by Lewis Hockley [Percy Longhurst].
Originally published in The Magnet Library (The Amalgamated Press, Ltd.) vol.1 #3 (29 Feb 1908).
The Plunge is Taken.
The scheme was a bold one—daring enough to have been conceived only in the brains of two young fellows of some considerable grit, intelligence, and resource, and who found themselves on their beam ends. And this about filled the bill for Robert and Frank.
Mr. Worritt had never informed them that they were exceptionally intelligent or resourceful; on the contrary, he had called them careless, lazy, and troublesome; but, then, Mr. Worritt had never been heard to speak a good word of anybody, so that neither Lomax nor his chum were at all depressed or unnerved by the knowledge of the low opinion their late employer had of them.
That they were on their beam ends was certain. Their pecuniary resources, as we have seen, were limited, for the necessities of life—that is, the cost of board and lodging—swallowed up so much of the meagre salary which Mr. Worritt had paid to them, that the opportunity for saving had never existed. With only a few shillings in the world, blessed with hearty appetites—to say nothing of Grip—dismissal from the solicitor's office was a very serious matter indeed. But it had not been discussed; and the business of the purse the terrier had found had been too absorbing for their minds to be given to any other matter; since they found themselves, each conscious of a curious feeling of relief, walking slowly up Little Buckingham Street.
But Lomax had contrived to do same thinking since leaving Mr. Percival—whose generosity had driven away, for the time being, all consideration of their immediate necessities—and if Dennis's remark as the pair stopped outside Simpson's was more or less of the nature of an inspiration, Robert's reply, guarded as it had been, was not. Still, he said no more on the subject, and not until next morning—when Dennis awakened to find his chum lying on his back, broad awoke and staring up at tho ceiling four feet away from him—was the matter again broached.
It was tho clock striking seven that bad awakened Dennis—the customary signal for their rising; since it had been one of Mr. Worrott's pleasing requirements that his junior clerks should be at tho office not later then eight-thirty. But now they ware no longer in Mr. Worritt's employ, and a slight postponement of getting up could hurt nobody.
Dennis was the first to speak.
"Bob," he said, "what are we going to do?"
"Get up, soon, and have breakfast; I shall be ready for mine in about an hour."
"I didn't mean that; I meant now that we've left old Worritt's. Or perhaps I ought to have said what are you going to do?"
Silence for a while, and then Lomax said:
"You've made up your mind, then? Are you going home to your people?"
Dennis flushed. He didn't know if the words were meant nastily, or not; though it was not like Bob to speak so.
"No," he said shortly.
"Neither am I."
A longer silence—so long that Dennis thought his pal had gone to sleep, and he sat up in his bed and looked across the intervening space at him, "Bob?" be called.
"Well?"
Frank dropped down again.
"You'll stay in London?" he said tentatively.
"Of course. So will you?"
"I don't think so; I shall enlist."
"What's that for?" Lomax's voice showed neither curiosity nor interest.
"Because, I—oh, because, well, I've got no money—I told you—and so I can't stop here after the end of this week, and I'm not going into an office again."
"But you have got some money!"
"Yes," Frank laughed shortly; "about twelve bob!"
"You don't owe anyone a fiver, do you?"
"Owe a fiver?" repeated Frank, in great surprise, "Of course not; don't owe sixpence!"
"Well, then."
"Well, what?"
"Why, you've still got that five-pound note of Percival's; you can't have spent it!"
"He didn't—"
"Now, see here, Frank,"—Bob Lomax sat up in bed and looked his chum squarely in the eyes. He was frowning, and spoke in a curt, decisive tone of voice, that left no doubt as to the meaning of all that be said. "Now look here, Frank, don't let us have any more of that silly nonsense! You know as well as I do that half of what Percival gave us last night is yours. For two pins I'd punch your head for daring to suggest anything to the contrary! You—"
"But I had nothing to do with the restoring of the purse to the American," objected Dennis, "it was—"
"Will you hold your tongue!" Lomax shouted fiercely. "Aren't we partners in this business? Aren't we going into it on the share and share alike principle? Don't we each bring about the same capital into the concern? Aren't we going to do equal shares of the work? Of course we are? Or, if you're not going to agree to it, and mean to back out, why, then, I've done with you for good. You can clear out, and go to Jericho. But I did think you were real jannock: true all through, and a pal to be proud of; perhaps I'm mistaken, but I didn't think so. And if you're going to do the straight thing, as I thought you were, why, then, we're going into this business, as I said before—share equally work, play, everything good, everything bad, divide the kicks as well as the ha'pence, and stick by one another through thick and thin! Now, then, what d'you say?"
There was a challenging note in the elder fellow's voice, though his apparent anger was more than half assumed. Leaning over the edge of his bed he looked at his chum, who leaned to him. Their arms were extended, their hands came together, and remained in a long, and close grip.
"I'm with you, Bob."
That was all Frank Dennis said, but it was not necessary to say more; the hand-grip, and the expression in his blue eye, were quite sufficient; they were partners.
Their hands unclasped, and Lomax stepped out of bed.
"The firm begins business this very day," he said solemnly. "Partners, Lomax and Dennis; capital, ten guineas or thereabouts, and a fine and new stock of brains, hope, and pluck; business, anything and everything in the detective line, anyhow and anywhere; profits, unlimited; place of business, that remains to be seen. Get up, you lazy beggar over there, and begin work! If you don't want your breakfast, I do!" Dennis burst into a loud peal of laughter as he jumped out of bed and commenced dressing.
"With whom and where are we going to do our business!"
"If business don't come to us, we'll go and find the business," Robert declared stoutly. "There's a demand for the sort of work that we're going to do, and we'll precious soon make people see that we're the ones they want to do our sort at work. We'll drink success to our firm, Lomax & Dennis, in a cup of coffee in a quarter of an hour's time. And we will get on, Frank, old boy; we will for certain. We've got more capital than many an American millionaire started life with; and we've health and strength, and youth and patience—not too much of that, but just enough—and before long Lomax & Dennis will be knocking all that Sherlock Holmes & Co. ever did into the most battered of cocked hats. Lomax & Dennis—Lomax & Dennis! My boy, Lomax &—"
"No, no," interrupted Frank Dennis; "not Lomax & Dennis—it's a mouthful that's too big to swallow! Lo—Lo—Max—Lo—den— Hurrah! I have it, Bob—I have it! We'll not be the firm of Lomax & Dennis, But Max—Max—Here it is—what d'you say to this?—'Maxennis, detective!'"
Silence followed the great shout with which the excited young fellow concluded his speech, and then Lomax walked across and seized his hand.
"Frank," he said impressively, "it's an inspiration—a work of real genius—that name! Maxennis—Maxennis! Why, when people see that name they'll just have to come to us! Maxennis! It's great—a masterpiece! Sherlock Holmes! Why, it might be just plain Jack Jones alongside ours! Lad, you've made our fortune! You—"
A rap at the door cut him short, and a shrill, none too good-tempered voice outside shouted:
"When are you gentlemen goin' to make yer breakfast? It's past eight o'clock, an' missis wants to know!"
"Jerusalem! We'll get no grub!" Dennis exclaimed. "All right, Annie; tell Mrs. Williams we'll be down in a couple of ticks; and, say, just see that we have a couple of pieces of hot, buttered toast apiece this morning!"
Never had the two newly-made and self-constituted partners enjoyed a breakfast more thoroughly than they did that morning. In the first place, they were their own masters, and taking tho meal at a time agreeable to themselves, and not determined by the requirements, or will of an employer. Moreover, they might take their time. As principals, their ideas of their own importance grew; they were somebody now, and somebody with a high-sounding name!
Mrs. Williams, viewed with alarm the depredations made upon her breakfast table; she had noted the alteration in the time of the meal, and the want of any anxiety of the two young men to leave the house; and, being a shrewd woman—one who had not been a lodging-house keeper for twenty-two years for nothing—she jumped to a rightful conclusion as to the cause of these alterations in the daily rule. Her lodgers wore out of work—got the sack, as she put it; such were always abnormally cheerful and hungry the first day of their enforced idleness. She knew the signs well and was not to be deceived.
She began to fear for her bill, being a prudent woman, and lost no time in ascertaining in what financial condition her lodgers were left. If they had no money they must go at the end of the week; that she should be paid up to then she would make certain. There was only another day. Perhaps it would be as well to find out to-day whether the bills would be met.
Bustling into the breakfast-room with a jug of water in her hand, she began to pour some of its contents into flower-pots holding sickly specimens of various kinds of plants, talking the while and keeping the tail of one eye on the faces of her two boarders.
"Not going into the City to-day, Mr. Lomax?" she said. "Taking a holiday, I suppose?"
Yes, Mrs. Williams; a holiday for both of us," Lomax responded, with a sober wink at his chum.
"Queer day of the week, isn't it, sir, Friday, to take a holiday?" the good lady continued.
"As good a day as any other, Mrs. Williams," was the cheerful, if irritatingly uninformative reply.
And Frank Dennis chipped in:
"We don't mind, Mrs. Williams, if Friday is supposed to be unlucky; we'll put up with it."
There was an impudently cheerful note in the young man's voice, aggressive, defiant almost, that convinced the landlady that her suspicions were well-founded.
"And I suppose you won't be going to business to-morrow, Mr. Lomax?" she went on, pointedly ignoring Dennis. Her voice was considerably less genial.
"Quite correct, Mrs. Williams; we shall not be going to the office to-morrow either," Lomax answered.
"And a very good job, too," put in Dennis, who had read the good lady's thoughts and couldn't resist the opportunity of playing to them.
Mrs. Williams bridled, suspended her watering operations, and drew herself up stiffly.
"And let me say, Mr. Dennis," she said severely, "that it's not a very good thing for two young men to hare lost their situations; and it's certainly not a matter for them to make jesting remarks about. I'm not sure how far removed it is from flying in the face of Providence for young men to act so that their employers aren't able to put up with their nonsense no longer, and felt thomselves, as it were, in duty bound to discharge them. Bread and cheese is not so easily got that a young man can afford to laugh and be merry because he has lost it; and, not being a deceitful woman, I make no secret that I'm downright sorry that a young man as I know should act in such fashion. It's very nice to have a holiday and all that, but it ought to be earned; and, as the Scriptures say, 'Pride goeth before a fall,' as perhaps you, Mr. Dennis, may find out one of these days. Not that I'm wishing anything dreadful may happen to you, far be it from me, it isn't in my nature to rejoice over tho misfortunes of others; but I do think you ain't showing a right and proper spirit—keeping yourself unrepentant, as I may say~in the face of what is no doubt a visitation from Heaven, sent to try you, or as a punishment for past sins, which, as everybody knows, we have all to answer for some day or other, and there's no getting away from it. And it's a more humble and contrite heart I wish to both you gentlemen, and you in particular, Mr. Dennis, and trust that you may see the seriousness of your faults, and be brought to repent of the errors of your ways, and the sooner the better. And the same, likewise, I may say in regard to the bill which I may remind you young gentlemen will be owing to mo to-morrow afternoon, and which I will take it as a favour if you will be able to pay.
It was with the greatest difficulty only that Frank Dennis could refrain from laughing or interrupting in some other fashion the formidable and overwhelming outburst of eloquence that his unfortunate remark had brought down upon his and his chum's devoted head. Only by making his teeth work overtime was he able to keep back the mirth that was consuming him.
But Lomax, with a grave and serious face, listened to the lengthy, and somewhat complicated reproval with the greatest attention. When want of breath brought the worthy matron to a standstill, her face flushed with honest indignation and righteous disapproval, he looked her squarely in the eyes.
"Is that all you have to say, Mes. Williams?' he asked, with a noticeable emphasis on the "all."
"I'm sure that I—that is—I have said—and it is quite right; young men oughtn't—" stammered the good lady, beginning to think that, after all, she might be mistaken.
"Precisely; but is that all? interrupted Bob.
"Why, yes!" was the sulky answer.
"Then please be good enough to let us have your bill--for both of us--up to and including breakfast this morning, and we shall be most happy to pay you."
There was a quiet decisiveness in Lomax's tones that made the landlady wish that she hadn't been so ready with her tongue. She had not meant to drive her lodgers away like this. They did not pay extravagantly, but still, they gave her a fair margin of profit, and she didn't want to lose it.