This morning, faithful to the hour, we were again in Broad Street, with hearts knit up into the most peremptory courage; and, on being announced, were immediately admitted to Mr.Argent.He received us with the same ease as in the first interview, and, after requesting us to be seated (which, by the way, he did not do yesterday, a circumstance that was ominously remarked), he began to talk on indifferent matters.I could see that a question, big with law and fortune, was gathering in the breasts both of the Doctor and my mother, and that they were in a state far from that of the blessed.But one of the clerks, before they had time to express their indignant suspicions, entered with a paper, and Mr.Argent, having glanced it over, said to the Doctor--"I congratulate you, sir, on the amount of the colonel's fortune.I was not indeed aware before that he had died so rich.He has left about 120,000 pounds; seventy-five thousand of which is in the five per cents; the remainder in India bonds and other securities.The legacies appear to be inconsiderable, so that the residue to you, afterpaying them and the expenses of Doctors' Commons, will exceed a hundred thousand pounds."My father turned his eyes upwards in thankfulness."But," continued Mr.Argent, "before the property can be transferred, it will be necessary for you to provide about four thousand pounds to pay the duty and other requisite expenses." This was a thunderclap."Where can I get such a sum?" exclaimed my father, in a tone of pathetic simplicity.Mr.Argent smiled and said, "We shall manage that for you"; and having in the same moment pulled a bell, a fine young man entered, whom he introduced to us as his son, and desired him to explain what steps it was necessary for the Doctor to take.We accordingly followed Mr.Charles Argent to his own room.
Thus, in less time than I have been in writing it, were we put in possession of all the information we required, and found those whom we feared might be interested to withhold the settlement, alert and prompt to assist us.
Mr.Charles Argent is naturally more familiar than his father.He has a little dash of pleasantry in his manner, with a shrewd good- humoured fashionable air, that renders him soon an agreeable acquaintance.He entered with singular felicity at once into the character of the Doctor and my mother, and waggishly drolled, as if he did not understand them, in order, I could perceive, to draw out the simplicity of their apprehensions.He quite won the old lady's economical heart, by offering to frank her letters, for he is in Parliament."You have probably," said he slyly, "friends in the country, to whom you may be desirous of communicating the result of your journey to London; send your letters to me, and I will forward them, and any that you expect may also come under cover to my address, for postage is very expensive."As we were taking our leave, after being fully instructed in all the preliminary steps to be taken before the transfers of the funded property can be made, he asked me, in a friendly manner, to dine with him this evening, and I never accepted an invitation with more pleasure.I consider his acquaintance a most agreeable acquisition, and not one of the least of those advantages which this new opulence has put it in my powerto attain.The incidents, indeed, of this day, have been all highly gratifying, and the new and brighter phase in which I have seen the mercantile character, as it is connected with the greatness and glory of my country--is in itself equivalent to an accession of useful knowledge.I can no longer wonder at the vast power which the British Government wielded during the late war, when I reflect that the method and promptitude of the house of Messrs.Argent and Company is common to all the great commercial concerns from which the statesmen derived, as from so many reservoirs, those immense pecuniary supplies, which enabled them to beggar all the resources of a political despotism, the most unbounded, both in power and principle, of any tyranny that ever existed so long.--Yours, etc., ANDREW PRINGLE.
