Aladdin of London, or The Lodestar

Alban smiled a little scornfully.

"Evidently you come from the West. I was only trying you. Shall we have two coffees--large? It isn't so bad as it looks by a long way."

The coffee was brought and set steaming before them. In an interval of silence Alban studied the curate's face as he would have studied a book in which he might read some account of his own fortunes. Why had this man stopped him in the street?

"Your first visit to Aldgate, sir?"

"Not exactly, Mr. Kennedy--many years ago I have recollections of a school treat at a watering-place near the river's mouth--an exceedingly muddy place since become famous, I understand. But I take the children to Eastbourne now."

"They find that a bit slow, don't they? Kids love mud, you know."

"They do--upon my word. A child's love of mud is one of the most incurable things in nature."

"Then why try to cure it?"

"But what are you to do?"

"Wash them, sir,--you can always do that. My father was a parson, you know--"

"Good heavens, a clergyman--and you are come to--that is, you choose to live amidst these dreadful surroundings?"

"I do not choose--death chose for me."

"My poor boy--"

"Not at all, sir. Give a man a good appetite and enough to gratify it, and I don't know that other circumstances count much."

"Trial has made of you an epicurean, I see. Well, well, so much the better. That which I have to offer you will be the more acceptable."

"Employment, sir?"

"Employment--for a considerable term. Good employment, Mr. Kennedy. Employment which will take you into the highest society, educate you, perhaps, open a great career to you--that is what I came to speak of."

The good man had meant to break the news more dramatically; but it flowed on now as a freshet released, while his eyes sparkled and his head wagged as though his whole soul were bursting with it. Alban thought for a moment that he had met one of those pleasant eccentrics who are not less rare in the East End than the West. "This good fellow has escaped out of an asylum," he thought.

"What kind of a job would that be, sir?"

"Your own. Name it and it shall be chosen for you. That is what I am commissioned to say."

"By whom, sir?"

"By my patron and by yours."

"Does he wish to keep his name back?"

"So little that he is waiting for you at his own house now."

"Then why shouldn't we go and see him, sir?"

He put the question fully believing that it would bring the whole ridiculous castle down with a crash, as it were, upon the table before him. Its effect, however, was entirely otherwise. The parson stood up immediately.