SARTORIUS So blackmail is the game, eh? [He puts the book on the table without looking at it, and strikes it emphatically with his fist] I dont care that for my name being in bluebooks. My friends dont read them; and I’m neither a Cabinet Minister nor a candidate for Parliament. Theres nothing to be got out of me on that lay.
LICKCHEESE [sbocked] Blackmail! Oh, Mr Sartorius, do you think I would let out a word about your premises? Round on an old pal! No: that aint Lickcheese’s way. Besides, they know all about you already. Them stairs that you and me quarrelled about, they was a whole arternoon examinin the clergyman that made such a fuss you remember? About the women that was urt on it. He made the worst he could of it, in an ungentlemanly, unchristian spirit. I wouldnt have that clergyman’s disposition for worlds. Oh no: Thats not what was in my thoughts.
SARTORIUS Come, come, man: What was in your thoughts? Out with it.
LICKCHEESE [With provoking deliberation, smiling and looking mysteriously at him] You aint spent a few hundreds in repairs since we parted, ave you? [Sartorius, losing patience, makes a threatening movement.] Now dont fly out at me. I know a landlord that owned as beastly a slum as you could find in London, down there by the Tower. By my advice that man put half the houses into first-class repair, and let the other half to a new Company: The North Thames Iced Mutton Depot Company, of which I hold a few shares promoters’ shares. And what was the end of it, do you think?
SARTORIUS Smash, I suppose.
LICKCHEESE Smash! Not a bit of it. Compensation, Mr Sartorius, compensation. Do you understand that?
SARTORIUS Compensation for what?
LICKCHEESE Why, the land was wanted for an extension of the Mint; and the Company had to be bought out, and the buildings compensated for. Somebody has to know these things beforehand, you know, no matter how dark theyre kept.
SARTORIUS [interested, but cautious] Well?
LICKCHEESE Is that all you have to say to me, Mr Sartorius? “Well!” As if I was next door’s dog! Suppose I’d got wind of a new street that would knock down Robbins’s Row and turn Burke’s Walk into a frontage worth thirty pound a foot! Would you say no more to me than [mimicking] “Well?” [Sartorius hesitates, looking at him in great doubt. Lickcheese rises and exhibits himself] Come: Look at my get-up, Mr Sartorius. Look at this watchchain! Look at the corporation Ive got on me! Do you think all that came from keeping my mouth shut? No: It came from keeping my ears and eyes open. [Blanche comes in, followed by the parlor maid, who has a silver tray on which she collects the coffee cups. Sartorius, impatient at the interruption, rises and motions Lickcheese to the door of the study.]
SARTORIUS Sh! We must talk this over in the study. There is a good fire there; and you can smoke. Blanche: An old friend of ours.
LICKCHEESE And a kind one to me. I hope I see you well, Miss Blanche.
BLANCHE Why, it’s Mr Lickcheese! I hardly knew you.
LICKCHEESE I find you a little changed yourself, miss.
BLANCHE [hastily] Oh, I am the same as ever. How are Mrs Lickcheese and the chil —
SARTORIUS [impatiently] We have business to transact, Blanche. You can talk to Mr Lickcheese afterwards. Come on. [Sartorius and Lickcheese go into the study. Blanche, surprised at her father’s abruptness, looks after them for a moment. Then, seeing Lickcheese’s overcoat on her chair, she takes it up, amused, and looks at the fur.]
THE PARLOR MAID Oh, we are fine, aint we, Miss Blanche? I think Mr Lickcheese must have come into a legacy. [Confidentially] I wonder what he can want with the master, Miss Blanche! He brought him this big book. [She shews the bluebook to Blanche.]
BLANCHE [her curiosity roused] Let me see. [She takes the book and looks at it.] Theres something about papa in it. [She sits down and begins to read.]
THE PARLOR MAID [folding the tea-table and putting it out of the way] He looks ever s’much younger, Miss Blanche, dont he? I couldnt help laughing when I saw him with his whiskers shaved off: It do look so silly when youre not accustomed to it. [No answer from Blanche.] You havnt finished your coffee, Miss: I suppose I may take it away? [No answer.] Oh, you are interested in Mr Lickcheese’s book, Miss. [Blanche springs up. The parlor maid looks at her face, and instantly hurries out of the room on tiptoe with her tray.]
BLANCHE So that was why he would not touch the money. [She tries to tear the book across; but that is impossible; so she throws it violently into the fireplace. It falls into the fender.] Oh, if only a girl could have no father, no family, just as I have no mother! Clergyman! Beast! “The worst slum landlord in London.” “Slum landlord.” Oh! [She covers her face with her hands and sinks shuddering into the chair on which the overcoat lies. The study door opens.]
LICKCHEESE [in the study] You just wait five minutes: I’ll fetch him. [Blanche snatches a piece of work from her basket and sits erect and quiet, stitching at it. Lickcheese coomes back, speaking to Sartorius, who follows him.] He lodges round the corner in Gower Street; and my private ‘ansom’s at the door. By your leave, Miss Blanche. [pulling gently at his overcoat.]
BLANCHE [rising] I beg your pardon. I hope I havnt crushed it.
LICKCHEESE [gallantly, as he gets into the coat] Youre welcome to crush it again now, Miss Blanche. Dont say good evenin to me, miss: I’m comin’ back presently, me and a friend or two. Ta ta, Sartorius: I shant be long. [He goes out. Sartorius looks about for the blue book.]
BLANCHE I thought we were done with Lickcheese.
SARTORIUS Not quite yet, I think. He left a book here for me to look over, a large book in a blue paper cover. Has the girl put it away? [He sees it in the fender, looks at Blanche, and adds:] Have you seen it?
BLANCHE No. Yes. [Angrily] No: I have not seen it. What have I to do with it? [Sartorius picks the book up and dusts it; then sits down quietly to read. After a glance up and down the columns, he nods assentingly, as if he found there exactly what he expected.]
SARTORIUS It’s a curious thing, Blanche, that the Parliamentary gentlemen who write such books as these should be so ignorant of practical business. One would suppose, to read this, that we are the most grasping, grinding, heartless pair in the world, you and I.
BLANCHE Is it not true about the state of the houses, I mean?
SARTORIUS [calmly] Oh, quite true.
BLANCHE Then it is not our fault?
SARTORIUS My dear: if we made the houses any better, the rents would have to be raised so much that the poor people would be unable to pay, and would be thrown homeless on the streets.
BLANCHE Well, turn them out and get in a respectable class of people. Why should we have the disgrace of harbouring such wretches?
SARTORIUS [opening his eyes] That sounds a little hard on them, doesnt it, my child?
‘BLANCHE Oh, I hate the poor. At least, I hate those dirty, drunken, disreputable people who live like pigs. If they must be provided for, let other people look after them. How can you expect anyone to think well of us when such things are written about us in that infamous book?
SARTORIUS [coldly and a little wistfully] I see I have made a real lady of you, Blanche.
BLANCHE [defiantly] Well, are you sorry for that?
SARTORIUS No, my dear: Of course not. But do you know, Blanche, that my mother was a very poor woman, and that her poverty was not her fault?
BLANCHE I suppose not; but the people we want to mix with now dont know