Читать книгу Toilers of Babylon - B. L. Farjeon - Страница 14

Table of Contents

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.