Toilers of Babylon: A Novel

CHAPTER IV

On the evening of the following day Kingsley arrived at his father's house in London. It was situated in the centre of fashion, and had been built by the rich contractor himself upon part of a freehold which he had purchased upon terms so advantageous that, as he was in the habit of boasting, his own mansion "stood him in next to nothing," occasionally adding that he could find a purchaser for it at a day's notice for seventy-five thousand pounds. He was fond of dealing in large sums even in figures of speech, and he was to some extent justified in this habit by the circumstances of his career.

It was a wonderful career, commencing with nothing and marching into millions. A poor boy, doubly orphaned and thrown upon the world before he could stand upright, without a friend, without a penny, without shoes to his feet, he had grown somehow into a sturdy manhood, and when he was twenty years of age he stood six feet two in his stockings, and could fell an ox with his fist. Therefore, even at that humble period in his career, he was renowned among his fellows, and held a distinguished position. No man could equal him in strength; many tried and were laid low; giants travelled from afar to try conclusions with Val Manners, and all met with the same fate. Had he cared he might have developed into the greatest prizefighter the world had ever known, and have worn diamonded belts and jewelled stars, and become as a king among men. Newspapers would have heralded his doings in large type; he could have travelled in state like an ambassador; he might have exhibited himself and earned a princely income; the aristocracy would have patted his broad back, and titled ladies would have cast admiring glances at him. For this is the age of muscle as well as intellect, and a bully may take rank with Homer.

But Val Manners was not a bully, and his tastes were not for the prize-ring. He was proud of his great strength, because it gave him the mastery, and he used it upon needed occasions to maintain his position; but he did not love fighting for fighting's sake. In his early life he knew that he had biceps of steel and a constitution which defied wind and weather; but he did not know that he had a subtle brain and a talent for administration which were to lead him to eminence and enormous wealth. This knowledge dawned upon him afterwards, when he began to make successes, when he began to gauge men and understand them.

He commenced life as a bricklayer, and even as a boy his strength and fearlessness were quoted, and he found himself in demand. He did not seem to know what fear was; he could climb the shakiest and tallest of ladders, carrying wonderful weights; he could stand upon dizzy heights and look smilingly down. His possession of these qualities caused him to be selected for dangerous tasks, and he was never known to shrink from one, however perilous. All this time he earned barely sufficient to appease his enormous appetite. He received no education, but he had a native gift of figures. It was not till he reached his third decade that he could read and write. Long before that, however, his arithmetical talents had laid the foundation of his fortune. It was a fortune made partly out of stone and metal, but chiefly out of other men's labor.

Chance threw into his way a small contract. A retired pawnbroker wanted a house built in North Islington, and was not satisfied with the estimates he received from established firms. "It ought to be done for seven and a half per cent. less," said he, and he called Val Manners to his aid, having had occasion to observe the calm and skilful manner in which the young artisan went about his work. "He does the work of two men," said the pawnbroker, "and is probably paid for the work of one." He ascertained, upon inquiry, that this was the case; Val Manners, working so many hours a day, was paid so much a week. It was not that, out of boastfulness, he desired to do more work in a given time than comrades less strong and capable than himself, it was simply that he did his work honestly without regard to comparisons. The pawnbroker discovered in his first interview with Val Manners that the huge, common-looking man had a head for figures. He put the matter of his house before Val Manners, and asked him to prepare an estimate. The result was that Val Manners threw up his situation, and became a master builder in a small way; the result also was that the pawnbroker got his house built for twelve per cent, less than the lowest of the estimates submitted to him by old-established firms.

In this first operation the brain power of Val Manners made itself manifest. He worked himself, of course, and thereby saved one man's labor; this went into his own pocket. Indeed, being stirred and excited by this higher flight into life's struggles, he worked harder than had been his usual habit, and may be said to have done the work of at least two men and a half in the building of the pawnbroker's house; and this extra money also went into his pocket. Then, again, in the selection of men but of work who applied to be taken on, he chose the strongest, and, being always on the spot, saw that he was not cheated out of a quarter of an hour by one and ten minutes by another. Thus, when the contract was finished, he was a great many days to the good, and he found that he was richer by sixty pounds than he would have been had he continued to be a servant. This set him thinking.

The pawnbroker was so satisfied with the bargain that he proposed the building of a row of houses in a poor locality. Val Manners was ready and glad, and pursued the same tactics as before, and worked harder than ever. The second contract being finished to everybody's satisfaction, Val Manners reckoned up his gains. He was master of a capital of three hundred pounds.

From this point his career was a succession of triumphs, until his capital amounted to a hundred thousand pounds. It was wonderful how his money accumulated; it grew while he slept, for he often had relays of men working for him by night as well as by day. He was a hard taskmaster, perfectly just in his dealings, keeping to his word and his engagements with unerring fidelity, but exacting from those in his employ an absolute faithfulness, the least infringement of which meant instant dismissal. It was no longer Val Manners, but Mr. Manners, the great Mr. Manners, who had plumped into the very richest part of a Tom Tiddler's ground open to every enterprising man, and picked and pocketed the plums growing therein. He did not allow himself to become bewildered by his success, but pursued his way calmly and masterfully as regarded his own undertakings, and with a vigilant watchfulness which frequently turned a probable loss into a certain profit. He undertook no more small contracts; all his business dealings were now on a vast scale, and no project was too stupendous for him to grapple with. It was not England alone that supplied his master mind with material to expend its energies upon; he sought abroad for contracts, and laid railways in deserts, built huge bridges touching the clouds, and made wonderful waterways for facilities of commerce. He became world-renowned, and the name of Manners, the great contractor, was a passport in every part of the globe.

It was to his advantage that he married young, his partner being no other than the daughter of his first patron, the pawnbroker. She was not in any sense a remarkable person, but she had an ambition to shine in society, and it was from her that Mr. Manners received the limited education which enabled him, at thirty years of age, to read and write. His ideal as to social position also grew with his wealth; but he had tact enough to understand that it was not possible for him to occupy a foremost position as a public leader. This, however, did not prevent him from building a grand house in the heart of fashionable London, nor from mixing among the best. He was not out of place there, for he had the rare wisdom of being able to hold his tongue, and never to speak assertively except upon the business with which he was familiar. On those occasions he was listened to with respect and deference, and his words had weight; he trod upon no man's corns by expressing opinions upon matters of which he had not made himself master; he was content that his works should speak for him. Eloquent, indeed, was the record which, so far as he himself was concerned, he bore about him in silence. The railroads he had constructed in savage countries, the seas he had joined, were not these matters of history? And he, whose constructive and administrative talents had compassed these difficulties, became in a sense historical. Stories were related of his great courage, of his amazing strength, of his daring and skill in moments of difficulty, putting his own shoulders to the wheel and showing his workmen how a thing was to be done. Women love the personification of strength in a man; it means power, manliness, nobility, in their eyes; and numbers gazed in admiration upon the massive frame of the great contractor for whom no undertaking was too vast. He was a striking figure in fashionable assemblies, towering above all, and moving like a mountain through the packed crowd of male and female exquisites. He only moved when he had occasion; he had not within him that restless, fretful spirit which weakens the character of many men; as he knew the value of silence, so also did he know the value of repose. In all gatherings of men and women the art of standing still with dignity and without self-consciousness is invaluable. This art Mr. Manners possessed, so that, taking him for all in all, he was no charlatan, trading upon false pretences.

The day previous to that upon which Kingsley entered his father's house, with the intention of making a clean breast of it with respect to Nansie, Mr. Manners himself had returned from Russia where he had been for five months superintending a railway contract for the Russian government, which he had brought to a successful conclusion.

CHAPTER V

Father and son greeted each other cordially, but after the undemonstrative manner of Englishmen.

"Well, father?"

"Well, Kingsley?"

Then they shook hands, and smiled and nodded at each other.

"Has everything gone off well, father?"

"Everything. The balance on the right side will be larger than I expected."

"That is better than being the other way."

"Perhaps; but I prefer matters to come out exactly as I planned them. It is altogether more satisfactory. I will tell you all about it to-night, when we must have a long talk. I have a lot of letters to attend to now."

Kingsley took the hint, and, after seeing his mother, went to his room. The first thing he did there was to take out Nansie's portrait and gaze fondly on it and kiss it. He had parted from her and her father in the morning, and had promised to write to her before he went to bed. As he had an hour now to spare, he thought he could not better employ it than in covering four sheets of paper to the girl he loved, so he sat down and enjoyed himself to his heart's content. His letter was full of the usual lover's rhapsodies, and need not here be transcribed. There was in it something better than rhapsodies, the evidence of an earnest, faithful spirit, which made it the sweetest of reading to Nansie when she received it on the following day. Kingsley mentioned that he and his father were to have a long talk together that night, and that, if he found a favorable opportunity, he would take advantage of it to make confession to his father; also if he had any good news to communicate, he might write again before he went to bed. And then, with fond and constant love and untold kisses, he was forever and ever her faithful lover, and so on, and so on. Very precious and comforting are these lovers' sweet trivialities.

Dinner over, Kingsley and his father sat together in the contractor's study, at a table upon which were wine and cigars. Mr. Manners drank always in great moderation, and did not smoke. Kingsley's habits were after a freer fashion, and his father did not disapprove. The first hour was occupied in a description by Mr. Manners of the operations in which he had been engaged in Russia, and of the difficulties which he had to surmount. He made light of these, but he was proud of his last success.

"There were mountains to cut through, Kingsley," he said, "and Russian prejudices to overcome; I hardly know which of the two was the more difficult job."

"There were dangers, father, as well as difficulties," observed Kingsley.

"Yes, there were dangers; you have heard something of them?"

"I have seen accounts in the papers from time to time. You see, father, the railway you have laid down is a step nearer to India."

"I am pleased to hear you say that, Kingsley."

"Why?" asked Kingsley, rather surprised.

"Because it shows you take an interest in politics."

"I have done that for some time past, as you know, father."

"Yes, and it pleases me. A step nearer to India. That is so, but it is no business of mine. It may," with a light touch of his finger on his son's breast, "by and by be business of yours, when you are a statesman. About the dangers? What did you read?"

"There were pestilent morasses to be bridged over or cut through, and there was great loss of life."

"Quite correct; the mortality was serious; fortunately I employed native labor."

"But it was human life, father, whether Russian or English."

"Quite true again, Kingsley."

"Holding views as I do, father," said Kingsley, "there appears to me something anomalous-that is putting it very mildly-in this last operation of yours."

Mr. Manners smiled good-humoredly, and nodded his head in pleasant approval.

"Go on, Kingsley."

"For instance, the matter of Russia's nearer approach to India being facilitated by an Englishman. Is not that anomalous?"

"No more anomalous than selling Russia a few millions of our best rifles and a few hundred millions of our best bullets."

"Would you do that?"

"I should like to get the contract."

Kingsley shifted uneasily in his chair.

"It is either right or wrong," he said.

"Being at peace with Russia, Kingsley, it is right. Of course, it would be wrong if we were at war with the country."

"But we provide it with rifles and bullets and railways beforehand."

"Quite so-in the way of business. I like a conversation such as this, Kingsley, in which there is no need for anything to be settled. As to the future before you, it doesn't matter to me which side you take, so long as you become what I hope you will be. Men like myself, sprung from the ranks and making such fortunes as I have made, generally become Conservatives. I am neither one thing nor another, and shall not attempt to dictate to you. But into this question of bullets and rifles and railways let us import a little common-sense. If that sort of trading is wrong in times of peace, every country would have to cut itself aloof from every other country, and to live as if it were shut up in a box. I can't express myself as well as you, but I dare say you understand me."

"You can always make people understand you, father," said Kingsley.

"Yes, I have always been able to do that. They respect you all the more for it." Here he laughed quite gayly. "Even in Russia, where I did not know one word of the language, I made myself understood. I saw some great people there, Kingsley, and had interviews with them. Of course, I had a man to interpret for me, but I think I could have managed even without him. Some of the great men spoke English, but not a laborer I employed did. It was no more necessary for them to know our language, than for me to know theirs. The point was that there was work to do, and that it must be done within the stipulated time. With a stern master over him the Russian is a good workman, and values his life less than an Englishman. Take the pestilential ground we had to work over. No English workman would remain there a day; the Russian shrugged his shoulders and took the risk. Now, Kingsley, we will proceed to matters more immediately concerning ourselves."

"With pleasure, father."

"As between father and son there should be as few secrets as possible. You have some knowledge of my career; it is one I have no need to be ashamed of, and I propose to commence with the story of my life, and to make you fully acquainted with the secret of my rise in the world."

Upon that Mr. Manners entered unreservedly upon his relation, and spoke of matters in respect of his successful struggles with which the reader is already familiar. It was not all new to Kingsley, but he listened patiently and admiringly.

"I think I have made it plain to you, Kingsley," said Mr. Manners, when he had finished the recital, "that I owe everything to myself. I make no boast of it, and I have no doubt there are numbers of men as capable and clever as I am, only they have either not had the courage to launch out or have missed their opportunities. Now, my lad, I am sensible of my own deficiencies; I do not deceive myself by saying that I am as good as others with whom my money places me on an equality; I am a contractor, nothing more, and every shoemaker to his last. I shall stick to mine, and make more money. If I entered Parliament, which I could do without difficulty, I should have to sit mumchance, and play a silent part, unless something in my own particular line started up; and that would be once in a blue moon. Now taking a back seat in anything in which I am engaged would not suit me; I am accustomed to be master, and master I intend to continue to be. If I were a good speaker the matter would be different; I could carry all before me, though I am ignorant of Greek and Latin. When I was a lad I did not have what you call ambition; I took a pride in making sensible contracts which would bring me in a profit, and I crept along steadily, never dreaming that I should ever reach my present position. But the case is altered now, and I have a real ambition-not directly for myself, but for you. I have no expectation that you will disappoint me."

"I will endeavor not to do so, father."

"That is a good lad. You will be one of the richest men in the country, but I want you to be something more; I want you to be one of the most influential. I want people to say as I walk along; 'There goes the father of the prime-minister.'"

"That is looking a long way ahead," said Kingsley, considerably startled by this flight.

"Not a bit too far; it can be worked up to, and with your gifts it shall be. I have already told you that it matters little to me whether you are a Conservative, or a Liberal, or a Radical; that is your affair. If you are prime-minister and a Radical it will show that Radicalism is popular. I stop short of Socialism, mind you."

"So do I."

"Good. There is nothing nowadays that a man with a good education and a long purse cannot accomplish. I have the long purse, but not the education. I can talk sensibly enough to you here in a room, and in fairly good English, thanks to your mother and to my perseverance, but put me in the House of Commons and ask me to make a long speech upon large matters of state, and I should make a fool of myself. Therefore it is impossible I could ever become prime-minister."

"It is not every man who would speak so plainly and disparagingly of himself."

"Perhaps not, but I happen to know the length of my tether; I happen to know what I am fitted for and what I am not. I don't want you to suppose that I am making a sacrifice; nothing of the kind. I keep my place; you work up to yours; then I shall be perfectly satisfied. I have had this in my mind for years, and instead of making you a contractor I have made you a gentleman. That is what other fathers have done, whose beginnings have been as humble as mine. New families are springing up, my boy, to take the place of the old; you, Kingsley, shall found a family which shall become illustrious, and I shall be content to look on and say: 'This is my doing; this is my work.' We shall show these old lords what new blood can do."

"Why, father," said Kingsley, laughing despite the uneasy feeling that was creeping over him, "you are a Radical."

"Perhaps I am, but we will keep it to ourselves. Now, Kingsley, it is my method when I am going in for a big contract to master beforehand everything in connection with it. I study it again and again; I verify my figures and calculations a dozen times before I set my name to it. That is what I have done in this affair. I have mastered the whole of the details, and I know exactly what is necessary. The first thing to make sure of when a great house is to be built, a house that is to last through sunshine and storm, a house that is to stand for centuries, is the foundation. That is out of sight, but it must be firm, and strong, and substantial. I am the foundation of this house I wish to build, and I am out of sight. Good. What is fine and beautiful to the eye you will supply-that is, you and your connections, in which, for convenience, we will say your mother and I do not count."

"My connections!" exclaimed Kingsley. "Apart from you and my mother!"

"Quite so. There are families of the highest rank who would not shrink from admitting you, upon the closest terms, into their circle. Some are tottering, and fear the fall. Old estates are mortgaged up to their value, and every year makes their position worse. We, with our full purses, step in and set them right, and bury the ghosts which haunt them. There is nothing low and common about you, my boy. You are, in appearance, manners, and education, as good as the best of them, and lady mothers will only be too glad to welcome you. The first thing you must do is to marry."

"Sir!"

"And to marry well. I have authority for saying that you can marry the daughter of a duchess. I don't wonder that you look startled. I have seen the young lady; she is nineteen years of age, and very beautiful. Of course she knows nothing of the scheme. It is for you to win her-of which I have no fears. You can make settlements upon her, Kingsley, which would satisfy the most exacting of duchesses. The family has influence, great influence, socially and politically. Married to her, with your talents, your future is assured, if you have only a fair amount of industry. I have set my heart upon it, Kingsley."

"There is the question of love, father," said Kingsley, in a low tone. It seemed to him that his father had cut the ground from under his feet.

"Quite so. There is the question of love. You will win your way to her heart, without a doubt."

CHAPTER VI

There occurred here a pause. Kingsley did not know what to say. His father was waiting for him to speak.

"No man should think of marrying," said Kingsley, presently, "unless there is love on both sides."

"There is no occasion to discuss that point," said Mr. Manners. "As you will win your way to the young lady's heart, so will she win her way to yours. Wait till you see her, and meanwhile give me your promise that you will do your best to further my wishes. I do not expect a blind compliance; you shall go to her with your eyes open, and if you do not say she is very beautiful you must be a poor judge of beauty."

"But," murmured Kingsley, "to have an affair like this cut and dried beforehand for the man who is most deeply concerned-well, father, there is something sordid and mercenary in it."