Raffles

RAFFLES

NO SINECURE

I

I am still uncertain which surprised me more, the telegram calling my attentionto the advertisement, or the advertisement itself. The telegram is before me asI write. It would appear to have been handed in at Vere Street at eighto’clock in the morning of May 11, 1897, and received before half-past atHolloway B.O. And in that drab region it duly found me, unwashen but at workbefore the day grew hot and my attic insupportable.

“See Mr. Maturin’s advertisement Daily Mail might suit youearnestly beg try will speak if necessary —— ——”

I transcribe the thing as I see it before me, all in one breath that took awaymine; but I leave out the initials at the end, which completed the surprise.They stood very obviously for the knighted specialist whose consulting-room iswithin a cab-whistle of Vere Street, and who once called me kinsman for hissins. More recently he had called me other names. I was a disgrace, qualifiedby an adjective which seemed to me another. I had made my bed, and I could goand lie and die in it. If I ever again had the insolence to show my nose inthat house, I should go out quicker than I came in. All this, and more, myleast distant relative could tell a poor devil to his face; could ring for hisman, and give him his brutal instructions on the spot; and then relent to thetune of this telegram! I have no phrase for my amazement. I literally could notbelieve my eyes. Yet their evidence was more and more conclusive: a veryepistle could not have been more characteristic of its sender. Meanlyelliptical, ludicrously precise, saving half-pence at the expense of sense, yetpaying like a man for “Mr.” Maturin, that was my distinguishedrelative from his bald patch to his corns. Nor was all the rest unlike him,upon second thoughts. He had a reputation for charity; he was going to live upto it after all. Either that, or it was the sudden impulse of which the mostcalculating are capable at times; the morning papers with the early cup of tea,this advertisement seen by chance, and the rest upon the spur of a guiltyconscience.

Well, I must see it for myself, and the sooner the better, though work pressed.I was writing a series of articles upon prison life, and had my nib into thewhole System; a literary and philanthropical daily was parading my“charges,” the graver ones with the more gusto; and the terms, ifunhandsome for creative work, were temporary wealth to me. It so happened thatmy first check had just arrived by the eight o’clock post; and myposition should be appreciated when I say that I had to cash it to obtain aDaily Mail.

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