SIXTY PER CENT.

Observer, Volume II, Issue 40, 18 June 1881, Page 436

S I XTY PER CENT.

A Story, in Two Pakts. PART I. AIJEL Jowxdice was the younger son of a self-made banker — a somewhat trying position for any young man to occupy. The younger son of a Peer, even if poor, holds a social rank which gives him a passport to well-paid appointments. He need never want. He need not even be of particularly good Ijehaviour to obtain promotion quicker than other men, in whatever profession he may enter. But the younger son of a not too wealthy though ambitious financier, such as old Mr. Jowndice was, labours wilder the disadvantage of being brought up in a more luxurious and aristocratic fashion than his \irospects justify. Abel was the iifth son of the banker, and was sent to Eton, then to Oxford ; but his father was amassing all his money for the sake of his eldest son, Browne Jowndice, as Abel and all his brothers and sisters very early ascertained. It was Browne who was to have the beautiful new-bought estate of Brownefield (christened after him), the grand mansion in Belgravesquare, the diamonds which old Jowndice had purchased, and which lie already called the family diamonds, because he had entailed them. In fact, Browne was to have everything except £40,000 which the banker intended, somewhat reluctantly, to bequeath to his widow, with, remainder to his five daughters if they should remain unmarried — but Old Jowndice devoutly trusted they would not. As to the four younger sons, they had nothing better to look forward to than clerkships in City offices, with £2,000 apiece to give them a start in life when they came of age. Old Jowndice, however, had sent all his sons to Eton or Harrow, Oxford or Cambridge, because he desired that Browne should not have to blush for any of his biothers by-and-by. He would have put them all into crack regiments, the diplomatic service, and the Church, on the same principle, if lie could have afforded it ; but he really could not. He was too shrewd a man to do things by halves. If he had bought

his second son, Noah, a commission in the Life Guards, as that youth had suggested, he would have been obliged to allow him £1,500 a year, besides being ready to pay £10,000 of debts in the course of live years. This was altogether out of the question. Mowiter, the third son, had some disposition towards public speaking, having distinguished himself in that line at the Cambridge Union ; but it lie went to the Bar, he must have, according to his father's prudent reckoning, handsome chambers in the Temple and £600 a year, besides allowances for circuit expenses and inevitable debts. Jedediah, or Jed, the fourth son wanted to become a hussar; but his father luckily got an opportunity of sending him into the Church cheaply, and availed liimself of it. For £4,000 down he bought him the next presentation to a living which adjoined the Brownefield estate, and was worth £700 a year. "It will look well," said he to the disgusted Jed, "for Browne to have a parson of his own family. Try as soon as you can to make a rich marriage, and Browne will be proud of you. Browne himself mustn't marry till we're at the top of the tree — that is, till lie and I are both in Parliament." So it was always Browne, Browne and nothing but Browne. Old Jowndice lived in great •splendour, because of his heir ; he gave grand parties, subscribed royally to all county institutions, and tried to make men believe that it was Browne who was the master-spirit of the thriving hanking firm of Jowndice, Dottangoe & Jowndice. But it was the old man himself who did all the toiling and moiling of the bank, for Dottangoe was no more than an upper clerk who kept the books ; while Browne, the paragon Browne, did nothing at all but read poetry and practice sacred music for a City church, whose organist was a friend of his. He was a mild, | gentlemanlike young man, who would gladly have changed places with his parson brother Jed ; but he had not much will of his own, and never thwarted his father's proceedings any more than his father thwarted his. Therefore old Jowndice loved him with his whole heart. A time came when Noah (the disappointed Life-guardsman) entered a tea-broker's office, whence he was in due time shipped to China, while poor Mowther, so fluent of speech, became clerk iti an indigo liou.se, and went out to India, where his eloquence could not be of much use to him. At that period Abel was still at Eton, and his father kept saying to him, when he was home for the holidays, " Now, Abel, boy, we'll find an opening for you when you leave college, and by-and-by, when Browne becomes head of the family, he'll be able to give you a lift. Make the most of your time at Eton ; pick up friends, and don't get into debt, for I've no money to j^ive you." The boy listened to these things with a serious face ; but one day he said, " Father, would you advise me to stick to drybobhing or wet-bobbing ?" "What's dry-bobbing and wet-bobbing?" asked the banker, staring. " Why, cricketing and boating. Should you like me to get into the eleven or the eight :'" •' I don't know. Browne wasn't in the eleven or the eight, so 1 don't see why you should be." "And supposing I won the Newcastle Scholarship ?" " H'm ! win it, if you like; but you had better ask Browne about those matters, he knows all about them, and you must do as he advises." So if Browne had been jealous of his youngest brother's possible prowesses in the Held, on the river, or in the .schoolroom, and had dashed his boyish ambition with surly cold water, the lad must have submitted, or displeased his father. It is a mistake to suppose that boys do not measure the characters of their fathers with an attentive eye. Abel Jowndice saw that his father's ambition in his firstborn Browne was an all-absorbing passion, which had spread contagiously to his mother and sister also. .Mrs. Jowndice loved all her sons, of course, and the girls were fond of their brothers ; but Browne's mess of affection and duty was, like Benjamin's, larger than all the others'. As soon as Abel had noticed this, when his mind had become well imbued with the fact, he closed up his heart as with a lock. He wanted his full share of love or none at all. Feeling lonely and friendless, he became self-reliant, and brooded daily and nightly how he might shift for himself, and become from the last of his family the first. He did not dislike Browne, but blotted him out as it were from his calculations. Browne might go his own way ; he, Abel, would go his. Tins resolve was taken in that implacable spirit which sets the seal on a boy's nature for life. Abel Jowndice was a common-place looking lad, with nothing remarkable in him, except a cautious glance in his eyes and a firm expression at the corners of his mouth. He dressed neatly and was liberal with his money, but gave himself no airs and had no enemies. He was not brilliant, but when he undertook anything, he tugged at the task with the vigour of a young cart-horse. He did not rush at things with the do-or-die pluck of a steeple chasing colt, like some of his schoolfellows ; but then it was not his purpose to die, but to do, and if he failed, to try again. Mostly, he did fail. Having devoted himself to " dry -bobbing, " he became by dint of wondrous exertions a fair cricketer, so that one year when the eleven was to be made up, the choice for the eleventh place lay between him and a Lord Belbury, who boarded at the same tutor's as he did. The choice, of course, fell upon Belbury, simply because he was a Lord — as Abel imagined, possibly with truth. The boy's lips became set tighter ; and lie harnessed himself to his books in order to try for the N^ycastlc Scholarship next spring. He got the third place, and by an unusual hazard, the second — a Medallist's place— was "iven that year to an Honourable Mr. Somebody. Nothing could prevent Abel from saying to himself that Somebody had been preferred to him owing to the said somebody being a Peer's son, which in this case was absurd. But the boy left Eton with the conviction, most dangerous in a boy's mind, that all the good things in life belong to thoes who could do without them, to those who are high-born and wealthy. He was to <k> to Christ Clnirch in October, and spend his long vacation amid the splendours of Brownefield. His father was kind to him, and gave him £50 one day for pocket money on

the strength of his just having netted £100,000 on a lucky speculation in a foreign loan, which sum was, of course, to go to increase Browne's? pile. Then, faithful to his maxim of doing: things in style so long as it was necessary, the old man added : — ' ' I'll allow you £500 a-year while yo\i are at Christ Church, hut when you have taken your degree, not a penny beyond your portion of £2,000. This will serve to start yoii as Peruvian agent to a new guano house in which Browne has an interest. You'll find Lima a nice place to live in." "I'll never go to Lima as any man's agent,'* was Abel's muttered reflection ; but now that ! lie was within measureable' distance of getting £2,000, he began to wonder how he could make it fructify. At Christ Church Abel did not devote himself to athletic sports, and he read no more than was necessary to take him through his examinations with a pass. His Eton experiences had cured him of trying for honours of any kind, and he remarked that his tutor took no particular interest in him, "because I'm nodody, I suppose," thought the lad, bitterly, though he would have been nearer the truth had lie guessed that his tutor discerned no signs of promise in him as a class-man. For a while Abel did nothing but moon about Oxford, without any fixed occupation or set of friends. The set of "tufts" in Canterbury Quad — among whom were some old schoolfellows of his — Lords Belbury, Borromore, Rafiel field — were too rich and dissipated for him ; and in the other sets — the boating, cricketing, evangelistic, ritualists, &c. — hetook no special interest. He was always thinking of his £2000, without being able to determine what he should do with it ; but one day a chance settled his vocation. He Avas invited to a wine at Lord Belbury's, and after a great deal of liquor had been drunk, unlimited 100 commenced. Abel Avas the only undergraduate who kept a clear head, and he won £100. The next day Lord Belbury came to him with a bad headache, and bogged to borrow this money. He was "hard hit," and wanted cash. Would Jowndice buy -of him for a £100 a hunter worth at least £150. " He's too big for me, but you might sell him to your bi other, who's a hunting man, isn't he? I can get another out of my governor's stables. Lord Belbury did not know the value of the animal he was selling ; it was a gift from one of his married sisters. Three days after Able had effected the purchase, an Oxfordshire si i u ire saw the hor»e in Pollit's stables, and offered him 300 geineas for it, which otter Avas accepted. "That's not bad for a first stroke of business," reflected Old Jowndice's fifth son. Not very long afterwards Lord Borromore turned up with a request for a loan. "You banker's sons have always got money, Jowney,"" he remarked, with a laugh. "Egad, it seemsto stick to your pockets, whilst it melts in ours. Look here, I want £200 awfully bad ; but I can't borrow of you, as I don't know when the deuce I can pay. Besides, I gave my word to my dad that I Avouldn't sign any paper. See though, here's a ring that's been a long time in our family. I don't like to paAvn it, for all those pawnshop fellows are thieves, who'd say it Avas worthless because it's old, and would stick it up in their shop windows afterwards.. But I don't mind selling it to you for t>vo hundred ; it's and old yellow diamond Avortli every penny of that." Abel made a most gentlemanlike pretence of being most happy to advance the money without accepting the ring; but the generous Lord Borromore -would not hear of that, and having' got his cheque, rushed out, leaving the ring on the table. The same night, too, lie repeated in his cups that Jowney was "a devilish kind and obliging fellow.' 1 The ring turned out to be worth six hundred guineas at least ; and that was the sum that Abel Jowndice got for it, before the end of Term, from the tout of a West-end jeAveller, who used to come down to Oxford to palm oft* worthless trinkets at long prices and at longcredit on soft-pated undergraduates. One afternoon this Avorthy, freighted with a carpetbag, knocked at Abel's "oak," and introduced himself as "Mr Swinney, from the Messrs Gehazi's. I was once a clerk in your father's bank, Mr Jowndice, sir. Your brothers, Mr, Browne and Mr Jedediah, honoured me with their potronage while they Avere at Oxford. I am much indebted to them, sir, and if I can be of any assistance to you — " "This is a pretty ring, isn't it?" said Abel, holding out his diamond ring in a careless way. " Why, Mr Jowndice, it's the famous Borro* more yellow diamond !" exclaimed the obse* quious rogue, in a tone of wonder. "It's worth , hern — but I don't suppose you want to sell it, sir ? Is it yours ?" " How much ?" asked Abel Jowndice. " Four hundred, sir; Aye couldn't giA r e more. You see these old yellow diamonds — " " I want six hundred guineas, not pounds," interrupted Abel. He had heard somewhere that pawnbrokers generally lend a third of the value of a pledge ; and, as he had paid £200 for the ring, he Avas minded to get £600 for it, or more if he could. Mr SAvinney, of course, held out for a time, declaring that there Avas a flaw in the ring, and so forth ; but at last he surrendered in these terms: — "Well, Mr Jowndice, sir, IVe no doubt Mr Gehazi Avill give six hundred guineas to oblige you ; btit if Aye do business together, sir, I hope you Avon't mind helping me a little. You could* get much jewellery sold by recommending me to your friends ; and if you wouldn't mind accepting a commission for your trouble." " I'll do my best for you," said Able ; but, by-the-bye, I want that ring sold out of England." The ring Avas sold shortly afterwards to a Russian Princess, avlio gave goodness knoAvs what for it. Meanwhile, though still in a static piqnllari, Able Jowndice had found his profession. He Avas going to be a money-lender, and conquer society by getting its spendthrift " members in his poAver. By the time he left Oxford he was noted as "a deuced pleasant fellow, who would always empty his purse for you, or find someone to I help you with a loan if he Avas hard up himself." (To be continued.)