think me a bigger fool’n I look.”

Tresco held his hat in his hand.

“I want this yer money now,” said the digger. “In three weeks money’ll be no object to you or me, but what I lent you last night must be paid to-day.”

Tresco went to the door.

“I’ll get it if I can,” he said. “Stay here till I come back, and make yourself at home. You may rely on my best endeavours.” He put on his hat, and went into the street.

Mr. Crookenden sat in his office. He was a tubby man, with eyes like boiled gooseberries. No one could guess from his face what manner of man he might be, whether generous or mean, hot-tempered or good-humoured, because all those marks which are supposed to delineate character were in him obliterated by adipose tissue. You had to take him as you found him. But for the rest he was a merchant who owned a lucrative business and a few small blunt-nosed steamers that traded along the coasts adjacent to Timber Town.

As he sat in his office, glancing over the invoices of the wrecked Mersey Witch, and trying to compute the difference between the value of the cargo and the amount of its insurance, there was a knock at the door, and Benjamin Tresco entered.

“How d’e do, Tresco? Take a chair,” said the man of business. “The little matter of your rent, eh? That’s right; pay your way, Tresco, and fortune will simply chase you. That’s been my experience.”

“Then I can only say, sir, it ain’t bin mine.”

“But, Tresco, the reason of that is because you’re so long-winded. Getting money from you is like drawing your eye-teeth. But, come, come; you’re improving, you’re getting accustomed to paying punctually. That’s a great thing, a very great thing.”

“To-day,” said the goldsmith, with the most deferential manner of which he was capable, “I have not come to pay.”

“Mr. Tresco!”

“But to get you to pay. I want a little additional loan.”

“Impossible, absolutely impossible, Tresco.”

“Owing to losses over an unfortunate investment, I find myself in immediate need of £150. If that amount is not forthcoming, I fear my brilliant future will become clouded and your rent will remain unpaid indefinitely.”

The fat man laughed wheezily.

“That’s very good,” he said. “You borrow from me to pay my rent. A very original idea, Tresco; but don’t you think it would be as well as to borrow from some one else—Varnhagen, for instance?”

“The Jews, Mr. Crookenden; I always try to avoid the Jews. To go to the Jews means to go to the dogs. Keep me from the hands of the Jews, I beg.”

“But how would you propose to repay me?”

“By assiduous application to business, sir.”

“Indeed. Then what have you been doing all this while?”

“Suffering from bad luck.” The ghost of a smile flitted across Benjamin’s face as he spoke.

“But Varnhagen is simply swimming in money. He would gladly oblige you.”

“He did once, at something like 60 per cent. If I remember rightly, you took over the liability.”

“Did I, indeed? Do you know anything of Varnhagen’s business?”

“No more than I do of the Devil’s.”

“You don’t seem to like the firm of Varnhagen and Co.”

“I have no reason to, except that the head of it buys a trinket from me now and then, and makes me ‘take it out’ by ordering through him.”

“Just so. You would like to get even with him?”

“Try me.”

“Are you good in a boat, Tresco?”

The goldsmith seemed to think, and his cogitation made him smile.

“Tolerably,” he said. “I’m not exactly amphibious, but I’d float, I’d float, I believe,” and he looked at his portly figure.

“Are you good with an oar?”

“Pretty moderate,” said Tresco, trying to think which end of the boat he would face while pulling.

“And you’ve got pluck, I hope?”

“I hope,” said the goldsmith.

“To be plain with you, Tresco, I’ve need of the services of such a man as yourself, reliable, silent, staunch, and with just enough of the devil in him to make him face the music.”

Benjamin scratched his head, and wondered what was coming.

“You want a hundred pounds,” said the merchant.

“A hundred and fifty badly,” said the goldsmith.

“We’ll call it a hundred,” said the merchant. “I’ve lost considerably over this wreck—you can understand that?”

“I can.”

“Well, Varnhagen, who has long been a thorn in my side, and has been threatening to start a line of boats in opposition to me, has decided, I happen to hear, to take immediate advantage of my misfortune. But I’ll checkmate him.”

“You’re the man to do it.”

“I hold a contract for delivering mails from shore. By a curious juncture of circumstances, I have to take out the English mail to-morrow night to the Takariwa, and bring an English mail ashore from her. Both these mails are via Sydney, and I happen to know that Varnhagen’s letters ordering his boats will be in the outgoing mail, and that he is expecting correspondence referring to the matter by the incoming mail. He must get neither. Do you understand?—neither.”

Tresco remained silent.

“You go on board my boat—it will be dark; nobody will recognise you. Furthermore I shall give you written authority to do the work. You can find your own crew, and I will pay them, through you, what you think fit. But as to the way you effect my purpose, I am to know nothing. You make your own plans, and keep them to yourself. But bring me the correspondence, and you get your money.”

“Make it £200. A hundred down and the balance afterwards. This is an important matter. This is no child’s play.” The subtle and criminal part of Benjamin’s mind began to see that the affair would place his landlord and mortgagee in his power, and relieve him for evermore from financial pressure. To his peculiar conscience it was justifiable to overreach his grasping creditor, a right and proper thing to upset the shrewd Varnhagen’s plans: a thought of the proposed breach of the law, statutory and moral, did not occur to his mind.

“There may be some bother about the seals of the bags,” said the merchant, “but we’ll pray it may be rough, and in that case nothing is simpler—one bag at least can get lost, and the rest can have their seals damaged, and so on. You will go out at ten to-morrow night, and you will have pretty well till daylight to do the job. Do you understand?”

Benjamin had begun to reflect.

“Doesn’t it mean gaol if I’m caught?”

“Nonsense, man. How can you be caught? It’s I who take the risk. I am responsible for the delivery of the mails, and if anything goes wrong it’s I will have to suffer. You do your little bit, and I’ll see that you get off scot-free. Here’s my hand on it.”

The merchant held out his flabby hand, and Tresco took it.

“It’s a bargain?”

“It’s a bargain,” said Tresco.

Crookenden reached for his cheque book, and wrote out a cheque for fifty pounds.

“Take this cheque to the bank, and cash it.”

Tresco took the bit of signed paper, and looked at it.

“Fifty?” he remarked. “I said a hundred down.”

“You shall have the balance when you have done the work.”

“And I can do it how I like, where I like, and when I like between nightfall and dawn?”

“Exactly.”

“Then I think I can do it so that all the post office clerks in the country couldn’t bowl me out.”

But the merchant merely nodded in response to this braggadocio—he was already giving his mind to other matters.

Without another word the goldsmith left the office. He walked quickly along the street, regarding neither the garish shops nor the people he passed, and entered the doors of the Kangaroo Bank, where the Semitic clerk stood behind the counter.

“How will you take it?”

The words were sweet to Benjamin’s ear.

“Tens,” he said.

The bank-notes were handed to him, and he went home quickly.

The digger was sitting where Tresco had left him.

“There’s your money,” said the goldsmith, throwing the notes upon the table.

The digger counted them. “That’s only fifty,” he said.

“You shall have the balance in two days, but not an hour sooner,” replied Tresco. “In the meanwhile, you can git. I’m busy.”

Without more ceremony, he went into his workshop.

“Jake, I give you a holiday for three days,” he said. “Go and see your Aunt Maria, or your Uncle Sam, or whoever you like, but don’t let me see your ugly face for three solid days.”

The apprentice looked at his master open-mouthed.

The goldsmith went to the safe which stood in a corner of the shop, and took out some silver.

“Here’s money,” he said. “Take it. Don’t come back till next Friday. Make yourself scarce; d’you hear?”

“Right, boss. Anythin’ else?”

“Nothing. Go instanter.”

Jake vanished as if the fiend were after him, and Tresco seated himself at the bench.

Out of a drawer immediately above the leather apron of the bench he took the wax impression of something, and a square piece of brass.

“Fortune helps those who help themselves,” he muttered. “When the Post Office sent me their seals to repair, I made this impression. Now we will see if I can reproduce a duplicate which shall be a facsimile, line for line.”