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Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source: Google Books
        https://books.google.com/books?id=w8gBAAAAQAAJ
        (Oxford University)






KISSING THE ROD.



LONDON:
HOBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.






KISSING THE ROD.

A Novel.


BY EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF "BROKEN TO HARNESS," "RUNNING THE GAUNTLET,"
"LAND AT LAST," ETC.



"The heart knoweth its own bitterness."



IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.



LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1866.

[_All rights of translation and reproduction reserved_.]






Inscribed to
THE COUNTESS OF FIFE.






CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAP.

           I. DAZZLED.
          II. A MORNING CALL.
         III. WITHIN THE PALE.
          IV. MR. GUYON'S FRIEND.
           V. HESTER GOULD.
          VI. IN CHAMBERS.
         VII. KATHARINE GUYON.
        VIII. AMARYLLIS IN A MARQUEE.
          IX. INVESTMENTS.
           X. STRUGGLE.
          XI. LEFT LAMENTING.
         XII. VICTORY.






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 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. 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 century
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 bounden 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. Robert's views were so large
and his daring so great, that his father, old Mr. Sam, at first stood
aghast, and had to be perpetually supplicated before he gave
permission to experiment on the least hazardous of all the young man's
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 to be incapable of attending to business for months;
and when he at length obtained the physician's 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 his 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 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 England, 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 an 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 lawyer 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 clerk's room beyond it,
where they were exposed to the sharp fusillade of Mr. Fowler's 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. Streightley's
presence were the City editors of the various newspapers, and a very
prettily-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 the 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 decision.
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 sherry 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 have 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 Streightley's business relations were
thoroughly sound and wholesome it