All Sorts and Conditions of Men. Walter Besant

While she played Harry sat beside the piano, still wondering on the same theme. She, a Stepney dressmaker! Who, in this region, could have taught her that touch? She "wistful to establish herself in a genteel way of business"? Was art, then, permeating downward so rapidly? Were the people just above the masses, the second or third stratum of the social pyramid, taught music, and in such a style? Then he left off wondering, and fell to the blissful contemplation of a beautiful woman playing beautiful music. This is an occupation always delightful to young Englishmen, and it does equal credit to their heads and to their hearts that they never tire of so harmless an amusement. When she finished playing, everybody descended to earth, so to speak.

      The noble pair remembered that their work was still before them—all to do: one of them thought, with a pang, about the drawing of the case, and wished he had not gone to sleep in the morning.

      The clerk in the brewery awoke to the recollection of his thirty shillings a week, and reflected that the weather was such as to necessitate a pair of boots which had soles.

      The learned Daniel Fagg bethought him once more of his poverty and the increasing difficulty of getting subscribers, and the undisguised contempt with which the head of the Egyptian department had that morning received him.

      Mr. Maliphant left off laughing, and shook his puckered old face with a little astonishment that he had been so moved.

      Said the professor, breaking the silence:

      "I like the music to go on, so long as no patter is wanted. They listen to music if it's lively, and it prevents 'em from looking round and getting suspicious. You haven't got an egg upon you, Mrs. Bormalack, have you? Dear me, one in your lap! Actually in a lady's lap! A common egg, one of our 'selected,' at tenpence the dozen. Ah! In your lap, too! How very injudicious! You might have dropped it, and broken it. Perhaps, miss, you wouldn't mind obliging once more with 'Tommy, make room for your uncle' or 'Over the garden wall,' if you please."

      Miss Kennedy did not know either of these airs, but she laughed and said she would play something lively, while the professor went on with his trick. First, he drew all eyes to meet his own like a fascinating constrictor, and then he began to "palm" the egg in the most surprising manner. After many adventures it was ultimately found in Daniel Fagg's pocket. Then the professor smiled, bowed, and spread out his hands as if to show the purity and honesty of his conjuring.

      "You play very well," said Harry to Miss Kennedy, when the conjuring was over and the professor returned to his chair and his nightly occupation with a pencil, a piece of paper, and a book.

      "Can you play?"

      "I fiddle a little. If you will allow me, we will try some evening a duet together."

      "I did not know——" she began, but checked herself. "I did not expect to find a violinist here."

      "A good many people of my class play," said Harry, mendaciously, because the English workman is the least musical of men.

      "Few of mine," she returned, rising, and closing the piano, "have the chance of learning. But I have had opportunities."

      She looked at her watch, and remarked that it was nearly ten o'clock, and that she was going to bed.

      "I have spoken to Mr. Bunker about what you want, Miss Kennedy," said the landlady. "He will be here to-morrow morning about ten on his rounds."

      "Who is Mr. Bunker?" asked Angela.

      They all seemed surprised. Had she never, in whatever part of the world she had lived, heard of Mr. Bunker—Bunker the Great?

      "He used to be a sort of factotum to old Mr. Messenger," said Mrs. Bormalack. "His death was a sad blow to Mr. Bunker. He's a general agent by trade, and he deals in coal, and he's a house agent, and he knows everybody round Stepney and up to the Mile End Road as far as Bow. He's saved money, too, Miss Kennedy, and is greatly respected."

      "He ought to be," said Harry; "not only because he was so much with Mr. Messenger, whose name is revered for the kindred associations of beer and property, but also because he is my uncle—he ought to be respected."

      "Your uncle?"

      "My own—so near, and yet so dear—my uncle Bunker. To be connected with Messenger, Marsden & Company, even indirectly through such an uncle, is in itself a distinction. You will learn to know him, and you will learn to esteem him, Miss Kennedy. You will esteem him all the more if you are interested in beer."

      Miss Kennedy blushed.

      "Bunker is great in the company. I believe he used to consider himself a kind of a partner while the old man lived. He knows all about the big brewery. As for that, everybody does round Stepney Green."

      "The company," said Josephus gloomily, "is nothing but a chit of a girl." He sighed, thinking how much went to her and how little came to himself.

      "We are steeped in beer," Harry went on. "Our conversation turns for ever on beer; we live for beer; the houses round us are filled with the company's servants; we live by beer. For example, Mrs. Bormalack's late husband——"

      "He was a collector for the company," said the landlady, with natural pride.

      "You see, Miss Kennedy, what a responsible and exalted position was held by Mr. Bormalack." (The widow thought that sometimes it was hard to know whether this sprightly young man was laughing at people or not, but it certainly was a very high position, and most respectable.) "He went round the houses," Harry went on. "Houses, here, mean public-houses; the company owns half the public-houses in the East End. Then here is my cousin, the genial Josephus. Hold up your head, Josephus. He, for his part, is a clerk in the house."

      Josephus groaned. "A junior clerk," he murmured.

      "The professor is not allowed in the brewery. He might conjure among the vats, and vats have never been able to take a practical joke; but he amuses the brewery people. As for Mr. Maliphant, he carves figure-heads for the ships which carry away the brewery beer; and perhaps when the brewery wants cabinets made they will come to me."

      "It is the biggest brewery in all England," said the landlady. "I can never remember—because my memory is like a sieve—how much beer they brew every year; but somebody once made a calculation about it, compared with Niagara Falls, which even Mr. Bunker said was surprising."

      "Think, Miss Kennedy," said Harry, "of an Entire Niagara of Messenger's Entire."

      "But how can this Mr. Bunker be of use to me?" asked the young lady.

      "Why!" said Mrs. Bormalack. "There is not a shop or a street nor any kind of place within miles Mr. Bunker doesn't know, who they are that live there, how they make their living, what the rent is, and everything. That's what made him so useful to old Mr. Messenger."

      Miss Kennedy for some reason changed color. Then she said that she thought she would like to see Mr. Bunker.

      When she was gone Harry sat down beside his lordship and proceeded to smoke tobacco in silence, refusing the proffered decanters.

      Said the professor softly:

      "She'd be a fortune—a gem of the first water—upon the boards. As pianoforte-player between the feats of magic, marvel, and mystery, or a medium under the magnetic influence of the operator, or a clairvoyant, or a thought-reader—or——" Here he relapsed into silence without a sigh.

      "She looks intelligent," said Daniel Fagg. "When she hears about my discovery she will——" Here he caught the eye of Harry Goslett, who was shaking a finger of warning, which he rightly interpreted to mean that dressmakers must not be asked to subscribe to learned books. This abashed him.

      "Considered as a figure-head," began Mr. Maliphant, "I remember——"

      "As a dressmaker, now——" interrupted Harry. "Do Stepney dressmakers often play the piano like—well, like Miss Kennedy? Do they wear gold watches? Do they talk and move and act so much like real ladies, that no one could tell the difference? Answer me that, Mrs. Bormalack."