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1、【英文读物】Kissing the Rod.CHAPTER I. DAZZLED There was no name on the doorposts, nothing beyond the number-48-to serve as a guide; and yet it may be doubted whether any firm in the City was better known to the postman, the bankers-clerks, and all who had regular business to transact with them, than that
2、 of Streightley and Son. The firm had been Streightley and Son, and it had been located at 48 Bullion Lane, for the last hundred and fifty years. They were money-brokers and scrip-sellers at the time of the South-Sea bubble, and were among the very few who were not ruined by that disastrous swindle.
3、 So little ruined were they that they prospered by it, and in the next generation extended their business and enlarged their profits; both of which, however, were consider curtailed by rash speculations during the French Revolution and the American War. Within the first quarter of the present centur
4、y the business of Streightley and Son recovered itself; and, under the careful management of old Sam Streightley and his head clerk, Mr. Fowler, the house became highly esteemed as one of the safest bill-broking establishments in the City. It was not, however, until young Mr. Robert, following the b
5、ounden career of all the eldest sons of that family, joined the business, and, after close application, had thoroughly mastered its details, that fortune could be said to have smiled steadily on the firm. Young Mr. Roberts views were so large and his daring so great, that his father, old Mr. Sam, at
6、 first stood aghast, and had to be perpetually supplicated before he gave permission to experiment on the least hazardous of all the young mans suggestions; but after the son had been about two years a partner in the firm it happened that the father was laid up with such a terrible attack of gout as
7、 to be incapable of attending to business for months; and when he at length obtained the physicians grudging assent to his visiting the City he found things so prosperous, but withal so totally changed, that the old gentleman was content to jog down to Bullion Lane about three times a month until hi
8、s death, which was not long in overtaking him. Prosperous and changed! Yes; no doubt about that. Up that staircase, hitherto untrodden save by merchants-clerks leaving bills for acceptance or notices of bills due; by stags with sham prospectuses of never-to-be-brought-out companies; or by third-rate
9、 City solicitors giving the quasi-respectability of their names to impotent semi-swindles, which, though they would never see the light, yet afforded the means for creating an indisputable and meaty bill of costs;-up that staircase now came heavy magnates of the City, directors of the Bank of Englan
10、d, with short ill-made Oxford-mixture trousers, and puckered coats, and alpaca umbrellas; or natty stockbrokers, most of them a trifle horsy in garb, all with undeniable linen, and good though large jewelry, carefully-cultivated whiskers, and glossy boots. In the little waiting-room might be found a
11、n Irish member of Parliament; the managing director of a great steam-shipping company; a West-end dandy, with a letter of introduction from some club acquaintance with a handle to his name, who idiotically imagined that that handle would serve as a lever to raise money out of Robert Streightley; a l
12、awyer or two; and, occasionally the bronzed captain of a steamer arrived with news from the Pacific; or some burnt and bearded engineer fresh from the inspection of a silver mine in Central America. A long purgatory, for the most part, did these gentlemen spend in the little waiting-room, or in the
13、clerks room beyond it, where they were exposed to the sharp fusillade of Mr. Fowlers eyes and the keen glances of the two young men who assisted him. The only people who were shown by the messenger at once into Mr. Streightleys presence were the City editors of the various newspapers, and a very pre
14、ttily-appointed young gentleman, wise withal beyond his years, who occasionally drove down to Bullion Lane from Downing Street in a hansom cab, and who was private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Robert Streightley had done all this by his own talent and exertion-on his own hook, as th
15、e Stock Exchange men phrased it. The keenness of his business intellect was astounding. He seemed to sift a proposition as it was being laid before him; and as soon as the proposer ceased speaking, Robert Streightley closed with or pooh-poohed the offer, with incontrovertible reasons for his decisio
16、n. He spoke out plainly and boldly before the oldest and the youngest who sought his advice; he was neither deferential nor patronising; and never sought to please-simply for the sake of pleasing-any of his clients. The young men looked up to him in wonder, and spoke of him over mid-day chops and sh
17、erry as a cool card, a long-headed chap, just about one, and in other complimentary slangisms. The older men scarcely knew what to make of him; they hated him for his daring and success, for the dashing manner in which he was passing them all in the race for wealth and distinction; and they would ha
18、ve well liked to have shrugged their shoulders and hinted about his being fast, and going ahead, and finally making a grand smash of it; but they had no pretext. So long as Robert Streightleys business relations were thoroughly sound and wholesome it would have been against that esprit de corps whic
19、h largely prevails among City men to breathe a word against him; and as for his private life, they could scarcely bring a charge of reckless extravagance against a man who went home to a seventy-pound-a-year house at Brixton in the Paragon omnibus, and there indulged in the dissipation of a meat-tea
20、 in the society of his mother and sister. So they found another vent for their spleen, and talked of him as a doosid close-fisted fellow, a mean narrow-minded hunks, and a niggardly screw. He merited none of these appellations. He was a straightforward, honourable business-man, bred in a narrow circ
21、le, which his own innate business habits were narrowing year by year. As a boy he had had instilled into him the value of money and the secret of money-getting; as a young man the whole scope of his faculties had been directed to this end. Such little fancy as he possessed-and with such a father the
22、 smallness of that fancy could be easily divined-had been ruthlessly eradicated, and all the nascent tendencies of his mind had been directed into one strong channel of fact. That Jack had ever found giants to slay, that glass slippers were ever worn by cinder-wenches, or pumpkins could by any possi
23、bility become carriages, were fictions not to be found in Bonnycastle and ignored by Walkinghame; but that two and two made four, or that a talent of silver hid in a napkin remained an unproductive talent of silver, whereas a hundred pounds invested in Consols produced yearly three pounds as interes
24、t to its holder, were as demonstrable as the light and heat of the sun at noonday. He lived but for his business, nothing else. He was in his office at ten oclock, and he never left it, save on some business errand, until six. He never took a holiday except on Christmas-day and Good Friday, when the
25、 newspapers proclaimed all business suspended; he never dined out save twice or thrice a-year at the anniversary banquets of the directors of some of those companies in which his stake was large. His enemies wronged him when they said he had no heart. He had sincerely grieved for the old father who
26、had brought him up and loved him deeply in his own peculiar way; his purse-strings were always at the command of those good Samaritans on the Stock Exchange who do so much in such a quiet and unassuming manner; and the clergyman at Brixton knew he might always count upon Mr. Streightley for a handso
27、me subscription to any charity brought under his notice. His manner was odd and brusque, arising partly from his preoccupation, partly from his having never mixed in society; but there was nothing pretentious or vulgar, fast or underbred in him: he might have been thought an oddity; he never could h
28、ave been set down for a snob. See him now as he sits at his desk, poring over his diary, a tall strongly-built man, with long limbs lacking in due amount of muscular development from want of exercise. With a high forehead, a head prematurely bald, but surrounded with a thick fringe of brown hair, wi
29、th sharp gray eyes looking out from overhanging brows, a thinly-cut aquiline nose, and rather full lips. He has a full whisker, after the ordinary respectable mutton-chop outline, and might, if he so pleased, have a large beard, as you can tell by the dark-blue outline round his chin; but Robert Str
30、eightley would as soon think of coming up to town outside the Paragon omnibus in a turban as of committing any such unbusiness-like atrocity as growing a beard. One other person is in the room with him just now-Mr. Fowler, his chief clerk, known in the City as Downy Fowler; an old gentleman, who is
31、looked upon as the essence of knowingness, and to whom the fortunes of Streightley and Son are not a little attributable. When this is hinted at, old Mr. Fowler smiles enigmatically; but only in strictest confidence, and to one or two very old friends, declares that, whatever he might have been to t
32、he old gentleman, he does not pretend to hold a candle to Mr. Robert, whose head, my dear sir, is something won-der-ful! A short sleek gray-headed man, Mr. Fowler; with a high-collared coat much too long in the sleeves, a waistcoat with traces of bygone snuff-pinches lingering in the creases, gray t
33、rousers, and gaiter boots. A silent little man, rarely speaking, but in the habit of calling his principals attention to matters under consideration, such as letters, invoices, and share-lists, with his pointed forefinger. That forefinger was at work at the very moment when they are first presented
34、to reader. It rested on an entry in the diary, and Mr. Fowler looked up into his principals face inquiringly. Well? said Robert Streightley, I see. Markwell, 1350l.; Baxter, 870l.; Currie and Tull, 340l.; Guyon, 180l. 17s. 3d.; Banks, 97l. 6s. Total, 2888l. 3s. 3d.-paid to us by Davidson-due to-day-
35、what of that? Mr. Fowler did not answer, but placed his forefinger more decidedly on one of the items of the account. O, I see, said Streightley; Guyons acceptance! Ay, ay; I recollect now. You called my attention to that, and declared that it was doubtful at the time that Davidson paid it in. Of co
36、urse you made inquiries? Mr. Fowler nodded. And they were unsatisfactory? Well, thats no matter to us. The usual notice has been served, of course? Very well, we look to Davidson; but let Boswells people have the usual instructions to proceed. So Tierra del Fuegos stand the same, do they? All right
37、then; hold on. Ocean Marine have gone up; so that advance to Walton and Pycroft is well covered. Let Brattle step round to-well, what is it, Brattle? this to the junior clerk, who, after knocking at the door, entered the room. A lady, sir, to speak with you, said Mr. Brattle, in whom his brother lun
38、ch-convives at the Bay Tree would scarcely have recognised the youth who now stood blushing before his principal. A lady to speak with me? With Messrs. Streightley and Son, sir, she said, and in private, sir. Must be some mistake, said Robert Streightley. Never mind. Show the lady in through the pri
39、vate door, Mr. Brattle. Leave me, Fowler, and dont let any one in till I ring. If Mr. Fowler could have expressed astonishment, he would have done so, for never had woman entered that sanctum since he had been connected with Streightley and Son. But his training did not admit of any such vagary; so
40、he retired without a word, and the door closed behind him as Mr. Brattle admitted the visitor into Robert Streightleys presence. Robert Streightley, who had been pretending to be absorbed in the diary, looked up, and carefully scrutinised his visitor. She was a girl of about twenty, above the ordina
41、ry height, slightly and gracefully built. She threw up her veil as she entered, without the smallest sign of coquetry, and showed a strikingly-handsome face, very pale, with greenish-gray eyes, delicate Grecian nose, small white forehead, over which her dark-brown hair was drawn in flat bands, short
42、 upper lip, and small rounded chin. She was dressed in a dark-brown silk, with a black-lace cloak; and Streightley-usually unobservant of such things-noticed the wonderful fit of her lavender gloves. Streightley rose as she entered, and pointing to the usual clients chair, begged her to be seated. S
43、he bowed, and seated herself. Then there was a little pause, and Robert said, You wished to see me, I believe? You are Messrs. Streightley and Son? said the lady interrogatively, in a musical but slightly timid voice. I am Mr. Streightley, the representative of the firm. That is what I wished to kno
44、w, she replied a little haughtily. Of course I-what I would ask is-I am not accustomed to business terms-You are the-the person-who sent this? She laid her parasol on the table as she spoke, and took from the purse which she carried in her hand a small printed paper. Glancing at it, Robert Streightl
45、ey saw that it was an ordinary commercial document, intimating to Edward Scrope Guyon, of 110 Queen Anne Street, that a bill for 180l. 17s. 3d., drawn on him by Davidson Brothers, lay due at Streightley and Sons, 48 Bullion Court, Lombard Street. As he returned it to her he said, It is quite right;
46、it was sent out by this house. It is the usual notice given in such cases, stating where the money is to be paid. She was very pale as she said, It means then that money-that the amount named-must be paid? It does indeed. And at once? This is the day for payment, said Streightley. Then noticing her
47、deadly pallor, and the trembling of her lips, he said: May I ask how this came into your hands? With a visible effort at self-control, the young lady replied: I-I should have mentioned it before. I am Miss Guyon, daughter of Mr. Guyon, to whom that paper is addressed. She hesitated for a minute, and
48、 Streightley, whose eyes were fixed intently on her face, said: Ye-es! I think I understand; and he has sent you here to- My father is not in the habit of sending me about on his business-errands, sir! interrupted Miss Guyon, flushing scarlet (Robert thought that in his life he had never seen any th
49、ing so lovely as she looked, with heightened colour, swelling nostril, and curved lip.) Mr. Guyon is out of town on-on very important and pressing business; and as he will not be back until late at night, I thought it best to come here to explain his absence, which will account for the money not being ready. Which will account for the money not bei