Benjamin Farjeon - Basil and Annette

"All the pleasures of existence," he mused, "all the light, everything in the world worth having, are on the other side of the water. Was I born to grind out my days in a prison like this? No, and I will not. Here is the chance of escape" – he turned his head to the room in which Basil was sleeping-"with possibilities which may give me all I desire. It would be flying in the face of Providence to neglect it. The first law of nature is Self. I should be a born fool not to obey the first law of nature."

In these reflections he passed an hour, when he determined to go to bed.

All was still. He stepped on tip toe to each of the four compartments occupied by Basil, Jim the Hatter, and the Nonentities, and listened at the doors to assure himself that he was the only wakeful person in the store. Deeming himself safe he entered his own room, and taking a small round mirror in a zinc frame from the top of a packing case which served as washstand and dressing-table, gazed at his face with strange intentness. Putting the hand mirror down he cast wary looks around. Yes, he was alone; there were no witnesses. Then he did a curious thing. He took off his beard and whiskers.

In the room on his right lay Basil asleep; in the room on his left was Jim the Hatter, whom he supposed to be. But in this he reckoned without his host, as many another sharp rogue has done in his time. Jim the Hatter, despite his deep breathing, which had deceived Newman Chaytor, was wide awake. The moment Chaytor entered his room Jim the Hatter had slipped noiselessly from his stretcher, and his face was now glued to the wall of calico through which the light of Chaytor's candle was shining. There was a small slit in the calico, which enabled Jim the Hatter to see what was passing in Chaytor's room. Chaytor's back, however, was towards the wall through which he was peeping. The watcher was puzzled; he could not exactly discover what it was Chaytor had done.

Upon Chaytor's face, now beardless and whiskerless, there was a natural growth of hair in the shape of a moustache. This moustache was the precise colour of that which Basil grew and cherished. It was not so long, but a few week's growth would make the resemblance perfect, if such was Chaytor's wish. In other respects the resemblance between him and Basil was remarkable. Height, figure, complexion-even the colour of the eyes-all tallied.

In his anxiety to discover exactly what was going on, Jim the Hatter made a slight movement, which was heard by Chaytor. He turned suddenly, and the astonished watcher beheld the counterpart of Basil.

"By Jove!" he said inly; "twins!"

Then, warned by Chaytor's attitude that he was in danger of himself being discovered, he slipped between his blankets as noiselessly as he had slipped out of them. Waiting only to resume his disguise of beard and whiskers, Chaytor, candle in hand, went quietly and swiftly into the adjoining room and looked down upon the recumbent form of Jim the Hatter. Undoubtedly asleep, and sleeping like a top. Chaytor passed the candle across the man's face, who never so much as winked. Assured that there was no cause for alarm, Chaytor stepped back to his own recess, put out the light, and went to bed.

Leaving this schemer to his ill-earned repose, we strip the veil from his past and lay it bare.

Nature plays tricks, but seldom played a stranger than that of casting Newman Chaytor physically in the same mould as Basil. Born in different counties, with no tie of kinship between their families, their likeness to each other was so marvellous that any man seeing them for the first time side by side, without some such disguise as Chaytor wore on Gum Flat, and the second time apart, would have been puzzled to know which was which. But not less strange than this physical likeness was the contrast between their moral natures. One was the soul of guilelessness and honour, the other the soul of cunning and baseness. One walked the straight paths of life, the other chose the crooked.

Chaytor was born in London, and his parents occupied a respectable position. They gave him a good education, and did all they could to furnish him worthily for the battle of life. The affection they displayed was ill-requited. In his mother's eyes he was perfection, but his father's mind was often disturbed when he thought of the lad's future. Perhaps in his own nature there was a moral twist which caused him to doubt; perhaps his own youth was distinguished by the vices he detected in his son. However that may be, he took no blame to himself, preferring rather to skim the surface than to seek discomfort in psychological depths.

The parents discussed their son's future.

"We will make a doctor of him," said the father.

"He will be a great physician," said the mother.

At this time Chaytor was eighteen years of age. At twenty it was decided that he was in the wrong groove; at least, that was the statement of the doctor who had undertaken his professional education. It was not an entirely ingenuous statement; the master was eager to get rid of his pupil, whose sharp practices distressed him.

"What would you like to be?" asked his father.

"A lawyer," replied Chaytor.

"He will be Lord Chancellor," said his mother.

Thereupon Newman Chaytor was articled to a firm of lawyers in Bedford Row, London, W.C., an old and respectable firm, Messrs. Rivington, Sons, and Rivington, who kept its exceedingly lucrative business in the hands of its own family. It happened, fatefully, that this firm of lawyers transacted the affairs of Bartholomew Whittingham, Basil's uncle, with whom our readers have already made acquaintance.

In the course of two or three years Chaytor's character was fully developed. He was still the idol of his mother, whose heart was plated with so thick a shield of unreasoning love that nothing to her son's disparagement could make an impression upon it. Only there were doors in this shield which she opened at the least sign from the reprobate, sheltering him there and cooing over him as none but such hearts can. Her husband had the sincerest affection for her, and here was another safeguard for Chaytor.

The surroundings of life in a great and gay city are dangerous and tempting even to the innocent. How much more dangerous and tempting are they to those who by teaching or inclination are ripe for vice? It is not our intention to follow Chaytor through these devious paths; we shall simply touch lightly upon those circumstances of his career which are pertinent to our story. If for a brief space we are compelled to treat of some of the darker shadows of human nature, it must be set down to the undoubted fact that life is not made up entirely of sweetness and light.

Chaytor's father, looking through his bank-book, discovered that he had a balance to his credit less by a hundred pounds than he knew was correct. He examined his returned cheques and found one with his signature for the exact amount, a signature written by another hand than his. He informed his wife, pending his decision as to what steps to take to bring the guilt home. His wife informed her son.

"Ah," said he, "I have my suspicions." And he mentioned the name of a clerk in his father's employ.

The ball being set rolling, the elder Chaytor began to watch the suspected man, setting traps for him, across which the innocent man stepped in safety. Mr. Chaytor was puzzled; he had, by his wife's advice, kept the affair entirely secret, who in her turn had been prompted by her son to this course, and warned not to drag his name into it. The father, therefore was not aware that the accusation against the clerk proceeded from his son.

Chaytor had a design in view: he wished to gain time to avoid possible unpleasant consequences.

Some three weeks afterwards, when Mr. Chaytor had resolved to take the forged cheque to the bank with the intention of enlisting its services in the discovery of the criminal, he went to his desk to obtain the document. It was gone, and other papers with it. He was confounded; without the cheque he could do nothing.