BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume

wonder.

      ‘Because,’ explained Calton, gravely, ‘society goes mainly by tradition, and our grandmothers having laughed at Sydney Smith’s jokes, they must necessarily be amusing. Depend upon it, jokes can be sanctified by time quite as much as creeds.’

      ‘They are more amusing, at all events,’ said Madame, satirically. ‘Creeds generally cause quarrels.’

      Vandeloup shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘And quarrels generally cause stories,’ he said, smiling; ‘it is the law of compensation.’

      They then went to the drawing-room and Kitty and Vandeloup both sang, and treated one another in a delightfully polite way. Madame Midas and Calton were both clever, but how much cleverer were the two young people at the piano.

      ‘Are you going to Meddlechip’s ball?’ said Calton to Madame.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she answered, nodding her head, ‘I and Miss Marchurst are both going.’

      ‘Who is Mr Meddlechip?’ asked Kitty, swinging round on the piano-stool.

      ‘He is the most charitable man in Melbourne,’ said Gaston, with a faint sneer.

      ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians,’ said Calton, mockingly. ‘Because Mr Meddlechip suffers from too much money, and has to get rid of it to prevent himself being crushed like Tarpeia by the Sabine shields, he is called charitable.’

      ‘He does good, though, doesn’t he?’ asked Madame.

      ‘See advertisement,’ scoffed Calton. ‘Oh, yes! he will give thousands of pounds for any public object, but private charity is a waste of money in his eyes.’

      ‘You are very hard on him,’ said Madame Midas, with a laugh.

      ‘Ah! Mr Calton believes as I do,’ cried Vandeloup, ‘that it’s no good having friends unless you’re privileged to abuse them.’

      ‘It’s one you take full advantage of, then,’ observed Kitty, saucily.

      ‘I always take what I can get,’ he returned, mockingly; whereon she shivered, and Calton saw it.

      ‘Ah!’ said that astute reader of character to himself, ‘there’s something between those two. ‘Gad! I’ll cross-examine my French friend.’

      They said good-night to the ladies, and walked to the St Kilda station, from thence took the train to town, and Calton put into force his cross-examination. He might as well have tried his artful questions on a rock as on Vandeloup, for that clever young gentleman saw through the barrister at once, and baffled him at every turn with his epigrammatic answers and consummate coolness.

      ‘I confess,’ said Calton, when they said good-night to one another, ‘I confess you puzzle me.’

      ‘Language,’ observed M. Vandeloup, with a smile, ‘was given to us to conceal our thoughts. Good night!’

      And they parted.

      ‘The comedy is over for the night,’ thought Gaston as he walked along, ‘and it was so true to nature that the spectators never thought it was art.’

      He was wrong, for Calton did.

      Chapter IX.

       A Professional Philanthropist

       Table of Contents

      We have professional diners-out, professional beauties, professional Christians, then why not professional philanthropists? This brilliant century of ours has nothing to do with the word charity, as it savours too much of stealthy benevolence, so it has substituted in its place the long word philanthropy, which is much more genteel and comprehensive. Charity, the meekest of the Christian graces, has been long since dethroned, and her place is taken by the blatant braggard Philanthropy, who does his good deeds in a most ostentatious manner, and loudly invites the world to see his generosity, and praise him for it. Charity, modestly hooded, went into the houses of the poor, and tendered her gifts with smiles. Philanthropy now builds almshouses and hospitals, and rails at poverty if it has too much pride to occupy them. And what indeed, has poverty to do with pride?—it’s far too sumptuous and expensive an article, and can only be possessed by the rich, who can afford to wear it because it is paid for. Mr Meddlechip was rich, so he bought a large stock of pride, and wore it everywhere. It was not personal pride—he was not good-looking; it was not family pride—he never had a grandfather; nor was it pecuniary pride—he had too much money for that. But it was a mean, sneaking, insinuating pride that wrapped him round like a cloak, and pretended to be very humble, and only holding its money in trust for the poor. The poor ye have always with you—did not Mr Meddlechip know it? Ask the old men and women in the almshouses, and they would answer yes; but ask the squalid inhabitants of the slums, and they would probably say, ‘Meddlechip, ‘o’s ‘e?’ Not that the great Ebenezer Meddlechip was unknown—oh, dear, no—he was a representative colonial; he sat in Parliament, and frequently spoke at those enlarged vestry meetings about the prosperity of the country. He laid foundation stones. He took the chair at public meetings. In fact, he had his finger in every public pie likely to bring him into notoriety; but not in private pies, oh, dear, no; he never did good by stealth and blush to find it fame. Any blushes he might have had would have been angry ones at his good deed not being known.

      He had come in the early days of the colony, and made a lot of money, being a shrewd man, and one who took advantage of every tide in the affairs of men. He was honest, that is honest as our present elastic acceptation of the word goes—and when he had accumulated a fortune he set to work to buy a few things. He bought a grand house at Toorak, then he bought a wife to do the honours of the grand house, and when his domestic affairs were quite settled, he bought popularity, which is about the cheapest thing anyone can buy. When the Society for the Supplying of Aborigines with White Waistcoats was started he headed the list with one thousand pounds—bravo, Meddlechip! The Secretary of the Band of Hard-up Matrons asked him for fifty pounds, and got five hundred—generous Meddlechip! And at the meeting of the Society for the Suppression of Vice among Married Men he gave two thousand pounds, and made a speech on the occasion, which made all the married men present tremble lest their sins should find them out—noble Meddlechip! He would give thousands away in public charity, have it well advertised in the newspapers, and then wonder, with humility, how the information got there; and he would give a poor woman in charge for asking for a penny, on the ground that she was a vagrant. Here, indeed, was a man for Victoria to be proud of; put up a statue to him in the centre of the city; let all the school children study a list of his noble actions as lessons; let the public at large grovel before him, and lick the dust of his benevolent shoes, for he is a professional philanthropist.

      Mrs Meddlechip, large, florid, and loud-voiced, was equally as well known as her husband, but in a different way. He posed as benevolence, she was the type of all that’s fashionable—that is, she knew everyone; gave large parties, went out to balls, theatres, and lawn tennis, and dressed in the very latest style, whether it suited her or not. She had been born and brought up in the colonies, but when her husband went to London as a representative colonial she went also, and stayed there a whole year, after which she came out to her native land and ran everything down in the most merciless manner. They did not do this in England—oh! dear no! nothing so common—the people in Melbourne had such dreadfully vulgar manners; but then, of course, they are not English; there was no aristocracy; even the dogs and horses were different; they had not the stamp of centuries of birth and breeding on them. In fact, to hear Mrs Meddlechip talk one would think that England was a perfect aristocratic paradise, and Victoria a vulgar—other place. She totally ignored the marvellously rapid growth of the country, and that the men and women in it were actually the men and women who had built it up year by year, so that even now it was taking its place among the nations of the earth. But Mrs Meddlechip was far too ladylike and fashionable for troubling about such things—oh dear, no—she left all these dry facts to Ebenezer, who could speak about