LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1904, 1 April 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A CONSERVATIVE PEOVIDENCE. [By Pendragon.] (Continued.) The next Jubblethorpe inherited his father's tastes and impulses. He believed in the power of cssh, and not only expected it from others, but paid it himself. The result was that his business flourished in a manner that would almost have compensated old Josiah for the loss of his three-'nd-six, could he bave revisited the site of his former stall. Improvement followed on improvement, and enlargement on enlargement, until the shop, which had been once but a stall, became an Emporium, and ultimately the retail business was dropped altogether. Larger and larger and larger grew the concern ; until branch establishments were opened in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds; and nine-tenths of the mechanics of Northampton and district were actually, if not directly, the employes of Josiah Jubblethorpe, third of that came so far as he knew, and a representative merchant prince who had a dozen times refused to be returned for Parliament.

" Business first and pleasure afterward," was the third Josiah'a motto, and accordingly he found little leisure for marriage until prottyjlate in life. Mrs J. wa3 of a wealthy manufacturing family, and her money was sank in the boot and shoe trade, wholesale, retail aad for exportation. They had only one child, who was also named Josiah ; and when the father, full of years and civic honors, was called away, the old gentleman died in peace because he knew he left the honor of the family and the prospecte of the firm in the beat possible hands. The young Josiah was indeed a man of bnsiness and was as fully impressed as his father had been with the necessity of making the name of jubblethorpe, as well as the boota and shoes of Jubblethorpe, famous throughout _ the whole of the boot-wearing world. Josiah's mother, who had an interest in the house, had died some time before, and left all she possessed to her darling son. So at the aijo of twenty-four, and just whtn the greatgrandson of the Duke of Doublefoot, then exactly of tho same age, took out a cabdriver's badge and licence, and went_ in search of work, the great grandson of Josiah Jubblethorpe, botcher of boots, entered on pjpsession of a house of the first mercantile magnitude in the first mercantile city of the first mercantile world, Ohaptbe IV, Josiah Jubblethorpe the fourth went on in life and prospered exceedingly. He dined sumptuously every day, and was clad in as much purple and fine linen as enter 3 into the economy of a gentleman's dress nowadays. W ithin a reasonable time after entering on the paternal property and becoming the head of the firm—becoming, in fact, the firm itßelf—ho, too, went forth and b ought home a wife ; and his wife, who was also a representative of a great mercantile family, and who brought her husband a considerable addition to his income, loved him much, and showed her love in the way we are told that ladies like to show it.

Josiah didn't have much to do with the business in the city personally. It was so well arranged, and had been going on so long, and all the clerks and managers were so well drilled and respectable, that there was nothing much left for him to do on the busiest day but draw his money and pat it safely away in the tank. Bo hadn't got to pnsh the fortnnes of his house up, like hxr. father had ; the houao was now so big that it wanted no pushing, but was able to go on of itself, and to turn in a great deal more money every year than its proprietcr could see his way to using offhand; and yet he lived in good style enough too. Despite this embarrassmeut of riches, he iiid not complain, and constantly and o»refully_ put iconey into the business whenever it developed fresh ramifications ; for, ae he said, thcro was no kniwing what tastes and inclinations; hia children might hwe_ as they grew up, nor how rvany of them might be a cut above earning their own living. A 8 he wasn't require! except on the rarest occasions in the city. Josiah gave his mind to agricultural pursuits, bought a compact estate in the country, with a park and paddock, Flizabetban mansion and rustic lodge, avenue, orchard, and pineries, all enclosed snugly iu a ring fence ; and between there and his town house in Belgravia managed to enjoy himself very much and see a surest deal of what he and his wife and the people with

whom they mixed called society. And very good society it was, and rioh too, but still of rather a second-hand kind, and based on the movements of the neighbors who —not, perhaps, half as rich as Josiah—were of the real exc'u ive upper crnst whose manners and customs are so extensively copied by folks with heaps of money bnt no originality. When Mr and Mrs Jnbblethorpe gave society a dinner, and had a few friends in the everjing as well, everything was done In exactly the style that is to be found in the mansions of the most exclusive of the aris tocracy, only there seemed to be rather more of it at the great shoe mercer's. He had a magnificent cook, and a gorgeous butler, and several flunkeys ; the dinner was well served and the wine excellent. The ladies, who generally wore a profusion of diamonds, were always taken down to dinner by specially selected male guest?, and seated in their specially appointed places, with as much ceremony as would have been Bhown at a royal reception. And as the halls were dazzlingly lit and spacious, and the gentlemen gorgeous in white ties, extra shirtfronts, diamond stnds, and importance, anyone entering suddenly might well have be • lieved it impossible to find better society than that gathered around Jubblethorpe's hopitable board. Had the inquiring guest been critical, however, the conversation would soon have deceived him. There was a little too much about the ciiy in it to p'ease the fastidious. The price of hides and tallow obtruded itself with rather too much frequency ; references to Brown who had burst or Smith who had just done a good thing In Egyptians, could hardly be called occasional. The literature of the polico report 3 and the stock and share market returns was the only literature discussed at Jubblethorpe's table or at the table of his congeners ; and thongh art was occasionally mentioned, it was only in connection with the high figures some successful painter was just then getting for his pictures. As for modest ability not yet recognised, or talent struggling with obscurity, that never came within their ken j all these people had to do was to wait for society to decide upon a certain fashion in art, and then, by means of purses almost as long as art itself, rash in and make the completest possible difference between the man who was simply clever and him who was successful. But for all this they wore a nice comfortable confraternity, and would have felt much surprised if told they did not represent the very highest tr.ne and the very newest fashion of the time. There was not one of them, no matter how much he was secretly pining for admittance into the seventh heaven of fashionable life, who did not profess to believe that the circle he moved in himself was the very best in the oivilieed world. Josiah become gradually more and more ambitious. I fancy it was his wife who urged him on. He had money and to spare, and looked like having still more in the fulness of time; but it was his duty to secure positions in society for his children, now fast growing up, and soon to require wives and husbands and separate establishments. So by the time he was forty-five Josiah found himself writing M.P. to his name; and a year or two after this, having successfully comp'eted a Government contract for supplying the aborigines of the Upper Nyanza with cork soles and leather hat-boxes, he appeared in the lit tor baronets which marked the gratitude of a retiring Conservative Administration. For Josiah Jnbblethorpe, Bart., M.P., had always been a consistent Conservative. Radicalism and Liberalism, he used to say, were all right for people who had neither pedigree nor stake in the country. As for him, he came of a good old stock, and he wasn't likely to desert a good old cause. This and the ever-recurring remark that there had once been a great difficulty between the head of his family and that of the Blunderpates, never properly healed up, gave him much consideration in his own circle, and once or twice got him invited to the houses of the greatfy great. He was gradually making his way to become a patrician of the truest blue and the most old and crusted blood in the country. He had been mentioned in a list of the noble families of England now taking to mercantile pursuits, published in an influential paper, and he had had many thousands copies printed and circulated for his own use and benefit. So I suppose I musn't say any longer that he wasn't a patron of or didn't understand literature. But through all this Sir Josiah never once forgot the secret transmitted to him by his father as to the wicked Duke and old Josiah, nor was his desire for revenge on the ducal family in the least bit subdued.

Chapter V.

In the meantime Charles Bloomfield, who took to cab-driving, gradually got from bad to worse. At first he simply indulged in drink and furious driving, and only injured, over-charged, and bullied his passengers; but presently he got married, and then his own troubles began. Gradually and gradually the recollection of his illustrious origin faded from his mind, and as his wife was the daughter of a companion cab driver, and was much of the cab-driving kind, he found forgetfalness » rather easy matter. Onco, when he was had up for over-charging a city gentleman, he told the magistrate that he was cf noble descent—that he was Becond cousin to a real duke—a statement which brought upon him a storm of reproaches as a gross perverter of the truth, and the possessor of an inventive faculty which would bring him sooner or later tD no good. For tha worthy magistrate, having never thought; the matter out, was, like a great many other good, comfortable, easy folk, slow to believe that in our mHst, among the very commonest cf common people, are to be found by the score the immediate legitimate descendants of the holders cf illustrious titles. Once afterwards, when. Bloorafield was brought up charged with being drunk and incapable, the worthy magistrate remembered him, called him Mr Duka, and made a small joke about drink being an aristocratic privilege, which was reported in the next day's paper with the word "(laughter)" attached. Through this, and one or two other little peculiarities of his, he got to be called Rnke by the other cabmen, an4_ by stablo helps, barmen, potboys, and policemen, the fair average extent of a cabman's list of acquaintances, At times, when he got an extra drop and became excessively maudlin, he would inform anyone svho cared to listen that he was cousin only ence removed to the Duke of Doublefoot; but, as a rule, he never thought about it, and when he did, found he had ceased to C&ro. And every day brought him more and more and nearer and nearer to the rank avid talent of a common cabman. But he never forgot the only principles instilled in his miud_ by the deceased aristocrat his father, that it is the duty of every man who is a man to be Conservative to the backbone. And*BO, at his commonest Bloomfield was always a Btaunch Conservative. He didn't exactly know what the word meant, but what did thit matter ? Who will dare say ho was worse than a lot of others who constantly dub themselves by the same title 1 BloomPeld, too, had a family growing up, or tumbling up, or being dragged up, as the reader may prefer to believe or to express it. Mrs Bloomfield had no particular notions of gentility. She thought them all so mrch bo3h, and only asked for plenty to eat and drink for herself and youngsters, with an occasional change of garments. She wasn't very intellectual, and as she had managed to get along without reading, writing, or suchlike nonsense, she didn't see much good in letting her children learn. And the children were quite agreeable to go without, as they did—all except one, who early showed a moat unaccountable fondness for books, and who nearly worried hia poor mother to death by insistiug on going to school, a proceeding which often compelled her to give up her day's beer money, and caused her much trouble in the way of clean pinafores and respectable boots, with which the others, who scrambled about the mews all day long, were contest to go without. Little Johnny, d 'spite the sneers of his relatives, attended suhool regularly, and made much progress When he was fourteen, his master got him r. position .is junior clerk in the great housDof Jubblethorpe, and a 3 he bad to sleep indoors, and give himself up to the business altogether, he took a long farewell of his affectionate family. His father was very much the worsa for liquor at tie time, and his mother gs.ve him blessings enough for the two. By the way, she was always called Mrs Duke by the people in the mews, and I think she had forgotten her hcsband'3 real name. She never referred to it, the boy had always been called John Duke at school, and 1 it wes as John Puke ho entered upon hir; < duties in the most junior popition among the %mior clerks of the house of Jcbblethorpe. fo be continued.)