"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND\n\nCharles Dickens\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n     Book the First\n\n     THE CUP AND THE LIP\n\n\n     1. ON THE LOOK OUT\n     2. THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE\n     3. ANOTHER MAN\n     4. THE R. WILFER FAMILY\n     5. BOFFIN'S BOWER\n     6. CUT ADRIFT\n     7. MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF\n     8. MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION\n     9. MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION\n     10. A MARRIAGE CONTRACT\n     11. PODSNAPPERY\n     12. THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW\n     13. TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY\n     14. THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN\n     15. TWO NEW SERVANTS\n     16. MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS\n     17. A DISMAL SWAMP\n\n\n\n     Book the Second\n\n     BIRDS OF A FEATHER\n\n\n     1. OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER\n     2. STILL EDUCATIONAL\n     3. A PIECE OF WORK\n     4. CUPID PROMPTED\n     5. MERCURY PROMPTING\n     6. A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER\n     7. IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED\n     8. IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS\n     9. IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL\n     10. A SUCCESSOR\n     11. SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART\n     12. MORE BIRDS OF PREY\n     13. A SOLO AND A DUETT\n     14. STRONG OF PURPOSE\n     15. THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR\n     16. AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION\n\n\n\n     Book the Third\n\n     A LONG LANE\n\n\n     1. LODGERS IN QUEER STREET\n     2. A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT\n     3. THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE\n     4. A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY\n     5. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY\n     6. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY\n     7. THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION\n     8. THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY\n     9. SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION\n     10. SCOUTS OUT\n     11. IN THE DARK\n     12. MEANING MISCHIEF\n     13. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM\n     14. MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN'S NOSE\n     15. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST\n     16. THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS\n     17. A SOCIAL CHORUS\n\n\n\n     Book the Fourth\n\n     A TURNING\n\n\n     1. SETTING TRAPS\n     2. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE\n     3. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN\n     4. A RUNAWAY MATCH\n     5. CONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE\n     6. A CRY FOR HELP\n     7. BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN\n     8. A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER\n     9. TWO PLACES VACATED\n     10. THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD\n     11. EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY\n     12. THE PASSING SHADOW\n     13. SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST\n     14. CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE\n     15. WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET\n     16. PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL\n     17. THE VOICE OF SOCIETY\n\n\n     POSTSCRIPT, IN LIEU OF PREFACE\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FIRST -- THE CUP AND THE LIP\n\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nON THE LOOK OUT\n\n\nIn these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no\nneed to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with\ntwo figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which\nis of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening\nwas closing in.\n\nThe figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled\nhair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty,\nsufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl\nrowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the\nrudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband,\nkept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could\nnot be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no\ninscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope,\nand he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small\nto take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman or\nriver-carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked\nfor something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which\nhad turned an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watched\nevery little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight\nhead-way against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as he\ndirected his daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his face\nas earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look\nthere was a touch of dread or horror.\n\nAllied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason of\nthe slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, this\nboat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they\noften did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the\nman showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown arms\nbare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a\nlooser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard\nand whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the\nmud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business-like usage in his\nsteady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of\nher wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; they\nwere things of usage.\n\n'Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her well afore the\nsweep of it.'\n\nTrusting to the girl's skill and making no use of the rudder, he eyed\nthe coming tide with an absorbed attention. So the girl eyed him. But,\nit happened now, that a slant of light from the setting sun glanced into\nthe bottom of the boat, and, touching a rotten stain there which bore\nsome resemblance to the outline of a muffled human form, coloured it as\nthough with diluted blood. This caught the girl's eye, and she shivered.\n\n'What ails you?' said the man, immediately aware of it, though so intent\non the advancing waters; 'I see nothing afloat.'\n\nThe red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his gaze, which had\ncome back to the boat for a moment, travelled away again. Wheresoever\nthe strong tide met with an impediment, his gaze paused for an instant.\nAt every mooring-chain and rope, at every stationery boat or barge that\nsplit the current into a broad-arrowhead, at the offsets from the piers\nof Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they beat\nthe filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying\noff certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After a\ndarkening hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold,\nand he steered hard towards the Surrey shore.\n\nAlways watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the action in\nher sculling; presently the boat swung round, quivered as from a sudden\njerk, and the upper half of the man was stretched out over the stern.\n\nThe girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over her\nface, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this hood were\nturned down the river, kept the boat in that direction going before the\ntide. Until now, the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered about\none spot; but now, the banks changed swiftly, and the deepening shadows\nand the kindling lights of London Bridge were passed, and the tiers of\nshipping lay on either hand.\n\nIt was not until now that the upper half of the man came back into the\nboat. His arms were wet and dirty, and he washed them over the side. In\nhis right hand he held something, and he washed that in the river too.\nIt was money. He chinked it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spat\nupon it once,--'for luck,' he hoarsely said--before he put it in his\npocket.\n\n'Lizzie!'\n\nThe girl turned her face towards him with a start, and rowed in silence.\nHer face was very pale. He was a hook-nosed man, and with that and his\nbright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a certain likeness to a roused\nbird of prey.\n\n'Take that thing off your face.'\n\nShe put it back.\n\n'Here! and give me hold of the sculls. I'll take the rest of the spell.'\n\n'No, no, father! No! I can't indeed. Father!--I cannot sit so near it!'\n\nHe was moving towards her to change places, but her terrified\nexpostulation stopped him and he resumed his seat.\n\n'What hurt can it do you?'\n\n'None, none. But I cannot bear it.'\n\n'It's my belief you hate the sight of the very river.'\n\n'I--I do not like it, father.'\n\n'As if it wasn't your living! As if it wasn't meat and drink to you!'\n\nAt these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a moment paused\nin her rowing, seeming to turn deadly faint. It escaped his attention,\nfor he was glancing over the stern at something the boat had in tow.\n\n'How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie? The very\nfire that warmed you when you were a babby, was picked out of the river\nalongside the coal barges. The very basket that you slept in, the tide\nwashed ashore. The very rockers that I put it upon to make a cradle\nof it, I cut out of a piece of wood that drifted from some ship or\nanother.'\n\nLizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and touched her\nlips with it, and for a moment held it out lovingly towards him: then,\nwithout speaking, she resumed her rowing, as another boat of similar\nappearance, though in rather better trim, came out from a dark place and\ndropped softly alongside.\n\n'In luck again, Gaffer?' said a man with a squinting leer, who sculled\nher and who was alone, 'I know'd you was in luck again, by your wake as\nyou come down.'\n\n'Ah!' replied the other, drily. 'So you're out, are you?'\n\n'Yes, pardner.'\n\nThere was now a tender yellow moonlight on the river, and the new comer,\nkeeping half his boat's length astern of the other boat looked hard at\nits track.\n\n'I says to myself,' he went on, 'directly you hove in view, yonder's\nGaffer, and in luck again, by George if he ain't! Scull it is,\npardner--don't fret yourself--I didn't touch him.' This was in answer\nto a quick impatient movement on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at the\nsame time unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his hand on the\ngunwale of Gaffer's boat and holding to it.\n\n'He's had touches enough not to want no more, as well as I make him\nout, Gaffer! Been a knocking about with a pretty many tides, ain't he\npardner? Such is my out-of-luck ways, you see! He must have passed me\nwhen he went up last time, for I was on the lookout below bridge here. I\na'most think you're like the wulturs, pardner, and scent 'em out.'\n\nHe spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one glance at Lizzie who\nhad pulled on her hood again. Both men then looked with a weird unholy\ninterest in the wake of Gaffer's boat.\n\n'Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him aboard, pardner?'\n\n'No,' said the other. In so surly a tone that the man, after a blank\nstare, acknowledged it with the retort:\n\n'--Arn't been eating nothing as has disagreed with you, have you,\npardner?'\n\n'Why, yes, I have,' said Gaffer. 'I have been swallowing too much of\nthat word, Pardner. I am no pardner of yours.'\n\n'Since when was you no pardner of mine, Gaffer Hexam Esquire?'\n\n'Since you was accused of robbing a man. Accused of robbing a live man!'\nsaid Gaffer, with great indignation.\n\n'And what if I had been accused of robbing a dead man, Gaffer?'\n\n'You COULDN'T do it.'\n\n'Couldn't you, Gaffer?'\n\n'No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible for a dead man to\nhave money? What world does a dead man belong to? 'Tother world. What\nworld does money belong to? This world. How can money be a corpse's? Can\na corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don't try to go\nconfounding the rights and wrongs of things in that way. But it's worthy\nof the sneaking spirit that robs a live man.'\n\n'I'll tell you what it is--.'\n\n'No you won't. I'll tell you what it is. You got off with a short time\nof it for putting your hand in the pocket of a sailor, a live sailor.\nMake the most of it and think yourself lucky, but don't think after\nthat to come over ME with your pardners. We have worked together in time\npast, but we work together no more in time present nor yet future. Let\ngo. Cast off!'\n\n'Gaffer! If you think to get rid of me this way--.'\n\n'If I don't get rid of you this way, I'll try another, and chop you over\nthe fingers with the stretcher, or take a pick at your head with the\nboat-hook. Cast off! Pull you, Lizzie. Pull home, since you won't let\nyour father pull.'\n\nLizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. Lizzie's father,\ncomposing himself into the easy attitude of one who had asserted the\nhigh moralities and taken an unassailable position, slowly lighted a\npipe, and smoked, and took a survey of what he had in tow. What he had\nin tow, lunged itself at him sometimes in an awful manner when the boat\nwas checked, and sometimes seemed to try to wrench itself away, though\nfor the most part it followed submissively. A neophyte might have\nfancied that the ripples passing over it were dreadfully like faint\nchanges of expression on a sightless face; but Gaffer was no neophyte\nand had no fancies.\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nTHE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE\n\n\nMr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a\nbran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick\nand span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new,\nall their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was\nnew, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures\nwere new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was\nlawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had\nset up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the\nPantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown\nof his head.\n\nFor, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new\ncoat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs\nagain to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish\nand polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in\nthe Veneerings--the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and\nwas a trifle sticky.\n\nThere was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy\ncastors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint\nJames's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind\nconfusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin\nto Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many houses\nmight be said to represent the dining-table in its normal state. Mr and\nMrs Veneering, for example, arranging a dinner, habitually started with\nTwemlow, and then put leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes,\nthe table consisted of Twemlow and half a dozen leaves; sometimes, of\nTwemlow and a dozen leaves; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled out to his\nutmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr and Mrs Veneering on occasions of\nceremony faced each other in the centre of the board, and thus the\nparallel still held; for, it always happened that the more Twemlow was\npulled out, the further he found himself from the center, and nearer\nto the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window-curtains at the\nother.\n\nBut, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow in\nconfusion. This he was used to, and could take soundings of. The abyss\nto which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth the\nengrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, was the insoluble\nquestion whether he was Veneering's oldest friend, or newest friend.\nTo the excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had devoted\nmany anxious hours, both in his lodgings over the livery stable-yard,\nand in the cold gloom, favourable to meditation, of Saint James's\nSquare. Thus. Twemlow had first known Veneering at his club, where\nVeneering then knew nobody but the man who made them known to one\nanother, who seemed to be the most intimate friend he had in the world,\nand whom he had known two days--the bond of union between their souls,\nthe nefarious conduct of the committee respecting the cookery of\na fillet of veal, having been accidentally cemented at that date.\nImmediately upon this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with\nVeneering, and dined: the man being of the party. Immediately upon\nthat, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the man, and dined:\nVeneering being of the party. At the man's were a Member, an Engineer, a\nPayer-off of the National Debt, a Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and\na Public Office, who all seem to be utter strangers to Veneering. And\nyet immediately after that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine at\nVeneerings, expressly to meet the Member, the Engineer, the Payer-off\nof the National Debt, the Poem on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and the\nPublic Office, and, dining, discovered that all of them were the most\nintimate friends Veneering had in the world, and that the wives of all\nof them (who were all there) were the objects of Mrs Veneering's most\ndevoted affection and tender confidence.\n\nThus it had come about, that Mr Twemlow had said to himself in his\nlodgings, with his hand to his forehead: 'I must not think of this. This\nis enough to soften any man's brain,'--and yet was always thinking of\nit, and could never form a conclusion.\n\nThis evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in the\nTwemlow; fourteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breasted retainers in\nplain clothes stand in line in the hall. A fifth retainer, proceeding up\nthe staircase with a mournful air--as who should say, 'Here is another\nwretched creature come to dinner; such is life!'--announces, 'Mis-ter\nTwemlow!'\n\nMrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomes\nhis dear Twemlow. Mrs Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can in\nnature care much for such insipid things as babies, but so old a friend\nmust please to look at baby. 'Ah! You will know the friend of your\nfamily better, Tootleums,' says Mr Veneering, nodding emotionally at\nthat new article, 'when you begin to take notice.' He then begs to make\nhis dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewer--and\nclearly has no distinct idea which is which.\n\nBut now a fearful circumstance occurs.\n\n'Mis-ter and Mis-sus Podsnap!'\n\n'My dear,' says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of much\nfriendly interest, while the door stands open, 'the Podsnaps.'\n\nA too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearing\nwith his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts at Twemlow with:\n\n'How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I\nhope we are not late. So glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'\n\nWhen the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back in\nhis neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings of a bygone\nfashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him; but the large\nman closed with him and proved too strong.\n\n'Let me,' says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his\nwife in the distance, 'have the pleasure of presenting Mrs Podsnap\nto her host. She will be,' in his fatal freshness he seems to find\nperpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, 'she will be so glad\nof the opportunity, I am sure!'\n\nIn the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her own\naccount, because Mrs Veneering is the only other lady there, does her\nbest in the way of handsomely supporting her husband's, by looking\ntowards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to Mrs\nVeneering in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears he has been\nrather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very\nlike him.\n\nIt is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken for\nany other man; but, Mr Veneering having this very evening set up the\nshirt-front of the young Antinous in new worked cambric just come home,\nis not at all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dry\nand weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs Veneering equally resents\nthe imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he is\nso sensible of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that he\nconsiders the large man an offensive ass.\n\nIn this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man with\nextended hand and, smilingly assures that incorrigible personage that he\nis delighted to see him: who in his fatal freshness instantly replies:\n\n'Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recall\nwhere we met, but I am so glad of this opportunity, I am sure!'\n\nThen pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, he\nis haling him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the\narrival of more guests unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken\nhands with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands with Twemlow as\nTwemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect satisfaction by saying\nto the last-named, 'Ridiculous opportunity--but so glad of it, I am\nsure!'\n\nNow, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having likewise\nnoted the fusion of Boots in Brewer and Brewer in Boots, and having\nfurther observed that of the remaining seven guests four discrete\ncharacters enter with wandering eyes and wholly declined to commit\nthemselves as to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his\ngrasp;--Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his brain\nwholesomely hardening as he approaches the conclusion that he really is\nVeneering's oldest friend, when his brain softens again and all is\nlost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and the large man linked\ntogether as twin brothers in the back drawing-room near the conservatory\ndoor, and through his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs Veneering\nthat the same large man is to be baby's godfather.\n\n'Dinner is on the table!'\n\nThus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, 'Come down and be\npoisoned, ye unhappy children of men!'\n\nTwemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the rear, with\nhis hand to his forehead. Boots and Brewer, thinking him indisposed,\nwhisper, 'Man faint. Had no lunch.' But he is only stunned by the\nunvanquishable difficulty of his existence.\n\nRevived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court Circular with\nBoots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at the fish stage of the banquet, by\nVeneering, on the disputed question whether his cousin Lord Snigsworth\nis in or out of town? Gives it that his cousin is out of town. 'At\nSnigsworthy Park?' Veneering inquires. 'At Snigsworthy,' Twemlow\nrejoins. Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be cultivated; and\nVeneering is clear that he is a remunerative article. Meantime the\nretainer goes round, like a gloomy Analytical Chemist: always seeming\nto say, after 'Chablis, sir?'--'You wouldn't if you knew what it's made\nof.'\n\nThe great looking-glass above the sideboard, reflects the table and the\ncompany. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver,\nfrosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Heralds' College found\nout a Crusading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield\n(or might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camels\ntake charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down be\nloaded with the salt. Reflects Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark,\ntending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy--a kind of sufficiently\nwell-looking veiled-prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs Veneering;\nfair, aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might\nhave, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory,\nconscious that a corner of her husband's veil is over herself. Reflects\nPodsnap; prosperously feeding, two little light-coloured wiry wings, one\non either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes as\nhis hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance\nof crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs Podsnap; fine woman\nfor Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a\nrocking-horse, hard features, majestic head-dress in which Podsnap has\nhung golden offerings. Reflects Twemlow; grey, dry, polite, susceptible\nto east wind, First-Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn\nin as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years\nago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature\nyoung lady; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when well\npowdered--as it is--carrying on considerably in the captivation of\nmature young gentleman; with too much nose in his face, too much ginger\nin his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in\nhis studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects\ncharming old Lady Tippins on Veneering's right; with an immense obtuse\ndrab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed Long Walk up\nthe top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of\nfalse hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs Veneering opposite, who\nis pleased to be patronized. Reflects a certain 'Mortimer', another\nof Veneering's oldest friends; who never was in the house before,\nand appears not to want to come again, who sits disconsolate on Mrs\nVeneering's left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of\nhis boyhood) to come to these people's and talk, and who won't talk.\nReflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the back of his\nchair, behind a shoulder--with a powder-epaulette on it--of the mature\nyoung lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice whenever\nproffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass reflects\nBoots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the\nrest of the company and possible accidents.\n\nThe Veneering dinners are excellent dinners--or new people wouldn't\ncome--and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has made a series of\nexperiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated and\ndaring, that if they could be published with their results it might\nbenefit the human race. Having taken in provisions from all parts of the\nworld, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when,\nas the ice-plates are being removed, the following words fall from her:\n\n'I assure you, my dear Veneering--'\n\n(Poor Twemlow's hand approaches his forehead, for it would seem now,\nthat Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest friend.)\n\n'I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair! Like\nthe advertising people, I don't ask you to trust me, without offering\na respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, and knows all\nabout it.'\n\nMortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his mouth. But\na faint smile, expressive of 'What's the use!' passes over his face, and\nhe drops his eyelids and shuts his mouth.\n\n'Now, Mortimer,' says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her closed\ngreen fan upon the knuckles of her left hand--which is particularly rich\nin knuckles, 'I insist upon your telling all that is to be told about\nthe man from Jamaica.'\n\n'Give you my honour I never heard of any man from Jamaica, except the\nman who was a brother,' replies Mortimer.\n\n'Tobago, then.'\n\n'Nor yet from Tobago.'\n\n'Except,' Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the mature young lady,\nwho has forgotten all about him, with a start takes the epaulette out\nof his way: 'except our friend who long lived on rice-pudding and\nisinglass, till at length to his something or other, his physician said\nsomething else, and a leg of mutton somehow ended in daygo.'\n\nA reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. An\nunfulfilled impression, for he goes in again.\n\n'Now, my dear Mrs Veneering,' quoth Lady Tippins, I appeal to you\nwhether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this world? I carry\nmy lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are very\nobedient and devoted; and here is my oldest lover-in-chief, the head of\nall my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company! And here is\nanother of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present certainly, but of whom\nI had most hopeful expectations as to his turning out well in course of\ntime, pretending that he can't remember his nursery rhymes! On purpose\nto annoy me, for he knows how I doat upon them!'\n\nA grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins's point.\nShe is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little list\nof her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out an\nold lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to\nher blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book.\nMrs Veneering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps it\nis enhanced by a certain yellow play in Lady Tippins's throat, like the\nlegs of scratching poultry.\n\n'I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out of\nmy Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear,) this very night. But I am\nresolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere, and I beg you\nto elicit it for me, my love,' to Mrs Veneering, 'as I have lost my own\ninfluence. Oh, you perjured man!' This to Mortimer, with a rattle of her\nfan.\n\n'We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere,' Veneering\nobserves.\n\nThen the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at once, say:\n\n'Deeply interested!'\n\n'Quite excited!'\n\n'Dramatic!'\n\n'Man from Nowhere, perhaps!'\n\nAnd then Mrs Veneering--for the Lady Tippins's winning wiles are\ncontagious--folds her hands in the manner of a supplicating child, turns\nto her left neighbour, and says, 'Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere!' At\nwhich the four Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once,\nexplain, 'You can't resist!'\n\n'Upon my life,' says Mortimer languidly, 'I find it immensely\nembarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and my\nonly consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins in\nyour secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man from\nSomewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a local\nhabitation, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes me,\nbut will suggest itself to everybody else here, where they make the\nwine.'\n\nEugene suggests 'Day and Martin's.'\n\n'No, not that place,' returns the unmoved Mortimer, 'that's where they\nmake the Port. My man comes from the country where they make the Cape\nWine. But look here, old fellow; its not at all statistical and it's\nrather odd.'\n\nIt is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no man\ntroubles himself much about the Veneerings themselves, and that any\none who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody else in\npreference.\n\n'The man,' Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, 'whose name is Harmon,\nwas only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust.'\n\n'Red velveteens and a bell?' the gloomy Eugene inquires.\n\n'And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or by others, he\ngrew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow in a hilly country\nentirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling old\nvagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its\ngeological formation was Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust,\ncrockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,--all manner of Dust.'\n\nA passing remembrance of Mrs Veneering, here induces Mortimer to address\nhis next half-dozen words to her; after which he wanders away again,\ntries Twemlow and finds he doesn't answer, ultimately takes up with the\nBuffers who receive him enthusiastically.\n\n'The moral being--I believe that's the right expression--of this\nexemplary person, derived its highest gratification from anathematizing\nhis nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (as\nwas natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom,\nhe next found himself at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on the\nclaims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his own\nsatisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon\nher, as her marriage portion, I don't know how much Dust, but something\nimmense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully\nintimated that she was secretly engaged to that popular character whom\nthe novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage\nwould make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life--in short, would\nset her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father's business.\nImmediately, the venerable parent--on a cold winter's night, it is\nsaid--anathematized and turned her out.'\n\nHere, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very low\nopinion of Mortimer's story) concedes a little claret to the Buffers;\nwho, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw it slowly into\nthemselves with a peculiar twist of enjoyment, as they cry in chorus,\n'Pray go on.'\n\n'The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a very\nlimited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an expression when\nI say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady, and\nthey lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented\nwith honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. I must refer\nyou to the Registrar of the District in which the humble dwelling was\nsituated, for the certified cause of death; but early sorrow and anxiety\nmay have had to do with it, though they may not appear in the ruled\npages and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another,\nfor he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlived\nher a year it was as much as he did.'\n\nThere is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good\nsociety might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one of\ngood society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here\nrelates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy\nEugene too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when that appalling\nLady Tippins declares that if Another had survived, he should have gone\ndown at the head of her list of lovers--and also when the mature young\nlady shrugs her epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential\ncomment from the mature young gentleman--his gloom deepens to that\ndegree that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife.\n\nMortimer proceeds.\n\n'We must now return, as novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn't,\nto the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of fourteen, cheaply educated\nat Brussels when his sister's expulsion befell, it was some little time\nbefore he heard of it--probably from herself, for the mother was dead;\nbut that I don't know. Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. He\nmust have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped\nallowance of five sous a week; but he did it somehow, and he burst in\non his father, and pleaded his sister's cause. Venerable parent promptly\nresorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified\nboy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately\nturns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small proprietor, farmer,\ngrower--whatever you like to call it.'\n\nAt this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is heard\nat the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to the door, confers\nangrily with unseen tapper, appears to become mollified by descrying\nreason in the tapping, and goes out.\n\n'So he was discovered, only the other day, after having been expatriated\nabout fourteen years.'\n\nA Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detaching himself, and\nasserting individuality, inquires: 'How discovered, and why?'\n\n'Ah! To be sure. Thank you for reminding me. Venerable parent dies.'\n\nSame Buffer, emboldened by success, says: 'When?'\n\n'The other day. Ten or twelve months ago.'\n\nSame Buffer inquires with smartness, 'What of?' But herein perishes a\nmelancholy example; being regarded by the three other Buffers with a\nstony stare, and attracting no further attention from any mortal.\n\n'Venerable parent,' Mortimer repeats with a passing remembrance that\nthere is a Veneering at table, and for the first time addressing\nhim--'dies.'\n\nThe gratified Veneering repeats, gravely, 'dies'; and folds his arms,\nand composes his brow to hear it out in a judicial manner, when he finds\nhimself again deserted in the bleak world.\n\n'His will is found,' said Mortimer, catching Mrs Podsnap's\nrocking-horse's eye. 'It is dated very soon after the son's flight. It\nleaves the lowest of the range of dust-mountains, with some sort of a\ndwelling-house at its foot, to an old servant who is sole executor, and\nall the rest of the property--which is very considerable--to the son.\nHe directs himself to be buried with certain eccentric ceremonies and\nprecautions against his coming to life, with which I need not bore you,\nand that's all--except--' and this ends the story.\n\nThe Analytical Chemist returning, everybody looks at him. Not because\nanybody wants to see him, but because of that subtle influence in nature\nwhich impels humanity to embrace the slightest opportunity of looking at\nanything, rather than the person who addresses it.\n\n'--Except that the son's inheriting is made conditional on his marrying\na girl, who at the date of the will, was a child of four or five years\nold, and who is now a marriageable young woman. Advertisement and\ninquiry discovered the son in the man from Somewhere, and at the present\nmoment, he is on his way home from there--no doubt, in a state of great\nastonishment--to succeed to a very large fortune, and to take a wife.'\n\nMrs Podsnap inquires whether the young person is a young person of\npersonal charms? Mortimer is unable to report.\n\nMr Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large fortune, in the\nevent of the marriage condition not being fulfilled? Mortimer replies,\nthat by special testamentary clause it would then go to the old servant\nabove mentioned, passing over and excluding the son; also, that if\nthe son had not been living, the same old servant would have been sole\nresiduary legatee.\n\nMrs Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady Tippins from a snore, by\ndexterously shunting a train of plates and dishes at her knuckles across\nthe table; when everybody but Mortimer himself becomes aware that the\nAnalytical Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded paper.\nCuriosity detains Mrs Veneering a few moments.\n\nMortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly refreshes\nhimself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of the Document\nwhich engrosses the general attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a\nhabit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and\nrecovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: 'Falser man than\nDon Juan; why don't you take the note from the commendatore?' Upon\nwhich, the chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looks\nround at him, and says:\n\n'What's this?'\n\nAnalytical Chemist bends and whispers.\n\n'WHO?' Says Mortimer.\n\nAnalytical Chemist again bends and whispers.\n\nMortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, reads it twice,\nturns it over to look at the blank outside, reads it a third time.\n\n'This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner,' says Mortimer\nthen, looking with an altered face round the table: 'this is the\nconclusion of the story of the identical man.'\n\n'Already married?' one guesses.\n\n'Declines to marry?' another guesses.\n\n'Codicil among the dust?' another guesses.\n\n'Why, no,' says Mortimer; 'remarkable thing, you are all wrong. The\nstory is completer and rather more exciting than I supposed. Man's\ndrowned!'\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nANOTHER MAN\n\n\nAs the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneering\nstaircase, Mortimer, following them forth from the dining-room, turned\ninto a library of bran-new books, in bran-new bindings liberally gilded,\nand requested to see the messenger who had brought the paper. He was a\nboy of about fifteen. Mortimer looked at the boy, and the boy looked\nat the bran-new pilgrims on the wall, going to Canterbury in more gold\nframe than procession, and more carving than country.\n\n'Whose writing is this?'\n\n'Mine, sir.'\n\n'Who told you to write it?'\n\n'My father, Jesse Hexam.'\n\n'Is it he who found the body?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'What is your father?'\n\nThe boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as if they had\ninvolved him in a little difficulty, then said, folding a plait in the\nright leg of his trousers, 'He gets his living along-shore.'\n\n'Is it far?'\n\n'Is which far?' asked the boy, upon his guard, and again upon the road\nto Canterbury.\n\n'To your father's?'\n\n'It's a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the cab's waiting\nto be paid. We could go back in it before you paid it, if you liked.\nI went first to your office, according to the direction of the papers\nfound in the pockets, and there I see nobody but a chap of about my age\nwho sent me on here.'\n\nThere was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, and\nuncompleted civilization. His voice was hoarse and coarse, and his face\nwas coarse, and his stunted figure was coarse; but he was cleaner than\nother boys of his type; and his writing, though large and round,\nwas good; and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened\ncuriosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks\nat a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.\n\n'Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain if it was possible\nto restore life?' Mortimer inquired, as he sought for his hat.\n\n'You wouldn't ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharaoh's multitude that\nwere drowned in the Red Sea, ain't more beyond restoring to life. If\nLazarus was only half as far gone, that was the greatest of all the\nmiracles.'\n\n'Halloa!' cried Mortimer, turning round with his hat upon his head, 'you\nseem to be at home in the Red Sea, my young friend?'\n\n'Read of it with teacher at the school,' said the boy.\n\n'And Lazarus?'\n\n'Yes, and him too. But don't you tell my father! We should have no peace\nin our place, if that got touched upon. It's my sister's contriving.'\n\n'You seem to have a good sister.'\n\n'She ain't half bad,' said the boy; 'but if she knows her letters it's\nthe most she does--and them I learned her.'\n\nThe gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had strolled in and\nassisted at the latter part of the dialogue; when the boy spoke these\nwords slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly enough by the chin,\nand turned up his face to look at it.\n\n'Well, I'm sure, sir!' said the boy, resisting; 'I hope you'll know me\nagain.'\n\nEugene vouchsafed no answer; but made the proposal to Mortimer, 'I'll\ngo with you, if you like?' So, they all three went away together in the\nvehicle that had brought the boy; the two friends (once boys together at\na public school) inside, smoking cigars; the messenger on the box beside\nthe driver.\n\n'Let me see,' said Mortimer, as they went along; 'I have been, Eugene,\nupon the honourable roll of solicitors of the High Court of Chancery,\nand attorneys at Common Law, five years; and--except gratuitously taking\ninstructions, on an average once a fortnight, for the will of Lady\nTippins who has nothing to leave--I have had no scrap of business but\nthis romantic business.'\n\n'And I,' said Eugene, 'have been \"called\" seven years, and have had no\nbusiness at all, and never shall have any. And if I had, I shouldn't\nknow how to do it.'\n\n'I am far from being clear as to the last particular,' returned\nMortimer, with great composure, 'that I have much advantage over you.'\n\n'I hate,' said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite seat, 'I hate\nmy profession.'\n\n'Shall I incommode you, if I put mine up too?' returned Mortimer. 'Thank\nyou. I hate mine.'\n\n'It was forced upon me,' said the gloomy Eugene, 'because it was\nunderstood that we wanted a barrister in the family. We have got a\nprecious one.'\n\n'It was forced upon me,' said Mortimer, 'because it was understood that\nwe wanted a solicitor in the family. And we have got a precious one.'\n\n'There are four of us, with our names painted on a door-post in right of\none black hole called a set of chambers,' said Eugene; 'and each of us\nhas the fourth of a clerk--Cassim Baba, in the robber's cave--and Cassim\nis the only respectable member of the party.'\n\n'I am one by myself, one,' said Mortimer, 'high up an awful staircase\ncommanding a burial-ground, and I have a whole clerk to myself, and he\nhas nothing to do but look at the burial-ground, and what he will turn\nout when arrived at maturity, I cannot conceive. Whether, in that shabby\nrook's nest, he is always plotting wisdom, or plotting murder; whether\nhe will grow up, after so much solitary brooding, to enlighten his\nfellow-creatures, or to poison them; is the only speck of interest that\npresents itself to my professional view. Will you give me a light? Thank\nyou.'\n\n'Then idiots talk,' said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking\nwith his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, 'of Energy.\nIf there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that\nI abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, such\nparrot gabble! What the deuce! Am I to rush out into the street, collar\nthe first man of a wealthy appearance that I meet, shake him, and say,\n\"Go to law upon the spot, you dog, and retain me, or I'll be the death\nof you\"? Yet that would be energy.'\n\n'Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good opportunity,\nshow me something really worth being energetic about, and I'll show you\nenergy.'\n\n'And so will I,' said Eugene.\n\nAnd it is likely enough that ten thousand other young men, within the\nlimits of the London Post-office town delivery, made the same hopeful\nremark in the course of the same evening.\n\nThe wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument and by the Tower,\nand by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe; down by where\naccumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher grounds,\nlike so much moral sewage, and to be pausing until its own weight forced\nit over the bank and sunk it in the river. In and out among vessels\nthat seemed to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to have got\nafloat--among bow-splits staring into windows, and windows staring\ninto ships--the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner,\nriver-washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy alighted and\nopened the door.\n\n'You must walk the rest, sir; it's not many yards.' He spoke in the\nsingular number, to the express exclusion of Eugene.\n\n'This is a confoundedly out-of-the-way place,' said Mortimer, slipping\nover the stones and refuse on the shore, as the boy turned the corner\nsharp.\n\n'Here's my father's, sir; where the light is.'\n\nThe low building had the look of having once been a mill. There was a\nrotten wart of wood upon its forehead that seemed to indicate where\nthe sails had been, but the whole was very indistinctly seen in the\nobscurity of the night. The boy lifted the latch of the door, and they\npassed at once into a low circular room, where a man stood before a red\nfire, looking down into it, and a girl sat engaged in needlework. The\nfire was in a rusty brazier, not fitted to the hearth; and a common\nlamp, shaped like a hyacinth-root, smoked and flared in the neck of a\nstone bottle on the table. There was a wooden bunk or berth in a corner,\nand in another corner a wooden stair leading above--so clumsy and steep\nthat it was little better than a ladder. Two or three old sculls and\noars stood against the wall, and against another part of the wall was a\nsmall dresser, making a spare show of the commonest articles of crockery\nand cooking-vessels. The roof of the room was not plastered, but was\nformed of the flooring of the room above. This, being very old, knotted,\nseamed, and beamed, gave a lowering aspect to the chamber; and roof, and\nwalls, and floor, alike abounding in old smears of flour, red-lead (or\nsome such stain which it had probably acquired in warehousing), and\ndamp, alike had a look of decomposition.\n\n'The gentleman, father.'\n\nThe figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, and looked\nlike a bird of prey.\n\n'You're Mortimer Lightwood Esquire; are you, sir?'\n\n'Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found,' said Mortimer, glancing\nrather shrinkingly towards the bunk; 'is it here?'\n\n''Tain't not to say here, but it's close by. I do everything reg'lar.\nI've giv' notice of the circumstarnce to the police, and the police have\ntook possession of it. No time ain't been lost, on any hand. The police\nhave put into print already, and here's what the print says of it.'\n\nTaking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near a paper on\nthe wall, with the police heading, BODY FOUND. The two friends read the\nhandbill as it stuck against the wall, and Gaffer read them as he held\nthe light.\n\n'Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see,' said Lightwood, glancing\nfrom the description of what was found, to the finder.\n\n'Only papers.'\n\nHere the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went out at the door.\n\n'No money,' pursued Mortimer; 'but threepence in one of the\nskirt-pockets.'\n\n'Three. Penny. Pieces,' said Gaffer Hexam, in as many sentences.\n\n'The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out.'\n\nGaffer Hexam nodded. 'But that's common. Whether it's the wash of the\ntide or no, I can't say. Now, here,' moving the light to another similar\nplacard, 'HIS pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here,'\nmoving the light to another, 'HER pocket was found empty, and turned\ninside out. And so was this one's. And so was that one's. I can't read,\nnor I don't want to it, for I know 'em by their places on the wall. This\none was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm.\nLook and see if he warn't.'\n\n'Quite right.'\n\n'This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen marked with a\ncross. Look and see if she warn't.'\n\n'Quite right.'\n\n'This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two young\nsisters what tied themselves together with a handkecher. This the\ndrunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot had\noffered--it afterwards come out--to make a hole in the water for a\nquartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first and\nlast time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; but I\nknow 'em all. I'm scholar enough!'\n\nHe waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of his\nscholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and stood\nbehind it looking intently at his visitors. He had the special\npeculiarity of some birds of prey, that when he knitted his brow, his\nruffled crest stood highest.\n\n'You did not find all these yourself; did you?' asked Eugene.\n\nTo which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, 'And what might YOUR name be,\nnow?'\n\n'This is my friend,' Mortimer Lightwood interposed; 'Mr Eugene\nWrayburn.'\n\n'Mr Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr Eugene Wrayburn have asked\nof me?'\n\n'I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself?'\n\n'I answer you, simply, most on 'em.'\n\n'Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, beforehand,\namong these cases?'\n\n'I don't suppose at all about it,' returned Gaffer. 'I ain't one of the\nsupposing sort. If you'd got your living to haul out of the river every\nday of your life, you mightn't be much given to supposing. Am I to show\nthe way?'\n\nAs he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, an\nextremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway--the face of a\nman much agitated.\n\n'A body missing?' asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short; 'or a body found?\nWhich?'\n\n'I am lost!' replied the man, in a hurried and an eager manner.\n\n'Lost?'\n\n'I--I--am a stranger, and don't know the way. I--I--want to find the\nplace where I can see what is described here. It is possible I may know\nit.' He was panting, and could hardly speak; but, he showed a copy of\nthe newly-printed bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps its\nnewness, or perhaps the accuracy of his observation of its general look,\nguided Gaffer to a ready conclusion.\n\n'This gentleman, Mr Lightwood, is on that business.'\n\n'Mr Lightwood?'\n\nDuring a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each other. Neither\nknew the other.\n\n'I think, sir,' said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with his\nairy self-possession, 'that you did me the honour to mention my name?'\n\n'I repeated it, after this man.'\n\n'You said you were a stranger in London?'\n\n'An utter stranger.'\n\n'Are you seeking a Mr Harmon?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless errand, and\nwill not find what you fear to find. Will you come with us?'\n\nA little winding through some muddy alleys that might have been\ndeposited by the last ill-savoured tide, brought them to the\nwicket-gate and bright lamp of a Police Station; where they found the\nNight-Inspector, with a pen and ink, and ruler, posting up his books in\na whitewashed office, as studiously as if he were in a monastery on\ntop of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging\nherself against a cell-door in the back-yard at his elbow. With the\nsame air of a recluse much given to study, he desisted from his books to\nbestow a distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing,\n'Ah! we know all about YOU, and you'll overdo it some day;' and to\ninform Mr Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend them\nimmediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he had in hand (it might\nhave been illuminating a missal, he was so calm), in a very neat and\nmethodical manner, showing not the slightest consciousness of the woman\nwho was banging herself with increased violence, and shrieking most\nterrifically for some other woman's liver.\n\n'A bull's-eye,' said the Night-Inspector, taking up his keys. Which a\ndeferential satellite produced. 'Now, gentlemen.'\n\nWith one of his keys, he opened a cool grot at the end of the yard,\nand they all went in. They quickly came out again, no one speaking but\nEugene: who remarked to Mortimer, in a whisper, 'Not MUCH worse than\nLady Tippins.'\n\nSo, back to the whitewashed library of the monastery--with that liver\nstill in shrieking requisition, as it had been loudly, while they looked\nat the silent sight they came to see--and there through the merits of\nthe case as summed up by the Abbot. No clue to how body came into river.\nVery often was no clue. Too late to know for certain, whether injuries\nreceived before or after death; one excellent surgical opinion said,\nbefore; other excellent surgical opinion said, after. Steward of ship in\nwhich gentleman came home passenger, had been round to view, and could\nswear to identity. Likewise could swear to clothes. And then, you\nsee, you had the papers, too. How was it he had totally disappeared on\nleaving ship, 'till found in river? Well! Probably had been upon some\nlittle game. Probably thought it a harmless game, wasn't up to things,\nand it turned out a fatal game. Inquest to-morrow, and no doubt open\nverdict.\n\n'It appears to have knocked your friend over--knocked him completely off\nhis legs,' Mr Inspector remarked, when he had finished his summing up.\n'It has given him a bad turn to be sure!' This was said in a very low\nvoice, and with a searching look (not the first he had cast) at the\nstranger.\n\nMr Lightwood explained that it was no friend of his.\n\n'Indeed?' said Mr Inspector, with an attentive ear; 'where did you pick\nhim up?'\n\nMr Lightwood explained further.\n\nMr Inspector had delivered his summing up, and had added these words,\nwith his elbows leaning on his desk, and the fingers and thumb of his\nright hand, fitting themselves to the fingers and thumb of his left.\nMr Inspector moved nothing but his eyes, as he now added, raising his\nvoice:\n\n'Turned you faint, sir! Seems you're not accustomed to this kind of\nwork?'\n\nThe stranger, who was leaning against the chimneypiece with drooping\nhead, looked round and answered, 'No. It's a horrible sight!'\n\n'You expected to identify, I am told, sir?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'HAVE you identified?'\n\n'No. It's a horrible sight. O! a horrible, horrible sight!'\n\n'Who did you think it might have been?' asked Mr Inspector. 'Give us a\ndescription, sir. Perhaps we can help you.'\n\n'No, no,' said the stranger; 'it would be quite useless. Good-night.'\n\nMr Inspector had not moved, and had given no order; but, the satellite\nslipped his back against the wicket, and laid his left arm along the top\nof it, and with his right hand turned the bull's-eye he had taken from\nhis chief--in quite a casual manner--towards the stranger.\n\n'You missed a friend, you know; or you missed a foe, you know; or you\nwouldn't have come here, you know. Well, then; ain't it reasonable to\nask, who was it?' Thus, Mr Inspector.\n\n'You must excuse my telling you. No class of man can understand better\nthan you, that families may not choose to publish their disagreements\nand misfortunes, except on the last necessity. I do not dispute that you\ndischarge your duty in asking me the question; you will not dispute my\nright to withhold the answer. Good-night.'\n\nAgain he turned towards the wicket, where the satellite, with his eye\nupon his chief, remained a dumb statue.\n\n'At least,' said Mr Inspector, 'you will not object to leave me your\ncard, sir?'\n\n'I should not object, if I had one; but I have not.' He reddened and was\nmuch confused as he gave the answer.\n\n'At least,' said Mr Inspector, with no change of voice or manner, 'you\nwill not object to write down your name and address?'\n\n'Not at all.'\n\nMr Inspector dipped a pen in his inkstand, and deftly laid it on a\npiece of paper close beside him; then resumed his former attitude.\nThe stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremulous\nhand--Mr Inspector taking sidelong note of every hair of his head when\nit was bent down for the purpose--'Mr Julius Handford, Exchequer Coffee\nHouse, Palace Yard, Westminster.'\n\n'Staying there, I presume, sir?'\n\n'Staying there.'\n\n'Consequently, from the country?'\n\n'Eh? Yes--from the country.'\n\n'Good-night, sir.'\n\nThe satellite removed his arm and opened the wicket, and Mr Julius\nHandford went out.\n\n'Reserve!' said Mr Inspector. 'Take care of this piece of paper, keep\nhim in view without giving offence, ascertain that he IS staying there,\nand find out anything you can about him.'\n\nThe satellite was gone; and Mr Inspector, becoming once again the quiet\nAbbot of that Monastery, dipped his pen in his ink and resumed\nhis books. The two friends who had watched him, more amused by the\nprofessional manner than suspicious of Mr Julius Handford, inquired\nbefore taking their departure too whether he believed there was anything\nthat really looked bad here?\n\nThe Abbot replied with reticence, couldn't say. If a murder, anybody\nmight have done it. Burglary or pocket-picking wanted 'prenticeship. Not\nso, murder. We were all of us up to that. Had seen scores of people come\nto identify, and never saw one person struck in that particular way.\nMight, however, have been Stomach and not Mind. If so, rum stomach.\nBut to be sure there were rum everythings. Pity there was not a word\nof truth in that superstition about bodies bleeding when touched by the\nhand of the right person; you never got a sign out of bodies. You got\nrow enough out of such as her--she was good for all night now (referring\nhere to the banging demands for the liver), 'but you got nothing out of\nbodies if it was ever so.'\n\nThere being nothing more to be done until the Inquest was held next day,\nthe friends went away together, and Gaffer Hexam and his son went their\nseparate way. But, arriving at the last corner, Gaffer bade his boy go\nhome while he turned into a red-curtained tavern, that stood dropsically\nbulging over the causeway, 'for a half-a-pint.'\n\nThe boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found his sister\nagain seated before the fire at her work. Who raised her head upon his\ncoming in and asking:\n\n'Where did you go, Liz?'\n\n'I went out in the dark.'\n\n'There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough.'\n\n'One of the gentlemen, the one who didn't speak while I was there,\nlooked hard at me. And I was afraid he might know what my face meant.\nBut there! Don't mind me, Charley! I was all in a tremble of another\nsort when you owned to father you could write a little.'\n\n'Ah! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it was odds if any one\ncould read it. And when I wrote slowest and smeared but with my finger\nmost, father was best pleased, as he stood looking over me.'\n\nThe girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his seat by\nthe fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder.\n\n'You'll make the most of your time, Charley; won't you?'\n\n'Won't I? Come! I like that. Don't I?'\n\n'Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. And I work\na little, Charley, and plan and contrive a little (wake out of my\nsleep contriving sometimes), how to get together a shilling now, and a\nshilling then, that shall make father believe you are beginning to earn\na stray living along shore.'\n\n'You are father's favourite, and can make him believe anything.'\n\n'I wish I could, Charley! For if I could make him believe that learning\nwas a good thing, and that we might lead better lives, I should be\na'most content to die.'\n\n'Don't talk stuff about dying, Liz.'\n\nShe placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and laying her\nrich brown cheek against them as she looked down at the fire, went on\nthoughtfully:\n\n'Of an evening, Charley, when you are at the school, and father's--'\n\n'At the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters,' the boy struck in, with a\nbackward nod of his head towards the public-house.\n\n'Yes. Then as I sit a-looking at the fire, I seem to see in the burning\ncoal--like where that glow is now--'\n\n'That's gas, that is,' said the boy, 'coming out of a bit of a forest\nthat's been under the mud that was under the water in the days of Noah's\nArk. Look here! When I take the poker--so--and give it a dig--'\n\n'Don't disturb it, Charley, or it'll be all in a blaze. It's that dull\nglow near it, coming and going, that I mean. When I look at it of an\nevening, it comes like pictures to me, Charley.'\n\n'Show us a picture,' said the boy. 'Tell us where to look.'\n\n'Ah! It wants my eyes, Charley.'\n\n'Cut away then, and tell us what your eyes make of it.'\n\n'Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite a baby that\nnever knew a mother--'\n\n'Don't go saying I never knew a mother,' interposed the boy, 'for I knew\na little sister that was sister and mother both.'\n\nThe girl laughed delightedly, and her eyes filled with pleasant tears,\nas he put both his arms round her waist and so held her.\n\n'There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work and locked\nus out, for fear we should set ourselves afire or fall out of window,\nsitting on the door-sill, sitting on other door-steps, sitting on the\nbank of the river, wandering about to get through the time. You\nare rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I am often obliged to rest.\nSometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, sometimes\nwe are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, but what is\noftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, Charley?'\n\n'I remember,' said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, 'that I\nsnuggled under a little shawl, and it was warm there.'\n\n'Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of that:\nsometimes it's dark, and we get among the gaslights, sitting watching\nthe people as they go along the streets. At last, up comes father and\ntakes us home. And home seems such a shelter after out of doors! And\nfather pulls my shoes off, and dries my feet at the fire, and has me\nto sit by him while he smokes his pipe long after you are abed, and\nI notice that father's is a large hand but never a heavy one when it\ntouches me, and that father's is a rough voice but never an angry one\nwhen it speaks to me. So, I grow up, and little by little father trusts\nme, and makes me his companion, and, let him be put out as he may, never\nonce strikes me.'\n\nThe listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say 'But he strikes\nME though!'\n\n'Those are some of the pictures of what is past, Charley.'\n\n'Cut away again,' said the boy, 'and give us a fortune-telling one; a\nfuture one.'\n\n'Well! There am I, continuing with father and holding to father, because\nfather loves me and I love father. I can't so much as read a book,\nbecause, if I had learned, father would have thought I was deserting\nhim, and I should have lost my influence. I have not the influence I\nwant to have, I cannot stop some dreadful things I try to stop, but I\ngo on in the hope and trust that the time will come. In the meanwhile\nI know that I am in some things a stay to father, and that if I was\nnot faithful to him he would--in revenge-like, or in disappointment, or\nboth--go wild and bad.'\n\n'Give us a touch of the fortune-telling pictures about me.'\n\n'I was passing on to them, Charley,' said the girl, who had not changed\nher attitude since she began, and who now mournfully shook her head;\n'the others were all leading up. There are you--'\n\n'Where am I, Liz?'\n\n'Still in the hollow down by the flare.'\n\n'There seems to be the deuce-and-all in the hollow down by the flare,'\nsaid the boy, glancing from her eyes to the brazier, which had a grisly\nskeleton look on its long thin legs.\n\n'There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from father, at\nthe school; and you get prizes; and you go on better and better; and you\ncome to be a--what was it you called it when you told me about that?'\n\n'Ha, ha! Fortune-telling not know the name!' cried the boy, seeming to\nbe rather relieved by this default on the part of the hollow down by the\nflare. 'Pupil-teacher.'\n\n'You come to be a pupil-teacher, and you still go on better and better,\nand you rise to be a master full of learning and respect. But the secret\nhas come to father's knowledge long before, and it has divided you from\nfather, and from me.'\n\n'No it hasn't!'\n\n'Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that your way is\nnot ours, and that even if father could be got to forgive your taking\nit (which he never could be), that way of yours would be darkened by our\nway. But I see too, Charley--'\n\n'Still as plain as plain can be, Liz?' asked the boy playfully.\n\n'Ah! Still. That it is a great work to have cut you away from father's\nlife, and to have made a new and good beginning. So there am I, Charley,\nleft alone with father, keeping him as straight as I can, watching\nfor more influence than I have, and hoping that through some fortunate\nchance, or when he is ill, or when--I don't know what--I may turn him to\nwish to do better things.'\n\n'You said you couldn't read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is the\nhollow down by the flare, I think.'\n\n'I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my want of\nlearning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much more, if I didn't\nknow it to be a tie between me and father.--Hark! Father's tread!'\n\nIt being now past midnight, the bird of prey went straight to roost. At\nmid-day following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, in\nthe character, not new to him, of a witness before a Coroner's Jury.\n\nMr Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character of one of the\nwitnesses, doubled the part with that of the eminent solicitor who\nwatched the proceedings on behalf of the representatives of the\ndeceased, as was duly recorded in the newspapers. Mr Inspector watched\nthe proceedings too, and kept his watching closely to himself. Mr Julius\nHandford having given his right address, and being reported in solvent\ncircumstances as to his bill, though nothing more was known of him at\nhis hotel except that his way of life was very retired, had no summons\nto appear, and was merely present in the shades of Mr Inspector's mind.\n\nThe case was made interesting to the public, by Mr Mortimer Lightwood's\nevidence touching the circumstances under which the deceased, Mr John\nHarmon, had returned to England; exclusive private proprietorship in\nwhich circumstances was set up at dinner-tables for several days, by\nVeneering, Twemlow, Podsnap, and all the Buffers: who all related them\nirreconcilably with one another, and contradicted themselves. It was\nalso made interesting by the testimony of Job Potterson, the ship's\nsteward, and one Mr Jacob Kibble, a fellow-passenger, that the deceased\nMr John Harmon did bring over, in a hand-valise with which he did\ndisembark, the sum realized by the forced sale of his little landed\nproperty, and that the sum exceeded, in ready money, seven hundred\npounds. It was further made interesting, by the remarkable experiences\nof Jesse Hexam in having rescued from the Thames so many dead bodies,\nand for whose behoof a rapturous admirer subscribing himself 'A friend\nto Burial' (perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage stamps, and\nfive 'Now Sir's to the editor of the Times.\n\nUpon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found, That the body\nof Mr John Harmon had been discovered floating in the Thames, in an\nadvanced state of decay, and much injured; and that the said Mr John\nHarmon had come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances,\nthough by whose act or in what precise manner there was no evidence\nbefore this Jury to show. And they appended to their verdict, a\nrecommendation to the Home Office (which Mr Inspector appeared to think\nhighly sensible), to offer a reward for the solution of the mystery.\nWithin eight-and-forty hours, a reward of One Hundred Pounds was\nproclaimed, together with a free pardon to any person or persons not the\nactual perpetrator or perpetrators, and so forth in due form.\n\nThis Proclamation rendered Mr Inspector additionally studious, and\ncaused him to stand meditating on river-stairs and causeways, and to go\nlurking about in boats, putting this and that together. But, according\nto the success with which you put this and that together, you get a\nwoman and a fish apart, or a Mermaid in combination. And Mr Inspector\ncould turn out nothing better than a Mermaid, which no Judge and Jury\nwould believe in.\n\nThus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the knowledge of men,\nthe Harmon Murder--as it came to be popularly called--went up and down,\nand ebbed and flowed, now in the town, now in the country, now among\npalaces, now among hovels, now among lords and ladies and gentlefolks,\nnow among labourers and hammerers and ballast-heavers, until at last,\nafter a long interval of slack water it got out to sea and drifted away.\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nTHE R. WILFER FAMILY\n\n\nReginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound, suggesting on\nfirst acquaintance brasses in country churches, scrolls in stained-glass\nwindows, and generally the De Wilfers who came over with the Conqueror.\nFor, it is a remarkable fact in genealogy that no De Any ones ever came\nover with Anybody else.\n\nBut, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such commonplace extraction and\npursuits that their forefathers had for generations modestly subsisted\non the Docks, the Excise Office, and the Custom House, and the existing\nR. Wilfer was a poor clerk. So poor a clerk, though having a limited\nsalary and an unlimited family, that he had never yet attained the\nmodest object of his ambition: which was, to wear a complete new suit\nof clothes, hat and boots included, at one time. His black hat was brown\nbefore he could afford a coat, his pantaloons were white at the seams\nand knees before he could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn out\nbefore he could treat himself to new pantaloons, and, by the time he\nworked round to the hat again, that shining modern article roofed-in an\nancient ruin of various periods.\n\nIf the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be clothed, he might\nbe photographed as a portrait of Wilfer. His chubby, smooth, innocent\nappearance was a reason for his being always treated with condescension\nwhen he was not put down. A stranger entering his own poor house at\nabout ten o'clock P.M. might have been surprised to find him sitting up\nto supper. So boyish was he in his curves and proportions, that his\nold schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might have been unable to\nwithstand the temptation of caning him on the spot. In short, he was\nthe conventional cherub, after the supposititious shoot just mentioned,\nrather grey, with signs of care on his expression, and in decidedly\ninsolvent circumstances.\n\nHe was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as being too\naspiring and self-assertive a name. In his signature he used only the\ninitial R., and imparted what it really stood for, to none but chosen\nfriends, under the seal of confidence. Out of this, the facetious habit\nhad arisen in the neighbourhood surrounding Mincing Lane of making\nchristian names for him of adjectives and participles beginning with R.\nSome of these were more or less appropriate: as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy,\nRound, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative; others, derived their point from\ntheir want of application: as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But,\nhis popular name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspiration had been\nbestowed upon him by a gentleman of convivial habits connected with the\ndrug-markets, as the beginning of a social chorus, his leading part in\nthe execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, and\nof which the whole expressive burden ran:\n\n     'Rumty iddity, row dow dow,\n     Sing toodlely, teedlely, bow wow wow.'\n\nThus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on business, as\n'Dear Rumty'; in answer to which, he sedately signed himself, 'Yours\ntruly, R. Wilfer.'\n\nHe was clerk in the drug-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles.\nChicksey and Stobbles, his former masters, had both become absorbed in\nVeneering, once their traveller or commission agent: who had signalized\nhis accession to supreme power by bringing into the business a quantity\nof plate-glass window and French-polished mahogany partition, and a\ngleaming and enormous doorplate.\n\nR. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and, putting his bunch of keys\nin his pocket much as if it were his peg-top, made for home. His home\nwas in the Holloway region north of London, and then divided from it by\nfields and trees. Between Battle Bridge and that part of the Holloway\ndistrict in which he dwelt, was a tract of suburban Sahara, where tiles\nand bricks were burnt, bones were boiled, carpets were beat, rubbish was\nshot, dogs were fought, and dust was heaped by contractors. Skirting\nthe border of this desert, by the way he took, when the light of its\nkiln-fires made lurid smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed and shook his\nhead.\n\n'Ah me!' said he, 'what might have been is not what is!'\n\nWith which commentary on human life, indicating an experience of it\nnot exclusively his own, he made the best of his way to the end of his\njourney.\n\nMrs Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angular. Her lord being\ncherubic, she was necessarily majestic, according to the principle which\nmatrimonially unites contrasts. She was much given to tying up her head\nin a pocket-handkerchief, knotted under the chin. This head-gear, in\nconjunction with a pair of gloves worn within doors, she seemed to\nconsider as at once a kind of armour against misfortune (invariably\nassuming it when in low spirits or difficulties), and as a species of\nfull dress. It was therefore with some sinking of the spirit that her\nhusband beheld her thus heroically attired, putting down her candle in\nthe little hall, and coming down the doorsteps through the little front\ncourt to open the gate for him.\n\nSomething had gone wrong with the house-door, for R. Wilfer stopped on\nthe steps, staring at it, and cried:\n\n'Hal-loa?'\n\n'Yes,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'the man came himself with a pair of pincers,\nand took it off, and took it away. He said that as he had no expectation\nof ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for another LADIES'\nSCHOOL door-plate, it was better (burnished up) for the interests of all\nparties.'\n\n'Perhaps it was, my dear; what do you think?'\n\n'You are master here, R. W.,' returned his wife. 'It is as you think;\nnot as I do. Perhaps it might have been better if the man had taken the\ndoor too?'\n\n'My dear, we couldn't have done without the door.'\n\n'Couldn't we?'\n\n'Why, my dear! Could we?'\n\n'It is as you think, R. W.; not as I do.' With those submissive words,\nthe dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a little basement\nfront room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen,\nwith an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and\npetulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in\nher sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing\ndraughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of\nWilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detail\nand casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that the\nrest were what is called 'out in the world,' in various ways, and that\nthey were Many. So many, that when one of his dutiful children called in\nto see him, R. Wilfer generally seemed to say to himself, after a little\nmental arithmetic, 'Oh! here's another of 'em!' before adding aloud,\n'How de do, John,' or Susan, as the case might be.\n\n'Well Piggywiggies,' said R. W., 'how de do to-night? What I was\nthinking of, my dear,' to Mrs Wilfer already seated in a corner with\nfolded gloves, 'was, that as we have let our first floor so well, and as\nwe have now no place in which you could teach pupils even if pupils--'\n\n'The milkman said he knew of two young ladies of the highest\nrespectability who were in search of a suitable establishment, and he\ntook a card,' interposed Mrs Wilfer, with severe monotony, as if she\nwere reading an Act of Parliament aloud. 'Tell your father whether it\nwas last Monday, Bella.'\n\n'But we never heard any more of it, ma,' said Bella, the elder girl.\n\n'In addition to which, my dear,' her husband urged, 'if you have no\nplace to put two young persons into--'\n\n'Pardon me,' Mrs Wilfer again interposed; 'they were not young persons.\nTwo young ladies of the highest respectability. Tell your father, Bella,\nwhether the milkman said so.'\n\n'My dear, it is the same thing.'\n\n'No it is not,' said Mrs Wilfer, with the same impressive monotony.\n'Pardon me!'\n\n'I mean, my dear, it is the same thing as to space. As to space. If you\nhave no space in which to put two youthful fellow-creatures, however\neminently respectable, which I do not doubt, where are those youthful\nfellow-creatures to be accommodated? I carry it no further than that.\nAnd solely looking at it,' said her husband, making the stipulation at\nonce in a conciliatory, complimentary, and argumentative tone--'as I am\nsure you will agree, my love--from a fellow-creature point of view, my\ndear.'\n\n'I have nothing more to say,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with a meek\nrenunciatory action of her gloves. 'It is as you think, R. W.; not as I\ndo.'\n\nHere, the huffing of Miss Bella and the loss of three of her men at a\nswoop, aggravated by the coronation of an opponent, led to that young\nlady's jerking the draught-board and pieces off the table: which her\nsister went down on her knees to pick up.\n\n'Poor Bella!' said Mrs Wilfer.\n\n'And poor Lavinia, perhaps, my dear?' suggested R. W.\n\n'Pardon me,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'no!'\n\nIt was one of the worthy woman's specialities that she had an amazing\npower of gratifying her splenetic or worldly-minded humours by extolling\nher own family: which she thus proceeded, in the present case, to do.\n\n'No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella has known. The\ntrial that your daughter Bella has undergone, is, perhaps, without\na parallel, and has been borne, I will say, Nobly. When you see your\ndaughter Bella in her black dress, which she alone of all the family\nwears, and when you remember the circumstances which have led to\nher wearing it, and when you know how those circumstances have been\nsustained, then, R. W., lay your head upon your pillow and say, \"Poor\nLavinia!\"'\n\nHere, Miss Lavinia, from her kneeling situation under the table, put in\nthat she didn't want to be 'poored by pa', or anybody else.\n\n'I am sure you do not, my dear,' returned her mother, 'for you have a\nfine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia has a fine brave spirit\nof another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, a beau-ti-ful spirit! The\nself-sacrifice of Cecilia reveals a pure and womanly character, very\nseldom equalled, never surpassed. I have now in my pocket a letter from\nyour sister Cecilia, received this morning--received three months after\nher marriage, poor child!--in which she tells me that her husband must\nunexpectedly shelter under their roof his reduced aunt. \"But I will be\ntrue to him, mamma,\" she touchingly writes, \"I will not leave him, I\nmust not forget that he is my husband. Let his aunt come!\" If this is\nnot pathetic, if this is not woman's devotion--!' The good lady waved\nher gloves in a sense of the impossibility of saying more, and tied the\npocket-handkerchief over her head in a tighter knot under her chin.\n\nBella, who was now seated on the rug to warm herself, with her brown\neyes on the fire and a handful of her brown curls in her mouth, laughed\nat this, and then pouted and half cried.\n\n'I am sure,' said she, 'though you have no feeling for me, pa, I am one\nof the most unfortunate girls that ever lived. You know how poor we are'\n(it is probable he did, having some reason to know it!), 'and what a\nglimpse of wealth I had, and how it melted away, and how I am here in\nthis ridiculous mourning--which I hate!--a kind of a widow who never was\nmarried. And yet you don't feel for me.--Yes you do, yes you do.'\n\nThis abrupt change was occasioned by her father's face. She stopped\nto pull him down from his chair in an attitude highly favourable to\nstrangulation, and to give him a kiss and a pat or two on the cheek.\n\n'But you ought to feel for me, you know, pa.'\n\n'My dear, I do.'\n\n'Yes, and I say you ought to. If they had only left me alone and told\nme nothing about it, it would have mattered much less. But that nasty Mr\nLightwood feels it his duty, as he says, to write and tell me what is in\nreserve for me, and then I am obliged to get rid of George Sampson.'\n\nHere, Lavinia, rising to the surface with the last draughtman rescued,\ninterposed, 'You never cared for George Sampson, Bella.'\n\n'And did I say I did, miss?' Then, pouting again, with the curls in her\nmouth; 'George Sampson was very fond of me, and admired me very much,\nand put up with everything I did to him.'\n\n'You were rude enough to him,' Lavinia again interposed.\n\n'And did I say I wasn't, miss? I am not setting up to be sentimental\nabout George Sampson. I only say George Sampson was better than\nnothing.'\n\n'You didn't show him that you thought even that,' Lavinia again\ninterposed.\n\n'You are a chit and a little idiot,' returned Bella, 'or you wouldn't\nmake such a dolly speech. What did you expect me to do? Wait till you\nare a woman, and don't talk about what you don't understand. You only\nshow your ignorance!' Then, whimpering again, and at intervals biting\nthe curls, and stopping to look how much was bitten off, 'It's a shame!\nThere never was such a hard case! I shouldn't care so much if it wasn't\nso ridiculous. It was ridiculous enough to have a stranger coming over\nto marry me, whether he liked it or not. It was ridiculous enough to\nknow what an embarrassing meeting it would be, and how we never\ncould pretend to have an inclination of our own, either of us. It was\nridiculous enough to know I shouldn't like him--how COULD I like him,\nleft to him in a will, like a dozen of spoons, with everything cut and\ndried beforehand, like orange chips. Talk of orange flowers indeed!\nI declare again it's a shame! Those ridiculous points would have been\nsmoothed away by the money, for I love money, and want money--want it\ndreadfully. I hate to be poor, and we are degradingly poor, offensively\npoor, miserably poor, beastly poor. But here I am, left with all the\nridiculous parts of the situation remaining, and, added to them all,\nthis ridiculous dress! And if the truth was known, when the Harmon\nmurder was all over the town, and people were speculating on its being\nsuicide, I dare say those impudent wretches at the clubs and places made\njokes about the miserable creature's having preferred a watery grave to\nme. It's likely enough they took such liberties; I shouldn't wonder! I\ndeclare it's a very hard case indeed, and I am a most unfortunate girl.\nThe idea of being a kind of a widow, and never having been married!\nAnd the idea of being as poor as ever after all, and going into black,\nbesides, for a man I never saw, and should have hated--as far as HE was\nconcerned--if I had seen!'\n\nThe young lady's lamentations were checked at this point by a knuckle,\nknocking at the half-open door of the room. The knuckle had knocked two\nor three times already, but had not been heard.\n\n'Who is it?' said Mrs Wilfer, in her Act-of-Parliament manner. 'Enter!'\n\nA gentleman coming in, Miss Bella, with a short and sharp exclamation,\nscrambled off the hearth-rug and massed the bitten curls together in\ntheir right place on her neck.\n\n'The servant girl had her key in the door as I came up, and directed me\nto this room, telling me I was expected. I am afraid I should have asked\nher to announce me.'\n\n'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer. 'Not at all. Two of my daughters. R.\nW., this is the gentleman who has taken your first-floor. He was so good\nas to make an appointment for to-night, when you would be at home.'\n\nA dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, one might say\nhandsome, face. A very bad manner. In the last degree constrained,\nreserved, diffident, troubled. His eyes were on Miss Bella for an\ninstant, and then looked at the ground as he addressed the master of the\nhouse.\n\n'Seeing that I am quite satisfied, Mr Wilfer, with the rooms, and with\ntheir situation, and with their price, I suppose a memorandum between us\nof two or three lines, and a payment down, will bind the bargain? I wish\nto send in furniture without delay.'\n\nTwo or three times during this short address, the cherub addressed had\nmade chubby motions towards a chair. The gentleman now took it, laying\na hesitating hand on a corner of the table, and with another hesitating\nhand lifting the crown of his hat to his lips, and drawing it before his\nmouth.\n\n'The gentleman, R. W.,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'proposes to take your\napartments by the quarter. A quarter's notice on either side.'\n\n'Shall I mention, sir,' insinuated the landlord, expecting it to be\nreceived as a matter of course, 'the form of a reference?'\n\n'I think,' returned the gentleman, after a pause, 'that a reference is\nnot necessary; neither, to say the truth, is it convenient, for I am\na stranger in London. I require no reference from you, and perhaps,\ntherefore, you will require none from me. That will be fair on both\nsides. Indeed, I show the greater confidence of the two, for I will pay\nin advance whatever you please, and I am going to trust my furniture\nhere. Whereas, if you were in embarrassed circumstances--this is merely\nsupposititious--'\n\nConscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs Wilfer, from a corner (she\nalways got into stately corners) came to the rescue with a deep-toned\n'Per-fectly.'\n\n'--Why then I--might lose it.'\n\n'Well!' observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, 'money and goods are certainly\nthe best of references.'\n\n'Do you think they ARE the best, pa?' asked Miss Bella, in a low voice,\nand without looking over her shoulder as she warmed her foot on the\nfender.\n\n'Among the best, my dear.'\n\n'I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the usual kind of\none,' said Bella, with a toss of her curls.\n\nThe gentleman listened to her, with a face of marked attention, though\nhe neither looked up nor changed his attitude. He sat, still and silent,\nuntil his future landlord accepted his proposals, and brought writing\nmaterials to complete the business. He sat, still and silent, while the\nlandlord wrote.\n\nWhen the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord having worked\nat it like some cherubic scribe, in what is conventionally called a\ndoubtful, which means a not at all doubtful, Old Master), it was signed\nby the contracting parties, Bella looking on as scornful witness. The\ncontracting parties were R. Wilfer, and John Rokesmith Esquire.\n\nWhen it came to Bella's turn to sign her name, Mr Rokesmith, who was\nstanding, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the table, looked\nat her stealthily, but narrowly. He looked at the pretty figure bending\ndown over the paper and saying, 'Where am I to go, pa? Here, in this\ncorner?' He looked at the beautiful brown hair, shading the coquettish\nface; he looked at the free dash of the signature, which was a bold one\nfor a woman's; and then they looked at one another.\n\n'Much obliged to you, Miss Wilfer.'\n\n'Obliged?'\n\n'I have given you so much trouble.'\n\n'Signing my name? Yes, certainly. But I am your landlord's daughter,\nsir.'\n\nAs there was nothing more to do but pay eight sovereigns in earnest of\nthe bargain, pocket the agreement, appoint a time for the arrival of his\nfurniture and himself, and go, Mr Rokesmith did that as awkwardly as it\nmight be done, and was escorted by his landlord to the outer air. When\nR. Wilfer returned, candlestick in hand, to the bosom of his family, he\nfound the bosom agitated.\n\n'Pa,' said Bella, 'we have got a Murderer for a tenant.'\n\n'Pa,' said Lavinia, 'we have got a Robber.'\n\n'To see him unable for his life to look anybody in the face!' said\nBella. 'There never was such an exhibition.'\n\n'My dears,' said their father, 'he is a diffident gentleman, and I\nshould say particularly so in the society of girls of your age.'\n\n'Nonsense, our age!' cried Bella, impatiently. 'What's that got to do\nwith him?'\n\n'Besides, we are not of the same age:--which age?' demanded Lavinia.\n\n'Never YOU mind, Lavvy,' retorted Bella; 'you wait till you are of an\nage to ask such questions. Pa, mark my words! Between Mr Rokesmith and\nme, there is a natural antipathy and a deep distrust; and something will\ncome of it!'\n\n'My dear, and girls,' said the cherub-patriarch, 'between Mr Rokesmith\nand me, there is a matter of eight sovereigns, and something for supper\nshall come of it, if you'll agree upon the article.'\n\nThis was a neat and happy turn to give the subject, treats being rare in\nthe Wilfer household, where a monotonous appearance of Dutch-cheese at\nten o'clock in the evening had been rather frequently commented on by\nthe dimpled shoulders of Miss Bella. Indeed, the modest Dutchman himself\nseemed conscious of his want of variety, and generally came before the\nfamily in a state of apologetic perspiration. After some discussion on\nthe relative merits of veal-cutlet, sweetbread, and lobster, a decision\nwas pronounced in favour of veal-cutlet. Mrs Wilfer then solemnly\ndivested herself of her handkerchief and gloves, as a preliminary\nsacrifice to preparing the frying-pan, and R. W. himself went out\nto purchase the viand. He soon returned, bearing the same in a fresh\ncabbage-leaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious sounds\nwere not long in rising from the frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming,\nas the firelight danced in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottles\non the table, to play appropriate dance-music.\n\nThe cloth was laid by Lavvy. Bella, as the acknowledged ornament of the\nfamily, employed both her hands in giving her hair an additional\nwave while sitting in the easiest chair, and occasionally threw in a\ndirection touching the supper: as, 'Very brown, ma;' or, to her sister,\n'Put the saltcellar straight, miss, and don't be a dowdy little puss.'\n\nMeantime her father, chinking Mr Rokesmith's gold as he sat expectant\nbetween his knife and fork, remarked that six of those sovereigns came\njust in time for their landlord, and stood them in a little pile on the\nwhite tablecloth to look at.\n\n'I hate our landlord!' said Bella.\n\nBut, observing a fall in her father's face, she went and sat down by him\nat the table, and began touching up his hair with the handle of a fork.\nIt was one of the girl's spoilt ways to be always arranging the family's\nhair--perhaps because her own was so pretty, and occupied so much of her\nattention.\n\n'You deserve to have a house of your own; don't you, poor pa?'\n\n'I don't deserve it better than another, my dear.'\n\n'At any rate I, for one, want it more than another,' said Bella, holding\nhim by the chin, as she stuck his flaxen hair on end, 'and I grudge\nthis money going to the Monster that swallows up so much, when we all\nwant--Everything. And if you say (as you want to say; I know you want\nto say so, pa) \"that's neither reasonable nor honest, Bella,\" then I\nanswer, \"Maybe not, pa--very likely--but it's one of the consequences\nof being poor, and of thoroughly hating and detesting to be poor, and\nthat's my case.\" Now, you look lovely, pa; why don't you always wear\nyour hair like that? And here's the cutlet! If it isn't very brown, ma,\nI can't eat it, and must have a bit put back to be done expressly.'\n\nHowever, as it was brown, even to Bella's taste, the young lady\ngraciously partook of it without reconsignment to the frying-pan, and\nalso, in due course, of the contents of the two bottles: whereof\none held Scotch ale and the other rum. The latter perfume, with\nthe fostering aid of boiling water and lemon-peel, diffused itself\nthroughout the room, and became so highly concentrated around the warm\nfireside, that the wind passing over the house roof must have rushed off\ncharged with a delicious whiff of it, after buzzing like a great bee at\nthat particular chimneypot.\n\n'Pa,' said Bella, sipping the fragrant mixture and warming her favourite\nankle; 'when old Mr Harmon made such a fool of me (not to mention\nhimself, as he is dead), what do you suppose he did it for?'\n\n'Impossible to say, my dear. As I have told you time out of number since\nhis will was brought to light, I doubt if I ever exchanged a hundred\nwords with the old gentleman. If it was his whim to surprise us, his\nwhim succeeded. For he certainly did it.'\n\n'And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he first took notice of\nme; was I?' said Bella, contemplating the ankle before mentioned.\n\n'You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and screaming with your\nlittle voice, and laying into me with your little bonnet, which you\nhad snatched off for the purpose,' returned her father, as if the\nremembrance gave a relish to the rum; 'you were doing this one Sunday\nmorning when I took you out, because I didn't go the exact way you\nwanted, when the old gentleman, sitting on a seat near, said, \"That's a\nnice girl; that's a VERY nice girl; a promising girl!\" And so you were,\nmy dear.'\n\n'And then he asked my name, did he, pa?'\n\n'Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine; and on other Sunday\nmornings, when we walked his way, we saw him again, and--and really\nthat's all.'\n\nAs that was all the rum and water too, or, in other words, as R. W.\ndelicately signified that his glass was empty, by throwing back his head\nand standing the glass upside down on his nose and upper lip, it might\nhave been charitable in Mrs Wilfer to suggest replenishment. But that\nheroine briefly suggesting 'Bedtime' instead, the bottles were put away,\nand the family retired; she cherubically escorted, like some severe\nsaint in a painting, or merely human matron allegorically treated.\n\n'And by this time to-morrow,' said Lavinia when the two girls were alone\nin their room, 'we shall have Mr Rokesmith here, and shall be expecting\nto have our throats cut.'\n\n'You needn't stand between me and the candle for all that,' retorted\nBella. 'This is another of the consequences of being poor! The idea of a\ngirl with a really fine head of hair, having to do it by one flat candle\nand a few inches of looking-glass!'\n\n'You caught George Sampson with it, Bella, bad as your means of dressing\nit are.'\n\n'You low little thing. Caught George Sampson with it! Don't talk about\ncatching people, miss, till your own time for catching--as you call\nit--comes.'\n\n'Perhaps it has come,' muttered Lavvy, with a toss of her head.\n\n'What did you say?' asked Bella, very sharply. 'What did you say, miss?'\n\nLavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella gradually lapsed\nover her hair-dressing into a soliloquy on the miseries of being poor,\nas exemplified in having nothing to put on, nothing to go out in,\nnothing to dress by, only a nasty box to dress at instead of a\ncommodious dressing-table, and being obliged to take in suspicious\nlodgers. On the last grievance as her climax, she laid great stress--and\nmight have laid greater, had she known that if Mr Julius Handford had a\ntwin brother upon earth, Mr John Rokesmith was the man.\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nBOFFIN'S BOWER\n\n\nOver against a London house, a corner house not far from Cavendish\nSquare, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with his\nremaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living on\nthis wise:--Every morning at eight o'clock, he stumped to the corner,\ncarrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, a\nbasket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, the\nboard and trestles became a counter, the basket supplied the few small\nlots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and became a\nfoot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a choice collection of\nhalfpenny ballads and became a screen, and the stool planted within it\nbecame his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the man at the\npost. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a\nback to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When the\nweather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade, not\nover himself; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article,\ntied it round with a piece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under the\ntrestles: where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that had\nlost in colour and crispness what it had gained in size.\n\nHe had established his right to the corner, by imperceptible\nprescription. He had never varied his ground an inch, but had in the\nbeginning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the house\ngave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer\ntime, an undesirable corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragments\nof straw and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main street\nwas at peace; and the water-cart, as if it were drunk or short-sighted,\ncame blundering and jolting round it, making it muddy when all else was\nclean.\n\nOn the front of his sale-board hung a little placard, like a\nkettle-holder, bearing the inscription in his own small text:\n\n     Errands gone\n     On with fi\n     Delity By\n     Ladies and Gentlemen\n     I remain\n     Your humble Servt:\n     Silas Wegg\n\nHe had not only settled it with himself in course of time, that he\nwas errand-goer by appointment to the house at the corner (though he\nreceived such commissions not half a dozen times in a year, and then\nonly as some servant's deputy), but also that he was one of the house's\nretainers and owed vassalage to it and was bound to leal and loyal\ninterest in it. For this reason, he always spoke of it as 'Our House,'\nand, though his knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative and\nall wrong, claimed to be in its confidence. On similar grounds he never\nbeheld an inmate at any one of its windows but he touched his hat. Yet,\nhe knew so little about the inmates that he gave them names of his own\ninvention: as 'Miss Elizabeth', 'Master George', 'Aunt Jane', 'Uncle\nParker '--having no authority whatever for any such designations, but\nparticularly the last--to which, as a natural consequence, he stuck with\ngreat obstinacy.\n\nOver the house itself, he exercised the same imaginary power as over its\ninhabitants and their affairs. He had never been in it, the length of\na piece of fat black water-pipe which trailed itself over the area-door\ninto a damp stone passage, and had rather the air of a leech on the\nhouse that had 'taken' wonderfully; but this was no impediment to his\narranging it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy house\nwith a quantity of dim side window and blank back premises, and it\ncost his mind a world of trouble so to lay it out as to account for\neverything in its external appearance. But, this once done, was quite\nsatisfactory, and he rested persuaded, that he knew his way about the\nhouse blindfold: from the barred garrets in the high roof, to the two\niron extinguishers before the main door--which seemed to request all\nlively visitors to have the kindness to put themselves out, before\nentering.\n\nAssuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was the hardest little stall of\nall the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache\nto look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the\ntooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the latter commodity he had always\na grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which had\nno discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn'orth\nappointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no--it was\nan easterly corner--the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as\ndry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with a\nface carved out of very hard material, that had just as much play\nof expression as a watchman's rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks\noccurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden\na man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather\nsuggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected--if his\ndevelopment received no untimely check--to be completely set up with a\npair of wooden legs in about six months.\n\nMr Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, 'took a\npowerful sight of notice'. He saluted all his regular passers-by every\nday, as he sat on his stool backed up by the lamp-post; and on the\nadaptable character of these salutes he greatly plumed himself. Thus,\nto the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of lay deference, and\na slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation at church; to the\ndoctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman whose acquaintance with\nhis inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge; before the Quality he\ndelighted to abase himself; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army\n(at least, so he had settled it), he put his open hand to the side\nof his hat, in a military manner which that angry-eyed buttoned-up\ninflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate.\n\nThe only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, was\ngingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant having purchased the\ndamp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of condition), and the adhesive\nbird-cage, which had been exposed for the day's sale, he had taken a tin\nbox from under his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens,\nand was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, pausing:\n'Oh! Here you are again!'\n\nThe words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow in\nmourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea\nover-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick\nleather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both as to his dress\nand to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with folds\nin his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his\nears; but with bright, eager, childishly-inquiring, grey eyes, under his\nragged eyebrows, and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow\naltogether.\n\n'Here you are again,' repeated Mr Wegg, musing. 'And what are you now?\nAre you in the Funns, or where are you? Have you lately come to settle\nin this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are you\nin independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow on\nyou? Come! I'll speculate! I'll invest a bow in you.'\n\nWhich Mr Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, as he rose\nto bait his gingerbread-trap for some other devoted infant. The salute\nwas acknowledged with:\n\n'Morning, sir! Morning! Morning!'\n\n('Calls me Sir!' said Mr Wegg, to himself; 'HE won't answer. A bow\ngone!')\n\n'Morning, morning, morning!'\n\n'Appears to be rather a 'arty old cock, too,' said Mr Wegg, as before;\n'Good morning to YOU, sir.'\n\n'Do you remember me, then?' asked his new acquaintance, stopping in\nhis amble, one-sided, before the stall, and speaking in a pounding way,\nthough with great good-humour.\n\n'I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the course\nof the last week or so.'\n\n'Our house,' repeated the other. 'Meaning--?'\n\n'Yes,' said Mr Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy forefinger\nof his right glove at the corner house.\n\n'Oh! Now, what,' pursued the old fellow, in an inquisitive manner,\ncarrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it were a baby, 'what\ndo they allow you now?'\n\n'It's job work that I do for our house,' returned Silas, drily, and with\nreticence; 'it's not yet brought to an exact allowance.'\n\n'Oh! It's not yet brought to an exact allowance? No! It's not yet\nbrought to an exact allowance. Oh!--Morning, morning, morning!'\n\n'Appears to be rather a cracked old cock,' thought Silas, qualifying his\nformer good opinion, as the other ambled off. But, in a moment he was\nback again with the question:\n\n'How did you get your wooden leg?'\n\nMr Wegg replied, (tartly to this personal inquiry), 'In an accident.'\n\n'Do you like it?'\n\n'Well! I haven't got to keep it warm,' Mr Wegg made answer, in a sort of\ndesperation occasioned by the singularity of the question.\n\n'He hasn't,' repeated the other to his knotted stick, as he gave it a\nhug; 'he hasn't got--ha!--ha!--to keep it warm! Did you ever hear of the\nname of Boffin?'\n\n'No,' said Mr Wegg, who was growing restive under this examination. 'I\nnever did hear of the name of Boffin.'\n\n'Do you like it?'\n\n'Why, no,' retorted Mr Wegg, again approaching desperation; 'I can't say\nI do.'\n\n'Why don't you like it?'\n\n'I don't know why I don't,' retorted Mr Wegg, approaching frenzy, 'but I\ndon't at all.'\n\n'Now, I'll tell you something that'll make you sorry for that,' said the\nstranger, smiling. 'My name's Boffin.'\n\n'I can't help it!' returned Mr Wegg. Implying in his manner the\noffensive addition, 'and if I could, I wouldn't.'\n\n'But there's another chance for you,' said Mr Boffin, smiling still, 'Do\nyou like the name of Nicodemus? Think it over. Nick, or Noddy.'\n\n'It is not, sir,' Mr Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, with an\nair of gentle resignation, combined with melancholy candour; 'it is not\na name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call ME\nby; but there may be persons that would not view it with the same\nobjections.--I don't know why,' Mr Wegg added, anticipating another\nquestion.\n\n'Noddy Boffin,' said that gentleman. 'Noddy. That's my name. Noddy--or\nNick--Boffin. What's your name?'\n\n'Silas Wegg.--I don't,' said Mr Wegg, bestirring himself to take the\nsame precaution as before, 'I don't know why Silas, and I don't know why\nWegg.'\n\n'Now, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, hugging his stick closer, 'I want to make a\nsort of offer to you. Do you remember when you first see me?'\n\nThe wooden Wegg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also with a\nsoftened air as descrying possibility of profit. 'Let me think. I ain't\nquite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too.\nWas it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-boy had been to our house\nfor orders, and bought a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted with\nthe tune, I run it over to him?'\n\n'Right, Wegg, right! But he bought more than one.'\n\n'Yes, to be sure, sir; he bought several; and wishing to lay out his\nmoney to the best, he took my opinion to guide his choice, and we went\nover the collection together. To be sure we did. Here was him as it\nmight be, and here was myself as it might be, and there was you, Mr\nBoffin, as you identically are, with your self-same stick under your\nvery same arm, and your very same back towards us. To--be--sure!' added\nMr Wegg, looking a little round Mr Boffin, to take him in the rear,\nand identify this last extraordinary coincidence, 'your wery self-same\nback!'\n\n'What do you think I was doing, Wegg?'\n\n'I should judge, sir, that you might be glancing your eye down the\nstreet.'\n\n'No, Wegg. I was a listening.'\n\n'Was you, indeed?' said Mr Wegg, dubiously.\n\n'Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you was singing to the\nbutcher; and you wouldn't sing secrets to a butcher in the street, you\nknow.'\n\n'It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my remembrance,'\nsaid Mr Wegg, cautiously. 'But I might do it. A man can't say what he\nmight wish to do some day or another.' (This, not to release any little\nadvantage he might derive from Mr Boffin's avowal.)\n\n'Well,' repeated Boffin, 'I was a listening to you and to him. And what\ndo you--you haven't got another stool, have you? I'm rather thick in my\nbreath.'\n\n'I haven't got another, but you're welcome to this,' said Wegg,\nresigning it. 'It's a treat to me to stand.'\n\n'Lard!' exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he settled\nhimself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, 'it's a pleasant\nplace, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with these ballads,\nlike so many book-leaf blinkers! Why, its delightful!'\n\n'If I am not mistaken, sir,' Mr Wegg delicately hinted, resting a hand\non his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin, 'you alluded to\nsome offer or another that was in your mind?'\n\n'I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say that\nwhen I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting to\nhaw. I thought to myself, \"Here's a man with a wooden leg--a literary\nman with--\"'\n\n'N--not exactly so, sir,' said Mr Wegg.\n\n'Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you\nwant to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've only to whip\non your spectacles and do it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'I see you at it!'\n\n'Well, sir,' returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head;\n'we'll say literary, then.'\n\n'\"A literary man--WITH a wooden leg--and all Print is open to him!\"\nThat's what I thought to myself, that morning,' pursued Mr Boffin,\nleaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an\narc as his right arm could make; '\"all Print is open to him!\" And it is,\nain't it?'\n\n'Why, truly, sir,' Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; 'I believe you\ncouldn't show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn't be equal to\ncollaring and throwing.'\n\n'On the spot?' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'On the spot.'\n\n'I know'd it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man without a wooden leg,\nand yet all print is shut to me.'\n\n'Indeed, sir?' Mr Wegg returned with increasing self-complacency.\n'Education neglected?'\n\n'Neg--lected!' repeated Boffin, with emphasis. 'That ain't no word for\nit. I don't mean to say but what if you showed me a B, I could so far\ngive you change for it, as to answer Boffin.'\n\n'Come, come, sir,' said Mr Wegg, throwing in a little encouragement,\n'that's something, too.'\n\n'It's something,' answered Mr Boffin, 'but I'll take my oath it ain't\nmuch.'\n\n'Perhaps it's not as much as could be wished by an inquiring mind, sir,'\nMr Wegg admitted.\n\n'Now, look here. I'm retired from business. Me and Mrs\nBoffin--Henerietty Boffin--which her father's name was Henery, and her\nmother's name was Hetty, and so you get it--we live on a compittance,\nunder the will of a diseased governor.'\n\n'Gentleman dead, sir?'\n\n'Man alive, don't I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it's too late\nfor me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books.\nI'm getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want\nsome reading--some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging\nLord-Mayor's-Show of wollumes' (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled\nby association of ideas); 'as'll reach right down your pint of view, and\ntake time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,' tapping\nhim on the breast with the head of his thick stick, 'paying a man truly\nqualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.'\n\n'Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,' said Wegg, beginning to regard himself\nin quite a new light. 'Hew! This is the offer you mentioned, sir?'\n\n'Yes. Do you like it?'\n\n'I am considering of it, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'I don't,' said Boffin, in a free-handed manner, 'want to tie a literary\nman--WITH a wooden leg--down too tight. A halfpenny an hour shan't part\nus. The hours are your own to choose, after you've done for the day\nwith your house here. I live over Maiden-Lane way--out Holloway\ndirection--and you've only got to go East-and-by-North when you've\nfinished here, and you're there. Twopence halfpenny an hour,' said\nBoffin, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket and getting off the\nstool to work the sum on the top of it in his own way; 'two long'uns and\na short'un--twopence halfpenny; two short'uns is a long'un and two two\nlong'uns is four long'uns--making five long'uns; six nights a week at\nfive long'uns a night,' scoring them all down separately, 'and you mount\nup to thirty long'uns. A round'un! Half a crown!'\n\nPointing to this result as a large and satisfactory one, Mr Boffin\nsmeared it out with his moistened glove, and sat down on the remains.\n\n'Half a crown,' said Wegg, meditating. 'Yes. (It ain't much, sir.) Half\na crown.'\n\n'Per week, you know.'\n\n'Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the intellect now. Was\nyou thinking at all of poetry?' Mr Wegg inquired, musing.\n\n'Would it come dearer?' Mr Boffin asked.\n\n'It would come dearer,' Mr Wegg returned. 'For when a person comes to\ngrind off poetry night after night, it is but right he should expect to\nbe paid for its weakening effect on his mind.'\n\n'To tell you the truth Wegg,' said Boffin, 'I wasn't thinking of poetry,\nexcept in so fur as this:--If you was to happen now and then to feel\nyourself in the mind to tip me and Mrs Boffin one of your ballads, why\nthen we should drop into poetry.'\n\n'I follow you, sir,' said Wegg. 'But not being a regular musical\nprofessional, I should be loath to engage myself for that; and therefore\nwhen I dropped into poetry, I should ask to be considered so fur, in the\nlight of a friend.'\n\nAt this, Mr Boffin's eyes sparkled, and he shook Silas earnestly by the\nhand: protesting that it was more than he could have asked, and that he\ntook it very kindly indeed.\n\n'What do you think of the terms, Wegg?' Mr Boffin then demanded, with\nunconcealed anxiety.\n\nSilas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his hard reserve of manner,\nand who had begun to understand his man very well, replied with an air;\nas if he were saying something extraordinarily generous and great:\n\n'Mr Boffin, I never bargain.'\n\n'So I should have thought of you!' said Mr Boffin, admiringly. 'No, sir.\nI never did 'aggle and I never will 'aggle. Consequently I meet you at\nonce, free and fair, with--Done, for double the money!'\n\nMr Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented,\nwith the remark, 'You know better what it ought to be than I do, Wegg,'\nand again shook hands with him upon it.\n\n'Could you begin to night, Wegg?' he then demanded.\n\n'Yes, sir,' said Mr Wegg, careful to leave all the eagerness to him.\n'I see no difficulty if you wish it. You are provided with the needful\nimplement--a book, sir?'\n\n'Bought him at a sale,' said Mr Boffin. 'Eight wollumes. Red and gold.\nPurple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place where you leave off.\nDo you know him?'\n\n'The book's name, sir?' inquired Silas.\n\n'I thought you might have know'd him without it,' said Mr\nBoffin slightly disappointed. 'His name is\nDecline-And-Fall-Off-The-Rooshan-Empire.' (Mr Boffin went over these\nstones slowly and with much caution.)\n\n'Ay indeed!' said Mr Wegg, nodding his head with an air of friendly\nrecognition.\n\n'You know him, Wegg?'\n\n'I haven't been not to say right slap through him, very lately,' Mr Wegg\nmade answer, 'having been otherways employed, Mr Boffin. But know him?\nOld familiar declining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Ever\nsince I was not so high as your stick. Ever since my eldest brother left\nour cottage to enlist into the army. On which occasion, as the ballad\nthat was made about it describes:\n\n     'Beside that cottage door, Mr Boffin,\n             A girl was on her knees;\n     She held aloft a snowy scarf, Sir,\n             Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the breeze.\n     She breathed a prayer for him, Mr Boffin;\n             A prayer he coold not hear.\n     And my eldest brother lean'd upon his sword, Mr Boffin,\n              And wiped away a tear.'\n\nMuch impressed by this family circumstance, and also by the friendly\ndisposition of Mr Wegg, as exemplified in his so soon dropping into\npoetry, Mr Boffin again shook hands with that ligneous sharper, and\nbesought him to name his hour. Mr Wegg named eight.\n\n'Where I live,' said Mr Boffin, 'is called The Bower. Boffin's Bower is\nthe name Mrs Boffin christened it when we come into it as a property.\nIf you should meet with anybody that don't know it by that name (which\nhardly anybody does), when you've got nigh upon about a odd mile, or\nsay and a quarter if you like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask for\nHarmony Jail, and you'll be put right. I shall expect you, Wegg,' said\nMr Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder with the greatest enthusiasm,\n'most joyfully. I shall have no peace or patience till you come. Print\nis now opening ahead of me. This night, a literary man--WITH a wooden\nleg--' he bestowed an admiring look upon that decoration, as if it\ngreatly enhanced the relish of Mr Wegg's attainments--'will begin to\nlead me a new life! My fist again, Wegg. Morning, morning, morning!'\n\nLeft alone at his stall as the other ambled off, Mr Wegg subsided\ninto his screen, produced a small pocket-handkerchief of a\npenitentially-scrubbing character, and took himself by the nose with\na thoughtful aspect. Also, while he still grasped that feature, he\ndirected several thoughtful looks down the street, after the retiring\nfigure of Mr Boffin. But, profound gravity sat enthroned on Wegg's\ncountenance. For, while he considered within himself that this was\nan old fellow of rare simplicity, that this was an opportunity to\nbe improved, and that here might be money to be got beyond present\ncalculation, still he compromised himself by no admission that his new\nengagement was at all out of his way, or involved the least element of\nthe ridiculous. Mr Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel with\nany one who should have challenged his deep acquaintance with those\naforesaid eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual,\nportentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt of\nhimself but because he perceived it necessary to forestall any doubt of\nhimself in others. And herein he ranged with that very numerous class\nof impostors, who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to\nthemselves, as to their neighbours.\n\nA certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr Wegg; a\ncondescending sense of being in request as an official expounder of\nmysteries. It did not move him to commercial greatness, but rather to\nlittleness, insomuch that if it had been within the possibilities of\nthings for the wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than usual, it would\nhave done so that day. But, when night came, and with her veiled eyes\nbeheld him stumping towards Boffin's Bower, he was elated too.\n\nThe Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond's without the clue.\nMr Wegg, having reached the quarter indicated, inquired for the Bower\nhalf a dozen times without the least success, until he remembered to\nask for Harmony Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits of a\nhoarse gentleman and a donkey, whom he had much perplexed.\n\n'Why, yer mean Old Harmon's, do yer?' said the hoarse gentleman, who was\ndriving his donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a whip. 'Why didn't yer\nniver say so? Eddard and me is a goin' by HIM! Jump in.'\n\nMr Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his attention to the\nthird person in company, thus;\n\n'Now, you look at Eddard's ears. What was it as you named, agin?\nWhisper.'\n\nMr Wegg whispered, 'Boffin's Bower.'\n\n'Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Boffin's Bower!'\n\nEdward, with his ears lying back, remained immoveable.\n\n'Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Old Harmon's.' Edward\ninstantly pricked up his ears to their utmost, and rattled off at such\na pace that Mr Wegg's conversation was jolted out of him in a most\ndislocated state.\n\n'Was-it-Ev-verajail?' asked Mr Wegg, holding on.\n\n'Not a proper jail, wot you and me would get committed to,' returned\nhis escort; 'they giv' it the name, on accounts of Old Harmon living\nsolitary there.'\n\n'And-why-did-they-callitharm-Ony?' asked Wegg.\n\n'On accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like a speeches of\nchaff. Harmon's Jail; Harmony Jail. Working it round like.'\n\n'Doyouknow-Mist-Erboff-in?' asked Wegg.\n\n'I should think so! Everybody do about here. Eddard knows him. (Keep yer\nhi on his ears.) Noddy Boffin, Eddard!'\n\nThe effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect of causing a\ntemporary disappearance of Edward's head, casting his hind hoofs in the\nair, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing the jolting, that Mr\nWegg was fain to devote his attention exclusively to holding on, and to\nrelinquish his desire of ascertaining whether this homage to Boffin was\nto be considered complimentary or the reverse.\n\nPresently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg discreetly lost no time\nin slipping out at the back of the truck. The moment he was landed, his\nlate driver with a wave of the carrot, said 'Supper, Eddard!' and he,\nthe hind hoofs, the truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into the air\ntogether, in a kind of apotheosis.\n\nPushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg looked into an enclosed space\nwhere certain tall dark mounds rose high against the sky, and where the\npathway to the Bower was indicated, as the moonlight showed, between two\nlines of broken crockery set in ashes. A white figure advancing along\nthis path, proved to be nothing more ghostly than Mr Boffin, easily\nattired for the pursuit of knowledge, in an undress garment of short\nwhite smock-frock. Having received his literary friend with great\ncordiality, he conducted him to the interior of the Bower and there\npresented him to Mrs Boffin:--a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful\naspect, dressed (to Mr Wegg's consternation) in a low evening-dress of\nsable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers.\n\n'Mrs Boffin, Wegg,' said Boffin, 'is a highflyer at Fashion. And her\nmake is such, that she does it credit. As to myself I ain't yet as\nFash'nable as I may come to be. Henerietty, old lady, this is the\ngentleman that's a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire.'\n\n'And I am sure I hope it'll do you both good,' said Mrs Boffin.\n\nIt was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a luxurious\namateur tap-room than anything else within the ken of Silas Wegg. There\nwere two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, with\na corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eight\nvolumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the\nother, certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to stand\non tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblers\nand a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth,\na cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool,\nand a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin.\nThey were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of\ndrawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles\nand the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a flowery\ncarpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, its\nglowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin's footstool, and gave\nplace to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg also noticed, with\nadmiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow\nornamentation as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass-shades,\nthere were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, compensatory\nshelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of a cold\njoint were plainly discernible among other solids. The room itself was\nlarge, though low; and the heavy frames of its old-fashioned windows,\nand the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, seemed to indicate that it\nhad once been a house of some mark standing alone in the country.\n\n'Do you like it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, in his pouncing manner.\n\n'I admire it greatly, sir,' said Wegg. 'Peculiar comfort at this\nfireside, sir.'\n\n'Do you understand it, Wegg?'\n\n'Why, in a general way, sir,' Mr Wegg was beginning slowly and\nknowingly, with his head stuck on one side, as evasive people do begin,\nwhen the other cut him short:\n\n'You DON'T understand it, Wegg, and I'll explain it. These arrangements\nis made by mutual consent between Mrs Boffin and me. Mrs Boffin, as I've\nmentioned, is a highflyer at Fashion; at present I'm not. I don't go\nhigher than comfort, and comfort of the sort that I'm equal to the\nenjoyment of. Well then. Where would be the good of Mrs Boffin and me\nquarrelling over it? We never did quarrel, before we come into Boffin's\nBower as a property; why quarrel when we HAVE come into Boffin's Bower\nas a property? So Mrs Boffin, she keeps up her part of the room, in her\nway; I keep up my part of the room in mine. In consequence of which\nwe have at once, Sociability (I should go melancholy mad without Mrs\nBoffin), Fashion, and Comfort. If I get by degrees to be a higher-flyer\nat Fashion, then Mrs Boffin will by degrees come for'arder. If Mrs\nBoffin should ever be less of a dab at Fashion than she is at the\npresent time, then Mrs Boffin's carpet would go back'arder. If we should\nboth continny as we are, why then HERE we are, and give us a kiss, old\nlady.'\n\nMrs Boffin who, perpetually smiling, had approached and drawn her plump\narm through her lord's, most willingly complied. Fashion, in the form\nof her black velvet hat and feathers, tried to prevent it; but got\ndeservedly crushed in the endeavour.\n\n'So now, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, wiping his mouth with an air of much\nrefreshment, 'you begin to know us as we are. This is a charming spot,\nis the Bower, but you must get to apprechiate it by degrees. It's a spot\nto find out the merits of; little by little, and a new'un every day.\nThere's a serpentining walk up each of the mounds, that gives you the\nyard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When you get to the top,\nthere's a view of the neighbouring premises, not to be surpassed. The\npremises of Mrs Boffin's late father (Canine Provision Trade), you look\ndown into, as if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound is\ncrowned with a lattice-work Arbour, in which, if you don't read out loud\nmany a book in the summer, ay, and as a friend, drop many a time into\npoetry too, it shan't be my fault. Now, what'll you read on?'\n\n'Thank you, sir,' returned Wegg, as if there were nothing new in his\nreading at all. 'I generally do it on gin and water.'\n\n'Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, with innocent\neagerness.\n\n'N-no, sir,' replied Wegg, coolly, 'I should hardly describe it so, sir.\nI should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should employ, Mr\nBoffin.'\n\nHis wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delighted\nexpectation of his victim. The visions rising before his mercenary mind,\nof the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account,\nnever obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man,\nthat he must not make himself too cheap.\n\nMrs Boffin's Fashion, as a less inexorable deity than the idol usually\nworshipped under that name, did not forbid her mixing for her literary\nguest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. On his returning\na gracious answer and taking his place at the literary settle, Mr Boffin\nbegan to compose himself as a listener, at the opposite settle, with\nexultant eyes.\n\n'Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg,' he said, filling his own, 'but\nyou can't do both together. Oh! and another thing I forgot to name! When\nyou come in here of an evening, and look round you, and notice anything\non a shelf that happens to catch your fancy, mention it.'\n\nWegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, immediately laid them\ndown, with the sprightly observation:\n\n'You read my thoughts, sir. DO my eyes deceive me, or is that object up\nthere a--a pie? It can't be a pie.'\n\n'Yes, it's a pie, Wegg,' replied Mr Boffin, with a glance of some little\ndiscomfiture at the Decline and Fall.\n\n'HAVE I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?' asked\nWegg.\n\n'It's a veal and ham pie,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that is\na better pie than a weal and hammer,' said Mr Wegg, nodding his head\nemotionally.\n\n'Have some, Wegg?'\n\n'Thank you, Mr Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I wouldn't\nat any other party's, at the present juncture; but at yours, sir!--And\nmeaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where\nthere's ham, is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.'\nMr Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality.\n\nSo, the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr Boffin exercised his\npatience until Wegg, in the exercise of his knife and fork, had finished\nthe dish: only profiting by the opportunity to inform Wegg that although\nit was not strictly Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thus\nexposed to view, he (Mr Boffin) considered it hospitable; for the\nreason, that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, to\na visitor, 'There are such and such edibles down stairs; will you have\nanything up?' you took the bold practical course of saying, 'Cast your\neye along the shelves, and, if you see anything you like there, have it\ndown.'\n\nAnd now, Mr Wegg at length pushed away his plate and put on his\nspectacles, and Mr Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with beaming\neyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs Boffin reclined in a\nfashionable manner on her sofa: as one who would be part of the audience\nif she found she could, and would go to sleep if she found she couldn't.\n\n'Hem!' began Wegg, 'This, Mr Boffin and Lady, is the first chapter of\nthe first wollume of the Decline and Fall off--' here he looked hard at\nthe book, and stopped.\n\n'What's the matter, Wegg?'\n\n'Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir,' said Wegg with an air\nof insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard at the book),\n'that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to set\nyou right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you said\nRooshan Empire, sir?'\n\n'It is Rooshan; ain't it, Wegg?'\n\n'No, sir. Roman. Roman.'\n\n'What's the difference, Wegg?'\n\n'The difference, sir?' Mr Wegg was faltering and in danger of breaking\ndown, when a bright thought flashed upon him. 'The difference, sir?\nThere you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe,\nthat the difference is best postponed to some other occasion when Mrs\nBoffin does not honour us with her company. In Mrs Boffin's presence,\nsir, we had better drop it.'\n\nMr Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chivalrous air,\nand not only that, but by dint of repeating with a manly delicacy,\n'In Mrs Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it!' turned the\ndisadvantage on Boffin, who felt that he had committed himself in a very\npainful manner.\n\nThen, Mr Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task; going\nstraight across country at everything that came before him; taking all\nthe hard words, biographical and geographical; getting rather shaken by\nHadrian, Trajan, and the Antonines; stumbling at Polybius (pronounced\nPolly Beeious, and supposed by Mr Boffin to be a Roman virgin, and by\nMrs Boffin to be responsible for that necessity of dropping it); heavily\nunseated by Titus Antoninus Pius; up again and galloping smoothly with\nAugustus; finally, getting over the ground well with Commodus: who,\nunder the appellation of Commodious, was held by Mr Boffin to have been\nquite unworthy of his English origin, and 'not to have acted up to his\nname' in his government of the Roman people. With the death of this\npersonage, Mr Wegg terminated his first reading; long before which\nconsummation several total eclipses of Mrs Boffin's candle behind\nher black velvet disc, would have been very alarming, but for being\nregularly accompanied by a potent smell of burnt pens when her feathers\ntook fire, which acted as a restorative and woke her. Mr Wegg, having\nread on by rote and attached as few ideas as possible to the text, came\nout of the encounter fresh; but, Mr Boffin, who had soon laid down his\nunfinished pipe, and had ever since sat intently staring with his eyes\nand mind at the confounding enormities of the Romans, was so severely\npunished that he could hardly wish his literary friend Good-night, and\narticulate 'Tomorrow.'\n\n'Commodious,' gasped Mr Boffin, staring at the moon, after letting\nWegg out at the gate and fastening it: 'Commodious fights in that\nwild-beast-show, seven hundred and thirty-five times, in one character\nonly! As if that wasn't stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned into\nthe same wild-beast-show all at once! As if that wasn't stunning enough,\nCommodious, in another character, kills 'em all off in a hundred goes!\nAs if that wasn't stunning enough, Vittle-us (and well named too) eats\nsix millions' worth, English money, in seven months! Wegg takes it easy,\nbut upon-my-soul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And even\nnow that Commodious is strangled, I don't see a way to our bettering\nourselves.' Mr Boffin added as he turned his pensive steps towards the\nBower and shook his head, 'I didn't think this morning there was half so\nmany Scarers in Print. But I'm in for it now!'\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nCUT ADRIFT\n\n\nThe Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of\na dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale\ninfirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and\nhardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet\noutlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house.\nExternally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows\nheaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges,\nwith a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the whole\nhouse, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended\nover the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a\nfaint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will\nnever go in at all.\n\nThis description applies to the river-frontage of the Six Jolly\nFellowship Porters. The back of the establishment, though the chief\nentrance was there, so contracted that it merely represented in its\nconnexion with the front, the handle of a flat iron set upright on its\nbroadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of a wilderness of court\nand alley: which wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the Six Jolly\nFellowship Porters as to leave the hostelry not an inch of ground beyond\nits door. For this reason, in combination with the fact that the house\nwas all but afloat at high water, when the Porters had a family wash the\nlinen subjected to that operation might usually be seen drying on lines\nstretched across the reception-rooms and bed-chambers.\n\nThe wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions, floors and\ndoors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, seemed in its old age\nfraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places it had\nbecome gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knots\nstarted out of it; and here and there it seemed to twist itself into\nsome likeness of boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had an\nair of being in its own way garrulous about its early life. Not without\nreason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the Porters,\nthat when the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, and\nparticularly upon an old corner cupboard of walnut-wood in the bar, you\nmight trace little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree,\nin full umbrageous leaf.\n\nThe bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a bar to soften the\nhuman breast. The available space in it was not much larger than a\nhackney-coach; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, that space\nwas so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial-bottles\nradiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, and\nby biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made low\nbows when customers were served with beer, and by the cheese in a snug\ncorner, and by the landlady's own small table in a snugger corner near\nthe fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. This haven was divided from\nthe rough world by a glass partition and a half-door, with a leaden\nsill upon it for the convenience of resting your liquor; but, over this\nhalf-door the bar's snugness so gushed forth that, albeit customers\ndrank there standing, in a dark and draughty passage where they were\nshouldered by other customers passing in and out, they always appeared\nto drink under an enchanting delusion that they were in the bar itself.\n\nFor the rest, both the tap and parlour of the Six Jolly Fellowship\nPorters gave upon the river, and had red curtains matching the noses of\nthe regular customers, and were provided with comfortable fireside tin\nutensils, like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in that shape that they\nmight, with their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooks\nin the depths of the red coals, when they mulled your ale, or heated for\nyou those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog's Nose. The first of\nthese humming compounds was a speciality of the Porters, which, through\nan inscription on its door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as,\n'The Early Purl House'. For, it would seem that Purl must always be\ntaken early; though whether for any more distinctly stomachic reason\nthan that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catches\nthe customer, cannot here be resolved. It only remains to add that in\nthe handle of the flat iron, and opposite the bar, was a very little\nroom like a three-cornered hat, into which no direct ray of sun, moon,\nor star, ever penetrated, but which was superstitiously regarded as a\nsanctuary replete with comfort and retirement by gaslight, and on the\ndoor of which was therefore painted its alluring name: Cosy.\n\nMiss Potterson, sole proprietor and manager of the Fellowship Porters,\nreigned supreme on her throne, the Bar, and a man must have drunk\nhimself mad drunk indeed if he thought he could contest a point with\nher. Being known on her own authority as Miss Abbey Potterson, some\nwater-side heads, which (like the water) were none of the clearest,\nharboured muddled notions that, because of her dignity and firmness, she\nwas named after, or in some sort related to, the Abbey at Westminster.\nBut, Abbey was only short for Abigail, by which name Miss Potterson had\nbeen christened at Limehouse Church, some sixty and odd years before.\n\n'Now, you mind, you Riderhood,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, with emphatic\nforefinger over the half-door, 'the Fellowship don't want you at all,\nand would rather by far have your room than your company; but if you\nwere as welcome here as you are not, you shouldn't even then have\nanother drop of drink here this night, after this present pint of beer.\nSo make the most of it.'\n\n'But you know, Miss Potterson,' this was suggested very meekly though,\n'if I behave myself, you can't help serving me, miss.'\n\n'CAN'T I!' said Abbey, with infinite expression.\n\n'No, Miss Potterson; because, you see, the law--'\n\n'I am the law here, my man,' returned Miss Abbey, 'and I'll soon\nconvince you of that, if you doubt it at all.'\n\n'I never said I did doubt it at all, Miss Abbey.'\n\n'So much the better for you.'\n\nAbbey the supreme threw the customer's halfpence into the till, and,\nseating herself in her fireside-chair, resumed the newspaper she had\nbeen reading. She was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, though\nsevere of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress than\nmistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The man on the other side\nof the half-door, was a waterside-man with a squinting leer, and he eyed\nher as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace.\n\n'You're cruel hard upon me, Miss Potterson.'\n\nMiss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, and took no\nnotice until he whispered:\n\n'Miss Potterson! Ma'am! Might I have half a word with you?'\n\nDeigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the suppliant, Miss\nPotterson beheld him knuckling his low forehead, and ducking at her with\nhis head, as if he were asking leave to fling himself head foremost over\nthe half-door and alight on his feet in the bar.\n\n'Well?' said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as she herself was\nlong, 'say your half word. Bring it out.'\n\n'Miss Potterson! Ma'am! Would you 'sxcuse me taking the liberty of\nasking, is it my character that you take objections to?'\n\n'Certainly,' said Miss Potterson.\n\n'Is it that you're afraid of--'\n\n'I am not afraid OF YOU,' interposed Miss Potterson, 'if you mean that.'\n\n'But I humbly don't mean that, Miss Abbey.'\n\n'Then what do you mean?'\n\n'You really are so cruel hard upon me! What I was going to make\ninquiries was no more than, might you have any apprehensions--leastways\nbeliefs or suppositions--that the company's property mightn't be\naltogether to be considered safe, if I used the house too regular?'\n\n'What do you want to know for?'\n\n'Well, Miss Abbey, respectfully meaning no offence to you, it would\nbe some satisfaction to a man's mind, to understand why the Fellowship\nPorters is not to be free to such as me, and is to be free to such as\nGaffer.'\n\nThe face of the hostess darkened with some shadow of perplexity, as she\nreplied: 'Gaffer has never been where you have been.'\n\n'Signifying in Quod, Miss? Perhaps not. But he may have merited it. He\nmay be suspected of far worse than ever I was.'\n\n'Who suspects him?'\n\n'Many, perhaps. One, beyond all doubts. I do.'\n\n'YOU are not much,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, knitting her brows again\nwith disdain.\n\n'But I was his pardner. Mind you, Miss Abbey, I was his pardner. As\nsuch I know more of the ins and outs of him than any person living does.\nNotice this! I am the man that was his pardner, and I am the man that\nsuspects him.'\n\n'Then,' suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of perplexity\nthan before, 'you criminate yourself.'\n\n'No I don't, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand? It stands this way. When\nI was his pardner, I couldn't never give him satisfaction. Why couldn't\nI never give him satisfaction? Because my luck was bad; because I\ncouldn't find many enough of 'em. How was his luck? Always good. Notice\nthis! Always good! Ah! There's a many games, Miss Abbey, in which\nthere's chance, but there's a many others in which there's skill too,\nmixed along with it.'\n\n'That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, man?'\nasked Miss Abbey.\n\n'A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps,' said Riderhood, shaking\nhis evil head.\n\nMiss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. 'If\nyou're out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and if you want to\nfind a man or woman in the river, you'll greatly help your luck, Miss\nAbbey, by knocking a man or woman on the head aforehand and pitching 'em\nin.'\n\n'Gracious Lud!' was the involuntary exclamation of Miss Potterson.\n\n'Mind you!' returned the other, stretching forward over the half door\nto throw his words into the bar; for his voice was as if the head of his\nboat's mop were down his throat; 'I say so, Miss Abbey! And mind you!\nI'll follow him up, Miss Abbey! And mind you! I'll bring him to hook at\nlast, if it's twenty year hence, I will! Who's he, to be favoured along\nof his daughter? Ain't I got a daughter of my own!'\n\nWith that flourish, and seeming to have talked himself rather more drunk\nand much more ferocious than he had begun by being, Mr Riderhood took up\nhis pint pot and swaggered off to the taproom.\n\nGaffer was not there, but a pretty strong muster of Miss Abbey's pupils\nwere, who exhibited, when occasion required, the greatest docility. On\nthe clock's striking ten, and Miss Abbey's appearing at the door, and\naddressing a certain person in a faded scarlet jacket, with 'George\nJones, your time's up! I told your wife you should be punctual,'\nJones submissively rose, gave the company good-night, and retired. At\nhalf-past ten, on Miss Abbey's looking in again, and saying, 'William\nWilliams, Bob Glamour, and Jonathan, you are all due,' Williams, Bob,\nand Jonathan with similar meekness took their leave and evaporated.\nGreater wonder than these, when a bottle-nosed person in a glazed hat\nhad after some considerable hesitation ordered another glass of gin and\nwater of the attendant potboy, and when Miss Abbey, instead of sending\nit, appeared in person, saying, 'Captain Joey, you have had as much as\nwill do you good,' not only did the captain feebly rub his knees and\ncontemplate the fire without offering a word of protest, but the rest\nof the company murmured, 'Ay, ay, Captain! Miss Abbey's right; you\nbe guided by Miss Abbey, Captain.' Nor, was Miss Abbey's vigilance in\nanywise abated by this submission, but rather sharpened; for, looking\nround on the deferential faces of her school, and descrying two other\nyoung persons in need of admonition, she thus bestowed it: 'Tom Tootle,\nit's time for a young fellow who's going to be married next month, to\nbe at home and asleep. And you needn't nudge him, Mr Jack Mullins, for\nI know your work begins early tomorrow, and I say the same to you.\nSo come! Good-night, like good lads!' Upon which, the blushing Tootle\nlooked to Mullins, and the blushing Mullins looked to Tootle, on the\nquestion who should rise first, and finally both rose together and went\nout on the broad grin, followed by Miss Abbey; in whose presence the\ncompany did not take the liberty of grinning likewise.\n\nIn such an establishment, the white-aproned pot-boy with his\nshirt-sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, was a mere\nhint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a matter of\nstate and form. Exactly at the closing hour, all the guests who were\nleft, filed out in the best order: Miss Abbey standing at the half door\nof the bar, to hold a ceremony of review and dismissal. All wished\nMiss Abbey good-night and Miss Abbey wished good-night to all, except\nRiderhood. The sapient pot-boy, looking on officially, then had the\nconviction borne in upon his soul, that the man was evermore outcast and\nexcommunicate from the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters.\n\n'You Bob Gliddery,' said Miss Abbey to this pot-boy, 'run round to\nHexam's and tell his daughter Lizzie that I want to speak to her.'\n\nWith exemplary swiftness Bob Gliddery departed, and returned. Lizzie,\nfollowing him, arrived as one of the two female domestics of the\nFellowship Porters arranged on the snug little table by the bar fire,\nMiss Potterson's supper of hot sausages and mashed potatoes.\n\n'Come in and sit ye down, girl,' said Miss Abbey. 'Can you eat a bit?'\n\n'No thank you, Miss. I have had my supper.'\n\n'I have had mine too, I think,' said Miss Abbey, pushing away the\nuntasted dish, 'and more than enough of it. I am put out, Lizzie.'\n\n'I am very sorry for it, Miss.'\n\n'Then why, in the name of Goodness,' quoth Miss Abbey, sharply, 'do you\ndo it?'\n\n'I do it, Miss!'\n\n'There, there. Don't look astonished. I ought to have begun with a word\nof explanation, but it's my way to make short cuts at things. I always\nwas a pepperer. You Bob Gliddery there, put the chain upon the door and\nget ye down to your supper.'\n\nWith an alacrity that seemed no less referable to the pepperer fact\nthan to the supper fact, Bob obeyed, and his boots were heard descending\ntowards the bed of the river.\n\n'Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam,' then began Miss Potterson, 'how often have\nI held out to you the opportunity of getting clear of your father, and\ndoing well?'\n\n'Very often, Miss.'\n\n'Very often? Yes! And I might as well have spoken to the iron funnel of\nthe strongest sea-going steamer that passes the Fellowship Porters.'\n\n'No, Miss,' Lizzie pleaded; 'because that would not be thankful, and I\nam.'\n\n'I vow and declare I am half ashamed of myself for taking such an\ninterest in you,' said Miss Abbey, pettishly, 'for I don't believe I\nshould do it if you were not good-looking. Why ain't you ugly?'\n\nLizzie merely answered this difficult question with an apologetic\nglance.\n\n'However, you ain't,' resumed Miss Potterson, 'so it's no use going into\nthat. I must take you as I find you. Which indeed is what I've done. And\nyou mean to say you are still obstinate?'\n\n'Not obstinate, Miss, I hope.'\n\n'Firm (I suppose you call it) then?'\n\n'Yes, Miss. Fixed like.'\n\n'Never was an obstinate person yet, who would own to the word!' remarked\nMiss Potterson, rubbing her vexed nose; 'I'm sure I would, if I was\nobstinate; but I am a pepperer, which is different. Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie\nHexam, think again. Do you know the worst of your father?'\n\n'Do I know the worst of father!' she repeated, opening her eyes.\n\n'Do you know the suspicions to which your father makes himself liable?\nDo you know the suspicions that are actually about, against him?'\n\nThe consciousness of what he habitually did, oppressed the girl heavily,\nand she slowly cast down her eyes.\n\n'Say, Lizzie. Do you know?' urged Miss Abbey.\n\n'Please to tell me what the suspicions are, Miss,' she asked after a\nsilence, with her eyes upon the ground.\n\n'It's not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. It is\nthought by some, then, that your father helps to their death a few of\nthose that he finds dead.'\n\nThe relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false suspicion, in place\nof the expected real and true one, so lightened Lizzie's breast for the\nmoment, that Miss Abbey was amazed at her demeanour. She raised her eyes\nquickly, shook her head, and, in a kind of triumph, almost laughed.\n\n'They little know father who talk like that!'\n\n('She takes it,' thought Miss Abbey, 'very quietly. She takes it with\nextraordinary quietness!')\n\n'And perhaps,' said Lizzie, as a recollection flashed upon her, 'it is\nsome one who has a grudge against father; some one who has threatened\nfather! Is it Riderhood, Miss?'\n\n'Well; yes it is.'\n\n'Yes! He was father's partner, and father broke with him, and now he\nrevenges himself. Father broke with him when I was by, and he was very\nangry at it. And besides, Miss Abbey!--Will you never, without strong\nreason, let pass your lips what I am going to say?'\n\nShe bent forward to say it in a whisper.\n\n'I promise,' said Miss Abbey.\n\n'It was on the night when the Harmon murder was found out, through\nfather, just above bridge. And just below bridge, as we were sculling\nhome, Riderhood crept out of the dark in his boat. And many and many\ntimes afterwards, when such great pains were taken to come to the bottom\nof the crime, and it never could be come near, I thought in my own\nthoughts, could Riderhood himself have done the murder, and did he\npurposely let father find the body? It seemed a'most wicked and cruel\nto so much as think such a thing; but now that he tries to throw it upon\nfather, I go back to it as if it was a truth. Can it be a truth? That\nwas put into my mind by the dead?'\n\nShe asked this question, rather of the fire than of the hostess of the\nFellowship Porters, and looked round the little bar with troubled eyes.\n\nBut, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed to bring her\npupils to book, set the matter in a light that was essentially of this\nworld.\n\n'You poor deluded girl,' she said, 'don't you see that you can't open\nyour mind to particular suspicions of one of the two, without opening\nyour mind to general suspicions of the other? They had worked together.\nTheir goings-on had been going on for some time. Even granting that it\nwas as you have had in your thoughts, what the two had done together\nwould come familiar to the mind of one.'\n\n'You don't know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed,\nyou don't know father.'\n\n'Lizzie, Lizzie,' said Miss Potterson. 'Leave him. You needn't break\nwith him altogether, but leave him. Do well away from him; not because\nof what I have told you to-night--we'll pass no judgment upon that,\nand we'll hope it may not be--but because of what I have urged on you\nbefore. No matter whether it's owing to your good looks or not, I like\nyou and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don't\nfling yourself away, my girl, but be persuaded into being respectable\nand happy.'\n\nIn the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty, Miss Abbey\nhad softened into a soothing tone, and had even drawn her arm round the\ngirl's waist. But, she only replied, 'Thank you, thank you! I can't. I\nwon't. I must not think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the more\nhe needs me to lean on.'\n\nAnd then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do soften,\nfelt that there was considerable compensation owing to her, underwent\nreaction and became frigid.\n\n'I have done what I can,' she said, 'and you must go your way. You make\nyour bed, and you must lie on it. But tell your father one thing: he\nmust not come here any more.'\n\n'Oh, Miss, will you forbid him the house where I know he's safe?'\n\n'The Fellowships,' returned Miss Abbey, 'has itself to look to, as well\nas others. It has been hard work to establish order here, and make the\nFellowships what it is, and it is daily and nightly hard work to keep it\nso. The Fellowships must not have a taint upon it that may give it a bad\nname. I forbid the house to Riderhood, and I forbid the house to Gaffer.\nI forbid both, equally. I find from Riderhood and you together, that\nthere are suspicions against both men, and I'm not going to take upon\nmyself to decide betwixt them. They are both tarred with a dirty brush,\nand I can't have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush. That's all\nI know.'\n\n'Good-night, Miss!' said Lizzie Hexam, sorrowfully.\n\n'Hah!--Good-night!' returned Miss Abbey with a shake of her head.\n\n'Believe me, Miss Abbey, I am truly grateful all the same.'\n\n'I can believe a good deal,' returned the stately Abbey, 'so I'll try to\nbelieve that too, Lizzie.'\n\nNo supper did Miss Potterson take that night, and only half her usual\ntumbler of hot Port Negus. And the female domestics--two robust sisters,\nwith staring black eyes, shining flat red faces, blunt noses, and strong\nblack curls, like dolls--interchanged the sentiment that Missis had had\nher hair combed the wrong way by somebody. And the pot-boy afterwards\nremarked, that he hadn't been 'so rattled to bed', since his late mother\nhad systematically accelerated his retirement to rest with a poker.\n\nThe chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, disenchanted\nLizzie Hexam of that first relief she had felt. The night was black and\nshrill, the river-side wilderness was melancholy, and there was a sound\nof casting-out, in the rattling of the iron-links, and the grating of\nthe bolts and staples under Miss Abbey's hand. As she came beneath\nthe lowering sky, a sense of being involved in a murky shade of Murder\ndropped upon her; and, as the tidal swell of the river broke at her feet\nwithout her seeing how it gathered, so, her thoughts startled her by\nrushing out of an unseen void and striking at her heart.\n\nOf her father's being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure.\nAnd yet, repeat the word inwardly as often as she would, the attempt to\nreason out and prove that she was sure, always came after it and failed.\nRiderhood had done the deed, and entrapped her father. Riderhood had\nnot done the deed, but had resolved in his malice to turn against her\nfather, the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort. Equally\nand swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed the frightful\npossibility that her father, being innocent, yet might come to be\nbelieved guilty. She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshed\nof which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill-fated persons\nwere not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood. Then\nat the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against,\nand avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very night. And as\nthe great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to her view\nin the gloom, so, she stood on the river's brink unable to see into the\nvast blank misery of a life suspected, and fallen away from by good and\nbad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching away to\nthe great ocean, Death.\n\nOne thing only, was clear to the girl's mind. Accustomed from her very\nbabyhood promptly to do the thing that could be done--whether to keep\nout weather, to ward off cold, to postpone hunger, or what not--she\nstarted out of her meditation, and ran home.\n\nThe room was quiet, and the lamp burnt on the table. In the bunk in the\ncorner, her brother lay asleep. She bent over him softly, kissed him,\nand came to the table.\n\n'By the time of Miss Abbey's closing, and by the run of the tide, it\nmust be one. Tide's running up. Father at Chiswick, wouldn't think of\ncoming down, till after the turn, and that's at half after four. I'll\ncall Charley at six. I shall hear the church-clocks strike, as I sit\nhere.'\n\nVery quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and sat down in\nit, drawing her shawl about her.\n\n'Charley's hollow down by the flare is not there now. Poor Charley!'\n\nThe clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the clock struck\nfour, and she remained there, with a woman's patience and her own\npurpose. When the morning was well on between four and five, she slipped\noff her shoes (that her going about might not wake Charley), trimmed\nthe fire sparingly, put water on to boil, and set the table for\nbreakfast. Then she went up the ladder, lamp in hand, and came down\nagain, and glided about and about, making a little bundle. Lastly, from\nher pocket, and from the chimney-piece, and from an inverted basin\non the highest shelf she brought halfpence, a few sixpences, fewer\nshillings, and fell to laboriously and noiselessly counting them, and\nsetting aside one little heap. She was still so engaged, when she was\nstartled by:\n\n'Hal-loa!' From her brother, sitting up in bed.\n\n'You made me jump, Charley.'\n\n'Jump! Didn't you make ME jump, when I opened my eyes a moment ago, and\nsaw you sitting there, like the ghost of a girl miser, in the dead of\nthe night.'\n\n'It's not the dead of the night, Charley. It's nigh six in the morning.'\n\n'Is it though? But what are you up to, Liz?'\n\n'Still telling your fortune, Charley.'\n\n'It seems to be a precious small one, if that's it,' said the boy. 'What\nare you putting that little pile of money by itself for?'\n\n'For you, Charley.'\n\n'What do you mean?'\n\n'Get out of bed, Charley, and get washed and dressed, and then I'll tell\nyou.'\n\nHer composed manner, and her low distinct voice, always had an influence\nover him. His head was soon in a basin of water, and out of it again,\nand staring at her through a storm of towelling.\n\n'I never,' towelling at himself as if he were his bitterest enemy, 'saw\nsuch a girl as you are. What IS the move, Liz?'\n\n'Are you almost ready for breakfast, Charley?'\n\n'You can pour it out. Hal-loa! I say? And a bundle?'\n\n'And a bundle, Charley.'\n\n'You don't mean it's for me, too?'\n\n'Yes, Charley; I do; indeed.'\n\nMore serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had been, the\nboy completed his dressing, and came and sat down at the little\nbreakfast-table, with his eyes amazedly directed to her face.\n\n'You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that this is the right\ntime for your going away from us. Over and above all the blessed change\nof by-and-bye, you'll be much happier, and do much better, even so soon\nas next month. Even so soon as next week.'\n\n'How do you know I shall?'\n\n'I don't quite know how, Charley, but I do.' In spite of her unchanged\nmanner of speaking, and her unchanged appearance of composure, she\nscarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept her eyes employed on\nthe cutting and buttering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea,\nand other such little preparations. 'You must leave father to me,\nCharley--I will do what I can with him--but you must go.'\n\n'You don't stand upon ceremony, I think,' grumbled the boy, throwing his\nbread and butter about, in an ill-humour.\n\nShe made him no answer.\n\n'I tell you what,' said the boy, then, bursting out into an angry\nwhimpering, 'you're a selfish jade, and you think there's not enough for\nthree of us, and you want to get rid of me.'\n\n'If you believe so, Charley,--yes, then I believe too, that I am a\nselfish jade, and that I think there's not enough for three of us, and\nthat I want to get rid of you.'\n\nIt was only when the boy rushed at her, and threw his arms round her\nneck, that she lost her self-restraint. But she lost it then, and wept\nover him.\n\n'Don't cry, don't cry! I am satisfied to go, Liz; I am satisfied to go.\nI know you send me away for my good.'\n\n'O, Charley, Charley, Heaven above us knows I do!'\n\n'Yes yes. Don't mind what I said. Don't remember it. Kiss me.'\n\nAfter a silence, she loosed him, to dry her eyes and regain her strong\nquiet influence.\n\n'Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be done, and I alone\nknow there is good reason for its being done at once. Go straight to the\nschool, and say that you and I agreed upon it--that we can't overcome\nfather's opposition--that father will never trouble them, but will never\ntake you back. You are a credit to the school, and you will be a greater\ncredit to it yet, and they will help you to get a living. Show what\nclothes you have brought, and what money, and say that I will send some\nmore money. If I can get some in no other way, I will ask a little help\nof those two gentlemen who came here that night.'\n\n'I say!' cried her brother, quickly. 'Don't you have it of that chap\nthat took hold of me by the chin! Don't you have it of that Wrayburn\none!'\n\nPerhaps a slight additional tinge of red flushed up into her face and\nbrow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon his lips to keep him silently\nattentive.\n\n'And above all things mind this, Charley! Be sure you always speak well\nof father. Be sure you always give father his full due. You can't deny\nthat because father has no learning himself he is set against it in\nyou; but favour nothing else against him, and be sure you say--as you\nknow--that your sister is devoted to him. And if you should ever happen\nto hear anything said against father that is new to you, it will not be\ntrue. Remember, Charley! It will not be true.'\n\nThe boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but she went on\nagain without heeding it.\n\n'Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have nothing more to\nsay, Charley dear, except, be good, and get learning, and only think of\nsome things in the old life here, as if you had dreamed them in a dream\nlast night. Good-bye, my Darling!'\n\nThough so young, she infused in these parting words a love that was far\nmore like a mother's than a sister's, and before which the boy was quite\nbowed down. After holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, he\ntook up his bundle and darted out at the door, with an arm across his\neyes.\n\nThe white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a\nfrosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black\nsubstances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark\nmasts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on\nfire. Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon the\ncauseway that he might see her.\n\nHe had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. A knot of those\namphibious human-creatures who appear to have some mysterious power\nof extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, were\ngathered together about the causeway. As her father's boat grounded,\nthey became contemplative of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She saw\nthat the mute avoidance had begun.\n\nGaffer saw it, too, in so far as that he was moved when he set foot on\nshore, to stare around him. But, he promptly set to work to haul up his\nboat, and make her fast, and take the sculls and rudder and rope out of\nher. Carrying these with Lizzie's aid, he passed up to his dwelling.\n\n'Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your breakfast.\nIt's all ready for cooking, and only been waiting for you. You must be\nfrozen.'\n\n'Well, Lizzie, I ain't of a glow; that's certain. And my hands seem\nnailed through to the sculls. See how dead they are!' Something\nsuggestive in their colour, and perhaps in her face, struck him as he\nheld them up; he turned his shoulder and held them down to the fire.\n\n'You were not out in the perishing night, I hope, father?'\n\n'No, my dear. Lay aboard a barge, by a blazing coal-fire.--Where's that\nboy?'\n\n'There's a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you'll put it in\nwhile I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to get frozen, there\nwould be a deal of distress; wouldn't there, father?'\n\n'Ah! there's always enough of that,' said Gaffer, dropping the liquor\ninto his cup from a squat black bottle, and dropping it slowly that it\nmight seem more; 'distress is for ever a going about, like sut in the\nair--Ain't that boy up yet?'\n\n'The meat's ready now, father. Eat it while it's hot and comfortable.\nAfter you have finished, we'll turn round to the fire and talk.'\n\nBut, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown a hasty angry\nglance towards the bunk, plucked at a corner of her apron and asked:\n\n'What's gone with that boy?'\n\n'Father, if you'll begin your breakfast, I'll sit by and tell you.' He\nlooked at her, stirred his tea and took two or three gulps, then cut at\nhis piece of hot steak with his case-knife, and said, eating:\n\n'Now then. What's gone with that boy?'\n\n'Don't be angry, dear. It seems, father, that he has quite a gift of\nlearning.'\n\n'Unnat'ral young beggar!' said the parent, shaking his knife in the air.\n\n'And that having this gift, and not being equally good at other things,\nhe has made shift to get some schooling.'\n\n'Unnat'ral young beggar!' said the parent again, with his former action.\n\n'--And that knowing you have nothing to spare, father, and not wishing\nto be a burden on you, he gradually made up his mind to go seek his\nfortune out of learning. He went away this morning, father, and he cried\nvery much at going, and he hoped you would forgive him.'\n\n'Let him never come a nigh me to ask me my forgiveness,' said the\nfather, again emphasizing his words with the knife. 'Let him never come\nwithin sight of my eyes, nor yet within reach of my arm. His own father\nain't good enough for him. He's disowned his own father. His own father\ntherefore, disowns him for ever and ever, as a unnat'ral young beggar.'\n\nHe had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of a strong rough\nman in anger, to do something forcible, he now clutched his knife\noverhand, and struck downward with it at the end of every succeeding\nsentence. As he would have struck with his own clenched fist if there\nhad chanced to be nothing in it.\n\n'He's welcome to go. He's more welcome to go than to stay. But let him\nnever come back. Let him never put his head inside that door. And let\nyou never speak a word more in his favour, or you'll disown your own\nfather, likewise, and what your father says of him he'll have to come to\nsay of you. Now I see why them men yonder held aloof from me. They says\nto one another, \"Here comes the man as ain't good enough for his own\nson!\" Lizzie--!'\n\nBut, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw her, with a face\nquite strange to him, shrinking back against the wall, with her hands\nbefore her eyes.\n\n'Father, don't! I can't bear to see you striking with it. Put it down!'\n\nHe looked at the knife; but in his astonishment still held it.\n\n'Father, it's too horrible. O put it down, put it down!'\n\nConfounded by her appearance and exclamation, he tossed it away, and\nstood up with his open hands held out before him.\n\n'What's come to you, Liz? Can you think I would strike at you with a\nknife?'\n\n'No, father, no; you would never hurt me.'\n\n'What should I hurt?'\n\n'Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in my heart and soul\nI am certain, nothing! But it was too dreadful to bear; for it looked--'\nher hands covering her face again, 'O it looked--'\n\n'What did it look like?'\n\nThe recollection of his murderous figure, combining with her trial of\nlast night, and her trial of the morning, caused her to drop at his\nfeet, without having answered.\n\nHe had never seen her so before. He raised her with the utmost\ntenderness, calling her the best of daughters, and 'my poor pretty\ncreetur', and laid her head upon his knee, and tried to restore her. But\nfailing, he laid her head gently down again, got a pillow and placed it\nunder her dark hair, and sought on the table for a spoonful of brandy.\nThere being none left, he hurriedly caught up the empty bottle, and ran\nout at the door.\n\nHe returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle still empty.\nHe kneeled down by her, took her head on his arm, and moistened her lips\nwith a little water into which he dipped his fingers: saying, fiercely,\nas he looked around, now over this shoulder, now over that:\n\n'Have we got a pest in the house? Is there summ'at deadly sticking to my\nclothes? What's let loose upon us? Who loosed it?'\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nMR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF\n\n\nSilas Wegg, being on his road to the Roman Empire, approaches it by way\nof Clerkenwell. The time is early in the evening; the weather moist and\nraw. Mr Wegg finds leisure to make a little circuit, by reason that he\nfolds his screen early, now that he combines another source of income\nwith it, and also that he feels it due to himself to be anxiously\nexpected at the Bower. 'Boffin will get all the eagerer for waiting a\nbit,' says Silas, screwing up, as he stumps along, first his right eye,\nand then his left. Which is something superfluous in him, for Nature has\nalready screwed both pretty tight.\n\n'If I get on with him as I expect to get on,' Silas pursues, stumping\nand meditating, 'it wouldn't become me to leave it here. It wouldn't he\nrespectable.' Animated by this reflection, he stumps faster, and looks\na long way before him, as a man with an ambitious project in abeyance\noften will do.\n\nAware of a working-jeweller population taking sanctuary about the church\nin Clerkenwell, Mr Wegg is conscious of an interest in, and a respect\nfor, the neighbourhood. But, his sensations in this regard halt as to\ntheir strict morality, as he halts in his gait; for, they suggest the\ndelights of a coat of invisibility in which to walk off safely with the\nprecious stones and watch-cases, but stop short of any compunction for\nthe people who would lose the same.\n\nNot, however, towards the 'shops' where cunning artificers work in\npearls and diamonds and gold and silver, making their hands so rich,\nthat the enriched water in which they wash them is bought for the\nrefiners;--not towards these does Mr Wegg stump, but towards the poorer\nshops of small retail traders in commodities to eat and drink and keep\nfolks warm, and of Italian frame-makers, and of barbers, and of brokers,\nand of dealers in dogs and singing-birds. From these, in a narrow and\na dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr Wegg selects one dark\nshop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a\nmuddle of objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick,\nbut among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save\nthe candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogs\nfighting a small-sword duel. Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes in at\nthe dark greasy entry, pushes a little greasy dark reluctant side-door,\nand follows the door into the little dark greasy shop. It is so dark\nthat nothing can be made out in it, over a little counter, but another\ntallow candle in another old tin candlestick, close to the face of a man\nstooping low in a chair.\n\nMr Wegg nods to the face, 'Good evening.'\n\nThe face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a\ntangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of the face has no cravat on,\nand has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with the more ease.\nFor the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his\nyellow linen. His eyes are like the over-tried eyes of an engraver, but\nhe is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker,\nbut he is not that.\n\n'Good evening, Mr Venus. Don't you remember?'\n\nWith slowly dawning remembrance, Mr Venus rises, and holds his candle\nover the little counter, and holds it down towards the legs, natural and\nartificial, of Mr Wegg.\n\n'To be SURE!' he says, then. 'How do you do?'\n\n'Wegg, you know,' that gentleman explains.\n\n'Yes, yes,' says the other. 'Hospital amputation?'\n\n'Just so,' says Mr Wegg.\n\n'Yes, yes,' quoth Venus. 'How do you do? Sit down by the fire, and warm\nyour--your other one.'\n\nThe little counter being so short a counter that it leaves the\nfireplace, which would have been behind it if it had been longer,\naccessible, Mr Wegg sits down on a box in front of the fire, and inhales\na warm and comfortable smell which is not the smell of the shop. 'For\nthat,' Mr Wegg inwardly decides, as he takes a corrective sniff or two,\n'is musty, leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, gummy, and,' with another\nsniff, 'as it might be, strong of old pairs of bellows.'\n\n'My tea is drawing, and my muffin is on the hob, Mr Wegg; will you\npartake?'\n\nIt being one of Mr Wegg's guiding rules in life always to partake, he\nsays he will. But, the little shop is so excessively dark, is stuck so\nfull of black shelves and brackets and nooks and corners, that he sees\nMr Venus's cup and saucer only because it is close under the candle, and\ndoes not see from what mysterious recess Mr Venus produces another\nfor himself until it is under his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives a\npretty little dead bird lying on the counter, with its head drooping\non one side against the rim of Mr Venus's saucer, and a long stiff wire\npiercing its breast. As if it were Cock Robin, the hero of the ballad,\nand Mr Venus were the sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr Wegg were\nthe fly with his little eye.\n\nMr Venus dives, and produces another muffin, yet untoasted; taking the\narrow out of the breast of Cock Robin, he proceeds to toast it on the\nend of that cruel instrument. When it is brown, he dives again and\nproduces butter, with which he completes his work.\n\nMr Wegg, as an artful man who is sure of his supper by-and-bye, presses\nmuffin on his host to soothe him into a compliant state of mind, or, as\none might say, to grease his works. As the muffins disappear, little by\nlittle, the black shelves and nooks and corners begin to appear, and Mr\nWegg gradually acquires an imperfect notion that over against him on the\nchimney-piece is a Hindoo baby in a bottle, curved up with his big\nhead tucked under him, as he would instantly throw a summersault if the\nbottle were large enough.\n\nWhen he deems Mr Venus's wheels sufficiently lubricated, Mr Wegg\napproaches his object by asking, as he lightly taps his hands together,\nto express an undesigning frame of mind:\n\n'And how have I been going on, this long time, Mr Venus?'\n\n'Very bad,' says Mr Venus, uncompromisingly.\n\n'What? Am I still at home?' asks Wegg, with an air of surprise.\n\n'Always at home.'\n\nThis would seem to be secretly agreeable to Wegg, but he veils his\nfeelings, and observes, 'Strange. To what do you attribute it?'\n\n'I don't know,' replies Venus, who is a haggard melancholy man, speaking\nin a weak voice of querulous complaint, 'to what to attribute it, Mr\nWegg. I can't work you into a miscellaneous one, no how. Do what I will,\nyou can't be got to fit. Anybody with a passable knowledge would pick\nyou out at a look, and say,--\"No go! Don't match!\"'\n\n'Well, but hang it, Mr Venus,' Wegg expostulates with some little\nirritation, 'that can't be personal and peculiar in ME. It must often\nhappen with miscellaneous ones.'\n\n'With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I prepare a\nmiscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I can't keep to nature, and\nbe miscellaneous with ribs, because every man has his own ribs, and no\nother man's will go with them; but elseways I can be miscellaneous. I\nhave just sent home a Beauty--a perfect Beauty--to a school of art. One\nleg Belgian, one leg English, and the pickings of eight other people in\nit. Talk of not being qualified to be miscellaneous! By rights you OUGHT\nto be, Mr Wegg.'\n\nSilas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and after\na pause sulkily opines 'that it must be the fault of the other people.\nOr how do you mean to say it comes about?' he demands impatiently.\n\n'I don't know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light.'\nMr Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot,\nbeautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he\ncompares with Mr Wegg's leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were\nbeing measured for a riding-boot. 'No, I don't know how it is, but so it\nis. You have got a twist in that bone, to the best of my belief. I never\nsaw the likes of you.'\n\nMr Wegg having looked distrustfully at his own limb, and suspiciously at\nthe pattern with which it has been compared, makes the point:\n\n'I'll bet a pound that ain't an English one!'\n\n'An easy wager, when we run so much into foreign! No, it belongs to that\nFrench gentleman.'\n\nAs he nods towards a point of darkness behind Mr Wegg, the latter, with\na slight start, looks round for 'that French gentleman,' whom he at\nlength descries to be represented (in a very workmanlike manner) by his\nribs only, standing on a shelf in another corner, like a piece of armour\nor a pair of stays.\n\n'Oh!' says Mr Wegg, with a sort of sense of being introduced; 'I\ndare say you were all right enough in your own country, but I hope no\nobjections will be taken to my saying that the Frenchman was never yet\nborn as I should wish to match.'\n\nAt this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, and a boy\nfollows it, who says, after having let it slam:\n\n'Come for the stuffed canary.'\n\n'It's three and ninepence,' returns Venus; 'have you got the money?'\n\nThe boy produces four shillings. Mr Venus, always in exceedingly low\nspirits and making whimpering sounds, peers about for the stuffed\ncanary. On his taking the candle to assist his search, Mr Wegg observes\nthat he has a convenient little shelf near his knees, exclusively\nappropriated to skeleton hands, which have very much the appearance of\nwanting to lay hold of him. From these Mr Venus rescues the canary in a\nglass case, and shows it to the boy.\n\n'There!' he whimpers. 'There's animation! On a twig, making up his mind\nto hop! Take care of him; he's a lovely specimen.--And three is four.'\n\nThe boy gathers up his change and has pulled the door open by a leather\nstrap nailed to it for the purpose, when Venus cries out:\n\n'Stop him! Come back, you young villain! You've got a tooth among them\nhalfpence.'\n\n'How was I to know I'd got it? You giv it me. I don't want none of your\nteeth; I've got enough of my own.' So the boy pipes, as he selects it\nfrom his change, and throws it on the counter.\n\n'Don't sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your youth,' Mr Venus retorts\npathetically. 'Don't hit ME because you see I'm down. I'm low enough\nwithout that. It dropped into the till, I suppose. They drop into\neverything. There was two in the coffee-pot at breakfast time. Molars.'\n\n'Very well, then,' argues the boy, 'what do you call names for?'\n\nTo which Mr Venus only replies, shaking his shock of dusty hair, and\nwinking his weak eyes, 'Don't sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your\nyouth; don't hit ME, because you see I'm down. You've no idea how small\nyou'd come out, if I had the articulating of you.'\n\nThis consideration seems to have its effect on the boy, for he goes out\ngrumbling.\n\n'Oh dear me, dear me!' sighs Mr Venus, heavily, snuffing the candle,\n'the world that appeared so flowery has ceased to blow! You're casting\nyour eye round the shop, Mr Wegg. Let me show you a light. My working\nbench. My young man's bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls,\nwarious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations,\nwarious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation.\nThe mouldy ones a-top. What's in those hampers over them again, I don't\nquite remember. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated English baby.\nDogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. Dried cuticle, warious.\nOh, dear me! That's the general panoramic view.'\n\nHaving so held and waved the candle as that all these heterogeneous\nobjects seemed to come forward obediently when they were named, and\nthen retire again, Mr Venus despondently repeats, 'Oh dear me, dear\nme!' resumes his seat, and with drooping despondency upon him, falls to\npouring himself out more tea.\n\n'Where am I?' asks Mr Wegg.\n\n'You're somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; and speaking\nquite candidly, I wish I'd never bought you of the Hospital Porter.'\n\n'Now, look here, what did you give for me?'\n\n'Well,' replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face peering out\nof the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the old\noriginal rise in his family: 'you were one of a warious lot, and I don't\nknow.'\n\nSilas puts his point in the improved form of 'What will you take for\nme?'\n\n'Well,' replies Venus, still blowing his tea, 'I'm not prepared, at a\nmoment's notice, to tell you, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'Come! According to your own account I'm not worth much,' Wegg reasons\npersuasively.\n\n'Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr Wegg; but you might\nturn out valuable yet, as a--' here Mr Venus takes a gulp of tea, so\nhot that it makes him choke, and sets his weak eyes watering; 'as a\nMonstrosity, if you'll excuse me.'\n\nRepressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a disposition\nto excuse him, Silas pursues his point.\n\n'I think you know me, Mr Venus, and I think you know I never bargain.'\n\nMr Venus takes gulps of hot tea, shutting his eyes at every gulp, and\nopening them again in a spasmodic manner; but does not commit himself to\nassent.\n\n'I have a prospect of getting on in life and elevating myself by my own\nindependent exertions,' says Wegg, feelingly, 'and I shouldn't like--I\ntell you openly I should NOT like--under such circumstances, to be what\nI may call dispersed, a part of me here, and a part of me there, but\nshould wish to collect myself like a genteel person.'\n\n'It's a prospect at present, is it, Mr Wegg? Then you haven't got the\nmoney for a deal about you? Then I'll tell you what I'll do with you;\nI'll hold you over. I am a man of my word, and you needn't be afraid of\nmy disposing of you. I'll hold you over. That's a promise. Oh dear me,\ndear me!'\n\nFain to accept his promise, and wishing to propitiate him, Mr Wegg looks\non as he sighs and pours himself out more tea, and then says, trying to\nget a sympathetic tone into his voice:\n\n'You seem very low, Mr Venus. Is business bad?'\n\n'Never was so good.'\n\n'Is your hand out at all?'\n\n'Never was so well in. Mr Wegg, I'm not only first in the trade, but I'm\nTHE trade. You may go and buy a skeleton at the West End if you like,\nand pay the West End price, but it'll be my putting together. I've as\nmuch to do as I can possibly do, with the assistance of my young man,\nand I take a pride and a pleasure in it.'\n\nMr Venus thus delivers himself, his right hand extended, his smoking\nsaucer in his left hand, protesting as though he were going to burst\ninto a flood of tears.\n\n'That ain't a state of things to make you low, Mr Venus.'\n\n'Mr Wegg, I know it ain't. Mr Wegg, not to name myself as a workman\nwithout an equal, I've gone on improving myself in my knowledge of\nAnatomy, till both by sight and by name I'm perfect. Mr Wegg, if you was\nbrought here loose in a bag to be articulated, I'd name your smallest\nbones blindfold equally with your largest, as fast as I could pick 'em\nout, and I'd sort 'em all, and sort your wertebrae, in a manner that\nwould equally surprise and charm you.'\n\n'Well,' remarks Silas (though not quite so readily as last time), 'THAT\nain't a state of things to be low about.--Not for YOU to be low about,\nleastways.'\n\n'Mr Wegg, I know it ain't; Mr Wegg, I know it ain't. But it's the heart\nthat lowers me, it is the heart! Be so good as take and read that card\nout loud.'\n\nSilas receives one from his hand, which Venus takes from a wonderful\nlitter in a drawer, and putting on his spectacles, reads:\n\n'\"Mr Venus,\"'\n\n'Yes. Go on.'\n\n'\"Preserver of Animals and Birds,\"'\n\n'Yes. Go on.'\n\n'\"Articulator of human bones.\"'\n\n'That's it,' with a groan. 'That's it! Mr Wegg, I'm thirty-two, and a\nbachelor. Mr Wegg, I love her. Mr Wegg, she is worthy of being loved by\na Potentate!' Here Silas is rather alarmed by Mr Venus's springing to\nhis feet in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him with\nhis hand on his coat collar; but Mr Venus, begging pardon, sits down\nagain, saying, with the calmness of despair, 'She objects to the\nbusiness.'\n\n'Does she know the profits of it?'\n\n'She knows the profits of it, but she don't appreciate the art of\nit, and she objects to it. \"I do not wish,\" she writes in her own\nhandwriting, \"to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney\nlight\".'\n\nMr Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in an attitude of\nthe deepest desolation.\n\n'And so a man climbs to the top of the tree, Mr Wegg, only to see that\nthere's no look-out when he's up there! I sit here of a night surrounded\nby the lovely trophies of my art, and what have they done for me? Ruined\nme. Brought me to the pass of being informed that \"she does not wish to\nregard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney light\"!' Having\nrepeated the fatal expressions, Mr Venus drinks more tea by gulps, and\noffers an explanation of his doing so.\n\n'It lowers me. When I'm equally lowered all over, lethargy sets in. By\nsticking to it till one or two in the morning, I get oblivion. Don't let\nme detain you, Mr Wegg. I'm not company for any one.'\n\n'It is not on that account,' says Silas, rising, 'but because I've got\nan appointment. It's time I was at Harmon's.'\n\n'Eh?' said Mr Venus. 'Harmon's, up Battle Bridge way?'\n\nMr Wegg admits that he is bound for that port.\n\n'You ought to be in a good thing, if you've worked yourself in there.\nThere's lots of money going, there.'\n\n'To think,' says Silas, 'that you should catch it up so quick, and know\nabout it. Wonderful!'\n\n'Not at all, Mr Wegg. The old gentleman wanted to know the nature and\nworth of everything that was found in the dust; and many's the bone, and\nfeather, and what not, that he's brought to me.'\n\n'Really, now!'\n\n'Yes. (Oh dear me, dear me!) And he's buried quite in this\nneighbourhood, you know. Over yonder.'\n\nMr Wegg does not know, but he makes as if he did, by responsively\nnodding his head. He also follows with his eyes, the toss of Venus's\nhead: as if to seek a direction to over yonder.\n\n'I took an interest in that discovery in the river,' says Venus.\n'(She hadn't written her cutting refusal at that time.) I've got up\nthere--never mind, though.'\n\nHe had raised the candle at arm's length towards one of the dark\nshelves, and Mr Wegg had turned to look, when he broke off.\n\n'The old gentleman was well known all round here. There used to be\nstories about his having hidden all kinds of property in those dust\nmounds. I suppose there was nothing in 'em. Probably you know, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'Nothing in 'em,' says Wegg, who has never heard a word of this before.\n\n'Don't let me detain you. Good night!'\n\nThe unfortunate Mr Venus gives him a shake of the hand with a shake of\nhis own head, and drooping down in his chair, proceeds to pour himself\nout more tea. Mr Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the\ndoor open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazy\nshop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that the\nbabies--Hindoo, African, and British--the 'human warious', the French\ngentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all\nthe rest of the collection, show for an instant as if paralytically\nanimated; while even poor little Cock Robin at Mr Venus's elbow turns\nover on his innocent side. Next moment, Mr Wegg is stumping under the\ngaslights and through the mud.\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\nMR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION\n\n\nWhosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of\nthis history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until he\nstumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windows\ncommanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them\nall he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand\ncomprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk,\ncommon-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement\nand department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in\nthe newspapers eminent solicitor.\n\nMr Boffin having been several times in communication with this clerkly\nessence, both on its own ground and at the Bower, had no difficulty in\nidentifying it when he saw it up in its dusty eyrie. To the second floor\non which the window was situated, he ascended, much pre-occupied in mind\nby the uncertainties besetting the Roman Empire, and much regretting the\ndeath of the amiable Pertinax: who only last night had left the Imperial\naffairs in a state of great confusion, by falling a victim to the fury\nof the praetorian guards.\n\n'Morning, morning, morning!' said Mr Boffin, with a wave of his hand, as\nthe office door was opened by the dismal boy, whose appropriate name was\nBlight. 'Governor in?'\n\n'Mr Lightwood gave you an appointment, sir, I think?'\n\n'I don't want him to give it, you know,' returned Mr Boffin; 'I'll pay\nmy way, my boy.'\n\n'No doubt, sir. Would you walk in? Mr Lightwood ain't in at the present\nmoment, but I expect him back very shortly. Would you take a seat in Mr\nLightwood's room, sir, while I look over our Appointment Book?'\nYoung Blight made a great show of fetching from his desk a long thin\nmanuscript volume with a brown paper cover, and running his finger down\nthe day's appointments, murmuring, 'Mr Aggs, Mr Baggs, Mr Caggs, Mr\nDaggs, Mr Faggs, Mr Gaggs, Mr Boffin. Yes, sir; quite right. You are a\nlittle before your time, sir. Mr Lightwood will be in directly.'\n\n'I'm not in a hurry,' said Mr Boffin\n\n'Thank you, sir. I'll take the opportunity, if you please, of entering\nyour name in our Callers' Book for the day.' Young Blight made another\ngreat show of changing the volume, taking up a pen, sucking it, dipping\nit, and running over previous entries before he wrote. As, 'Mr Alley,\nMr Balley, Mr Calley, Mr Dalley, Mr Falley, Mr Galley, Mr Halley, Mr\nLalley, Mr Malley. And Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Strict system here; eh, my lad?' said Mr Boffin, as he was booked.\n\n'Yes, sir,' returned the boy. 'I couldn't get on without it.'\n\nBy which he probably meant that his mind would have been shattered to\npieces without this fiction of an occupation. Wearing in his solitary\nconfinement no fetters that he could polish, and being provided with no\ndrinking-cup that he could carve, he had fallen on the device of ringing\nalphabetical changes into the two volumes in question, or of entering\nvast numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting business\nwith Mr Lightwood. It was the more necessary for his spirits, because,\nbeing of a sensitive temperament, he was apt to consider it personally\ndisgraceful to himself that his master had no clients.\n\n'How long have you been in the law, now?' asked Mr Boffin, with a\npounce, in his usual inquisitive way.\n\n'I've been in the law, now, sir, about three years.'\n\n'Must have been as good as born in it!' said Mr Boffin, with admiration.\n'Do you like it?'\n\n'I don't mind it much,' returned Young Blight, heaving a sigh, as if its\nbitterness were past.\n\n'What wages do you get?'\n\n'Half what I could wish,' replied young Blight.\n\n'What's the whole that you could wish?'\n\n'Fifteen shillings a week,' said the boy.\n\n'About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to be\na Judge?' asked Mr Boffin, after surveying his small stature in silence.\n\nThe boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that little\ncalculation.\n\n'I suppose there's nothing to prevent your going in for it?' said Mr\nBoffin.\n\nThe boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a Briton who\nnever never never, there was nothing to prevent his going in for it. Yet\nhe seemed inclined to suspect that there might be something to prevent\nhis coming out with it.\n\n'Would a couple of pound help you up at all?' asked Mr Boffin.\n\nOn this head, young Blight had no doubt whatever, so Mr Boffin made him\na present of that sum of money, and thanked him for his attention to his\n(Mr Boffin's) affairs; which, he added, were now, he believed, as good\nas settled.\n\nThen Mr Boffin, with his stick at his ear, like a Familiar Spirit\nexplaining the office to him, sat staring at a little bookcase of Law\nPractice and Law Reports, and at a window, and at an empty blue bag, and\nat a stick of sealing-wax, and a pen, and a box of wafers, and an apple,\nand a writing-pad--all very dusty--and at a number of inky smears\nand blots, and at an imperfectly-disguised gun-case pretending to be\nsomething legal, and at an iron box labelled HARMON ESTATE, until Mr\nLightwood appeared.\n\nMr Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor's, with whom he had\nbeen engaged in transacting Mr Boffin's affairs.\n\n'And they seem to have taken a deal out of you!' said Mr Boffin, with\ncommiseration.\n\nMr Lightwood, without explaining that his weariness was chronic,\nproceeded with his exposition that, all forms of law having been at\nlength complied with, will of Harmon deceased having been proved, death\nof Harmon next inheriting having been proved, &c., and so forth, Court\nof Chancery having been moved, &c. and so forth, he, Mr Lightwood, had\nnow the gratification, honour, and happiness, again &c. and so forth, of\ncongratulating Mr Boffin on coming into possession as residuary legatee,\nof upwards of one hundred thousand pounds, standing in the books of the\nGovernor and Company of the Bank of England, again &c. and so forth.\n\n'And what is particularly eligible in the property Mr Boffin, is, that\nit involves no trouble. There are no estates to manage, no rents to\nreturn so much per cent upon in bad times (which is an extremely dear\nway of getting your name into the newspapers), no voters to become\nparboiled in hot water with, no agents to take the cream off the\nmilk before it comes to table. You could put the whole in a cash-box\nto-morrow morning, and take it with you to--say, to the Rocky Mountains.\nInasmuch as every man,' concluded Mr Lightwood, with an indolent smile,\n'appears to be under a fatal spell which obliges him, sooner or later,\nto mention the Rocky Mountains in a tone of extreme familiarity to some\nother man, I hope you'll excuse my pressing you into the service of that\ngigantic range of geographical bores.'\n\nWithout following this last remark very closely, Mr Boffin cast his\nperplexed gaze first at the ceiling, and then at the carpet.\n\n'Well,' he remarked, 'I don't know what to say about it, I am sure. I\nwas a'most as well as I was. It's a great lot to take care of.'\n\n'My dear Mr Boffin, then DON'T take care of it!'\n\n'Eh?' said that gentleman.\n\n'Speaking now,' returned Mortimer, 'with the irresponsible imbecility\nof a private individual, and not with the profundity of a professional\nadviser, I should say that if the circumstance of its being too much,\nweighs upon your mind, you have the haven of consolation open to you\nthat you can easily make it less. And if you should be apprehensive of\nthe trouble of doing so, there is the further haven of consolation that\nany number of people will take the trouble off your hands.'\n\n'Well! I don't quite see it,' retorted Mr Boffin, still perplexed.\n'That's not satisfactory, you know, what you're a-saying.'\n\n'Is Anything satisfactory, Mr Boffin?' asked Mortimer, raising his\neyebrows.\n\n'I used to find it so,' answered Mr Boffin, with a wistful look. 'While\nI was foreman at the Bower--afore it WAS the Bower--I considered the\nbusiness very satisfactory. The old man was a awful Tartar (saying\nit, I'm sure, without disrespect to his memory) but the business was\na pleasant one to look after, from before daylight to past dark. It's\na'most a pity,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear, 'that he ever went and\nmade so much money. It would have been better for him if he hadn't so\ngiven himself up to it. You may depend upon it,' making the discovery\nall of a sudden, 'that HE found it a great lot to take care of!'\n\nMr Lightwood coughed, not convinced.\n\n'And speaking of satisfactory,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'why, Lord save\nus! when we come to take it to pieces, bit by bit, where's the\nsatisfactoriness of the money as yet? When the old man does right the\npoor boy after all, the poor boy gets no good of it. He gets made away\nwith, at the moment when he's lifting (as one may say) the cup and\nsarser to his lips. Mr Lightwood, I will now name to you, that on behalf\nof the poor dear boy, me and Mrs Boffin have stood out against the old\nman times out of number, till he has called us every name he could lay\nhis tongue to. I have seen him, after Mrs Boffin has given him her mind\nrespecting the claims of the nat'ral affections, catch off Mrs Boffin's\nbonnet (she wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter of\nconvenience on the top of her head), and send it spinning across\nthe yard. I have indeed. And once, when he did this in a manner that\namounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself, if\nMrs Boffin hadn't thrown herself betwixt us, and received flush on the\ntemple. Which dropped her, Mr Lightwood. Dropped her.'\n\nMr Lightwood murmured 'Equal honour--Mrs Boffin's head and heart.'\n\n'You understand; I name this,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'to show you, now the\naffairs are wound up, that me and Mrs Boffin have ever stood as we were\nin Christian honour bound, the children's friend. Me and Mrs Boffin\nstood the poor girl's friend; me and Mrs Boffin stood the poor boy's\nfriend; me and Mrs Boffin up and faced the old man when we momently\nexpected to be turned out for our pains. As to Mrs Boffin,' said Mr\nBoffin lowering his voice, 'she mightn't wish it mentioned now she's\nFashionable, but she went so far as to tell him, in my presence, he was\na flinty-hearted rascal.'\n\nMr Lightwood murmured 'Vigorous Saxon spirit--Mrs Boffin's\nancestors--bowmen--Agincourt and Cressy.'\n\n'The last time me and Mrs Boffin saw the poor boy,' said Mr Boffin,\nwarming (as fat usually does) with a tendency to melt, 'he was a child\nof seven year old. For when he came back to make intercession for his\nsister, me and Mrs Boffin were away overlooking a country contract which\nwas to be sifted before carted, and he was come and gone in a single\nhour. I say he was a child of seven year old. He was going away, all\nalone and forlorn, to that foreign school, and he come into our place,\nsituate up the yard of the present Bower, to have a warm at our fire.\nThere was his little scanty travelling clothes upon him. There was his\nlittle scanty box outside in the shivering wind, which I was going to\ncarry for him down to the steamboat, as the old man wouldn't hear of\nallowing a sixpence coach-money. Mrs Boffin, then quite a young woman\nand pictur of a full-blown rose, stands him by her, kneels down at the\nfire, warms her two open hands, and falls to rubbing his cheeks; but\nseeing the tears come into the child's eyes, the tears come fast into\nher own, and she holds him round the neck, like as if she was protecting\nhim, and cries to me, \"I'd give the wide wide world, I would, to run\naway with him!\" I don't say but what it cut me, and but what it at the\nsame time heightened my feelings of admiration for Mrs Boffin. The poor\nchild clings to her for awhile, as she clings to him, and then, when\nthe old man calls, he says \"I must go! God bless you!\" and for a moment\nrests his heart against her bosom, and looks up at both of us, as if it\nwas in pain--in agony. Such a look! I went aboard with him (I gave him\nfirst what little treat I thought he'd like), and I left him when he had\nfallen asleep in his berth, and I came back to Mrs Boffin. But tell\nher what I would of how I had left him, it all went for nothing, for,\naccording to her thoughts, he never changed that look that he had looked\nup at us two. But it did one piece of good. Mrs Boffin and me had no\nchild of our own, and had sometimes wished that how we had one. But not\nnow. \"We might both of us die,\" says Mrs Boffin, \"and other eyes might\nsee that lonely look in our child.\" So of a night, when it was very\ncold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she would\nwake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, \"Don't you see the poor child's\nface? O shelter the poor child!\"--till in course of years it gently wore\nout, as many things do.'\n\n'My dear Mr Boffin, everything wears to rags,' said Mortimer, with a\nlight laugh.\n\n'I won't go so far as to say everything,' returned Mr Boffin, on whom\nhis manner seemed to grate, 'because there's some things that I never\nfound among the dust. Well, sir. So Mrs Boffin and me grow older and\nolder in the old man's service, living and working pretty hard in it,\ntill the old man is discovered dead in his bed. Then Mrs Boffin and me\nseal up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his bed,\nand having frequently heerd tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyer's\ndust is contracted for, I come down here in search of a lawyer to\nadvise, and I see your young man up at this present elevation, chopping\nat the flies on the window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy!\nnot then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by that\nmeans come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentleman in the\nuncomfortable neck-cloth under the little archway in Saint Paul's\nChurchyard--'\n\n'Doctors' Commons,' observed Lightwood.\n\n'I understood it was another name,' said Mr Boffin, pausing, 'but you\nknow best. Then you and Doctor Scommons, you go to work, and you do the\nthing that's proper, and you and Doctor S. take steps for finding out\nthe poor boy, and at last you do find out the poor boy, and me and Mrs\nBoffin often exchange the observation, \"We shall see him again,\nunder happy circumstances.\" But it was never to be; and the want of\nsatisfactoriness is, that after all the money never gets to him.'\n\n'But it gets,' remarked Lightwood, with a languid inclination of the\nhead, 'into excellent hands.'\n\n'It gets into the hands of me and Mrs Boffin only this very day and\nhour, and that's what I am working round to, having waited for this day\nand hour a' purpose. Mr Lightwood, here has been a wicked cruel\nmurder. By that murder me and Mrs Boffin mysteriously profit. For the\napprehension and conviction of the murderer, we offer a reward of one\ntithe of the property--a reward of Ten Thousand Pound.'\n\n'Mr Boffin, it's too much.'\n\n'Mr Lightwood, me and Mrs Boffin have fixed the sum together, and we\nstand to it.'\n\n'But let me represent to you,' returned Lightwood, 'speaking now with\nprofessional profundity, and not with individual imbecility, that the\noffer of such an immense reward is a temptation to forced suspicion,\nforced construction of circumstances, strained accusation, a whole\ntool-box of edged tools.'\n\n'Well,' said Mr Boffin, a little staggered, 'that's the sum we put o'\none side for the purpose. Whether it shall be openly declared in the new\nnotices that must now be put about in our names--'\n\n'In your name, Mr Boffin; in your name.'\n\n'Very well; in my name, which is the same as Mrs Boffin's, and means\nboth of us, is to be considered in drawing 'em up. But this is the first\ninstruction that I, as the owner of the property, give to my lawyer on\ncoming into it.'\n\n'Your lawyer, Mr Boffin,' returned Lightwood, making a very short\nnote of it with a very rusty pen, 'has the gratification of taking the\ninstruction. There is another?'\n\n'There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact a little will\nas can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole of the property\nto \"my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix\". Make it as\nshort as you can, using those words; but make it tight.'\n\nAt some loss to fathom Mr Boffin's notions of a tight will, Lightwood\nfelt his way.\n\n'I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. When you\nsay tight--'\n\n'I mean tight,' Mr Boffin explained.\n\n'Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the tightness to\nbind Mrs Boffin to any and what conditions?'\n\n'Bind Mrs Boffin?' interposed her husband. 'No! What are you thinking\nof! What I want is, to make it all hers so tight as that her hold of it\ncan't be loosed.'\n\n'Hers freely, to do what she likes with? Hers absolutely?'\n\n'Absolutely?' repeated Mr Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. 'Hah! I\nshould think so! It would be handsome in me to begin to bind Mrs Boffin\nat this time of day!'\n\nSo that instruction, too, was taken by Mr Lightwood; and Mr Lightwood,\nhaving taken it, was in the act of showing Mr Boffin out, when Mr Eugene\nWrayburn almost jostled him in the door-way. Consequently Mr Lightwood\nsaid, in his cool manner, 'Let me make you two known to one another,'\nand further signified that Mr Wrayburn was counsel learned in the\nlaw, and that, partly in the way of business and partly in the way of\npleasure, he had imparted to Mr Wrayburn some of the interesting facts\nof Mr Boffin's biography.\n\n'Delighted,' said Eugene--though he didn't look so--'to know Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Thankee, sir, thankee,' returned that gentleman. 'And how do YOU like\nthe law?'\n\n'A--not particularly,' returned Eugene.\n\n'Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of sticking\nto, before you master it. But there's nothing like work. Look at the\nbees.'\n\n'I beg your pardon,' returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, 'but will\nyou excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to\nthe bees?'\n\n'Do you!' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'I object on principle,' said Eugene, 'as a biped--'\n\n'As a what?' asked Mr Boffin.\n\n'As a two-footed creature;--I object on principle, as a two-footed\ncreature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed\ncreatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according\nto the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel.\nI fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate\nperson; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I\nhave only one. Besides, I am not fitted up with a convenient cool cellar\nto keep my drink in.'\n\n'But I said, you know,' urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer,\n'the bee.'\n\n'Exactly. And may I represent to you that it's injudicious to say the\nbee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that there is\nany analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which\nI deny), and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee\n(which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn?\nTo imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves to\nthat highly fluttered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectly\ndistracted touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to\nlearn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the\nCourt Circular? I am not clear, Mr Boffin, but that the hive may be\nsatirical.'\n\n'At all events, they work,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Ye-es,' returned Eugene, disparagingly, 'they work; but don't you think\nthey overdo it? They work so much more than they need--they make so much\nmore than they can eat--they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at\ntheir one idea till Death comes upon them--that don't you think they\noverdo it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the\nbees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don't? Mr\nBoffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the light\nof my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the\ntyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect for\nyou.'\n\n'Thankee,' said Mr Boffin. 'Morning, morning!'\n\nBut, the worthy Mr Boffin jogged away with a comfortless impression he\ncould have dispensed with, that there was a deal of unsatisfactoriness\nin the world, besides what he had recalled as appertaining to the Harmon\nproperty. And he was still jogging along Fleet Street in this condition\nof mind, when he became aware that he was closely tracked and observed\nby a man of genteel appearance.\n\n'Now then?' said Mr Boffin, stopping short, with his meditations brought\nto an abrupt check, 'what's the next article?'\n\n'I beg your pardon, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'My name too, eh? How did you come by it? I don't know you.'\n\n'No, sir, you don't know me.'\n\nMr Boffin looked full at the man, and the man looked full at him.\n\n'No,' said Mr Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as if it were made\nof faces and he were trying to match the man's, 'I DON'T know you.'\n\n'I am nobody,' said the stranger, 'and not likely to be known; but Mr\nBoffin's wealth--'\n\n'Oh! that's got about already, has it?' muttered Mr Boffin.\n\n'--And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him conspicuous. You\nwere pointed out to me the other day.'\n\n'Well,' said Mr Boffin, 'I should say I was a disappintment to you when\nI WAS pinted out, if your politeness would allow you to confess it, for\nI am well aware I am not much to look at. What might you want with me?\nNot in the law, are you?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'No information to give, for a reward?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\nThere may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the man as he\nmade the last answer, but it passed directly.\n\n'If I don't mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer's and tried\nto fix my attention. Say out! Have you? Or haven't you?' demanded Mr\nBoffin, rather angry.\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Why have you?'\n\n'If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr Boffin, I will tell you.\nWould you object to turn aside into this place--I think it is called\nClifford's Inn--where we can hear one another better than in the roaring\nstreet?'\n\n('Now,' thought Mr Boffin, 'if he proposes a game at skittles, or meets\na country gentleman just come into property, or produces any article\nof jewellery he has found, I'll knock him down!' With this discreet\nreflection, and carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carries\nhis, Mr Boffin turned into Clifford's Inn aforesaid.)\n\n'Mr Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning, when I saw\nyou going along before me. I took the liberty of following you, trying\nto make up my mind to speak to you, till you went into your lawyer's.\nThen I waited outside till you came out.'\n\n('Don't quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentleman, nor yet\njewellery,' thought Mr Boffin, 'but there's no knowing.')\n\n'I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has little of the\nusual practical world about it, but I venture it. If you ask me, or if\nyou ask yourself--which is more likely--what emboldens me, I answer, I\nhave been strongly assured, that you are a man of rectitude and plain\ndealing, with the soundest of sound hearts, and that you are blessed in\na wife distinguished by the same qualities.'\n\n'Your information is true of Mrs Boffin, anyhow,' was Mr Boffin's\nanswer, as he surveyed his new friend again. There was something\nrepressed in the strange man's manner, and he walked with his eyes\non the ground--though conscious, for all that, of Mr Boffin's\nobservation--and he spoke in a subdued voice. But his words came easily,\nand his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit constrained.\n\n'When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says of\nyou--that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not uplifted--I trust\nyou will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatter\nyou, but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being\nmy only excuses for my present intrusion.'\n\n('How much?' thought Mr Boffin. 'It must be coming to money. How much?')\n\n'You will probably change your manner of living, Mr Boffin, in your\nchanged circumstances. You will probably keep a larger house, have many\nmatters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If you\nwould try me as your Secretary--'\n\n'As WHAT?' cried Mr Boffin, with his eyes wide open.\n\n'Your Secretary.'\n\n'Well,' said Mr Boffin, under his breath, 'that's a queer thing!'\n\n'Or,' pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr Boffin's wonder, 'if you\nwould try me as your man of business under any name, I know you would\nfind me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You\nmay naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for\nI would willingly serve you a year--two years--any term you might\nappoint--before that should begin to be a consideration between us.'\n\n'Where do you come from?' asked Mr Boffin.\n\n'I come,' returned the other, meeting his eye, 'from many countries.'\n\nBoffin's acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands\nbeing limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped his\nnext question on an elastic model.\n\n'From--any particular place?'\n\n'I have been in many places.'\n\n'What have you been?' asked Mr Boffin.\n\nHere again he made no great advance, for the reply was, 'I have been a\nstudent and a traveller.'\n\n'But if it ain't a liberty to plump it out,' said Mr Boffin, 'what do\nyou do for your living?'\n\n'I have mentioned,' returned the other, with another look at him, and\na smile, 'what I aspire to do. I have been superseded as to some slight\nintentions I had, and I may say that I have now to begin life.'\n\nNot very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the\nmore embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacy\nin which the worthy Mr Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that\ngentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat-preserve, of\nClifford's Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows\nwere there, cats were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was\nnot otherwise a suggestive spot.\n\n'All this time,' said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book and\ntaking out a card, 'I have not mentioned my name. My name is Rokesmith.\nI lodge at one Mr Wilfer's, at Holloway.'\n\nMr Boffin stared again.\n\n'Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?' said he.\n\n'My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt.'\n\nNow, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin's thoughts all the\nmorning, and for days before; therefore he said:\n\n'That's singular, too!' unconsciously staring again, past all bounds of\ngood manners, with the card in his hand. 'Though, by-the-bye, I suppose\nit was one of that family that pinted me out?'\n\n'No. I have never been in the streets with one of them.'\n\n'Heard me talked of among 'em, though?'\n\n'No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any communication\nwith them.'\n\n'Odder and odder!' said Mr Boffin. 'Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I\ndon't know what to say to you.'\n\n'Say nothing,' returned Mr Rokesmith; 'allow me to call on you in a few\ndays. I am not so unconscionable as to think it likely that you would\naccept me on trust at first sight, and take me out of the very street.\nLet me come to you for your further opinion, at your leisure.'\n\n'That's fair, and I don't object,' said Mr Boffin; 'but it must be on\ncondition that it's fully understood that I no more know that I shall\never be in want of any gentleman as Secretary--it WAS Secretary you\nsaid; wasn't it?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nAgain Mr Boffin's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant from\nhead to foot, repeating 'Queer!--You're sure it was Secretary? Are you?'\n\n'I am sure I said so.'\n\n--'As Secretary,' repeated Mr Boffin, meditating upon the word; 'I no\nmore know that I may ever want a Secretary, or what not, than I do that\nI shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. Me and Mrs Boffin have\nnot even settled that we shall make any change in our way of life. Mrs\nBoffin's inclinations certainly do tend towards Fashion; but, being\nalready set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, she may not make\nfurther alterations. However, sir, as you don't press yourself, I wish\nto meet you so far as saying, by all means call at the Bower if you\nlike. Call in the course of a week or two. At the same time, I consider\nthat I ought to name, in addition to what I have already named, that I\nhave in my employment a literary man--WITH a wooden leg--as I have no\nthoughts of parting from.'\n\n'I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,' Mr Rokesmith answered,\nevidently having heard it with surprise; 'but perhaps other duties might\narise?'\n\n'You see,' returned Mr Boffin, with a confidential sense of dignity, 'as\nto my literary man's duties, they're clear. Professionally he declines\nand he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.'\n\nWithout observing that these duties seemed by no means clear to Mr\nRokesmith's astonished comprehension, Mr Boffin went on:\n\n'And now, sir, I'll wish you good-day. You can call at the Bower any\ntime in a week or two. It's not above a mile or so from you, and your\nlandlord can direct you to it. But as he may not know it by its new\nname of Boffin's Bower, say, when you inquire of him, it's Harmon's;\nwill you?'\n\n'Harmoon's,' repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the sound\nimperfectly, 'Harmarn's. How do you spell it?'\n\n'Why, as to the spelling of it,' returned Mr Boffin, with great presence\nof mind, 'that's YOUR look out. Harmon's is all you've got to say to\nHIM. Morning, morning, morning!' And so departed, without looking back.\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nMR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION\n\n\nBetaking himself straight homeward, Mr Boffin, without further let or\nhindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave Mrs Boffin (in a walking dress\nof black velvet and feathers, like a mourning coach-horse) an account of\nall he had said and done since breakfast.\n\n'This brings us round, my dear,' he then pursued, 'to the question\nwe left unfinished: namely, whether there's to be any new go-in for\nFashion.'\n\n'Now, I'll tell you what I want, Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, smoothing her\ndress with an air of immense enjoyment, 'I want Society.'\n\n'Fashionable Society, my dear?'\n\n'Yes!' cried Mrs Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. 'Yes! It's\nno good my being kept here like Wax-Work; is it now?'\n\n'People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear,' returned her husband,\n'whereas (though you'd be cheap at the same money) the neighbours is\nwelcome to see YOU for nothing.'\n\n'But it don't answer,' said the cheerful Mrs Boffin. 'When we worked\nlike the neighbours, we suited one another. Now we have left work off;\nwe have left off suiting one another.'\n\n'What, do you think of beginning work again?' Mr Boffin hinted.\n\n'Out of the question! We have come into a great fortune, and we must do\nwhat's right by our fortune; we must act up to it.'\n\nMr Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife's intuitive wisdom,\nreplied, though rather pensively: 'I suppose we must.'\n\n'It's never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good has come of\nit,' said Mrs Boffin.\n\n'True, to the present time,' Mr Boffin assented, with his former\npensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. 'I hope good may be\ncoming of it in the future time. Towards which, what's your views, old\nlady?'\n\nMrs Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of nature,\nwith her hands folded in her lap, and with buxom creases in her throat,\nproceeded to expound her views.\n\n'I say, a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about us,\ngood living, and good society. I say, live like our means, without\nextravagance, and be happy.'\n\n'Yes. I say be happy, too,' assented the still pensive Mr Boffin.\n'Lor-a-mussy!' exclaimed Mrs Boffin, laughing and clapping her hands,\nand gaily rocking herself to and fro, 'when I think of me in a light\nyellow chariot and pair, with silver boxes to the wheels--'\n\n'Oh! you was thinking of that, was you, my dear?'\n\n'Yes!' cried the delighted creature. 'And with a footman up behind, with\na bar across, to keep his legs from being poled! And with a coachman\nup in front, sinking down into a seat big enough for three of him, all\ncovered with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay horses\ntossing their heads and stepping higher than they trot long-ways! And\nwith you and me leaning back inside, as grand as ninepence! Oh-h-h-h My!\nHa ha ha ha ha!'\n\nMrs Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, beat her feet\nupon the floor, and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes.\n\n'And what, my old lady,' inquired Mr Boffin, when he also had\nsympathetically laughed: 'what's your views on the subject of the\nBower?'\n\n'Shut it up. Don't part with it, but put somebody in it, to keep it.'\n\n'Any other views?'\n\n'Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his side\non the plain settle, and hooking her comfortable arm through his,\n'Next I think--and I really have been thinking early and late--of the\ndisappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, both\nof her husband and his riches. Don't you think we might do something for\nher? Have her to live with us? Or something of that sort?'\n\n'Ne-ver once thought of the way of doing it!' cried Mr Boffin, smiting\nthe table in his admiration. 'What a thinking steam-ingein this old lady\nis. And she don't know how she does it. Neither does the ingein!'\n\nMrs Boffin pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of this piece of\nphilosophy, and then said, gradually toning down to a motherly strain:\n'Last, and not least, I have taken a fancy. You remember dear little\nJohn Harmon, before he went to school? Over yonder across the yard, at\nour fire? Now that he is past all benefit of the money, and it's come to\nus, I should like to find some orphan child, and take the boy and adopt\nhim and give him John's name, and provide for him. Somehow, it would\nmake me easier, I fancy. Say it's only a whim--'\n\n'But I don't say so,' interposed her husband.\n\n'No, but deary, if you did--'\n\n'I should be a Beast if I did,' her husband interposed again.\n\n'That's as much as to say you agree? Good and kind of you, and like you,\ndeary! And don't you begin to find it pleasant now,' said Mrs Boffin,\nonce more radiant in her comely way from head to foot, and once more\nsmoothing her dress with immense enjoyment, 'don't you begin to find\nit pleasant already, to think that a child will be made brighter, and\nbetter, and happier, because of that poor sad child that day? And isn't\nit pleasant to know that the good will be done with the poor sad child's\nown money?'\n\n'Yes; and it's pleasant to know that you are Mrs Boffin,' said her\nhusband, 'and it's been a pleasant thing to know this many and many a\nyear!' It was ruin to Mrs Boffin's aspirations, but, having so spoken,\nthey sat side by side, a hopelessly Unfashionable pair.\n\nThese two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so far on\nin their journey of life, by a religious sense of duty and desire to do\nright. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been detected\nin the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, in\nthe breast of the woman. But the hard wrathful and sordid nature that\nhad wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days,\nfor as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had never\nbeen so warped but that it knew their moral straightness and respected\nit. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it\nhad done so. And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at\nitself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never.\n\nThrough his most inveterate purposes, the dead Jailer of Harmony Jail\nhad known these two faithful servants to be honest and true. While he\nraged at them and reviled them for opposing him with the speech of the\nhonest and true, it had scratched his stony heart, and he had perceived\nthe powerlessness of all his wealth to buy them if he had addressed\nhimself to the attempt. So, even while he was their griping taskmaster\nand never gave them a good word, he had written their names down in his\nwill. So, even while it was his daily declaration that he mistrusted all\nmankind--and sorely indeed he did mistrust all who bore any resemblance\nto himself--he was as certain that these two people, surviving him,\nwould be trustworthy in all things from the greatest to the least, as he\nwas that he must surely die.\n\nMr and Mrs Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion withdrawn to an\nimmeasurable distance, fell to discussing how they could best find their\norphan. Mrs Boffin suggested advertisement in the newspapers, requesting\norphans answering annexed description to apply at the Bower on a certain\nday; but Mr Boffin wisely apprehending obstruction of the neighbouring\nthoroughfares by orphan swarms, this course was negatived. Mrs Boffin\nnext suggested application to their clergyman for a likely orphan. Mr\nBoffin thinking better of this scheme, they resolved to call upon the\nreverend gentleman at once, and to take the same opportunity of making\nacquaintance with Miss Bella Wilfer. In order that these visits might be\nvisits of state, Mrs Boffin's equipage was ordered out.\n\nThis consisted of a long hammer-headed old horse, formerly used in the\nbusiness, attached to a four-wheeled chaise of the same period, which\nhad long been exclusively used by the Harmony Jail poultry as the\nfavourite laying-place of several discreet hens. An unwonted application\nof corn to the horse, and of paint and varnish to the carriage, when\nboth fell in as a part of the Boffin legacy, had made what Mr Boffin\nconsidered a neat turn-out of the whole; and a driver being added, in\nthe person of a long hammer-headed young man who was a very good match\nfor the horse, left nothing to be desired. He, too, had been formerly\nused in the business, but was now entombed by an honest jobbing tailor\nof the district in a perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters, sealed with\nponderous buttons.\n\nBehind this domestic, Mr and Mrs Boffin took their seats in the back\ncompartment of the vehicle: which was sufficiently commodious, but had\nan undignified and alarming tendency, in getting over a rough crossing,\nto hiccup itself away from the front compartment. On their being\ndescried emerging from the gates of the Bower, the neighbourhood turned\nout at door and window to salute the Boffins. Among those who were ever\nand again left behind, staring after the equipage, were many youthful\nspirits, who hailed it in stentorian tones with such congratulations as\n'Nod-dy Bof-fin!' 'Bof-fin's mon-ey!' 'Down with the dust, Bof-fin!' and\nother similar compliments. These, the hammer-headed young man took in\nsuch ill part that he often impaired the majesty of the progress by\npulling up short, and making as though he would alight to exterminate\nthe offenders; a purpose from which he only allowed himself to be\ndissuaded after long and lively arguments with his employers.\n\nAt length the Bower district was left behind, and the peaceful dwelling\nof the Reverend Frank Milvey was gained. The Reverend Frank Milvey's\nabode was a very modest abode, because his income was a very modest\nincome. He was officially accessible to every blundering old woman who\nhad incoherence to bestow upon him, and readily received the Boffins.\nHe was quite a young man, expensively educated and wretchedly paid, with\nquite a young wife and half a dozen quite young children. He was under\nthe necessity of teaching and translating from the classics, to eke out\nhis scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time to spare\nthan the idlest person in the parish, and more money than the richest.\nHe accepted the needless inequalities and inconsistencies of his life,\nwith a kind of conventional submission that was almost slavish; and any\ndaring layman who would have adjusted such burdens as his, more decently\nand graciously, would have had small help from him.\n\nWith a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent smile that\nshowed a quick enough observation of Mrs Boffin's dress, Mr Milvey, in\nhis little book-room--charged with sounds and cries as though the six\nchildren above were coming down through the ceiling, and the roasting\nleg of mutton below were coming up through the floor--listened to Mrs\nBoffin's statement of her want of an orphan.\n\n'I think,' said Mr Milvey, 'that you have never had a child of your own,\nMr and Mrs Boffin?'\n\nNever.\n\n'But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I suppose you have\nwished for one?'\n\nIn a general way, yes.\n\nMr Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself 'Those kings and\nqueens were always wishing for children.' It occurring to him, perhaps,\nthat if they had been Curates, their wishes might have tended in the\nopposite direction.\n\n'I think,' he pursued, 'we had better take Mrs Milvey into our Council.\nShe is indispensable to me. If you please, I'll call her.'\n\nSo, Mr Milvey called, 'Margaretta, my dear!' and Mrs Milvey came down.\nA pretty, bright little woman, something worn by anxiety, who had\nrepressed many pretty tastes and bright fancies, and substituted in\ntheir stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals, and all the week-day cares\nand Sunday coughs of a large population, young and old. As gallantly had\nMr Milvey repressed much in himself that naturally belonged to his old\nstudies and old fellow-students, and taken up among the poor and their\nchildren with the hard crumbs of life.\n\n'Mr and Mrs Boffin, my dear, whose good fortune you have heard of.'\n\nMrs Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, congratulated\nthem, and was glad to see them. Yet her engaging face, being an open as\nwell as a perceptive one, was not without her husband's latent smile.\n\n'Mrs Boffin wishes to adopt a little boy, my dear.'\n\nMrs Milvey, looking rather alarmed, her husband added:\n\n'An orphan, my dear.'\n\n'Oh!' said Mrs Milvey, reassured for her own little boys.\n\n'And I was thinking, Margaretta, that perhaps old Mrs Goody's grandchild\nmight answer the purpose.\n\n'Oh my DEAR Frank! I DON'T think that would do!'\n\n'No?'\n\n'Oh NO!'\n\nThe smiling Mrs Boffin, feeling it incumbent on her to take part in the\nconversation, and being charmed with the emphatic little wife and her\nready interest, here offered her acknowledgments and inquired what there\nwas against him?\n\n'I DON'T think,' said Mrs Milvey, glancing at the Reverend Frank, '--and\nI believe my husband will agree with me when he considers it again--that\nyou could possibly keep that orphan clean from snuff. Because his\ngrandmother takes so MANY ounces, and drops it over him.'\n\n'But he would not be living with his grandmother then, Margaretta,' said\nMr Milvey.\n\n'No, Frank, but it would be impossible to keep her from Mrs Boffin's\nhouse; and the MORE there was to eat and drink there, the oftener she\nwould go. And she IS an inconvenient woman. I HOPE it's not uncharitable\nto remember that last Christmas Eve she drank eleven cups of tea, and\ngrumbled all the time. And she is NOT a grateful woman, Frank. You\nrecollect her addressing a crowd outside this house, about her wrongs,\nwhen, one night after we had gone to bed, she brought back the petticoat\nof new flannel that had been given her, because it was too short.'\n\n'That's true,' said Mr Milvey. 'I don't think that would do. Would\nlittle Harrison--'\n\n'Oh, FRANK!' remonstrated his emphatic wife.\n\n'He has no grandmother, my dear.'\n\n'No, but I DON'T think Mrs Boffin would like an orphan who squints so\nMUCH.'\n\n'That's true again,' said Mr Milvey, becoming haggard with perplexity.\n'If a little girl would do--'\n\n'But, my DEAR Frank, Mrs Boffin wants a boy.'\n\n'That's true again,' said Mr Milvey. 'Tom Bocker is a nice boy'\n(thoughtfully).\n\n'But I DOUBT, Frank,' Mrs Milvey hinted, after a little hesitation, 'if\nMrs Boffin wants an orphan QUITE nineteen, who drives a cart and waters\nthe roads.'\n\nMr Milvey referred the point to Mrs Boffin in a look; on that smiling\nlady's shaking her black velvet bonnet and bows, he remarked, in lower\nspirits, 'that's true again.'\n\n'I am sure,' said Mrs Boffin, concerned at giving so much trouble, 'that\nif I had known you would have taken so much pains, sir--and you too, ma'\nam--I don't think I would have come.'\n\n'PRAY don't say that!' urged Mrs Milvey.\n\n'No, don't say that,' assented Mr Milvey, 'because we are so much\nobliged to you for giving us the preference.' Which Mrs Milvey\nconfirmed; and really the kind, conscientious couple spoke, as if they\nkept some profitable orphan warehouse and were personally patronized.\n'But it is a responsible trust,' added Mr Milvey, 'and difficult to\ndischarge. At the same time, we are naturally very unwilling to lose the\nchance you so kindly give us, and if you could afford us a day or two\nto look about us,--you know, Margaretta, we might carefully examine the\nworkhouse, and the Infant School, and your District.'\n\n'To be SURE!' said the emphatic little wife.\n\n'We have orphans, I know,' pursued Mr Milvey, quite with the air as if\nhe might have added, 'in stock,' and quite as anxiously as if there were\ngreat competition in the business and he were afraid of losing an order,\n'over at the clay-pits; but they are employed by relations or friends,\nand I am afraid it would come at last to a transaction in the way of\nbarter. And even if you exchanged blankets for the child--or books\nand firing--it would be impossible to prevent their being turned into\nliquor.'\n\nAccordingly, it was resolved that Mr and Mrs Milvey should search for\nan orphan likely to suit, and as free as possible from the foregoing\nobjections, and should communicate again with Mrs Boffin. Then, Mr\nBoffin took the liberty of mentioning to Mr Milvey that if Mr Milvey\nwould do him the kindness to be perpetually his banker to the extent\nof 'a twenty-pound note or so,' to be expended without any reference\nto him, he would be heartily obliged. At this, both Mr Milvey and Mrs\nMilvey were quite as much pleased as if they had no wants of their own,\nbut only knew what poverty was, in the persons of other people; and\nso the interview terminated with satisfaction and good opinion on all\nsides.\n\n'Now, old lady,' said Mr Boffin, as they resumed their seats behind the\nhammer-headed horse and man: 'having made a very agreeable visit there,\nwe'll try Wilfer's.'\n\nIt appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that to try\nWilfer's was a thing more easily projected than done, on account of the\nextreme difficulty of getting into that establishment; three pulls\nat the bell producing no external result; though each was attended\nby audible sounds of scampering and rushing within. At the fourth\ntug--vindictively administered by the hammer-headed young man--Miss\nLavinia appeared, emerging from the house in an accidental manner, with\na bonnet and parasol, as designing to take a contemplative walk. The\nyoung lady was astonished to find visitors at the gate, and expressed\nher feelings in appropriate action.\n\n'Here's Mr and Mrs Boffin!' growled the hammer-headed young man through\nthe bars of the gate, and at the same time shaking it, as if he were on\nview in a Menagerie; 'they've been here half an hour.'\n\n'Who did you say?' asked Miss Lavinia.\n\n'Mr and Mrs BOFFIN' returned the young man, rising into a roar.\n\nMiss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the house-door, tripped down the\nsteps with the key, tripped across the little garden, and opened the\ngate. 'Please to walk in,' said Miss Lavinia, haughtily. 'Our servant is\nout.'\n\nMr and Mrs Boffin complying, and pausing in the little hall until Miss\nLavinia came up to show them where to go next, perceived three pairs of\nlistening legs upon the stairs above. Mrs Wilfer's legs, Miss Bella's\nlegs, Mr George Sampson's legs.\n\n'Mr and Mrs Boffin, I think?' said Lavinia, in a warning voice. Strained\nattention on the part of Mrs Wilfer's legs, of Miss Bella's legs, of Mr\nGeorge Sampson's legs.\n\n'Yes, Miss.'\n\n'If you'll step this way--down these stairs--I'll let Ma know.'\nExcited flight of Mrs Wilfer's legs, of Miss Bella's legs, of Mr George\nSampson's legs.\n\nAfter waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family sitting-room,\nwhich presented traces of having been so hastily arranged after a meal,\nthat one might have doubted whether it was made tidy for visitors,\nor cleared for blindman's buff, Mr and Mrs Boffin became aware of the\nentrance of Mrs Wilfer, majestically faint, and with a condescending\nstitch in her side: which was her company manner.\n\n'Pardon me,' said Mrs Wilfer, after the first salutations, and as soon\nas she had adjusted the handkerchief under her chin, and waved her\ngloved hands, 'to what am I indebted for this honour?'\n\n'To make short of it, ma'am,' returned Mr Boffin, 'perhaps you may be\nacquainted with the names of me and Mrs Boffin, as having come into a\ncertain property.'\n\n'I have heard, sir,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with a dignified bend of her\nhead, 'of such being the case.'\n\n'And I dare say, ma'am,' pursued Mr Boffin, while Mrs Boffin added\nconfirmatory nods and smiles, 'you are not very much inclined to take\nkindly to us?'\n\n'Pardon me,' said Mrs Wilfer. ''Twere unjust to visit upon Mr and Mrs\nBoffin, a calamity which was doubtless a dispensation.' These words\nwere rendered the more effective by a serenely heroic expression of\nsuffering.\n\n'That's fairly meant, I am sure,' remarked the honest Mr Boffin; 'Mrs\nBoffin and me, ma'am, are plain people, and we don't want to pretend\nto anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there's\nalways a straight way to everything. Consequently, we make this call\nto say, that we shall be glad to have the honour and pleasure of your\ndaughter's acquaintance, and that we shall be rejoiced if your daughter\nwill come to consider our house in the light of her home equally with\nthis. In short, we want to cheer your daughter, and to give her\nthe opportunity of sharing such pleasures as we are a going to take\nourselves. We want to brisk her up, and brisk her about, and give her a\nchange.'\n\n'That's it!' said the open-hearted Mrs Boffin. 'Lor! Let's be\ncomfortable.'\n\nMrs Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady visitor, and\nwith majestic monotony replied to the gentleman:\n\n'Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my daughters am I to\nunderstand is thus favoured by the kind intentions of Mr Boffin and his\nlady?'\n\n'Don't you see?' the ever-smiling Mrs Boffin put in. 'Naturally, Miss\nBella, you know.'\n\n'Oh-h!' said Mrs Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. 'My daughter\nBella is accessible and shall speak for herself.' Then opening the door\na little way, simultaneously with a sound of scuttling outside it,\nthe good lady made the proclamation, 'Send Miss Bella to me!' which\nproclamation, though grandly formal, and one might almost say heraldic,\nto hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfully\nglaring on that young lady in the flesh--and in so much of it that she\nwas retiring with difficulty into the small closet under the stairs,\napprehensive of the emergence of Mr and Mrs Boffin.\n\n'The avocations of R. W., my husband,' Mrs Wilfer explained, on resuming\nher seat, 'keep him fully engaged in the City at this time of the day,\nor he would have had the honour of participating in your reception\nbeneath our humble roof.'\n\n'Very pleasant premises!' said Mr Boffin, cheerfully.\n\n'Pardon me, sir,' returned Mrs Wilfer, correcting him, 'it is the abode\nof conscious though independent Poverty.'\n\nFinding it rather difficult to pursue the conversation down this road,\nMr and Mrs Boffin sat staring at mid-air, and Mrs Wilfer sat silently\ngiving them to understand that every breath she drew required to be\ndrawn with a self-denial rarely paralleled in history, until Miss Bella\nappeared: whom Mrs Wilfer presented, and to whom she explained the\npurpose of the visitors.\n\n'I am much obliged to you, I am sure,' said Miss Bella, coldly shaking\nher curls, 'but I doubt if I have the inclination to go out at all.'\n\n'Bella!' Mrs Wilfer admonished her; 'Bella, you must conquer this.'\n\n'Yes, do what your Ma says, and conquer it, my dear,' urged Mrs Boffin,\n'because we shall be so glad to have you, and because you are much too\npretty to keep yourself shut up.' With that, the pleasant creature gave\nher a kiss, and patted her on her dimpled shoulders; Mrs Wilfer sitting\nstiffly by, like a functionary presiding over an interview previous to\nan execution.\n\n'We are going to move into a nice house,' said Mrs Boffin, who was woman\nenough to compromise Mr Boffin on that point, when he couldn't very well\ncontest it; 'and we are going to set up a nice carriage, and we'll go\neverywhere and see everything. And you mustn't,' seating Bella beside\nher, and patting her hand, 'you mustn't feel a dislike to us to begin\nwith, because we couldn't help it, you know, my dear.'\n\nWith the natural tendency of youth to yield to candour and sweet temper,\nMiss Bella was so touched by the simplicity of this address that she\nfrankly returned Mrs Boffin's kiss. Not at all to the satisfaction\nof that good woman of the world, her mother, who sought to hold the\nadvantageous ground of obliging the Boffins instead of being obliged.\n\n'My youngest daughter, Lavinia,' said Mrs Wilfer, glad to make a\ndiversion, as that young lady reappeared. 'Mr George Sampson, a friend\nof the family.'\n\nThe friend of the family was in that stage of tender passion which bound\nhim to regard everybody else as the foe of the family. He put the round\nhead of his cane in his mouth, like a stopper, when he sat down. As if\nhe felt himself full to the throat with affronting sentiments. And he\neyed the Boffins with implacable eyes.\n\n'If you like to bring your sister with you when you come to stay with\nus,' said Mrs Boffin, 'of course we shall be glad. The better you please\nyourself, Miss Bella, the better you'll please us.'\n\n'Oh, my consent is of no consequence at all, I suppose?' cried Miss\nLavinia.\n\n'Lavvy,' said her sister, in a low voice, 'have the goodness to be seen\nand not heard.'\n\n'No, I won't,' replied the sharp Lavinia. 'I'm not a child, to be taken\nnotice of by strangers.'\n\n'You ARE a child.'\n\n'I'm not a child, and I won't be taken notice of. \"Bring your sister,\"\nindeed!'\n\n'Lavinia!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Hold! I will not allow you to utter in my\npresence the absurd suspicion that any strangers--I care not what their\nnames--can patronize my child. Do you dare to suppose, you ridiculous\ngirl, that Mr and Mrs Boffin would enter these doors upon a patronizing\nerrand; or, if they did, would remain within them, only for one single\ninstant, while your mother had the strength yet remaining in her vital\nframe to request them to depart? You little know your mother if you\npresume to think so.'\n\n'It's all very fine,' Lavinia began to grumble, when Mrs Wilfer\nrepeated:\n\n'Hold! I will not allow this. Do you not know what is due to guests?\nDo you not comprehend that in presuming to hint that this lady and\ngentleman could have any idea of patronizing any member of your\nfamily--I care not which--you accuse them of an impertinence little less\nthan insane?'\n\n'Never mind me and Mrs Boffin, ma'am,' said Mr Boffin, smilingly: 'we\ndon't care.'\n\n'Pardon me, but I do,' returned Mrs Wilfer.\n\nMiss Lavinia laughed a short laugh as she muttered, 'Yes, to be sure.'\n\n'And I require my audacious child,' proceeded Mrs Wilfer, with a\nwithering look at her youngest, on whom it had not the slightest effect,\n'to please to be just to her sister Bella; to remember that her sister\nBella is much sought after; and that when her sister Bella accepts an\nattention, she considers herself to be conferring qui-i-ite as much\nhonour,'--this with an indignant shiver,--'as she receives.'\n\nBut, here Miss Bella repudiated, and said quietly, 'I can speak for\nmyself; you know, ma. You needn't bring ME in, please.'\n\n'And it's all very well aiming at others through convenient me,' said\nthe irrepressible Lavinia, spitefully; 'but I should like to ask George\nSampson what he says to it.'\n\n'Mr Sampson,' proclaimed Mrs Wilfer, seeing that young gentleman take\nhis stopper out, and so darkly fixing him with her eyes as that he put\nit in again: 'Mr Sampson, as a friend of this family and a frequenter of\nthis house, is, I am persuaded, far too well-bred to interpose on such\nan invitation.'\n\nThis exaltation of the young gentleman moved the conscientious Mrs\nBoffin to repentance for having done him an injustice in her mind, and\nconsequently to saying that she and Mr Boffin would at any time be glad\nto see him; an attention which he handsomely acknowledged by replying,\nwith his stopper unremoved, 'Much obliged to you, but I'm always\nengaged, day and night.'\n\nHowever, Bella compensating for all drawbacks by responding to the\nadvances of the Boffins in an engaging way, that easy pair were on the\nwhole well satisfied, and proposed to the said Bella that as soon as\nthey should be in a condition to receive her in a manner suitable to\ntheir desires, Mrs Boffin should return with notice of the fact. This\narrangement Mrs Wilfer sanctioned with a stately inclination of her\nhead and wave of her gloves, as who should say, 'Your demerits shall be\noverlooked, and you shall be mercifully gratified, poor people.'\n\n'By-the-bye, ma'am,' said Mr Boffin, turning back as he was going, 'you\nhave a lodger?'\n\n'A gentleman,' Mrs Wilfer answered, qualifying the low expression,\n'undoubtedly occupies our first floor.'\n\n'I may call him Our Mutual Friend,' said Mr Boffin. 'What sort of a\nfellow IS Our Mutual Friend, now? Do you like him?'\n\n'Mr Rokesmith is very punctual, very quiet, a very eligible inmate.'\n\n'Because,' Mr Boffin explained, 'you must know that I'm not particularly\nwell acquainted with Our Mutual Friend, for I have only seen him once.\nYou give a good account of him. Is he at home?'\n\n'Mr Rokesmith is at home,' said Mrs Wilfer; 'indeed,' pointing through\nthe window, 'there he stands at the garden gate. Waiting for you,\nperhaps?'\n\n'Perhaps so,' replied Mr Boffin. 'Saw me come in, maybe.'\n\nBella had closely attended to this short dialogue. Accompanying Mrs\nBoffin to the gate, she as closely watched what followed.\n\n'How are you, sir, how are you?' said Mr Boffin. 'This is Mrs Boffin. Mr\nRokesmith, that I told you of; my dear.'\n\nShe gave him good day, and he bestirred himself and helped her to her\nseat, and the like, with a ready hand.\n\n'Good-bye for the present, Miss Bella,' said Mrs Boffin, calling out a\nhearty parting. 'We shall meet again soon! And then I hope I shall have\nmy little John Harmon to show you.'\n\nMr Rokesmith, who was at the wheel adjusting the skirts of her dress,\nsuddenly looked behind him, and around him, and then looked up at her,\nwith a face so pale that Mrs Boffin cried:\n\n'Gracious!' And after a moment, 'What's the matter, sir?'\n\n'How can you show her the Dead?' returned Mr Rokesmith.\n\n'It's only an adopted child. One I have told her of. One I'm going to\ngive the name to!'\n\n'You took me by surprise,' said Mr Rokesmith, 'and it sounded like an\nomen, that you should speak of showing the Dead to one so young and\nblooming.'\n\nNow, Bella suspected by this time that Mr Rokesmith admired her. Whether\nthe knowledge (for it was rather that than suspicion) caused her to\nincline to him a little more, or a little less, than she had done at\nfirst; whether it rendered her eager to find out more about him, because\nshe sought to establish reason for her distrust, or because she sought\nto free him from it; was as yet dark to her own heart. But at most\ntimes he occupied a great amount of her attention, and she had set her\nattention closely on this incident.\n\nThat he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, when they were\nleft together standing on the path by the garden gate.\n\n'Those are worthy people, Miss Wilfer.'\n\n'Do you know them well?' asked Bella.\n\nHe smiled, reproaching her, and she coloured, reproaching herself--both,\nwith the knowledge that she had meant to entrap him into an answer not\ntrue--when he said 'I know OF them.'\n\n'Truly, he told us he had seen you but once.'\n\n'Truly, I supposed he did.'\n\nBella was nervous now, and would have been glad to recall her question.\n\n'You thought it strange that, feeling much interested in you, I should\nstart at what sounded like a proposal to bring you into contact with the\nmurdered man who lies in his grave. I might have known--of course in a\nmoment should have known--that it could not have that meaning. But my\ninterest remains.'\n\nRe-entering the family-room in a meditative state, Miss Bella was\nreceived by the irrepressible Lavinia with:\n\n'There, Bella! At last I hope you have got your wishes realized--by your\nBoffins. You'll be rich enough now--with your Boffins. You can have as\nmuch flirting as you like--at your Boffins. But you won't take ME to\nyour Boffins, I can tell you--you and your Boffins too!'\n\n'If,' quoth Mr George Sampson, moodily pulling his stopper out, 'Miss\nBella's Mr Boffin comes any more of his nonsense to ME, I only wish him\nto understand, as betwixt man and man, that he does it at his per--' and\nwas going to say peril; but Miss Lavinia, having no confidence in his\nmental powers, and feeling his oration to have no definite application\nto any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, with a sharpness that\nmade his eyes water.\n\nAnd now the worthy Mrs Wilfer, having used her youngest daughter as a\nlay-figure for the edification of these Boffins, became bland to her,\nand proceeded to develop her last instance of force of character,\nwhich was still in reserve. This was, to illuminate the family with her\nremarkable powers as a physiognomist; powers that terrified R. W. when\never let loose, as being always fraught with gloom and evil which no\ninferior prescience was aware of. And this Mrs Wilfer now did, be it\nobserved, in jealousy of these Boffins, in the very same moments when\nshe was already reflecting how she would flourish these very same\nBoffins and the state they kept, over the heads of her Boffinless\nfriends.\n\n'Of their manners,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'I say nothing. Of their\nappearance, I say nothing. Of the disinterestedness of their intentions\ntowards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, the secrecy, the dark\ndeep underhanded plotting, written in Mrs Boffin's countenance, make me\nshudder.'\n\nAs an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes were all\nthere, Mrs Wilfer shuddered on the spot.\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\nA MARRIAGE CONTRACT\n\n\nThere is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The mature young lady is\ngoing to be married (powder and all) to the mature young gentleman, and\nshe is to be married from the Veneering house, and the Veneerings are to\ngive the breakfast. The Analytical, who objects as a matter of principle\nto everything that occurs on the premises, necessarily objects to the\nmatch; but his consent has been dispensed with, and a spring-van is\ndelivering its load of greenhouse plants at the door, in order that\nto-morrow's feast may be crowned with flowers.\n\nThe mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentleman\nis a gentleman of property. He invests his property. He goes, in\na condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings of\nDirectors, and has to do with traffic in Shares. As is well known to the\nwise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have to\ndo with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no\ncultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough to\nbe on Boards of Direction in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious\nbusiness between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come\nfrom? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares.\nHas he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into Parliament?\nShares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, never\noriginated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all;\nShares. O mighty Shares! To set those blaring images so high, and to\ncause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, to\ncry out, night and day, 'Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy\nus and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the powers\nof the earth, and fatten on us'!\n\nWhile the Loves and Graces have been preparing this torch for Hymen,\nwhich is to be kindled to-morrow, Mr Twemlow has suffered much in his\nmind. It would seem that both the mature young lady and the mature young\ngentleman must indubitably be Veneering's oldest friends. Wards of his,\nperhaps? Yet that can scarcely be, for they are older than himself.\nVeneering has been in their confidence throughout, and has done much to\nlure them to the altar. He has mentioned to Twemlow how he said to\nMrs Veneering, 'Anastatia, this must be a match.' He has mentioned to\nTwemlow how he regards Sophronia Akershem (the mature young lady) in the\nlight of a sister, and Alfred Lammle (the mature young gentleman) in the\nlight of a brother. Twemlow has asked him whether he went to school as\na junior with Alfred? He has answered, 'Not exactly.' Whether Sophronia\nwas adopted by his mother? He has answered, 'Not precisely so.'\nTwemlow's hand has gone to his forehead with a lost air.\n\nBut, two or three weeks ago, Twemlow, sitting over his newspaper,\nand over his dry-toast and weak tea, and over the stable-yard in Duke\nStreet, St James's, received a highly-perfumed cocked-hat and monogram\nfrom Mrs Veneering, entreating her dearest Mr T., if not particularly\nengaged that day, to come like a charming soul and make a fourth at\ndinner with dear Mr Podsnap, for the discussion of an interesting family\ntopic; the last three words doubly underlined and pointed with a note\nof admiration. And Twemlow replying, 'Not engaged, and more than\ndelighted,' goes, and this takes place:\n\n'My dear Twemlow,' says Veneering, 'your ready response to Anastatia's\nunceremonious invitation is truly kind, and like an old, old friend. You\nknow our dear friend Podsnap?'\n\nTwemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered him with so\nmuch confusion, and he says he does know him, and Podsnap reciprocates.\nApparently, Podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time, as to\nbelieve that he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years.\nIn the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home with his\nback to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes.\nTwemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering\nguests become infected with the Veneering fiction. Not, however, that he\nhas the least notion of its being his own case.\n\n'Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia,' pursues Veneering the veiled\nprophet: 'our friends Alfred and Sophronia, you will be glad to hear, my\ndear fellows, are going to be married. As my wife and I make it a family\naffair the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves, of course\nour first step is to communicate the fact to our family friends.'\n\n('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, 'then there are only\ntwo of us, and he's the other.')\n\n'I did hope,' Veneering goes on, 'to have had Lady Tippins to meet you;\nbut she is always in request, and is unfortunately engaged.'\n\n('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, 'then there are three of\nus, and SHE'S the other.')\n\n'Mortimer Lightwood,' resumes Veneering, 'whom you both know, is out of\ntown; but he writes, in his whimsical manner, that as we ask him to be\nbridegroom's best man when the ceremony takes place, he will not refuse,\nthough he doesn't see what he has to do with it.'\n\n('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, 'then there are four of\nus, and HE'S the other.')\n\n'Boots and Brewer,' observes Veneering, 'whom you also know, I have not\nasked to-day; but I reserve them for the occasion.'\n\n('Then,' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, 'there are si--' But here\ncollapses and does not completely recover until dinner is over and the\nAnalytical has been requested to withdraw.)\n\n'We now come,' says Veneering, 'to the point, the real point, of our\nlittle family consultation. Sophronia, having lost both father and\nmother, has no one to give her away.'\n\n'Give her away yourself,' says Podsnap.\n\n'My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn't\ntake so much upon myself when I have respected family friends to\nremember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look\nthe part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the\nsubject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old\nenough to be married.'\n\n'What would happen if he did?' Podsnap inquires of Mrs Veneering.\n\n'My dear Mr Podsnap, it's very foolish I know, but I have an instinctive\npresentiment that if Hamilton gave away anybody else first, he would\nnever give away baby.' Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressed\ntogether, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like\nher one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem necessary\nfor distinction's sake.\n\n'But, my dear Podsnap,' quoth Veneering, 'there IS a tried friend of\nour family who, I think and hope you will agree with me, Podsnap, is\nthe friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves. That\nfriend,' saying the words as if the company were about a hundred and\nfifty in number, 'is now among us. That friend is Twemlow.'\n\n'Certainly!' From Podsnap.\n\n'That friend,' Veneering repeats with greater firmness, 'is our dear\ngood Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently express to you, my dear Podsnap,\nthe pleasure I feel in having this opinion of mine and Anastatia's so\nreadily confirmed by you, that other equally familiar and tried friend\nwho stands in the proud position--I mean who proudly stands in the\nposition--or I ought rather to say, who places Anastatia and myself in\nthe proud position of himself standing in the simple position--of baby's\ngodfather.' And, indeed, Veneering is much relieved in mind to find that\nPodsnap betrays no jealousy of Twemlow's elevation.\n\nSo, it has come to pass that the spring-van is strewing flowers on\nthe rosy hours and on the staircase, and that Twemlow is surveying the\nground on which he is to play his distinguished part to-morrow. He has\nalready been to the church, and taken note of the various impediments in\nthe aisle, under the auspices of an extremely dreary widow who opens the\npews, and whose left hand appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism,\nbut is in fact voluntarily doubled up to act as a money-box.\n\nAnd now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein he is accustomed,\nwhen contemplative, to give his mind to the carving and gilding of\nthe Pilgrims going to Canterbury, in order to show Twemlow the little\nflourish he has prepared for the trumpets of fashion, describing how\nthat on the seventeenth instant, at St James's Church, the Reverend\nBlank Blank, assisted by the Reverend Dash Dash, united in the bonds of\nmatrimony, Alfred Lammle Esquire, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly,\nto Sophronia, only daughter of the late Horatio Akershem, Esquire,\nof Yorkshire. Also how the fair bride was married from the house of\nHamilton Veneering, Esquire, of Stucconia, and was given away by Melvin\nTwemlow, Esquire, of Duke Street, St James's, second cousin to Lord\nSnigsworth, of Snigsworthy Park. While perusing which composition,\nTwemlow makes some opaque approach to perceiving that if the Reverend\nBlank Blank and the Reverend Dash Dash fail, after this introduction, to\nbecome enrolled in the list of Veneering's dearest and oldest friends,\nthey will have none but themselves to thank for it.\n\nAfter which, appears Sophronia (whom Twemlow has seen twice in his\nlifetime), to thank Twemlow for counterfeiting the late Horatio Akershem\nEsquire, broadly of Yorkshire. And after her, appears Alfred (whom\nTwemlow has seen once in his lifetime), to do the same and to make a\npasty sort of glitter, as if he were constructed for candle-light only,\nand had been let out into daylight by some grand mistake. And after\nthat, comes Mrs Veneering, in a pervadingly aquiline state of figure,\nand with transparent little knobs on her temper, like the little\ntransparent knob on the bridge of her nose, 'Worn out by worry and\nexcitement,' as she tells her dear Mr Twemlow, and reluctantly revived\nwith curacoa by the Analytical. And after that, the bridesmaids begin\nto come by rail-road from various parts of the country, and to come like\nadorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present; for, on arriving\nat the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack of strangers.\n\nSo, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St James's, to take a plate of\nmutton broth with a chop in it, and a look at the marriage-service, in\norder that he may cut in at the right place to-morrow; and he is low,\nand feels it dull over the livery stable-yard, and is distinctly aware\nof a dint in his heart, made by the most adorable of the adorable\nbridesmaids. For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy,\nlike the rest of us, and she didn't answer (as she often does not),\nand he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as she was then\n(which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married some\none else for money, but had married him for love, he and she would\nhave been happy (which they wouldn't have been), and that she has a\ntenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). Brooding\nover the fire, with his dried little head in his dried little hands,\nand his dried little elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow is\nmelancholy. 'No Adorable to bear me company here!' thinks he. 'No\nAdorable at the club! A waste, a waste, a waste, my Twemlow!' And so\ndrops asleep, and has galvanic starts all over him.\n\nBetimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins (relict of the late\nSir Thomas Tippins, knighted in mistake for somebody else by His\nMajesty King George the Third, who, while performing the ceremony, was\ngraciously pleased to observe, 'What, what, what? Who, who, who?\nWhy, why, why?') begins to be dyed and varnished for the interesting\noccasion. She has a reputation for giving smart accounts of things, and\nshe must be at these people's early, my dear, to lose nothing of the\nfun. Whereabout in the bonnet and drapery announced by her name, any\nfragment of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to her\nmaid; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street; or\nyou might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape her, and make two Lady\nTippinses out of her, and yet not penetrate to the genuine article. She\nhas a large gold eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to survey the proceedings\nwith. If she had one in each eye, it might keep that other drooping\nlid up, and look more uniform. But perennial youth is in her artificial\nflowers, and her list of lovers is full.\n\n'Mortimer, you wretch,' says Lady Tippins, turning the eyeglass about\nand about, 'where is your charge, the bridegroom?'\n\n'Give you my honour,' returns Mortimer, 'I don't know, and I don't\ncare.'\n\n'Miserable! Is that the way you do your duty?'\n\n'Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be seconded\nat some point of the solemnities, like a principal at a prizefight, I\nassure you I have no notion what my duty is,' returns Mortimer.\n\nEugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of having\npresupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, and of being disappointed. The\nscene is the Vestry-room of St James's Church, with a number of leathery\nold registers on shelves, that might be bound in Lady Tippinses.\n\nBut, hark! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer's man arrives, looking\nrather like a spurious Mephistopheles and an unacknowledged member\nof that gentleman's family. Whom Lady Tippins, surveying through her\neye-glass, considers a fine man, and quite a catch; and of whom Mortimer\nremarks, in the lowest spirits, as he approaches, 'I believe this is my\nfellow, confound him!' More carriages at the gate, and lo the rest of\nthe characters. Whom Lady Tippins, standing on a cushion, surveying\nthrough the eye-glass, thus checks off. 'Bride; five-and-forty if a\nday, thirty shillings a yard, veil fifteen pound, pocket-handkerchief\na present. Bridesmaids; kept down for fear of outshining bride,\nconsequently not girls, twelve and sixpence a yard, Veneering's flowers,\nsnub-nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of her stockings, bonnets\nthree pound ten. Twemlow; blessed release for the dear man if she really\nwas his daughter, nervous even under the pretence that she is, well he\nmay be. Mrs Veneering; never saw such velvet, say two thousand pounds\nas she stands, absolute jeweller's window, father must have been a\npawnbroker, or how could these people do it? Attendant unknowns; pokey.'\n\nCeremony performed, register signed, Lady Tippins escorted out of sacred\nedifice by Veneering, carriages rolling back to Stucconia, servants\nwith favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, drawing-rooms most\nmagnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with\nhis hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs\nPodsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and\nthe two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his\nhair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared,\nif anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly.\nHere, too, the bride's aunt and next relation; a widowed female of\na Medusa sort, in a stoney cap, glaring petrifaction at her\nfellow-creatures. Here, too, the bride's trustee; an oilcake-fed style\nof business-gentleman with mooney spectacles, and an object of much\ninterest. Veneering launching himself upon this trustee as his oldest\nfriend (which makes seven, Twemlow thought), and confidentially retiring\nwith him into the conservatory, it is understood that Veneering is his\nco-trustee, and that they are arranging about the fortune. Buffers are\neven overheard to whisper Thir-ty Thou-sand Pou-nds! with a smack and a\nrelish suggestive of the very finest oysters. Pokey unknowns, amazed\nto find how intimately they know Veneering, pluck up spirit, fold\ntheir arms, and begin to contradict him before breakfast. What time Mrs\nVeneering, carrying baby dressed as a bridesmaid, flits about among\nthe company, emitting flashes of many-coloured lightning from diamonds,\nemeralds, and rubies.\n\nThe Analytical, in course of time achieving what he feels to be due to\nhimself in bringing to a dignified conclusion several quarrels he has on\nhand with the pastrycook's men, announces breakfast. Dining-room no less\nmagnificent than drawing-room; tables superb; all the camels out, and\nall laden. Splendid cake, covered with Cupids, silver, and true-lovers'\nknots. Splendid bracelet, produced by Veneering before going down, and\nclasped upon the arm of bride. Yet nobody seems to think much more of\nthe Veneerings than if they were a tolerable landlord and landlady\ndoing the thing in the way of business at so much a head. The bride and\nbridegroom talk and laugh apart, as has always been their manner;\nand the Buffers work their way through the dishes with systematic\nperseverance, as has always been THEIR manner; and the pokey unknowns\nare exceedingly benevolent to one another in invitations to take\nglasses of champagne; but Mrs Podsnap, arching her mane and rocking her\ngrandest, has a far more deferential audience than Mrs Veneering; and\nPodsnap all but does the honours.\n\nAnother dismal circumstance is, that Veneering, having the captivating\nTippins on one side of him and the bride's aunt on the other, finds\nit immensely difficult to keep the peace. For, Medusa, besides\nunmistakingly glaring petrifaction at the fascinating Tippins, follows\nevery lively remark made by that dear creature, with an audible snort:\nwhich may be referable to a chronic cold in the head, but may also be\nreferable to indignation and contempt. And this snort being regular in\nits reproduction, at length comes to be expected by the company, who\nmake embarrassing pauses when it is falling due, and by waiting for it,\nrender it more emphatic when it comes. The stoney aunt has likewise an\ninjurious way of rejecting all dishes whereof Lady Tippins partakes:\nsaying aloud when they are proffered to her, 'No, no, no, not for me.\nTake it away!' As with a set purpose of implying a misgiving that if\nnourished upon similar meats, she might come to be like that charmer,\nwhich would be a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy, Lady Tippins\ntries a youthful sally or two, and tries the eye-glass; but, from the\nimpenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stoney aunt all weapons\nrebound powerless.\n\nAnother objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey unknowns support\neach other in being unimpressible. They persist in not being frightened\nby the gold and silver camels, and they are banded together to defy\nthe elaborately chased ice-pails. They even seem to unite in some vague\nutterance of the sentiment that the landlord and landlady will make a\npretty good profit out of this, and they almost carry themselves\nlike customers. Nor is there compensating influence in the adorable\nbridesmaids; for, having very little interest in the bride, and none\nat all in one another, those lovely beings become, each one of her own\naccount, depreciatingly contemplative of the millinery present; while\nthe bridegroom's man, exhausted, in the back of his chair, appears to be\nimproving the occasion by penitentially contemplating all the wrong he\nhas ever done; the difference between him and his friend Eugene, being,\nthat the latter, in the back of HIS chair, appears to be contemplating\nall the wrong he would like to do--particularly to the present company.\n\nIn which state of affairs, the usual ceremonies rather droop and flag,\nand the splendid cake when cut by the fair hand of the bride has but\nan indigestible appearance. However, all the things indispensable to\nbe said are said, and all the things indispensable to be done are\ndone (including Lady Tippins's yawning, falling asleep, and waking\ninsensible), and there is hurried preparation for the nuptial journey\nto the Isle of Wight, and the outer air teems with brass bands and\nspectators. In full sight of whom, the malignant star of the Analytical\nhas pre-ordained that pain and ridicule shall befall him. For he,\nstanding on the doorsteps to grace the departure, is suddenly caught a\nmost prodigious thump on the side of his head with a heavy shoe, which\na Buffer in the hall, champagne-flushed and wild of aim, has borrowed on\nthe spur of the moment from the pastrycook's porter, to cast after the\ndeparting pair as an auspicious omen.\n\nSo they all go up again into the gorgeous drawing-rooms--all of them\nflushed with breakfast, as having taken scarlatina sociably--and there\nthe combined unknowns do malignant things with their legs to ottomans,\nand take as much as possible out of the splendid furniture. And so, Lady\nTippins, quite undetermined whether today is the day before yesterday,\nor the day after to-morrow, or the week after next, fades away; and\nMortimer Lightwood and Eugene fade away, and Twemlow fades away, and\nthe stoney aunt goes away--she declines to fade, proving rock to the\nlast--and even the unknowns are slowly strained off, and it is all over.\n\nAll over, that is to say, for the time being. But, there is another time\nto come, and it comes in about a fortnight, and it comes to Mr and Mrs\nLammle on the sands at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight.\n\nMr and Mrs Lammle have walked for some time on the Shanklin sands, and\none may see by their footprints that they have not walked arm in arm,\nand that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they have\nwalked in a moody humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirting\nholes in the damp sand before her with her parasol, and the gentleman\nhas trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistopheles\nfamily indeed, and had walked with a drooping tail.\n\n'Do you mean to tell me, then, Sophronia--'\n\nThus he begins after a long silence, when Sophronia flashes fiercely,\nand turns upon him.\n\n'Don't put it upon ME, sir. I ask you, do YOU mean to tell me?'\n\nMr Lammle falls silent again, and they walk as before. Mrs Lammle opens\nher nostrils and bites her under-lip; Mr Lammle takes his gingerous\nwhiskers in his left hand, and, bringing them together, frowns furtively\nat his beloved, out of a thick gingerous bush.\n\n'Do I mean to say!' Mrs Lammle after a time repeats, with indignation.\n'Putting it on me! The unmanly disingenuousness!'\n\nMr Lammle stops, releases his whiskers, and looks at her. 'The what?'\n\nMrs Lammle haughtily replies, without stopping, and without looking\nback. 'The meanness.'\n\nHe is at her side again in a pace or two, and he retorts, 'That is not\nwhat you said. You said disingenuousness.'\n\n'What if I did?'\n\n'There is no \"if\" in the case. You did.'\n\n'I did, then. And what of it?'\n\n'What of it?' says Mr Lammle. 'Have you the face to utter the word to\nme?'\n\n'The face, too!' replied Mrs Lammle, staring at him with cold scorn.\n'Pray, how dare you, sir, utter the word to me?'\n\n'I never did.'\n\nAs this happens to be true, Mrs Lammle is thrown on the feminine\nresource of saying, 'I don't care what you uttered or did not utter.'\n\nAfter a little more walking and a little more silence, Mr Lammle breaks\nthe latter.\n\n'You shall proceed in your own way. You claim a right to ask me do I\nmean to tell you. Do I mean to tell you what?'\n\n'That you are a man of property?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Then you married me on false pretences?'\n\n'So be it. Next comes what you mean to say. Do you mean to say you are a\nwoman of property?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Then you married me on false pretences.'\n\n'If you were so dull a fortune-hunter that you deceived yourself, or\nif you were so greedy and grasping that you were over-willing to be\ndeceived by appearances, is it my fault, you adventurer?' the lady\ndemands, with great asperity.\n\n'I asked Veneering, and he told me you were rich.'\n\n'Veneering!' with great contempt.' And what does Veneering know about\nme!'\n\n'Was he not your trustee?'\n\n'No. I have no trustee, but the one you saw on the day when you\nfraudulently married me. And his trust is not a very difficult one, for\nit is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds. I think there are\nsome odd shillings or pence, if you are very particular.'\n\nMr Lammle bestows a by no means loving look upon the partner of his joys\nand sorrows, and he mutters something; but checks himself.\n\n'Question for question. It is my turn again, Mrs Lammle. What made you\nsuppose me a man of property?'\n\n'You made me suppose you so. Perhaps you will deny that you always\npresented yourself to me in that character?'\n\n'But you asked somebody, too. Come, Mrs Lammle, admission for admission.\nYou asked somebody?'\n\n'I asked Veneering.'\n\n'And Veneering knew as much of me as he knew of you, or as anybody knows\nof him.'\n\nAfter more silent walking, the bride stops short, to say in a passionate\nmanner:\n\n'I never will forgive the Veneerings for this!'\n\n'Neither will I,' returns the bridegroom.\n\nWith that, they walk again; she, making those angry spirts in the sand;\nhe, dragging that dejected tail. The tide is low, and seems to have\nthrown them together high on the bare shore. A gull comes sweeping by\ntheir heads and flouts them. There was a golden surface on the brown\ncliffs but now, and behold they are only damp earth. A taunting roar\ncomes from the sea, and the far-out rollers mount upon one another,\nto look at the entrapped impostors, and to join in impish and exultant\ngambols.\n\n'Do you pretend to believe,' Mrs Lammle resumes, sternly, 'when you talk\nof my marrying you for worldly advantages, that it was within the bounds\nof reasonable probability that I would have married you for yourself?'\n\n'Again there are two sides to the question, Mrs Lammle. What do you\npretend to believe?'\n\n'So you first deceive me and then insult me!' cries the lady, with a\nheaving bosom.\n\n'Not at all. I have originated nothing. The double-edged question was\nyours.'\n\n'Was mine!' the bride repeats, and her parasol breaks in her angry hand.\n\nHis colour has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have come to\nlight about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself had,\nwithin the last few moments, touched it here and there. But he has\nrepressive power, and she has none.\n\n'Throw it away,' he coolly recommends as to the parasol; 'you have made\nit useless; you look ridiculous with it.'\n\nWhereupon she calls him in her rage, 'A deliberate villain,' and so\ncasts the broken thing from her as that it strikes him in falling. The\nfinger-marks are something whiter for the instant, but he walks on at\nher side.\n\nShe bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the most\ndeceived, the worst-used, of women. Then she says that if she had\nthe courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him vile\nimpostor. Then she asks him, why, in the disappointment of his base\nspeculation, he does not take her life with his own hand, under the\npresent favourable circumstances. Then she cries again. Then she is\nenraged again, and makes some mention of swindlers. Finally, she sits\ndown crying on a block of stone, and is in all the known and unknown\nhumours of her sex at once. Pending her changes, those aforesaid marks\nin his face have come and gone, now here now there, like white steps\nof a pipe on which the diabolical performer has played a tune. Also his\nlivid lips are parted at last, as if he were breathless with running.\nYet he is not.\n\n'Now, get up, Mrs Lammle, and let us speak reasonably.'\n\nShe sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him.\n\n'Get up, I tell you.'\n\nRaising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, and repeats,\n'You tell me! Tell me, forsooth!'\n\nShe affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she droops\nher head again; but her whole figure reveals that she knows it uneasily.\n\n'Enough of this. Come! Do you hear? Get up.'\n\nYielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again; but this time with\ntheir faces turned towards their place of residence.\n\n'Mrs Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have both been\ndeceived. We have both been biting, and we have both been bitten. In a\nnut-shell, there's the state of the case.'\n\n'You sought me out--'\n\n'Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Why\nshould you and I talk about it, when you and I can't disguise it? To\nproceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure.'\n\n'Am I no one?'\n\n'Some one--and I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You,\ntoo, are disappointed and cut a poor figure.'\n\n'An injured figure!'\n\n'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injured\nwithout my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word is\nnot to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such\na fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust.'\n\n'And when I look back--' the bride cries, interrupting.\n\n'And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been--you'll excuse\nthe word?'\n\n'Most certainly, with so much reason.\n\n'--Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But the\nfolly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you; you cannot\nget rid of me. What follows?'\n\n'Shame and misery,' the bride bitterly replies.\n\n'I don't know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think it may carry\nus through. Here I split my discourse (give me your arm, Sophronia),\ninto three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. Firstly, it's enough\nto have been done, without the mortification of being known to have been\ndone. So we agree to keep the fact to ourselves. You agree?'\n\n'If it is possible, I do.'\n\n'Possible! We have pretended well enough to one another. Can't we,\nunited, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, we owe the Veneerings\na grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to be\ntaken in, as we ourselves have been taken in. Agreed?'\n\n'Yes. Agreed.'\n\n'We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer,\nSophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary English, so I am. So are\nyou, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our own secret, and\nto work together in furtherance of our own schemes.'\n\n'What schemes?'\n\n'Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, I mean our\njoint interest. Agreed?'\n\nShe answers, after a little hesitation, 'I suppose so. Agreed.'\n\n'Carried at once, you see! Now, Sophronia, only half a dozen words more.\nWe know one another perfectly. Don't be tempted into twitting me with\nthe past knowledge that you have of me, because it is identical with\nthe past knowledge that I have of you, and in twitting me, you\ntwit yourself, and I don't want to hear you do it. With this good\nunderstanding established between us, it is better never done. To wind\nup all:--You have shown temper today, Sophronia. Don't be betrayed into\ndoing so again, because I have a Devil of a temper myself.'\n\nSo, the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed,\nsealed, and delivered, repair homeward. If, when those infernal\nfinger-marks were on the white and breathless countenance of Alfred\nLammle, Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing\nhis dear wife Mrs Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting her of any\nlingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose would seem\nto have been presently executed. The mature young lady has mighty little\nneed of powder, now, for her downcast face, as he escorts her in the\nlight of the setting sun to their abode of bliss.\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\nPODSNAPPERY\n\n\nMr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap's opinion.\nBeginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good inheritance,\nand had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was\nquite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite\nsatisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example\nin being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all\nother things, with himself.\n\nThus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr Podsnap\nsettled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There\nwas a dignified conclusiveness--not to add a grand convenience--in\nthis way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards\nestablishing Mr Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr Podsnap's satisfaction.\n'I don't want to know about it; I don't choose to discuss it; I don't\nadmit it!' Mr Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his\nright arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult problems, by\nsweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words\nand a flushed face. For they affronted him.\n\nMr Podsnap's world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even\ngeographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon\ncommerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that\nimportant reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would\nconclusively observe, 'Not English!' when, PRESTO! with a flourish of\nthe arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewhere, the\nworld got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at\nnine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined\nat seven. Mr Podsnap's notions of the Arts in their integrity might have\nbeen stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of\ngetting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting\nat nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five,\nand dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits\nrepresenting Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a\nquarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming\nhome at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music; a respectable\nperformance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments,\nsedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter\npast, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at\nhalf-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to\nthose same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else\nTo Be--anywhere!\n\nAs a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its being\nrequired of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently he\nalways knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable\nmen might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it.\nAnd it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that\nwhat Providence meant, was invariably what Mr Podsnap meant.\n\nThese may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school\nwhich the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after its\nrepresentative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds,\nas Mr Podsnap's own head was confined by his shirt-collar; and they\nwere enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of Mr\nPodsnap's own boots.\n\nThere was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was being trained\nin her mother's art of prancing in a stately manner without ever getting\non. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and\nin truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low\nspirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to\ntake occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to\nshrink back again, overcome by her mother's head-dress and her father\nfrom head to foot--crushed by the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery.\n\nA certain institution in Mr Podsnap's mind which he called 'the young\nperson' may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his\ndaughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring\neverything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The\nquestion about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of\nthe young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that,\naccording to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into\nblushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of\ndemarcation between the young person's excessive innocence, and another\nperson's guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap's word for it, and the\nsoberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to\nthis troublesome Bull of a young person.\n\nThe Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman Square. They were\na kind of people certain to dwell in the shade, wherever they dwelt.\nMiss Podsnap's life had been, from her first appearance on this planet,\naltogether of a shady order; for, Mr Podsnap's young person was likely\nto get little good out of association with other young persons, and had\ntherefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial older\npersons, and with massive furniture. Miss Podsnap's early views of life\nbeing principally derived from the reflections of it in her father's\nboots, and in the walnut and rosewood tables of the dim drawing-rooms,\nand in their swarthy giants of looking-glasses, were of a sombre cast;\nand it was not wonderful that now, when she was on most days solemnly\ntooled through the Park by the side of her mother in a great tall\ncustard-coloured phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehicle\nlike a dejected young person sitting up in bed to take a startled look\nat things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under\nthe counterpane again.\n\nSaid Mr Podsnap to Mrs Podsnap, 'Georgiana is almost eighteen.'\n\nSaid Mrs Podsnap to Mr Podsnap, assenting, 'Almost eighteen.'\n\nSaid Mr Podsnap then to Mrs Podsnap, 'Really I think we should have some\npeople on Georgiana's birthday.'\n\nSaid Mrs Podsnap then to Mr Podsnap, 'Which will enable us to clear off\nall those people who are due.'\n\nSo it came to pass that Mr and Mrs Podsnap requested the honour of the\ncompany of seventeen friends of their souls at dinner; and that they\nsubstituted other friends of their souls for such of the seventeen\noriginal friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a prior\nengagement prevented their having the honour of dining with Mr and Mrs\nPodsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs Podsnap\nsaid of all these inconsolable personages, as she checked them off with\na pencil in her list, 'Asked, at any rate, and got rid of;' and that\nthey successfully disposed of a good many friends of their souls in this\nway, and felt their consciences much lightened.\n\nThere were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled to\nbe asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited to come and take a\nhaunch of mutton vapour-bath at half-past nine. For the clearing off\nof these worthies, Mrs Podsnap added a small and early evening to the\ndinner, and looked in at the music-shop to bespeak a well-conducted\nautomaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance.\n\nMr and Mrs Veneering, and Mr and Mrs Veneering's bran-new bride and\nbridegroom, were of the dinner company; but the Podsnap establishment\nhad nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr Podsnap could\ntolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort\nof thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the\ncharacteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as\nheavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything\nsaid boastfully, 'Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I\nwere only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much\nan ounce;--wouldn't you like to melt me down?' A corpulent straddling\nepergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather\nthan been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver\nplatform in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, each\nfurnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a big\nsilver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the\ntable, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All the\nbig silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the company expressly\nfor the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with every\nmorsel they ate.\n\nThe majority of the guests were like the plate, and included several\nheavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was a foreign gentleman\namong them: whom Mr Podsnap had invited after much debate with\nhimself--believing the whole European continent to be in mortal alliance\nagainst the young person--and there was a droll disposition, not only on\nthe part of Mr Podsnap but of everybody else, to treat him as if he were\na child who was hard of hearing.\n\nAs a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born foreigner, Mr\nPodsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife as 'Madame Podsnap;'\nalso his daughter as 'Mademoiselle Podsnap,' with some inclination to\nadd 'ma fille,' in which bold venture, however, he checked himself. The\nVeneerings being at that time the only other arrivals, he had added (in\na condescendingly explanatory manner), 'Monsieur Vey-nair-reeng,' and\nhad then subsided into English.\n\n'How Do You Like London?' Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station of\nhost, as if he were administering something in the nature of a powder or\npotion to the deaf child; 'London, Londres, London?'\n\nThe foreign gentleman admired it.\n\n'You find it Very Large?' said Mr Podsnap, spaciously.\n\nThe foreign gentleman found it very large.\n\n'And Very Rich?'\n\nThe foreign gentleman found it, without doubt, enormement riche.\n\n'Enormously Rich, We say,' returned Mr Podsnap, in a condescending\nmanner. 'Our English adverbs do Not terminate in Mong, and We Pronounce\nthe \"ch\" as if there were a \"t\" before it. We say Ritch.'\n\n'Reetch,' remarked the foreign gentleman.\n\n'And Do You Find, Sir,' pursued Mr Podsnap, with dignity, 'Many\nEvidences that Strike You, of our British Constitution in the Streets Of\nThe World's Metropolis, London, Londres, London?'\n\nThe foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did not altogether\nunderstand.\n\n'The Constitution Britannique,' Mr Podsnap explained, as if he were\nteaching in an infant school. 'We Say British, But You Say Britannique,\nYou Know' (forgivingly, as if that were not his fault). 'The\nConstitution, Sir.'\n\nThe foreign gentleman said, 'Mais, yees; I know eem.'\n\nA youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a lumpy forehead,\nseated in a supplementary chair at a corner of the table, here caused\na profound sensation by saying, in a raised voice, 'ESKER,' and then\nstopping dead.\n\n'Mais oui,' said the foreign gentleman, turning towards him. 'Est-ce\nque? Quoi donc?'\n\nBut the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for the time delivered\nhimself of all that he found behind his lumps, spake for the time no\nmore.\n\n'I Was Inquiring,' said Mr Podsnap, resuming the thread of his\ndiscourse, 'Whether You Have Observed in our Streets as We should say,\nUpon our Pavvy as You would say, any Tokens--'\n\nThe foreign gentleman, with patient courtesy entreated pardon; 'But what\nwas tokenz?'\n\n'Marks,' said Mr Podsnap; 'Signs, you know, Appearances--Traces.'\n\n'Ah! Of a Orse?' inquired the foreign gentleman.\n\n'We call it Horse,' said Mr Podsnap, with forbearance. 'In England,\nAngleterre, England, We Aspirate the \"H,\" and We Say \"Horse.\" Only our\nLower Classes Say \"Orse!\"'\n\n'Pardon,' said the foreign gentleman; 'I am alwiz wrong!'\n\n'Our Language,' said Mr Podsnap, with a gracious consciousness of being\nalways right, 'is Difficult. Ours is a Copious Language, and Trying to\nStrangers. I will not Pursue my Question.'\n\nBut the lumpy gentleman, unwilling to give it up, again madly said,\n'ESKER,' and again spake no more.\n\n'It merely referred,' Mr Podsnap explained, with a sense of meritorious\nproprietorship, 'to Our Constitution, Sir. We Englishmen are Very Proud\nof our Constitution, Sir. It Was Bestowed Upon Us By Providence. No\nOther Country is so Favoured as This Country.'\n\n'And ozer countries?--' the foreign gentleman was beginning, when Mr\nPodsnap put him right again.\n\n'We do not say Ozer; we say Other: the letters are \"T\" and \"H;\" You say\nTay and Aish, You Know; (still with clemency). The sound is \"th\"--\"th!\"'\n\n'And OTHER countries,' said the foreign gentleman. 'They do how?'\n\n'They do, Sir,' returned Mr Podsnap, gravely shaking his head; 'they\ndo--I am sorry to be obliged to say it--AS they do.'\n\n'It was a little particular of Providence,' said the foreign gentleman,\nlaughing; 'for the frontier is not large.'\n\n'Undoubtedly,' assented Mr Podsnap; 'But So it is. It was the Charter\nof the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of\nsuch Other Countries as--as there may happen to be. And if we were all\nEnglishmen present, I would say,' added Mr Podsnap, looking round upon\nhis compatriots, and sounding solemnly with his theme, 'that there is in\nthe Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence,\na responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everything\ncalculated to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which one\nwould seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth.'\n\nHaving delivered this little summary, Mr Podsnap's face flushed, as he\nthought of the remote possibility of its being at all qualified by\nany prejudiced citizen of any other country; and, with his favourite\nright-arm flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of Asia,\nAfrica, and America nowhere.\n\nThe audience were much edified by this passage of words; and Mr Podsnap,\nfeeling that he was in rather remarkable force to-day, became smiling\nand conversational.\n\n'Has anything more been heard, Veneering,' he inquired, 'of the lucky\nlegatee?'\n\n'Nothing more,' returned Veneering, 'than that he has come into\npossession of the property. I am told people now call him The Golden\nDustman. I mentioned to you some time ago, I think, that the young lady\nwhose intended husband was murdered is daughter to a clerk of mine?'\n\n'Yes, you told me that,' said Podsnap; 'and by-the-bye, I wish you would\ntell it again here, for it's a curious coincidence--curious that the\nfirst news of the discovery should have been brought straight to your\ntable (when I was there), and curious that one of your people should\nhave been so nearly interested in it. Just relate that, will you?'\n\nVeneering was more than ready to do it, for he had prospered exceedingly\nupon the Harmon Murder, and had turned the social distinction it\nconferred upon him to the account of making several dozen of bran-new\nbosom-friends. Indeed, such another lucky hit would almost have set him\nup in that way to his satisfaction. So, addressing himself to the most\ndesirable of his neighbours, while Mrs Veneering secured the next most\ndesirable, he plunged into the case, and emerged from it twenty minutes\nafterwards with a Bank Director in his arms. In the mean time, Mrs\nVeneering had dived into the same waters for a wealthy Ship-Broker, and\nhad brought him up, safe and sound, by the hair. Then Mrs Veneering had\nto relate, to a larger circle, how she had been to see the girl, and how\nshe was really pretty, and (considering her station) presentable.\nAnd this she did with such a successful display of her eight aquiline\nfingers and their encircling jewels, that she happily laid hold of a\ndrifting General Officer, his wife and daughter, and not only restored\ntheir animation which had become suspended, but made them lively friends\nwithin an hour.\n\nAlthough Mr Podsnap would in a general way have highly disapproved of\nBodies in rivers as ineligible topics with reference to the cheek of the\nyoung person, he had, as one may say, a share in this affair which made\nhim a part proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the way\nof restraining the company from speechless contemplation of the\nwine-coolers, it paid, and he was satisfied.\n\nAnd now the haunch of mutton vapour-bath having received a gamey\ninfusion, and a few last touches of sweets and coffee, was quite ready,\nand the bathers came; but not before the discreet automaton had got\nbehind the bars of the piano music-desk, and there presented the\nappearance of a captive languishing in a rose-wood jail. And who now\nso pleasant or so well assorted as Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, he all\nsparkle, she all gracious contentment, both at occasional intervals\nexchanging looks like partners at cards who played a game against All\nEngland.\n\nThere was not much youth among the bathers, but there was no youth\n(the young person always excepted) in the articles of Podsnappery. Bald\nbathers folded their arms and talked to Mr Podsnap on the hearthrug;\nsleek-whiskered bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs Podsnap\nand retreated; prowling bathers, went about looking into ornamental\nboxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of larceny on the part of the\nPodsnaps, and expected to find something they had lost at the bottom;\nbathers of the gentler sex sat silently comparing ivory shoulders. All\nthis time and always, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts (if\nshe had made any) were swallowed up in the magnificence of her mother's\nrocking, kept herself as much out of sight and mind as she could,\nand appeared to be counting on many dismal returns of the day. It was\nsomehow understood, as a secret article in the state proprieties of\nPodsnappery that nothing must be said about the day. Consequently this\nyoung damsel's nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if it were\nagreed on all hands that it would have been better that she had never\nbeen born.\n\nThe Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that they could not for\nsome time detach themselves from those excellent friends; but at length,\neither a very open smile on Mr Lammle's part, or a very secret elevation\nof one of his gingerous eyebrows--certainly the one or the other--seemed\nto say to Mrs Lammle, 'Why don't you play?' And so, looking about her,\nshe saw Miss Podsnap, and seeming to say responsively, 'That card?' and\nto be answered, 'Yes,' went and sat beside Miss Podsnap.\n\nMrs Lammle was overjoyed to escape into a corner for a little quiet\ntalk.\n\nIt promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in a\nflutter, 'Oh! Indeed, it's very kind of you, but I am afraid I DON'T\ntalk.'\n\n'Let us make a beginning,' said the insinuating Mrs Lammle, with her\nbest smile.\n\n'Oh! I am afraid you'll find me very dull. But Ma talks!'\n\nThat was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then at her usual\ncanter, with arched head and mane, opened eyes and nostrils.\n\n'Fond of reading perhaps?'\n\n'Yes. At least I--don't mind that so much,' returned Miss Podsnap.\n\n'M-m-m-m-music.' So insinuating was Mrs Lammle that she got half a dozen\nms into the word before she got it out.\n\n'I haven't nerve to play even if I could. Ma plays.'\n\n(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing appearance\nof doing something, Ma did, in fact, occasionally take a rock upon the\ninstrument.)\n\n'Of course you like dancing?'\n\n'Oh no, I don't,' said Miss Podsnap.\n\n'No? With your youth and attractions? Truly, my dear, you surprise me!'\n\n'I can't say,' observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating considerably, and\nstealing several timid looks at Mrs Lammle's carefully arranged face,\n'how I might have liked it if I had been a--you won't mention it, WILL\nyou?'\n\n'My dear! Never!'\n\n'No, I am sure you won't. I can't say then how I should have liked it,\nif I had been a chimney-sweep on May-day.'\n\n'Gracious!' was the exclamation which amazement elicited from Mrs\nLammle.\n\n'There! I knew you'd wonder. But you won't mention it, will you?'\n\n'Upon my word, my love,' said Mrs Lammle, 'you make me ten times more\ndesirous, now I talk to you, to know you well than I was when I sat over\nyonder looking at you. How I wish we could be real friends! Try me as a\nreal friend. Come! Don't fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear;\nI was married but the other day, you know; I am dressed as a bride now,\nyou see. About the chimney-sweeps?'\n\n'Hush! Ma'll hear.'\n\n'She can't hear from where she sits.'\n\n'Don't you be too sure of that,' said Miss Podsnap, in a lower voice.\n'Well, what I mean is, that they seem to enjoy it.'\n\n'And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had been one of\nthem?'\n\nMiss Podsnap nodded significantly.\n\n'Then you don't enjoy it now?'\n\n'How is it possible?' said Miss Podsnap. 'Oh it is such a dreadful\nthing! If I was wicked enough--and strong enough--to kill anybody, it\nshould be my partner.'\n\nThis was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art as\nsocially practised, that Mrs Lammle looked at her young friend in some\nastonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers in\na pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But this\nlatter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great\ninoffensive aim of her existence.\n\n'It sounds horrid, don't it?' said Miss Podsnap, with a penitential\nface.\n\nMrs Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved herself into\na look of smiling encouragement.\n\n'But it is, and it always has been,' pursued Miss Podsnap, 'such a trial\nto me! I so dread being awful. And it is so awful! No one knows what\nI suffered at Madame Sauteuse's, where I learnt to dance and make\npresentation-curtseys, and other dreadful things--or at least where they\ntried to teach me. Ma can do it.'\n\n'At any rate, my love,' said Mrs Lammle, soothingly, 'that's over.'\n\n'Yes, it's over,' returned Miss Podsnap, 'but there's nothing gained by\nthat. It's worse here, than at Madame Sauteuse's. Ma was there, and Ma's\nhere; but Pa wasn't there, and company wasn't there, and there were not\nreal partners there. Oh there's Ma speaking to the man at the piano! Oh\nthere's Ma going up to somebody! Oh I know she's going to bring him\nto me! Oh please don't, please don't, please don't! Oh keep away, keep\naway, keep away!' These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with her\neyes closed, and her head leaning back against the wall.\n\nBut the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and Ma said, 'Georgiana,\nMr Grompus,' and the Ogre clutched his victim and bore her off to his\ncastle in the top couple. Then the discreet automaton who had surveyed\nhis ground, played a blossomless tuneless 'set,' and sixteen disciples\nof Podsnappery went through the figures of - 1, Getting up at eight and\nshaving close at a quarter past - 2, Breakfasting at nine - 3, Going to\nthe City at ten - 4, Coming home at half-past five - 5, Dining at seven,\nand the grand chain.\n\nWhile these solemnities were in progress, Mr Alfred Lammle (most loving\nof husbands) approached the chair of Mrs Alfred Lammle (most loving of\nwives), and bending over the back of it, trifled for some few seconds\nwith Mrs Lammle's bracelet. Slightly in contrast with this brief airy\ntoying, one might have noticed a certain dark attention in Mrs Lammle's\nface as she said some words with her eyes on Mr Lammle's waistcoat, and\nseemed in return to receive some lesson. But it was all done as a breath\npasses from a mirror.\n\nAnd now, the grand chain riveted to the last link, the discreet\nautomaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two, took a walk among\nthe furniture. And herein the unconsciousness of the Ogre Grompus was\npleasantly conspicuous; for, that complacent monster, believing that\nhe was giving Miss Podsnap a treat, prolonged to the utmost stretch\nof possibility a peripatetic account of an archery meeting; while his\nvictim, heading the procession of sixteen as it slowly circled about,\nlike a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except once to steal a\nglance at Mrs Lammle, expressive of intense despair.\n\nAt length the procession was dissolved by the violent arrival of a\nnutmeg, before which the drawing-room door bounced open as if it were a\ncannon-ball; and while that fragrant article, dispersed through several\nglasses of coloured warm water, was going the round of society, Miss\nPodsnap returned to her seat by her new friend.\n\n'Oh my goodness,' said Miss Podsnap. 'THAT'S over! I hope you didn't\nlook at me.'\n\n'My dear, why not?'\n\n'Oh I know all about myself,' said Miss Podsnap.\n\n'I'll tell you something I know about you, my dear,' returned Mrs Lammle\nin her winning way, 'and that is, you are most unnecessarily shy.'\n\n'Ma ain't,' said Miss Podsnap. '--I detest you! Go along!' This shot\nwas levelled under her breath at the gallant Grompus for bestowing an\ninsinuating smile upon her in passing.\n\n'Pardon me if I scarcely see, my dear Miss Podsnap,' Mrs Lammle was\nbeginning when the young lady interposed.\n\n'If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, for you are\nthe only person who ever proposed it) don't let us be awful. It's awful\nenough to BE Miss Podsnap, without being called so. Call me Georgiana.'\n\n'Dearest Georgiana,' Mrs Lammle began again.\n\n'Thank you,' said Miss Podsnap.\n\n'Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, why your\nmamma's not being shy, is a reason why you should be.'\n\n'Don't you really see that?' asked Miss Podsnap, plucking at her fingers\nin a troubled manner, and furtively casting her eyes now on Mrs Lammle,\nnow on the ground. 'Then perhaps it isn't?'\n\n'My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my poor opinion.\nIndeed it is not even an opinion, darling, for it is only a confession\nof my dullness.'\n\n'Oh YOU are not dull,' returned Miss Podsnap. 'I am dull, but you\ncouldn't have made me talk if you were.'\n\nSome little touch of conscience answering this perception of her having\ngained a purpose, called bloom enough into Mrs Lammle's face to make it\nlook brighter as she sat smiling her best smile on her dear Georgiana,\nand shaking her head with an affectionate playfulness. Not that it meant\nanything, but that Georgiana seemed to like it.\n\n'What I mean is,' pursued Georgiana, 'that Ma being so endowed with\nawfulness, and Pa being so endowed with awfulness, and there being\nso much awfulness everywhere--I mean, at least, everywhere where I\nam--perhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened\nat it--I say it very badly--I don't know whether you can understand what\nI mean?'\n\n'Perfectly, dearest Georgiana!' Mrs Lammle was proceeding with every\nreassuring wile, when the head of that young lady suddenly went back\nagainst the wall again and her eyes closed.\n\n'Oh there's Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in his eye! Oh I\nknow she's going to bring him here! Oh don't bring him, don't bring him!\nOh he'll be my partner with his glass in his eye! Oh what shall I do!'\nThis time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps of her feet\nupon the floor, and was altogether in quite a desperate condition. But,\nthere was no escape from the majestic Mrs Podsnap's production of an\nambling stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other\nframed and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, as if he\ndescried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular shaft, brought\nher to the surface, and ambled off with her. And then the captive at the\npiano played another 'set,' expressive of his mournful aspirations after\nfreedom, and other sixteen went through the former melancholy motions,\nand the ambler took Miss Podsnap for a furniture walk, as if he had\nstruck out an entirely original conception.\n\nIn the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wandered\nto the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes assembled there in\nconference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush and\nflourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the\ncircumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets,\nof starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not adapted\nto the cheek of the young person. It was not in good taste.\n\n'I don't believe it,' said Mr Podsnap, putting it behind him.\n\nThe meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there were\nthe Inquests and the Registrar's returns.\n\n'Then it was their own fault,' said Mr Podsnap.\n\nVeneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of it. At\nonce a short cut and a broad road.\n\nThe man of meek demeanour intimated that truly it would seem from\nthe facts, as if starvation had been forced upon the culprits in\nquestion--as if, in their wretched manner, they had made their weak\nprotests against it--as if they would have taken the liberty of staving\nit off if they could--as if they would rather not have been starved upon\nthe whole, if perfectly agreeable to all parties.\n\n'There is not,' said Mr Podsnap, flushing angrily, 'there is not a\ncountry in the world, sir, where so noble a provision is made for the\npoor as in this country.'\n\nThe meek man was quite willing to concede that, but perhaps it\nrendered the matter even worse, as showing that there must be something\nappallingly wrong somewhere.\n\n'Where?' said Mr Podsnap.\n\nThe meek man hinted Wouldn't it be well to try, very seriously, to find\nout where?\n\n'Ah!' said Mr Podsnap. 'Easy to say somewhere; not so easy to say\nwhere! But I see what you are driving at. I knew it from the first.\nCentralization. No. Never with my consent. Not English.'\n\nAn approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes; as saying, 'There\nyou have him! Hold him!'\n\nHe was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) that he was driving\nat any ization. He had no favourite ization that he knew of. But he\ncertainly was more staggered by these terrible occurrences than he was\nby names, of howsoever so many syllables. Might he ask, was dying of\ndestitution and neglect necessarily English?\n\n'You know what the population of London is, I suppose,' said Mr Podsnap.\n\nThe meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had absolutely nothing\nto do with it, if its laws were well administered.\n\n'And you know; at least I hope you know;' said Mr Podsnap, with\nseverity, 'that Providence has declared that you shall have the poor\nalways with you?'\n\nThe meek man also hoped he knew that.\n\n'I am glad to hear it,' said Mr Podsnap with a portentous air. 'I am\nglad to hear it. It will render you cautious how you fly in the face of\nProvidence.'\n\nIn reference to that absurd and irreverent conventional phrase, the meek\nman said, for which Mr Podsnap was not responsible, he the meek man had\nno fear of doing anything so impossible; but--\n\nBut Mr Podsnap felt that the time had come for flushing and flourishing\nthis meek man down for good. So he said:\n\n'I must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is not pleasant to\nmy feelings; it is repugnant to my feelings. I have said that I do not\nadmit these things. I have also said that if they do occur (not that I\nadmit it), the fault lies with the sufferers themselves. It is not for\nME'--Mr Podsnap pointed 'me' forcibly, as adding by implication though\nit may be all very well for YOU--'it is not for me to impugn the\nworkings of Providence. I know better than that, I trust, and I have\nmentioned what the intentions of Providence are. Besides,' said\nMr Podsnap, flushing high up among his hair-brushes, with a strong\nconsciousness of personal affront, 'the subject is a very disagreeable\none. I will go so far as to say it is an odious one. It is not one to be\nintroduced among our wives and young persons, and I--' He finished with\nthat flourish of his arm which added more expressively than any words,\nAnd I remove it from the face of the earth.\n\nSimultaneously with this quenching of the meek man's ineffectual fire;\nGeorgiana having left the ambler up a lane of sofa, in a No Thoroughfare\nof back drawing-room, to find his own way out, came back to Mrs Lammle.\nAnd who should be with Mrs Lammle, but Mr Lammle. So fond of her!\n\n'Alfred, my love, here is my friend. Georgiana, dearest girl, you must\nlike my husband next to me.'\n\nMr Lammle was proud to be so soon distinguished by this special\ncommendation to Miss Podsnap's favour. But if Mr Lammle were prone to be\njealous of his dear Sophronia's friendships, he would be jealous of her\nfeeling towards Miss Podsnap.\n\n'Say Georgiana, darling,' interposed his wife.\n\n'Towards--shall I?--Georgiana.' Mr Lammle uttered the name, with a\ndelicate curve of his right hand, from his lips outward. 'For never have\nI known Sophronia (who is not apt to take sudden likings) so attracted\nand so captivated as she is by--shall I once more?--Georgiana.'\n\nThe object of this homage sat uneasily enough in receipt of it, and then\nsaid, turning to Mrs Lammle, much embarrassed:\n\n'I wonder what you like me for! I am sure I can't think.'\n\n'Dearest Georgiana, for yourself. For your difference from all around\nyou.'\n\n'Well! That may be. For I think I like you for your difference from all\naround me,' said Georgiana with a smile of relief.\n\n'We must be going with the rest,' observed Mrs Lammle, rising with a\nshow of unwillingness, amidst a general dispersal. 'We are real friends,\nGeorgiana dear?'\n\n'Real.'\n\n'Good night, dear girl!'\n\nShe had established an attraction over the shrinking nature upon which\nher smiling eyes were fixed, for Georgiana held her hand while she\nanswered in a secret and half-frightened tone:\n\n'Don't forget me when you are gone away. And come again soon. Good\nnight!'\n\nCharming to see Mr and Mrs Lammle taking leave so gracefully, and going\ndown the stairs so lovingly and sweetly. Not quite so charming to see\ntheir smiling faces fall and brood as they dropped moodily into separate\ncorners of their little carriage. But to be sure that was a sight behind\nthe scenes, which nobody saw, and which nobody was meant to see.\n\nCertain big, heavy vehicles, built on the model of the Podsnap plate,\ntook away the heavy articles of guests weighing ever so much; and the\nless valuable articles got away after their various manners; and the\nPodsnap plate was put to bed. As Mr Podsnap stood with his back to the\ndrawing-room fire, pulling up his shirtcollar, like a veritable cock\nof the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of his possessions,\nnothing would have astonished him more than an intimation that Miss\nPodsnap, or any other young person properly born and bred, could not be\nexactly put away like the plate, brought out like the plate, polished\nlike the plate, counted, weighed, and valued like the plate. That such\na young person could possibly have a morbid vacancy in the heart for\nanything younger than the plate, or less monotonous than the plate;\nor that such a young person's thoughts could try to scale the region\nbounded on the north, south, east, and west, by the plate; was a\nmonstrous imagination which he would on the spot have flourished into\nspace. This perhaps in some sort arose from Mr Podsnap's blushing young\nperson being, so to speak, all cheek; whereas there is a possibility\nthat there may be young persons of a rather more complex organization.\n\nIf Mr Podsnap, pulling up his shirt-collar, could only have heard\nhimself called 'that fellow' in a certain short dialogue, which passed\nbetween Mr and Mrs Lammle in their opposite corners of their little\ncarriage, rolling home!\n\n'Sophronia, are you awake?'\n\n'Am I likely to be asleep, sir?'\n\n'Very likely, I should think, after that fellow's company. Attend to\nwhat I am going to say.'\n\n'I have attended to what you have already said, have I not? What else\nhave I been doing all to-night.'\n\n'Attend, I tell you,' (in a raised voice) 'to what I am going to say.\nKeep close to that idiot girl. Keep her under your thumb. You have her\nfast, and you are not to let her go. Do you hear?'\n\n'I hear you.'\n\n'I foresee there is money to be made out of this, besides taking that\nfellow down a peg. We owe each other money, you know.'\n\nMrs Lammle winced a little at the reminder, but only enough to shake her\nscents and essences anew into the atmosphere of the little carriage, as\nshe settled herself afresh in her own dark corner.\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\nTHE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW\n\n\nMr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn took a coffee-house dinner\ntogether in Mr Lightwood's office. They had newly agreed to set up a\njoint establishment together. They had taken a bachelor cottage near\nHampton, on the brink of the Thames, with a lawn, and a boat-house; and\nall things fitting, and were to float with the stream through the summer\nand the Long Vacation.\n\nIt was not summer yet, but spring; and it was not gentle spring\nethereally mild, as in Thomson's Seasons, but nipping spring with an\neasterly wind, as in Johnson's, Jackson's, Dickson's, Smith's, and\nJones's Seasons. The grating wind sawed rather than blew; and as it\nsawed, the sawdust whirled about the sawpit. Every street was a sawpit,\nand there were no top-sawyers; every passenger was an under-sawyer, with\nthe sawdust blinding him and choking him.\n\nThat mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when the\nwind blows, gyrated here and there and everywhere. Whence can it come,\nwhither can it go? It hangs on every bush, flutters in every tree, is\ncaught flying by the electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks at\nevery pump, cowers at every grating, shudders upon every plot of grass,\nseeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails. In Paris, where\nnothing is wasted, costly and luxurious city though it be, but where\nwonderful human ants creep out of holes and pick up every scrap, there\nis no such thing. There, it blows nothing but dust. There, sharp eyes\nand sharp stomachs reap even the east wind, and get something out of it.\n\nThe wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung their many\nhands, bemoaning that they had been over-persuaded by the sun to bud;\nthe young leaves pined; the sparrows repented of their early marriages,\nlike men and women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, not\nin floral spring, but in the faces of the people whom it nibbled and\npinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled.\n\nWhen the spring evenings are too long and light to shut out, and such\nweather is rife, the city which Mr Podsnap so explanatorily called\nLondon, Londres, London, is at its worst. Such a black shrill city,\ncombining the qualities of a smoky house and a scolding wife; such a\ngritty city; such a hopeless city, with no rent in the leaden canopy of\nits sky; such a beleaguered city, invested by the great Marsh Forces of\nEssex and Kent. So the two old schoolfellows felt it to be, as, their\ndinner done, they turned towards the fire to smoke. Young Blight was\ngone, the coffee-house waiter was gone, the plates and dishes were gone,\nthe wine was going--but not in the same direction.\n\n'The wind sounds up here,' quoth Eugene, stirring the fire, 'as if we\nwere keeping a lighthouse. I wish we were.'\n\n'Don't you think it would bore us?' Lightwood asked.\n\n'Not more than any other place. And there would be no Circuit to go. But\nthat's a selfish consideration, personal to me.'\n\n'And no clients to come,' added Lightwood. 'Not that that's a selfish\nconsideration at all personal to ME.'\n\n'If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea,' said Eugene, smoking\nwith his eyes on the fire, 'Lady Tippins couldn't put off to visit us,\nor, better still, might put off and get swamped. People couldn't ask one\nto wedding breakfasts. There would be no Precedents to hammer at,\nexcept the plain-sailing Precedent of keeping the light up. It would be\nexciting to look out for wrecks.'\n\n'But otherwise,' suggested Lightwood, 'there might be a degree of\nsameness in the life.'\n\n'I have thought of that also,' said Eugene, as if he really had been\nconsidering the subject in its various bearings with an eye to the\nbusiness; 'but it would be a defined and limited monotony. It would\nnot extend beyond two people. Now, it's a question with me, Mortimer,\nwhether a monotony defined with that precision and limited to that\nextent, might not be more endurable than the unlimited monotony of one's\nfellow-creatures.'\n\nAs Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, 'We shall have an\nopportunity, in our boating summer, of trying the question.'\n\n'An imperfect one,' Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, 'but so we shall. I\nhope we may not prove too much for one another.'\n\n'Now, regarding your respected father,' said Lightwood, bringing him\nto a subject they had expressly appointed to discuss: always the most\nslippery eel of eels of subjects to lay hold of.\n\n'Yes, regarding my respected father,' assented Eugene, settling himself\nin his arm-chair. 'I would rather have approached my respected father by\ncandlelight, as a theme requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but we\nwill take him by twilight, enlivened with a glow of Wallsend.'\n\nHe stirred the fire again as he spoke, and having made it blaze,\nresumed.\n\n'My respected father has found, down in the parental neighbourhood, a\nwife for his not-generally-respected son.'\n\n'With some money, of course?'\n\n'With some money, of course, or he would not have found her. My\nrespected father--let me shorten the dutiful tautology by substituting\nin future M. R. F., which sounds military, and rather like the Duke of\nWellington.'\n\n'What an absurd fellow you are, Eugene!'\n\n'Not at all, I assure you. M. R. F. having always in the clearest manner\nprovided (as he calls it) for his children by pre-arranging from the\nhour of the birth of each, and sometimes from an earlier period, what\nthe devoted little victim's calling and course in life should be, M. R.\nF. pre-arranged for myself that I was to be the barrister I am (with\nthe slight addition of an enormous practice, which has not accrued), and\nalso the married man I am not.'\n\n'The first you have often told me.'\n\n'The first I have often told you. Considering myself sufficiently\nincongruous on my legal eminence, I have until now suppressed my\ndomestic destiny. You know M. R. F., but not as well as I do. If you\nknew him as well as I do, he would amuse you.'\n\n'Filially spoken, Eugene!'\n\n'Perfectly so, believe me; and with every sentiment of affectionate\ndeference towards M. R. F. But if he amuses me, I can't help it. When my\neldest brother was born, of course the rest of us knew (I mean the rest\nof us would have known, if we had been in existence) that he was heir\nto the Family Embarrassments--we call it before the company the Family\nEstate. But when my second brother was going to be born by-and-by,\n\"this,\" says M. R. F., \"is a little pillar of the church.\" WAS born,\nand became a pillar of the church; a very shaky one. My third brother\nappeared, considerably in advance of his engagement to my mother; but\nM. R. F., not at all put out by surprise, instantly declared him\na Circumnavigator. Was pitch-forked into the Navy, but has not\ncircumnavigated. I announced myself and was disposed of with the highly\nsatisfactory results embodied before you. When my younger brother was\nhalf an hour old, it was settled by M. R. F. that he should have a\nmechanical genius. And so on. Therefore I say that M. R. F. amuses me.'\n\n'Touching the lady, Eugene.'\n\n'There M. R. F. ceases to be amusing, because my intentions are opposed\nto touching the lady.'\n\n'Do you know her?'\n\n'Not in the least.'\n\n'Hadn't you better see her?'\n\n'My dear Mortimer, you have studied my character. Could I possibly go\ndown there, labelled \"ELIGIBLE. ON VIEW,\" and meet the lady, similarly\nlabelled? Anything to carry out M. R. F.'s arrangements, I am sure, with\nthe greatest pleasure--except matrimony. Could I possibly support it? I,\nso soon bored, so constantly, so fatally?'\n\n'But you are not a consistent fellow, Eugene.'\n\n'In susceptibility to boredom,' returned that worthy, 'I assure you I am\nthe most consistent of mankind.'\n\n'Why, it was but now that you were dwelling in the advantages of a\nmonotony of two.'\n\n'In a lighthouse. Do me the justice to remember the condition. In a\nlighthouse.'\n\nMortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too for the first\ntime, as if he found himself on reflection rather entertaining, relapsed\ninto his usual gloom, and drowsily said, as he enjoyed his cigar, 'No,\nthere is no help for it; one of the prophetic deliveries of M. R. F.\nmust for ever remain unfulfilled. With every disposition to oblige him,\nhe must submit to a failure.'\n\nIt had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and the\nsawdust was whirling outside paler windows. The underlying churchyard\nwas already settling into deep dim shade, and the shade was creeping up\nto the housetops among which they sat. 'As if,' said Eugene, 'as if the\nchurchyard ghosts were rising.'\n\nHe had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, to exalt its\nflavour by comparing the fireside with the outside, when he stopped\nmidway on his return to his arm-chair, and said:\n\n'Apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in to be\ndirected. Look at this phantom!'\n\nLightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his head, and there,\nin the darkness of the entry, stood a something in the likeness of a\nman: to whom he addressed the not irrelevant inquiry, 'Who the devil are\nyou?'\n\n'I ask your pardons, Governors,' replied the ghost, in a hoarse\ndouble-barrelled whisper, 'but might either on you be Lawyer Lightwood?'\n\n'What do you mean by not knocking at the door?' demanded Mortimer.\n\n'I ask your pardons, Governors,' replied the ghost, as before, 'but\nprobable you was not aware your door stood open.'\n\n'What do you want?'\n\nHereunto the ghost again hoarsely replied, in its double-barrelled\nmanner, 'I ask your pardons, Governors, but might one on you be Lawyer\nLightwood?'\n\n'One of us is,' said the owner of that name.\n\n'All right, Governors Both,' returned the ghost, carefully closing the\nroom door; ''tickler business.'\n\nMortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to be an\nill-looking visitor with a squinting leer, who, as he spoke, fumbled\nat an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that looked like a furry\nanimal, dog or cat, puppy or kitten, drowned and decaying.\n\n'Now,' said Mortimer, 'what is it?'\n\n'Governors Both,' returned the man, in what he meant to be a wheedling\ntone, 'which on you might be Lawyer Lightwood?'\n\n'I am.'\n\n'Lawyer Lightwood,' ducking at him with a servile air, 'I am a man as\ngets my living, and as seeks to get my living, by the sweat of my brow.\nNot to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, by any chances, I\nshould wish afore going further to be swore in.'\n\n'I am not a swearer in of people, man.'\n\nThe visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedly\nmuttered 'Alfred David.'\n\n'Is that your name?' asked Lightwood.\n\n'My name?' returned the man. 'No; I want to take a Alfred David.'\n\n(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as meaning\nAffidavit.)\n\n'I tell you, my good fellow,' said Lightwood, with his indolent laugh,\n'that I have nothing to do with swearing.'\n\n'He can swear AT you,' Eugene explained; 'and so can I. But we can't do\nmore for you.'\n\nMuch discomfited by this information, the visitor turned the drowned\ndog or cat, puppy or kitten, about and about, and looked from one of\nthe Governors Both to the other of the Governors Both, while he deeply\nconsidered within himself. At length he decided:\n\n'Then I must be took down.'\n\n'Where?' asked Lightwood.\n\n'Here,' said the man. 'In pen and ink.'\n\n'First, let us know what your business is about.'\n\n'It's about,' said the man, taking a step forward, dropping his hoarse\nvoice, and shading it with his hand, 'it's about from five to ten\nthousand pound reward. That's what it's about. It's about Murder. That's\nwhat it's about.'\n\n'Come nearer the table. Sit down. Will you have a glass of wine?'\n\n'Yes, I will,' said the man; 'and I don't deceive you, Governors.'\n\nIt was given him. Making a stiff arm to the elbow, he poured the wine\ninto his mouth, tilted it into his right cheek, as saying, 'What do you\nthink of it?' tilted it into his left cheek, as saying, 'What do YOU\nthink of it?' jerked it into his stomach, as saying, 'What do YOU think\nof it?' To conclude, smacked his lips, as if all three replied, 'We\nthink well of it.'\n\n'Will you have another?'\n\n'Yes, I will,' he repeated, 'and I don't deceive you, Governors.' And\nalso repeated the other proceedings.\n\n'Now,' began Lightwood, 'what's your name?'\n\n'Why, there you're rather fast, Lawyer Lightwood,' he replied, in a\nremonstrant manner. 'Don't you see, Lawyer Lightwood? There you're a\nlittle bit fast. I'm going to earn from five to ten thousand pound by\nthe sweat of my brow; and as a poor man doing justice to the sweat of my\nbrow, is it likely I can afford to part with so much as my name without\nits being took down?'\n\nDeferring to the man's sense of the binding powers of pen and ink and\npaper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene's nodded proposal to take\nthose spells in hand. Eugene, bringing them to the table, sat down as\nclerk or notary.\n\n'Now,' said Lightwood, 'what's your name?'\n\nBut further precaution was still due to the sweat of this honest\nfellow's brow.\n\n'I should wish, Lawyer Lightwood,' he stipulated, 'to have that T'other\nGovernor as my witness that what I said I said. Consequent, will the\nT'other Governor be so good as chuck me his name and where he lives?'\n\nEugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his card. After\nspelling it out slowly, the man made it into a little roll, and tied it\nup in an end of his neckerchief still more slowly.\n\n'Now,' said Lightwood, for the third time, 'if you have quite completed\nyour various preparations, my friend, and have fully ascertained that\nyour spirits are cool and not in any way hurried, what's your name?'\n\n'Roger Riderhood.'\n\n'Dwelling-place?'\n\n'Lime'us Hole.'\n\n'Calling or occupation?'\n\nNot quite so glib with this answer as with the previous two, Mr\nRiderhood gave in the definition, 'Waterside character.'\n\n'Anything against you?' Eugene quietly put in, as he wrote.\n\nRather baulked, Mr Riderhood evasively remarked, with an innocent air,\nthat he believed the T'other Governor had asked him summa't.\n\n'Ever in trouble?' said Eugene.\n\n'Once.' (Might happen to any man, Mr Riderhood added incidentally.)\n\n'On suspicion of--'\n\n'Of seaman's pocket,' said Mr Riderhood. 'Whereby I was in reality the\nman's best friend, and tried to take care of him.'\n\n'With the sweat of your brow?' asked Eugene.\n\n'Till it poured down like rain,' said Roger Riderhood.\n\nEugene leaned back in his chair, and smoked with his eyes negligently\nturned on the informer, and his pen ready to reduce him to more writing.\nLightwood also smoked, with his eyes negligently turned on the informer.\n\n'Now let me be took down again,' said Riderhood, when he had turned the\ndrowned cap over and under, and had brushed it the wrong way (if it had\na right way) with his sleeve. 'I give information that the man that done\nthe Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, the man that found the body. The hand\nof Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer on the river and along shore, is\nthe hand that done that deed. His hand and no other.'\n\nThe two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces than they\nhad shown yet.\n\n'Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation,' said Mortimer\nLightwood.\n\n'On the grounds,' answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his sleeve,\n'that I was Gaffer's pardner, and suspected of him many a long day and\nmany a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his ways. On the grounds\nthat I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which I warn you\nhis daughter may tell you another story about that, for anythink I can\nsay, but you know what it'll be worth, for she'd tell you lies, the\nworld round and the heavens broad, to save her father. On the grounds\nthat it's well understood along the cause'ays and the stairs that he\ndone it. On the grounds that he's fell off from, because he done it. On\nthe grounds that I will swear he done it. On the grounds that you may\ntake me where you will, and get me sworn to it. I don't want to back out\nof the consequences. I have made up MY mind. Take me anywheres.'\n\n'All this is nothing,' said Lightwood.\n\n'Nothing?' repeated Riderhood, indignantly and amazedly.\n\n'Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this man of\nthe crime. You may do so with some reason, or you may do so with no\nreason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion.'\n\n'Haven't I said--I appeal to the T'other Governor as my witness--haven't\nI said from the first minute that I opened my mouth in this here\nworld-without-end-everlasting chair' (he evidently used that form of\nwords as next in force to an affidavit), 'that I was willing to swear\nthat he done it? Haven't I said, Take me and get me sworn to it? Don't I\nsay so now? You won't deny it, Lawyer Lightwood?'\n\n'Surely not; but you only offer to swear to your suspicion, and I tell\nyou it is not enough to swear to your suspicion.'\n\n'Not enough, ain't it, Lawyer Lightwood?' he cautiously demanded.\n\n'Positively not.'\n\n'And did I say it WAS enough? Now, I appeal to the T'other Governor.\nNow, fair! Did I say so?'\n\n'He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell,' Eugene observed\nin a low voice without looking at him, 'whatever he seemed to imply.'\n\n'Hah!' cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that the remark was\ngenerally in his favour, though apparently not closely understanding it.\n'Fort'nate for me I had a witness!'\n\n'Go on, then,' said Lightwood. 'Say out what you have to say. No\nafter-thought.'\n\n'Let me be took down then!' cried the informer, eagerly and anxiously.\n'Let me be took down, for by George and the Draggin I'm a coming to it\nnow! Don't do nothing to keep back from a honest man the fruits of the\nsweat of his brow! I give information, then, that he told me that he\ndone it. Is THAT enough?'\n\n'Take care what you say, my friend,' returned Mortimer.\n\n'Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I judge you'll be\nanswerable for follering it up!' Then, slowly and emphatically beating\nit all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left; 'I,\nRoger Riderhood, Lime'us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, Lawyer\nLightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam, commonly called upon the river and\nalong-shore Gaffer, told me that he done the deed. What's more, he told\nme with his own lips that he done the deed. What's more, he said that he\ndone the deed. And I'll swear it!'\n\n'Where did he tell you so?'\n\n'Outside,' replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his head\ndeterminedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their\nattention between his two auditors, 'outside the door of the Six Jolly\nFellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o'clock at midnight--but I\nwill not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter as\nfive minutes--on the night when he picked up the body. The Six Jolly\nFellowships won't run away. If it turns out that he warn't at the Six\nJolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I'm a liar.'\n\n'What did he say?'\n\n'I'll tell you (take me down, T'other Governor, I ask no better). He\ncome out first; I come out last. I might be a minute arter him; I might\nbe half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute; I cannot swear to\nthat, and therefore I won't. That's knowing the obligations of a Alfred\nDavid, ain't it?'\n\n'Go on.'\n\n'I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, \"Rogue\nRiderhood\"--for that's the name I'm mostly called by--not for any\nmeaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being similar\nto Roger.'\n\n'Never mind that.'\n\n''Scuse ME, Lawyer Lightwood, it's a part of the truth, and as such I\ndo mind it, and I must mind it and I will mind it. \"Rogue Riderhood,\"\nhe says, \"words passed betwixt us on the river tonight.\" Which they had;\nask his daughter! \"I threatened you,\" he says, \"to chop you over the\nfingers with my boat's stretcher, or take a aim at your brains with my\nboathook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard at what I had in\ntow, as if you was suspicious, and on accounts of your holding on to the\ngunwale of my boat.\" I says to him, \"Gaffer, I know it.\" He says to me,\n\"Rogue Riderhood, you are a man in a dozen\"--I think he said in a score,\nbut of that I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for precious\nbe the obligations of a Alfred David. \"And,\" he says, \"when your\nfellow-men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp is\never the word with you. Had you suspicions?\" I says, \"Gaffer, I had;\nand what's more, I have.\" He falls a shaking, and he says, \"Of what?\" I\nsays, \"Of foul play.\" He falls a shaking worse, and he says, \"There WAS\nfoul play then. I done it for his money. Don't betray me!\" Those were\nthe words as ever he used.'\n\nThere was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate.\nAn opportunity which the informer improved by smearing himself all\nover the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, and not at all\nimproving his own appearance.\n\n'What more?' asked Lightwood.\n\n'Of him, d'ye mean, Lawyer Lightwood?'\n\n'Of anything to the purpose.'\n\n'Now, I'm blest if I understand you, Governors Both,' said the informer,\nin a creeping manner: propitiating both, though only one had spoken.\n'What? Ain't THAT enough?'\n\n'Did you ask him how he did it, where he did it, when he did it?'\n\n'Far be it from me, Lawyer Lightwood! I was so troubled in my mind, that\nI wouldn't have knowed more, no, not for the sum as I expect to earn\nfrom you by the sweat of my brow, twice told! I had put an end to the\npardnership. I had cut the connexion. I couldn't undo what was done; and\nwhen he begs and prays, \"Old pardner, on my knees, don't split upon me!\"\nI only makes answer \"Never speak another word to Roger Riderhood, nor\nlook him in the face!\" and I shuns that man.'\n\nHaving given these words a swing to make them mount the higher and go\nthe further, Rogue Riderhood poured himself out another glass of wine\nunbidden, and seemed to chew it, as, with the half-emptied glass in his\nhand, he stared at the candles.\n\nMortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering at his paper,\nand would give him no responsive glance. Mortimer again turned to the\ninformer, to whom he said:\n\n'You have been troubled in your mind a long time, man?'\n\nGiving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the informer answered\nin a single word:\n\n'Hages!'\n\n'When all that stir was made, when the Government reward was offered,\nwhen the police were on the alert, when the whole country rang with the\ncrime!' said Mortimer, impatiently.\n\n'Hah!' Mr Riderhood very slowly and hoarsely chimed in, with several\nretrospective nods of his head. 'Warn't I troubled in my mind then!'\n\n'When conjecture ran wild, when the most extravagant suspicions were\nafloat, when half a dozen innocent people might have been laid by the\nheels any hour in the day!' said Mortimer, almost warming.\n\n'Hah!' Mr Riderhood chimed in, as before. 'Warn't I troubled in my mind\nthrough it all!'\n\n'But he hadn't,' said Eugene, drawing a lady's head upon his\nwriting-paper, and touching it at intervals, 'the opportunity then of\nearning so much money, you see.'\n\n'The T'other Governor hits the nail, Lawyer Lightwood! It was that as\nturned me. I had many times and again struggled to relieve myself of the\ntrouble on my mind, but I couldn't get it off. I had once very nigh\ngot it off to Miss Abbey Potterson which keeps the Six Jolly\nFellowships--there is the 'ouse, it won't run away,--there lives the\nlady, she ain't likely to be struck dead afore you get there--ask\nher!--but I couldn't do it. At last, out comes the new bill with your\nown lawful name, Lawyer Lightwood, printed to it, and then I asks the\nquestion of my own intellects, Am I to have this trouble on my mind for\never? Am I never to throw it off? Am I always to think more of Gaffer\nthan of my own self? If he's got a daughter, ain't I got a daughter?'\n\n'And echo answered--?' Eugene suggested.\n\n'\"You have,\"' said Mr Riderhood, in a firm tone.\n\n'Incidentally mentioning, at the same time, her age?' inquired Eugene.\n\n'Yes, governor. Two-and-twenty last October. And then I put it to\nmyself, \"Regarding the money. It is a pot of money.\" For it IS a pot,'\nsaid Mr Riderhood, with candour, 'and why deny it?'\n\n'Hear!' from Eugene as he touched his drawing.\n\n'\"It is a pot of money; but is it a sin for a labouring man that\nmoistens every crust of bread he earns, with his tears--or if not with\nthem, with the colds he catches in his head--is it a sin for that man to\nearn it? Say there is anything again earning it.\" This I put to myself\nstrong, as in duty bound; \"how can it be said without blaming Lawyer\nLightwood for offering it to be earned?\" And was it for ME to blame\nLawyer Lightwood? No.'\n\n'No,' said Eugene.\n\n'Certainly not, Governor,' Mr Riderhood acquiesced. 'So I made up my\nmind to get my trouble off my mind, and to earn by the sweat of my brow\nwhat was held out to me. And what's more,' he added, suddenly turning\nbloodthirsty, 'I mean to have it! And now I tell you, once and away,\nLawyer Lightwood, that Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer, his hand and\nno other, done the deed, on his own confession to me. And I give him up\nto you, and I want him took. This night!'\n\nAfter another silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the\ngrate, which attracted the informer's attention as if it were the\nchinking of money, Mortimer Lightwood leaned over his friend, and said\nin a whisper:\n\n'I suppose I must go with this fellow to our imperturbable friend at the\npolice-station.'\n\n'I suppose,' said Eugene, 'there is no help for it.'\n\n'Do you believe him?'\n\n'I believe him to be a thorough rascal. But he may tell the truth, for\nhis own purpose, and for this occasion only.'\n\n'It doesn't look like it.'\n\n'HE doesn't,' said Eugene. 'But neither is his late partner, whom he\ndenounces, a prepossessing person. The firm are cut-throat Shepherds\nboth, in appearance. I should like to ask him one thing.'\n\nThe subject of this conference sat leering at the ashes, trying with\nall his might to overhear what was said, but feigning abstraction as the\n'Governors Both' glanced at him.\n\n'You mentioned (twice, I think) a daughter of this Hexam's,' said\nEugene, aloud. 'You don't mean to imply that she had any guilty\nknowledge of the crime?'\n\nThe honest man, after considering--perhaps considering how his answer\nmight affect the fruits of the sweat of his brow--replied, unreservedly,\n'No, I don't.'\n\n'And you implicate no other person?'\n\n'It ain't what I implicate, it's what Gaffer implicated,' was the dogged\nand determined answer. 'I don't pretend to know more than that his words\nto me was, \"I done it.\" Those was his words.'\n\n'I must see this out, Mortimer,' whispered Eugene, rising. 'How shall we\ngo?'\n\n'Let us walk,' whispered Lightwood, 'and give this fellow time to think\nof it.'\n\nHaving exchanged the question and answer, they prepared themselves\nfor going out, and Mr Riderhood rose. While extinguishing the candles,\nLightwood, quite as a matter of course took up the glass from which that\nhonest gentleman had drunk, and coolly tossed it under the grate, where\nit fell shivering into fragments.\n\n'Now, if you will take the lead,' said Lightwood, 'Mr Wrayburn and I\nwill follow. You know where to go, I suppose?'\n\n'I suppose I do, Lawyer Lightwood.'\n\n'Take the lead, then.'\n\nThe waterside character pulled his drowned cap over his ears with both\nhands, and making himself more round-shouldered than nature had made\nhim, by the sullen and persistent slouch with which he went, went\ndown the stairs, round by the Temple Church, across the Temple into\nWhitefriars, and so on by the waterside streets.\n\n'Look at his hang-dog air,' said Lightwood, following.\n\n'It strikes me rather as a hang-MAN air,' returned Eugene. 'He has\nundeniable intentions that way.'\n\nThey said little else as they followed. He went on before them as an\nugly Fate might have done, and they kept him in view, and would have\nbeen glad enough to lose sight of him. But on he went before them,\nalways at the same distance, and the same rate. Aslant against the hard\nimplacable weather and the rough wind, he was no more to be driven back\nthan hurried forward, but held on like an advancing Destiny. There came,\nwhen they were about midway on their journey, a heavy rush of hail,\nwhich in a few minutes pelted the streets clear, and whitened them. It\nmade no difference to him. A man's life being to be taken and the price\nof it got, the hailstones to arrest the purpose must lie larger and\ndeeper than those. He crashed through them, leaving marks in the\nfast-melting slush that were mere shapeless holes; one might have\nfancied, following, that the very fashion of humanity had departed from\nhis feet.\n\nThe blast went by, and the moon contended with the fast-flying clouds,\nand the wild disorder reigning up there made the pitiful little tumults\nin the streets of no account. It was not that the wind swept all\nthe brawlers into places of shelter, as it had swept the hail still\nlingering in heaps wherever there was refuge for it; but that it seemed\nas if the streets were absorbed by the sky, and the night were all in\nthe air.\n\n'If he has had time to think of it,' said Eugene, 'he has not had time to\nthink better of it--or differently of it, if that's better. There is no\nsign of drawing back in him; and as I recollect this place, we must be\nclose upon the corner where we alighted that night.'\n\nIn fact, a few abrupt turns brought them to the river side, where they\nhad slipped about among the stones, and where they now slipped more; the\nwind coming against them in slants and flaws, across the tide and the\nwindings of the river, in a furious way. With that habit of getting\nunder the lee of any shelter which waterside characters acquire, the\nwaterside character at present in question led the way to the leeside of\nthe Six Jolly Fellowship Porters before he spoke.\n\n'Look round here, Lawyer Lightwood, at them red curtains. It's the\nFellowships, the 'ouse as I told you wouldn't run away. And has it run\naway?'\n\nNot showing himself much impressed by this remarkable confirmation of\nthe informer's evidence, Lightwood inquired what other business they had\nthere?\n\n'I wished you to see the Fellowships for yourself, Lawyer Lightwood,\nthat you might judge whether I'm a liar; and now I'll see Gaffer's\nwindow for myself, that we may know whether he's at home.'\n\nWith that, he crept away.\n\n'He'll come back, I suppose?' murmured Lightwood.\n\n'Ay! and go through with it,' murmured Eugene.\n\nHe came back after a very short interval indeed.\n\n'Gaffer's out, and his boat's out. His daughter's at home, sitting\na-looking at the fire. But there's some supper getting ready, so\nGaffer's expected. I can find what move he's upon, easy enough,\npresently.'\n\nThen he beckoned and led the way again, and they came to the\npolice-station, still as clean and cool and steady as before, saving\nthat the flame of its lamp--being but a lamp-flame, and only attached to\nthe Force as an outsider--flickered in the wind.\n\nAlso, within doors, Mr Inspector was at his studies as of yore.\nHe recognized the friends the instant they reappeared, but their\nreappearance had no effect on his composure. Not even the circumstance\nthat Riderhood was their conductor moved him, otherwise than that as he\ntook a dip of ink he seemed, by a settlement of his chin in his stock,\nto propound to that personage, without looking at him, the question,\n'What have YOU been up to, last?'\n\nMortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as look at those\nnotes? Handing him Eugene's.\n\nHaving read the first few lines, Mr Inspector mounted to that (for him)\nextraordinary pitch of emotion that he said, 'Does either of you two\ngentlemen happen to have a pinch of snuff about him?' Finding that\nneither had, he did quite as well without it, and read on.\n\n'Have you heard these read?' he then demanded of the honest man.\n\n'No,' said Riderhood.\n\n'Then you had better hear them.' And so read them aloud, in an official\nmanner.\n\n'Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring here and\nthe evidence you mean to give?' he asked, when he had finished reading.\n\n'They are. They are as correct,' returned Mr Riderhood, 'as I am. I\ncan't say more than that for 'em.'\n\n'I'll take this man myself, sir,' said Mr Inspector to Lightwood. Then\nto Riderhood, 'Is he at home? Where is he? What's he doing? You have\nmade it your business to know all about him, no doubt.'\n\nRiderhood said what he did know, and promised to find out in a few\nminutes what he didn't know.\n\n'Stop,' said Mr Inspector; 'not till I tell you: We mustn't look like\nbusiness. Would you two gentlemen object to making a pretence of taking\na glass of something in my company at the Fellowships? Well-conducted\nhouse, and highly respectable landlady.'\n\nThey replied that they would be happy to substitute a reality for the\npretence, which, in the main, appeared to be as one with Mr Inspector's\nmeaning.\n\n'Very good,' said he, taking his hat from its peg, and putting a pair of\nhandcuffs in his pocket as if they were his gloves. 'Reserve!' Reserve\nsaluted. 'You know where to find me?' Reserve again saluted. 'Riderhood,\nwhen you have found out concerning his coming home, come round to the\nwindow of Cosy, tap twice at it, and wait for me. Now, gentlemen.'\n\nAs the three went out together, and Riderhood slouched off from under\nthe trembling lamp his separate way, Lightwood asked the officer what he\nthought of this?\n\nMr Inspector replied, with due generality and reticence, that it was\nalways more likely that a man had done a bad thing than that he hadn't.\nThat he himself had several times 'reckoned up' Gaffer, but had never\nbeen able to bring him to a satisfactory criminal total. That if this\nstory was true, it was only in part true. That the two men, very shy\ncharacters, would have been jointly and pretty equally 'in it;' but that\nthis man had 'spotted' the other, to save himself and get the money.\n\n'And I think,' added Mr Inspector, in conclusion, 'that if all goes\nwell with him, he's in a tolerable way of getting it. But as this is the\nFellowships, gentlemen, where the lights are, I recommend dropping\nthe subject. You can't do better than be interested in some lime works\nanywhere down about Northfleet, and doubtful whether some of your lime\ndon't get into bad company as it comes up in barges.'\n\n'You hear Eugene?' said Lightwood, over his shoulder. 'You are deeply\ninterested in lime.'\n\n'Without lime,' returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, 'my existence\nwould be unilluminated by a ray of hope.'\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\nTRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY\n\n\nThe two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the dominions of\nMiss Abbey Potterson, to whom their escort (presenting them and their\npretended business over the half-door of the bar, in a confidential\nway) preferred his figurative request that 'a mouthful of fire' might\nbe lighted in Cosy. Always well disposed to assist the constituted\nauthorities, Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen to\nthat retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. Of this\ncommission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way with a flaming wisp of\npaper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy seemed to leap out of a\ndark sleep and embrace them warmly, the moment they passed the lintels\nof its hospitable door.\n\n'They burn sherry very well here,' said Mr Inspector, as a piece of\nlocal intelligence. 'Perhaps you gentlemen might like a bottle?'\n\nThe answer being By all means, Bob Gliddery received his instructions\nfrom Mr Inspector, and departed in a becoming state of alacrity\nengendered by reverence for the majesty of the law.\n\n'It's a certain fact,' said Mr Inspector, 'that this man we have\nreceived our information from,' indicating Riderhood with his thumb over\nhis shoulder, 'has for some time past given the other man a bad name\narising out of your lime barges, and that the other man has been avoided\nin consequence. I don't say what it means or proves, but it's a certain\nfact. I had it first from one of the opposite sex of my acquaintance,'\nvaguely indicating Miss Abbey with his thumb over his shoulder, 'down\naway at a distance, over yonder.'\n\nThen probably Mr Inspector was not quite unprepared for their visit that\nevening? Lightwood hinted.\n\n'Well you see,' said Mr Inspector, 'it was a question of making a move.\nIt's of no use moving if you don't know what your move is. You had\nbetter by far keep still. In the matter of this lime, I certainly had\nan idea that it might lie betwixt the two men; I always had that idea.\nStill I was forced to wait for a start, and I wasn't so lucky as to get\na start. This man that we have received our information from, has got\na start, and if he don't meet with a check he may make the running and\ncome in first. There may turn out to be something considerable for him\nthat comes in second, and I don't mention who may or who may not try\nfor that place. There's duty to do, and I shall do it, under any\ncircumstances; to the best of my judgment and ability.'\n\n'Speaking as a shipper of lime--' began Eugene.\n\n'Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, you know,' said Mr\nInspector.\n\n'I hope not,' said Eugene; 'my father having been a shipper of lime\nbefore me, and my grandfather before him--in fact we having been a\nfamily immersed to the crowns of our heads in lime during several\ngenerations--I beg to observe that if this missing lime could be got\nhold of without any young female relative of any distinguished gentleman\nengaged in the lime trade (which I cherish next to my life) being\npresent, I think it might be a more agreeable proceeding to the\nassisting bystanders, that is to say, lime-burners.'\n\n'I also,' said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with a laugh, 'should\nmuch prefer that.'\n\n'It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conveniently,' said\nMr Inspector, with coolness. 'There is no wish on my part to cause any\ndistress in that quarter. Indeed, I am sorry for that quarter.'\n\n'There was a boy in that quarter,' remarked Eugene. 'He is still there?'\n\n'No,' said Mr Inspector. 'He has quitted those works. He is otherwise\ndisposed of.'\n\n'Will she be left alone then?' asked Eugene.\n\n'She will be left,' said Mr Inspector, 'alone.'\n\nBob's reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the conversation. But\nalthough the jug steamed forth a delicious perfume, its contents had not\nreceived that last happy touch which the surpassing finish of the Six\nJolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Bob\ncarried in his left hand one of those iron models of sugar-loaf hats,\nbefore mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the pointed end of\nwhich he thrust deep down into the fire, so leaving it for a few moments\nwhile he disappeared and reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses.\nPlacing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously\nsensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of\nsteam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the iron\nvessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one\ngentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the\nsteam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession;\nfinally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the\napplause of his fellow-creatures.\n\nIt was bestowed (Mr Inspector having proposed as an appropriate\nsentiment 'The lime trade!') and Bob withdrew to report the\ncommendations of the guests to Miss Abbey in the bar. It may be here\nin confidence admitted that, the room being close shut in his absence,\nthere had not appeared to be the slightest reason for the elaborate\nmaintenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been regarded by Mr\nInspector as so uncommonly satisfactory, and so fraught with mysterious\nvirtues, that neither of his clients had presumed to question it.\n\nTwo taps were now heard on the outside of the window. Mr Inspector,\nhastily fortifying himself with another glass, strolled out with a\nnoiseless foot and an unoccupied countenance. As one might go to survey\nthe weather and the general aspect of the heavenly bodies.\n\n'This is becoming grim, Mortimer,' said Eugene, in a low voice. 'I don't\nlike this.'\n\n'Nor I' said Lightwood. 'Shall we go?'\n\n'Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and I won't leave\nyou. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark hair runs in my head. It\nwas little more than a glimpse we had of her that last time, and yet\nI almost see her waiting by the fire to-night. Do you feel like a dark\ncombination of traitor and pickpocket when you think of that girl?'\n\n'Rather,' returned Lightwood. 'Do you?'\n\n'Very much so.'\n\nTheir escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested of its various\nlime-lights and shadows, his report went to the effect that Gaffer was\naway in his boat, supposed to be on his old look-out; that he had been\nexpected last high-water; that having missed it for some reason or\nother, he was not, according to his usual habits at night, to be counted\non before next high-water, or it might be an hour or so later; that his\ndaughter, surveyed through the window, would seem to be so expecting\nhim, for the supper was not cooking, but set out ready to be cooked;\nthat it would be high-water at about one, and that it was now barely\nten; that there was nothing to be done but watch and wait; that the\ninformer was keeping watch at the instant of that present reporting, but\nthat two heads were better than one (especially when the second was\nMr Inspector's); and that the reporter meant to share the watch. And\nforasmuch as crouching under the lee of a hauled-up boat on a night when\nit blew cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of\nhail at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed with\nthe recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain, for a while at\nany rate, in their present quarters, which were weather-tight and warm.\n\nThey were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they wanted\nto know where they could join the watchers when so disposed. Rather than\ntrust to a verbal description of the place, which might mislead, Eugene\n(with a less weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usually\nhad) would go out with Mr Inspector, note the spot, and come back.\n\nOn the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a\ncauseway--not the special causeway of the Six Jolly Fellowships, which\nhad a landing-place of its own, but another, a little removed, and\nvery near to the old windmill which was the denounced man's\ndwelling-place--were a few boats; some, moored and already beginning to\nfloat; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of these\nlatter, Eugene's companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed its\nposition with reference to the other boats, and had made sure that he\ncould not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he had\nbeen told, the lonely girl with the dark hair sat by the fire.\n\nHe could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhaps\nit drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with the express\nintention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, there\nwas no difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: it\nwas but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard mud some three or\nfour feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to the\nwindow by that means.\n\nShe had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp\nstood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with\nher face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on\nher face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a\nsecond look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle,\nas shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire.\n\nIt was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not\ncurtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It showed\nhim the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned people\nstarting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them,\nthough he looked long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of colour,\nwith the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair,\nthough sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the falling of the\nfire.\n\nShe started up. He had been so very still that he felt sure it was not\nhe who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew from the window and stood\nnear it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the door, and said in an\nalarmed tone, 'Father, was that you calling me?' And again, 'Father!'\nAnd once again, after listening, 'Father! I thought I heard you call me\ntwice before!'\n\nNo response. As she re-entered at the door, he dropped over the bank and\nmade his way back, among the ooze and near the hiding-place, to Mortimer\nLightwood: to whom he told what he had seen of the girl, and how this\nwas becoming very grim indeed.\n\n'If the real man feels as guilty as I do,' said Eugene, 'he is\nremarkably uncomfortable.'\n\n'Influence of secrecy,' suggested Lightwood.\n\n'I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the vault and\na Sneak in the area both at once,' said Eugene. 'Give me some more of\nthat stuff.'\n\nLightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it had been\ncooling, and didn't answer now.\n\n'Pooh,' said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. 'Tastes like the\nwash of the river.'\n\n'Are you so familiar with the flavour of the wash of the river?'\n\n'I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, and\nswallowing a gallon of it.'\n\n'Influence of locality,' suggested Lightwood.\n\n'You are mighty learned to-night, you and your influences,' returned\nEugene. 'How long shall we stay here?'\n\n'How long do you think?'\n\n'If I could choose, I should say a minute,' replied Eugene, 'for the\nJolly Fellowship Porters are not the jolliest dogs I have known. But\nI suppose we are best here until they turn us out with the other\nsuspicious characters, at midnight.'\n\nThereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of it. It struck\neleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. But gradually\nhe took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then in\none arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then in\nhis back, and then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then in\nhis nose; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, and\ngroaned; and then he started up.\n\n'Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am\ntickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglary\nunder the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at my\nheels.'\n\n'I am quite as bad,' said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with a\ntumbled head; after going through some wonderful evolutions, in which\nhis head had been the lowest part of him. 'This restlessness began with\nme, long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with the\nLilliputians firing upon him.'\n\n'It won't do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we must join our dear\nfriend and brother, Riderhood. And let us tranquillize ourselves by\nmaking a compact. Next time (with a view to our peace of mind) we'll\ncommit the crime, instead of taking the criminal. You swear it?'\n\n'Certainly.'\n\n'Sworn! Let Tippins look to it. Her life's in danger.'\n\nMortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to transact\nthat business with him: whom Eugene, in his careless extravagance, asked\nif he would like a situation in the lime-trade?\n\n'Thankee sir, no sir,' said Bob. 'I've a good sitiwation here, sir.'\n\n'If you change your mind at any time,' returned Eugene, 'come to me at\nmy works, and you'll always find an opening in the lime-kiln.'\n\n'Thankee sir,' said Bob.\n\n'This is my partner,' said Eugene, 'who keeps the books and attends to\nthe wages. A fair day's wages for a fair day's work is ever my partner's\nmotto.'\n\n'And a very good 'un it is, gentlemen,' said Bob, receiving his fee, and\ndrawing a bow out of his head with his right hand, very much as he would\nhave drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine.\n\n'Eugene,' Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when they\nwere alone again, 'how CAN you be so ridiculous?'\n\n'I am in a ridiculous humour,' quoth Eugene; 'I am a ridiculous fellow.\nEverything is ridiculous. Come along!'\n\nIt passed into Mortimer Lightwood's mind that a change of some sort,\nbest expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wildest and\nmost negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the last\nhalf-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found something\nnew and strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This passed\ninto his mind, and passed out again; but he remembered it afterwards.\n\n'There's where she sits, you see,' said Eugene, when they were standing\nunder the bank, roared and riven at by the wind. 'There's the light of\nher fire.'\n\n'I'll take a peep through the window,' said Mortimer.\n\n'No, don't!' Eugene caught him by the arm. 'Best, not make a show of\nher. Come to our honest friend.'\n\nHe led him to the post of watch, and they both dropped down and crept\nunder the lee of the boat; a better shelter than it had seemed before,\nbeing directly contrasted with the blowing wind and the bare night.\n\n'Mr Inspector at home?' whispered Eugene.\n\n'Here I am, sir.'\n\n'And our friend of the perspiring brow is at the far corner there? Good.\nAnything happened?'\n\n'His daughter has been out, thinking she heard him calling, unless it\nwas a sign to him to keep out of the way. It might have been.'\n\n'It might have been Rule Britannia,' muttered Eugene, 'but it wasn't.\nMortimer!'\n\n'Here!' (On the other side of Mr Inspector.)\n\n'Two burglaries now, and a forgery!'\n\nWith this indication of his depressed state of mind, Eugene fell silent.\n\nThey were all silent for a long while. As it got to be flood-tide, and\nthe water came nearer to them, noises on the river became more frequent,\nand they listened more. To the turning of steam-paddles, to the clinking\nof iron chain, to the creaking of blocks, to the measured working\nof oars, to the occasional violent barking of some passing dog on\nshipboard, who seemed to scent them lying in their hiding-place. The\nnight was not so dark but that, besides the lights at bows and mastheads\ngliding to and fro, they could discern some shadowy bulk attached; and\nnow and then a ghostly lighter with a large dark sail, like a warning\narm, would start up very near them, pass on, and vanish. At this time\nof their watch, the water close to them would be often agitated by some\nimpulsion given it from a distance. Often they believed this beat and\nplash to be the boat they lay in wait for, running in ashore; and again\nand again they would have started up, but for the immobility with which\nthe informer, well used to the river, kept quiet in his place.\n\nThe wind carried away the striking of the great multitude of city\nchurch clocks, for those lay to leeward of them; but there were bells to\nwindward that told them of its being One--Two--Three. Without that aid\nthey would have known how the night wore, by the falling of the tide,\nrecorded in the appearance of an ever-widening black wet strip of shore,\nand the emergence of the paved causeway from the river, foot by foot.\n\nAs the time so passed, this slinking business became a more and more\nprecarious one. It would seem as if the man had had some intimation of\nwhat was in hand against him, or had taken fright? His movements might\nhave been planned to gain for him, in getting beyond their reach, twelve\nhours' advantage? The honest man who had expended the sweat of his brow\nbecame uneasy, and began to complain with bitterness of the proneness of\nmankind to cheat him--him invested with the dignity of Labour!\n\nTheir retreat was so chosen that while they could watch the river, they\ncould watch the house. No one had passed in or out, since the daughter\nthought she heard the father calling. No one could pass in or out\nwithout being seen.\n\n'But it will be light at five,' said Mr Inspector, 'and then WE shall be\nseen.'\n\n'Look here,' said Riderhood, 'what do you say to this? He may have\nbeen lurking in and out, and just holding his own betwixt two or three\nbridges, for hours back.'\n\n'What do you make of that?' said Mr Inspector. Stoical, but\ncontradictory.\n\n'He may be doing so at this present time.'\n\n'What do you make of that?' said Mr Inspector.\n\n'My boat's among them boats here at the cause'ay.'\n\n'And what do you make of your boat?' said Mr Inspector.\n\n'What if I put off in her and take a look round? I know his ways, and\nthe likely nooks he favours. I know where he'd be at such a time of the\ntide, and where he'd be at such another time. Ain't I been his pardner?\nNone of you need show. None of you need stir. I can shove her off\nwithout help; and as to me being seen, I'm about at all times.'\n\n'You might have given a worse opinion,' said Mr Inspector, after brief\nconsideration. 'Try it.'\n\n'Stop a bit. Let's work it out. If I want you, I'll drop round under the\nFellowships and tip you a whistle.'\n\n'If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my honourable and\ngallant friend, whose knowledge of naval matters far be it from me to\nimpeach,' Eugene struck in with great deliberation, 'it would be, that\nto tip a whistle is to advertise mystery and invite speculation.\nMy honourable and gallant friend will, I trust, excuse me, as an\nindependent member, for throwing out a remark which I feel to be due to\nthis house and the country.'\n\n'Was that the T'other Governor, or Lawyer Lightwood?' asked Riderhood.\nFor, they spoke as they crouched or lay, without seeing one another's\nfaces.\n\n'In reply to the question put by my honourable and gallant friend,'\nsaid Eugene, who was lying on his back with his hat on his face, as an\nattitude highly expressive of watchfulness, 'I can have no hesitation in\nreplying (it not being inconsistent with the public service) that those\naccents were the accents of the T'other Governor.'\n\n'You've tolerable good eyes, ain't you, Governor? You've all tolerable\ngood eyes, ain't you?' demanded the informer.\n\nAll.\n\n'Then if I row up under the Fellowship and lay there, no need to\nwhistle. You'll make out that there's a speck of something or another\nthere, and you'll know it's me, and you'll come down that cause'ay to\nme. Understood all?'\n\nUnderstood all.\n\n'Off she goes then!'\n\nIn a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he was\nstaggering down to his boat; in a few moments he was clear, and creeping\nup the river under their own shore.\n\nEugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the darkness after\nhim. 'I wish the boat of my honourable and gallant friend,' he murmured,\nlying down again and speaking into his hat, 'may be endowed\nwith philanthropy enough to turn bottom-upward and extinguish\nhim!--Mortimer.'\n\n'My honourable friend.'\n\n'Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination.' Yet\nin spite of having those weights on his conscience, Eugene was somewhat\nenlivened by the late slight change in the circumstances of affairs. So\nwere his two companions. Its being a change was everything. The suspense\nseemed to have taken a new lease, and to have begun afresh from a recent\ndate. There was something additional to look for. They were all three\nmore sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influences\nof the place and time.\n\nMore than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when one of the\nthree--each said it was he, and he had NOT dozed--made out Riderhood\nin his boat at the spot agreed on. They sprang up, came out from their\nshelter, and went down to him. When he saw them coming, he dropped\nalongside the causeway; so that they, standing on the causeway, could\nspeak with him in whispers, under the shadowy mass of the Six Jolly\nFellowship Porters fast asleep.\n\n'Blest if I can make it out!' said he, staring at them.\n\n'Make what out? Have you seen him?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'What HAVE you seen?' asked Lightwood. For, he was staring at them in\nthe strangest way.\n\n'I've seen his boat.'\n\n'Not empty?'\n\n'Yes, empty. And what's more,--adrift. And what's more,--with one scull\ngone. And what's more,--with t'other scull jammed in the thowels and\nbroke short off. And what's more,--the boat's drove tight by the tide\n'atwixt two tiers of barges. And what's more,--he's in luck again, by\nGeorge if he ain't!'\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\nTHE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN\n\n\nCold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in the\nfour-and-twenty hours when the vital force of all the noblest and\nprettiest things that live is at its lowest, the three watchers looked\neach at the blank faces of the other two, and all at the blank face of\nRiderhood in his boat.\n\n'Gaffer's boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer!' So spake\nRiderhood, staring disconsolate.\n\nAs if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards the light of\nthe fire shining through the window. It was fainter and duller. Perhaps\nfire, like the higher animal and vegetable life it helps to sustain, has\nits greatest tendency towards death, when the night is dying and the day\nis not yet born.\n\n'If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand,' growled\nRiderhood with a threatening shake of his head, 'blest if I wouldn't lay\nhold of HER, at any rate!'\n\n'Ay, but it is not you,' said Eugene. With something so suddenly fierce\nin him that the informer returned submissively; 'Well, well, well,\nt'other governor, I didn't say it was. A man may speak.'\n\n'And vermin may be silent,' said Eugene. 'Hold your tongue, you\nwater-rat!'\n\nAstonished by his friend's unusual heat, Lightwood stared too, and then\nsaid: 'What can have become of this man?'\n\n'Can't imagine. Unless he dived overboard.' The informer wiped his\nbrow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his boat and always staring\ndisconsolate.\n\n'Did you make his boat fast?'\n\n'She's fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn't make her faster\nthan she is. Come aboard of mine, and see for your own-selves.'\n\nThere was a little backwardness in complying, for the freight looked too\nmuch for the boat; but on Riderhood's protesting 'that he had had half a\ndozen, dead and alive, in her afore now, and she was nothing deep in the\nwater nor down in the stern even then, to speak of;' they carefully took\ntheir places, and trimmed the crazy thing. While they were doing so,\nRiderhood still sat staring disconsolate.\n\n'All right. Give way!' said Lightwood.\n\n'Give way, by George!' repeated Riderhood, before shoving off. 'If he's\ngone and made off any how Lawyer Lightwood, it's enough to make me give\nway in a different manner. But he always WAS a cheat, con-found him!\nHe always was a infernal cheat, was Gaffer. Nothing straightfor'ard,\nnothing on the square. So mean, so underhanded. Never going through with\na thing, nor carrying it out like a man!'\n\n'Hallo! Steady!' cried Eugene (he had recovered immediately on\nembarking), as they bumped heavily against a pile; and then in a lower\nvoice reversed his late apostrophe by remarking ('I wish the boat of my\nhonourable and gallant friend may be endowed with philanthropy enough\nnot to turn bottom-upward and extinguish us!) Steady, steady! Sit close,\nMortimer. Here's the hail again. See how it flies, like a troop of wild\ncats, at Mr Riderhood's eyes!'\n\nIndeed he had the full benefit of it, and it so mauled him, though he\nbent his head low and tried to present nothing but the mangy cap to it,\nthat he dropped under the lee of a tier of shipping, and they lay there\nuntil it was over. The squall had come up, like a spiteful messenger\nbefore the morning; there followed in its wake a ragged tear of light\nwhich ripped the dark clouds until they showed a great grey hole of day.\n\nThey were all shivering, and everything about them seemed to be\nshivering; the river itself; craft, rigging, sails, such early smoke as\nthere yet was on the shore. Black with wet, and altered to the eye by\nwhite patches of hail and sleet, the huddled buildings looked lower\nthan usual, as if they were cowering, and had shrunk with the cold. Very\nlittle life was to be seen on either bank, windows and doors were shut,\nand the staring black and white letters upon wharves and warehouses\n'looked,' said Eugene to Mortimer, 'like inscriptions over the graves of\ndead businesses.'\n\nAs they glided slowly on, keeping under the shore and sneaking in and\nout among the shipping by back-alleys of water, in a pilfering way\nthat seemed to be their boatman's normal manner of progression, all\nthe objects among which they crept were so huge in contrast with their\nwretched boat, as to threaten to crush it. Not a ship's hull, with its\nrusty iron links of cable run out of hawse-holes long discoloured with\nthe iron's rusty tears, but seemed to be there with a fell intention.\nNot a figure-head but had the menacing look of bursting forward to run\nthem down. Not a sluice gate, or a painted scale upon a post or wall,\nshowing the depth of water, but seemed to hint, like the dreadfully\nfacetious Wolf in bed in Grandmamma's cottage, 'That's to drown YOU in,\nmy dears!' Not a lumbering black barge, with its cracked and blistered\nside impending over them, but seemed to suck at the river with a\nthirst for sucking them under. And everything so vaunted the spoiling\ninfluences of water--discoloured copper, rotten wood, honey-combed\nstone, green dank deposit--that the after-consequences of being crushed,\nsucked under, and drawn down, looked as ugly to the imagination as the\nmain event.\n\nSome half-hour of this work, and Riderhood unshipped his sculls, stood\nholding on to a barge, and hand over hand long-wise along the barge's\nside gradually worked his boat under her head into a secret little\nnook of scummy water. And driven into that nook, and wedged as he had\ndescribed, was Gaffer's boat; that boat with the stain still in it,\nbearing some resemblance to a muffled human form.\n\n'Now tell me I'm a liar!' said the honest man.\n\n('With a morbid expectation,' murmured Eugene to Lightwood, 'that\nsomebody is always going to tell him the truth.')\n\n'This is Hexam's boat,' said Mr Inspector. 'I know her well.'\n\n'Look at the broken scull. Look at the t'other scull gone. NOW tell me I\nam a liar!' said the honest man.\n\nMr Inspector stepped into the boat. Eugene and Mortimer looked on.\n\n'And see now!' added Riderhood, creeping aft, and showing a stretched\nrope made fast there and towing overboard. 'Didn't I tell you he was in\nluck again?'\n\n'Haul in,' said Mr Inspector.\n\n'Easy to say haul in,' answered Riderhood. 'Not so easy done. His luck's\ngot fouled under the keels of the barges. I tried to haul in last time,\nbut I couldn't. See how taut the line is!'\n\n'I must have it up,' said Mr Inspector. 'I am going to take this boat\nashore, and his luck along with it. Try easy now.'\n\nHe tried easy now; but the luck resisted; wouldn't come.\n\n'I mean to have it, and the boat too,' said Mr Inspector, playing the\nline.\n\nBut still the luck resisted; wouldn't come.\n\n'Take care,' said Riderhood. 'You'll disfigure. Or pull asunder\nperhaps.'\n\n'I am not going to do either, not even to your Grandmother,' said Mr\nInspector; 'but I mean to have it. Come!' he added, at once persuasively\nand with authority to the hidden object in the water, as he played the\nline again; 'it's no good this sort of game, you know. You MUST come up.\nI mean to have you.'\n\nThere was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly meaning to\nhave it, that it yielded a little, even while the line was played.\n\n'I told you so,' quoth Mr Inspector, pulling off his outer coat, and\nleaning well over the stern with a will. 'Come!'\n\nIt was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted Mr\nInspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a summer evening by\nsome soothing weir high up the peaceful river. After certain minutes,\nand a few directions to the rest to 'ease her a little for'ard,' and\n'now ease her a trifle aft,' and the like, he said composedly, 'All\nclear!' and the line and the boat came free together.\n\nAccepting Lightwood's proffered hand to help him up, he then put on his\ncoat, and said to Riderhood, 'Hand me over those spare sculls of yours,\nand I'll pull this in to the nearest stairs. Go ahead you, and keep out\nin pretty open water, that I mayn't get fouled again.'\n\nHis directions were obeyed, and they pulled ashore directly; two in one\nboat, two in the other.\n\n'Now,' said Mr Inspector, again to Riderhood, when they were all on the\nslushy stones; 'you have had more practice in this than I have had, and\nought to be a better workman at it. Undo the tow-rope, and we'll help\nyou haul in.'\n\nRiderhood got into the boat accordingly. It appeared as if he had\nscarcely had a moment's time to touch the rope or look over the stern,\nwhen he came scrambling back, as pale as the morning, and gasped out:\n\n'By the Lord, he's done me!'\n\n'What do you mean?' they all demanded.\n\nHe pointed behind him at the boat, and gasped to that degree that he\ndropped upon the stones to get his breath.\n\n'Gaffer's done me. It's Gaffer!'\n\nThey ran to the rope, leaving him gasping there. Soon, the form of the\nbird of prey, dead some hours, lay stretched upon the shore, with a new\nblast storming at it and clotting the wet hair with hail-stones.\n\nFather, was that you calling me? Father! I thought I heard you call me\ntwice before! Words never to be answered, those, upon the earth-side\nof the grave. The wind sweeps jeeringly over Father, whips him with the\nfrayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair, tries to turn him where he\nlies stark on his back, and force his face towards the rising sun, that\nhe may be shamed the more. A lull, and the wind is secret and prying\nwith him; lifts and lets falls a rag; hides palpitating under another\nrag; runs nimbly through his hair and beard. Then, in a rush, it cruelly\ntaunts him. Father, was that you calling me? Was it you, the voiceless\nand the dead? Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Was\nit you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying impurities now flung\nupon your face? Why not speak, Father? Soaking into this filthy ground\nas you lie here, is your own shape. Did you never see such a shape\nsoaked into your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the winds, the only\nlisteners left you!\n\n'Now see,' said Mr Inspector, after mature deliberation: kneeling on one\nknee beside the body, when they had stood looking down on the drowned\nman, as he had many a time looked down on many another man: 'the way of\nit was this. Of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that he\nwas towing by the neck and arms.'\n\nThey had helped to release the rope, and of course not.\n\n'And you will have observed before, and you will observe now, that this\nknot, which was drawn chock-tight round his neck by the strain of his\nown arms, is a slip-knot': holding it up for demonstration.\n\nPlain enough.\n\n'Likewise you will have observed how he had run the other end of this\nrope to his boat.'\n\nIt had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had been twined\nand bound.\n\n'Now see,' said Mr Inspector, 'see how it works round upon him. It's a\nwild tempestuous evening when this man that was,' stooping to wipe\nsome hailstones out of his hair with an end of his own drowned jacket,\n'--there! Now he's more like himself; though he's badly bruised,--when\nthis man that was, rows out upon the river on his usual lay. He carries\nwith him this coil of rope. He always carries with him this coil of\nrope. It's as well known to me as he was himself. Sometimes it lay in\nthe bottom of his boat. Sometimes he hung it loose round his neck.\nHe was a light-dresser was this man;--you see?' lifting the loose\nneckerchief over his breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping the\ndead lips with it--'and when it was wet, or freezing, or blew cold, he\nwould hang this coil of line round his neck. Last evening he does this.\nWorse for him! He dodges about in his boat, does this man, till he gets\nchilled. His hands,' taking up one of them, which dropped like a leaden\nweight, 'get numbed. He sees some object that's in his way of business,\nfloating. He makes ready to secure that object. He unwinds the end of\nhis coil that he wants to take some turns on in his boat, and he takes\nturns enough on it to secure that it shan't run out. He makes it too\nsecure, as it happens. He is a little longer about this than usual, his\nhands being numbed. His object drifts up, before he is quite ready for\nit. He catches at it, thinks he'll make sure of the contents of the\npockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends right over\nthe stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the cross-swell of\ntwo steamers, or in not being quite prepared, or through all or most or\nsome, gets a lurch, overbalances and goes head-foremost overboard. Now\nsee! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he strikes out. But in\nsuch striking-out he tangles his arms, pulls strong on the slip-knot,\nand it runs home. The object he had expected to take in tow, floats by,\nand his own boat tows him dead, to where we found him, all entangled\nin his own line. You'll ask me how I make out about the pockets? First,\nI'll tell you more; there was silver in 'em. How do I make that out?\nSimple and satisfactory. Because he's got it here.' The lecturer held up\nthe tightly clenched right hand.\n\n'What is to be done with the remains?' asked Lightwood.\n\n'If you wouldn't object to standing by him half a minute, sir,' was\nthe reply, 'I'll find the nearest of our men to come and take charge of\nhim;--I still call it HIM, you see,' said Mr Inspector, looking back as\nhe went, with a philosophical smile upon the force of habit.\n\n'Eugene,' said Lightwood and was about to add 'we may wait at a little\ndistance,' when turning his head he found that no Eugene was there.\n\nHe raised his voice and called 'Eugene! Holloa!' But no Eugene replied.\n\nIt was broad daylight now, and he looked about. But no Eugene was in all\nthe view.\n\nMr Inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs, with a police\nconstable, Lightwood asked him if he had seen his friend leave them? Mr\nInspector could not exactly say that he had seen him go, but had noticed\nthat he was restless.\n\n'Singular and entertaining combination, sir, your friend.'\n\n'I wish it had not been a part of his singular entertaining combination\nto give me the slip under these dreary circumstances at this time of the\nmorning,' said Lightwood. 'Can we get anything hot to drink?'\n\nWe could, and we did. In a public-house kitchen with a large fire. We\ngot hot brandy and water, and it revived us wonderfully. Mr Inspector\nhaving to Mr Riderhood announced his official intention of 'keeping\nhis eye upon him', stood him in a corner of the fireplace, like a wet\numbrella, and took no further outward and visible notice of that honest\nman, except ordering a separate service of brandy and water for him:\napparently out of the public funds.\n\nAs Mortimer Lightwood sat before the blazing fire, conscious of drinking\nbrandy and water then and there in his sleep, and yet at one and the\nsame time drinking burnt sherry at the Six Jolly Fellowships, and\nlying under the boat on the river shore, and sitting in the boat that\nRiderhood rowed, and listening to the lecture recently concluded, and\nhaving to dine in the Temple with an unknown man, who described himself\nas M. H. F. Eugene Gaffer Harmon, and said he lived at Hailstorm,--as\nhe passed through these curious vicissitudes of fatigue and slumber,\narranged upon the scale of a dozen hours to the second, he became aware\nof answering aloud a communication of pressing importance that had\nnever been made to him, and then turned it into a cough on beholding\nMr Inspector. For, he felt, with some natural indignation, that that\nfunctionary might otherwise suspect him of having closed his eyes, or\nwandered in his attention.\n\n'Here just before us, you see,' said Mr Inspector.\n\n'I see,' said Lightwood, with dignity.\n\n'And had hot brandy and water too, you see,' said Mr Inspector, 'and\nthen cut off at a great rate.'\n\n'Who?' said Lightwood.\n\n'Your friend, you know.'\n\n'I know,' he replied, again with dignity.\n\nAfter hearing, in a mist through which Mr Inspector loomed vague and\nlarge, that the officer took upon himself to prepare the dead man's\ndaughter for what had befallen in the night, and generally that he took\neverything upon himself, Mortimer Lightwood stumbled in his sleep to\na cab-stand, called a cab, and had entered the army and committed a\ncapital military offence and been tried by court martial and found\nguilty and had arranged his affairs and been marched out to be shot,\nbefore the door banged.\n\nHard work rowing the cab through the City to the Temple, for a cup of\nfrom five to ten thousand pounds value, given by Mr Boffin; and hard\nwork holding forth at that immeasurable length to Eugene (when he had\nbeen rescued with a rope from the running pavement) for making off in\nthat extraordinary manner! But he offered such ample apologies, and was\nso very penitent, that when Lightwood got out of the cab, he gave\nthe driver a particular charge to be careful of him. Which the driver\n(knowing there was no other fare left inside) stared at prodigiously.\n\nIn short, the night's work had so exhausted and worn out this actor in\nit, that he had become a mere somnambulist. He was too tired to rest in\nhis sleep, until he was even tired out of being too tired, and dropped\ninto oblivion. Late in the afternoon he awoke, and in some anxiety sent\nround to Eugene's lodging hard by, to inquire if he were up yet?\n\nOh yes, he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He had just come\nhome. And here he was, close following on the heels of the message.\n\n'Why what bloodshot, draggled, dishevelled spectacle is this!' cried\nMortimer.\n\n'Are my feathers so very much rumpled?' said Eugene, coolly going up to\nthe looking-glass. They ARE rather out of sorts. But consider. Such a\nnight for plumage!'\n\n'Such a night?' repeated Mortimer. 'What became of you in the morning?'\n\n'My dear fellow,' said Eugene, sitting on his bed, 'I felt that we\nhad bored one another so long, that an unbroken continuance of those\nrelations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points of\nthe earth. I also felt that I had committed every crime in the Newgate\nCalendar. So, for mingled considerations of friendship and felony, I\ntook a walk.'\n\n\n\nChapter 15\n\nTWO NEW SERVANTS\n\n\nMr and Mrs Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey to\nprosperity. Mr Boffin's face denoted Care and Complication. Many\ndisordered papers were before him, and he looked at them about as\nhopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whom\nhe was required at five minutes' notice to manoeuvre and review. He had\nbeen engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; but being\ntroubled (as men of his stamp often are) with an exceedingly distrustful\nand corrective thumb, that busy member had so often interposed to\nsmear his notes, that they were little more legible than the various\nimpressions of itself; which blurred his nose and forehead. It is\ncurious to consider, in such a case as Mr Boffin's, what a cheap article\nink is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scent\na drawer for many years, and still lose nothing appreciable of its\noriginal weight, so a halfpenny-worth of ink would blot Mr Boffin to the\nroots of his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a line\non the paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand.\n\nMr Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes were\nprominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, to the\ngreat relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, the\nyard bell rang.\n\n'Who's that, I wonder!' said Mrs Boffin.\n\nMr Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked at his notes\nas doubting whether he had the pleasure of their acquaintance, and\nappeared, on a second perusal of their countenances, to be confirmed\nin his impression that he had not, when there was announced by the\nhammer-headed young man:\n\n'Mr Rokesmith.'\n\n'Oh!' said Mr Boffin. 'Oh indeed! Our and the Wilfers' Mutual Friend, my\ndear. Yes. Ask him to come in.'\n\nMr Rokesmith appeared.\n\n'Sit down, sir,' said Mr Boffin, shaking hands with him. 'Mrs Boffin\nyou're already acquainted with. Well, sir, I am rather unprepared to see\nyou, for, to tell you the truth, I've been so busy with one thing and\nanother, that I've not had time to turn your offer over.'\n\n'That's apology for both of us: for Mr Boffin, and for me as well,' said\nthe smiling Mrs Boffin. 'But Lor! we can talk it over now; can't us?'\n\nMr Rokesmith bowed, thanked her, and said he hoped so.\n\n'Let me see then,' resumed Mr Boffin, with his hand to his chin. 'It was\nSecretary that you named; wasn't it?'\n\n'I said Secretary,' assented Mr Rokesmith.\n\n'It rather puzzled me at the time,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it rather\npuzzled me and Mrs Boffin when we spoke of it afterwards, because (not\nto make a mystery of our belief) we have always believed a Secretary to\nbe a piece of furniture, mostly of mahogany, lined with green baize or\nleather, with a lot of little drawers in it. Now, you won't think I take\na liberty when I mention that you certainly ain't THAT.'\n\nCertainly not, said Mr Rokesmith. But he had used the word in the sense\nof Steward.\n\n'Why, as to Steward, you see,' returned Mr Boffin, with his hand still\nto his chin, 'the odds are that Mrs Boffin and me may never go upon the\nwater. Being both bad sailors, we should want a Steward if we did; but\nthere's generally one provided.'\n\nMr Rokesmith again explained; defining the duties he sought to\nundertake, as those of general superintendent, or manager, or\noverlooker, or man of business.\n\n'Now, for instance--come!' said Mr Boffin, in his pouncing way. 'If you\nentered my employment, what would you do?'\n\n'I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanctioned,\nMr Boffin. I would write your letters, under your direction. I would\ntransact your business with people in your pay or employment. I would,'\nwith a glance and a half-smile at the table, 'arrange your papers--'\n\nMr Boffin rubbed his inky ear, and looked at his wife.\n\n'--And so arrange them as to have them always in order for immediate\nreference, with a note of the contents of each outside it.'\n\n'I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin, slowly crumpling his own blotted note\nin his hand; 'if you'll turn to at these present papers, and see what\nyou can make of 'em, I shall know better what I can make of you.'\n\nNo sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and gloves, Mr Rokesmith\nsat down quietly at the table, arranged the open papers into an orderly\nheap, cast his eyes over each in succession, folded it, docketed it on\nthe outside, laid it in a second heap, and, when that second heap was\ncomplete and the first gone, took from his pocket a piece of string and\ntied it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running curve and\na loop.\n\n'Good!' said Mr Boffin. 'Very good! Now let us hear what they're all\nabout; will you be so good?'\n\nJohn Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all about the new\nhouse. Decorator's estimate, so much. Furniture estimate, so much.\nEstimate for furniture of offices, so much. Coach-maker's estimate, so\nmuch. Horse-dealer's estimate, so much. Harness-maker's estimate, so\nmuch. Goldsmith's estimate, so much. Total, so very much. Then came\ncorrespondence. Acceptance of Mr Boffin's offer of such a date, and to\nsuch an effect. Rejection of Mr Boffin's proposal of such a date and to\nsuch an effect. Concerning Mr Boffin's scheme of such another date to\nsuch another effect. All compact and methodical.\n\n'Apple-pie order!' said Mr Boffin, after checking off each inscription\nwith his hand, like a man beating time. 'And whatever you do with your\nink, I can't think, for you're as clean as a whistle after it. Now, as\nto a letter. Let's,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his hands in his pleasantly\nchildish admiration, 'let's try a letter next.'\n\n'To whom shall it be addressed, Mr Boffin?'\n\n'Anyone. Yourself.'\n\nMr Rokesmith quickly wrote, and then read aloud:\n\n'\"Mr Boffin presents his compliments to Mr John Rokesmith, and begs\nto say that he has decided on giving Mr John Rokesmith a trial in the\ncapacity he desires to fill. Mr Boffin takes Mr John Rokesmith at his\nword, in postponing to some indefinite period, the consideration of\nsalary. It is quite understood that Mr Boffin is in no way committed\non that point. Mr Boffin has merely to add, that he relies on Mr John\nRokesmith's assurance that he will be faithful and serviceable. Mr John\nRokesmith will please enter on his duties immediately.\"'\n\n'Well! Now, Noddy!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, 'That IS a\ngood one!'\n\nMr Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he regarded\nboth the composition itself and the device that had given birth to it,\nas a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity.\n\n'And I tell you, my deary,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that if you don't close\nwith Mr Rokesmith now at once, and if you ever go a muddling yourself\nagain with things never meant nor made for you, you'll have an\napoplexy--besides iron-moulding your linen--and you'll break my heart.'\n\nMr Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, and then,\ncongratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achievements,\ngave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Now,' said Mr Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did not\nbecome him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes, without\nreposing some confidence in him, 'you must be let a little more into our\naffairs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance,\nor I might better say when you made mine, that Mrs Boffin's inclinations\nwas setting in the way of Fashion, but that I didn't know how\nfashionable we might or might not grow. Well! Mrs Boffin has carried the\nday, and we're going in neck and crop for Fashion.'\n\n'I rather inferred that, sir,' replied John Rokesmith, 'from the scale\non which your new establishment is to be maintained.'\n\n'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, 'it's to be a Spanker. The fact is, my\nliterary man named to me that a house with which he is, as I may say,\nconnected--in which he has an interest--'\n\n'As property?' inquired John Rokesmith.\n\n'Why no,' said Mr Boffin, 'not exactly that; a sort of a family tie.'\n\n'Association?' the Secretary suggested.\n\n'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me that the house\nhad a board up, \"This Eminently Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold.\"\nMe and Mrs Boffin went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubt\nEminently Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull, which after all\nmay be part of the same thing) took it. My literary man was so friendly\nas to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion, in which he\ncomplimented Mrs Boffin on coming into possession of--how did it go, my\ndear?'\n\nMrs Boffin replied:\n\n     '\"The gay, the gay and festive scene,\n     The halls, the halls of dazzling light.\"'\n\n'That's it! And it was made neater by there really being two halls\nin the house, a front 'un and a back 'un, besides the servants'.\nHe likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure,\nrespecting the extent to which he would be willing to put himself out\nof the way to bring Mrs Boffin round, in case she should ever get low\nin her spirits in the house. Mrs Boffin has a wonderful memory. Will you\nrepeat it, my dear?'\n\nMrs Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this obliging offer\nhad been made, exactly as she had received them.\n\n     '\"I'll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs Boffin,\n     When her true love was slain ma'am,\n     And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs Boffin,\n     And never woke again ma'am.\n     I'll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr Boffin) how the steed drew\n     nigh,\n     And left his lord afar;\n     And if my tale (which I hope Mr Boffin might excuse) should\n     make you sigh,\n     I'll strike the light guitar.\"'\n\n'Correct to the letter!' said Mr Boffin. 'And I consider that the poetry\nbrings us both in, in a beautiful manner.'\n\nThe effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to astonish\nhim, Mr Boffin was confirmed in his high opinion of it, and was greatly\npleased.\n\n'Now, you see, Rokesmith,' he went on, 'a literary man--WITH a wooden\nleg--is liable to jealousy. I shall therefore cast about for comfortable\nways and means of not calling up Wegg's jealousy, but of keeping you in\nyour department, and keeping him in his.'\n\n'Lor!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'What I say is, the world's wide enough for all\nof us!'\n\n'So it is, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'when not literary. But when so,\nnot so. And I am bound to bear in mind that I took Wegg on, at a time\nwhen I had no thought of being fashionable or of leaving the Bower. To\nlet him feel himself anyways slighted now, would be to be guilty of\na meanness, and to act like having one's head turned by the halls of\ndazzling light. Which Lord forbid! Rokesmith, what shall we say about\nyour living in the house?'\n\n'In this house?'\n\n'No, no. I have got other plans for this house. In the new house?'\n\n'That will be as you please, Mr Boffin. I hold myself quite at your\ndisposal. You know where I live at present.'\n\n'Well!' said Mr Boffin, after considering the point; 'suppose you keep\nas you are for the present, and we'll decide by-and-by. You'll begin to\ntake charge at once, of all that's going on in the new house, will you?'\n\n'Most willingly. I will begin this very day. Will you give me the\naddress?'\n\nMr Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in his\npocket-book. Mrs Boffin took the opportunity of his being so engaged,\nto get a better observation of his face than she had yet taken. It\nimpressed her in his favour, for she nodded aside to Mr Boffin, 'I like\nhim.'\n\n'I will see directly that everything is in train, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Thank'ee. Being here, would you care at all to look round the Bower?'\n\n'I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its story.'\n\n'Come!' said Mr Boffin. And he and Mrs Boffin led the way.\n\nA gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of having been,\nthrough its long existence as Harmony Jail, in miserly holding. Bare of\npaint, bare of paper on the walls, bare of furniture, bare of experience\nof human life. Whatever is built by man for man's occupation, must,\nlike natural creations, fulfil the intention of its existence, or soon\nperish. This old house had wasted--more from desuetude than it would\nhave wasted from use, twenty years for one.\n\nA certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued with life\n(as if they were nourished upon it), which was very noticeable here.\nThe staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a spare look--an air of being\ndenuded to the bone--which the panels of the walls and the jambs of the\ndoors and windows also bore. The scanty moveables partook of it; save\nfor the cleanliness of the place, the dust--into which they were all\nresolving would have lain thick on the floors; and those, both in colour\nand in grain, were worn like old faces that had kept much alone.\n\nThe bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his grip on life, was\nleft as he had left it. There was the old grisly four-post bedstead,\nwithout hangings, and with a jail-like upper rim of iron and spikes; and\nthere was the old patch-work counterpane. There was the tight-clenched\nold bureau, receding atop like a bad and secret forehead; there was the\ncumbersome old table with twisted legs, at the bed-side; and there\nwas the box upon it, in which the will had lain. A few old chairs with\npatch-work covers, under which the more precious stuff to be preserved\nhad slowly lost its quality of colour without imparting pleasure to any\neye, stood against the wall. A hard family likeness was on all these\nthings.\n\n'The room was kept like this, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, 'against the\nson's return. In short, everything in the house was kept exactly as it\ncame to us, for him to see and approve. Even now, nothing is changed\nbut our own room below-stairs that you have just left. When the son came\nhome for the last time in his life, and for the last time in his life\nsaw his father, it was most likely in this room that they met.'\n\nAs the Secretary looked all round it, his eyes rested on a side door in\na corner.\n\n'Another staircase,' said Mr Boffin, unlocking the door, 'leading down\ninto the yard. We'll go down this way, as you may like to see the yard,\nand it's all in the road. When the son was a little child, it was up\nand down these stairs that he mostly came and went to his father. He was\nvery timid of his father. I've seen him sit on these stairs, in his\nshy way, poor child, many a time. Mr and Mrs Boffin have comforted him,\nsitting with his little book on these stairs, often.'\n\n'Ah! And his poor sister too,' said Mrs Boffin. 'And here's the sunny\nplace on the white wall where they one day measured one another. Their\nown little hands wrote up their names here, only with a pencil; but the\nnames are here still, and the poor dears gone for ever.'\n\n'We must take care of the names, old lady,' said Mr Boffin. 'We must\ntake care of the names. They shan't be rubbed out in our time, nor yet,\nif we can help it, in the time after us. Poor little children!'\n\n'Ah, poor little children!' said Mrs Boffin.\n\nThey had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on the\nyard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking at the scrawl of the two\nunsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. There was\nsomething in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, and in the\ntenderness of Mrs Boffin, that touched the Secretary.\n\nMr Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and his own\nparticular Mound which had been left him as his legacy under the will\nbefore he acquired the whole estate.\n\n'It would have been enough for us,' said Mr Boffin, 'in case it had\npleased God to spare the last of those two young lives and sorrowful\ndeaths. We didn't want the rest.'\n\nAt the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and at\nthe detached building which Mr Boffin pointed out as the residence\nof himself and his wife during the many years of their service, the\nSecretary looked with interest. It was not until Mr Boffin had shown\nhim every wonder of the Bower twice over, that he remembered his having\nduties to discharge elsewhere.\n\n'You have no instructions to give me, Mr Boffin, in reference to this\nplace?'\n\n'Not any, Rokesmith. No.'\n\n'Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have any\nintention of selling it?'\n\n'Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old master's\nchildren, and our old service, me and Mrs Boffin mean to keep it up as\nit stands.'\n\nThe Secretary's eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at the Mounds,\nthat Mr Boffin said, as if in answer to a remark:\n\n'Ay, ay, that's another thing. I may sell THEM, though I should be sorry\nto see the neighbourhood deprived of 'em too. It'll look but a poor dead\nflat without the Mounds. Still I don't say that I'm going to keep 'em\nalways there, for the sake of the beauty of the landscape. There's no\nhurry about it; that's all I say at present. I ain't a scholar in much,\nRokesmith, but I'm a pretty fair scholar in dust. I can price the Mounds\nto a fraction, and I know how they can be best disposed of; and likewise\nthat they take no harm by standing where they do. You'll look in\nto-morrow, will you be so kind?'\n\n'Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new house, complete,\nthe better you will be pleased, sir?'\n\n'Well, it ain't that I'm in a mortal hurry,' said Mr Boffin; 'only when\nyou DO pay people for looking alive, it's as well to know that they ARE\nlooking alive. Ain't that your opinion?'\n\n'Quite!' replied the Secretary; and so withdrew.\n\n'Now,' said Mr Boffin to himself; subsiding into his regular series of\nturns in the yard, 'if I can make it comfortable with Wegg, my affairs\nwill be going smooth.'\n\nThe man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery over the man\nof high simplicity. The mean man had, of course, got the better of the\ngenerous man. How long such conquests last, is another matter; that they\nare achieved, is every-day experience, not even to be flourished away by\nPodsnappery itself. The undesigning Boffin had become so far immeshed\nby the wily Wegg that his mind misgave him he was a very designing man\nindeed in purposing to do more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilful\nwas Wegg) that he was plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do the\nvery thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. And thus, while he\nwas mentally turning the kindest of kind faces on Wegg this morning, he\nwas not absolutely sure but that he might somehow deserve the charge of\nturning his back on him.\n\nFor these reasons Mr Boffin passed but anxious hours until evening came,\nand with it Mr Wegg, stumping leisurely to the Roman Empire. At about\nthis period Mr Boffin had become profoundly interested in the fortunes\nof a great military leader known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhaps\nbetter known to fame and easier of identification by the classical\nstudent, under the less Britannic name of Belisarius. Even this\ngeneral's career paled in interest for Mr Boffin before the clearing of\nhis conscience with Wegg; and hence, when that literary gentleman had\naccording to custom eaten and drunk until he was all a-glow, and when\nhe took up his book with the usual chirping introduction, 'And now, Mr\nBoffin, sir, we'll decline and we'll fall!' Mr Boffin stopped him.\n\n'You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I wanted to make a sort\nof offer to you?'\n\n'Let me get on my considering cap, sir,' replied that gentleman, turning\nthe open book face downward. 'When you first told me that you wanted\nto make a sort of offer to me? Now let me think.' (as if there were the\nleast necessity) 'Yes, to be sure I do, Mr Boffin. It was at my corner.\nTo be sure it was! You had first asked me whether I liked your name,\nand Candour had compelled a reply in the negative case. I little thought\nthen, sir, how familiar that name would come to be!'\n\n'I hope it will be more familiar still, Wegg.'\n\n'Do you, Mr Boffin? Much obliged to you, I'm sure. Is it your pleasure,\nsir, that we decline and we fall?' with a feint of taking up the book.\n\n'Not just yet awhile, Wegg. In fact, I have got another offer to make\nyou.'\n\nMr Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for several nights) took\noff his spectacles with an air of bland surprise.\n\n'And I hope you'll like it, Wegg.'\n\n'Thank you, sir,' returned that reticent individual. 'I hope it may\nprove so. On all accounts, I am sure.' (This, as a philanthropic\naspiration.)\n\n'What do you think,' said Mr Boffin, 'of not keeping a stall, Wegg?'\n\n'I think, sir,' replied Wegg, 'that I should like to be shown the\ngentleman prepared to make it worth my while!'\n\n'Here he is,' said Mr Boffin.\n\nMr Wegg was going to say, My Benefactor, and had said My Bene, when a\ngrandiloquent change came over him.\n\n'No, Mr Boffin, not you sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, Mr Boffin,\nthat I shall contaminate the premises which your gold has bought, with\nMY lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it would not become me to carry\non my little traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have already\nthought of that, and taken my measures. No need to be bought out, sir.\nWould Stepney Fields be considered intrusive? If not remote enough, I\ncan go remoter. In the words of the poet's song, which I do not quite\nremember:\n\n     Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam,\n     Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home,\n     A stranger to something and what's his name joy,\n     Behold little Edmund the poor Peasant boy.\n\n--And equally,' said Mr Wegg, repairing the want of direct application\nin the last line, 'behold myself on a similar footing!'\n\n'Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg,' remonstrated the excellent Boffin. 'You are too\nsensitive.'\n\n'I know I am, sir,' returned Wegg, with obstinate magnanimity. 'I am\nacquainted with my faults. I always was, from a child, too sensitive.'\n\n'But listen,' pursued the Golden Dustman; 'hear me out, Wegg. You have\ntaken it into your head that I mean to pension you off.'\n\n'True, sir,' returned Wegg, still with an obstinate magnanimity. 'I am\nacquainted with my faults. Far be it from me to deny them. I HAVE taken\nit into my head.'\n\n'But I DON'T mean it.'\n\nThe assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr Wegg, as Mr Boffin\nintended it to be. Indeed, an appreciable elongation of his visage might\nhave been observed as he replied:\n\n'Don't you, indeed, sir?'\n\n'No,' pursued Mr Boffin; 'because that would express, as I understand\nit, that you were not going to do anything to deserve your money. But\nyou are; you are.'\n\n'That, sir,' replied Mr Wegg, cheering up bravely, 'is quite another\npair of shoes. Now, my independence as a man is again elevated. Now, I\nno longer\n\n     Weep for the hour,\n     When to Boffinses bower,\n     The Lord of the valley with offers came;\n     Neither does the moon hide her light\n     From the heavens to-night,\n     And weep behind her clouds o'er any individual in the present\n     Company's shame.\n\n--Please to proceed, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Thank'ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for your frequent\ndropping into poetry; both of which is friendly. Well, then; my idea is,\nthat you should give up your stall, and that I should put you into the\nBower here, to keep it for us. It's a pleasant spot; and a man with\ncoals and candles and a pound a week might be in clover here.'\n\n'Hem! Would that man, sir--we will say that man, for the purposes of\nargueyment;' Mr Wegg made a smiling demonstration of great perspicuity\nhere; 'would that man, sir, be expected to throw any other capacity in,\nor would any other capacity be considered extra? Now let us (for the\npurposes of argueyment) suppose that man to be engaged as a reader: say\n(for the purposes of argueyment) in the evening. Would that man's pay as\na reader in the evening, be added to the other amount, which, adopting\nyour language, we will call clover; or would it merge into that amount,\nor clover?'\n\n'Well,' said Mr Boffin, 'I suppose it would be added.'\n\n'I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly my own views,\nMr Boffin.' Here Wegg rose, and balancing himself on his wooden leg,\nfluttered over his prey with extended hand. 'Mr Boffin, consider it\ndone. Say no more, sir, not a word more. My stall and I are for ever\nparted. The collection of ballads will in future be reserved for private\nstudy, with the object of making poetry tributary'--Wegg was so proud\nof having found this word, that he said it again, with a capital\nletter--'Tributary, to friendship. Mr Boffin, don't allow yourself to\nbe made uncomfortable by the pang it gives me to part from my stock and\nstall. Similar emotion was undergone by my own father when promoted\nfor his merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation under\nGovernment. His Christian name was Thomas. His words at the time (I was\nthen an infant, but so deep was their impression on me, that I committed\nthem to memory) were:\n\n     Then farewell my trim-built wherry,\n     Oars and coat and badge farewell!\n     Never more at Chelsea Ferry,\n     Shall your Thomas take a spell!\n\n--My father got over it, Mr Boffin, and so shall I.'\n\nWhile delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg continually\ndisappointed Mr Boffin of his hand by flourishing it in the air. He now\ndarted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his mind relieved of a\ngreat weight: observing that as they had arranged their joint affairs\nso satisfactorily, he would now be glad to look into those of Bully\nSawyers. Which, indeed, had been left over-night in a very unpromising\nposture, and for whose impending expedition against the Persians the\nweather had been by no means favourable all day.\n\nMr Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was not to be of\nthe party that night; for, before Wegg had found his place, Mrs Boffin's\ntread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually heavy and hurried, that Mr\nBoffin would have started up at the sound, anticipating some occurrence\nmuch out of the common course, even though she had not also called to\nhim in an agitated tone.\n\nMr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, panting,\nwith a lighted candle in her hand.\n\n'What's the matter, my dear?'\n\n'I don't know; I don't know; but I wish you'd come up-stairs.'\n\nMuch surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs Boffin into\ntheir own room: a second large room on the same floor as the room in\nwhich the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin looked all round him,\nand saw nothing more unusual than various articles of folded linen on a\nlarge chest, which Mrs Boffin had been sorting.\n\n'What is it, my dear? Why, you're frightened! YOU frightened?'\n\n'I am not one of that sort certainly,' said Mrs Boffin, as she sat down\nin a chair to recover herself, and took her husband's arm; 'but it's\nvery strange!'\n\n'What is, my dear?'\n\n'Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all over the\nhouse to-night.'\n\n'My dear?' exclaimed Mr Boffin. But not without a certain uncomfortable\nsensation gliding down his back.\n\n'I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so.'\n\n'Where did you think you saw them?'\n\n'I don't know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt them.'\n\n'Touched them?'\n\n'No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on the chest, and\nnot thinking of the old man or the children, but singing to myself, when\nall in a moment I felt there was a face growing out of the dark.'\n\n'What face?' asked her husband, looking about him.\n\n'For a moment it was the old man's, and then it got younger. For a\nmoment it was both the children's, and then it got older. For a moment\nit was a strange face, and then it was all the faces.'\n\n'And then it was gone?'\n\n'Yes; and then it was gone.'\n\n'Where were you then, old lady?'\n\n'Here, at the chest. Well; I got the better of it, and went on sorting,\nand went on singing to myself. \"Lor!\" I says, \"I'll think of something\nelse--something comfortable--and put it out of my head.\" So I thought\nof the new house and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great rate\nwith that sheet there in my hand, when all of a sudden, the faces seemed\nto be hidden in among the folds of it and I let it drop.'\n\nAs it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr Boffin picked it up\nand laid it on the chest.\n\n'And then you ran down stairs?'\n\n'No. I thought I'd try another room, and shake it off. I says to myself,\n\"I'll go and walk slowly up and down the old man's room three times,\nfrom end to end, and then I shall have conquered it.\" I went in with the\ncandle in my hand; but the moment I came near the bed, the air got thick\nwith them.'\n\n'With the faces?'\n\n'Yes, and I even felt that they were in the dark behind the side-door,\nand on the little staircase, floating away into the yard. Then, I called\nyou.'\n\nMr Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs Boffin. Mrs Boffin, lost in\nher own fluttered inability to make this out, looked at Mr Boffin.\n\n'I think, my dear,' said the Golden Dustman, 'I'll at once get rid of\nWegg for the night, because he's coming to inhabit the Bower, and it\nmight be put into his head or somebody else's, if he heard this and it\ngot about that the house is haunted. Whereas we know better. Don't we?'\n\n'I never had the feeling in the house before,' said Mrs Boffin; 'and I\nhave been about it alone at all hours of the night. I have been in the\nhouse when Death was in it, and I have been in the house when Murder was\na new part of its adventures, and I never had a fright in it yet.'\n\n'And won't again, my dear,' said Mr Boffin. 'Depend upon it, it comes of\nthinking and dwelling on that dark spot.'\n\n'Yes; but why didn't it come before?' asked Mrs Boffin.\n\nThis draft on Mr Boffin's philosophy could only be met by that gentleman\nwith the remark that everything that is at all, must begin at some time.\nThen, tucking his wife's arm under his own, that she might not be left\nby herself to be troubled again, he descended to release Wegg. Who,\nbeing something drowsy after his plentiful repast, and constitutionally\nof a shirking temperament, was well enough pleased to stump away,\nwithout doing what he had come to do, and was paid for doing.\n\nMr Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs Boffin her shawl; and the pair,\nfurther provided with a bunch of keys and a lighted lantern, went\nall over the dismal house--dismal everywhere, but in their own two\nrooms--from cellar to cock-loft. Not resting satisfied with giving that\nmuch chace to Mrs Boffin's fancies, they pursued them into the yard and\noutbuildings, and under the Mounds. And setting the lantern, when all\nwas done, at the foot of one of the Mounds, they comfortably trotted to\nand fro for an evening walk, to the end that the murky cobwebs in Mrs\nBoffin's brain might be blown away.\n\n'There, my dear!' said Mr Boffin when they came in to supper. 'That was\nthe treatment, you see. Completely worked round, haven't you?'\n\n'Yes, deary,' said Mrs Boffin, laying aside her shawl. 'I'm not nervous\nany more. I'm not a bit troubled now. I'd go anywhere about the house\nthe same as ever. But--'\n\n'Eh!' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'But I've only to shut my eyes.'\n\n'And what then?'\n\n'Why then,' said Mrs Boffin, speaking with her eyes closed, and her\nleft hand thoughtfully touching her brow, 'then, there they are! The old\nman's face, and it gets younger. The two children's faces, and they get\nolder. A face that I don't know. And then all the faces!'\n\nOpening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the table,\nshe leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat down to\nsupper, declaring it to be the best face in the world.\n\n\n\nChapter 16\n\nMINDERS AND RE-MINDERS\n\n\nThe Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his vigilance\nand method soon set their mark on the Golden Dustman's affairs. His\nearnestness in determining to understand the length and breadth and\ndepth of every piece of work submitted to him by his employer, was as\nspecial as his despatch in transacting it. He accepted no information\nor explanation at second hand, but made himself the master of everything\nconfided to him.\n\nOne part of the Secretary's conduct, underlying all the rest, might have\nbeen mistrusted by a man with a better knowledge of men than the\nGolden Dustman had. The Secretary was as far from being inquisitive\nor intrusive as Secretary could be, but nothing less than a complete\nunderstanding of the whole of the affairs would content him. It soon\nbecame apparent (from the knowledge with which he set out) that he must\nhave been to the office where the Harmon will was registered, and must\nhave read the will. He anticipated Mr Boffin's consideration whether he\nshould be advised with on this or that topic, by showing that he\nalready knew of it and understood it. He did this with no attempt at\nconcealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his duty to\nhave prepared himself at all attainable points for its utmost discharge.\n\nThis might--let it be repeated--have awakened some little vague mistrust\nin a man more worldly-wise than the Golden Dustman. On the other hand,\nthe Secretary was discerning, discreet, and silent, though as zealous as\nif the affairs had been his own. He showed no love of patronage or the\ncommand of money, but distinctly preferred resigning both to Mr\nBoffin. If, in his limited sphere, he sought power, it was the power\nof knowledge; the power derivable from a perfect comprehension of his\nbusiness.\n\nAs on the Secretary's face there was a nameless cloud, so on his\nmanner there was a shadow equally indefinable. It was not that he was\nembarrassed, as on that first night with the Wilfer family; he was\nhabitually unembarrassed now, and yet the something remained. It was not\nthat his manner was bad, as on that occasion; it was now very good, as\nbeing modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left it. It\nhas been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or who\nhave passed through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have\nkilled a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has never\nfaded from their countenances until they died. Was there any such record\nhere?\n\nHe established a temporary office for himself in the new house, and all\nwent well under his hand, with one singular exception. He manifestly\nobjected to communicate with Mr Boffin's solicitor. Two or three times,\nwhen there was some slight occasion for his doing so, he transferred\nthe task to Mr Boffin; and his evasion of it soon became so curiously\napparent, that Mr Boffin spoke to him on the subject of his reluctance.\n\n'It is so,' the Secretary admitted. 'I would rather not.'\n\nHad he any personal objection to Mr Lightwood?\n\n'I don't know him.'\n\nHad he suffered from law-suits?\n\n'Not more than other men,' was his short answer.\n\nWas he prejudiced against the race of lawyers?\n\n'No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would rather be excused\nfrom going between the lawyer and the client. Of course if you press it,\nMr Boffin, I am ready to comply. But I should take it as a great favour\nif you would not press it without urgent occasion.'\n\nNow, it could not be said that there WAS urgent occasion, for Lightwood\nretained no other affairs in his hands than such as still lingered and\nlanguished about the undiscovered criminal, and such as arose out of the\npurchase of the house. Many other matters that might have travelled to\nhim, now stopped short at the Secretary, under whose administration they\nwere far more expeditiously and satisfactorily disposed of than they\nwould have been if they had got into Young Blight's domain. This the\nGolden Dustman quite understood. Even the matter immediately in hand\nwas of very little moment as requiring personal appearance on the\nSecretary's part, for it amounted to no more than this:--The death of\nHexam rendering the sweat of the honest man's brow unprofitable, the\nhonest man had shufflingly declined to moisten his brow for nothing,\nwith that severe exertion which is known in legal circles as swearing\nyour way through a stone wall. Consequently, that new light had gone\nsputtering out. But, the airing of the old facts had led some one\nconcerned to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsigned\nto their gloomy shelf--now probably for ever--to induce or compel that\nMr Julius Handford to reappear and be questioned. And all traces of Mr\nJulius Handford being lost, Lightwood now referred to his client for\nauthority to seek him through public advertisement.\n\n'Does your objection go to writing to Lightwood, Rokesmith?'\n\n'Not in the least, sir.'\n\n'Then perhaps you'll write him a line, and say he is free to do what he\nlikes. I don't think it promises.'\n\n'I don't think it promises,' said the Secretary.\n\n'Still, he may do what he likes.'\n\n'I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so considerately\nyielding to my disinclination. It may seem less unreasonable, if I avow\nto you that although I don't know Mr Lightwood, I have a disagreeable\nassociation connected with him. It is not his fault; he is not at all to\nblame for it, and does not even know my name.'\n\nMr Boffin dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The letter was\nwritten, and next day Mr Julius Handford was advertised for. He was\nrequested to place himself in communication with Mr Mortimer Lightwood,\nas a possible means of furthering the ends of justice, and a reward was\noffered to any one acquainted with his whereabout who would communicate\nthe same to the said Mr Mortimer Lightwood at his office in the Temple.\nEvery day for six weeks this advertisement appeared at the head of all\nthe newspapers, and every day for six weeks the Secretary, when he\nsaw it, said to himself; in the tone in which he had said to his\nemployer,--'I don't think it promises!'\n\nAmong his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan wanted by\nMrs Boffin held a conspicuous place. From the earliest moment of his\nengagement he showed a particular desire to please her, and, knowing her\nto have this object at heart, he followed it up with unwearying alacrity\nand interest.\n\nMr and Mrs Milvey had found their search a difficult one. Either an\neligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost always happened)\nor was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too much\naccustomed to the streets, or too likely to run away; or, it was found\nimpossible to complete the philanthropic transaction without buying the\norphan. For, the instant it became known that anybody wanted the orphan,\nup started some affectionate relative of the orphan who put a price upon\nthe orphan's head. The suddenness of an orphan's rise in the market was\nnot to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He\nwould be at five thousand per cent discount out at nurse making a mud\npie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would go up to\nfive thousand per cent premium before noon. The market was 'rigged' in\nvarious artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents\nboldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with\nthem. Genuine orphan-stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the\nmarket. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that\nMr and Mrs Milvey were coming down the court, orphan scrip would be\ninstantly concealed, and production refused, save on a condition usually\nstated by the brokers as 'a gallon of beer'. Likewise, fluctuations of\na wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan-holders keeping\nback, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the\nuniform principle at the root of all these various operations was\nbargain and sale; and that principle could not be recognized by Mr and\nMrs Milvey.\n\nAt length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charming\norphan to be found at Brentford. One of the deceased parents (late his\nparishioners) had a poor widowed grandmother in that agreeable town, and\nshe, Mrs Betty Higden, had carried off the orphan with maternal care,\nbut could not afford to keep him.\n\nThe Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down himself and\ntake a preliminary survey of this orphan, or to drive her down, that\nshe might at once form her own opinion. Mrs Boffin preferring the latter\ncourse, they set off one morning in a hired phaeton, conveying the\nhammer-headed young man behind them.\n\nThe abode of Mrs Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in such\ncomplicated back settlements of muddy Brentford that they left their\nequipage at the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in search of it on\nfoot. After many inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to them\nin a lane, a very small cottage residence, with a board across the open\ndoorway, hooked on to which board by the armpits was a young gentleman\nof tender years, angling for mud with a headless wooden horse and line.\nIn this young sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head\nand a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan.\n\nIt unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that the orphan,\nlost to considerations of personal safety in the ardour of the moment,\noverbalanced himself and toppled into the street. Being an orphan of a\nchubby conformation, he then took to rolling, and had rolled into the\ngutter before they could come up. From the gutter he was rescued by John\nRokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs Higden was inaugurated by\nthe awkward circumstance of their being in possession--one would say at\nfirst sight unlawful possession--of the orphan, upside down and purple\nin the countenance. The board across the doorway too, acting as a trap\nequally for the feet of Mrs Higden coming out, and the feet of Mrs\nBoffin and John Rokesmith going in, greatly increased the difficulty of\nthe situation: to which the cries of the orphan imparted a lugubrious\nand inhuman character.\n\nAt first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan's\n'holding his breath': a most terrific proceeding, super-inducing in the\norphan lead-colour rigidity and a deadly silence, compared with which\nhis cries were music yielding the height of enjoyment. But as he\ngradually recovered, Mrs Boffin gradually introduced herself; and\nsmiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs Betty Higden's home.\n\nIt was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle in it, at\nthe handle of which machine stood a very long boy, with a very little\nhead, and an open mouth of disproportionate capacity that seemed to\nassist his eyes in staring at the visitors. In a corner below the\nmangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little children: a boy and a\ngirl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turn\nat the mangle, it was alarming to see how it lunged itself at those two\ninnocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlessly\nretiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and\nneat. It had a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce\nhanging below the chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top\noutside the window on which scarlet-beans were to grow in the coming\nseason if the Fates were propitious. However propitious they might have\nbeen in the seasons that were gone, to Betty Higden in the matter of\nbeans, they had not been very favourable in the matter of coins; for it\nwas easy to see that she was poor.\n\nShe was one of those old women, was Mrs Betty Higden, who by dint of\nan indomitable purpose and a strong constitution fight out many years,\nthough each year has come with its new knock-down blows fresh to the\nfight against her, wearied by it; an active old woman, with a bright\ndark eye and a resolute face, yet quite a tender creature too; not a\nlogically-reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in\nHeaven as high as heads.\n\n'Yes sure!' said she, when the business was opened, 'Mrs Milvey had the\nkindness to write to me, ma'am, and I got Sloppy to read it. It was a\npretty letter. But she's an affable lady.'\n\nThe visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indicate by a\nbroader stare of his mouth and eyes that in him Sloppy stood confessed.\n\n'For I aint, you must know,' said Betty, 'much of a hand at reading\nwriting-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a\nnewspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a\nnewspaper. He do the Police in different voices.'\n\nThe visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look at\nSloppy, who, looking at them, suddenly threw back his head, extended his\nmouth to its utmost width, and laughed loud and long. At this the two\ninnocents, with their brains in that apparent danger, laughed, and Mrs\nHigden laughed, and the orphan laughed, and then the visitors laughed.\nWhich was more cheerful than intelligible.\n\nThen Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious mania or fury,\nturned to at the mangle, and impelled it at the heads of the innocents\nwith such a creaking and rumbling, that Mrs Higden stopped him.\n\n'The gentlefolks can't hear themselves speak, Sloppy. Bide a bit, bide a\nbit!'\n\n'Is that the dear child in your lap?' said Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Yes, ma'am, this is Johnny.'\n\n'Johnny, too!' cried Mrs Boffin, turning to the Secretary; 'already\nJohnny! Only one of the two names left to give him! He's a pretty boy.'\n\nWith his chin tucked down in his shy childish manner, he was looking\nfurtively at Mrs Boffin out of his blue eyes, and reaching his fat\ndimpled hand up to the lips of the old woman, who was kissing it by\ntimes.\n\n'Yes, ma'am, he's a pretty boy, he's a dear darling boy, he's the child\nof my own last left daughter's daughter. But she's gone the way of all\nthe rest.'\n\n'Those are not his brother and sister?' said Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Oh, dear no, ma'am. Those are Minders.'\n\n'Minders?' the Secretary repeated.\n\n'Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can take only three,\non account of the Mangle. But I love children, and Four-pence a week is\nFour-pence. Come here, Toddles and Poddles.'\n\nToddles was the pet-name of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At their\nlittle unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, as if\nthey were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks,\nand, when they had had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, made\nlunges at the orphan, dramatically representing an attempt to bear him,\ncrowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children enjoyed this\nto a delightful extent, and the sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long\nand loud. When it was discreet to stop the play, Betty Higden said\n'Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles,' and they returned hand-in-hand\nacross country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by late rains.\n\n'And Master--or Mister--Sloppy?' said the Secretary, in doubt whether he\nwas man, boy, or what.\n\n'A love-child,' returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; 'parents\nnever known; found in the street. He was brought up in the--' with a\nshiver of repugnance, '--the House.'\n\n'The Poor-house?' said the Secretary.\n\nMrs Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly nodded yes.\n\n'You dislike the mention of it.'\n\n'Dislike the mention of it?' answered the old woman. 'Kill me sooner\nthan take me there. Throw this pretty child under cart-horses feet and\na loaded waggon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us all\na-dying, and set a light to us all where we lie and let us all blaze\naway with the house into a heap of cinders sooner than move a corpse of\nus there!'\n\nA surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hard\nworking, and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable\nBoards! What is it that we call it in our grandiose speeches? British\nindependence, rather perverted? Is that, or something like it, the ring\nof the cant?\n\n'Do I never read in the newspapers,' said the dame, fondling the\nchild--'God help me and the like of me!--how the worn-out people that\ndo come down to that, get driven from post to pillar and pillar to post,\na-purpose to tire them out! Do I never read how they are put off, put\noff, put off--how they are grudged, grudged, grudged, the shelter, or\nthe doctor, or the drop of physic, or the bit of bread? Do I never\nread how they grow heartsick of it and give it up, after having let\nthemselves drop so low, and how they after all die out for want of help?\nThen I say, I hope I can die as well as another, and I'll die without\nthat disgrace.'\n\nAbsolutely impossible my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, by\nany stretch of legislative wisdom to set these perverse people right in\ntheir logic?\n\n'Johnny, my pretty,' continued old Betty, caressing the child, and\nrather mourning over it than speaking to it, 'your old Granny Betty is\nnigher fourscore year than threescore and ten. She never begged nor had\na penny of the Union money in all her life. She paid scot and she\npaid lot when she had money to pay; she worked when she could, and\nshe starved when she must. You pray that your Granny may have strength\nenough left her at the last (she's strong for an old one, Johnny), to\nget up from her bed and run and hide herself and swown to death in a\nhole, sooner than fall into the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read of\nthat dodge and drive, and worry and weary, and scorn and shame, the\ndecent poor.'\n\nA brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards to\nhave brought it to this in the minds of the best of the poor! Under\nsubmission, might it be worth thinking of at any odd time?\n\nThe fright and abhorrence that Mrs Betty Higden smoothed out of her\nstrong face as she ended this diversion, showed how seriously she had\nmeant it.\n\n'And does he work for you?' asked the Secretary, gently bringing the\ndiscourse back to Master or Mister Sloppy.\n\n'Yes,' said Betty with a good-humoured smile and nod of the head. 'And\nwell too.'\n\n'Does he live here?'\n\n'He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought to be no better than a\nNatural, and first come to me as a Minder. I made interest with Mr Blogg\nthe Beadle to have him as a Minder, seeing him by chance up at church,\nand thinking I might do something with him. For he was a weak ricketty\ncreetur then.'\n\n'Is he called by his right name?'\n\n'Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right name. I always\nunderstood he took his name from being found on a Sloppy night.'\n\n'He seems an amiable fellow.'\n\n'Bless you, sir, there's not a bit of him,' returned Betty, 'that's not\namiable. So you may judge how amiable he is, by running your eye along\nhis heighth.'\n\nOf an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too much of him longwise, too little of\nhim broadwise, and too many sharp angles of him angle-wise. One of those\nshambling male human creatures, born to be indiscreetly candid in the\nrevelation of buttons; every button he had about him glaring at the\npublic to a quite preternatural extent. A considerable capital of knee\nand elbow and wrist and ankle, had Sloppy, and he didn't know how to\ndispose of it to the best advantage, but was always investing it in\nwrong securities, and so getting himself into embarrassed circumstances.\nFull-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of\nlife, was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to\nthe Colours.\n\n'And now,' said Mrs Boffin, 'concerning Johnny.'\n\nAs Johnny, with his chin tucked in and lips pouting, reclined in Betty's\nlap, concentrating his blue eyes on the visitors and shading them from\nobservation with a dimpled arm, old Betty took one of his fresh fat\nhands in her withered right, and fell to gently beating it on her\nwithered left.\n\n'Yes, ma'am. Concerning Johnny.'\n\n'If you trust the dear child to me,' said Mrs Boffin, with a face\ninviting trust, 'he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the\nbest of education, the best of friends. Please God I will be a true good\nmother to him!'\n\n'I am thankful to you, ma'am, and the dear child would be thankful if\nhe was old enough to understand.' Still lightly beating the little hand\nupon her own. 'I wouldn't stand in the dear child's light, not if I had\nall my life before me instead of a very little of it. But I hope you\nwon't take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell,\nfor he's the last living thing left me.'\n\n'Take it ill, my dear soul? Is it likely? And you so tender of him as to\nbring him home here!'\n\n'I have seen,' said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hard\nrough hand, 'so many of them on my lap. And they are all gone but this\none! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don't really mean it. It'll\nbe the making of his fortune, and he'll be a gentleman when I am dead.\nI--I--don't know what comes over me. I--try against it. Don't notice\nme!' The light beat stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the fine\nstrong old face broke up into weakness and tears.\n\nNow, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional Sloppy no\nsooner beheld his patroness in this condition, than, throwing back his\nhead and throwing open his mouth, he lifted up his voice and bellowed.\nThis alarming note of something wrong instantly terrified Toddles and\nPoddles, who were no sooner heard to roar surprisingly, than Johnny,\ncurving himself the wrong way and striking out at Mrs Boffin with a pair\nof indifferent shoes, became a prey to despair. The absurdity of the\nsituation put its pathos to the rout. Mrs Betty Higden was herself in\na moment, and brought them all to order with that speed, that Sloppy,\nstopping short in a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy to\nthe mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before he could be\nstopped.\n\n'There, there, there!' said Mrs Boffin, almost regarding her kind self\nas the most ruthless of women. 'Nothing is going to be done. Nobody need\nbe frightened. We're all comfortable; ain't we, Mrs Higden?'\n\n'Sure and certain we are,' returned Betty.\n\n'And there really is no hurry, you know,' said Mrs Boffin in a lower\nvoice. 'Take time to think of it, my good creature!'\n\n'Don't you fear ME no more, ma'am,' said Betty; 'I thought of it for\ngood yesterday. I don't know what come over me just now, but it'll never\ncome again.'\n\n'Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it,' returned Mrs\nBoffin; 'the pretty child shall have time to get used to it. And you'll\nget him more used to it, if you think well of it; won't you?'\n\nBetty undertook that, cheerfully and readily.\n\n'Lor,' cried Mrs Boffin, looking radiantly about her, 'we want to make\neverybody happy, not dismal!--And perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me\nknow how used to it you begin to get, and how it all goes on?'\n\n'I'll send Sloppy,' said Mrs Higden.\n\n'And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his trouble,'\nsaid Mrs Boffin. 'And Mr Sloppy, whenever you come to my house, be\nsure you never go away without having had a good dinner of meat, beer,\nvegetables, and pudding.'\n\nThis still further brightened the face of affairs; for, the highly\nsympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and grinning, and then roaring\nwith laughter, Toddles and Poddles followed suit, and Johnny trumped\nthe trick. T and P considering these favourable circumstances for\nthe resumption of that dramatic descent upon Johnny, again came\nacross-country hand-in-hand upon a buccaneering expedition; and this\nhaving been fought out in the chimney corner behind Mrs Higden's chair,\nwith great valour on both sides, those desperate pirates returned\nhand-in-hand to their stools, across the dry bed of a mountain torrent.\n\n'You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend,' said Mrs\nBoffin confidentially, 'if not to-day, next time.'\n\n'Thank you all the same, ma'am, but I want nothing for myself. I can\nwork. I'm strong. I can walk twenty mile if I'm put to it.' Old Betty\nwas proud, and said it with a sparkle in her bright eyes.\n\n'Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn't be the worse\nfor,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Bless ye, I wasn't born a lady any more than\nyou.'\n\n'It seems to me,' said Betty, smiling, 'that you were born a lady, and\na true one, or there never was a lady born. But I couldn't take anything\nfrom you, my dear. I never did take anything from any one. It ain't that\nI'm not grateful, but I love to earn it better.'\n\n'Well, well!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'I only spoke of little things, or I\nwouldn't have taken the liberty.'\n\nBetty put her visitor's hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of the\ndelicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and wonderfully\nself-reliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, she explained\nherself further.\n\n'If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread that's always\nupon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I could never have\nparted with him, even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love him! I\nlove my husband long dead and gone, in him; I love my children dead and\ngone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. I\ncouldn't sell that love, and look you in your bright kind face. It's a\nfree gift. I am in want of nothing. When my strength fails me, if I\ncan but die out quick and quiet, I shall be quite content. I have stood\nbetween my dead and that shame I have spoken of; and it has been kept\noff from every one of them. Sewed into my gown,' with her hand upon\nher breast, 'is just enough to lay me in the grave. Only see that it's\nrightly spent, so as I may rest free to the last from that cruelty and\ndisgrace, and you'll have done much more than a little thing for me, and\nall that in this present world my heart is set upon.'\n\nMrs Betty Higden's visitor pressed her hand. There was no more breaking\nup of the strong old face into weakness. My Lords and Gentlemen and\nHonourable Boards, it really was as composed as our own faces, and\nalmost as dignified.\n\nAnd now, Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a temporary\nposition on Mrs Boffin's lap. It was not until he had been piqued into\ncompetition with the two diminutive Minders, by seeing them successively\nraised to that post and retire from it without injury, that he could be\nby any means induced to leave Mrs Betty Higden's skirts; towards which\nhe exhibited, even when in Mrs Boffin's embrace, strong yearnings,\nspiritual and bodily; the former expressed in a very gloomy visage,\nthe latter in extended arms. However, a general description of the\ntoy-wonders lurking in Mr Boffin's house, so far conciliated this\nworldly-minded orphan as to induce him to stare at her frowningly,\nwith a fist in his mouth, and even at length to chuckle when a\nrichly-caparisoned horse on wheels, with a miraculous gift of cantering\nto cake-shops, was mentioned. This sound being taken up by the Minders,\nswelled into a rapturous trio which gave general satisfaction.\n\nSo, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs Boffin was\npleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all, Sloppy, who undertook\nto conduct the visitors back by the best way to the Three Magpies, and\nwhom the hammer-headed young man much despised.\n\nThis piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove Mrs Boffin\nback to the Bower, and found employment for himself at the new house\nuntil evening. Whether, when evening came, he took a way to his lodgings\nthat led through fields, with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer\nin those fields, is not so certain as that she regularly walked there at\nthat hour.\n\nAnd, moreover, it is certain that there she was.\n\nNo longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty colours as\nshe could muster. There is no denying that she was as pretty as they,\nand that she and the colours went very prettily together. She was\nreading as she walked, and of course it is to be inferred, from her\nshowing no knowledge of Mr Rokesmith's approach, that she did not know\nhe was approaching.\n\n'Eh?' said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when he stopped\nbefore her. 'Oh! It's you.'\n\n'Only I. A fine evening!'\n\n'Is it?' said Bella, looking coldly round. 'I suppose it is, now you\nmention it. I have not been thinking of the evening.'\n\n'So intent upon your book?'\n\n'Ye-e-es,' replied Bella, with a drawl of indifference.\n\n'A love story, Miss Wilfer?'\n\n'Oh dear no, or I shouldn't be reading it. It's more about money than\nanything else.'\n\n'And does it say that money is better than anything?'\n\n'Upon my word,' returned Bella, 'I forget what it says, but you can find\nout for yourself if you like, Mr Rokesmith. I don't want it any more.'\n\nThe Secretary took the book--she had fluttered the leaves as if it were\na fan--and walked beside her.\n\n'I am charged with a message for you, Miss Wilfer.'\n\n'Impossible, I think!' said Bella, with another drawl.\n\n'From Mrs Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the pleasure she has\nin finding that she will be ready to receive you in another week or two\nat furthest.'\n\nBella turned her head towards him, with her prettily-insolent eyebrows\nraised, and her eyelids drooping. As much as to say, 'How did YOU come\nby the message, pray?'\n\n'I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you that I am Mr\nBoffin's Secretary.'\n\n'I am as wise as ever,' said Miss Bella, loftily, 'for I don't know what\na Secretary is. Not that it signifies.'\n\n'Not at all.'\n\nA covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, showed him that\nshe had not expected his ready assent to that proposition.\n\n'Then are you going to be always there, Mr Rokesmith?' she inquired, as\nif that would be a drawback.\n\n'Always? No. Very much there? Yes.'\n\n'Dear me!' drawled Bella, in a tone of mortification.\n\n'But my position there as Secretary, will be very different from yours\nas guest. You will know little or nothing about me. I shall transact\nthe business: you will transact the pleasure. I shall have my salary to\nearn; you will have nothing to do but to enjoy and attract.'\n\n'Attract, sir?' said Bella, again with her eyebrows raised, and her\neyelids drooping. 'I don't understand you.'\n\nWithout replying on this point, Mr Rokesmith went on.\n\n'Excuse me; when I first saw you in your black dress--'\n\n('There!' was Miss Bella's mental exclamation. 'What did I say to them\nat home? Everybody noticed that ridiculous mourning.')\n\n'When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a loss to account\nfor that distinction between yourself and your family. I hope it was not\nimpertinent to speculate upon it?'\n\n'I hope not, I am sure,' said Miss Bella, haughtily. 'But you ought to\nknow best how you speculated upon it.'\n\nMr Rokesmith inclined his head in a deprecatory manner, and went on.\n\n'Since I have been entrusted with Mr Boffin's affairs, I have\nnecessarily come to understand the little mystery. I venture to remark\nthat I feel persuaded that much of your loss may be repaired. I\nspeak, of course, merely of wealth, Miss Wilfer. The loss of a perfect\nstranger, whose worth, or worthlessness, I cannot estimate--nor you\neither--is beside the question. But this excellent gentleman and lady\nare so full of simplicity, so full of generosity, so inclined towards\nyou, and so desirous to--how shall I express it?--to make amends for\ntheir good fortune, that you have only to respond.'\n\nAs he watched her with another covert look, he saw a certain ambitious\ntriumph in her face which no assumed coldness could conceal.\n\n'As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental combination of\ncircumstances, which oddly extends itself to the new relations before\nus, I have taken the liberty of saying these few words. You don't\nconsider them intrusive I hope?' said the Secretary with deference.\n\n'Really, Mr Rokesmith, I can't say what I consider them,' returned the\nyoung lady. 'They are perfectly new to me, and may be founded altogether\non your own imagination.'\n\n'You will see.'\n\nThese same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The discreet\nMrs Wilfer now looking out of window and beholding her daughter in\nconference with her lodger, instantly tied up her head and came out for\na casual walk.\n\n'I have been telling Miss Wilfer,' said John Rokesmith, as the majestic\nlady came stalking up, 'that I have become, by a curious chance, Mr\nBoffin's Secretary or man of business.'\n\n'I have not,' returned Mrs Wilfer, waving her gloves in her chronic\nstate of dignity, and vague ill-usage, 'the honour of any intimate\nacquaintance with Mr Boffin, and it is not for me to congratulate that\ngentleman on the acquisition he has made.'\n\n'A poor one enough,' said Rokesmith.\n\n'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer, 'the merits of Mr Boffin may be highly\ndistinguished--may be more distinguished than the countenance of Mrs\nBoffin would imply--but it were the insanity of humility to deem him\nworthy of a better assistant.'\n\n'You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer that she is\nexpected very shortly at the new residence in town.'\n\n'Having tacitly consented,' said Mrs Wilfer, with a grand shrug of her\nshoulders, and another wave of her gloves, 'to my child's acceptance of\nthe proffered attentions of Mrs Boffin, I interpose no objection.'\n\nHere Miss Bella offered the remonstrance: 'Don't talk nonsense, ma,\nplease.'\n\n'Peace!' said Mrs Wilfer.\n\n'No, ma, I am not going to be made so absurd. Interposing objections!'\n\n'I say,' repeated Mrs Wilfer, with a vast access of grandeur, 'that I am\nNOT going to interpose objections. If Mrs Boffin (to whose countenance\nno disciple of Lavater could possibly for a single moment subscribe),'\nwith a shiver, 'seeks to illuminate her new residence in town with the\nattractions of a child of mine, I am content that she should be favoured\nby the company of a child of mine.'\n\n'You use the word, ma'am, I have myself used,' said Rokesmith, with a\nglance at Bella, 'when you speak of Miss Wilfer's attractions there.'\n\n'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, 'but I had\nnot finished.'\n\n'Pray excuse me.'\n\n'I was about to say,' pursued Mrs Wilfer, who clearly had not had\nthe faintest idea of saying anything more: 'that when I use the term\nattractions, I do so with the qualification that I do not mean it in any\nway whatever.'\n\nThe excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her views\nwith an air of greatly obliging her hearers, and greatly distinguishing\nherself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed a scornful little laugh and said:\n\n'Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the goodness, Mr\nRokesmith, to give my love to Mrs Boffin--'\n\n'Pardon me!' cried Mrs Wilfer. 'Compliments.'\n\n'Love!' repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot.\n\n'No!' said Mrs Wilfer, monotonously. 'Compliments.'\n\n('Say Miss Wilfer's love, and Mrs Wilfer's compliments,' the Secretary\nproposed, as a compromise.)\n\n'And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner,\nthe better.'\n\n'One last word, Bella,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'before descending to the\nfamily apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will ever be\nsensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating with Mr\nand Mrs Boffin upon equal terms, to remember that the Secretary, Mr\nRokesmith, as your father's lodger, has a claim on your good word.'\n\nThe condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation of\npatronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodger\nhad lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired down\nstairs; but his face fell, as the daughter followed.\n\n'So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so\nhard to touch, so hard to turn!' he said, bitterly.\n\nAnd added as he went upstairs. 'And yet so pretty, so pretty!'\n\nAnd added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. 'And if she\nknew!'\n\nShe knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and\nshe declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn't\nget rid of a haunting Secretary, stump--stump--stumping overhead in the\ndark, like a Ghost.\n\n\n\nChapter 17\n\nA DISMAL SWAMP\n\n\nAnd now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffin\nestablished in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, and behold\nall manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures,\nattracted by the gold dust of the Golden Dustman!\n\nForemost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic door\nbefore it is quite painted, are the Veneerings: out of breath, one\nmight imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the eminently\naristocratic steps. One copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plate\nMr Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate Mr and Mrs Veneering,\nrequesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin's company at dinner with\nthe utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves a\ncard. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-coloured phaeton tooling up\nin a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps, a\nMrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughter\nleave cards. Sometimes the world's wife has so many daughters, that her\ncard reads rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction; comprising Mrs\nTapkins, Miss Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins,\nMiss Malvina Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time,\nthe same lady leaves the card of Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle, NEE\nTapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland\nPlace.\n\nMiss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of the\neminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs Boffin bears Miss Bella away to\nher Milliner's and Dressmaker's, and she gets beautifully dressed. The\nVeneerings find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite Miss\nBella Wilfer. One Mrs Veneering and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting\nthat additional honour, instantly do penance in white cardboard on\nthe hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise discovers her omission, and\nwith promptitude repairs it; for herself; for Miss Tapkins, for Miss\nFrederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins,\nand for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry George Alfred\nSwoshle NEE Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays,\nMusic, Portland Place.\n\nTradesmen's books hunger, and tradesmen's mouths water, for the gold\ndust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, or\nas Mr Boffin walks out at his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls off\nhis hat with an air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleanse\ntheir fingers on their woollen aprons before presuming to touch their\nforeheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The gaping salmon and the golden mullet\nlying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes sideways, as they would\nturn up their hands if they had any, in worshipping admiration. The\nbutcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn't know what to do\nwith himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered by\nthe passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton grove. Presents are made\nto the Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business-cards\nmeeting said servants in the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As,\n'Supposing I was to be favoured with an order from Mr Boffin, my dear\nfriend, it would be worth my while'--to do a certain thing that I hope\nmight not prove wholly disagreeable to your feelings.\n\nBut no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads the\nletters, what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety.\nOh the varieties of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for the\ngold dust of the Golden Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected with\nhalf-crowns, forty-two parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings,\nseven-and-twenty organs to be built with halfpence, twelve hundred\nchildren to be brought up on postage stamps. Not that a half-crown,\nshilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be particularly acceptable\nfrom Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to make up the\ndeficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly in\ndifficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of print\nand paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet.\n'Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My Dear Sir,--Having consented to preside\nat the forthcoming Annual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feeling\ndeeply impressed with the immense usefulness of that noble Institution\nand the great importance of its being supported by a List of Stewards\nthat shall prove to the public the interest taken in it by popular and\ndistinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a Steward on\nthat occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply before the 14th instant,\nI am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, LINSEED. P.S. The Steward's\nfee is limited to three Guineas.' Friendly this, on the part of the Duke\nof Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed by\nthe hundred and presenting but a pale individuality of an address to\nNicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two noble\nEarls and a Viscount, combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,\nin an equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West of\nEngland has offered to present a purse containing twenty pounds, to\nthe Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming Members of the Middle\nClasses, if twenty individuals will previously present purses of one\nhundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly point out\nthat if Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or more\npurses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimable\nlady in the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with the\nname of some member of his honoured and respected family.\n\nThese are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individual\nbeggars; and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has to\ncope with THEM! And they must be coped with to some extent, because they\nall enclose documents (they call their scraps documents; but they are,\nas to papers deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), the\nnon-return of which would be their ruin. That is say, they are utterly\nruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among these\ncorrespondents are several daughters of general officers, long\naccustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who little\nthought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula,\nthat they would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in its\ninscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from among whom\nthey select the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort\nin this wise, understanding that he has such a heart as never was. The\nSecretary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would seem\nto obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are the\nwives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without the\nknowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it; while,\non the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take up their pens\nto ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devoted\nwives, who would instantly go out of their senses if they had the least\nsuspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, too.\nThese were sitting, only yesterday evening, musing over a fragment of\ncandle which must soon go out and leave them in the dark for the rest\nof their nights, when surely some Angel whispered the name of Nicodemus\nBoffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, nay\nconfidence, to which they had long been strangers! Akin to these are the\nsuggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold potato\nand water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, in\ntheir lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landlady\nthreatening expulsion 'like a dog' into the streets), when a gifted\nfriend happening to look in, said, 'Write immediately to Nicodemus\nBoffin, Esquire,' and would take no denial. There are the nobly\nindependent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, ever\nregarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impediment\nin the way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross from\nNicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride,\npaltry pride if you will, but they wouldn't take it if you offered it;\na loan, sir--for fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at the\nrate of five per cent per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable\ninstitution you may name--is all they want of you, and if you have the\nmeanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits.\nThere are the beggars of punctual business-habits too. These will\nmake an end of themselves at a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, if no\nPost-office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin,\nEsquire; arriving after a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, it need not\nbe sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of the\nheartless circumstances) be 'cold in death.' There are the beggars on\nhorseback too, in another sense from the sense of the proverb. These\nare mounted and ready to start on the highway to affluence. The goal is\nbefore them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs are on,\nthe steed is willing, but, at the last moment, for want of some special\nthing--a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifying\nmachine--they must dismount for ever, unless they receive its equivalent\nin money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are the\nbeggars who make sporting ventures. These, usually to be addressed\nin reply under initials at a country post-office, inquire in feminine\nhands, Dare one who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin,\nEsquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed, solicit\nthe immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected riches\nexercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a common humanity?\n\nIn such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it does\nthe Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the people\nalive who have made inventions that won't act, and all the jobbers who\njob in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as the\nAlligators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always lying by to drag the\nGolden Dustman under.\n\nBut the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustman\nthere? There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower waters? Perhaps\nnot. Still, Wegg is established there, and would seem, judged by his\nsecret proceedings, to cherish a notion of making a discovery. For,\nwhen a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his stomach to peep under\nbedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey the\ntops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which he\nis always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the probability is that\nhe expects to find something.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SECOND -- BIRDS OF A FEATHER\n\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nOF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER\n\n\nThe school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a\nbook--the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great Preparatory\nEstablishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned\nwithout and before book--was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its\natmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy,\nand confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of\nwaking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by\nmaintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out\nof time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated\nsolely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable\njumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours.\n\nIt was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter were kept\napart, and the former were partitioned off into square assortments. But,\nall the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that every\npupil was childish and innocent. This pretence, much favoured by the\nlady-visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. Young women old in\nthe vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to profess\nthemselves enthralled by the good child's book, the Adventures of\nLittle Margery, who resided in the village cottage by the mill; severely\nreproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he was\nfifty; divided her porridge with singing birds; denied herself a new\nnankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeen\nbonnets, neither did the sheep who ate them; who plaited straw and\ndelivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at all sorts of\nunseasonable times. So, unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarks\nwere referred to the experiences of Thomas Twopence, who, having\nresolved not to rob (under circumstances of uncommon atrocity) his\nparticular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came into\nsupernatural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light\never afterwards. (Note, that the benefactor came to no good.) Several\nswaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain;\nit always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons,\nthat you were to do good, not because it WAS good, but because you were\nto make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taught\nto read (if they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint of\nstumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on the\nparticular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutely\nignorant of the sublime history, as if they had never seen or heard of\nit. An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a school,\nin fact, where black spirits and grey, red spirits and white, jumbled\njumbled jumbled jumbled, jumbled every night. And particularly every\nSunday night. For then, an inclined plane of unfortunate infants would\nbe handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good\nintentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand on\nthe floor before them as chief executioner, would be attended by a\nconventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where it\nfirst became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant\nin a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when\nand where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in\noperation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it,\nmatters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth,\nand it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants,\nyawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their\nwretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them\nfor a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion of\nblinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this department for a\nmortal hour; the exponent drawling on to My Dearert Childerrenerr, let\nus say, for example, about the beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; and\nrepeating the word Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred\ntimes, and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boy\nsmoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the whole\nhot-bed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes,\nwhooping-cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembled\nin High Market for the purpose.\n\nEven in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boy\nexceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, having\nlearned it, could impart it much better than the teachers; as being\nmore knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stood\ntowards the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that Charley\nHexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been received\nfrom the jumble into a better school.\n\n'So you want to go and see your sister, Hexam?'\n\n'If you please, Mr Headstone.'\n\n'I have half a mind to go with you. Where does your sister live?'\n\n'Why, she is not settled yet, Mr Headstone. I'd rather you didn't see\nher till she is settled, if it was all the same to you.'\n\n'Look here, Hexam.' Mr Bradley Headstone, highly certificated\nstipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right forefinger through one of the\nbuttonholes of the boy's coat, and looked at it attentively. 'I hope\nyour sister may be good company for you?'\n\n'Why do you doubt it, Mr Headstone?'\n\n'I did not say I doubted it.'\n\n'No, sir; you didn't say so.'\n\nBradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of the\nbuttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it and looked at it\nagain.\n\n'You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you are sure to\npass a creditable examination and become one of us. Then the question\nis--'\n\nThe boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster looked\nat a new side of his finger, and bit it, and looked at it again, that at\nlength the boy repeated:\n\n'The question is, sir--?'\n\n'Whether you had not better leave well alone.'\n\n'Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr Headstone?'\n\n'I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. I ask you to\nthink of it. I want you to consider. You know how well you are doing\nhere.'\n\n'After all, she got me here,' said the boy, with a struggle.\n\n'Perceiving the necessity of it,' acquiesced the schoolmaster, 'and\nmaking up her mind fully to the separation. Yes.'\n\nThe boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle or whatever\nit was, seemed to debate with himself. At length he said, raising his\neyes to the master's face:\n\n'I wish you'd come with me and see her, Mr Headstone, though she is not\nsettled. I wish you'd come with me, and take her in the rough, and judge\nher for yourself.'\n\n'You are sure you would not like,' asked the schoolmaster, 'to prepare\nher?'\n\n'My sister Lizzie,' said the boy, proudly, 'wants no preparing, Mr\nHeadstone. What she is, she is, and shows herself to be. There's no\npretending about my sister.'\n\nHis confidence in her, sat more easily upon him than the indecision with\nwhich he had twice contended. It was his better nature to be true to\nher, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet the\nbetter nature had the stronger hold.\n\n'Well, I can spare the evening,' said the schoolmaster. 'I am ready to\nwalk with you.'\n\n'Thank you, Mr Headstone. And I am ready to go.'\n\nBradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decent\nwhite shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent pantaloons of\npepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and its\ndecent hair-guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young man\nof six-and-twenty. He was never seen in any other dress, and yet there\nwas a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there were\na want of adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics in\ntheir holiday clothes. He had acquired mechanically a great store of\nteacher's knowledge. He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing\nat sight mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, even\nplay the great church organ mechanically. From his early childhood up,\nhis mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement of\nhis wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet the\ndemands of retail dealers history here, geography there, astronomy to\nthe right, political economy to the left--natural history, the physical\nsciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, and what not, all in\ntheir several places--this care had imparted to his countenance a look\nof care; while the habit of questioning and being questioned had given\nhim a suspicious manner, or a manner that would be better described as\none of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled trouble in the face.\nIt was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellect\nthat had toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it now\nthat it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything should\nbe missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assure\nhimself.\n\nSuppression of so much to make room for so much, had given him a\nconstrained manner, over and above. Yet there was enough of what was\nanimal, and of what was fiery (though smouldering), still visible in\nhim, to suggest that if young Bradley Headstone, when a pauper lad, had\nchanced to be told off for the sea, he would not have been the last man\nin a ship's crew. Regarding that origin of his, he was proud, moody, and\nsullen, desiring it to be forgotten. And few people knew of it.\n\nIn some visits to the Jumble his attention had been attracted to this\nboy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a pupil-teacher; an undeniable boy\nto do credit to the master who should bring him on. Combined with this\nconsideration, there may have been some thought of the pauper lad now\nnever to be mentioned. Be that how it might, he had with pains gradually\nworked the boy into his own school, and procured him some offices to\ndischarge there, which were repaid with food and lodging. Such were the\ncircumstances that had brought together, Bradley Headstone and young\nCharley Hexam that autumn evening. Autumn, because full half a year had\ncome and gone since the bird of prey lay dead upon the river-shore.\n\nThe schools--for they were twofold, as the sexes--were down in that\ndistrict of the flat country tending to the Thames, where Kent and\nSurrey meet, and where the railways still bestride the market-gardens\nthat will soon die under them. The schools were newly built, and there\nwere so many like them all over the country, that one might have thought\nthe whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift of\nAladdin's palace. They were in a neighbourhood which looked like a toy\nneighbourhood taken in blocks out of a box by a child of particularly\nincoherent mind, and set up anyhow; here, one side of a new street;\nthere, a large solitary public-house facing nowhere; here, another\nunfinished street already in ruins; there, a church; here, an immense\nnew warehouse; there, a dilapidated old country villa; then, a medley\nof black ditch, sparkling cucumber-frame, rank field, richly cultivated\nkitchen-garden, brick viaduct, arch-spanned canal, and disorder of\nfrowziness and fog. As if the child had given the table a kick, and gone\nto sleep.\n\nBut, even among school-buildings, school-teachers, and school-pupils,\nall according to pattern and all engendered in the light of the latest\nGospel according to Monotony, the older pattern into which so many\nfortunes have been shaped for good and evil, comes out. It came out in\nMiss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering her flowers, as Mr Bradley\nHeadstone walked forth. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress,\nwatering the flowers in the little dusty bit of garden attached to her\nsmall official residence, with little windows like the eyes in needles,\nand little doors like the covers of school-books.\n\nSmall, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher;\ncherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pincushion, a little\nhousewife, a little book, a little workbox, a little set of tables and\nweights and measures, and a little woman, all in one. She could write\na little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at the\nleft-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of the\nother, and the essay should be strictly according to rule. If Mr Bradley\nHeadstone had addressed a written proposal of marriage to her, she would\nprobably have replied in a complete little essay on the theme exactly a\nslate long, but would certainly have replied Yes. For she loved him. The\ndecent hair-guard that went round his neck and took care of his decent\nsilver watch was an object of envy to her. So would Miss Peecher have\ngone round his neck and taken care of him. Of him, insensible. Because\nhe did not love Miss Peecher.\n\nMiss Peecher's favourite pupil, who assisted her in her little\nhousehold, was in attendance with a can of water to replenish her little\nwatering-pot, and sufficiently divined the state of Miss Peecher's\naffections to feel it necessary that she herself should love young\nCharley Hexam. So, there was a double palpitation among the double\nstocks and double wall-flowers, when the master and the boy looked over\nthe little gate.\n\n'A fine evening, Miss Peecher,' said the Master.\n\n'A very fine evening, Mr Headstone,' said Miss Peecher. 'Are you taking\na walk?'\n\n'Hexam and I are going to take a long walk.'\n\n'Charming weather,' remarked Miss Peecher, 'FOR a long walk.'\n\n'Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure,' said the Master. Miss\nPeecher inverting her watering-pot, and very carefully shaking out the\nfew last drops over a flower, as if there were some special virtue in\nthem which would make it a Jack's beanstalk before morning, called for\nreplenishment to her pupil, who had been speaking to the boy.\n\n'Good-night, Miss Peecher,' said the Master.\n\n'Good-night, Mr Headstone,' said the Mistress.\n\nThe pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued with the\nclass-custom of stretching out an arm, as if to hail a cab or omnibus,\nwhenever she found she had an observation on hand to offer to Miss\nPeecher, that she often did it in their domestic relations; and she did\nit now.\n\n'Well, Mary Anne?' said Miss Peecher.\n\n'If you please, ma'am, Hexam said they were going to see his sister.'\n\n'But that can't be, I think,' returned Miss Peecher: 'because Mr\nHeadstone can have no business with HER.'\n\nMary Anne again hailed.\n\n'Well, Mary Anne?'\n\n'If you please, ma'am, perhaps it's Hexam's business?'\n\n'That may be,' said Miss Peecher. 'I didn't think of that. Not that it\nmatters at all.'\n\nMary Anne again hailed.\n\n'Well, Mary Anne?'\n\n'They say she's very handsome.'\n\n'Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne!' returned Miss Peecher, slightly colouring\nand shaking her head, a little out of humour; 'how often have I told you\nnot to use that vague expression, not to speak in that general way? When\nyou say THEY say, what do you mean? Part of speech They?'\n\nMary Anne hooked her right arm behind her in her left hand, as being\nunder examination, and replied:\n\n'Personal pronoun.'\n\n'Person, They?'\n\n'Third person.'\n\n'Number, They?'\n\n'Plural number.'\n\n'Then how many do you mean, Mary Anne? Two? Or more?'\n\n'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' said Mary Anne, disconcerted now she came\nto think of it; 'but I don't know that I mean more than her brother\nhimself.' As she said it, she unhooked her arm.\n\n'I felt convinced of it,' returned Miss Peecher, smiling again. 'Now\npray, Mary Anne, be careful another time. He says is very different from\nthey say, remember. Difference between he says and they say? Give it\nme.'\n\nMary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her in her left\nhand--an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation--and replied:\n'One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verb\nactive to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third person\nplural, verb active to say.'\n\n'Why verb active, Mary Anne?'\n\n'Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, Miss\nPeecher.'\n\n'Very good indeed,' remarked Miss Peecher, with encouragement. 'In fact,\ncould not be better. Don't forget to apply it, another time, Mary Anne.'\nThis said, Miss Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, and\nwent into her little official residence, and took a refresher of the\nprincipal rivers and mountains of the world, their breadths, depths, and\nheights, before settling the measurements of the body of a dress for her\nown personal occupation.\n\nBradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side of\nWestminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along the Middlesex\nshore towards Millbank. In this region are a certain little street\ncalled Church Street, and a certain little blind square, called Smith\nSquare, in the centre of which last retreat is a very hideous church\nwith four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some\npetrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legs\nin the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and a blacksmith's\nforge, and a timber yard, and a dealer's in old iron. What a rusty\nportion of a boiler and a great iron wheel or so meant by lying\nhalf-buried in the dealer's fore-court, nobody seemed to know or to want\nto know. Like the Miller of questionable jollity in the song, They cared\nfor Nobody, no not they, and Nobody cared for them.\n\nAfter making the round of this place, and noting that there was a deadly\nkind of repose on it, more as though it had taken laudanum than fallen\ninto a natural rest, they stopped at the point where the street and the\nsquare joined, and where there were some little quiet houses in a row.\nTo these Charley Hexam finally led the way, and at one of these stopped.\n\n'This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she came for a\ntemporary lodging, soon after father's death.'\n\n'How often have you seen her since?'\n\n'Why, only twice, sir,' returned the boy, with his former reluctance;\n'but that's as much her doing as mine.'\n\n'How does she support herself?'\n\n'She was always a fair needlewoman, and she keeps the stockroom of a\nseaman's outfitter.'\n\n'Does she ever work at her own lodging here?'\n\n'Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation are at their\nplace of business, I believe, sir. This is the number.'\n\nThe boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with a spring\nand a click. A parlour door within a small entry stood open, and\ndisclosed a child--a dwarf--a girl--a something--sitting on a little low\nold-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working bench before\nit.\n\n'I can't get up,' said the child, 'because my back's bad, and my legs\nare queer. But I'm the person of the house.'\n\n'Who else is at home?' asked Charley Hexam, staring.\n\n'Nobody's at home at present,' returned the child, with a glib assertion\nof her dignity, 'except the person of the house. What did you want,\nyoung man?'\n\n'I wanted to see my sister.'\n\n'Many young men have sisters,' returned the child. 'Give me your name,\nyoung man?'\n\nThe queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, with\nits bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the manner\nseemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, it must be\nsharp.\n\n'Hexam is my name.'\n\n'Ah, indeed?' said the person of the house. 'I thought it might be. Your\nsister will be in, in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of your\nsister. She's my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman's\nname?'\n\n'Mr Headstone, my schoolmaster.'\n\n'Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? I\ncan't very well do it myself; because my back's so bad, and my legs are\nso queer.'\n\nThey complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work of\ngumming or gluing together with a camel's-hair brush certain pieces\nof cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The\nscissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut\nthem; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn\nupon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was\nthere), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble\nfingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately\ntogether by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors\nout of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all\nher other sharpness.\n\n'You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound,' she said, after\ntaking several of these observations.\n\n'You make pincushions,' said Charley.\n\n'What else do I make?'\n\n'Pen-wipers,' said Bradley Headstone.\n\n'Ha! ha! What else do I make? You're a schoolmaster, but you can't tell\nme.'\n\n'You do something,' he returned, pointing to a corner of the little\nbench, 'with straw; but I don't know what.'\n\n'Well done you!' cried the person of the house. 'I only make pincushions\nand pen-wipers, to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong to\nmy business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?'\n\n'Dinner-mats?'\n\n'A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I'll give you a clue to my trade,\nin a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she's Beautiful;\nI hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign of\nthe Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name's Bouncer, and\nshe lives in Bedlam.--Now, what do I make with my straw?'\n\n'Ladies' bonnets?'\n\n'Fine ladies',' said the person of the house, nodding assent. 'Dolls'.\nI'm a Doll's Dressmaker.'\n\n'I hope it's a good business?'\n\nThe person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. 'No.\nPoorly paid. And I'm often so pressed for time! I had a doll married,\nlast week, and was obliged to work all night. And it's not good for me,\non account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer.'\n\nThey looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish,\nand the schoolmaster said: 'I am sorry your fine ladies are so\ninconsiderate.'\n\n'It's the way with them,' said the person of the house, shrugging her\nshoulders again. 'And they take no care of their clothes, and they\nnever keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three\ndaughters. Bless you, she's enough to ruin her husband!' The person of\nthe house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look out\nof the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of\ngreat expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin\nup. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires.\n\n'Are you always as busy as you are now?'\n\n'Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day\nbefore yesterday. Doll I work for, lost a canary-bird.' The person of\nthe house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head several\ntimes, as who should moralize, 'Oh this world, this world!'\n\n'Are you alone all day?' asked Bradley Headstone. 'Don't any of the\nneighbouring children--?'\n\n'Ah, lud!' cried the person of the house, with a little scream, as\nif the word had pricked her. 'Don't talk of children. I can't bear\nchildren. I know their tricks and their manners.' She said this with an\nangry little shake of her tight fist close before her eyes.\n\nPerhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit, to perceive that the\ndoll's dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference between\nherself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so.\n\n'Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting,\nalways skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it for their\ngames! Oh! I know their tricks and their manners!' Shaking the little\nfist as before. 'And that's not all. Ever so often calling names in\nthrough a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh!\nI know their tricks and their manners. And I'll tell you what I'd do, to\npunish 'em. There's doors under the church in the Square--black doors,\nleading into black vaults. Well! I'd open one of those doors, and I'd\ncram 'em all in, and then I'd lock the door and through the keyhole I'd\nblow in pepper.'\n\n'What would be the good of blowing in pepper?' asked Charley Hexam.\n\n'To set 'em sneezing,' said the person of the house, 'and make their\neyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I'd mock 'em\nthrough the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners,\nmock a person through a person's keyhole!'\n\nAn uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes,\nseemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added\nwith recovered composure, 'No, no, no. No children for me. Give me\ngrown-ups.'\n\nIt was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poor\nfigure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and so\nold. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark.\n\n'I always did like grown-ups,' she went on, 'and always kept company\nwith them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don't go prancing and capering\nabout! And I mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till I marry.\nI suppose I must make up my mind to marry, one of these days.'\n\nShe listened to a step outside that caught her ear, and there was a soft\nknock at the door. Pulling at a handle within her reach, she said,\nwith a pleased laugh: 'Now here, for instance, is a grown-up that's my\nparticular friend!' and Lizzie Hexam in a black dress entered the room.\n\n'Charley! You!'\n\nTaking him to her arms in the old way--of which he seemed a little\nashamed--she saw no one else.\n\n'There, there, there, Liz, all right my dear. See! Here's Mr Headstone\ncome with me.'\n\nHer eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently expected\nto see a very different sort of person, and a murmured word or two\nof salutation passed between them. She was a little flurried by the\nunexpected visit, and the schoolmaster was not at his ease. But he never\nwas, quite.\n\n'I told Mr Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but he was so kind as to\ntake an interest in coming, and so I brought him. How well you look!'\n\nBradley seemed to think so.\n\n'Ah! Don't she, don't she?' cried the person of the house, resuming her\noccupation, though the twilight was falling fast. 'I believe you she\ndoes! But go on with your chat, one and all:\n\n     You one two three,\n     My com-pa-nie,\n     And don't mind me.'\n\n--pointing this impromptu rhyme with three points of her thin\nfore-finger.\n\n'I didn't expect a visit from you, Charley,' said his sister. 'I\nsupposed that if you wanted to see me you would have sent to me,\nappointing me to come somewhere near the school, as I did last time.\nI saw my brother near the school, sir,' to Bradley Headstone, 'because\nit's easier for me to go there, than for him to come here. I work about\nmidway between the two places.'\n\n'You don't see much of one another,' said Bradley, not improving in\nrespect of ease.\n\n'No.' With a rather sad shake of her head. 'Charley always does well, Mr\nHeadstone?'\n\n'He could not do better. I regard his course as quite plain before him.'\n\n'I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley dear! It is\nbetter for me not to come (except when he wants me) between him and his\nprospects. You think so, Mr Headstone?'\n\nConscious that his pupil-teacher was looking for his answer, that he\nhimself had suggested the boy's keeping aloof from this sister, now seen\nfor the first time face to face, Bradley Headstone stammered:\n\n'Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He has to work hard. One\ncannot but say that the less his attention is diverted from his work,\nthe better for his future. When he shall have established himself, why\nthen--it will be another thing then.'\n\nLizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet smile: 'I always\nadvised him as you advise him. Did I not, Charley?'\n\n'Well, never mind that now,' said the boy. 'How are you getting on?'\n\n'Very well, Charley. I want for nothing.'\n\n'You have your own room here?'\n\n'Oh yes. Upstairs. And it's quiet, and pleasant, and airy.'\n\n'And she always has the use of this room for visitors,' said the\nperson of the house, screwing up one of her little bony fists, like an\nopera-glass, and looking through it, with her eyes and her chin in that\nquaint accordance. 'Always this room for visitors; haven't you, Lizzie\ndear?'\n\nIt happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight action of\nLizzie Hexam's hand, as though it checked the doll's dressmaker. And it\nhappened that the latter noticed him in the same instant; for she made\na double eyeglass of her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried,\nwith a waggish shake of her head: 'Aha! Caught you spying, did I?'\n\nIt might have fallen out so, any way; but Bradley Headstone also noticed\nthat immediately after this, Lizzie, who had not taken off her bonnet,\nrather hurriedly proposed that as the room was getting dark they should\ngo out into the air. They went out; the visitors saying good-night to\nthe doll's dressmaker, whom they left, leaning back in her chair with\nher arms crossed, singing to herself in a sweet thoughtful little voice.\n\n'I'll saunter on by the river,' said Bradley. 'You will be glad to talk\ntogether.'\n\nAs his uneasy figure went on before them among the evening shadows, the\nboy said to his sister, petulantly:\n\n'When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian sort of place,\nLiz? I thought you were going to do it before now.'\n\n'I am very well where I am, Charley.'\n\n'Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought Mr Headstone with\nme. How came you to get into such company as that little witch's?'\n\n'By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it must have\nbeen by something more than chance, for that child--You remember the\nbills upon the walls at home?'\n\n'Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to forget the bills\nupon the walls at home, and it would be better for you to do the same,'\ngrumbled the boy. 'Well; what of them?'\n\n'This child is the grandchild of the old man.'\n\n'What old man?'\n\n'The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and the night-cap.'\n\nThe boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed vexation\nat hearing so much, and half curiosity to hear more: 'How came you to\nmake that out? What a girl you are!'\n\n'The child's father is employed by the house that employs me; that's how\nI came to know it, Charley. The father is like his own father, a weak\nwretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, never sober. But a good\nworkman too, at the work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailing\nlittle creature has come to be what she is, surrounded by drunken people\nfrom her cradle--if she ever had one, Charley.'\n\n'I don't see what you have to do with her, for all that,' said the boy.\n\n'Don't you, Charley?'\n\nThe boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at Millbank, and\nthe river rolled on their left. His sister gently touched him on the\nshoulder, and pointed to it.\n\n'Any compensation--restitution--never mind the word, you know my\nmeaning. Father's grave.'\n\nBut he did not respond with any tenderness. After a moody silence he\nbroke out in an ill-used tone:\n\n'It'll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my best to get up\nin the world, you pull me back.'\n\n'I, Charley?'\n\n'Yes, you, Liz. Why can't you let bygones be bygones? Why can't you, as\nMr Headstone said to me this very evening about another matter, leave\nwell alone? What we have got to do, is, to turn our faces full in our\nnew direction, and keep straight on.'\n\n'And never look back? Not even to try to make some amends?'\n\n'You are such a dreamer,' said the boy, with his former petulance. 'It\nwas all very well when we sat before the fire--when we looked into the\nhollow down by the flare--but we are looking into the real world, now.'\n\n'Ah, we were looking into the real world then, Charley!'\n\n'I understand what you mean by that, but you are not justified in it. I\ndon't want, as I raise myself to shake you off, Liz. I want to carry you\nup with me. That's what I want to do, and mean to do. I know what I owe\nyou. I said to Mr Headstone this very evening, \"After all, my sister got\nme here.\" Well, then. Don't pull me back, and hold me down. That's all I\nask, and surely that's not unconscionable.'\n\nShe had kept a steadfast look upon him, and she answered with composure:\n\n'I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself I could not be too\nfar from that river.'\n\n'Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get quit of it\nequally. Why should you linger about it any more than I? I give it a\nwide berth.'\n\n'I can't get away from it, I think,' said Lizzie, passing her hand\nacross her forehead. 'It's no purpose of mine that I live by it still.'\n\n'There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your own\naccord in a house with a drunken--tailor, I suppose--or something of the\nsort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or whatever\nit is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, do\nbe more practical.'\n\nShe had been practical enough with him, in suffering and striving\nfor him; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder--not\nreproachfully--and tapped it twice or thrice. She had been used to\ndo so, to soothe him when she carried him about, a child as heavy as\nherself. Tears started to his eyes.\n\n'Upon my word, Liz,' drawing the back of his hand across them, 'I mean\nto be a good brother to you, and to prove that I know what I owe you.\nAll I say is, that I hope you'll control your fancies a little, on my\naccount. I'll get a school, and then you must come and live with me,\nand you'll have to control your fancies then, so why not now? Now, say I\nhaven't vexed you.'\n\n'You haven't, Charley, you haven't.'\n\n'And say I haven't hurt you.'\n\n'You haven't, Charley.' But this answer was less ready.\n\n'Say you are sure I didn't mean to. Come! There's Mr Headstone stopping\nand looking over the wall at the tide, to hint that it's time to go.\nKiss me, and tell me that you know I didn't mean to hurt you.'\n\nShe told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and came up with the\nschoolmaster.\n\n'But we go your sister's way,' he remarked, when the boy told him he was\nready. And with his cumbrous and uneasy action he stiffly offered her\nhis arm. Her hand was just within it, when she drew it back. He looked\nround with a start, as if he thought she had detected something that\nrepelled her, in the momentary touch.\n\n'I will not go in just yet,' said Lizzie. 'And you have a distance\nbefore you, and will walk faster without me.'\n\nBeing by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, in\nconsequence, to take that way over the Thames, and they left her;\nBradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, and she thanking him\nfor his care of her brother.\n\nThe master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. They had\nnearly crossed the bridge, when a gentleman came coolly sauntering\ntowards them, with a cigar in his mouth, his coat thrown back, and his\nhands behind him. Something in the careless manner of this person,\nand in a certain lazily arrogant air with which he approached, holding\npossession of twice as much pavement as another would have claimed,\ninstantly caught the boy's attention. As the gentleman passed the boy\nlooked at him narrowly, and then stood still, looking after him.\n\n'Who is it that you stare after?' asked Bradley.\n\n'Why!' said the boy, with a confused and pondering frown upon his face,\n'It IS that Wrayburn one!'\n\nBradley Headstone scrutinized the boy as closely as the boy had\nscrutinized the gentleman.\n\n'I beg your pardon, Mr Headstone, but I couldn't help wondering what in\nthe world brought HIM here!'\n\nThough he said it as if his wonder were past--at the same time resuming\nthe walk--it was not lost upon the master that he looked over his\nshoulder after speaking, and that the same perplexed and pondering frown\nwas heavy on his face.\n\n'You don't appear to like your friend, Hexam?'\n\n'I DON'T like him,' said the boy.\n\n'Why not?'\n\n'He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent way, the first\ntime I ever saw him,' said the boy.\n\n'Again, why?'\n\n'For nothing. Or--it's much the same--because something I happened to\nsay about my sister didn't happen to please him.'\n\n'Then he knows your sister?'\n\n'He didn't at that time,' said the boy, still moodily pondering.\n\n'Does now?'\n\nThe boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr Bradley Headstone\nas they walked on side by side, without attempting to reply until the\nquestion had been repeated; then he nodded and answered, 'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Going to see her, I dare say.'\n\n'It can't be!' said the boy, quickly. 'He doesn't know her well enough.\nI should like to catch him at it!'\n\nWhen they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than before, the master\nsaid, clasping the pupil's arm between the elbow and the shoulder with\nhis hand:\n\n'You were going to tell me something about that person. What did you say\nhis name was?'\n\n'Wrayburn. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they call a barrister, with\nnothing to do. The first time he came to our old place was when my\nfather was alive. He came on business; not that it was HIS business--HE\nnever had any business--he was brought by a friend of his.'\n\n'And the other times?'\n\n'There was only one other time that I know of. When my father was killed\nby accident, he chanced to be one of the finders. He was mooning about,\nI suppose, taking liberties with people's chins; but there he was,\nsomehow. He brought the news home to my sister early in the morning, and\nbrought Miss Abbey Potterson, a neighbour, to help break it to her.\nHe was mooning about the house when I was fetched home in the\nafternoon--they didn't know where to find me till my sister could be\nbrought round sufficiently to tell them--and then he mooned away.'\n\n'And is that all?'\n\n'That's all, sir.'\n\nBradley Headstone gradually released the boy's arm, as if he were\nthoughtful, and they walked on side by side as before. After a long\nsilence between them, Bradley resumed the talk.\n\n'I suppose--your sister--' with a curious break both before and after\nthe words, 'has received hardly any teaching, Hexam?'\n\n'Hardly any, sir.'\n\n'Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father's objections. I remember them in\nyour case. Yet--your sister--scarcely looks or speaks like an ignorant\nperson.'\n\n'Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr Headstone. Too much,\nperhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire at home, her books,\nfor she was always full of fancies--sometimes quite wise fancies,\nconsidering--when she sat looking at it.'\n\n'I don't like that,' said Bradley Headstone.\n\nHis pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so sudden\nand decided and emotional an objection, but took it as a proof of the\nmaster's interest in himself. It emboldened him to say:\n\n'I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, Mr Headstone,\nand you're my witness that I couldn't even make up my mind to take it\nfrom you before we came out to-night; but it's a painful thing to think\nthat if I get on as well as you hope, I shall be--I won't say disgraced,\nbecause I don't mean disgraced-but--rather put to the blush if it was\nknown--by a sister who has been very good to me.'\n\n'Yes,' said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his mind scarcely\nseemed to touch that point, so smoothly did it glide to another, 'and\nthere is this possibility to consider. Some man who had worked his way\nmight come to admire--your sister--and might even in time bring himself\nto think of marrying--your sister--and it would be a sad drawback and a\nheavy penalty upon him, if; overcoming in his mind other inequalities of\ncondition and other considerations against it, this inequality and this\nconsideration remained in full force.'\n\n'That's much my own meaning, sir.'\n\n'Ay, ay,' said Bradley Headstone, 'but you spoke of a mere brother.\nNow, the case I have supposed would be a much stronger case; because an\nadmirer, a husband, would form the connexion voluntarily, besides being\nobliged to proclaim it: which a brother is not. After all, you know, it\nmust be said of you that you couldn't help yourself: while it would be\nsaid of him, with equal reason, that he could.'\n\n'That's true, sir. Sometimes since Lizzie was left free by father's\ndeath, I have thought that such a young woman might soon acquire more\nthan enough to pass muster. And sometimes I have even thought that\nperhaps Miss Peecher--'\n\n'For the purpose, I would advise Not Miss Peecher,' Bradley Headstone\nstruck in with a recurrence of his late decision of manner.\n\n'Would you be so kind as to think of it for me, Mr Headstone?'\n\n'Yes, Hexam, yes. I'll think of it. I'll think maturely of it. I'll\nthink well of it.'\n\nTheir walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it ended at the\nschool-house. There, one of neat Miss Peecher's little windows, like the\neyes in needles, was illuminated, and in a corner near it sat Mary Anne\nwatching, while Miss Peecher at the table stitched at the neat little\nbody she was making up by brown paper pattern for her own wearing. N.B.\nMiss Peecher and Miss Peecher's pupils were not much encouraged in the\nunscholastic art of needlework, by Government.\n\nMary Anne with her face to the window, held her arm up.\n\n'Well, Mary Anne?'\n\n'Mr Headstone coming home, ma'am.'\n\nIn about a minute, Mary Anne again hailed.\n\n'Yes, Mary Anne?'\n\n'Gone in and locked his door, ma'am.'\n\nMiss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work together for bed,\nand transfixed that part of her dress where her heart would have been if\nshe had had the dress on, with a sharp, sharp needle.\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nSTILL EDUCATIONAL\n\n\nThe person of the house, doll's dressmaker and manufacturer of\nornamental pincushions and pen-wipers, sat in her quaint little low\narm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back. The person\nof the house had attained that dignity while yet of very tender years\nindeed, through being the only trustworthy person IN the house.\n\n'Well Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie,' said she, breaking off in her song, 'what's\nthe news out of doors?'\n\n'What's the news in doors?' returned Lizzie, playfully smoothing the\nbright long fair hair which grew very luxuriant and beautiful on the\nhead of the doll's dressmaker.\n\n'Let me see, said the blind man. Why the last news is, that I don't mean\nto marry your brother.'\n\n'No?'\n\n'No-o,' shaking her head and her chin. 'Don't like the boy.'\n\n'What do you say to his master?'\n\n'I say that I think he's bespoke.'\n\nLizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the misshapen\nshoulders, and then lighted a candle. It showed the little parlour to\nbe dingy, but orderly and clean. She stood it on the mantelshelf, remote\nfrom the dressmaker's eyes, and then put the room door open, and the\nhouse door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant\ntowards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was a\nfine-weather arrangement when the day's work was done. To complete\nit, she seated herself in a chair by the side of the little chair, and\nprotectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her.\n\n'This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time in the day and\nnight,' said the person of the house. Her real name was Fanny Cleaver;\nbut she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation of\nMiss Jenny Wren.\n\n'I have been thinking,' Jenny went on, 'as I sat at work to-day, what\na thing it would be, if I should be able to have your company till I am\nmarried, or at least courted. Because when I am courted, I shall make\nHim do some of the things that you do for me. He couldn't brush my hair\nlike you do, or help me up and down stairs like you do, and he couldn't\ndo anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could\ncall for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. I'LL trot him\nabout, I can tell him!'\n\nJenny Wren had her personal vanities--happily for her--and no intentions\nwere stronger in her breast than the various trials and torments that\nwere, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon 'him.'\n\n'Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happen\nto be,' said Miss Wren, 'I know his tricks and his manners, and I give\nhim warning to look out.'\n\n'Don't you think you are rather hard upon him?' asked her friend,\nsmiling, and smoothing her hair.\n\n'Not a bit,' replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast experience.\n'My dear, they don't care for you, those fellows, if you're NOT hard\nupon 'em. But I was saying If I should be able to have your company. Ah!\nWhat a large If! Ain't it?'\n\n'I have no intention of parting company, Jenny.'\n\n'Don't say that, or you'll go directly.'\n\n'Am I so little to be relied upon?'\n\n'You're more to be relied upon than silver and gold.' As she said it,\nMiss Wren suddenly broke off, screwed up her eyes and her chin, and\nlooked prodigiously knowing. 'Aha!\n\n     Who comes here?\n     A Grenadier.\n     What does he want?\n     A pot of beer.\n\nAnd nothing else in the world, my dear!'\n\nA man's figure paused on the pavement at the outer door. 'Mr Eugene\nWrayburn, ain't it?' said Miss Wren.\n\n'So I am told,' was the answer.\n\n'You may come in, if you're good.'\n\n'I am not good,' said Eugene, 'but I'll come in.'\n\nHe gave his hand to Jenny Wren, and he gave his hand to Lizzie, and he\nstood leaning by the door at Lizzie's side. He had been strolling with\nhis cigar, he said, (it was smoked out and gone by this time,) and he\nhad strolled round to return in that direction that he might look in as\nhe passed. Had she not seen her brother to-night?\n\n'Yes,' said Lizzie, whose manner was a little troubled.\n\nGracious condescension on our brother's part! Mr Eugene Wrayburn thought\nhe had passed my young gentleman on the bridge yonder. Who was his\nfriend with him?\n\n'The schoolmaster.'\n\n'To be sure. Looked like it.'\n\nLizzie sat so still, that one could not have said wherein the fact of\nher manner being troubled was expressed; and yet one could not have\ndoubted it. Eugene was as easy as ever; but perhaps, as she sat with\nher eyes cast down, it might have been rather more perceptible that\nhis attention was concentrated upon her for certain moments, than its\nconcentration upon any subject for any short time ever was, elsewhere.\n\n'I have nothing to report, Lizzie,' said Eugene. 'But, having promised\nyou that an eye should be always kept on Mr Riderhood through my friend\nLightwood, I like occasionally to renew my assurance that I keep my\npromise, and keep my friend up to the mark.'\n\n'I should not have doubted it, sir.'\n\n'Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted,' returned Eugene,\ncoolly, 'for all that.'\n\n'Why are you?' asked the sharp Miss Wren.\n\n'Because, my dear,' said the airy Eugene, 'I am a bad idle dog.'\n\n'Then why don't you reform and be a good dog?' inquired Miss Wren.\n\n'Because, my dear,' returned Eugene, 'there's nobody who makes it worth\nmy while. Have you considered my suggestion, Lizzie?' This in a lower\nvoice, but only as if it were a graver matter; not at all to the\nexclusion of the person of the house.\n\n'I have thought of it, Mr Wrayburn, but I have not been able to make up\nmy mind to accept it.'\n\n'False pride!' said Eugene.\n\n'I think not, Mr Wrayburn. I hope not.'\n\n'False pride!' repeated Eugene. 'Why, what else is it? The thing is\nworth nothing in itself. The thing is worth nothing to me. What can it\nbe worth to me? You know the most I make of it. I propose to be of some\nuse to somebody--which I never was in this world, and never shall be on\nany other occasion--by paying some qualified person of your own sex and\nage, so many (or rather so few) contemptible shillings, to come here,\ncertain nights in the week, and give you certain instruction which you\nwouldn't want if you hadn't been a self-denying daughter and sister.\nYou know that it's good to have it, or you would never have so devoted\nyourself to your brother's having it. Then why not have it: especially\nwhen our friend Miss Jenny here would profit by it too? If I proposed to\nbe the teacher, or to attend the lessons--obviously incongruous!--but\nas to that, I might as well be on the other side of the globe, or not\non the globe at all. False pride, Lizzie. Because true pride wouldn't\nshame, or be shamed by, your thankless brother. True pride wouldn't have\nschoolmasters brought here, like doctors, to look at a bad case. True\npride would go to work and do it. You know that, well enough, for you\nknow that your own true pride would do it to-morrow, if you had the ways\nand means which false pride won't let me supply. Very well. I add no\nmore than this. Your false pride does wrong to yourself and does wrong\nto your dead father.'\n\n'How to my father, Mr Wrayburn?' she asked, with an anxious face.\n\n'How to your father? Can you ask! By perpetuating the consequences of\nhis ignorant and blind obstinacy. By resolving not to set right the\nwrong he did you. By determining that the deprivation to which he\ncondemned you, and which he forced upon you, shall always rest upon his\nhead.'\n\nIt chanced to be a subtle string to sound, in her who had so spoken to\nher brother within the hour. It sounded far more forcibly, because of\nthe change in the speaker for the moment; the passing appearance of\nearnestness, complete conviction, injured resentment of suspicion,\ngenerous and unselfish interest. All these qualities, in him usually so\nlight and careless, she felt to be inseparable from some touch of their\nopposites in her own breast. She thought, had she, so far below him\nand so different, rejected this disinterestedness, because of some vain\nmisgiving that he sought her out, or heeded any personal attractions\nthat he might descry in her? The poor girl, pure of heart and purpose,\ncould not bear to think it. Sinking before her own eyes, as she\nsuspected herself of it, she drooped her head as though she had done him\nsome wicked and grievous injury, and broke into silent tears.\n\n'Don't be distressed,' said Eugene, very, very kindly. 'I hope it is not\nI who have distressed you. I meant no more than to put the matter in its\ntrue light before you; though I acknowledge I did it selfishly enough,\nfor I am disappointed.'\n\nDisappointed of doing her a service. How else COULD he be disappointed?\n\n'It won't break my heart,' laughed Eugene; 'it won't stay by me\neight-and-forty hours; but I am genuinely disappointed. I had set my\nfancy on doing this little thing for you and for our friend Miss Jenny.\nThe novelty of my doing anything in the least useful, had its charms. I\nsee, now, that I might have managed it better. I might have affected to\ndo it wholly for our friend Miss J. I might have got myself up, morally,\nas Sir Eugene Bountiful. But upon my soul I can't make flourishes, and I\nwould rather be disappointed than try.'\n\nIf he meant to follow home what was in Lizzie's thoughts, it was\nskilfully done. If he followed it by mere fortuitous coincidence, it was\ndone by an evil chance.\n\n'It opened out so naturally before me,' said Eugene. 'The ball seemed so\nthrown into my hands by accident! I happen to be originally brought into\ncontact with you, Lizzie, on those two occasions that you know of. I\nhappen to be able to promise you that a watch shall be kept upon that\nfalse accuser, Riderhood. I happen to be able to give you some little\nconsolation in the darkest hour of your distress, by assuring you that I\ndon't believe him. On the same occasion I tell you that I am the idlest\nand least of lawyers, but that I am better than none, in a case I have\nnoted down with my own hand, and that you may be always sure of my best\nhelp, and incidentally of Lightwood's too, in your efforts to clear\nyour father. So, it gradually takes my fancy that I may help you--so\neasily!--to clear your father of that other blame which I mentioned\na few minutes ago, and which is a just and real one. I hope I have\nexplained myself; for I am heartily sorry to have distressed you. I hate\nto claim to mean well, but I really did mean honestly and simply well,\nand I want you to know it.'\n\n'I have never doubted that, Mr Wrayburn,' said Lizzie; the more\nrepentant, the less he claimed.\n\n'I am very glad to hear it. Though if you had quite understood my whole\nmeaning at first, I think you would not have refused. Do you think you\nwould?'\n\n'I--don't know that I should, Mr Wrayburn.'\n\n'Well! Then why refuse now you do understand it?'\n\n'It's not easy for me to talk to you,' returned Lizzie, in some\nconfusion, 'for you see all the consequences of what I say, as soon as I\nsay it.'\n\n'Take all the consequences,' laughed Eugene, 'and take away my\ndisappointment. Lizzie Hexam, as I truly respect you, and as I am your\nfriend and a poor devil of a gentleman, I protest I don't even now\nunderstand why you hesitate.'\n\nThere was an appearance of openness, trustfulness, unsuspecting\ngenerosity, in his words and manner, that won the poor girl over; and\nnot only won her over, but again caused her to feel as though she had\nbeen influenced by the opposite qualities, with vanity at their head.\n\n'I will not hesitate any longer, Mr Wrayburn. I hope you will not\nthink the worse of me for having hesitated at all. For myself and for\nJenny--you let me answer for you, Jenny dear?'\n\nThe little creature had been leaning back, attentive, with her elbows\nresting on the elbows of her chair, and her chin upon her hands. Without\nchanging her attitude, she answered, 'Yes!' so suddenly that it rather\nseemed as if she had chopped the monosyllable than spoken it.\n\n'For myself and for Jenny, I thankfully accept your kind offer.'\n\n'Agreed! Dismissed!' said Eugene, giving Lizzie his hand before lightly\nwaving it, as if he waved the whole subject away. 'I hope it may not be\noften that so much is made of so little!'\n\nThen he fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren. 'I think of setting\nup a doll, Miss Jenny,' he said.\n\n'You had better not,' replied the dressmaker.\n\n'Why not?'\n\n'You are sure to break it. All you children do.'\n\n'But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren,' returned Eugene.\n'Much as people's breaking promises and contracts and bargains of all\nsorts, makes good for MY trade.'\n\n'I don't know about that,' Miss Wren retorted; 'but you had better by\nhalf set up a pen-wiper, and turn industrious, and use it.'\n\n'Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little Busy-Body, we should\nbegin to work as soon as we could crawl, and there would be a bad\nthing!'\n\n'Do you mean,' returned the little creature, with a flush suffusing her\nface, 'bad for your backs and your legs?'\n\n'No, no, no,' said Eugene; shocked--to do him justice--at the thought of\ntrifling with her infirmity. 'Bad for business, bad for business. If we\nall set to work as soon as we could use our hands, it would be all over\nwith the dolls' dressmakers.'\n\n'There's something in that,' replied Miss Wren; 'you have a sort of an\nidea in your noddle sometimes.' Then, in a changed tone; 'Talking of\nideas, my Lizzie,' they were sitting side by side as they had sat at\nfirst, 'I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here,\nall alone in the summer-time, I smell flowers.'\n\n'As a commonplace individual, I should say,' Eugene suggested\nlanguidly--for he was growing weary of the person of the house--'that\nyou smell flowers because you DO smell flowers.'\n\n'No I don't,' said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow\nof her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly\nbefore her; 'this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It's anything but\nthat. And yet as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses,\ntill I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the\nfloor. I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand--so--and expect to\nmake them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and\nall sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very few\nflowers indeed, in my life.'\n\n'Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!' said her friend: with a glance\ntowards Eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were given\nthe child in compensation for her losses.\n\n'So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!'\ncried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, 'how\nthey sing!'\n\nThere was something in the face and action for the moment, quite\ninspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand\nagain.\n\n'I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell\nbetter than other flowers. For when I was a little child,' in a tone as\nthough it were ages ago, 'the children that I used to see early in the\nmorning were very different from any others that I ever saw. They were\nnot like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they\nwere never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbours;\nthey never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises, and\nthey never mocked me. Such numbers of them too! All in white dresses,\nand with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I\nhave never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so\nwell. They used to come down in long bright slanting rows, and say all\ntogether, \"Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!\" When I told them\nwho it was, they answered, \"Come and play with us!\" When I said \"I never\nplay! I can't play!\" they swept about me and took me up, and made me\nlight. Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me\ndown, and said, all together, \"Have patience, and we will come again.\"\nWhenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I saw\nthe long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off,\n\"Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!\" And I used to cry out, \"O my\nblessed children, it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make me\nlight!\"'\n\nBy degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised,\nthe late ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful. Having\nso paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face,\nshe looked round and recalled herself.\n\n'What poor fun you think me; don't you, Mr Wrayburn? You may well look\ntired of me. But it's Saturday night, and I won't detain you.'\n\n'That is to say, Miss Wren,' observed Eugene, quite ready to profit by\nthe hint, 'you wish me to go?'\n\n'Well, it's Saturday night,' she returned, 'and my child's coming\nhome. And my child is a troublesome bad child, and costs me a world of\nscolding. I would rather you didn't see my child.'\n\n'A doll?' said Eugene, not understanding, and looking for an\nexplanation.\n\nBut Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, 'Her father,' he\ndelayed no longer. He took his leave immediately. At the corner of the\nstreet he stopped to light another cigar, and possibly to ask himself\nwhat he was doing otherwise. If so, the answer was indefinite and vague.\nWho knows what he is doing, who is careless what he does!\n\nA man stumbled against him as he turned away, who mumbled some maudlin\napology. Looking after this man, Eugene saw him go in at the door by\nwhich he himself had just come out.\n\nOn the man's stumbling into the room, Lizzie rose to leave it.\n\n'Don't go away, Miss Hexam,' he said in a submissive manner, speaking\nthickly and with difficulty. 'Don't fly from unfortunate man in\nshattered state of health. Give poor invalid honour of your company. It\nain't--ain't catching.'\n\nLizzie murmured that she had something to do in her own room, and went\naway upstairs.\n\n'How's my Jenny?' said the man, timidly. 'How's my Jenny Wren, best of\nchildren, object dearest affections broken-hearted invalid?'\n\nTo which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in an attitude\nof command, replied with irresponsive asperity: 'Go along with you! Go\nalong into your corner! Get into your corner directly!'\n\nThe wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered some\nremonstrance; but not venturing to resist the person of the house,\nthought better of it, and went and sat down on a particular chair of\ndisgrace.\n\n'Oh-h-h!' cried the person of the house, pointing her little finger,\n'You bad old boy! Oh-h-h you naughty, wicked creature! WHAT do you mean\nby it?'\n\nThe shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to foot, put\nout its two hands a little way, as making overtures of peace and\nreconciliation. Abject tears stood in its eyes, and stained the blotched\nred of its cheeks. The swollen lead-coloured under lip trembled with a\nshameful whine. The whole indecorous threadbare ruin, from the broken\nshoes to the prematurely-grey scanty hair, grovelled. Not with any sense\nworthy to be called a sense, of this dire reversal of the places of\nparent and child, but in a pitiful expostulation to be let off from a\nscolding.\n\n'I know your tricks and your manners,' cried Miss Wren. 'I know where\nyou've been to!' (which indeed it did not require discernment to\ndiscover). 'Oh, you disgraceful old chap!'\n\nThe very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it laboured and\nrattled in that operation, like a blundering clock.\n\n'Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night,' pursued the person of the\nhouse, 'and all for this! WHAT do you mean by it?'\n\nThere was something in that emphasized 'What,' which absurdly frightened\nthe figure. As often as the person of the house worked her way round to\nit--even as soon as he saw that it was coming--he collapsed in an extra\ndegree.\n\n'I wish you had been taken up, and locked up,' said the person of the\nhouse. 'I wish you had been poked into cells and black holes, and run\nover by rats and spiders and beetles. I know their tricks and their\nmanners, and they'd have tickled you nicely. Ain't you ashamed of\nyourself?'\n\n'Yes, my dear,' stammered the father.\n\n'Then,' said the person of the house, terrifying him by a grand muster\nof her spirits and forces before recurring to the emphatic word, 'WHAT\ndo you mean by it?'\n\n'Circumstances over which had no control,' was the miserable creature's\nplea in extenuation.\n\n'I'LL circumstance you and control you too,' retorted the person of the\nhouse, speaking with vehement sharpness, 'if you talk in that way. I'll\ngive you in charge to the police, and have you fined five shillings when\nyou can't pay, and then I won't pay the money for you, and you'll be\ntransported for life. How should you like to be transported for life?'\n\n'Shouldn't like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble nobody long,' cried\nthe wretched figure.\n\n'Come, come!' said the person of the house, tapping the table near her\nin a business-like manner, and shaking her head and her chin; 'you know\nwhat you've got to do. Put down your money this instant.'\n\nThe obedient figure began to rummage in its pockets.\n\n'Spent a fortune out of your wages, I'll be bound!' said the person of\nthe house. 'Put it here! All you've got left! Every farthing!'\n\nSuch a business as he made of collecting it from his dogs'-eared\npockets; of expecting it in this pocket, and not finding it; of not\nexpecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; of finding no pocket\nwhere that other pocket ought to be!\n\n'Is this all?' demanded the person of the house, when a confused heap of\npence and shillings lay on the table.\n\n'Got no more,' was the rueful answer, with an accordant shake of the\nhead.\n\n'Let me make sure. You know what you've got to do. Turn all your pockets\ninside out, and leave 'em so!' cried the person of the house.\n\nHe obeyed. And if anything could have made him look more abject or more\ndismally ridiculous than before, it would have been his so displaying\nhimself.\n\n'Here's but seven and eightpence halfpenny!' exclaimed Miss Wren, after\nreducing the heap to order. 'Oh, you prodigal old son! Now you shall be\nstarved.'\n\n'No, don't starve me,' he urged, whimpering.\n\n'If you were treated as you ought to be,' said Miss Wren, 'you'd be fed\nupon the skewers of cats' meat;--only the skewers, after the cats had\nhad the meat. As it is, go to bed.'\n\nWhen he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again put out both his\nhands, and pleaded: 'Circumstances over which no control--'\n\n'Get along with you to bed!' cried Miss Wren, snapping him up. 'Don't\nspeak to me. I'm not going to forgive you. Go to bed this moment!'\n\nSeeing another emphatic 'What' upon its way, he evaded it by complying\nand was heard to shuffle heavily up stairs, and shut his door, and throw\nhimself on his bed. Within a little while afterwards, Lizzie came down.\n\n'Shall we have our supper, Jenny dear?'\n\n'Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us going,'\nreturned Miss Jenny, shrugging her shoulders.\n\nLizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the person of\nthe house than an ordinary table), and put upon it such plain fare as\nthey were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool for herself.\n\n'Now for supper! What are you thinking of, Jenny darling?'\n\n'I was thinking,' she returned, coming out of a deep study, 'what I\nwould do to Him, if he should turn out a drunkard.'\n\n'Oh, but he won't,' said Lizzie. 'You'll take care of that, beforehand.'\n\n'I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might deceive me.\nOh, my dear, all those fellows with their tricks and their manners do\ndeceive!' With the little fist in full action. 'And if so, I tell you\nwhat I think I'd do. When he was asleep, I'd make a spoon red hot, and\nI'd have some boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and I'd take it\nout hissing, and I'd open his mouth with the other hand--or perhaps he'd\nsleep with his mouth ready open--and I'd pour it down his throat, and\nblister it and choke him.'\n\n'I am sure you would do no such horrible thing,' said Lizzie.\n\n'Shouldn't I? Well; perhaps I shouldn't. But I should like to!'\n\n'I am equally sure you would not.'\n\n'Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven't\nalways lived among it as I have lived--and your back isn't bad and your\nlegs are not queer.'\n\nAs they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round to\nthat prettier and better state. But, the charm was broken. The person\nof the house was the person of a house full of sordid shames and cares,\nwith an upper room in which that abased figure was infecting even\ninnocent sleep with sensual brutality and degradation. The doll's\ndressmaker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, worldly; of\nthe earth, earthy.\n\nPoor doll's dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should\nhave raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the\neternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little doll's dressmaker!\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nA PIECE OF WORK\n\n\nBritannia, sitting meditating one fine day (perhaps in the attitude in\nwhich she is presented on the copper coinage), discovers all of a sudden\nthat she wants Veneering in Parliament. It occurs to her that Veneering\nis 'a representative man'--which cannot in these times be doubted--and\nthat Her Majesty's faithful Commons are incomplete without him. So,\nBritannia mentions to a legal gentleman of her acquaintance that if\nVeneering will 'put down' five thousand pounds, he may write a couple\nof initial letters after his name at the extremely cheap rate of two\nthousand five hundred per letter. It is clearly understood between\nBritannia and the legal gentleman that nobody is to take up the five\nthousand pounds, but that being put down they will disappear by magical\nconjuration and enchantment.\n\nThe legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence going straight from that\nlady to Veneering, thus commissioned, Veneering declares himself highly\nflattered, but requires breathing time to ascertain 'whether his friends\nwill rally round him.' Above all things, he says, it behoves him to be\nclear, at a crisis of this importance, 'whether his friends will rally\nround him.' The legal gentleman, in the interests of his client cannot\nallow much time for this purpose, as the lady rather thinks she knows\nsomebody prepared to put down six thousand pounds; but he says he will\ngive Veneering four hours.\n\nVeneering then says to Mrs Veneering, 'We must work,' and throws himself\ninto a Hansom cab. Mrs Veneering in the same moment relinquishes baby\nto Nurse; presses her aquiline hands upon her brow, to arrange the\nthrobbing intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats in\na distracted and devoted manner, compounded of Ophelia and any\nself-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, 'We must work.'\n\nVeneering having instructed his driver to charge at the Public in the\nstreets, like the Life-Guards at Waterloo, is driven furiously to Duke\nStreet, Saint James's. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodgings, fresh\nfrom the hands of a secret artist who has been doing something to his\nhair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring that Twemlow shall, for\ntwo hours after the application, allow his hair to stick upright and dry\ngradually, he is in an appropriate state for the receipt of startling\nintelligence; looking equally like the Monument on Fish Street Hill, and\nKing Priam on a certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neat\npoint from the classics.\n\n'My dear Twemlow,' says Veneering, grasping both his hands, 'as the\ndearest and oldest of my friends--'\n\n('Then there can be no more doubt about it in future,' thinks Twemlow,\n'and I AM!')\n\n'--Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would give his\nname as a Member of my Committee? I don't go so far as to ask for his\nlordship; I only ask for his name. Do you think he would give me his\nname?'\n\nIn sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, 'I don't think he would.'\n\n'My political opinions,' says Veneering, not previously aware of having\nany, 'are identical with those of Lord Snigsworth, and perhaps as a\nmatter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigsworth would\ngive me his name.'\n\n'It might be so,' says Twemlow; 'but--' And perplexedly scratching his\nhead, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is the more discomfited by being\nreminded how stickey he is.\n\n'Between such old and intimate friends as ourselves,' pursues Veneering,\n'there should in such a case be no reserve. Promise me that if I ask you\nto do anything for me which you don't like to do, or feel the slightest\ndifficulty in doing, you will freely tell me so.'\n\nThis, Twemlow is so kind as to promise, with every appearance of most\nheartily intending to keep his word.\n\n'Would you have any objection to write down to Snigsworthy Park, and ask\nthis favour of Lord Snigsworth? Of course if it were granted I should\nknow that I owed it solely to you; while at the same time you would put\nit to Lord Snigsworth entirely upon public grounds. Would you have any\nobjection?'\n\nSays Twemlow, with his hand to his forehead, 'You have exacted a promise\nfrom me.'\n\n'I have, my dear Twemlow.'\n\n'And you expect me to keep it honourably.'\n\n'I do, my dear Twemlow.'\n\n'ON the whole, then;--observe me,' urges Twemlow with great nicety, as\nif; in the case of its having been off the whole, he would have done it\ndirectly--'ON the whole, I must beg you to excuse me from addressing any\ncommunication to Lord Snigsworth.'\n\n'Bless you, bless you!' says Veneering; horribly disappointed, but\ngrasping him by both hands again, in a particularly fervent manner.\n\nIt is not to be wondered at that poor Twemlow should decline to inflict\na letter on his noble cousin (who has gout in the temper), inasmuch\nas his noble cousin, who allows him a small annuity on which he lives,\ntakes it out of him, as the phrase goes, in extreme severity; putting\nhim, when he visits at Snigsworthy Park, under a kind of martial law;\nordaining that he shall hang his hat on a particular peg, sit on a\nparticular chair, talk on particular subjects to particular people, and\nperform particular exercises: such as sounding the praises of the Family\nVarnish (not to say Pictures), and abstaining from the choicest of the\nFamily Wines unless expressly invited to partake.\n\n'One thing, however, I CAN do for you,' says Twemlow; 'and that is, work\nfor you.'\n\nVeneering blesses him again.\n\n'I'll go,' says Twemlow, in a rising hurry of spirits, 'to the\nclub;--let us see now; what o'clock is it?'\n\n'Twenty minutes to eleven.'\n\n'I'll be,' says Twemlow, 'at the club by ten minutes to twelve, and I'll\nnever leave it all day.'\n\nVeneering feels that his friends are rallying round him, and says,\n'Thank you, thank you. I knew I could rely upon you. I said to Anastatia\nbefore leaving home just now to come to you--of course the first friend\nI have seen on a subject so momentous to me, my dear Twemlow--I said to\nAnastatia, \"We must work.\"'\n\n'You were right, you were right,' replies Twemlow. 'Tell me. Is SHE\nworking?'\n\n'She is,' says Veneering.\n\n'Good!' cries Twemlow, polite little gentleman that he is. 'A woman's\ntact is invaluable. To have the dear sex with us, is to have everything\nwith us.'\n\n'But you have not imparted to me,' remarks Veneering, 'what you think of\nmy entering the House of Commons?'\n\n'I think,' rejoins Twemlow, feelingly, 'that it is the best club in\nLondon.'\n\nVeneering again blesses him, plunges down stairs, rushes into his\nHansom, and directs the driver to be up and at the British Public, and\nto charge into the City.\n\nMeanwhile Twemlow, in an increasing hurry of spirits, gets his hair down\nas well as he can--which is not very well; for, after these glutinous\napplications it is restive, and has a surface on it somewhat in the\nnature of pastry--and gets to the club by the appointed time. At the\nclub he promptly secures a large window, writing materials, and all\nthe newspapers, and establishes himself; immoveable, to be respectfully\ncontemplated by Pall Mall. Sometimes, when a man enters who nods to\nhim, Twemlow says, 'Do you know Veneering?' Man says, 'No; member of\nthe club?' Twemlow says, 'Yes. Coming in for Pocket-Breaches.' Man says,\n'Ah! Hope he may find it worth the money!' yawns, and saunters out.\nTowards six o'clock of the afternoon, Twemlow begins to persuade\nhimself that he is positively jaded with work, and thinks it much to be\nregretted that he was not brought up as a Parliamentary agent.\n\nFrom Twemlow's, Veneering dashes at Podsnap's place of business. Finds\nPodsnap reading the paper, standing, and inclined to be oratorical\nover the astonishing discovery he has made, that Italy is not England.\nRespectfully entreats Podsnap's pardon for stopping the flow of his\nwords of wisdom, and informs him what is in the wind. Tells Podsnap that\ntheir political opinions are identical. Gives Podsnap to understand that\nhe, Veneering, formed his political opinions while sitting at the feet\nof him, Podsnap. Seeks earnestly to know whether Podsnap 'will rally\nround him?'\n\nSays Podsnap, something sternly, 'Now, first of all, Veneering, do you\nask my advice?'\n\nVeneering falters that as so old and so dear a friend--\n\n'Yes, yes, that's all very well,' says Podsnap; 'but have you made up\nyour mind to take this borough of Pocket-Breaches on its own terms, or\ndo you ask my opinion whether you shall take it or leave it alone?'\n\nVeneering repeats that his heart's desire and his soul's thirst are,\nthat Podsnap shall rally round him.\n\n'Now, I'll be plain with you, Veneering,' says Podsnap, knitting his\nbrows. 'You will infer that I don't care about Parliament, from the fact\nof my not being there?'\n\nWhy, of course Veneering knows that! Of course Veneering knows that if\nPodsnap chose to go there, he would be there, in a space of time that\nmight be stated by the light and thoughtless as a jiffy.\n\n'It is not worth my while,' pursues Podsnap, becoming handsomely\nmollified, 'and it is the reverse of important to my position. But it\nis not my wish to set myself up as law for another man, differently\nsituated. You think it IS worth YOUR while, and IS important to YOUR\nposition. Is that so?'\n\nAlways with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round him, Veneering\nthinks it is so.\n\n'Then you don't ask my advice,' says Podsnap. 'Good. Then I won't give\nit you. But you do ask my help. Good. Then I'll work for you.'\n\nVeneering instantly blesses him, and apprises him that Twemlow is\nalready working. Podsnap does not quite approve that anybody should\nbe already working--regarding it rather in the light of a liberty--but\ntolerates Twemlow, and says he is a well-connected old female who will\ndo no harm.\n\n'I have nothing very particular to do to-day,' adds Podsnap, 'and I'll\nmix with some influential people. I had engaged myself to dinner, but\nI'll send Mrs Podsnap and get off going myself; and I'll dine with you\nat eight. It's important we should report progress and compare notes.\nNow, let me see. You ought to have a couple of active energetic fellows,\nof gentlemanly manners, to go about.'\n\nVeneering, after cogitation, thinks of Boots and Brewer.\n\n'Whom I have met at your house,' says Podsnap. 'Yes. They'll do very\nwell. Let them each have a cab, and go about.'\n\nVeneering immediately mentions what a blessing he feels it, to possess\na friend capable of such grand administrative suggestions, and really\nis elated at this going about of Boots and Brewer, as an idea wearing\nan electioneering aspect and looking desperately like business. Leaving\nPodsnap, at a hand-gallop, he descends upon Boots and Brewer, who\nenthusiastically rally round him by at once bolting off in cabs, taking\nopposite directions. Then Veneering repairs to the legal gentleman in\nBritannia's confidence, and with him transacts some delicate affairs\nof business, and issues an address to the independent electors of\nPocket-Breaches, announcing that he is coming among them for their\nsuffrages, as the mariner returns to the home of his early childhood: a\nphrase which is none the worse for his never having been near the place\nin his life, and not even now distinctly knowing where it is.\n\nMrs Veneering, during the same eventful hours, is not idle. No sooner\ndoes the carriage turn out, all complete, than she turns into it, all\ncomplete, and gives the word 'To Lady Tippins's.' That charmer dwells\nover a staymaker's in the Belgravian Borders, with a life-size model\nin the window on the ground floor of a distinguished beauty in a blue\npetticoat, stay-lace in hand, looking over her shoulder at the town in\ninnocent surprise. As well she may, to find herself dressing under the\ncircumstances.\n\nLady Tippins at home? Lady Tippins at home, with the room darkened,\nand her back (like the lady's at the ground-floor window, though for a\ndifferent reason) cunningly turned towards the light. Lady Tippins is\nso surprised by seeing her dear Mrs Veneering so early--in the middle of\nthe night, the pretty creature calls it--that her eyelids almost go up,\nunder the influence of that emotion.\n\nTo whom Mrs Veneering incoherently communicates, how that Veneering\nhas been offered Pocket-Breaches; how that it is the time for rallying\nround; how that Veneering has said 'We must work'; how that she is here,\nas a wife and mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that the\ncarriage is at Lady Tippins's disposal for purposes of work; how that\nshe, proprietress of said bran new elegant equipage, will return home on\nfoot--on bleeding feet if need be--to work (not specifying how), until\nshe drops by the side of baby's crib.\n\n'My love,' says Lady Tippins, 'compose yourself; we'll bring him in.'\nAnd Lady Tippins really does work, and work the Veneering horses too;\nfor she clatters about town all day, calling upon everybody she knows,\nand showing her entertaining powers and green fan to immense advantage,\nby rattling on with, My dear soul, what do you think? What do\nyou suppose me to be? You'll never guess. I'm pretending to be an\nelectioneering agent. And for what place of all places? Pocket-Breaches.\nAnd why? Because the dearest friend I have in the world has bought it.\nAnd who is the dearest friend I have in the world? A man of the name of\nVeneering. Not omitting his wife, who is the other dearest friend I have\nin the world; and I positively declare I forgot their baby, who is the\nother. And we are carrying on this little farce to keep up appearances,\nand isn't it refreshing! Then, my precious child, the fun of it is that\nnobody knows who these Veneerings are, and that they know nobody, and\nthat they have a house out of the Tales of the Genii, and give dinners\nout of the Arabian Nights. Curious to see 'em, my dear? Say you'll know\n'em. Come and dine with 'em. They shan't bore you. Say who shall meet\nyou. We'll make up a party of our own, and I'll engage that they shall\nnot interfere with you for one single moment. You really ought to see\ntheir gold and silver camels. I call their dinner-table, the Caravan.\nDo come and dine with my Veneerings, my own Veneerings, my exclusive\nproperty, the dearest friends I have in the world! And above all, my\ndear, be sure you promise me your vote and interest and all sorts of\nplumpers for Pocket-Breaches; for we couldn't think of spending sixpence\non it, my love, and can only consent to be brought in by the spontaneous\nthingummies of the incorruptible whatdoyoucallums.\n\nNow, the point of view seized by the bewitching Tippins, that this same\nworking and rallying round is to keep up appearances, may have something\nin it, but not all the truth. More is done, or considered to be\ndone--which does as well--by taking cabs, and 'going about,' than the\nfair Tippins knew of. Many vast vague reputations have been made,\nsolely by taking cabs and going about. This particularly obtains in all\nParliamentary affairs. Whether the business in hand be to get a man in,\nor get a man out, or get a man over, or promote a railway, or jockey\na railway, or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual as\nscouring nowhere in a violent hurry--in short, as taking cabs and going\nabout.\n\nProbably because this reason is in the air, Twemlow, far from being\nsingular in his persuasion that he works like a Trojan, is capped by\nPodsnap, who in his turn is capped by Boots and Brewer. At eight o'clock\nwhen all these hard workers assemble to dine at Veneering's, it is\nunderstood that the cabs of Boots and Brewer mustn't leave the door, but\nthat pails of water must be brought from the nearest baiting-place,\nand cast over the horses' legs on the very spot, lest Boots and Brewer\nshould have instant occasion to mount and away. Those fleet messengers\nrequire the Analytical to see that their hats are deposited where they\ncan be laid hold of at an instant's notice; and they dine (remarkably\nwell though) with the air of firemen in charge of an engine, expecting\nintelligence of some tremendous conflagration.\n\nMrs Veneering faintly remarks, as dinner opens, that many such days\nwould be too much for her.\n\n'Many such days would be too much for all of us,' says Podsnap; 'but\nwe'll bring him in!'\n\n'We'll bring him in,' says Lady Tippins, sportively waving her green\nfan. 'Veneering for ever!'\n\n'We'll bring him in!' says Twemlow.\n\n'We'll bring him in!' say Boots and Brewer.\n\nStrictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they should not\nbring him in, Pocket-Breaches having closed its little bargain, and\nthere being no opposition. However, it is agreed that they must 'work'\nto the last, and that if they did not work, something indefinite would\nhappen. It is likewise agreed that they are all so exhausted with the\nwork behind them, and need to be so fortified for the work before them,\nas to require peculiar strengthening from Veneering's cellar. Therefore,\nthe Analytical has orders to produce the cream of the cream of his\nbinns, and therefore it falls out that rallying becomes rather a trying\nword for the occasion; Lady Tippins being observed gamely to inculcate\nthe necessity of rearing round their dear Veneering; Podsnap advocating\nroaring round him; Boots and Brewer declaring their intention of reeling\nround him; and Veneering thanking his devoted friends one and all, with\ngreat emotion, for rarullarulling round him.\n\nIn these inspiring moments, Brewer strikes out an idea which is the\ngreat hit of the day. He consults his watch, and says (like Guy Fawkes),\nhe'll now go down to the House of Commons and see how things look.\n\n'I'll keep about the lobby for an hour or so,' says Brewer, with a\ndeeply mysterious countenance, 'and if things look well, I won't come\nback, but will order my cab for nine in the morning.'\n\n'You couldn't do better,' says Podsnap.\n\nVeneering expresses his inability ever to acknowledge this last service.\nTears stand in Mrs Veneering's affectionate eyes. Boots shows envy,\nloses ground, and is regarded as possessing a second-rate mind. They all\ncrowd to the door, to see Brewer off. Brewer says to his driver, 'Now,\nis your horse pretty fresh?' eyeing the animal with critical scrutiny.\nDriver says he's as fresh as butter. 'Put him along then,' says Brewer;\n'House of Commons.' Driver darts up, Brewer leaps in, they cheer him as\nhe departs, and Mr Podsnap says, 'Mark my words, sir. That's a man of\nresource; that's a man to make his way in life.'\n\nWhen the time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and appropriate\nstammer to the men of Pocket-Breaches, only Podsnap and Twemlow\naccompany him by railway to that sequestered spot. The legal gentleman\nis at the Pocket-Breaches Branch Station, with an open carriage with a\nprinted bill 'Veneering for ever' stuck upon it, as if it were a wall;\nand they gloriously proceed, amidst the grins of the populace, to a\nfeeble little town hall on crutches, with some onions and bootlaces\nunder it, which the legal gentleman says are a Market; and from the\nfront window of that edifice Veneering speaks to the listening earth.\nIn the moment of his taking his hat off, Podsnap, as per agreement made\nwith Mrs Veneering, telegraphs to that wife and mother, 'He's up.'\n\nVeneering loses his way in the usual No Thoroughfares of speech, and\nPodsnap and Twemlow say Hear hear! and sometimes, when he can't by any\nmeans back himself out of some very unlucky No Thoroughfare, 'He-a-a-r\nHe-a-a-r!' with an air of facetious conviction, as if the ingenuity of\nthe thing gave them a sensation of exquisite pleasure. But Veneering\nmakes two remarkably good points; so good, that they are supposed\nto have been suggested to him by the legal gentleman in Britannia's\nconfidence, while briefly conferring on the stairs.\n\nPoint the first is this. Veneering institutes an original comparison\nbetween the country, and a ship; pointedly calling the ship, the Vessel\nof the State, and the Minister the Man at the Helm. Veneering's object\nis to let Pocket-Breaches know that his friend on his right (Podsnap) is\na man of wealth. Consequently says he, 'And, gentlemen, when the timbers\nof the Vessel of the State are unsound and the Man at the Helm is\nunskilful, would those great Marine Insurers, who rank among our\nworld-famed merchant-princes--would they insure her, gentlemen? Would\nthey underwrite her? Would they incur a risk in her? Would they have\nconfidence in her? Why, gentlemen, if I appealed to my honourable friend\nupon my right, himself among the greatest and most respected of that\ngreat and much respected class, he would answer No!'\n\nPoint the second is this. The telling fact that Twemlow is related to\nLord Snigsworth, must be let off. Veneering supposes a state of public\naffairs that probably never could by any possibility exist (though this\nis not quite certain, in consequence of his picture being unintelligible\nto himself and everybody else), and thus proceeds. 'Why, gentlemen, if\nI were to indicate such a programme to any class of society, I say it\nwould be received with derision, would be pointed at by the finger of\nscorn. If I indicated such a programme to any worthy and intelligent\ntradesman of your town--nay, I will here be personal, and say Our\ntown--what would he reply? He would reply, \"Away with it!\" That's what\nHE would reply, gentlemen. In his honest indignation he would reply,\n\"Away with it!\" But suppose I mounted higher in the social scale.\nSuppose I drew my arm through the arm of my respected friend upon my\nleft, and, walking with him through the ancestral woods of his family,\nand under the spreading beeches of Snigsworthy Park, approached the\nnoble hall, crossed the courtyard, entered by the door, went up the\nstaircase, and, passing from room to room, found myself at last in\nthe august presence of my friend's near kinsman, Lord Snigsworth. And\nsuppose I said to that venerable earl, \"My Lord, I am here before your\nlordship, presented by your lordship's near kinsman, my friend upon my\nleft, to indicate that programme;\" what would his lordship answer? Why,\nhe would answer, \"Away with it!\" That's what he would answer, gentlemen.\n\"Away with it!\" Unconsciously using, in his exalted sphere, the exact\nlanguage of the worthy and intelligent tradesman of our town, the near\nand dear kinsman of my friend upon my left would answer in his wrath,\n\"Away with it!\"'\n\nVeneering finishes with this last success, and Mr Podsnap telegraphs to\nMrs Veneering, 'He's down.'\n\nThen, dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentleman, and then\nthere are in due succession, nomination, and declaration. Finally Mr\nPodsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, 'We have brought him in.'\n\nAnother gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to the Veneering\nhalls, and Lady Tippins awaits them, and Boots and Brewer await\nthem. There is a modest assertion on everybody's part that everybody\nsingle-handed 'brought him in'; but in the main it is conceded by all,\nthat that stroke of business on Brewer's part, in going down to the\nhouse that night to see how things looked, was the master-stroke.\n\nA touching little incident is related by Mrs Veneering, in the course of\nthe evening. Mrs Veneering is habitually disposed to be tearful, and\nhas an extra disposition that way after her late excitement. Previous\nto withdrawing from the dinner-table with Lady Tippins, she says, in a\npathetic and physically weak manner:\n\n'You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must mention it. As\nI sat by Baby's crib, on the night before the election, Baby was very\nuneasy in her sleep.'\n\nThe Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has diabolical\nimpulses to suggest 'Wind' and throw up his situation; but represses\nthem.\n\n'After an interval almost convulsive, Baby curled her little hands in\none another and smiled.'\n\nMrs Veneering stopping here, Mr Podsnap deems it incumbent on him to\nsay: 'I wonder why!'\n\n'Could it be, I asked myself,' says Mrs Veneering, looking about her for\nher pocket-handkerchief, 'that the Fairies were telling Baby that her\npapa would shortly be an M. P.?'\n\nSo overcome by the sentiment is Mrs Veneering, that they all get up\nto make a clear stage for Veneering, who goes round the table to the\nrescue, and bears her out backward, with her feet impressively scraping\nthe carpet: after remarking that her work has been too much for her\nstrength. Whether the fairies made any mention of the five thousand\npounds, and it disagreed with Baby, is not speculated upon.\n\nPoor little Twemlow, quite done up, is touched, and still continues\ntouched after he is safely housed over the livery-stable yard in\nDuke Street, Saint James's. But there, upon his sofa, a tremendous\nconsideration breaks in upon the mild gentleman, putting all softer\nconsiderations to the rout.\n\n'Gracious heavens! Now I have time to think of it, he never saw one of\nhis constituents in all his days, until we saw them together!'\n\nAfter having paced the room in distress of mind, with his hand to his\nforehead, the innocent Twemlow returns to his sofa and moans:\n\n'I shall either go distracted, or die, of this man. He comes upon me too\nlate in life. I am not strong enough to bear him!'\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nCUPID PROMPTED\n\n\nTo use the cold language of the world, Mrs Alfred Lammle rapidly\nimproved the acquaintance of Miss Podsnap. To use the warm language of\nMrs Lammle, she and her sweet Georgiana soon became one: in heart, in\nmind, in sentiment, in soul.\n\nWhenever Georgiana could escape from the thraldom of Podsnappery; could\nthrow off the bedclothes of the custard-coloured phaeton, and get up;\ncould shrink out of the range of her mother's rocking, and (so to speak)\nrescue her poor little frosty toes from being rocked over; she repaired\nto her friend, Mrs Alfred Lammle. Mrs Podsnap by no means objected. As\na consciously 'splendid woman,' accustomed to overhear herself so\ndenominated by elderly osteologists pursuing their studies in dinner\nsociety, Mrs Podsnap could dispense with her daughter. Mr Podsnap, for\nhis part, on being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronage\nof the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, should\nrespectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; that they, when they could\nnot bask in the glory of him the sun, should take up with the pale\nreflected light of the watery young moon his daughter; appeared quite\nnatural, becoming, and proper. It gave him a better opinion of the\ndiscretion of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing that\nthey appreciated the value of the connexion. So, Georgiana repairing\nto her friend, Mr Podsnap went out to dinner, and to dinner, and yet to\ndinner, arm in arm with Mrs Podsnap: settling his obstinate head in his\ncravat and shirt-collar, much as if he were performing on the Pandean\npipes, in his own honour, the triumphal march, See the conquering\nPodsnap comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!\n\nIt was a trait in Mr Podsnap's character (and in one form or other\nit will be generally seen to pervade the depths and shallows of\nPodsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of disparagement of any\nfriend or acquaintance of his. 'How dare you?' he would seem to say, in\nsuch a case. 'What do you mean? I have licensed this person. This person\nhas taken out MY certificate. Through this person you strike at me,\nPodsnap the Great. And it is not that I particularly care for the\nperson's dignity, but that I do most particularly care for Podsnap's.'\nHence, if any one in his presence had presumed to doubt the\nresponsibility of the Lammles, he would have been mightily huffed. Not\nthat any one did, for Veneering, M.P., was always the authority for\ntheir being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed he might, if\nhe chose, for anything he knew of the matter.\n\nMr and Mrs Lammle's house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, was but\na temporary residence. It has done well enough, they informed their\nfriends, for Mr Lammle when a bachelor, but it would not do now. So,\nthey were always looking at palatial residences in the best situations,\nand always very nearly taking or buying one, but never quite concluding\nthe bargain. Hereby they made for themselves a shining little reputation\napart. People said, on seeing a vacant palatial residence, 'The very\nthing for the Lammles!' and wrote to the Lammles about it, and the\nLammles always went to look at it, but unfortunately it never exactly\nanswered. In short, they suffered so many disappointments, that they\nbegan to think it would be necessary to build a palatial residence.\nAnd hereby they made another shining reputation; many persons of their\nacquaintance becoming by anticipation dissatisfied with their own\nhouses, and envious of the non-existent Lammle structure.\n\nThe handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in Sackville Street\nwere piled thick and high over the skeleton up-stairs, and if it ever\nwhispered from under its load of upholstery, 'Here I am in the closet!'\nit was to very few ears, and certainly never to Miss Podsnap's. What\nMiss Podsnap was particularly charmed with, next to the graces of\nher friend, was the happiness of her friend's married life. This was\nfrequently their theme of conversation.\n\n'I am sure,' said Miss Podsnap, 'Mr Lammle is like a lover. At least\nI--I should think he was.'\n\n'Georgiana, darling!' said Mrs Lammle, holding up a forefinger, 'Take\ncare!'\n\n'Oh my goodness me!' exclaimed Miss Podsnap, reddening. 'What have I\nsaid now?'\n\n'Alfred, you know,' hinted Mrs Lammle, playfully shaking her head. 'You\nwere never to say Mr Lammle any more, Georgiana.'\n\n'Oh! Alfred, then. I am glad it's no worse. I was afraid I had said\nsomething shocking. I am always saying something wrong to ma.'\n\n'To me, Georgiana dearest?'\n\n'No, not to you; you are not ma. I wish you were.'\n\nMrs Lammle bestowed a sweet and loving smile upon her friend, which Miss\nPodsnap returned as she best could. They sat at lunch in Mrs Lammle's\nown boudoir.\n\n'And so, dearest Georgiana, Alfred is like your notion of a lover?'\n\n'I don't say that, Sophronia,' Georgiana replied, beginning to conceal\nher elbows. 'I haven't any notion of a lover. The dreadful wretches that\nma brings up at places to torment me, are not lovers. I only mean that\nMr--'\n\n'Again, dearest Georgiana?'\n\n'That Alfred--'\n\n'Sounds much better, darling.'\n\n'--Loves you so. He always treats you with such delicate gallantry and\nattention. Now, don't he?'\n\n'Truly, my dear,' said Mrs Lammle, with a rather singular expression\ncrossing her face. 'I believe that he loves me, fully as much as I love\nhim.'\n\n'Oh, what happiness!' exclaimed Miss Podsnap.\n\n'But do you know, my Georgiana,' Mrs Lammle resumed presently, 'that\nthere is something suspicious in your enthusiastic sympathy with\nAlfred's tenderness?'\n\n'Good gracious no, I hope not!'\n\n'Doesn't it rather suggest,' said Mrs Lammle archly, 'that my\nGeorgiana's little heart is--'\n\n'Oh don't!' Miss Podsnap blushingly besought her. 'Please don't! I\nassure you, Sophronia, that I only praise Alfred, because he is your\nhusband and so fond of you.'\n\nSophronia's glance was as if a rather new light broke in upon her. It\nshaded off into a cool smile, as she said, with her eyes upon her lunch,\nand her eyebrows raised:\n\n'You are quite wrong, my love, in your guess at my meaning. What I\ninsinuated was, that my Georgiana's little heart was growing conscious\nof a vacancy.'\n\n'No, no, no,' said Georgiana. 'I wouldn't have anybody say anything to\nme in that way for I don't know how many thousand pounds.'\n\n'In what way, my Georgiana?' inquired Mrs Lammle, still smiling coolly\nwith her eyes upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised.\n\n'YOU know,' returned poor little Miss Podsnap. 'I think I should go out\nof my mind, Sophronia, with vexation and shyness and detestation, if\nanybody did. It's enough for me to see how loving you and your husband\nare. That's a different thing. I couldn't bear to have anything of that\nsort going on with myself. I should beg and pray to--to have the person\ntaken away and trampled upon.'\n\nAh! here was Alfred. Having stolen in unobserved, he playfully leaned on\nthe back of Sophronia's chair, and, as Miss Podsnap saw him, put one\nof Sophronia's wandering locks to his lips, and waved a kiss from it\ntowards Miss Podsnap.\n\n'What is this about husbands and detestations?' inquired the captivating\nAlfred.\n\n'Why, they say,' returned his wife, 'that listeners never hear any good\nof themselves; though you--but pray how long have you been here, sir?'\n\n'This instant arrived, my own.'\n\n'Then I may go on--though if you had been here but a moment or two\nsooner, you would have heard your praises sounded by Georgiana.'\n\n'Only, if they were to be called praises at all which I really don't\nthink they were,' explained Miss Podsnap in a flutter, 'for being so\ndevoted to Sophronia.'\n\n'Sophronia!' murmured Alfred. 'My life!' and kissed her hand. In return\nfor which she kissed his watch-chain.\n\n'But it was not I who was to be taken away and trampled upon, I hope?'\nsaid Alfred, drawing a seat between them.\n\n'Ask Georgiana, my soul,' replied his wife.\n\nAlfred touchingly appealed to Georgiana.\n\n'Oh, it was nobody,' replied Miss Podsnap. 'It was nonsense.'\n\n'But if you are determined to know, Mr Inquisitive Pet, as I suppose you\nare,' said the happy and fond Sophronia, smiling, 'it was any one who\nshould venture to aspire to Georgiana.'\n\n'Sophronia, my love,' remonstrated Mr Lammle, becoming graver, 'you are\nnot serious?'\n\n'Alfred, my love,' returned his wife, 'I dare say Georgiana was not, but\nI am.'\n\n'Now this,' said Mr Lammle, 'shows the accidental combinations that\nthere are in things! Could you believe, my Ownest, that I came in here\nwith the name of an aspirant to our Georgiana on my lips?'\n\n'Of course I could believe, Alfred,' said Mrs Lammle, 'anything that YOU\ntold me.'\n\n'You dear one! And I anything that YOU told me.'\n\nHow delightful those interchanges, and the looks accompanying them! Now,\nif the skeleton up-stairs had taken that opportunity, for instance, of\ncalling out 'Here I am, suffocating in the closet!'\n\n'I give you my honour, my dear Sophronia--'\n\n'And I know what that is, love,' said she.\n\n'You do, my darling--that I came into the room all but uttering young\nFledgeby's name. Tell Georgiana, dearest, about young Fledgeby.'\n\n'Oh no, don't! Please don't!' cried Miss Podsnap, putting her fingers in\nher ears. 'I'd rather not.'\n\nMrs Lammle laughed in her gayest manner, and, removing her Georgiana's\nunresisting hands, and playfully holding them in her own at arms'\nlength, sometimes near together and sometimes wide apart, went on:\n\n'You must know, you dearly beloved little goose, that once upon a\ntime there was a certain person called young Fledgeby. And this young\nFledgeby, who was of an excellent family and rich, was known to two\nother certain persons, dearly attached to one another and called Mr and\nMrs Alfred Lammle. So this young Fledgeby, being one night at the play,\nthere sees with Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, a certain heroine called--'\n\n'No, don't say Georgiana Podsnap!' pleaded that young lady almost in\ntears. 'Please don't. Oh do do do say somebody else! Not Georgiana\nPodsnap. Oh don't, don't, don't!'\n\n'No other,' said Mrs Lammle, laughing airily, and, full of affectionate\nblandishments, opening and closing Georgiana's arms like a pair of\ncompasses, 'than my little Georgiana Podsnap. So this young Fledgeby goes\nto that Alfred Lammle and says--'\n\n'Oh ple-e-e-ease don't!' Georgiana, as if the supplication were being\nsqueezed out of her by powerful compression. 'I so hate him for saying\nit!'\n\n'For saying what, my dear?' laughed Mrs Lammle.\n\n'Oh, I don't know what he said,' cried Georgiana wildly, 'but I hate him\nall the same for saying it.'\n\n'My dear,' said Mrs Lammle, always laughing in her most captivating way,\n'the poor young fellow only says that he is stricken all of a heap.'\n\n'Oh, what shall I ever do!' interposed Georgiana. 'Oh my goodness what a\nFool he must be!'\n\n'--And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a fourth at the play\nanother time. And so he dines to-morrow and goes to the Opera with\nus. That's all. Except, my dear Georgiana--and what will you think of\nthis!--that he is infinitely shyer than you, and far more afraid of you\nthan you ever were of any one in all your days!'\n\nIn perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked at her\nhands a little, but could not help laughing at the notion of anybody's\nbeing afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her and\nrallied her more successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flattered\nher and rallied her, and promised that at any moment when she might\nrequire that service at his hands, he would take young Fledgeby out and\ntrample on him. Thus it remained amicably understood that young Fledgeby\nwas to come to admire, and that Georgiana was to come to be admired; and\nGeorgiana with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having that\nprospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear Sophronia in\npresent possession, preceded six feet one of discontented footman (an\namount of the article that always came for her when she walked home) to\nher father's dwelling.\n\nThe happy pair being left together, Mrs Lammle said to her husband:\n\n'If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations have\nproduced some effect upon her. I mention the conquest in good time\nbecause I apprehend your scheme to be more important to you than your\nvanity.'\n\nThere was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes just caught\nhim smirking in it. She gave the reflected image a look of the deepest\ndisdain, and the image received it in the glass. Next moment they\nquietly eyed each other, as if they, the principals, had had no part in\nthat expressive transaction.\n\nIt may have been that Mrs Lammle tried in some manner to excuse her\nconduct to herself by depreciating the poor little victim of whom she\nspoke with acrimonious contempt. It may have been too that in this she\ndid not quite succeed, for it is very difficult to resist confidence,\nand she knew she had Georgiana's.\n\nNothing more was said between the happy pair. Perhaps conspirators\nwho have once established an understanding, may not be over-fond of\nrepeating the terms and objects of their conspiracy. Next day came; came\nGeorgiana; and came Fledgeby.\n\nGeorgiana had by this time seen a good deal of the house and its\nfrequenters. As there was a certain handsome room with a billiard table\nin it--on the ground floor, eating out a backyard--which might have\nbeen Mr Lammle's office, or library, but was called by neither name, but\nsimply Mr Lammle's room, so it would have been hard for stronger female\nheads than Georgiana's to determine whether its frequenters were men\nof pleasure or men of business. Between the room and the men there were\nstrong points of general resemblance. Both were too gaudy, too slangey,\ntoo odorous of cigars, and too much given to horseflesh; the latter\ncharacteristic being exemplified in the room by its decorations, and in\nthe men by their conversation. High-stepping horses seemed necessary to\nall Mr Lammle's friends--as necessary as their transaction of business\ntogether in a gipsy way at untimely hours of the morning and evening,\nand in rushes and snatches. There were friends who seemed to be always\ncoming and going across the Channel, on errands about the Bourse, and\nGreek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount\nand three quarters and seven eighths. There were other friends who\nseemed to be always lolling and lounging in and out of the City, on\nquestions of the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and\npar and premium and discount and three quarters and seven eighths. They\nwere all feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose; and they all ate and\ndrank a great deal; and made bets in eating and drinking. They all spoke\nof sums of money, and only mentioned the sums and left the money to\nbe understood; as 'five and forty thousand Tom,' or 'Two hundred and\ntwenty-two on every individual share in the lot Joe.' They seemed to\ndivide the world into two classes of people; people who were making\nenormous fortunes, and people who were being enormously ruined. They\nwere always in a hurry, and yet seemed to have nothing tangible to do;\nexcept a few of them (these, mostly asthmatic and thick-lipped) who were\nfor ever demonstrating to the rest, with gold pencil-cases which they\ncould hardly hold because of the big rings on their forefingers, how\nmoney was to be made. Lastly, they all swore at their grooms, and the\ngrooms were not quite as respectful or complete as other men's grooms;\nseeming somehow to fall short of the groom point as their masters fell\nshort of the gentleman point.\n\nYoung Fledgeby was none of these. Young Fledgeby had a peachy cheek,\nor a cheek compounded of the peach and the red red red wall on which\nit grows, and was an awkward, sandy-haired, small-eyed youth, exceeding\nslim (his enemies would have said lanky), and prone to self-examination\nin the articles of whisker and moustache. While feeling for the whisker\nthat he anxiously expected, Fledgeby underwent remarkable fluctuations\nof spirits, ranging along the whole scale from confidence to despair.\nThere were times when he started, as exclaiming 'By Jupiter here it is\nat last!' There were other times when, being equally depressed, he would\nbe seen to shake his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periods\nleaning on a chimneypiece, like as on an urn containing the ashes of his\nambition, with the cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on which\nthat cheek had forced conviction, was a distressing sight.\n\nNot so was Fledgeby seen on this occasion. Arrayed in superb raiment,\nwith his opera hat under his arm, he concluded his self-examination\nhopefully, awaited the arrival of Miss Podsnap, and talked small-talk\nwith Mrs Lammle. In facetious homage to the smallness of his talk, and\nthe jerky nature of his manners, Fledgeby's familiars had agreed to\nconfer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of Fascination\nFledgeby.\n\n'Warm weather, Mrs Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle\nthought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. 'Perhaps not,'\nsaid Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but I\nexpect it will be devilish warm to-morrow.'\n\nHe threw off another little scintillation. 'Been out to-day, Mrs\nLammle?'\n\nMrs Lammle answered, for a short drive.\n\n'Some people,' said Fascination Fledgeby, 'are accustomed to take long\ndrives; but it generally appears to me that if they make 'em too long,\nthey overdo it.'\n\nBeing in such feather, he might have surpassed himself in his next\nsally, had not Miss Podsnap been announced. Mrs Lammle flew to embrace\nher darling little Georgy, and when the first transports were over,\npresented Mr Fledgeby. Mr Lammle came on the scene last, for he was\nalways late, and so were the frequenters always late; all hands being\nbound to be made late, by private information about the Bourse, and\nGreek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount\nand three quarters and seven eighths.\n\nA handsome little dinner was served immediately, and Mr Lammle sat\nsparkling at his end of the table, with his servant behind his chair,\nand HIS ever-lingering doubts upon the subject of his wages behind\nhimself. Mr Lammle's utmost powers of sparkling were in requisition\nto-day, for Fascination Fledgeby and Georgiana not only struck each\nother speechless, but struck each other into astonishing attitudes;\nGeorgiana, as she sat facing Fledgeby, making such efforts to conceal\nher elbows as were totally incompatible with the use of a knife and\nfork; and Fledgeby, as he sat facing Georgiana, avoiding her countenance\nby every possible device, and betraying the discomposure of his mind in\nfeeling for his whiskers with his spoon, his wine glass, and his bread.\n\nSo, Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle had to prompt, and this is how they\nprompted.\n\n'Georgiana,' said Mr Lammle, low and smiling, and sparkling all over,\nlike a harlequin; 'you are not in your usual spirits. Why are you not in\nyour usual spirits, Georgiana?'\n\nGeorgiana faltered that she was much the same as she was in general; she\nwas not aware of being different.\n\n'Not aware of being different!' retorted Mr Alfred Lammle. 'You, my dear\nGeorgiana! Who are always so natural and unconstrained with us! Who are\nsuch a relief from the crowd that are all alike! Who are the embodiment\nof gentleness, simplicity, and reality!'\n\nMiss Podsnap looked at the door, as if she entertained confused thoughts\nof taking refuge from these compliments in flight.\n\n'Now, I will be judged,' said Mr Lammle, raising his voice a little, 'by\nmy friend Fledgeby.'\n\n'Oh DON'T!' Miss Podsnap faintly ejaculated: when Mrs Lammle took the\nprompt-book.\n\n'I beg your pardon, Alfred, my dear, but I cannot part with Mr Fledgeby\nquite yet; you must wait for him a moment. Mr Fledgeby and I are engaged\nin a personal discussion.'\n\nFledgeby must have conducted it on his side with immense art, for no\nappearance of uttering one syllable had escaped him.\n\n'A personal discussion, Sophronia, my love? What discussion? Fledgeby, I\nam jealous. What discussion, Fledgeby?'\n\n'Shall I tell him, Mr Fledgeby?' asked Mrs Lammle.\n\nTrying to look as if he knew anything about it, Fascination replied,\n'Yes, tell him.'\n\n'We were discussing then,' said Mrs Lammle, 'if you MUST know, Alfred,\nwhether Mr Fledgeby was in his usual flow of spirits.'\n\n'Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana and I were\ndiscussing as to herself! What did Fledgeby say?'\n\n'Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you everything, and be\ntold nothing! What did Georgiana say?'\n\n'Georgiana said she was doing her usual justice to herself to-day, and I\nsaid she was not.'\n\n'Precisely,' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, 'what I said to Mr Fledgeby.' Still,\nit wouldn't do. They would not look at one another. No, not even\nwhen the sparkling host proposed that the quartette should take an\nappropriately sparkling glass of wine. Georgiana looked from her wine\nglass at Mr Lammle and at Mrs Lammle; but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't,\nwouldn't, look at Mr Fledgeby. Fascination looked from his wine glass\nat Mrs Lammle and at Mr Lammle; but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't,\nwouldn't, look at Georgiana.\n\nMore prompting was necessary. Cupid must be brought up to the mark. The\nmanager had put him down in the bill for the part, and he must play it.\n\n'Sophronia, my dear,' said Mr Lammle, 'I don't like the colour of your\ndress.'\n\n'I appeal,' said Mrs Lammle, 'to Mr Fledgeby.'\n\n'And I,' said Mr Lammle, 'to Georgiana.'\n\n'Georgy, my love,' remarked Mrs Lammle aside to her dear girl, 'I rely\nupon you not to go over to the opposition. Now, Mr Fledgeby.'\n\nFascination wished to know if the colour were not called rose-colour?\nYes, said Mr Lammle; actually he knew everything; it was really\nrose-colour. Fascination took rose-colour to mean the colour of roses.\n(In this he was very warmly supported by Mr and Mrs Lammle.) Fascination\nhad heard the term Queen of Flowers applied to the Rose. Similarly, it\nmight be said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. ('Very happy,\nFledgeby!' from Mr Lammle.) Notwithstanding, Fascination's opinion\nwas that we all had our eyes--or at least a large majority of us--and\nthat--and--and his farther opinion was several ands, with nothing beyond\nthem.\n\n'Oh, Mr Fledgeby,' said Mrs Lammle, 'to desert me in that way! Oh, Mr\nFledgeby, to abandon my poor dear injured rose and declare for blue!'\n\n'Victory, victory!' cried Mr Lammle; 'your dress is condemned, my dear.'\n\n'But what,' said Mrs Lammle, stealing her affectionate hand towards her\ndear girl's, 'what does Georgy say?'\n\n'She says,' replied Mr Lammle, interpreting for her, 'that in her eyes\nyou look well in any colour, Sophronia, and that if she had expected to\nbe embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has received, she would\nhave worn another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that it\nwould not have saved her, for whatever colour she had worn would have\nbeen Fledgeby's colour. But what does Fledgeby say?'\n\n'He says,' replied Mrs Lammle, interpreting for him, and patting the\nback of her dear girl's hand, as if it were Fledgeby who was patting it,\n'that it was no compliment, but a little natural act of homage that\nhe couldn't resist. And,' expressing more feeling as if it were more\nfeeling on the part of Fledgeby, 'he is right, he is right!'\n\nStill, no not even now, would they look at one another. Seeming to gnash\nhis sparkling teeth, studs, eyes, and buttons, all at once, Mr Lammle\nsecretly bent a dark frown on the two, expressive of an intense desire\nto bring them together by knocking their heads together.\n\n'Have you heard this opera of to-night, Fledgeby?' he asked, stopping\nvery short, to prevent himself from running on into 'confound you.'\n\n'Why no, not exactly,' said Fledgeby. 'In fact I don't know a note of\nit.'\n\n'Neither do you know it, Georgy?' said Mrs Lammle. 'N-no,' replied\nGeorgiana, faintly, under the sympathetic coincidence.\n\n'Why, then,' said Mrs Lammle, charmed by the discovery which flowed from\nthe premises, 'you neither of you know it! How charming!'\n\nEven the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come when he must\nstrike a blow. He struck it by saying, partly to Mrs Lammle and partly\nto the circumambient air, 'I consider myself very fortunate in being\nreserved by--'\n\nAs he stopped dead, Mr Lammle, making that gingerous bush of his\nwhiskers to look out of, offered him the word 'Destiny.'\n\n'No, I wasn't going to say that,' said Fledgeby. 'I was going to say\nFate. I consider it very fortunate that Fate has written in the book\nof--in the book which is its own property--that I should go to that\nopera for the first time under the memorable circumstances of going with\nMiss Podsnap.'\n\nTo which Georgiana replied, hooking her two little fingers in one\nanother, and addressing the tablecloth, 'Thank you, but I generally go\nwith no one but you, Sophronia, and I like that very much.'\n\nContent perforce with this success for the time, Mr Lammle let Miss\nPodsnap out of the room, as if he were opening her cage door, and Mrs\nLammle followed. Coffee being presently served up stairs, he kept a\nwatch on Fledgeby until Miss Podsnap's cup was empty, and then directed\nhim with his finger (as if that young gentleman were a slow Retriever)\nto go and fetch it. This feat he performed, not only without failure,\nbut even with the original embellishment of informing Miss Podsnap that\ngreen tea was considered bad for the nerves. Though there Miss Podsnap\nunintentionally threw him out by faltering, 'Oh, is it indeed? How does\nit act?' Which he was not prepared to elucidate.\n\nThe carriage announced, Mrs Lammle said; 'Don't mind me, Mr Fledgeby, my\nskirts and cloak occupy both my hands, take Miss Podsnap.' And he\ntook her, and Mrs Lammle went next, and Mr Lammle went last, savagely\nfollowing his little flock, like a drover.\n\nBut he was all sparkle and glitter in the box at the Opera, and there he\nand his dear wife made a conversation between Fledgeby and Georgiana in\nthe following ingenious and skilful manner. They sat in this order:\nMrs Lammle, Fascination Fledgeby, Georgiana, Mr Lammle. Mrs Lammle made\nleading remarks to Fledgeby, only requiring monosyllabic replies. Mr\nLammle did the like with Georgiana. At times Mrs Lammle would lean\nforward to address Mr Lammle to this purpose.\n\n'Alfred, my dear, Mr Fledgeby very justly says, apropos of the last\nscene, that true constancy would not require any such stimulant as the\nstage deems necessary.' To which Mr Lammle would reply, 'Ay, Sophronia,\nmy love, but as Georgiana has observed to me, the lady had no sufficient\nreason to know the state of the gentleman's affections.' To which Mrs\nLammle would rejoin, 'Very true, Alfred; but Mr Fledgeby points\nout,' this. To which Alfred would demur: 'Undoubtedly, Sophronia, but\nGeorgiana acutely remarks,' that. Through this device the two young\npeople conversed at great length and committed themselves to a variety\nof delicate sentiments, without having once opened their lips, save to\nsay yes or no, and even that not to one another.\n\nFledgeby took his leave of Miss Podsnap at the carriage door, and the\nLammles dropped her at her own home, and on the way Mrs Lammle archly\nrallied her, in her fond and protecting manner, by saying at intervals,\n'Oh little Georgiana, little Georgiana!' Which was not much; but the\ntone added, 'You have enslaved your Fledgeby.'\n\nAnd thus the Lammles got home at last, and the lady sat down moody and\nweary, looking at her dark lord engaged in a deed of violence with a\nbottle of soda-water as though he were wringing the neck of some unlucky\ncreature and pouring its blood down his throat. As he wiped his dripping\nwhiskers in an ogreish way, he met her eyes, and pausing, said, with no\nvery gentle voice:\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Was such an absolute Booby necessary to the purpose?'\n\n'I know what I am doing. He is no such dolt as you suppose.'\n\n'A genius, perhaps?'\n\n'You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon yourself perhaps!\nBut I tell you this:--when that young fellow's interest is concerned,\nhe holds as tight as a horse-leech. When money is in question with that\nyoung fellow, he is a match for the Devil.'\n\n'Is he a match for you?'\n\n'He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. He has no\nquality of youth in him, but such as you have seen to-day. Touch him\nupon money, and you touch no booby then. He really is a dolt, I suppose,\nin other things; but it answers his one purpose very well.'\n\n'Has she money in her own right in any case?'\n\n'Ay! she has money in her own right in any case. You have done so well\nto-day, Sophronia, that I answer the question, though you know I object\nto any such questions. You have done so well to-day, Sophronia, that you\nmust be tired. Get to bed.'\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nMERCURY PROMPTING\n\n\nFledgeby deserved Mr Alfred Lammle's eulogium. He was the meanest\ncur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct (a word we all\nclearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always on\ntwo, meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness on\ntwo.\n\nThe father of this young gentleman had been a money-lender, who\nhad transacted professional business with the mother of this\nyoung gentleman, when he, the latter, was waiting in the vast dark\nante-chambers of the present world to be born. The lady, a widow, being\nunable to pay the money-lender, married him; and in due course, Fledgeby\nwas summoned out of the vast dark ante-chambers to come and be presented\nto the Registrar-General. Rather a curious speculation how Fledgeby\nwould otherwise have disposed of his leisure until Doomsday.\n\nFledgeby's mother offended her family by marrying Fledgeby's father. It\nis one of the easiest achievements in life to offend your family when\nyour family want to get rid of you. Fledgeby's mother's family had\nbeen very much offended with her for being poor, and broke with her\nfor becoming comparatively rich. Fledgeby's mother's family was the\nSnigsworth family. She had even the high honour to be cousin to Lord\nSnigsworth--so many times removed that the noble Earl would have had no\ncompunction in removing her one time more and dropping her clean outside\nthe cousinly pale; but cousin for all that.\n\nAmong her pre-matrimonial transactions with Fledgeby's father,\nFledgeby's mother had raised money of him at a great disadvantage on a\ncertain reversionary interest. The reversion falling in soon after they\nwere married, Fledgeby's father laid hold of the cash for his separate\nuse and benefit. This led to subjective differences of opinion, not to\nsay objective interchanges of boot-jacks, backgammon boards, and other\nsuch domestic missiles, between Fledgeby's father and Fledgeby's mother,\nand those led to Fledgeby's mother spending as much money as she\ncould, and to Fledgeby's father doing all he couldn't to restrain her.\nFledgeby's childhood had been, in consequence, a stormy one; but the\nwinds and the waves had gone down in the grave, and Fledgeby flourished\nalone.\n\nHe lived in chambers in the Albany, did Fledgeby, and maintained a\nspruce appearance. But his youthful fire was all composed of sparks from\nthe grindstone; and as the sparks flew off, went out, and never warmed\nanything, be sure that Fledgeby had his tools at the grindstone, and\nturned it with a wary eye.\n\nMr Alfred Lammle came round to the Albany to breakfast with Fledgeby.\nPresent on the table, one scanty pot of tea, one scanty loaf, two scanty\npats of butter, two scanty rashers of bacon, two pitiful eggs, and an\nabundance of handsome china bought a secondhand bargain.\n\n'What did you think of Georgiana?' asked Mr Lammle.\n\n'Why, I'll tell you,' said Fledgeby, very deliberately.\n\n'Do, my boy.'\n\n'You misunderstand me,' said Fledgeby. 'I don't mean I'll tell you that.\nI mean I'll tell you something else.'\n\n'Tell me anything, old fellow!'\n\n'Ah, but there you misunderstand me again,' said Fledgeby. 'I mean I'll\ntell you nothing.'\n\nMr Lammle sparkled at him, but frowned at him too.\n\n'Look here,' said Fledgeby. 'You're deep and you're ready. Whether I am\ndeep or not, never mind. I am not ready. But I can do one thing, Lammle,\nI can hold my tongue. And I intend always doing it.'\n\n'You are a long-headed fellow, Fledgeby.'\n\n'May be, or may not be. If I am a short-tongued fellow, it may amount to\nthe same thing. Now, Lammle, I am never going to answer questions.'\n\n'My dear fellow, it was the simplest question in the world.'\n\n'Never mind. It seemed so, but things are not always what they seem. I\nsaw a man examined as a witness in Westminster Hall. Questions put to\nhim seemed the simplest in the world, but turned out to be anything\nrather than that, after he had answered 'em. Very well. Then he should\nhave held his tongue. If he had held his tongue he would have kept out\nof scrapes that he got into.'\n\n'If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the subject of my\nquestion,' remarked Lammle, darkening.\n\n'Now, Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feeling for his\nwhisker, 'it won't do. I won't be led on into a discussion. I can't\nmanage a discussion. But I can manage to hold my tongue.'\n\n'Can?' Mr Lammle fell back upon propitiation. 'I should think you could!\nWhy, when these fellows of our acquaintance drink and you drink with\nthem, the more talkative they get, the more silent you get. The more\nthey let out, the more you keep in.'\n\n'I don't object, Lammle,' returned Fledgeby, with an internal chuckle,\n'to being understood, though I object to being questioned. That\ncertainly IS the way I do it.'\n\n'And when all the rest of us are discussing our ventures, none of us\never know what a single venture of yours is!'\n\n'And none of you ever will from me, Lammle,' replied Fledgeby, with\nanother internal chuckle; 'that certainly IS the way I do it.'\n\n'Why of course it is, I know!' rejoined Lammle, with a flourish of\nfrankness, and a laugh, and stretching out his hands as if to show\nthe universe a remarkable man in Fledgeby. 'If I hadn't known it of my\nFledgeby, should I have proposed our little compact of advantage, to my\nFledgeby?'\n\n'Ah!' remarked Fascination, shaking his head slyly. 'But I am not to\nbe got at in that way. I am not vain. That sort of vanity don't pay,\nLammle. No, no, no. Compliments only make me hold my tongue the more.'\n\nAlfred Lammle pushed his plate away (no great sacrifice under the\ncircumstances of there being so little in it), thrust his hands in his\npockets, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated Fledgeby in silence.\nThen he slowly released his left hand from its pocket, and made that\nbush of his whiskers, still contemplating him in silence. Then he slowly\nbroke silence, and slowly said: 'What--the--Dev-il is this fellow about\nthis morning?'\n\n'Now, look here, Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with the meanest\nof twinkles in his meanest of eyes: which were too near together, by\nthe way: 'look here, Lammle; I am very well aware that I didn't show to\nadvantage last night, and that you and your wife--who, I consider, is\na very clever woman and an agreeable woman--did. I am not calculated to\nshow to advantage under that sort of circumstances. I know very well you\ntwo did show to advantage, and managed capitally. But don't you on that\naccount come talking to me as if I was your doll and puppet, because I\nam not.\n\n'And all this,' cried Alfred, after studying with a look the meanness\nthat was fain to have the meanest help, and yet was so mean as to turn\nupon it: 'all this because of one simple natural question!'\n\n'You should have waited till I thought proper to say something about it\nof myself. I don't like your coming over me with your Georgianas, as if\nyou was her proprietor and mine too.'\n\n'Well, when you are in the gracious mind to say anything about it of\nyourself,' retorted Lammle, 'pray do.'\n\n'I have done it. I have said you managed capitally. You and your wife\nboth. If you'll go on managing capitally, I'll go on doing my part. Only\ndon't crow.'\n\n'I crow!' exclaimed Lammle, shrugging his shoulders.\n\n'Or,' pursued the other--'or take it in your head that people are your\npuppets because they don't come out to advantage at the particular\nmoments when you do, with the assistance of a very clever and agreeable\nwife. All the rest keep on doing, and let Mrs Lammle keep on doing. Now,\nI have held my tongue when I thought proper, and I have spoken when I\nthought proper, and there's an end of that. And now the question is,'\nproceeded Fledgeby, with the greatest reluctance, 'will you have another\negg?'\n\n'No, I won't,' said Lammle, shortly.\n\n'Perhaps you're right and will find yourself better without it,' replied\nFascination, in greatly improved spirits. 'To ask you if you'll have\nanother rasher would be unmeaning flattery, for it would make you\nthirsty all day. Will you have some more bread and butter?'\n\n'No, I won't,' repeated Lammle.\n\n'Then I will,' said Fascination. And it was not a mere retort for the\nsound's sake, but was a cheerful cogent consequence of the refusal; for\nif Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it would have been so\nheavily visited, in Fledgeby's opinion, as to demand abstinence from\nbread, on his part, for the remainder of that meal at least, if not for\nthe whole of the next.\n\nWhether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) combined\nwith the miserly vice of an old man, any of the open-handed vices of\na young one, was a moot point; so very honourably did he keep his own\ncounsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment,\nand liked to dress well; but he drove a bargain for every moveable about\nhim, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfast-table;\nand every bargain by representing somebody's ruin or somebody's loss,\nacquired a peculiar charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take,\nwithin narrow bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harder\nbargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money\nshould be so precious to an Ass too dull and mean to exchange it for any\nother satisfaction, is strange; but there is no animal so sure to get\nladen with it, as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the\nearth and sky but the three letters L. S. D.--not Luxury, Sensuality,\nDissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters.\nYour concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to your concentrated Ass in\nmoney-breeding.\n\nFascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman living on his\nmeans, but was known secretly to be a kind of outlaw in the bill-broking\nline, and to put money out at high interest in various ways. His circle\nof familiar acquaintance, from Mr Lammle round, all had a touch of the\noutlaw, as to their rovings in the merry greenwood of Jobbery Forest,\nlying on the outskirts of the Share-Market and the Stock Exchange.\n\n'I suppose you, Lammle,' said Fledgeby, eating his bread and butter,\n'always did go in for female society?'\n\n'Always,' replied Lammle, glooming considerably under his late\ntreatment.\n\n'Came natural to you, eh?' said Fledgeby.\n\n'The sex were pleased to like me, sir,' said Lammle sulkily, but with\nthe air of a man who had not been able to help himself.\n\n'Made a pretty good thing of marrying, didn't you?' asked Fledgeby.\n\nThe other smiled (an ugly smile), and tapped one tap upon his nose.\n\n'My late governor made a mess of it,' said Fledgeby. 'But Geor--is the\nright name Georgina or Georgiana?'\n\n'Georgiana.'\n\n'I was thinking yesterday, I didn't know there was such a name. I\nthought it must end in ina.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Why, you play--if you can--the Concertina, you know,' replied\nFledgeby, meditating very slowly. 'And you have--when you catch it--the\nScarlatina. And you can come down from a balloon in a parach--no you\ncan't though. Well, say Georgeute--I mean Georgiana.'\n\n'You were going to remark of Georgiana--?' Lammle moodily hinted, after\nwaiting in vain.\n\n'I was going to remark of Georgiana, sir,' said Fledgeby, not at all\npleased to be reminded of his having forgotten it, 'that she don't seem\nto be violent. Don't seem to be of the pitching-in order.'\n\n'She has the gentleness of the dove, Mr Fledgeby.'\n\n'Of course you'll say so,' replied Fledgeby, sharpening, the moment his\ninterest was touched by another. 'But you know, the real look-out is\nthis:--what I say, not what you say. I say having my late governor\nand my late mother in my eye--that Georgiana don't seem to be of the\npitching-in order.'\n\nThe respected Mr Lammle was a bully, by nature and by usual practice.\nPerceiving, as Fledgeby's affronts cumulated, that conciliation by no\nmeans answered the purpose here, he now directed a scowling look\ninto Fledgeby's small eyes for the effect of the opposite treatment.\nSatisfied by what he saw there, he burst into a violent passion and\nstruck his hand upon the table, making the china ring and dance.\n\n'You are a very offensive fellow, sir,' cried Mr Lammle, rising. 'You\nare a highly offensive scoundrel. What do you mean by this behaviour?'\n\n'I say!' remonstrated Fledgeby. 'Don't break out.'\n\n'You are a very offensive fellow sir,' repeated Mr Lammle. 'You are a\nhighly offensive scoundrel!'\n\n'I SAY, you know!' urged Fledgeby, quailing.\n\n'Why, you coarse and vulgar vagabond!' said Mr Lammle, looking fiercely\nabout him, 'if your servant was here to give me sixpence of your\nmoney to get my boots cleaned afterwards--for you are not worth the\nexpenditure--I'd kick you.'\n\n'No you wouldn't,' pleaded Fledgeby. 'I am sure you'd think better of\nit.'\n\n'I tell you what, Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle advancing on him. 'Since\nyou presume to contradict me, I'll assert myself a little. Give me your\nnose!'\n\nFledgeby covered it with his hand instead, and said, retreating, 'I beg\nyou won't!'\n\n'Give me your nose, sir,' repeated Lammle.\n\nStill covering that feature and backing, Mr Fledgeby reiterated\n(apparently with a severe cold in his head), 'I beg, I beg, you won't.'\n\n'And this fellow,' exclaimed Lammle, stopping and making the most of his\nchest--'This fellow presumes on my having selected him out of all the\nyoung fellows I know, for an advantageous opportunity! This fellow\npresumes on my having in my desk round the corner, his dirty note of\nhand for a wretched sum payable on the occurrence of a certain event,\nwhich event can only be of my and my wife's bringing about! This fellow,\nFledgeby, presumes to be impertinent to me, Lammle. Give me your nose\nsir!'\n\n'No! Stop! I beg your pardon,' said Fledgeby, with humility.\n\n'What do you say, sir?' demanded Mr Lammle, seeming too furious to\nunderstand.\n\n'I beg your pardon,' repeated Fledgeby.\n\n'Repeat your words louder, sir. The just indignation of a gentleman has\nsent the blood boiling to my head. I don't hear you.'\n\n'I say,' repeated Fledgeby, with laborious explanatory politeness, 'I\nbeg your pardon.'\n\nMr Lammle paused. 'As a man of honour,' said he, throwing himself into a\nchair, 'I am disarmed.'\n\nMr Fledgeby also took a chair, though less demonstratively, and by\nslow approaches removed his hand from his nose. Some natural diffidence\nassailed him as to blowing it, so shortly after its having assumed a\npersonal and delicate, not to say public, character; but he overcame\nhis scruples by degrees, and modestly took that liberty under an implied\nprotest.\n\n'Lammle,' he said sneakingly, when that was done, 'I hope we are friends\nagain?'\n\n'Mr Fledgeby,' returned Lammle, 'say no more.'\n\n'I must have gone too far in making myself disagreeable,' said Fledgeby,\n'but I never intended it.'\n\n'Say no more, say no more!' Mr Lammle repeated in a magnificent tone.\n'Give me your'--Fledgeby started--'hand.'\n\nThey shook hands, and on Mr Lammle's part, in particular, there ensued\ngreat geniality. For, he was quite as much of a dastard as the other,\nand had been in equal danger of falling into the second place for good,\nwhen he took heart just in time, to act upon the information conveyed to\nhim by Fledgeby's eye.\n\nThe breakfast ended in a perfect understanding. Incessant machinations\nwere to be kept at work by Mr and Mrs Lammle; love was to be made for\nFledgeby, and conquest was to be insured to him; he on his part\nvery humbly admitting his defects as to the softer social arts, and\nentreating to be backed to the utmost by his two able coadjutors.\n\nLittle recked Mr Podsnap of the traps and toils besetting his Young\nPerson. He regarded her as safe within the Temple of Podsnappery, hiding\nthe fulness of time when she, Georgiana, should take him, Fitz-Podsnap,\nwho with all his worldly goods should her endow. It would call a blush\ninto the cheek of his standard Young Person to have anything to do with\nsuch matters save to take as directed, and with worldly goods as per\nsettlement to be endowed. Who giveth this woman to be married to this\nman? I, Podsnap. Perish the daring thought that any smaller creation\nshould come between!\n\nIt was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his spirits or his\nusual temperature of nose until the afternoon. Walking into the City in\nthe holiday afternoon, he walked against a living stream setting out of\nit; and thus, when he turned into the precincts of St Mary Axe, he found\na prevalent repose and quiet there. A yellow overhanging plaster-fronted\nhouse at which he stopped was quiet too. The blinds were all drawn down,\nand the inscription Pubsey and Co. seemed to doze in the counting-house\nwindow on the ground-floor giving on the sleepy street.\n\nFledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but no\none came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow street and looked up at the\nhouse-windows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He got out of temper,\ncrossed the narrow street again, and pulled the housebell as if it were\nthe house's nose, and he were taking a hint from his late experience.\nHis ear at the keyhole seemed then, at last, to give him assurance that\nsomething stirred within. His eye at the keyhole seemed to confirm his\near, for he angrily pulled the house's nose again, and pulled and pulled\nand continued to pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway.\n\n'Now you sir!' cried Fledgeby. 'These are nice games!'\n\nHe addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt, and\nwide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at the top of his\nhead, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and mingling\nwith his beard. A man who with a graceful Eastern action of homage bent\nhis head, and stretched out his hands with the palms downward, as if to\ndeprecate the wrath of a superior.\n\n'What have you been up to?' said Fledgeby, storming at him.\n\n'Generous Christian master,' urged the Jewish man, 'it being holiday, I\nlooked for no one.'\n\n'Holiday he blowed!' said Fledgeby, entering. 'What have YOU got to do\nwith holidays? Shut the door.'\n\nWith his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung his rusty\nlarge-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out of date as his coat; in the\ncorner near it stood his staff--no walking-stick but a veritable staff.\nFledgeby turned into the counting-house, perched himself on a business\nstool, and cocked his hat. There were light boxes on shelves in the\ncounting-house, and strings of mock beads hanging up. There were samples\nof cheap clocks, and samples of cheap vases of flowers. Foreign toys,\nall.\n\nPerched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of his legs\ndangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to advantage with the\nage of the Jewish man as he stood with his bare head bowed, and his eyes\n(which he only raised in speaking) on the ground. His clothing was worn\ndown to the rusty hue of the hat in the entry, but though he looked\nshabby he did not look mean. Now, Fledgeby, though not shabby, did look\nmean.\n\n'You have not told me what you were up to, you sir,' said Fledgeby,\nscratching his head with the brim of his hat.\n\n'Sir, I was breathing the air.'\n\n'In the cellar, that you didn't hear?'\n\n'On the house-top.'\n\n'Upon my soul! That's a way of doing business.'\n\n'Sir,' the old man represented with a grave and patient air, 'there must\nbe two parties to the transaction of business, and the holiday has left\nme alone.'\n\n'Ah! Can't be buyer and seller too. That's what the Jews say; ain't it?'\n\n'At least we say truly, if we say so,' answered the old man with a\nsmile.\n\n'Your people need speak the truth sometimes, for they lie enough,'\nremarked Fascination Fledgeby.\n\n'Sir, there is,' returned the old man with quiet emphasis, 'too much\nuntruth among all denominations of men.'\n\nRather dashed, Fascination Fledgeby took another scratch at his\nintellectual head with his hat, to gain time for rallying.\n\n'For instance,' he resumed, as though it were he who had spoken last,\n'who but you and I ever heard of a poor Jew?'\n\n'The Jews,' said the old man, raising his eyes from the ground with his\nformer smile. 'They hear of poor Jews often, and are very good to them.'\n\n'Bother that!' returned Fledgeby. 'You know what I mean. You'd persuade\nme if you could, that you are a poor Jew. I wish you'd confess how much\nyou really did make out of my late governor. I should have a better\nopinion of you.'\n\nThe old man only bent his head, and stretched out his hands as before.\n\n'Don't go on posturing like a Deaf and Dumb School,' said the ingenious\nFledgeby, 'but express yourself like a Christian--or as nearly as you\ncan.'\n\n'I had had sickness and misfortunes, and was so poor,' said the old\nman, 'as hopelessly to owe the father, principal and interest. The son\ninheriting, was so merciful as to forgive me both, and place me here.'\n\nHe made a little gesture as though he kissed the hem of an imaginary\ngarment worn by the noble youth before him. It was humbly done, but\npicturesquely, and was not abasing to the doer.\n\n'You won't say more, I see,' said Fledgeby, looking at him as if he\nwould like to try the effect of extracting a double-tooth or two, 'and\nso it's of no use my putting it to you. But confess this, Riah; who\nbelieves you to be poor now?'\n\n'No one,' said the old man.\n\n'There you're right,' assented Fledgeby.\n\n'No one,' repeated the old man with a grave slow wave of his head. 'All\nscout it as a fable. Were I to say \"This little fancy business is not\nmine\";' with a lithe sweep of his easily-turning hand around him,\nto comprehend the various objects on the shelves; '\"it is the little\nbusiness of a Christian young gentleman who places me, his servant, in\ntrust and charge here, and to whom I am accountable for every single\nbead,\" they would laugh. When, in the larger money-business, I tell the\nborrowers--'\n\n'I say, old chap!' interposed Fledgeby, 'I hope you mind what you DO\ntell 'em?'\n\n'Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. When I tell them,\n\"I cannot promise this, I cannot answer for the other, I must see my\nprincipal, I have not the money, I am a poor man and it does not rest\nwith me,\" they are so unbelieving and so impatient, that they sometimes\ncurse me in Jehovah's name.'\n\n'That's deuced good, that is!' said Fascination Fledgeby.\n\n'And at other times they say, \"Can it never be done without these\ntricks, Mr Riah? Come, come, Mr Riah, we know the arts of your\npeople\"--my people!--\"If the money is to be lent, fetch it, fetch it; if\nit is not to be lent, keep it and say so.\" They never believe me.'\n\n'THAT'S all right,' said Fascination Fledgeby.\n\n'They say, \"We know, Mr Riah, we know. We have but to look at you, and\nwe know.\"'\n\n'Oh, a good 'un are you for the post,' thought Fledgeby, 'and a good 'un\nwas I to mark you out for it! I may be slow, but I am precious sure.'\n\nNot a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of Mr\nFledgeby's breath, lest it should tend to put his servant's price up.\nBut looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his head bowed and his\neyes cast down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of his baldness,\nan inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an inch of his\nhat-brim, an inch of his walking-staff, would be to relinquish hundreds\nof pounds.\n\n'Look here, Riah,' said Fledgeby, mollified by these self-approving\nconsiderations. 'I want to go a little more into buying-up queer bills.\nLook out in that direction.'\n\n'Sir, it shall be done.'\n\n'Casting my eye over the accounts, I find that branch of business pays\npretty fairly, and I am game for extending it. I like to know people's\naffairs likewise. So look out.'\n\n'Sir, I will, promptly.'\n\n'Put it about in the right quarters, that you'll buy queer bills by the\nlump--by the pound weight if that's all--supposing you see your way to a\nfair chance on looking over the parcel. And there's one thing more. Come\nto me with the books for periodical inspection as usual, at eight on\nMonday morning.'\n\nRiah drew some folding tablets from his breast and noted it down.\n\n'That's all I wanted to say at the present time,' continued Fledgeby in\na grudging vein, as he got off the stool, 'except that I wish you'd take\nthe air where you can hear the bell, or the knocker, either one of the\ntwo or both. By-the-by how DO you take the air at the top of the house?\nDo you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?'\n\n'Sir, there are leads there, and I have made a little garden there.'\n\n'To bury your money in, you old dodger?'\n\n'A thumbnail's space of garden would hold the treasure I bury, master,'\nsaid Riah. 'Twelve shillings a week, even when they are an old man's\nwages, bury themselves.'\n\n'I should like to know what you really are worth,' returned Fledgeby,\nwith whom his growing rich on that stipend and gratitude was a very\nconvenient fiction. 'But come! Let's have a look at your garden on the\ntiles, before I go!'\n\nThe old man took a step back, and hesitated.\n\n'Truly, sir, I have company there.'\n\n'Have you, by George!' said Fledgeby; 'I suppose you happen to know\nwhose premises these are?'\n\n'Sir, they are yours, and I am your servant in them.'\n\n'Oh! I thought you might have overlooked that,' retorted Fledgeby, with\nhis eyes on Riah's beard as he felt for his own; 'having company on my\npremises, you know!'\n\n'Come up and see the guests, sir. I hope for your admission that they\ncan do no harm.'\n\nPassing him with a courteous reverence, specially unlike any action that\nMr Fledgeby could for his life have imparted to his own head and hands,\nthe old man began to ascend the stairs. As he toiled on before, with his\npalm upon the stair-rail, and his long black skirt, a very gaberdine,\noverhanging each successive step, he might have been the leader in some\npilgrimage of devotional ascent to a prophet's tomb. Not troubled by any\nsuch weak imagining, Fascination Fledgeby merely speculated on the time\nof life at which his beard had begun, and thought once more what a good\n'un he was for the part.\n\nSome final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under a low penthouse\nroof, to the house-top. Riah stood still, and, turning to his master,\npointed out his guests.\n\nLizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some old instinct of\nhis race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on it, against\nno more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack over which some\nbumble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book; both\nwith attentive faces; Jenny with the sharper; Lizzie with the more\nperplexed. Another little book or two were lying near, and a common\nbasket of common fruit, and another basket full of strings of beads and\ntinsel scraps. A few boxes of humble flowers and evergreens completed\nthe garden; and the encompassing wilderness of dowager old chimneys\ntwirled their cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if they were\nbridling, and fanning themselves, and looking on in a state of airy\nsurprise.\n\nTaking her eyes off the book, to test her memory of something in it,\nLizzie was the first to see herself observed. As she rose, Miss Wren\nlikewise became conscious, and said, irreverently addressing the great\nchief of the premises: 'Whoever you are, I can't get up, because my\nback's bad and my legs are queer.'\n\n'This is my master,' said Riah, stepping forward.\n\n('Don't look like anybody's master,' observed Miss Wren to herself, with\na hitch of her chin and eyes.)\n\n'This, sir,' pursued the old man, 'is a little dressmaker for little\npeople. Explain to the master, Jenny.'\n\n'Dolls; that's all,' said Jenny, shortly. 'Very difficult to fit too,\nbecause their figures are so uncertain. You never know where to expect\ntheir waists.'\n\n'Her friend,' resumed the old man, motioning towards Lizzie; 'and as\nindustrious as virtuous. But that they both are. They are busy early and\nlate, sir, early and late; and in bye-times, as on this holiday, they go\nto book-learning.'\n\n'Not much good to be got out of that,' remarked Fledgeby.\n\n'Depends upon the person!' quoth Miss Wren, snapping him up.\n\n'I made acquaintance with my guests, sir,' pursued the Jew, with an\nevident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, 'through their coming\nhere to buy of our damage and waste for Miss Jenny's millinery. Our\nwaste goes into the best of company, sir, on her rosy-cheeked little\ncustomers. They wear it in their hair, and on their ball-dresses, and\neven (so she tells me) are presented at Court with it.'\n\n'Ah!' said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this doll-fancy made rather\nstrong demands; 'she's been buying that basketful to-day, I suppose?'\n\n'I suppose she has,' Miss Jenny interposed; 'and paying for it too, most\nlikely!'\n\n'Let's have a look at it,' said the suspicious chief. Riah handed it to\nhim. 'How much for this now?'\n\n'Two precious silver shillings,' said Miss Wren.\n\nRiah confirmed her with two nods, as Fledgeby looked to him. A nod for\neach shilling.\n\n'Well,' said Fledgeby, poking into the contents of the basket with his\nforefinger, 'the price is not so bad. You have got good measure, Miss\nWhat-is-it.'\n\n'Try Jenny,' suggested that young lady with great calmness.\n\n'You have got good measure, Miss Jenny; but the price is not so\nbad.--And you,' said Fledgeby, turning to the other visitor, 'do you buy\nanything here, miss?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'Nor sell anything neither, miss?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\nLooking askew at the questioner, Jenny stole her hand up to her\nfriend's, and drew her friend down, so that she bent beside her on her\nknee.\n\n'We are thankful to come here for rest, sir,' said Jenny. 'You see, you\ndon't know what the rest of this place is to us; does he, Lizzie? It's\nthe quiet, and the air.'\n\n'The quiet!' repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his head\ntowards the City's roar. 'And the air!' with a 'Poof!' at the smoke.\n\n'Ah!' said Jenny. 'But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing\non above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the golden\narrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the wind comes,\nand you feel as if you were dead.'\n\nThe little creature looked above her, holding up her slight transparent\nhand.\n\n'How do you feel when you are dead?' asked Fledgeby, much perplexed.\n\n'Oh, so tranquil!' cried the little creature, smiling. 'Oh, so peaceful\nand so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying, and\nworking, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, and\nyou seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such\na strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon you!'\n\nHer eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly looked\non.\n\n'Why it was only just now,' said the little creature, pointing at him,\n'that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at\nthat low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stood\nupright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon\nhim, and his life down in the dark was over!--Till he was called back\nto life,' she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of\nsharpness. 'Why did you call him back?'\n\n'He was long enough coming, anyhow,' grumbled Fledgeby.\n\n'But you are not dead, you know,' said Jenny Wren. 'Get down to life!'\n\nMr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with a nod\nturned round. As Riah followed to attend him down the stairs, the little\ncreature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, 'Don't be long gone.\nCome back, and be dead!' And still as they went down they heard the\nlittle sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half\nsinging, 'Come back and be dead, Come back and be dead!'\n\nWhen they got down into the entry, Fledgeby, pausing under the shadow of\nthe broad old hat, and mechanically poising the staff, said to the old\nman:\n\n'That's a handsome girl, that one in her senses.'\n\n'And as good as handsome,' answered Riah.\n\n'At all events,' observed Fledgeby, with a dry whistle, 'I hope she\nain't bad enough to put any chap up to the fastenings, and get the\npremises broken open. You look out. Keep your weather eye awake and\ndon't make any more acquaintances, however handsome. Of course you\nalways keep my name to yourself?'\n\n'Sir, assuredly I do.'\n\n'If they ask it, say it's Pubsey, or say it's Co, or say it's anything\nyou like, but what it is.'\n\nHis grateful servant--in whose race gratitude is deep, strong, and\nenduring--bowed his head, and actually did now put the hem of his coat\nto his lips: though so lightly that the wearer knew nothing of it.\n\nThus, Fascination Fledgeby went his way, exulting in the artful\ncleverness with which he had turned his thumb down on a Jew, and the old\nman went his different way up-stairs. As he mounted, the call or song\nbegan to sound in his ears again, and, looking above, he saw the face\nof the little creature looking down out of a Glory of her long bright\nradiant hair, and musically repeating to him, like a vision:\n\n'Come up and be dead! Come up and be dead!'\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nA RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER\n\n\nAgain Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn sat together in the\nTemple. This evening, however, they were not together in the place of\nbusiness of the eminent solicitor, but in another dismal set of\nchambers facing it on the same second-floor; on whose dungeon-like black\nouter-door appeared the legend:\n\nPRIVATE\n\nMR EUGENE WRAYBURN\n\nMR MORTIMER LIGHTWOOD\n\n(Mr Lightwood's Offices opposite.)\n\nAppearances indicated that this establishment was a very recent\ninstitution. The white letters of the inscription were extremely white\nand extremely strong to the sense of smell, the complexion of the\ntables and chairs was (like Lady Tippins's) a little too blooming to\nbe believed in, and the carpets and floorcloth seemed to rush at the\nbeholder's face in the unusual prominency of their patterns. But the\nTemple, accustomed to tone down both the still life and the human life\nthat has much to do with it, would soon get the better of all that.\n\n'Well!' said Eugene, on one side of the fire, 'I feel tolerably\ncomfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the same.'\n\n'Why shouldn't he?' asked Lightwood, from the other side of the fire.\n\n'To be sure,' pursued Eugene, reflecting, 'he is not in the secret of\nour pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be in an easy frame of mind.'\n\n'We shall pay him,' said Mortimer.\n\n'Shall we, really?' returned Eugene, indolently surprised. 'You don't\nsay so!'\n\n'I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part,' said Mortimer, in a slightly\ninjured tone.\n\n'Ah! I mean to pay him too,' retorted Eugene. 'But then I mean so much\nthat I--that I don't mean.'\n\n'Don't mean?'\n\n'So much that I only mean and shall always only mean and nothing more,\nmy dear Mortimer. It's the same thing.'\n\nHis friend, lying back in his easy chair, watched him lying back in his\neasy chair, as he stretched out his legs on the hearth-rug, and said,\nwith the amused look that Eugene Wrayburn could always awaken in him\nwithout seeming to try or care:\n\n'Anyhow, your vagaries have increased the bill.'\n\n'Calls the domestic virtues vagaries!' exclaimed Eugene, raising his\neyes to the ceiling.\n\n'This very complete little kitchen of ours,' said Mortimer, 'in which\nnothing will ever be cooked--'\n\n'My dear, dear Mortimer,' returned his friend, lazily lifting his head\na little to look at him, 'how often have I pointed out to you that its\nmoral influence is the important thing?'\n\n'Its moral influence on this fellow!' exclaimed Lightwood, laughing.\n\n'Do me the favour,' said Eugene, getting out of his chair with much\ngravity, 'to come and inspect that feature of our establishment which\nyou rashly disparage.' With that, taking up a candle, he conducted\nhis chum into the fourth room of the set of chambers--a little narrow\nroom--which was very completely and neatly fitted as a kitchen. 'See!'\nsaid Eugene, 'miniature flour-barrel, rolling-pin, spice-box, shelf of\nbrown jars, chopping-board, coffee-mill, dresser elegantly furnished\nwith crockery, saucepans and pans, roasting jack, a charming kettle, an\narmoury of dish-covers. The moral influence of these objects, in forming\nthe domestic virtues, may have an immense influence upon me; not upon\nyou, for you are a hopeless case, but upon me. In fact, I have an idea\nthat I feel the domestic virtues already forming. Do me the favour to\nstep into my bedroom. Secretaire, you see, and abstruse set of solid\nmahogany pigeon-holes, one for every letter of the alphabet. To what use\ndo I devote them? I receive a bill--say from Jones. I docket it neatly\nat the secretaire, JONES, and I put it into pigeonhole J. It's the next\nthing to a receipt and is quite as satisfactory to ME. And I very much\nwish, Mortimer,' sitting on his bed, with the air of a philosopher\nlecturing a disciple, 'that my example might induce YOU to cultivate\nhabits of punctuality and method; and, by means of the moral influences\nwith which I have surrounded you, to encourage the formation of the\ndomestic virtues.'\n\nMortimer laughed again, with his usual commentaries of 'How CAN you be\nso ridiculous, Eugene!' and 'What an absurd fellow you are!' but when\nhis laugh was out, there was something serious, if not anxious, in his\nface. Despite that pernicious assumption of lassitude and indifference,\nwhich had become his second nature, he was strongly attached to his\nfriend. He had founded himself upon Eugene when they were yet boys at\nschool; and at this hour imitated him no less, admired him no less,\nloved him no less, than in those departed days.\n\n'Eugene,' said he, 'if I could find you in earnest for a minute, I would\ntry to say an earnest word to you.'\n\n'An earnest word?' repeated Eugene. 'The moral influences are beginning\nto work. Say on.'\n\n'Well, I will,' returned the other, 'though you are not earnest yet.'\n\n'In this desire for earnestness,' murmured Eugene, with the air of one\nwho was meditating deeply, 'I trace the happy influences of the little\nflour-barrel and the coffee-mill. Gratifying.'\n\n'Eugene,' resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light interruption, and\nlaying a hand upon Eugene's shoulder, as he, Mortimer, stood before him\nseated on his bed, 'you are withholding something from me.'\n\nEugene looked at him, but said nothing.\n\n'All this past summer, you have been withholding something from me.\nBefore we entered on our boating vacation, you were as bent upon it as I\nhave seen you upon anything since we first rowed together. But you cared\nvery little for it when it came, often found it a tie and a drag upon\nyou, and were constantly away. Now it was well enough half-a-dozen\ntimes, a dozen times, twenty times, to say to me in your own odd manner,\nwhich I know so well and like so much, that your disappearances were\nprecautions against our boring one another; but of course after a short\nwhile I began to know that they covered something. I don't ask what it\nis, as you have not told me; but the fact is so. Say, is it not?'\n\n'I give you my word of honour, Mortimer,' returned Eugene, after a\nserious pause of a few moments, 'that I don't know.'\n\n'Don't know, Eugene?'\n\n'Upon my soul, don't know. I know less about myself than about most\npeople in the world, and I don't know.'\n\n'You have some design in your mind?'\n\n'Have I? I don't think I have.'\n\n'At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which used not to\nbe there?'\n\n'I really can't say,' replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, after\npausing again to reconsider. 'At times I have thought yes; at other\ntimes I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue such a\nsubject; now I have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired and\nembarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't say. Frankly and faithfully, I would\nif I could.'\n\nSo replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend's shoulder,\nas he rose from his seat upon the bed, and said:\n\n'You must take your friend as he is. You know what I am, my dear\nMortimer. You know how dreadfully susceptible I am to boredom. You know\nthat when I became enough of a man to find myself an embodied conundrum,\nI bored myself to the last degree by trying to find out what I meant.\nYou know that at length I gave it up, and declined to guess any more.\nThen how can I possibly give you the answer that I have not discovered?\nThe old nursery form runs, \"Riddle-me-riddle-me-ree, p'raps you can't\ntell me what this may be?\" My reply runs, \"No. Upon my life, I can't.\"'\n\nSo much of what was fantastically true to his own knowledge of this\nutterly careless Eugene, mingled with the answer, that Mortimer could\nnot receive it as a mere evasion. Besides, it was given with an engaging\nair of openness, and of special exemption of the one friend he valued,\nfrom his reckless indifference.\n\n'Come, dear boy!' said Eugene. 'Let us try the effect of smoking. If it\nenlightens me at all on this question, I will impart unreservedly.'\n\nThey returned to the room they had come from, and, finding it heated,\nopened a window. Having lighted their cigars, they leaned out of this\nwindow, smoking, and looking down at the moonlight, as it shone into the\ncourt below.\n\n'No enlightenment,' resumed Eugene, after certain minutes of silence. 'I\nfeel sincerely apologetic, my dear Mortimer, but nothing comes.'\n\n'If nothing comes,' returned Mortimer, 'nothing can come from it. So\nI shall hope that this may hold good throughout, and that there may be\nnothing on foot. Nothing injurious to you, Eugene, or--'\n\nEugene stayed him for a moment with his hand on his arm, while he took a\npiece of earth from an old flowerpot on the window-sill and dexterously\nshot it at a little point of light opposite; having done which to his\nsatisfaction, he said, 'Or?'\n\n'Or injurious to any one else.'\n\n'How,' said Eugene, taking another little piece of earth, and shooting\nit with great precision at the former mark, 'how injurious to any one\nelse?'\n\n'I don't know.'\n\n'And,' said Eugene, taking, as he said the word, another shot, 'to whom\nelse?'\n\n'I don't know.'\n\nChecking himself with another piece of earth in his hand, Eugene looked\nat his friend inquiringly and a little suspiciously. There was no\nconcealed or half-expressed meaning in his face.\n\n'Two belated wanderers in the mazes of the law,' said Eugene, attracted\nby the sound of footsteps, and glancing down as he spoke, 'stray into\nthe court. They examine the door-posts of number one, seeking the name\nthey want. Not finding it at number one, they come to number two. On the\nhat of wanderer number two, the shorter one, I drop this pellet. Hitting\nhim on the hat, I smoke serenely, and become absorbed in contemplation\nof the sky.'\n\nBoth the wanderers looked up towards the window; but, after\ninterchanging a mutter or two, soon applied themselves to the door-posts\nbelow. There they seemed to discover what they wanted, for they\ndisappeared from view by entering at the doorway. 'When they emerge,'\nsaid Eugene, 'you shall see me bring them both down'; and so prepared\ntwo pellets for the purpose.\n\nHe had not reckoned on their seeking his name, or Lightwood's. But\neither the one or the other would seem to be in question, for now there\ncame a knock at the door. 'I am on duty to-night,' said Mortimer, 'stay\nyou where you are, Eugene.' Requiring no persuasion, he stayed there,\nsmoking quietly, and not at all curious to know who knocked, until\nMortimer spoke to him from within the room, and touched him. Then,\ndrawing in his head, he found the visitors to be young Charley Hexam\nand the schoolmaster; both standing facing him, and both recognized at a\nglance.\n\n'You recollect this young fellow, Eugene?' said Mortimer.\n\n'Let me look at him,' returned Wrayburn, coolly. 'Oh, yes, yes. I\nrecollect him!'\n\nHe had not been about to repeat that former action of taking him by the\nchin, but the boy had suspected him of it, and had thrown up his arm\nwith an angry start. Laughingly, Wrayburn looked to Lightwood for an\nexplanation of this odd visit.\n\n'He says he has something to say.'\n\n'Surely it must be to you, Mortimer.'\n\n'So I thought, but he says no. He says it is to you.'\n\n'Yes, I do say so,' interposed the boy. 'And I mean to say what I want\nto say, too, Mr Eugene Wrayburn!'\n\nPassing him with his eyes as if there were nothing where he stood,\nEugene looked on to Bradley Headstone. With consummate indolence, he\nturned to Mortimer, inquiring: 'And who may this other person be?'\n\n'I am Charles Hexam's friend,' said Bradley; 'I am Charles Hexam's\nschoolmaster.'\n\n'My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners,' returned\nEugene.\n\nComposedly smoking, he leaned an elbow on the chimneypiece, at the side\nof the fire, and looked at the schoolmaster. It was a cruel look, in its\ncold disdain of him, as a creature of no worth. The schoolmaster looked\nat him, and that, too, was a cruel look, though of the different kind,\nthat it had a raging jealousy and fiery wrath in it.\n\nVery remarkably, neither Eugene Wrayburn nor Bradley Headstone looked at\nall at the boy. Through the ensuing dialogue, those two, no matter\nwho spoke, or whom was addressed, looked at each other. There was some\nsecret, sure perception between them, which set them against one another\nin all ways.\n\n'In some high respects, Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' said Bradley, answering\nhim with pale and quivering lips, 'the natural feelings of my pupils are\nstronger than my teaching.'\n\n'In most respects, I dare say,' replied Eugene, enjoying his cigar,\n'though whether high or low is of no importance. You have my name very\ncorrectly. Pray what is yours?'\n\n'It cannot concern you much to know, but--'\n\n'True,' interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him short at his\nmistake, 'it does not concern me at all to know. I can say Schoolmaster,\nwhich is a most respectable title. You are right, Schoolmaster.'\n\nIt was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley\nHeadstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious anger.\nHe tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but they\nquivered fast.\n\n'Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' said the boy, 'I want a word with you. I have\nwanted it so much, that we have looked out your address in the book, and\nwe have been to your office, and we have come from your office here.'\n\n'You have given yourself much trouble, Schoolmaster,' observed\nEugene, blowing the feathery ash from his cigar. 'I hope it may prove\nremunerative.'\n\n'And I am glad to speak,' pursued the boy, 'in presence of Mr Lightwood,\nbecause it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever saw my sister.'\n\nFor a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from the schoolmaster\nto note the effect of the last word on Mortimer, who, standing on the\nopposite side of the fire, as soon as the word was spoken, turned his\nface towards the fire and looked down into it.\n\n'Similarly, it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever saw her again, for\nyou were with him on the night when my father was found, and so I found\nyou with her on the next day. Since then, you have seen my sister often.\nYou have seen my sister oftener and oftener. And I want to know why?'\n\n'Was this worth while, Schoolmaster?' murmured Eugene, with the air of\na disinterested adviser. 'So much trouble for nothing? You should know\nbest, but I think not.'\n\n'I don't know, Mr Wrayburn,' answered Bradley, with his passion rising,\n'why you address me--'\n\n'Don't you? said Eugene. 'Then I won't.'\n\nHe said it so tauntingly in his perfect placidity, that the respectable\nright-hand clutching the respectable hair-guard of the respectable watch\ncould have wound it round his throat and strangled him with it. Not\nanother word did Eugene deem it worth while to utter, but stood leaning\nhis head upon his hand, smoking, and looking imperturbably at the\nchafing Bradley Headstone with his clutching right-hand, until Bradley\nwas wellnigh mad.\n\n'Mr Wrayburn,' proceeded the boy, 'we not only know this that I have\ncharged upon you, but we know more. It has not yet come to my sister's\nknowledge that we have found it out, but we have. We had a plan, Mr\nHeadstone and I, for my sister's education, and for its being advised\nand overlooked by Mr Headstone, who is a much more competent authority,\nwhatever you may pretend to think, as you smoke, than you could produce,\nif you tried. Then, what do we find? What do we find, Mr Lightwood? Why,\nwe find that my sister is already being taught, without our knowing\nit. We find that while my sister gives an unwilling and cold ear to our\nschemes for her advantage--I, her brother, and Mr Headstone, the most\ncompetent authority, as his certificates would easily prove, that could\nbe produced--she is wilfully and willingly profiting by other schemes.\nAy, and taking pains, too, for I know what such pains are. And so does\nMr Headstone! Well! Somebody pays for this, is a thought that naturally\noccurs to us; who pays? We apply ourselves to find out, Mr Lightwood,\nand we find that your friend, this Mr Eugene Wrayburn, here, pays. Then\nI ask him what right has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, and\nhow comes he to be taking such a liberty without my consent, when I\nam raising myself in the scale of society by my own exertions and Mr\nHeadstone's aid, and have no right to have any darkness cast upon my\nprospects, or any imputation upon my respectability, through my sister?'\n\nThe boyish weakness of this speech, combined with its great selfishness,\nmade it a poor one indeed. And yet Bradley Headstone, used to the little\naudience of a school, and unused to the larger ways of men, showed a\nkind of exultation in it.\n\n'Now I tell Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' pursued the boy, forced into the use\nof the third person by the hopelessness of addressing him in the first,\n'that I object to his having any acquaintance at all with my sister, and\nthat I request him to drop it altogether. He is not to take it into his\nhead that I am afraid of my sister's caring for HIM--'\n\n(As the boy sneered, the Master sneered, and Eugene blew off the\nfeathery ash again.)\n\n--'But I object to it, and that's enough. I am more important to my\nsister than he thinks. As I raise myself, I intend to raise her;\nshe knows that, and she has to look to me for her prospects. Now I\nunderstand all this very well, and so does Mr Headstone. My sister is an\nexcellent girl, but she has some romantic notions; not about such things\nas your Mr Eugene Wrayburns, but about the death of my father and other\nmatters of that sort. Mr Wrayburn encourages those notions to make\nhimself of importance, and so she thinks she ought to be grateful to\nhim, and perhaps even likes to be. Now I don't choose her to be grateful\nto him, or to be grateful to anybody but me, except Mr Headstone. And\nI tell Mr Wrayburn that if he don't take heed of what I say, it will be\nworse for her. Let him turn that over in his memory, and make sure of\nit. Worse for her!'\n\nA pause ensued, in which the schoolmaster looked very awkward.\n\n'May I suggest, Schoolmaster,' said Eugene, removing his fast-waning\ncigar from his lips to glance at it, 'that you can now take your pupil\naway.'\n\n'And Mr Lightwood,' added the boy, with a burning face, under the\nflaming aggravation of getting no sort of answer or attention, 'I hope\nyou'll take notice of what I have said to your friend, and of what\nyour friend has heard me say, word by word, whatever he pretends to the\ncontrary. You are bound to take notice of it, Mr Lightwood, for, as I\nhave already mentioned, you first brought your friend into my sister's\ncompany, and but for you we never should have seen him. Lord knows none\nof us ever wanted him, any more than any of us will ever miss him. Now\nMr Headstone, as Mr Eugene Wrayburn has been obliged to hear what I had\nto say, and couldn't help himself, and as I have said it out to the last\nword, we have done all we wanted to do, and may go.'\n\n'Go down-stairs, and leave me a moment, Hexam,' he returned. The boy\ncomplying with an indignant look and as much noise as he could make,\nswung out of the room; and Lightwood went to the window, and leaned\nthere, looking out.\n\n'You think me of no more value than the dirt under your feet,' said\nBradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully weighed and measured tone, or\nhe could not have spoken at all.\n\n'I assure you, Schoolmaster,' replied Eugene, 'I don't think about you.'\n\n'That's not true,' returned the other; 'you know better.'\n\n'That's coarse,' Eugene retorted; 'but you DON'T know better.'\n\n'Mr Wrayburn, at least I know very well that it would be idle to set\nmyself against you in insolent words or overbearing manners. That lad\nwho has just gone out could put you to shame in half-a-dozen branches of\nknowledge in half an hour, but you can throw him aside like an inferior.\nYou can do as much by me, I have no doubt, beforehand.'\n\n'Possibly,' remarked Eugene.\n\n'But I am more than a lad,' said Bradley, with his clutching hand, 'and\nI WILL be heard, sir.'\n\n'As a schoolmaster,' said Eugene, 'you are always being heard. That\nought to content you.'\n\n'But it does not content me,' replied the other, white with passion. 'Do\nyou suppose that a man, in forming himself for the duties I discharge,\nand in watching and repressing himself daily to discharge them well,\ndismisses a man's nature?'\n\n'I suppose you,' said Eugene, 'judging from what I see as I look at you,\nto be rather too passionate for a good schoolmaster.' As he spoke, he\ntossed away the end of his cigar.\n\n'Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with you, sir, I\nrespect myself for being. But I have not Devils for my pupils.'\n\n'For your Teachers, I should rather say,' replied Eugene.\n\n'Mr Wrayburn.'\n\n'Schoolmaster.'\n\n'Sir, my name is Bradley Headstone.'\n\n'As you justly said, my good sir, your name cannot concern me. Now, what\nmore?'\n\n'This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine,' cried Bradley, breaking off\nto wipe the starting perspiration from his face as he shook from head to\nfoot, 'that I cannot so control myself as to appear a stronger creature\nthan this, when a man who has not felt in all his life what I have felt\nin a day can so command himself!' He said it in a very agony, and even\nfollowed it with an errant motion of his hands as if he could have torn\nhimself.\n\nEugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him beginning to be\nrather an entertaining study.\n\n'Mr Wrayburn, I desire to say something to you on my own part.'\n\n'Come, come, Schoolmaster,' returned Eugene, with a languid approach to\nimpatience as the other again struggled with himself; 'say what you have\nto say. And let me remind you that the door is standing open, and your\nyoung friend waiting for you on the stairs.'\n\n'When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so with the purpose of\nadding, as a man whom you should not be permitted to put aside, in case\nyou put him aside as a boy, that his instinct is correct and right.'\nThus Bradley Headstone, with great effort and difficulty.\n\n'Is that all?' asked Eugene.\n\n'No, sir,' said the other, flushed and fierce. 'I strongly support him\nin his disapproval of your visits to his sister, and in his objection to\nyour officiousness--and worse--in what you have taken upon yourself to\ndo for her.'\n\n'Is THAT all?' asked Eugene.\n\n'No, sir. I determined to tell you that you are not justified in these\nproceedings, and that they are injurious to his sister.'\n\n'Are you her schoolmaster as well as her brother's?--Or perhaps you\nwould like to be?' said Eugene.\n\nIt was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to Bradley\nHeadstone's face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt with a dagger.\n'What do you mean by that?' was as much as he could utter.\n\n'A natural ambition enough,' said Eugene, coolly. 'Far be it from me\nto say otherwise. The sister who is something too much upon your lips,\nperhaps--is so very different from all the associations to which she had\nbeen used, and from all the low obscure people about her, that it is a\nvery natural ambition.'\n\n'Do you throw my obscurity in my teeth, Mr Wrayburn?'\n\n'That can hardly be, for I know nothing concerning it, Schoolmaster, and\nseek to know nothing.'\n\n'You reproach me with my origin,' said Bradley Headstone; 'you cast\ninsinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell you, sir, I have worked my\nway onward, out of both and in spite of both, and have a right to be\nconsidered a better man than you, with better reasons for being proud.'\n\n'How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowledge, or how\nI can cast stones that were never in my hand, is a problem for the\ningenuity of a schoolmaster to prove,' returned Eugene. 'Is THAT all?'\n\n'No, sir. If you suppose that boy--'\n\n'Who really will be tired of waiting,' said Eugene, politely.\n\n'If you suppose that boy to be friendless, Mr Wrayburn, you deceive\nyourself. I am his friend, and you shall find me so.'\n\n'And you will find HIM on the stairs,' remarked Eugene.\n\n'You may have promised yourself, sir, that you could do what you\nchose here, because you had to deal with a mere boy, inexperienced,\nfriendless, and unassisted. But I give you warning that this mean\ncalculation is wrong. You have to do with a man also. You have to do\nwith me. I will support him, and, if need be, require reparation for\nhim. My hand and heart are in this cause, and are open to him.'\n\n'And--quite a coincidence--the door is open,' remarked Eugene.\n\n'I scorn your shifty evasions, and I scorn you,' said the schoolmaster.\n'In the meanness of your nature you revile me with the meanness of my\nbirth. I hold you in contempt for it. But if you don't profit by this\nvisit, and act accordingly, you will find me as bitterly in earnest\nagainst you as I could be if I deemed you worth a second thought on my\nown account.'\n\nWith a consciously bad grace and stiff manner, as Wrayburn looked so\neasily and calmly on, he went out with these words, and the heavy door\nclosed like a furnace-door upon his red and white heats of rage.\n\n'A curious monomaniac,' said Eugene. 'The man seems to believe that\neverybody was acquainted with his mother!'\n\nMortimer Lightwood being still at the window, to which he had in\ndelicacy withdrawn, Eugene called to him, and he fell to slowly pacing\nthe room.\n\n'My dear fellow,' said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, 'I fear my\nunexpected visitors have been troublesome. If as a set-off (excuse the\nlegal phrase from a barrister-at-law) you would like to ask Tippins to\ntea, I pledge myself to make love to her.'\n\n'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene,' replied Mortimer, still pacing the room, 'I am\nsorry for this. And to think that I have been so blind!'\n\n'How blind, dear boy?' inquired his unmoved friend.\n\n'What were your words that night at the river-side public-house?' said\nLightwood, stopping. 'What was it that you asked me? Did I feel like a\ndark combination of traitor and pickpocket when I thought of that girl?'\n\n'I seem to remember the expression,' said Eugene.\n\n'How do YOU feel when you think of her just now?'\n\nHis friend made no direct reply, but observed, after a few whiffs of his\ncigar, 'Don't mistake the situation. There is no better girl in all this\nLondon than Lizzie Hexam. There is no better among my people at home; no\nbetter among your people.'\n\n'Granted. What follows?'\n\n'There,' said Eugene, looking after him dubiously as he paced away to\nthe other end of the room, 'you put me again upon guessing the riddle\nthat I have given up.'\n\n'Eugene, do you design to capture and desert this girl?'\n\n'My dear fellow, no.'\n\n'Do you design to marry her?'\n\n'My dear fellow, no.'\n\n'Do you design to pursue her?'\n\n'My dear fellow, I don't design anything. I have no design whatever.\nI am incapable of designs. If I conceived a design, I should speedily\nabandon it, exhausted by the operation.'\n\n'Oh Eugene, Eugene!'\n\n'My dear Mortimer, not that tone of melancholy reproach, I entreat. What\ncan I do more than tell you all I know, and acknowledge my ignorance\nof all I don't know! How does that little old song go, which, under\npretence of being cheerful, is by far the most lugubrious I ever heard\nin my life?\n\n     \"Away with melancholy,\n     Nor doleful changes ring\n     On life and human folly,\n     But merrily merrily sing\n                              Fal la!\"\n\nDon't let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is comparatively\nunmeaning), but let us sing that we give up guessing the riddle\naltogether.'\n\n'Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is what these\npeople say true?'\n\n'I concede both admissions to my honourable and learned friend.'\n\n'Then what is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are you going?'\n\n'My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had left behind him\na catechizing infection. You are ruffled by the want of another cigar.\nTake one of these, I entreat. Light it at mine, which is in perfect\norder. So! Now do me the justice to observe that I am doing all I can\ntowards self-improvement, and that you have a light thrown on those\nhousehold implements which, when you only saw them as in a glass darkly,\nyou were hastily--I must say hastily--inclined to depreciate. Sensible\nof my deficiencies, I have surrounded myself with moral influences\nexpressly meant to promote the formation of the domestic virtues.\nTo those influences, and to the improving society of my friend from\nboyhood, commend me with your best wishes.'\n\n'Ah, Eugene!' said Lightwood, affectionately, now standing near him,\nso that they both stood in one little cloud of smoke; 'I would that you\nanswered my three questions! What is to come of it? What are you doing?\nWhere are you going?'\n\n'And my dear Mortimer,' returned Eugene, lightly fanning away the smoke\nwith his hand for the better exposition of his frankness of face and\nmanner, 'believe me, I would answer them instantly if I could. But\nto enable me to do so, I must first have found out the troublesome\nconundrum long abandoned. Here it is. Eugene Wrayburn.' Tapping his\nforehead and breast. 'Riddle-me, riddle-me-ree, perhaps you can't tell\nme what this may be?--No, upon my life I can't. I give it up!'\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nIN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED\n\n\nThe arrangement between Mr Boffin and his literary man, Mr Silas Wegg,\nso far altered with the altered habits of Mr Boffin's life, as that\nthe Roman Empire usually declined in the morning and in the eminently\naristocratic family mansion, rather than in the evening, as of yore,\nand in Boffin's Bower. There were occasions, however, when Mr Boffin,\nseeking a brief refuge from the blandishments of fashion, would present\nhimself at the Bower after dark, to anticipate the next sallying\nforth of Wegg, and would there, on the old settle, pursue the downward\nfortunes of those enervated and corrupted masters of the world who were\nby this time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for his\noffice, or better qualified to discharge it, he would have considered\nthese visits complimentary and agreeable; but, holding the position of\na handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented them. This was quite\naccording to rule, for the incompetent servant, by whomsoever employed,\nis always against his employer. Even those born governors, noble and\nright honourable creatures, who have been the most imbecile in high\nplaces, have uniformly shown themselves the most opposed (sometimes in\nbelying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to THEIR employer. What\nis in such wise true of the public master and servant, is equally true\nof the private master and servant all the world over.\n\nWhen Mr Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to 'Our House', as he\nhad been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat shelterless\nso long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as different\nfrom his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things it\nwell could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching character, by way of\nasserting himself and making out a case for compensation, affected to\nfall into a melancholy strain of musing over the mournful past; as if\nthe house and he had had a fall in life together.\n\n'And this, sir,' Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head\nand musing, 'was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from which I\nhave so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master\nGeorge, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker'--whose very names were of his own\ninventing--'pass and repass! And has it come to this, indeed! Ah dear\nme, dear me!'\n\nSo tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr Boffin was quite\nsorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the house he\nhad done him an irreparable injury.\n\nTwo or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on Mr\nWegg's part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to a fortuitous\ncombination of circumstances impelling him towards Clerkenwell, had\nenabled him to complete his bargain with Mr Venus.\n\n'Bring me round to the Bower,' said Silas, when the bargain was closed,\n'next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old Jamaikey warm\nshould meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it.'\n\n'You are aware of my being poor company, sir,' replied Mr Venus, 'but be\nit so.'\n\nIt being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr Venus come,\nand ringing at the Bower-gate.\n\nMr Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper truncheon under\nMr Venus's arm, and remarks, in a dry tone: 'Oh! I thought perhaps you\nmight have come in a cab.'\n\n'No, Mr Wegg,' replies Venus. 'I am not above a parcel.'\n\n'Above a parcel! No!' says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. But does not\nopenly growl, 'a certain sort of parcel might be above you.'\n\n'Here is your purchase, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, politely handing it over,\n'and I am glad to restore it to the source from whence it--flowed.'\n\n'Thankee,' says Wegg. 'Now this affair is concluded, I may mention to\nyou in a friendly way that I've my doubts whether, if I had consulted a\nlawyer, you could have kept this article back from me. I only throw it\nout as a legal point.'\n\n'Do you think so, Mr Wegg? I bought you in open contract.'\n\n'You can't buy human flesh and blood in this country, sir; not alive,\nyou can't,' says Wegg, shaking his head. 'Then query, bone?'\n\n'As a legal point?' asks Venus.\n\n'As a legal point.'\n\n'I am not competent to speak upon that, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, reddening\nand growing something louder; 'but upon a point of fact I think myself\ncompetent to speak; and as a point of fact I would have seen you--will\nyou allow me to say, further?'\n\n'I wouldn't say more than further, if I was you,' Mr Wegg suggests,\npacifically.\n\n--'Before I'd have given that packet into your hand without being paid\nmy price for it. I don't pretend to know how the point of law may stand,\nbut I'm thoroughly confident upon the point of fact.'\n\nAs Mr Venus is irritable (no doubt owing to his disappointment in love),\nand as it is not the cue of Mr Wegg to have him out of temper, the\nlatter gentleman soothingly remarks, 'I only put it as a little case; I\nonly put it ha'porthetically.'\n\n'Then I'd rather, Mr Wegg, you put it another time, penn'orth-etically,'\nis Mr Venus's retort, 'for I tell you candidly I don't like your little\ncases.'\n\nArrived by this time in Mr Wegg's sitting-room, made bright on the\nchilly evening by gaslight and fire, Mr Venus softens and compliments\nhim on his abode; profiting by the occasion to remind Wegg that he\n(Venus) told him he had got into a good thing.\n\n'Tolerable,' Wegg rejoins. 'But bear in mind, Mr Venus, that there's\nno gold without its alloy. Mix for yourself and take a seat in the\nchimbley-corner. Will you perform upon a pipe, sir?'\n\n'I am but an indifferent performer, sir,' returns the other; 'but I'll\naccompany you with a whiff or two at intervals.'\n\nSo, Mr Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr Venus lights and puffs, and\nWegg lights and puffs.\n\n'And there's alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr Wegg, you was\nremarking?'\n\n'Mystery,' returns Wegg. 'I don't like it, Mr Venus. I don't like to\nhave the life knocked out of former inhabitants of this house, in the\ngloomy dark, and not know who did it.'\n\n'Might you have any suspicions, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'No,' returns that gentleman. 'I know who profits by it. But I've no\nsuspicions.'\n\nHaving said which, Mr Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a most\ndetermined expression of Charity; as if he had caught that cardinal\nvirtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him,\nand held her by main force.\n\n'Similarly,' resumes Wegg, 'I have observations as I can offer upon\ncertain points and parties; but I make no objections, Mr Venus. Here\nis an immense fortune drops from the clouds upon a person that shall be\nnameless. Here is a weekly allowance, with a certain weight of coals,\ndrops from the clouds upon me. Which of us is the better man? Not the\nperson that shall be nameless. That's an observation of mine, but I\ndon't make it an objection. I take my allowance and my certain weight of\ncoals. He takes his fortune. That's the way it works.'\n\n'It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in the calm\nlight you do, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'Again look here,' pursues Silas, with an oratorical flourish of his\npipe and his wooden leg: the latter having an undignified tendency\nto tilt him back in his chair; 'here's another observation, Mr Venus,\nunaccompanied with an objection. Him that shall be nameless is liable to\nbe talked over. He gets talked over. Him that shall be nameless, having\nme at his right hand, naturally looking to be promoted higher, and you\nmay perhaps say meriting to be promoted higher--'\n\n(Mr Venus murmurs that he does say so.)\n\n'--Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances passes me by,\nand puts a talking-over stranger above my head. Which of us two is the\nbetter man? Which of us two can repeat most poetry? Which of us two has,\nin the service of him that shall be nameless, tackled the Romans, both\ncivil and military, till he has got as husky as if he'd been weaned and\never since brought up on sawdust? Not the talking-over stranger. Yet the\nhouse is as free to him as if it was his, and he has his room, and is\nput upon a footing, and draws about a thousand a year. I am banished to\nthe Bower, to be found in it like a piece of furniture whenever wanted.\nMerit, therefore, don't win. That's the way it works. I observe it,\nbecause I can't help observing it, being accustomed to take a powerful\nsight of notice; but I don't object. Ever here before, Mr Venus?'\n\n'Not inside the gate, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'You've been as far as the gate then, Mr Venus?'\n\n'Yes, Mr Wegg, and peeped in from curiosity.'\n\n'Did you see anything?'\n\n'Nothing but the dust-yard.'\n\nMr Wegg rolls his eyes all round the room, in that ever unsatisfied\nquest of his, and then rolls his eyes all round Mr Venus; as if\nsuspicious of his having something about him to be found out.\n\n'And yet, sir,' he pursues, 'being acquainted with old Mr Harmon, one\nwould have thought it might have been polite in you, too, to give him a\ncall. And you're naturally of a polite disposition, you are.' This last\nclause as a softening compliment to Mr Venus.\n\n'It is true, sir,' replies Venus, winking his weak eyes, and running\nhis fingers through his dusty shock of hair, 'that I was so, before a\ncertain observation soured me. You understand to what I allude, Mr Wegg?\nTo a certain written statement respecting not wishing to be regarded in\na certain light. Since that, all is fled, save gall.'\n\n'Not all,' says Mr Wegg, in a tone of sentimental condolence.\n\n'Yes, sir,' returns Venus, 'all! The world may deem it harsh, but I'd\nquite as soon pitch into my best friend as not. Indeed, I'd sooner!'\n\nInvoluntarily making a pass with his wooden leg to guard himself as Mr\nVenus springs up in the emphasis of this unsociable declaration, Mr Wegg\ntilts over on his back, chair and all, and is rescued by that harmless\nmisanthrope, in a disjointed state and ruefully rubbing his head.\n\n'Why, you lost your balance, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, handing him his pipe.\n\n'And about time to do it,' grumbles Silas, 'when a man's visitors,\nwithout a word of notice, conduct themselves with the sudden wiciousness\nof Jacks-in-boxes! Don't come flying out of your chair like that, Mr\nVenus!'\n\n'I ask your pardon, Mr Wegg. I am so soured.'\n\n'Yes, but hang it,' says Wegg argumentatively, 'a well-governed mind can\nbe soured sitting! And as to being regarded in lights, there's bumpey\nlights as well as bony. IN which,' again rubbing his head, 'I object to\nregard myself.'\n\n'I'll bear it in memory, sir.'\n\n'If you'll be so good.' Mr Wegg slowly subdues his ironical tone and his\nlingering irritation, and resumes his pipe. 'We were talking of old Mr\nHarmon being a friend of yours.'\n\n'Not a friend, Mr Wegg. Only known to speak to, and to have a little\ndeal with now and then. A very inquisitive character, Mr Wegg, regarding\nwhat was found in the dust. As inquisitive as secret.'\n\n'Ah! You found him secret?' returns Wegg, with a greedy relish.\n\n'He had always the look of it, and the manner of it.'\n\n'Ah!' with another roll of his eyes. 'As to what was found in the dust\nnow. Did you ever hear him mention how he found it, my dear friend?\nLiving on the mysterious premises, one would like to know. For instance,\nwhere he found things? Or, for instance, how he set about it? Whether\nhe began at the top of the mounds, or whether he began at the bottom.\nWhether he prodded'; Mr Wegg's pantomime is skilful and expressive here;\n'or whether he scooped? Should you say scooped, my dear Mr Venus; or\nshould you as a man--say prodded?'\n\n'I should say neither, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'As a fellow-man, Mr Venus--mix again--why neither?'\n\n'Because I suppose, sir, that what was found, was found in the sorting\nand sifting. All the mounds are sorted and sifted?'\n\n'You shall see 'em and pass your opinion. Mix again.'\n\nOn each occasion of his saying 'mix again', Mr Wegg, with a hop on\nhis wooden leg, hitches his chair a little nearer; more as if he were\nproposing that himself and Mr Venus should mix again, than that they\nshould replenish their glasses.\n\n'Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises,' says Wegg when\nthe other has acted on his hospitable entreaty, 'one likes to know.\nWould you be inclined to say now--as a brother--that he ever hid things\nin the dust, as well as found 'em?'\n\n'Mr Wegg, on the whole I should say he might.'\n\nMr Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys Mr Venus from\nhead to foot.\n\n'As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in mine for the\nfirst time this day, having unaccountably overlooked that act so full of\nboundless confidence binding a fellow-creetur TO a fellow creetur,' says\nWegg, holding Mr Venus's palm out, flat and ready for smiting, and now\nsmiting it; 'as such--and no other--for I scorn all lowlier ties betwixt\nmyself and the man walking with his face erect that alone I call my\nTwin--regarded and regarding in this trustful bond--what do you think he\nmight have hid?'\n\n'It is but a supposition, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'As a Being with his hand upon his heart,' cries Wegg; and the\napostrophe is not the less impressive for the Being's hand being\nactually upon his rum and water; 'put your supposition into language,\nand bring it out, Mr Venus!'\n\n'He was the species of old gentleman, sir,' slowly returns that\npractical anatomist, after drinking, 'that I should judge likely to\ntake such opportunities as this place offered, of stowing away money,\nvaluables, maybe papers.'\n\n'As one that was ever an ornament to human life,' says Mr Wegg, again\nholding out Mr Venus's palm as if he were going to tell his fortune by\nchiromancy, and holding his own up ready for smiting it when the time\nshould come; 'as one that the poet might have had his eye on, in writing\nthe national naval words:\n\n     Helm a-weather, now lay her close,\n            Yard arm and yard arm she lies;\n     Again, cried I, Mr Venus, give her t'other dose,\n            Man shrouds and grapple, sir, or she flies!\n\n--that is to say, regarded in the light of true British Oak, for such\nyou are explain, Mr Venus, the expression \"papers\"!'\n\n'Seeing that the old gentleman was generally cutting off some near\nrelation, or blocking out some natural affection,' Mr Venus rejoins, 'he\nmost likely made a good many wills and codicils.'\n\nThe palm of Silas Wegg descends with a sounding smack upon the palm\nof Venus, and Wegg lavishly exclaims, 'Twin in opinion equally with\nfeeling! Mix a little more!'\n\nHaving now hitched his wooden leg and his chair close in front of Mr\nVenus, Mr Wegg rapidly mixes for both, gives his visitor his glass,\ntouches its rim with the rim of his own, puts his own to his lips, puts\nit down, and spreading his hands on his visitor's knees thus addresses\nhim:\n\n'Mr Venus. It ain't that I object to being passed over for a stranger,\nthough I regard the stranger as a more than doubtful customer. It ain't\nfor the sake of making money, though money is ever welcome. It ain't for\nmyself, though I am not so haughty as to be above doing myself a good\nturn. It's for the cause of the right.'\n\nMr Venus, passively winking his weak eyes both at once, demands: 'What\nis, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'The friendly move, sir, that I now propose. You see the move, sir?'\n\n'Till you have pointed it out, Mr Wegg, I can't say whether I do or\nnot.'\n\n'If there IS anything to be found on these premises, let us find it\ntogether. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to look for it\ntogether. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to share the\nprofits of it equally betwixt us. In the cause of the right.' Thus Silas\nassuming a noble air.\n\n'Then,' says Mr Venus, looking up, after meditating with his hair held\nin his hands, as if he could only fix his attention by fixing his head;\n'if anything was to be unburied from under the dust, it would be kept a\nsecret by you and me? Would that be it, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'That would depend upon what it was, Mr Venus. Say it was money, or\nplate, or jewellery, it would be as much ours as anybody else's.'\n\nMr Venus rubs an eyebrow, interrogatively.\n\n'In the cause of the right it would. Because it would be unknowingly\nsold with the mounds else, and the buyer would get what he was never\nmeant to have, and never bought. And what would that be, Mr Venus, but\nthe cause of the wrong?'\n\n'Say it was papers,' Mr Venus propounds.\n\n'According to what they contained we should offer to dispose of 'em to\nthe parties most interested,' replies Wegg, promptly.\n\n'In the cause of the right, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'Always so, Mr Venus. If the parties should use them in the cause of the\nwrong, that would be their act and deed. Mr Venus. I have an opinion of\nyou, sir, to which it is not easy to give mouth. Since I called upon you\nthat evening when you were, as I may say, floating your powerful mind in\ntea, I have felt that you required to be roused with an object. In this\nfriendly move, sir, you will have a glorious object to rouse you.'\n\nMr Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout has been uppermost\nin his crafty mind:--the qualifications of Mr Venus for such a search.\nHe expatiates on Mr Venus's patient habits and delicate manipulation; on\nhis skill in piecing little things together; on his knowledge of various\ntissues and textures; on the likelihood of small indications leading him\non to the discovery of great concealments. 'While as to myself,' says\nWegg, 'I am not good at it. Whether I gave myself up to prodding,\nor whether I gave myself up to scooping, I couldn't do it with that\ndelicate touch so as not to show that I was disturbing the mounds.\nQuite different with YOU, going to work (as YOU would) in the light of\na fellow-man, holily pledged in a friendly move to his brother man.' Mr\nWegg next modestly remarks on the want of adaptation in a wooden leg\nto ladders and such like airy perches, and also hints at an inherent\ntendency in that timber fiction, when called into action for the\npurposes of a promenade on an ashey slope, to stick itself into the\nyielding foothold, and peg its owner to one spot. Then, leaving this\npart of the subject, he remarks on the special phenomenon that before\nhis installation in the Bower, it was from Mr Venus that he first heard\nof the legend of hidden wealth in the Mounds: 'which', he observes with\na vaguely pious air, 'was surely never meant for nothing.' Lastly,\nhe returns to the cause of the right, gloomily foreshadowing the\npossibility of something being unearthed to criminate Mr Boffin (of whom\nhe once more candidly admits it cannot be denied that he profits by a\nmurder), and anticipating his denunciation by the friendly movers to\navenging justice. And this, Mr Wegg expressly points out, not at all for\nthe sake of the reward--though it would be a want of principle not to\ntake it.\n\nTo all this, Mr Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked after the\nmanner of a terrier's ears, attends profoundly. When Mr Wegg, having\nfinished, opens his arms wide, as if to show Mr Venus how bare his\nbreast is, and then folds them pending a reply, Mr Venus winks at him\nwith both eyes some little time before speaking.\n\n'I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr Wegg,' he says when he does\nspeak. 'You have found out the difficulties by experience.'\n\n'No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it,' replies Wegg, a little\ndashed by the hint. 'I have just skimmed it. Skimmed it.'\n\n'And found nothing besides the difficulties?'\n\nWegg shakes his head.\n\n'I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr Wegg,' observes Venus, after\nruminating for a while.\n\n'Say yes,' Wegg naturally urges.\n\n'If I wasn't soured, my answer would be no. But being soured, Mr Wegg,\nand driven to reckless madness and desperation, I suppose it's Yes.'\n\nWegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the ceremony of\nclinking their rims, and inwardly drinks with great heartiness to the\nhealth and success in life of the young lady who has reduced Mr Venus to\nhis present convenient state of mind.\n\nThe articles of the friendly move are then severally recited and agreed\nupon. They are but secrecy, fidelity, and perseverance. The Bower to\nbe always free of access to Mr Venus for his researches, and every\nprecaution to be taken against their attracting observation in the\nneighbourhood.\n\n'There's a footstep!' exclaims Venus.\n\n'Where?' cries Wegg, starting.\n\n'Outside. St!'\n\nThey are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by shaking\nhands upon it. They softly break off, light their pipes which have gone\nout, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt, a footstep. It approaches\nthe window, and a hand taps at the glass. 'Come in!' calls Wegg; meaning\ncome round by the door. But the heavy old-fashioned sash is slowly\nraised, and a head slowly looks in out of the dark background of night.\n\n'Pray is Mr Silas Wegg here? Oh! I see him!'\n\nThe friendly movers might not have been quite at their ease, even\nthough the visitor had entered in the usual manner. But, leaning on the\nbreast-high window, and staring in out of the darkness, they find the\nvisitor extremely embarrassing. Especially Mr Venus: who removes his\npipe, draws back his head, and stares at the starer, as if it were his\nown Hindoo baby come to fetch him home.\n\n'Good evening, Mr Wegg. The yard gate-lock should be looked to, if you\nplease; it don't catch.'\n\n'Is it Mr Rokesmith?' falters Wegg.\n\n'It is Mr Rokesmith. Don't let me disturb you. I am not coming in. I\nhave only a message for you, which I undertook to deliver on my way home\nto my lodgings. I was in two minds about coming beyond the gate without\nringing: not knowing but you might have a dog about.'\n\n'I wish I had,' mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he rose from his\nchair. St! Hush! The talking-over stranger, Mr Venus.'\n\n'Is that any one I know?' inquires the staring Secretary.\n\n'No, Mr Rokesmith. Friend of mine. Passing the evening with me.'\n\n'Oh! I beg his pardon. Mr Boffin wishes you to know that he does not\nexpect you to stay at home any evening, on the chance of his coming. It\nhas occurred to him that he may, without intending it, have been a tie\nupon you. In future, if he should come without notice, he will take his\nchance of finding you, and it will be all the same to him if he does\nnot. I undertook to tell you on my way. That's all.'\n\nWith that, and 'Good night,' the Secretary lowers the window, and\ndisappears. They listen, and hear his footsteps go back to the gate, and\nhear the gate close after him.\n\n'And for that individual, Mr Venus,' remarks Wegg, when he is fully\ngone, 'I have been passed over! Let me ask you what you think of him?'\n\nApparently, Mr Venus does not know what to think of him, for he makes\nsundry efforts to reply, without delivering himself of any other\narticulate utterance than that he has 'a singular look'.\n\n'A double look, you mean, sir,' rejoins Wegg, playing bitterly upon the\nword. 'That's HIS look. Any amount of singular look for me, but not a\ndouble look! That's an under-handed mind, sir.'\n\n'Do you say there's something against him?' Venus asks.\n\n'Something against him?' repeats Wegg. 'Something? What would the relief\nbe to my feelings--as a fellow-man--if I wasn't the slave of truth, and\ndidn't feel myself compelled to answer, Everything!'\n\nSee into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plunge\ntheir heads! It is such unspeakable moral compensation to Wegg, to be\novercome by the consideration that Mr Rokesmith has an underhanded mind!\n\n'On this starlight night, Mr Venus,' he remarks, when he is showing that\nfriendly mover out across the yard, and both are something the worse\nfor mixing again and again: 'on this starlight night to think that\ntalking-over strangers, and underhanded minds, can go walking home under\nthe sky, as if they was all square!'\n\n'The spectacle of those orbs,' says Mr Venus, gazing upward with his hat\ntumbling off; 'brings heavy on me her crushing words that she did not\nwish to regard herself nor yet to be regarded in that--'\n\n'I know! I know! You needn't repeat 'em,' says Wegg, pressing his hand.\n'But think how those stars steady me in the cause of the right against\nsome that shall be nameless. It isn't that I bear malice. But see how\nthey glisten with old remembrances! Old remembrances of what, sir?'\n\nMr Venus begins drearily replying, 'Of her words, in her own\nhandwriting, that she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet--' when\nSilas cuts him short with dignity.\n\n'No, sir! Remembrances of Our House, of Master George, of Aunt Jane, of\nUncle Parker, all laid waste! All offered up sacrifices to the minion of\nfortune and the worm of the hour!'\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\nIN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS\n\n\nThe minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less cutting\nlanguage, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the Golden Dustman, had become\nas much at home in his eminently aristocratic family mansion as he\nwas likely ever to be. He could not but feel that, like an eminently\naristocratic family cheese, it was much too large for his wants, and\nbred an infinite amount of parasites; but he was content to regard this\ndrawback on his property as a sort of perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt the\nmore resigned to it, forasmuch as Mrs Boffin enjoyed herself completely,\nand Miss Bella was delighted.\n\nThat young lady was, no doubt, an acquisition to the Boffins. She\nwas far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, and far too quick of\nperception to be below the tone of her new career. Whether it improved\nher heart might be a matter of taste that was open to question; but as\ntouching another matter of taste, its improvement of her appearance and\nmanner, there could be no question whatever.\n\nAnd thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set Mrs Boffin\nright; and even further, that Miss Bella began to feel ill at ease, and\nas it were responsible, when she saw Mrs Boffin going wrong. Not that so\nsweet a disposition and so sound a nature could ever go very wrong even\namong the great visiting authorities who agreed that the Boffins were\n'charmingly vulgar' (which for certain was not their own case in saying\nso), but that when she made a slip on the social ice on which all the\nchildren of Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required to\nskate in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss\nBella up (so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience great\nconfusion under the glances of the more skilful performers engaged in\nthose ice-exercises.\n\nAt Miss Bella's time of life it was not to be expected that she should\nexamine herself very closely on the congruity or stability of her\nposition in Mr Boffin's house. And as she had never been sparing of\ncomplaints of her old home when she had no other to compare it with,\nso there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain in her very much\npreferring her new one.\n\n'An invaluable man is Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, after some two or\nthree months. 'But I can't quite make him out.'\n\nNeither could Bella, so she found the subject rather interesting.\n\n'He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and night,' said Mr\nBoffin, 'than fifty other men put together either could or would; and\nyet he has ways of his own that are like tying a scaffolding-pole right\nacross the road, and bringing me up short when I am almost a-walking arm\nin arm with him.'\n\n'May I ask how so, sir?' inquired Bella.\n\n'Well, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'he won't meet any company here, but\nyou. When we have visitors, I should wish him to have his regular place\nat the table like ourselves; but no, he won't take it.'\n\n'If he considers himself above it,' said Miss Bella, with an airy toss\nof her head, 'I should leave him alone.'\n\n'It ain't that, my dear,' replied Mr Boffin, thinking it over. 'He don't\nconsider himself above it.'\n\n'Perhaps he considers himself beneath it,' suggested Bella. 'If so, he\nought to know best.'\n\n'No, my dear; nor it ain't that, neither. No,' repeated Mr Boffin, with\na shake of his head, after again thinking it over; 'Rokesmith's a modest\nman, but he don't consider himself beneath it.'\n\n'Then what does he consider, sir?' asked Bella.\n\n'Dashed if I know!' said Mr Boffin. 'It seemed at first as if it\nwas only Lightwood that he objected to meet. And now it seems to be\neverybody, except you.'\n\nOho! thought Miss Bella. 'In--deed! That's it, is it!' For Mr Mortimer\nLightwood had dined there two or three times, and she had met him\nelsewhere, and he had shown her some attention. 'Rather cool in a\nSecretary--and Pa's lodger--to make me the subject of his jealousy!'\n\nThat Pa's daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa's lodger was odd;\nbut there were odder anomalies than that in the mind of the spoilt girl:\nspoilt first by poverty, and then by wealth. Be it this history's part,\nhowever, to leave them to unravel themselves.\n\n'A little too much, I think,' Miss Bella reflected scornfully, 'to\nhave Pa's lodger laying claim to me, and keeping eligible people off!\nA little too much, indeed, to have the opportunities opened to me by Mr\nand Mrs Boffin, appropriated by a mere Secretary and Pa's lodger!'\n\nYet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by the\ndiscovery that this same Secretary and lodger seem to like her. Ah! but\nthe eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs Boffin's dressmaker had not\ncome into play then.\n\nIn spite of his seemingly retiring manners a very intrusive person, this\nSecretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's opinion. Always a light in his\noffice-room when we came home from the play or Opera, and he always at\nthe carriage-door to hand us out. Always a provoking radiance too on\nMrs Boffin's face, and an abominably cheerful reception of him, as if it\nwere possible seriously to approve what the man had in his mind!\n\n'You never charge me, Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, encountering her\nby chance alone in the great drawing-room, 'with commissions for home.\nI shall always be happy to execute any commands you may have in that\ndirection.'\n\n'Pray what may you mean, Mr Rokesmith?' inquired Miss Bella, with\nlanguidly drooping eyelids.\n\n'By home? I mean your father's house at Holloway.'\n\nShe coloured under the retort--so skilfully thrust, that the words\nseemed to be merely a plain answer, given in plain good faith--and said,\nrather more emphatically and sharply:\n\n'What commissions and commands are you speaking of?'\n\n'Only little words of remembrance as I assume you sent somehow or\nother,' replied the Secretary with his former air. 'It would be a\npleasure to me if you would make me the bearer of them. As you know, I\ncome and go between the two houses every day.'\n\n'You needn't remind me of that, sir.'\n\nShe was too quick in this petulant sally against 'Pa's lodger'; and she\nfelt that she had been so when she met his quiet look.\n\n'They don't send many--what was your expression?--words of remembrance\nto me,' said Bella, making haste to take refuge in ill-usage.\n\n'They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such slight\nintelligence as I can.'\n\n'I hope it's truly given,' exclaimed Bella.\n\n'I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much against you, if\nyou could.'\n\n'No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is very just\nindeed. I beg your pardon, Mr Rokesmith.'\n\n'I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such admirable\nadvantage,' he replied with earnestness. 'Forgive me; I could not help\nsaying that. To return to what I have digressed from, let me add that\nperhaps they think I report them to you, deliver little messages, and\nthe like. But I forbear to trouble you, as you never ask me.'\n\n'I am going, sir,' said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved her,\n'to see them tomorrow.'\n\n'Is that,' he asked, hesitating, 'said to me, or to them?'\n\n'To which you please.'\n\n'To both? Shall I make it a message?'\n\n'You can if you like, Mr Rokesmith. Message or no message, I am going to\nsee them tomorrow.'\n\n'Then I will tell them so.'\n\nHe lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity of\nprolonging the conversation if she wished. As she remained silent, he\nleft her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by Miss Bella\nherself, when alone again, to be very curious. The first was, that he\nunquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, and a penitent\nfeeling in her heart. The second was, that she had not an intention or\na thought of going home, until she had announced it to him as a settled\ndesign.\n\n'What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it?' was her mental\ninquiry: 'He has no right to any power over me, and how do I come to\nmind him when I don't care for him?'\n\nMrs Boffin, insisting that Bella should make tomorrow's expedition\nin the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. Mrs Wilfer and Miss\nLavinia had speculated much on the probabilities and improbabilities of\nher coming in this gorgeous state, and, on beholding the chariot from\nthe window at which they were secreted to look out for it, agreed\nthat it must be detained at the door as long as possible, for the\nmortification and confusion of the neighbours. Then they repaired to\nthe usual family room, to receive Miss Bella with a becoming show of\nindifference.\n\nThe family room looked very small and very mean, and the downward\nstaircase by which it was attained looked very narrow and very crooked.\nThe little house and all its arrangements were a poor contrast to the\neminently aristocratic dwelling. 'I can hardly believe,' thought Bella,\n'that I ever did endure life in this place!'\n\nGloomy majesty on the part of Mrs Wilfer, and native pertness on the\npart of Lavvy, did not mend the matter. Bella really stood in natural\nneed of a little help, and she got none.\n\n'This,' said Mrs Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, as sympathetic\nand responsive as the back of the bowl of a spoon, 'is quite an honour!\nYou will probably find your sister Lavvy grown, Bella.'\n\n'Ma,' Miss Lavinia interposed, 'there can be no objection to your being\naggravating, because Bella richly deserves it; but I really must request\nthat you will not drag in such ridiculous nonsense as my having grown\nwhen I am past the growing age.'\n\n'I grew, myself,' Mrs Wilfer sternly proclaimed, 'after I was married.'\n\n'Very well, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'then I think you had much better have\nleft it alone.'\n\nThe lofty glare with which the majestic woman received this answer,\nmight have embarrassed a less pert opponent, but it had no effect upon\nLavinia: who, leaving her parent to the enjoyment of any amount of\nglaring at she might deem desirable under the circumstances, accosted\nher sister, undismayed.\n\n'I suppose you won't consider yourself quite disgraced, Bella, if I give\nyou a kiss? Well! And how do you do, Bella? And how are your Boffins?'\n\n'Peace!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'Hold! I will not suffer this tone of\nlevity.'\n\n'My goodness me! How are your Spoffins, then?' said Lavvy, 'since Ma so\nvery much objects to your Boffins.'\n\n'Impertinent girl! Minx!' said Mrs Wilfer, with dread severity.\n\n'I don't care whether I am a Minx, or a Sphinx,' returned Lavinia,\ncoolly, tossing her head; 'it's exactly the same thing to me, and I'd\nevery bit as soon be one as the other; but I know this--I'll not grow\nafter I'm married!'\n\n'You will not? YOU will not?' repeated Mrs Wilfer, solemnly.\n\n'No, Ma, I will not. Nothing shall induce me.'\n\nMrs Wilfer, having waved her gloves, became loftily pathetic.\n\n'But it was to be expected;' thus she spake. 'A child of mine deserts me\nfor the proud and prosperous, and another child of mine despises me. It\nis quite fitting.'\n\n'Ma,' Bella struck in, 'Mr and Mrs Boffin are prosperous, no doubt; but\nyou have no right to say they are proud. You must know very well that\nthey are not.'\n\n'In short, Ma,' said Lavvy, bouncing over to the enemy without a word\nof notice, 'you must know very well--or if you don't, more shame for\nyou!--that Mr and Mrs Boffin are just absolute perfection.'\n\n'Truly,' returned Mrs Wilfer, courteously receiving the deserter, 'it\nwould seem that we are required to think so. And this, Lavinia, is\nmy reason for objecting to a tone of levity. Mrs Boffin (of whose\nphysiognomy I can never speak with the composure I would desire to\npreserve), and your mother, are not on terms of intimacy. It is not\nfor a moment to be supposed that she and her husband dare to presume to\nspeak of this family as the Wilfers. I cannot therefore condescend to\nspeak of them as the Boffins. No; for such a tone--call it familiarity,\nlevity, equality, or what you will--would imply those social\ninterchanges which do not exist. Do I render myself intelligible?'\n\nWithout taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit delivered in an\nimposing and forensic manner, Lavinia reminded her sister, 'After all,\nyou know, Bella, you haven't told us how your Whatshisnames are.'\n\n'I don't want to speak of them here,' replied Bella, suppressing\nindignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. 'They are much too kind\nand too good to be drawn into these discussions.'\n\n'Why put it so?' demanded Mrs Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. 'Why adopt a\ncircuitous form of speech? It is polite and it is obliging; but why do\nit? Why not openly say that they are much too kind and too good for US?\nWe understand the allusion. Why disguise the phrase?'\n\n'Ma,' said Bella, with one beat of her foot, 'you are enough to drive a\nsaint mad, and so is Lavvy.'\n\n'Unfortunate Lavvy!' cried Mrs Wilfer, in a tone of commiseration. 'She\nalways comes for it. My poor child!' But Lavvy, with the suddenness of\nher former desertion, now bounced over to the other enemy: very sharply\nremarking, 'Don't patronize ME, Ma, because I can take care of myself.'\n\n'I only wonder,' resumed Mrs Wilfer, directing her observations to her\nelder daughter, as safer on the whole than her utterly unmanageable\nyounger, 'that you found time and inclination to tear yourself from\nMr and Mrs Boffin, and come to see us at all. I only wonder that our\nclaims, contending against the superior claims of Mr and Mrs Boffin,\nhad any weight. I feel I ought to be thankful for gaining so much, in\ncompetition with Mr and Mrs Boffin.' (The good lady bitterly emphasized\nthe first letter of the word Boffin, as if it represented her chief\nobjection to the owners of that name, and as if she could have born\nDoffin, Moffin, or Poffin much better.)\n\n'Ma,' said Bella, angrily, 'you force me to say that I am truly sorry I\ndid come home, and that I never will come home again, except when poor\ndear Pa is here. For, Pa is too magnanimous to feel envy and spite\ntowards my generous friends, and Pa is delicate enough and gentle enough\nto remember the sort of little claim they thought I had upon them and\nthe unusually trying position in which, through no act of my own, I had\nbeen placed. And I always did love poor dear Pa better than all the rest\nof you put together, and I always do and I always shall!'\n\nHere Bella, deriving no comfort from her charming bonnet and her elegant\ndress, burst into tears.\n\n'I think, R.W.,' cried Mrs Wilfer, lifting up her eyes and\napostrophising the air, 'that if you were present, it would be a\ntrial to your feelings to hear your wife and the mother of your family\ndepreciated in your name. But Fate has spared you this, R.W., whatever\nit may have thought proper to inflict upon her!'\n\nHere Mrs Wilfer burst into tears.\n\n'I hate the Boffins!' protested Miss Lavinia. 'I don't care who objects\nto their being called the Boffins. I WILL call 'em the Boffins. The\nBoffins, the Boffins, the Boffins! And I say they are mischief-making\nBoffins, and I say the Boffins have set Bella against me, and I tell the\nBoffins to their faces:' which was not strictly the fact, but the\nyoung lady was excited: 'that they are detestable Boffins, disreputable\nBoffins, odious Boffins, beastly Boffins. There!'\n\nHere Miss Lavinia burst into tears.\n\nThe front garden-gate clanked, and the Secretary was seen coming at a\nbrisk pace up the steps. 'Leave Me to open the door to him,' said Mrs\nWilfer, rising with stately resignation as she shook her head and dried\nher eyes; 'we have at present no stipendiary girl to do so. We have\nnothing to conceal. If he sees these traces of emotion on our cheeks,\nlet him construe them as he may.'\n\nWith those words she stalked out. In a few moments she stalked in again,\nproclaiming in her heraldic manner, 'Mr Rokesmith is the bearer of a\npacket for Miss Bella Wilfer.'\n\nMr Rokesmith followed close upon his name, and of course saw what was\namiss. But he discreetly affected to see nothing, and addressed Miss\nBella.\n\n'Mr Boffin intended to have placed this in the carriage for you\nthis morning. He wished you to have it, as a little keepsake he had\nprepared--it is only a purse, Miss Wilfer--but as he was disappointed in\nhis fancy, I volunteered to come after you with it.'\n\nBella took it in her hand, and thanked him.\n\n'We have been quarrelling here a little, Mr Rokesmith, but not more than\nwe used; you know our agreeable ways among ourselves. You find me just\ngoing. Good-bye, mamma. Good-bye, Lavvy!' and with a kiss for each Miss\nBella turned to the door. The Secretary would have attended her, but\nMrs Wilfer advancing and saying with dignity, 'Pardon me! Permit me to\nassert my natural right to escort my child to the equipage which is\nin waiting for her,' he begged pardon and gave place. It was a very\nmagnificent spectacle indeed, to see Mrs Wilfer throw open the\nhouse-door, and loudly demand with extended gloves, 'The male domestic\nof Mrs Boffin!' To whom presenting himself, she delivered the brief but\nmajestic charge, 'Miss Wilfer. Coming out!' and so delivered her over,\nlike a female Lieutenant of the Tower relinquishing a State Prisoner.\nThe effect of this ceremonial was for some quarter of an hour afterwards\nperfectly paralyzing on the neighbours, and was much enhanced by the\nworthy lady airing herself for that term in a kind of splendidly serene\ntrance on the top step.\n\nWhen Bella was seated in the carriage, she opened the little packet in\nher hand. It contained a pretty purse, and the purse contained a bank\nnote for fifty pounds. 'This shall be a joyful surprise for poor dear\nPa,' said Bella, 'and I'll take it myself into the City!'\n\nAs she was uninformed respecting the exact locality of the place of\nbusiness of Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, but knew it to be near\nMincing Lane, she directed herself to be driven to the corner of that\ndarksome spot. Thence she despatched 'the male domestic of Mrs Boffin,'\nin search of the counting-house of Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, with\na message importing that if R. Wilfer could come out, there was a lady\nwaiting who would be glad to speak with him. The delivery of these\nmysterious words from the mouth of a footman caused so great an\nexcitement in the counting-house, that a youthful scout was instantly\nappointed to follow Rumty, observe the lady, and come in with his\nreport. Nor was the agitation by any means diminished, when the scout\nrushed back with the intelligence that the lady was 'a slap-up gal in a\nbang-up chariot.'\n\nRumty himself, with his pen behind his ear under his rusty hat, arrived\nat the carriage-door in a breathless condition, and had been fairly\nlugged into the vehicle by his cravat and embraced almost unto choking,\nbefore he recognized his daughter. 'My dear child!' he then panted,\nincoherently. 'Good gracious me! What a lovely woman you are! I thought\nyou had been unkind and forgotten your mother and sister.'\n\n'I have just been to see them, Pa dear.'\n\n'Oh! and how--how did you find your mother?' asked R. W., dubiously.\n\n'Very disagreeable, Pa, and so was Lavvy.'\n\n'They are sometimes a little liable to it,' observed the patient cherub;\n'but I hope you made allowances, Bella, my dear?'\n\n'No. I was disagreeable too, Pa; we were all of us disagreeable\ntogether. But I want you to come and dine with me somewhere, Pa.'\n\n'Why, my dear, I have already partaken of a--if one might mention such\nan article in this superb chariot--of a--Saveloy,' replied R. Wilfer,\nmodestly dropping his voice on the word, as he eyed the canary-coloured\nfittings.\n\n'Oh! That's nothing, Pa!'\n\n'Truly, it ain't as much as one could sometimes wish it to be, my\ndear,' he admitted, drawing his hand across his mouth. 'Still, when\ncircumstances over which you have no control, interpose obstacles\nbetween yourself and Small Germans, you can't do better than bring a\ncontented mind to hear on'--again dropping his voice in deference to the\nchariot--'Saveloys!'\n\n'You poor good Pa! Pa, do, I beg and pray, get leave for the rest of the\nday, and come and pass it with me!'\n\n'Well, my dear, I'll cut back and ask for leave.'\n\n'But before you cut back,' said Bella, who had already taken him by the\nchin, pulled his hat off, and begun to stick up his hair in her old way,\n'do say that you are sure I am giddy and inconsiderate, but have never\nreally slighted you, Pa.'\n\n'My dear, I say it with all my heart. And might I likewise observe,' her\nfather delicately hinted, with a glance out at window, 'that perhaps\nit might be calculated to attract attention, having one's hair publicly\ndone by a lovely woman in an elegant turn-out in Fenchurch Street?'\n\nBella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his boyish figure\nbobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful patience smote the tears out\nof her eyes. 'I hate that Secretary for thinking it of me,' she said to\nherself, 'and yet it seems half true!'\n\nBack came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his release from\nschool. 'All right, my dear. Leave given at once. Really very handsomely\ndone!'\n\n'Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in which I can wait for you\nwhile you go on an errand for me, if I send the carriage away?'\n\nIt demanded cogitation. 'You see, my dear,' he explained, 'you really\nhave become such a very lovely woman, that it ought to be a very quiet\nplace.' At length he suggested, 'Near the garden up by the Trinity House\non Tower Hill.' So, they were driven there, and Bella dismissed the\nchariot; sending a pencilled note by it to Mrs Boffin, that she was with\nher father.\n\n'Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise and vow to be\nobedient.'\n\n'I promise and vow, my dear.'\n\n'You ask no questions. You take this purse; you go to the nearest place\nwhere they keep everything of the very very best, ready made; you buy\nand put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat,\nand the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent leather, Pa, mind!)\nthat are to be got for money; and you come back to me.'\n\n'But, my dear Bella--'\n\n'Take care, Pa!' pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. 'You have\npromised and vowed. It's perjury, you know.'\n\nThere was water in the foolish little fellow's eyes, but she kissed them\ndry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed away again. After half an\nhour, he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that Bella was obliged\nto walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times, before she could\ndraw her arm through his, and delightedly squeeze it.\n\n'Now, Pa,' said Bella, hugging him close, 'take this lovely woman out to\ndinner.'\n\n'Where shall we go, my dear?'\n\n'Greenwich!' said Bella, valiantly. 'And be sure you treat this lovely\nwoman with everything of the best.'\n\nWhile they were going along to take boat, 'Don't you wish, my dear,'\nsaid R. W., timidly, 'that your mother was here?'\n\n'No, I don't, Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to-day. I was\nalways your little favourite at home, and you were always mine. We have\nrun away together often, before now; haven't we, Pa?'\n\n'Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday when your mother was--was a\nlittle liable to it,' repeating his former delicate expression after\npausing to cough.\n\n'Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought to have\nbeen, Pa. I made you carry me, over and over again, when you should\nhave made me walk; and I often drove you in harness, when you would much\nrather have sat down and read your news-paper: didn't I?'\n\n'Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were! What a companion\nyou were!'\n\n'Companion? That's just what I want to be to-day, Pa.'\n\n'You are safe to succeed, my love. Your brothers and sisters have all\nin their turns been companions to me, to a certain extent, but only to a\ncertain extent. Your mother has, throughout life, been a companion that\nany man might--might look up to--and--and commit the sayings of, to\nmemory--and--form himself upon--if he--'\n\n'If he liked the model?' suggested Bella.\n\n'We-ell, ye-es,' he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfied\nwith the phrase: 'or perhaps I might say, if it was in him. Supposing,\nfor instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he would find\nyour mother an inestimable companion. But if he had any taste for\nwalking, or should wish at any time to break into a trot, he might\nsometimes find it a little difficult to keep step with your mother.\nOr take it this way, Bella,' he added, after a moment's reflection;\n'Supposing that a man had to go through life, we won't say with a\ncompanion, but we'll say to a tune. Very good. Supposing that the tune\nallotted to him was the Dead March in Saul. Well. It would be a very\nsuitable tune for particular occasions--none better--but it would\nbe difficult to keep time with in the ordinary run of domestic\ntransactions. For instance, if he took his supper after a hard day, to\nthe Dead March in Saul, his food might be likely to sit heavy on him.\nOr, if he was at any time inclined to relieve his mind by singing a\ncomic song or dancing a hornpipe, and was obliged to do it to the Dead\nMarch in Saul, he might find himself put out in the execution of his\nlively intentions.'\n\n'Poor Pa!' thought Bella, as she hung upon his arm.\n\n'Now, what I will say for you, my dear,' the cherub pursued mildly and\nwithout a notion of complaining, 'is, that you are so adaptable. So\nadaptable.'\n\n'Indeed I am afraid I have shown a wretched temper, Pa. I am afraid\nI have been very complaining, and very capricious. I seldom or never\nthought of it before. But when I sat in the carriage just now and saw\nyou coming along the pavement, I reproached myself.'\n\n'Not at all, my dear. Don't speak of such a thing.'\n\nA happy and a chatty man was Pa in his new clothes that day. Take it\nfor all in all, it was perhaps the happiest day he had ever known in his\nlife; not even excepting that on which his heroic partner had approached\nthe nuptial altar to the tune of the Dead March in Saul.\n\nThe little expedition down the river was delightful, and the little\nroom overlooking the river into which they were shown for dinner was\ndelightful. Everything was delightful. The park was delightful, the\npunch was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful, the wine\nwas delightful. Bella was more delightful than any other item in the\nfestival; drawing Pa out in the gayest manner; making a point of always\nmentioning herself as the lovely woman; stimulating Pa to order things,\nby declaring that the lovely woman insisted on being treated with them;\nand in short causing Pa to be quite enraptured with the consideration\nthat he WAS the Pa of such a charming daughter.\n\nAnd then, as they sat looking at the ships and steamboats making their\nway to the sea with the tide that was running down, the lovely woman\nimagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa. Now, Pa, in the\ncharacter of owner of a lumbering square-sailed collier, was tacking\naway to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds to make his fortune with;\nnow, Pa was going to China in that handsome threemasted ship, to bring\nhome opium, with which he would for ever cut out Chicksey Veneering\nand Stobbles, and to bring home silks and shawls without end for the\ndecoration of his charming daughter. Now, John Harmon's disastrous fate\nwas all a dream, and he had come home and found the lovely woman just\nthe article for him, and the lovely woman had found him just the article\nfor her, and they were going away on a trip, in their gallant bark,\nto look after their vines, with streamers flying at all points, a band\nplaying on deck and Pa established in the great cabin. Now, John Harmon\nwas consigned to his grave again, and a merchant of immense wealth\n(name unknown) had courted and married the lovely woman, and he was\nso enormously rich that everything you saw upon the river sailing or\nsteaming belonged to him, and he kept a perfect fleet of yachts for\npleasure, and that little impudent yacht which you saw over there, with\nthe great white sail, was called The Bella, in honour of his wife, and\nshe held her state aboard when it pleased her, like a modern Cleopatra.\nAnon, there would embark in that troop-ship when she got to Gravesend, a\nmighty general, of large property (name also unknown), who wouldn't\nhear of going to victory without his wife, and whose wife was the lovely\nwoman, and she was destined to become the idol of all the red coats and\nblue jackets alow and aloft. And then again: you saw that ship being\ntowed out by a steam-tug? Well! where did you suppose she was going to?\nShe was going among the coral reefs and cocoa-nuts and all that sort of\nthing, and she was chartered for a fortunate individual of the name\nof Pa (himself on board, and much respected by all hands), and she\nwas going, for his sole profit and advantage, to fetch a cargo of\nsweet-smelling woods, the most beautiful that ever were seen, and the\nmost profitable that ever were heard of; and her cargo would be a great\nfortune, as indeed it ought to be: the lovely woman who had purchased\nher and fitted her expressly for this voyage, being married to an Indian\nPrince, who was a Something-or-Other, and who wore Cashmere shawls all\nover himself and diamonds and emeralds blazing in his turban, and was\nbeautifully coffee-coloured and excessively devoted, though a little too\njealous. Thus Bella ran on merrily, in a manner perfectly enchanting to\nPa, who was as willing to put his head into the Sultan's tub of water as\nthe beggar-boys below the window were to put THEIR heads in the mud.\n\n'I suppose, my dear,' said Pa after dinner, 'we may come to the\nconclusion at home, that we have lost you for good?'\n\nBella shook her head. Didn't know. Couldn't say. All she was able to\nreport was, that she was most handsomely supplied with everything she\ncould possibly want, and that whenever she hinted at leaving Mr and Mrs\nBoffin, they wouldn't hear of it.\n\n'And now, Pa,' pursued Bella, 'I'll make a confession to you. I am the\nmost mercenary little wretch that ever lived in the world.'\n\n'I should hardly have thought it of you, my dear,' returned her father,\nfirst glancing at himself; and then at the dessert.\n\n'I understand what you mean, Pa, but it's not that. It's not that I care\nfor money to keep as money, but I do care so much for what it will buy!'\n\n'Really I think most of us do,' returned R. W.\n\n'But not to the dreadful extent that I do, Pa. O-o!' cried Bella,\nscrewing the exclamation out of herself with a twist of her dimpled\nchin. 'I AM so mercenary!'\n\nWith a wistful glance R. W. said, in default of having anything better\nto say: 'About when did you begin to feel it coming on, my dear?'\n\n'That's it, Pa. That's the terrible part of it. When I was at home, and\nonly knew what it was to be poor, I grumbled but didn't so much mind.\nWhen I was at home expecting to be rich, I thought vaguely of all the\ngreat things I would do. But when I had been disappointed of my splendid\nfortune, and came to see it from day to day in other hands, and to have\nbefore my eyes what it could really do, then I became the mercenary\nlittle wretch I am.'\n\n'It's your fancy, my dear.'\n\n'I can assure you it's nothing of the sort, Pa!' said Bella, nodding at\nhim, with her very pretty eyebrows raised as high as they would go, and\nlooking comically frightened. 'It's a fact. I am always avariciously\nscheming.'\n\n'Lor! But how?'\n\n'I'll tell you, Pa. I don't mind telling YOU, because we have always\nbeen favourites of each other's, and because you are not like a Pa, but\nmore like a sort of a younger brother with a dear venerable chubbiness\non him. And besides,' added Bella, laughing as she pointed a rallying\nfinger at his face, 'because I have got you in my power. This is a\nsecret expedition. If ever you tell of me, I'll tell of you. I'll tell\nMa that you dined at Greenwich.'\n\n'Well; seriously, my dear,' observed R. W., with some trepidation of\nmanner, 'it might be as well not to mention it.'\n\n'Aha!' laughed Bella. 'I knew you wouldn't like it, sir! So you keep my\nconfidence, and I'll keep yours. But betray the lovely woman, and you\nshall find her a serpent. Now, you may give me a kiss, Pa, and I should\nlike to give your hair a turn, because it has been dreadfully neglected\nin my absence.'\n\nR. W. submitted his head to the operator, and the operator went on\ntalking; at the same time putting separate locks of his hair through\na curious process of being smartly rolled over her two revolving\nforefingers, which were then suddenly pulled out of it in opposite\nlateral directions. On each of these occasions the patient winced and\nwinked.\n\n'I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I can't\nbeg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have resolved that I must marry\nit.'\n\nR. W. cast up his eyes towards her, as well as he could under the\noperating circumstances, and said in a tone of remonstrance, 'My de-ar\nBella!'\n\n'Have resolved, I say, Pa, that to get money I must marry money. In\nconsequence of which, I am always looking out for money to captivate.'\n\n'My de-a-r Bella!'\n\n'Yes, Pa, that is the state of the case. If ever there was a mercenary\nplotter whose thoughts and designs were always in her mean occupation, I\nam the amiable creature. But I don't care. I hate and detest being\npoor, and I won't be poor if I can marry money. Now you are deliciously\nfluffy, Pa, and in a state to astonish the waiter and pay the bill.'\n\n'But, my dear Bella, this is quite alarming at your age.'\n\n'I told you so, Pa, but you wouldn't believe it,' returned Bella, with a\npleasant childish gravity. 'Isn't it shocking?'\n\n'It would be quite so, if you fully knew what you said, my dear, or\nmeant it.'\n\n'Well, Pa, I can only tell you that I mean nothing else. Talk to me of\nlove!' said Bella, contemptuously: though her face and figure certainly\nrendered the subject no incongruous one. 'Talk to me of fiery dragons!\nBut talk to me of poverty and wealth, and there indeed we touch upon\nrealities.'\n\n'My De-ar, this is becoming Awful--' her father was emphatically\nbeginning: when she stopped him.\n\n'Pa, tell me. Did you marry money?'\n\n'You know I didn't, my dear.'\n\nBella hummed the Dead March in Saul, and said, after all it signified\nvery little! But seeing him look grave and downcast, she took him round\nthe neck and kissed him back to cheerfulness again.\n\n'I didn't mean that last touch, Pa; it was only said in joke. Now mind!\nYou are not to tell of me, and I'll not tell of you. And more than that;\nI promise to have no secrets from you, Pa, and you may make certain\nthat, whatever mercenary things go on, I shall always tell you all about\nthem in strict confidence.'\n\nFain to be satisfied with this concession from the lovely woman, R. W.\nrang the bell, and paid the bill. 'Now, all the rest of this, Pa,' said\nBella, rolling up the purse when they were alone again, hammering it\nsmall with her little fist on the table, and cramming it into one of the\npockets of his new waistcoat, 'is for you, to buy presents with for them\nat home, and to pay bills with, and to divide as you like, and spend\nexactly as you think proper. Last of all take notice, Pa, that it's\nnot the fruit of any avaricious scheme. Perhaps if it was, your little\nmercenary wretch of a daughter wouldn't make so free with it!'\n\nAfter which, she tugged at his coat with both hands, and pulled him all\naskew in buttoning that garment over the precious waistcoat pocket, and\nthen tied her dimples into her bonnet-strings in a very knowing way, and\ntook him back to London. Arrived at Mr Boffin's door, she set him with\nhis back against it, tenderly took him by the ears as convenient handles\nfor her purpose, and kissed him until he knocked muffled double knocks\nat the door with the back of his head. That done, she once more reminded\nhim of their compact and gaily parted from him.\n\nNot so gaily, however, but that tears filled her eyes as he went away\ndown the dark street. Not so gaily, but that she several times said,\n'Ah, poor little Pa! Ah, poor dear struggling shabby little Pa!'\nbefore she took heart to knock at the door. Not so gaily, but that the\nbrilliant furniture seemed to stare her out of countenance as if it\ninsisted on being compared with the dingy furniture at home. Not so\ngaily, but that she fell into very low spirits sitting late in her own\nroom, and very heartily wept, as she wished, now that the deceased old\nJohn Harmon had never made a will about her, now that the deceased young\nJohn Harmon had lived to marry her. 'Contradictory things to wish,' said\nBella, 'but my life and fortunes are so contradictory altogether that\nwhat can I expect myself to be!'\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nIN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL\n\n\nThe Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morning, was\ninformed that a youth waited in the hall who gave the name of Sloppy.\nThe footman who communicated this intelligence made a decent pause\nbefore uttering the name, to express that it was forced on his\nreluctance by the youth in question, and that if the youth had had\nthe good sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would have\nspared the feelings of him the bearer.\n\n'Mrs Boffin will be very well pleased,' said the Secretary in a\nperfectly composed way. 'Show him in.'\n\nMr Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door: revealing\nin various parts of his form many surprising, confounding, and\nincomprehensible buttons.\n\n'I am glad to see you,' said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful tone of\nwelcome. 'I have been expecting you.'\n\nSloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that the Orphan\n(of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) had been ailing, and he had\nwaited to report him well.\n\n'Then he is well now?' said the Secretary.\n\n'No he ain't,' said Sloppy.\n\nMr Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable extent, proceeded\nto remark that he thought Johnny 'must have took 'em from the Minders.'\nBeing asked what he meant, he answered, them that come out upon him and\npartickler his chest. Being requested to explain himself, he stated that\nthere was some of 'em wot you couldn't kiver with a sixpence. Pressed to\nfall back upon a nominative case, he opined that they wos about as\nred as ever red could be. 'But as long as they strikes out'ards, sir,'\ncontinued Sloppy, 'they ain't so much. It's their striking in'ards\nthat's to be kep off.'\n\nJohn Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical attendance? Oh yes, said\nSloppy, he had been took to the doctor's shop once. And what did the\ndoctor call it? Rokesmith asked him. After some perplexed reflection,\nSloppy answered, brightening, 'He called it something as wos wery\nlong for spots.' Rokesmith suggested measles. 'No,' said Sloppy with\nconfidence, 'ever so much longer than THEM, sir!' (Mr Sloppy was\nelevated by this fact, and seemed to consider that it reflected credit\non the poor little patient.)\n\n'Mrs Boffin will be sorry to hear this,' said Rokesmith.\n\n'Mrs Higden said so, sir, when she kep it from her, hoping as Our Johnny\nwould work round.'\n\n'But I hope he will?' said Rokesmith, with a quick turn upon the\nmessenger.\n\n'I hope so,' answered Sloppy. 'It all depends on their striking\nin'ards.' He then went on to say that whether Johnny had 'took 'em'\nfrom the Minders, or whether the Minders had 'took em from Johnny,\nthe Minders had been sent home and had 'got em. Furthermore, that Mrs\nHigden's days and nights being devoted to Our Johnny, who was never out\nof her lap, the whole of the mangling arrangements had devolved upon\nhimself, and he had had 'rayther a tight time'. The ungainly piece of\nhonesty beamed and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with the\nremembrance of having been serviceable.\n\n'Last night,' said Sloppy, 'when I was a-turning at the wheel pretty\nlate, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny's breathing. It begun\nbeautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got unsteady, then\nas it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like and lumbered a\nbit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I scarce know'd which\nwas mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know'd\neither, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, \"Me choking,\nGranny!\" and Mrs Higden holds him up in her lap and says to me \"Bide a\nbit, Sloppy,\" and we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his\nbreathing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.'\n\nSloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and a\nvacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half-repressed gush\nof tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part of\nhis sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and\nroundabout smear.\n\n'This is unfortunate,' said Rokesmith. 'I must go and break it to Mrs\nBoffin. Stay you here, Sloppy.'\n\nSloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall,\nuntil the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came back together. And with Mrs\nBoffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worth\nstaring at, it occurred to Sloppy, than the best of wall-papering.\n\n'Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon!' exclaimed Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Yes mum,' said the sympathetic Sloppy.\n\n'You don't think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?' asked the\npleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality.\n\nPut upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his\ninclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous howl,\nrounded off with a sniff.\n\n'So bad as that!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'And Betty Higden not to tell me of\nit sooner!'\n\n'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' answered Sloppy,\nhesitating.\n\n'Of what, for Heaven's sake?'\n\n'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' returned Sloppy with\nsubmission, 'of standing in Our Johnny's light. There's so much trouble\nin illness, and so much expense, and she's seen such a lot of its being\nobjected to.'\n\n'But she never can have thought,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that I would grudge\nthe dear child anything?'\n\n'No mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its standing\nin Johnny's light, and might have tried to bring him through it\nunbeknownst.'\n\nSloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like a\nlower animal; to creep out of sight and coil herself away and die; had\nbecome this woman's instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child who\nwas dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all\nministration but such as her own ignorant tenderness and patience could\nsupply, had become this woman's idea of maternal love, fidelity, and\nduty. The shameful accounts we read, every week in the Christian year,\nmy lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, the infamous records of\nsmall official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by\nus. And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so\nastonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason in them--God\nsave the Queen and Confound their politics--no, than smoke has in coming\nfrom fire!\n\n'It's not a right place for the poor child to stay in,' said Mrs Boffin.\n'Tell us, dear Mr Rokesmith, what to do for the best.'\n\nHe had already thought what to do, and the consultation was very short.\nHe could pave the way, he said, in half an hour, and then they would go\ndown to Brentford. 'Pray take me,' said Bella. Therefore a carriage was\nordered, of capacity to take them all, and in the meantime Sloppy\nwas regaled, feasting alone in the Secretary's room, with a complete\nrealization of that fairy vision--meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding.\nIn consequence of which his buttons became more importunate of public\nnotice than before, with the exception of two or three about the region\nof the waistband, which modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement.\n\nPunctual to the time, appeared the carriage and the Secretary. He sat\non the box, and Mr Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to the Three Magpies as\nbefore: where Mrs Boffin and Miss Bella were handed out, and whence they\nall went on foot to Mrs Betty Higden's.\n\nBut, on the way down, they had stopped at a toy-shop, and had bought\nthat noble charger, a description of whose points and trappings had on\nthe last occasion conciliated the then worldly-minded orphan, and also a\nNoah's ark, and also a yellow bird with an artificial voice in him,\nand also a military doll so well dressed that if he had only been of\nlife-size his brother-officers in the Guards might never have found him\nout. Bearing these gifts, they raised the latch of Betty Higden's door,\nand saw her sitting in the dimmest and furthest corner with poor Johnny\nin her lap.\n\n'And how's my boy, Betty?' asked Mrs Boffin, sitting down beside her.\n\n'He's bad! He's bad!' said Betty. 'I begin to be afeerd he'll not be\nyours any more than mine. All others belonging to him have gone to\nthe Power and the Glory, and I have a mind that they're drawing him to\nthem--leading him away.'\n\n'No, no, no,' said Mrs Boffin.\n\n'I don't know why else he clenches his little hand as if it had hold of\na finger that I can't see. Look at it,' said Betty, opening the wrappers\nin which the flushed child lay, and showing his small right hand lying\nclosed upon his breast. 'It's always so. It don't mind me.'\n\n'Is he asleep?'\n\n'No, I think not. You're not asleep, my Johnny?'\n\n'No,' said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself; and without\nopening his eyes.\n\n'Here's the lady, Johnny. And the horse.'\n\nJohnny could bear the lady, with complete indifference, but not the\nhorse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly broke into a smile on beholding\nthat splendid phenomenon, and wanted to take it in his arms. As it was\nmuch too big, it was put upon a chair where he could hold it by the mane\nand contemplate it. Which he soon forgot to do.\n\nBut, Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, and Mrs Boffin\nnot knowing what, old Betty bent her ear to listen and took pains to\nunderstand. Being asked by her to repeat what he had said, he did so two\nor three times, and then it came out that he must have seen more than\nthey supposed when he looked up to see the horse, for the murmur was,\n'Who is the boofer lady?' Now, the boofer, or beautiful, lady was Bella;\nand whereas this notice from the poor baby would have touched her of\nitself; it was rendered more pathetic by the late melting of her heart\nto her poor little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So,\nBella's behaviour was very tender and very natural when she kneeled on\nthe brick floor to clasp the child, and when the child, with a child's\nadmiration of what is young and pretty, fondled the boofer lady.\n\n'Now, my good dear Betty,' said Mrs Boffin, hoping that she saw her\nopportunity, and laying her hand persuasively on her arm; 'we have come\nto remove Johnny from this cottage to where he can be taken better care\nof.'\n\nInstantly, and before another word could be spoken, the old woman\nstarted up with blazing eyes, and rushed at the door with the sick\nchild.\n\n'Stand away from me every one of ye!' she cried out wildly. 'I see what\nye mean now. Let me go my way, all of ye. I'd sooner kill the Pretty,\nand kill myself!'\n\n'Stay, stay!' said Rokesmith, soothing her. 'You don't understand.'\n\n'I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. I've run from\nit too many a year. No! Never for me, nor for the child, while there's\nwater enough in England to cover us!'\n\nThe terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repugnance, firing the\nworn face and perfectly maddening it, would have been a quite terrible\nsight, if embodied in one old fellow-creature alone. Yet it 'crops\nup'--as our slang goes--my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in\nother fellow-creatures, rather frequently!\n\n'It's been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take me nor mine\nalive!' cried old Betty. 'I've done with ye. I'd have fastened door and\nwindow and starved out, afore I'd ever have let ye in, if I had known\nwhat ye came for!'\n\nBut, catching sight of Mrs Boffin's wholesome face, she relented, and\ncrouching down by the door and bending over her burden to hush it, said\nhumbly: 'Maybe my fears has put me wrong. If they have so, tell me, and\nthe good Lord forgive me! I'm quick to take this fright, I know, and my\nhead is summ'at light with wearying and watching.'\n\n'There, there, there!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Come, come! Say no more of\nit, Betty. It was a mistake, a mistake. Any one of us might have made it\nin your place, and felt just as you do.'\n\n'The Lord bless ye!' said the old woman, stretching out her hand.\n\n'Now, see, Betty,' pursued the sweet compassionate soul, holding the\nhand kindly, 'what I really did mean, and what I should have begun by\nsaying out, if I had only been a little wiser and handier. We want to\nmove Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a place set\nup on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and nurses pass\ntheir lives with children, talk to none but children, touch none but\nchildren, comfort and cure none but children.'\n\n'Is there really such a place?' asked the old woman, with a gaze of\nwonder.\n\n'Yes, Betty, on my word, and you shall see it. If my home was a better\nplace for the dear boy, I'd take him to it; but indeed indeed it's not.'\n\n'You shall take him,' returned Betty, fervently kissing the comforting\nhand, 'where you will, my deary. I am not so hard, but that I believe\nyour face and voice, and I will, as long as I can see and hear.'\n\nThis victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, for he saw\nhow woefully time had been lost. He despatched Sloppy to bring the\ncarriage to the door; caused the child to be carefully wrapped up; bade\nold Betty get her bonnet on; collected the toys, enabling the little\nfellow to comprehend that his treasures were to be transported with\nhim; and had all things prepared so easily that they were ready for\nthe carriage as soon as it appeared, and in a minute afterwards were\non their way. Sloppy they left behind, relieving his overcharged breast\nwith a paroxysm of mangling.\n\nAt the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark, yellow\nbird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome as their\nchild-owner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, 'This should have\nbeen days ago. Too late!'\n\nHowever, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and there\nJohnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon or whatever it was,\nto find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little platform over\nhis breast, on which were already arranged, to give him heart and urge\nhim to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble steed, and the yellow bird;\nwith the officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as much\nto the satisfaction of his country as if he had been upon Parade. And at\nthe bed's head was a coloured picture beautiful to see, representing as\nit were another Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely who loved\nlittle children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at: Johnny had\nbecome one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two\nplaying dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the hearth):\nand on all the little beds were little platforms whereon were to be\nseen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not very\ndissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the yellow\nbird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea things, and the riches of\nthe earth.\n\nAs Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the ministering\nwomen at his bed's head asked him what he said. It seemed that he wanted\nto know whether all these were brothers and sisters of his? So they told\nhim yes. It seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had brought\nthem all together there? So they told him yes again. They made out then,\nthat he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain? So they\nanswered yes to that question likewise, and made him understand that the\nreply included himself.\n\nJohnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very\nimperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in sickness they\nwere little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be washed and tended,\nand remedies were applied, and though those offices were far, far more\nskilfully and lightly done than ever anything had been done for him in\nhis little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and tired him\nbut for an amazing circumstance which laid hold of his attention. This\nwas no less than the appearance on his own little platform in pairs,\nof All Creation, on its way into his own particular ark: the elephant\nleading, and the fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely\nbringing up the rear. A very little brother lying in the next bed with a\nbroken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his delight exalted\nits enthralling interest; and so came rest and sleep.\n\n'I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty,'\nwhispered Mrs Boffin.\n\n'No, ma'am. Most willingly, most thankfully, with all my heart and\nsoul.'\n\nSo, they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to come back\nearly in the morning, and nobody but Rokesmith knew for certain how that\nthe doctor had said, 'This should have been days ago. Too late!'\n\nBut, Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in mind would\nbe acceptable thereafter to that good woman who had been the only light\nin the childhood of desolate John Harmon dead and gone, resolved that\nlate at night he would go back to the bedside of John Harmon's namesake,\nand see how it fared with him.\n\nThe family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, but were\nall quiet. From bed to bed, a light womanly tread and a pleasant fresh\nface passed in the silence of the night. A little head would lift itself\nup into the softened light here and there, to be kissed as the face went\nby--for these little patients are very loving--and would then submit\nitself to be composed to rest again. The mite with the broken leg was\nrestless, and moaned; but after a while turned his face towards Johnny's\nbed, to fortify himself with a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Over\nmost of the beds, the toys were yet grouped as the children had left\nthem when they last laid themselves down, and, in their innocent\ngrotesqueness and incongruity, they might have stood for the children's\ndreams.\n\nThe doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he and\nRokesmith stood together, looking down with compassion on him.\n\n'What is it, Johnny?' Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an arm round\nthe poor baby as he made a struggle.\n\n'Him!' said the little fellow. 'Those!'\n\nThe doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the horse,\nthe ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, from Johnny's bed,\nsoftly placed them on that of his next neighbour, the mite with the\nbroken leg.\n\nWith a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if he\nstretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body on\nthe sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith's face with his lips, said:\n\n'A kiss for the boofer lady.'\n\nHaving now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranged his affairs\nin this world, Johnny, thus speaking, left it.\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\nA SUCCESSOR\n\n\nSome of the Reverend Frank Milvey's brethren had found themselves\nexceedingly uncomfortable in their minds, because they were required to\nbury the dead too hopefully. But, the Reverend Frank, inclining to the\nbelief that they were required to do one or two other things (say out of\nnine-and-thirty) calculated to trouble their consciences rather more if\nthey would think as much about them, held his peace.\n\nIndeed, the Reverend Frank Milvey was a forbearing man, who noticed many\nsad warps and blights in the vineyard wherein he worked, and did not\nprofess that they made him savagely wise. He only learned that the more\nhe himself knew, in his little limited human way, the better he could\ndistantly imagine what Omniscience might know.\n\nWherefore, if the Reverend Frank had had to read the words that troubled\nsome of his brethren, and profitably touched innumerable hearts, in\na worse case than Johnny's, he would have done so out of the pity and\nhumility of his soul. Reading them over Johnny, he thought of his own\nsix children, but not of his poverty, and read them with dimmed eyes.\nAnd very seriously did he and his bright little wife, who had been\nlistening, look down into the small grave and walk home arm-in-arm.\n\nThere was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in the\nBower. Mr Wegg argued, if an orphan were wanted, was he not an orphan\nhimself; and could a better be desired? And why go beating about\nBrentford bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claims\nupon you and made no sacrifices for you, when here was an orphan ready\nto your hand who had given up in your cause, Miss Elizabeth, Master\nGeorge, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker?\n\nMr Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the tidings. Nay, it was\nafterwards affirmed by a witness who shall at present be nameless,\nthat in the seclusion of the Bower he poked out his wooden leg, in the\nstage-ballet manner, and executed a taunting or triumphant pirouette on\nthe genuine leg remaining to him.\n\nJohn Rokesmith's manner towards Mrs Boffin at this time, was more the\nmanner of a young man towards a mother, than that of a Secretary towards\nhis employer's wife. It had always been marked by a subdued affectionate\ndeference that seemed to have sprung up on the very day of his\nengagement; whatever was odd in her dress or her ways had seemed to have\nno oddity for him; he had sometimes borne a quietly-amused face in her\ncompany, but still it had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temper\nand radiant nature yielded him, could have been quite as naturally\nexpressed in a tear as in a smile. The completeness of his sympathy with\nher fancy for having a little John Harmon to protect and rear, he\nhad shown in every act and word, and now that the kind fancy was\ndisappointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect for\nwhich she could hardly thank him enough.\n\n'But I do thank you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Mrs Boffin, 'and I thank you\nmost kindly. You love children.'\n\n'I hope everybody does.'\n\n'They ought,' said Mrs Boffin; 'but we don't all of us do what we ought,\ndo us?'\n\nJohn Rokesmith replied, 'Some among us supply the short-comings of the\nrest. You have loved children well, Mr Boffin has told me.'\n\n'Not a bit better than he has, but that's his way; he puts all the good\nupon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr Rokesmith.'\n\n'Do I?'\n\n'It sounds to me so. Were you one of many children?' He shook his head.\n\n'An only child?'\n\n'No there was another. Dead long ago.'\n\n'Father or mother alive?'\n\n'Dead.'--\n\n'And the rest of your relations?'\n\n'Dead--if I ever had any living. I never heard of any.'\n\nAt this point of the dialogue Bella came in with a light step. She\npaused at the door a moment, hesitating whether to remain or retire;\nperplexed by finding that she was not observed.\n\n'Now, don't mind an old lady's talk,' said Mrs Boffin, 'but tell me. Are\nyou quite sure, Mr Rokesmith, that you have never had a disappointment\nin love?'\n\n'Quite sure. Why do you ask me?'\n\n'Why, for this reason. Sometimes you have a kind of kept-down manner\nwith you, which is not like your age. You can't be thirty?'\n\n'I am not yet thirty.'\n\nDeeming it high time to make her presence known, Bella coughed here to\nattract attention, begged pardon, and said she would go, fearing that\nshe interrupted some matter of business.\n\n'No, don't go,' rejoined Mrs Boffin, 'because we are coming to business,\ninstead of having begun it, and you belong to it as much now, my dear\nBella, as I do. But I want my Noddy to consult with us. Would somebody\nbe so good as find my Noddy for me?'\n\nRokesmith departed on that errand, and presently returned accompanied by\nMr Boffin at his jog-trot. Bella felt a little vague trepidation as to\nthe subject-matter of this same consultation, until Mrs Boffin announced\nit.\n\n'Now, you come and sit by me, my dear,' said that worthy soul, taking\nher comfortable place on a large ottoman in the centre of the room,\nand drawing her arm through Bella's; 'and Noddy, you sit here, and Mr\nRokesmith you sit there. Now, you see, what I want to talk about, is\nthis. Mr and Mrs Milvey have sent me the kindest note possible (which\nMr Rokesmith just now read to me out aloud, for I ain't good at\nhandwritings), offering to find me another little child to name and\neducate and bring up. Well. This has set me thinking.'\n\n('And she is a steam-ingein at it,' murmured Mr Boffin, in an admiring\nparenthesis, 'when she once begins. It mayn't be so easy to start her;\nbut once started, she's a ingein.')\n\n'--This has set me thinking, I say,' repeated Mrs Boffin, cordially\nbeaming under the influence of her husband's compliment, 'and I have\nthought two things. First of all, that I have grown timid of reviving\nJohn Harmon's name. It's an unfortunate name, and I fancy I should\nreproach myself if I gave it to another dear child, and it proved again\nunlucky.'\n\n'Now, whether,' said Mr Boffin, gravely propounding a case for his\nSecretary's opinion; 'whether one might call that a superstition?'\n\n'It is a matter of feeling with Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, gently.\n'The name has always been unfortunate. It has now this new unfortunate\nassociation connected with it. The name has died out. Why revive it?\nMight I ask Miss Wilfer what she thinks?'\n\n'It has not been a fortunate name for me,' said Bella, colouring--'or\nat least it was not, until it led to my being here--but that is not the\npoint in my thoughts. As we had given the name to the poor child, and as\nthe poor child took so lovingly to me, I think I should feel jealous of\ncalling another child by it. I think I should feel as if the name had\nbecome endeared to me, and I had no right to use it so.'\n\n'And that's your opinion?' remarked Mr Boffin, observant of the\nSecretary's face and again addressing him.\n\n'I say again, it is a matter of feeling,' returned the Secretary. 'I\nthink Miss Wilfer's feeling very womanly and pretty.'\n\n'Now, give us your opinion, Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin.\n\n'My opinion, old lady,' returned the Golden Dustman, 'is your opinion.'\n\n'Then,' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's name, but\nto let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr Rokesmith says, a matter of\nfeeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling! Well; and so\nI come to the second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella,\nmy dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that when I first named to my husband my\nthoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon,\nI further named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how\nthe poor boy would be benefited by John's own money, and protected from\nJohn's own forlornness.'\n\n'Hear, hear!' cried Mr Boffin. 'So she did. Ancoar!'\n\n'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I am\ngoing to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as much as\nI still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the\nquestion, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing myself.\nElse why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite to\nmy liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and put\nmy tastes and likings by?'\n\n'Perhaps,' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little\nsensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers towards\nthe murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not have\nliked to give it to a less interesting child than the original. He\ninterested you very much.'\n\n'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's kind\nof you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been so, and\nindeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am afraid not to\nthe whole extent. However, that don't come in question now, because we\nhave done with the name.'\n\n'Laid it up as a remembrance,' suggested Bella, musingly.\n\n'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well then; I\nhave been thinking if I take any orphan to provide for, let it not be\na pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for its own\nsake.'\n\n'Not pretty then?' said Bella.\n\n'No,' returned Mrs Boffin, stoutly.\n\n'Nor prepossessing then?' said Bella.\n\n'No,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Not necessarily so. That's as it may happen.\nA well-disposed boy comes in my way who may be even a little wanting in\nsuch advantages for getting on in life, but is honest and industrious\nand requires a helping hand and deserves it. If I am very much in\nearnest and quite determined to be unselfish, let me take care of HIM.'\n\nHere the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the former occasion,\nappeared, and crossing to Rokesmith apologetically announced the\nobjectionable Sloppy.\n\nThe four members of Council looked at one another, and paused. 'Shall he\nbe brought here, ma'am?' asked Rokesmith.\n\n'Yes,' said Mrs Boffin. Whereupon the footman disappeared, reappeared\npresenting Sloppy, and retired much disgusted.\n\nThe consideration of Mrs Boffin had clothed Mr Sloppy in a suit of\nblack, on which the tailor had received personal directions from\nRokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art, with a view to the\nconcealment of the cohering and sustaining buttons. But, so much\nmore powerful were the frailties of Sloppy's form than the strongest\nresources of tailoring science, that he now stood before the Council,\na perfect Argus in the way of buttons: shining and winking and gleaming\nand twinkling out of a hundred of those eyes of bright metal, at the\ndazzled spectators. The artistic taste of some unknown hatter had\nfurnished him with a hatband of wholesale capacity which was fluted\nbehind, from the crown of his hat to the brim, and terminated in a black\nbunch, from which the imagination shrunk discomfited and the reason\nrevolted. Some special powers with which his legs were endowed, had\nalready hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles, and bagged them at\nthe knees; while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coat-sleeves\nfrom his wrists and accumulated them at his elbows. Thus set forth, with\nthe additional embellishments of a very little tail to his coat, and a\nyawning gulf at his waistband, Sloppy stood confessed.\n\n'And how is Betty, my good fellow?' Mrs Boffin asked him.\n\n'Thankee, mum,' said Sloppy, 'she do pretty nicely, and sending her\ndooty and many thanks for the tea and all faviours and wishing to know\nthe family's healths.'\n\n'Have you just come, Sloppy?'\n\n'Yes, mum.'\n\n'Then you have not had your dinner yet?'\n\n'No, mum. But I mean to it. For I ain't forgotten your handsome orders\nthat I was never to go away without having had a good 'un off of meat\nand beer and pudding--no: there was four of 'em, for I reckoned 'em\nup when I had 'em; meat one, beer two, vegetables three, and which was\nfour?--Why, pudding, HE was four!' Here Sloppy threw his head back,\nopened his mouth wide, and laughed rapturously.\n\n'How are the two poor little Minders?' asked Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Striking right out, mum, and coming round beautiful.'\n\nMrs Boffin looked on the other three members of Council, and then said,\nbeckoning with her finger:\n\n'Sloppy.'\n\n'Yes, mum.'\n\n'Come forward, Sloppy. Should you like to dine here every day?'\n\n'Off of all four on 'em, mum? O mum!' Sloppy's feelings obliged him to\nsqueeze his hat, and contract one leg at the knee.\n\n'Yes. And should you like to be always taken care of here, if you were\nindustrious and deserving?'\n\n'Oh, mum!--But there's Mrs Higden,' said Sloppy, checking himself in his\nraptures, drawing back, and shaking his head with very serious meaning.\n'There's Mrs Higden. Mrs Higden goes before all. None can ever be better\nfriends to me than Mrs Higden's been. And she must be turned for, must\nMrs Higden. Where would Mrs Higden be if she warn't turned for!' At the\nmere thought of Mrs Higden in this inconceivable affliction, Mr Sloppy's\ncountenance became pale, and manifested the most distressful emotions.\n\n'You are as right as right can be, Sloppy,' said Mrs Boffin 'and far be\nit from me to tell you otherwise. It shall be seen to. If Betty Higden\ncan be turned for all the same, you shall come here and be taken care of\nfor life, and be made able to keep her in other ways than the turning.'\n\n'Even as to that, mum,' answered the ecstatic Sloppy, 'the turning might\nbe done in the night, don't you see? I could be here in the day, and\nturn in the night. I don't want no sleep, I don't. Or even if I any ways\nshould want a wink or two,' added Sloppy, after a moment's apologetic\nreflection, 'I could take 'em turning. I've took 'em turning many a\ntime, and enjoyed 'em wonderful!'\n\nOn the grateful impulse of the moment, Mr Sloppy kissed Mrs Boffin's\nhand, and then detaching himself from that good creature that he might\nhave room enough for his feelings, threw back his head, opened his mouth\nwide, and uttered a dismal howl. It was creditable to his tenderness of\nheart, but suggested that he might on occasion give some offence to the\nneighbours: the rather, as the footman looked in, and begged pardon,\nfinding he was not wanted, but excused himself; on the ground 'that he\nthought it was Cats.'\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\nSOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART\n\n\nLittle Miss Peecher, from her little official dwelling-house, with its\nlittle windows like the eyes in needles, and its little doors like the\ncovers of school-books, was very observant indeed of the object of her\nquiet affections. Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is\na vigilant watchman, and Miss Peecher kept him on double duty over Mr\nBradley Headstone. It was not that she was naturally given to playing\nthe spy--it was not that she was at all secret, plotting, or mean--it\nwas simply that she loved the irresponsive Bradley with all the\nprimitive and homely stock of love that had never been examined or\ncertificated out of her. If her faithful slate had had the latent\nqualities of sympathetic paper, and its pencil those of invisible ink,\nmany a little treatise calculated to astonish the pupils would have come\nbursting through the dry sums in school-time under the warming influence\nof Miss Peecher's bosom. For, oftentimes when school was not, and her\ncalm leisure and calm little house were her own, Miss Peecher would\ncommit to the confidential slate an imaginary description of how, upon\na balmy evening at dusk, two figures might have been observed in the\nmarket-garden ground round the corner, of whom one, being a manly form,\nbent over the other, being a womanly form of short stature and some\ncompactness, and breathed in a low voice the words, 'Emma Peecher, wilt\nthou be my own?' after which the womanly form's head reposed upon the\nmanly form's shoulder, and the nightingales tuned up. Though all unseen,\nand unsuspected by the pupils, Bradley Headstone even pervaded the\nschool exercises. Was Geography in question? He would come triumphantly\nflying out of Vesuvius and Aetna ahead of the lava, and would boil\nunharmed in the hot springs of Iceland, and would float majestically\ndown the Ganges and the Nile. Did History chronicle a king of men?\nBehold him in pepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his watch-guard round\nhis neck. Were copies to be written? In capital B's and H's most of the\ngirls under Miss Peecher's tuition were half a year ahead of every other\nletter in the alphabet. And Mental Arithmetic, administered by Miss\nPeecher, often devoted itself to providing Bradley Headstone with a\nwardrobe of fabulous extent: fourscore and four neck-ties at two and\nninepence-halfpenny, two gross of silver watches at four pounds fifteen\nand sixpence, seventy-four black hats at eighteen shillings; and many\nsimilar superfluities.\n\nThe vigilant watchman, using his daily opportunities of turning his eyes\nin Bradley's direction, soon apprized Miss Peecher that Bradley was more\npreoccupied than had been his wont, and more given to strolling about\nwith a downcast and reserved face, turning something difficult in his\nmind that was not in the scholastic syllabus. Putting this and that\ntogether--combining under the head 'this,' present appearances and the\nintimacy with Charley Hexam, and ranging under the head 'that' the\nvisit to his sister, the watchman reported to Miss Peecher his strong\nsuspicions that the sister was at the bottom of it.\n\n'I wonder,' said Miss Peecher, as she sat making up her weekly report on\na half-holiday afternoon, 'what they call Hexam's sister?'\n\nMary Anne, at her needlework, attendant and attentive, held her arm up.\n\n'Well, Mary Anne?'\n\n'She is named Lizzie, ma'am.'\n\n'She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne,' returned Miss\nPeecher, in a tunefully instructive voice. 'Is Lizzie a Christian name,\nMary Anne?'\n\nMary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind, as being\nunder catechization, and replied: 'No, it is a corruption, Miss\nPeecher.'\n\n'Who gave her that name?' Miss Peecher was going on, from the mere force\nof habit, when she checked herself; on Mary Anne's evincing theological\nimpatience to strike in with her godfathers and her godmothers, and\nsaid: 'I mean of what name is it a corruption?'\n\n'Elizabeth, or Eliza, Miss Peecher.'\n\n'Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in the early Christian\nChurch must be considered very doubtful, very doubtful.' Miss Peecher\nwas exceedingly sage here. 'Speaking correctly, we say, then, that\nHexam's sister is called Lizzie; not that she is named so. Do we not,\nMary Anne?'\n\n'We do, Miss Peecher.'\n\n'And where,' pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her little transparent\nfiction of conducting the examination in a semiofficial manner for Mary\nAnne's benefit, not her own, 'where does this young woman, who is called\nbut not named Lizzie, live? Think, now, before answering.'\n\n'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ma'am.'\n\n'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss Peecher,\nas if possessed beforehand of the book in which it was written. Exactly\nso. And what occupation does this young woman pursue, Mary Anne? Take\ntime.'\n\n'She has a place of trust at an outfitter's in the City, ma'am.'\n\n'Oh!' said Miss Peecher, pondering on it; but smoothly added, in a\nconfirmatory tone, 'At an outfitter's in the City. Ye-es?'\n\n'And Charley--' Mary Anne was proceeding, when Miss Peecher stared.\n\n'I mean Hexam, Miss Peecher.'\n\n'I should think you did, Mary Anne. I am glad to hear you do. And\nHexam--'\n\n'Says,' Mary Anne went on, 'that he is not pleased with his sister, and\nthat his sister won't be guided by his advice, and persists in being\nguided by somebody else's; and that--'\n\n'Mr Headstone coming across the garden!' exclaimed Miss Peecher, with a\nflushed glance at the looking-glass. 'You have answered very well, Mary\nAnne. You are forming an excellent habit of arranging your thoughts\nclearly. That will do.'\n\nThe discreet Mary Anne resumed her seat and her silence, and stitched,\nand stitched, and was stitching when the schoolmaster's shadow came in\nbefore him, announcing that he might be instantly expected.\n\n'Good evening, Miss Peecher,' he said, pursuing the shadow, and taking\nits place.\n\n'Good evening, Mr Headstone. Mary Anne, a chair.'\n\n'Thank you,' said Bradley, seating himself in his constrained manner.\n'This is but a flying visit. I have looked in, on my way, to ask a\nkindness of you as a neighbour.'\n\n'Did you say on your way, Mr Headstone?' asked Miss Peecher.\n\n'On my way to--where I am going.'\n\n'Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss Peecher, in\nher own thoughts.\n\n'Charley Hexam has gone to get a book or two he wants, and will probably\nbe back before me. As we leave my house empty, I took the liberty of\ntelling him I would leave the key here. Would you kindly allow me to do\nso?'\n\n'Certainly, Mr Headstone. Going for an evening walk, sir?'\n\n'Partly for a walk, and partly for--on business.'\n\n'Business in Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss\nPeecher to herself.\n\n'Having said which,' pursued Bradley, laying his door-key on the table,\n'I must be already going. There is nothing I can do for you, Miss\nPeecher?'\n\n'Thank you, Mr Headstone. In which direction?'\n\n'In the direction of Westminster.'\n\n'Mill Bank,' Miss Peecher repeated in her own thoughts once again. 'No,\nthank you, Mr Headstone; I'll not trouble you.'\n\n'You couldn't trouble me,' said the schoolmaster.\n\n'Ah!' returned Miss Peecher, though not aloud; 'but you can trouble\nME!' And for all her quiet manner, and her quiet smile, she was full of\ntrouble as he went his way.\n\nShe was right touching his destination. He held as straight a course\nfor the house of the dolls' dressmaker as the wisdom of his ancestors,\nexemplified in the construction of the intervening streets, would let\nhim, and walked with a bent head hammering at one fixed idea. It had\nbeen an immoveable idea since he first set eyes upon her. It seemed to\nhim as if all that he could suppress in himself he had suppressed, as\nif all that he could restrain in himself he had restrained, and the time\nhad come--in a rush, in a moment--when the power of self-command had\ndeparted from him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quite\nsufficiently discussed; enough that in certain smouldering natures like\nthis man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as fire\ndoes in a rage of wind, when other passions, but for its mastery, could\nbe held in chains. As a multitude of weak, imitative natures are\nalways lying by, ready to go mad upon the next wrong idea that may be\nbroached--in these times, generally some form of tribute to Somebody\nfor something that never was done, or, if ever done, that was done by\nSomebody Else--so these less ordinary natures may lie by for years,\nready on the touch of an instant to burst into flame.\n\nThe schoolmaster went his way, brooding and brooding, and a sense of\nbeing vanquished in a struggle might have been pieced out of his worried\nface. Truly, in his breast there lingered a resentful shame to find\nhimself defeated by this passion for Charley Hexam's sister, though in\nthe very self-same moments he was concentrating himself upon the object\nof bringing the passion to a successful issue.\n\nHe appeared before the dolls' dressmaker, sitting alone at her work.\n'Oho!' thought that sharp young personage, 'it's you, is it? I know your\ntricks and your manners, my friend!'\n\n'Hexam's sister,' said Bradley Headstone, 'is not come home yet?'\n\n'You are quite a conjuror,' returned Miss Wren.\n\n'I will wait, if you please, for I want to speak to her.'\n\n'Do you?' returned Miss Wren. 'Sit down. I hope it's mutual.' Bradley\nglanced distrustfully at the shrewd face again bending over the work,\nand said, trying to conquer doubt and hesitation:\n\n'I hope you don't imply that my visit will be unacceptable to Hexam's\nsister?'\n\n'There! Don't call her that. I can't bear you to call her that,'\nreturned Miss Wren, snapping her fingers in a volley of impatient snaps,\n'for I don't like Hexam.'\n\n'Indeed?'\n\n'No.' Miss Wren wrinkled her nose, to express dislike. 'Selfish. Thinks\nonly of himself. The way with all of you.'\n\n'The way with all of us? Then you don't like ME?'\n\n'So-so,' replied Miss Wren, with a shrug and a laugh. 'Don't know much\nabout you.'\n\n'But I was not aware it was the way with all of us,' said Bradley,\nreturning to the accusation, a little injured. 'Won't you say, some of\nus?'\n\n'Meaning,' returned the little creature, 'every one of you, but you.\nHah! Now look this lady in the face. This is Mrs Truth. The Honourable.\nFull-dressed.'\n\nBradley glanced at the doll she held up for his observation--which had\nbeen lying on its face on her bench, while with a needle and thread she\nfastened the dress on at the back--and looked from it to her.\n\n'I stand the Honourable Mrs T. on my bench in this corner against the\nwall, where her blue eyes can shine upon you,' pursued Miss Wren, doing\nso, and making two little dabs at him in the air with her needle, as\nif she pricked him with it in his own eyes; 'and I defy you to tell me,\nwith Mrs T. for a witness, what you have come here for.'\n\n'To see Hexam's sister.'\n\n'You don't say so!' retorted Miss Wren, hitching her chin. 'But on whose\naccount?'\n\n'Her own.'\n\n'O Mrs T.!' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'You hear him!'\n\n'To reason with her,' pursued Bradley, half humouring what was present,\nand half angry with what was not present; 'for her own sake.'\n\n'Oh Mrs T.!' exclaimed the dressmaker.\n\n'For her own sake,' repeated Bradley, warming, 'and for her brother's,\nand as a perfectly disinterested person.'\n\n'Really, Mrs T.,' remarked the dressmaker, 'since it comes to this, we\nmust positively turn you with your face to the wall.' She had hardly\ndone so, when Lizzie Hexam arrived, and showed some surprise on seeing\nBradley Headstone there, and Jenny shaking her little fist at him close\nbefore her eyes, and the Honourable Mrs T. with her face to the wall.\n\n'Here's a perfectly disinterested person, Lizzie dear,' said the knowing\nMiss Wren, 'come to talk with you, for your own sake and your brother's.\nThink of that. I am sure there ought to be no third party present at\nanything so very kind and so very serious; and so, if you'll remove the\nthird party upstairs, my dear, the third party will retire.'\n\nLizzie took the hand which the dolls' dressmaker held out to her for\nthe purpose of being supported away, but only looked at her with an\ninquiring smile, and made no other movement.\n\n'The third party hobbles awfully, you know, when she's left to herself;'\nsaid Miss Wren, 'her back being so bad, and her legs so queer; so she\ncan't retire gracefully unless you help her, Lizzie.'\n\n'She can do no better than stay where she is,' returned Lizzie,\nreleasing the hand, and laying her own lightly on Miss Jenny's curls.\nAnd then to Bradley: 'From Charley, sir?'\n\nIn an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley rose to\nplace a chair for her, and then returned to his own.\n\n'Strictly speaking,' said he, 'I come from Charley, because I left him\nonly a little while ago; but I am not commissioned by Charley. I come of\nmy own spontaneous act.'\n\nWith her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her hands, Miss Jenny\nWren sat looking at him with a watchful sidelong look. Lizzie, in her\ndifferent way, sat looking at him too.\n\n'The fact is,' began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that he had some\ndifficulty in articulating his words: the consciousness of which\nrendered his manner still more ungainly and undecided; 'the truth is,\nthat Charley, having no secrets from me (to the best of my belief), has\nconfided the whole of this matter to me.'\n\nHe came to a stop, and Lizzie asked: 'what matter, sir?'\n\n'I thought,' returned the schoolmaster, stealing another look at her,\nand seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for the look dropped as it\nlighted on her eyes, 'that it might be so superfluous as to be almost\nimpertinent, to enter upon a definition of it. My allusion was to this\nmatter of your having put aside your brother's plans for you, and\ngiven the preference to those of Mr--I believe the name is Mr Eugene\nWrayburn.'\n\nHe made this point of not being certain of the name, with another uneasy\nlook at her, which dropped like the last.\n\nNothing being said on the other side, he had to begin again, and began\nwith new embarrassment.\n\n'Your brother's plans were communicated to me when he first had them in\nhis thoughts. In point of fact he spoke to me about them when I was\nlast here--when we were walking back together, and when I--when the\nimpression was fresh upon me of having seen his sister.'\n\nThere might have been no meaning in it, but the little dressmaker here\nremoved one of her supporting hands from her chin, and musingly turned\nthe Honourable Mrs T. with her face to the company. That done, she fell\ninto her former attitude.\n\n'I approved of his idea,' said Bradley, with his uneasy look wandering\nto the doll, and unconsciously resting there longer than it had\nrested on Lizzie, 'both because your brother ought naturally to be the\noriginator of any such scheme, and because I hoped to be able to promote\nit. I should have had inexpressible pleasure, I should have taken\ninexpressible interest, in promoting it. Therefore I must acknowledge\nthat when your brother was disappointed, I too was disappointed. I wish\nto avoid reservation or concealment, and I fully acknowledge that.'\n\nHe appeared to have encouraged himself by having got so far. At all\nevents he went on with much greater firmness and force of emphasis:\nthough with a curious disposition to set his teeth, and with a curious\ntight-screwing movement of his right hand in the clenching palm of his\nleft, like the action of one who was being physically hurt, and was\nunwilling to cry out.\n\n'I am a man of strong feelings, and I have strongly felt this\ndisappointment. I do strongly feel it. I don't show what I feel; some\nof us are obliged habitually to keep it down. To keep it down. But to\nreturn to your brother. He has taken the matter so much to heart that\nhe has remonstrated (in my presence he remonstrated) with Mr Eugene\nWrayburn, if that be the name. He did so, quite ineffectually. As any\none not blinded to the real character of Mr--Mr Eugene Wrayburn--would\nreadily suppose.'\n\nHe looked at Lizzie again, and held the look. And his face turned from\nburning red to white, and from white back to burning red, and so for the\ntime to lasting deadly white.\n\n'Finally, I resolved to come here alone, and appeal to you. I resolved\nto come here alone, and entreat you to retract the course you have\nchosen, and instead of confiding in a mere stranger--a person of most\ninsolent behaviour to your brother and others--to prefer your brother\nand your brother's friend.'\n\nLizzie Hexam had changed colour when those changes came over him, and\nher face now expressed some anger, more dislike, and even a touch of\nfear. But she answered him very steadily.\n\n'I cannot doubt, Mr Headstone, that your visit is well meant. You have\nbeen so good a friend to Charley that I have no right to doubt it. I\nhave nothing to tell Charley, but that I accepted the help to which he\nso much objects before he made any plans for me; or certainly before I\nknew of any. It was considerately and delicately offered, and there were\nreasons that had weight with me which should be as dear to Charley as to\nme. I have no more to say to Charley on this subject.'\n\nHis lips trembled and stood apart, as he followed this repudiation of\nhimself; and limitation of her words to her brother.\n\n'I should have told Charley, if he had come to me,' she resumed, as\nthough it were an after-thought, 'that Jenny and I find our teacher very\nable and very patient, and that she takes great pains with us. So much\nso, that we have said to her we hope in a very little while to be able\nto go on by ourselves. Charley knows about teachers, and I should also\nhave told him, for his satisfaction, that ours comes from an institution\nwhere teachers are regularly brought up.'\n\n'I should like to ask you,' said Bradley Headstone, grinding his words\nslowly out, as though they came from a rusty mill; 'I should like to\nask you, if I may without offence, whether you would have objected--no;\nrather, I should like to say, if I may without offence, that I wish I\nhad had the opportunity of coming here with your brother and devoting my\npoor abilities and experience to your service.'\n\n'Thank you, Mr Headstone.'\n\n'But I fear,' he pursued, after a pause, furtively wrenching at the seat\nof his chair with one hand, as if he would have wrenched the chair to\npieces, and gloomily observing her while her eyes were cast down, 'that\nmy humble services would not have found much favour with you?'\n\nShe made no reply, and the poor stricken wretch sat contending with\nhimself in a heat of passion and torment. After a while he took out his\nhandkerchief and wiped his forehead and hands.\n\n'There is only one thing more I had to say, but it is the most\nimportant. There is a reason against this matter, there is a personal\nrelation concerned in this matter, not yet explained to you. It might--I\ndon't say it would--it might--induce you to think differently. To\nproceed under the present circumstances is out of the question. Will you\nplease come to the understanding that there shall be another interview\non the subject?'\n\n'With Charley, Mr Headstone?'\n\n'With--well,' he answered, breaking off, 'yes! Say with him too.\nWill you please come to the understanding that there must be another\ninterview under more favourable circumstances, before the whole case can\nbe submitted?'\n\n'I don't,' said Lizzie, shaking her head, 'understand your meaning, Mr\nHeadstone.'\n\n'Limit my meaning for the present,' he interrupted, 'to the whole case\nbeing submitted to you in another interview.'\n\n'What case, Mr Headstone? What is wanting to it?'\n\n'You--you shall be informed in the other interview.' Then he said, as\nif in a burst of irrepressible despair, 'I--I leave it all incomplete!\nThere is a spell upon me, I think!' And then added, almost as if he\nasked for pity, 'Good-night!'\n\nHe held out his hand. As she, with manifest hesitation, not to say\nreluctance, touched it, a strange tremble passed over him, and his face,\nso deadly white, was moved as by a stroke of pain. Then he was gone.\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker sat with her attitude unchanged, eyeing the door\nby which he had departed, until Lizzie pushed her bench aside and sat\ndown near her. Then, eyeing Lizzie as she had previously eyed Bradley\nand the door, Miss Wren chopped that very sudden and keen chop in which\nher jaws sometimes indulged, leaned back in her chair with folded arms,\nand thus expressed herself:\n\n'Humph! If he--I mean, of course, my dear, the party who is coming to\ncourt me when the time comes--should be THAT sort of man, he may spare\nhimself the trouble. HE wouldn't do to be trotted about and made useful.\nHe'd take fire and blow up while he was about it.'\n\n'And so you would be rid of him,' said Lizzie, humouring her.\n\n'Not so easily,' returned Miss Wren. 'He wouldn't blow up alone. He'd\ncarry me up with him. I know his tricks and his manners.'\n\n'Would he want to hurt you, do you mean?' asked Lizzie.\n\n'Mightn't exactly want to do it, my dear,' returned Miss Wren; 'but a\nlot of gunpowder among lighted lucifer-matches in the next room might\nalmost as well be here.'\n\n'He is a very strange man,' said Lizzie, thoughtfully.\n\n'I wish he was so very strange a man as to be a total stranger,'\nanswered the sharp little thing.\n\nIt being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an evening\nto brush out and smooth the long fair hair of the dolls' dressmaker, she\nunfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was at\nher work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that\nwere much in need of such adorning rain. 'Not now, Lizzie, dear,' said\nJenny; 'let us have a talk by the fire.' With those words, she in her\nturn loosened her friend's dark hair, and it dropped of its own weight\nover her bosom, in two rich masses. Pretending to compare the colours\nand admire the contrast, Jenny so managed a mere touch or two of her\nnimble hands, as that she herself laying a cheek on one of the dark\nfolds, seemed blinded by her own clustering curls to all but the fire,\nwhile the fine handsome face and brow of Lizzie were revealed without\nobstruction in the sombre light.\n\n'Let us have a talk,' said Jenny, 'about Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'\n\nSomething sparkled down among the fair hair resting on the dark hair;\nand if it were not a star--which it couldn't be--it was an eye; and\nif it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren's eye, bright and watchful as the\nbird's whose name she had taken.\n\n'Why about Mr Wrayburn?' Lizzie asked.\n\n'For no better reason than because I'm in the humour. I wonder whether\nhe's rich!'\n\n'No, not rich.'\n\n'Poor?'\n\n'I think so, for a gentleman.'\n\n'Ah! To be sure! Yes, he's a gentleman. Not of our sort; is he?' A shake\nof the head, a thoughtful shake of the head, and the answer, softly\nspoken, 'Oh no, oh no!'\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker had an arm round her friend's waist. Adjusting the\narm, she slyly took the opportunity of blowing at her own hair where\nit fell over her face; then the eye down there, under lighter shadows\nsparkled more brightly and appeared more watchful.\n\n'When He turns up, he shan't be a gentleman; I'll very soon send him\npacking, if he is. However, he's not Mr Wrayburn; I haven't captivated\nHIM. I wonder whether anybody has, Lizzie!'\n\n'It is very likely.'\n\n'Is it very likely? I wonder who!'\n\n'Is it not very likely that some lady has been taken by him, and that he\nmay love her dearly?'\n\n'Perhaps. I don't know. What would you think of him, Lizzie, if you were\na lady?'\n\n'I a lady!' she repeated, laughing. 'Such a fancy!'\n\n'Yes. But say: just as a fancy, and for instance.'\n\n'I a lady! I, a poor girl who used to row poor father on the river. I,\nwho had rowed poor father out and home on the very night when I saw him\nfor the first time. I, who was made so timid by his looking at me, that\nI got up and went out!'\n\n('He did look at you, even that night, though you were not a lady!'\nthought Miss Wren.)\n\n'I a lady!' Lizzie went on in a low voice, with her eyes upon the fire.\n'I, with poor father's grave not even cleared of undeserved stain and\nshame, and he trying to clear it for me! I a lady!'\n\n'Only as a fancy, and for instance,' urged Miss Wren.\n\n'Too much, Jenny, dear, too much! My fancy is not able to get that far.'\nAs the low fire gleamed upon her, it showed her smiling, mournfully and\nabstractedly.\n\n'But I am in the humour, and I must be humoured, Lizzie, because after\nall I am a poor little thing, and have had a hard day with my bad child.\nLook in the fire, as I like to hear you tell how you used to do when you\nlived in that dreary old house that had once been a windmill. Look in\nthe--what was its name when you told fortunes with your brother that I\nDON'T like?'\n\n'The hollow down by the flare?'\n\n'Ah! That's the name! You can find a lady there, I know.'\n\n'More easily than I can make one of such material as myself, Jenny.'\n\nThe sparkling eye looked steadfastly up, as the musing face looked\nthoughtfully down. 'Well?' said the dolls' dressmaker, 'We have found\nour lady?'\n\nLizzie nodded, and asked, 'Shall she be rich?'\n\n'She had better be, as he's poor.'\n\n'She is very rich. Shall she be handsome?'\n\n'Even you can be that, Lizzie, so she ought to be.'\n\n'She is very handsome.'\n\n'What does she say about him?' asked Miss Jenny, in a low voice:\nwatchful, through an intervening silence, of the face looking down at\nthe fire.\n\n'She is glad, glad, to be rich, that he may have the money. She is glad,\nglad, to be beautiful, that he may be proud of her. Her poor heart--'\n\n'Eh? Her poor hear?' said Miss Wren.\n\n'Her heart--is given him, with all its love and truth. She would\njoyfully die with him, or, better than that, die for him. She knows he\nhas failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like\none cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and\nthink well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that I can\nnever come near, \"Only put me in that empty place, only try how little\nI mind myself, only prove what a world of things I will do and bear for\nyou, and I hope that you might even come to be much better than you are,\nthrough me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside\nyou.\"'\n\nAs the face looking at the fire had become exalted and forgetful in the\nrapture of these words, the little creature, openly clearing away\nher fair hair with her disengaged hand, had gazed at it with earnest\nattention and something like alarm. Now that the speaker ceased, the\nlittle creature laid down her head again, and moaned, 'O me, O me, O\nme!'\n\n'In pain, dear Jenny?' asked Lizzie, as if awakened.\n\n'Yes, but not the old pain. Lay me down, lay me down. Don't go out of\nmy sight to-night. Lock the door and keep close to me.' Then turning away\nher face, she said in a whisper to herself, 'My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie!\nO my blessed children, come back in the long bright slanting rows, and\ncome for her, not me. She wants help more than I, my blessed children!'\n\nShe had stretched her hands up with that higher and better look, and\nnow she turned again, and folded them round Lizzie's neck, and rocked\nherself on Lizzie's breast.\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\nMORE BIRDS OF PREY\n\n\nRogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, among the\nriggers, and the mast, oar and block makers, and the boat-builders, and\nthe sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored full of waterside\ncharacters, some no better than himself, some very much better, and\nnone much worse. The Hole, albeit in a general way not over nice in\nits choice of company, was rather shy in reference to the honour of\ncultivating the Rogue's acquaintance; more frequently giving him the\ncold shoulder than the warm hand, and seldom or never drinking with him\nunless at his own expense. A part of the Hole, indeed, contained so\nmuch public spirit and private virtue that not even this strong leverage\ncould move it to good fellowship with a tainted accuser. But, there may\nhave been the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponents\nheld a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly and\naccursed character to a false one.\n\nHad it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr Riderhood\nmight have found the Hole a mere grave as to any means it would yield\nhim of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some little\nposition and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of small\nscales, she was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly\ncalled a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on insignificant\narticles of property deposited with her as security. In her\nfour-and-twentieth year of life, Pleasant was already in her fifth year\nof this way of trade. Her deceased mother had established the business,\nand on that parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital of\nfifteen shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence of\nsuch capital in a pillow being the last intelligible confidential\ncommunication made to her by the departed, before succumbing to\ndropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally with\ncoherence and existence.\n\nWhy christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might possibly have\nbeen at some time able to explain, and possibly not. Her daughter had no\ninformation on that point. Pleasant she found herself, and she couldn't\nhelp it. She had not been consulted on the question, any more than on\nthe question of her coming into these terrestrial parts, to want a name.\nSimilarly, she found herself possessed of what is colloquially termed\na swivel eye (derived from her father), which she might perhaps have\ndeclined if her sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was not\notherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy\ncomplexion, and looking as old again as she really was.\n\nAs some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry certain\ncreatures to a certain point, so--not to make the comparison\ndisrespectfully--Pleasant Riderhood had it in the blood, or had been\ntrained, to regard seamen, within certain limits, as her prey. Show\nher a man in a blue jacket, and, figuratively speaking, she pinned him\ninstantly. Yet, all things considered, she was not of an evil mind or an\nunkindly disposition. For, observe how many things were to be considered\naccording to her own unfortunate experience. Show Pleasant Riderhood a\nWedding in the street, and she only saw two people taking out a regular\nlicence to quarrel and fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw a\nlittle heathen personage having a quite superfluous name bestowed upon\nit, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by some abusive epithet:\nwhich little personage was not in the least wanted by anybody, and would\nbe shoved and banged out of everybody's way, until it should grow\nbig enough to shove and bang. Show her a Funeral, and she saw an\nunremunerative ceremony in the nature of a black masquerade, conferring\na temporary gentility on the performers, at an immense expense, and\nrepresenting the only formal party ever given by the deceased. Show her\na live father, and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who from\nher infancy had been taken with fits and starts of discharging his duty\nto her, which duty was always incorporated in the form of a fist or a\nleathern strap, and being discharged hurt her. All things considered,\ntherefore, Pleasant Riderhood was not so very, very bad. There was even\na touch of romance in her--of such romance as could creep into Limehouse\nHole--and maybe sometimes of a summer evening, when she stood with\nfolded arms at her shop-door, looking from the reeking street to the\nsky where the sun was setting, she may have had some vaporous visions\nof far-off islands in the southern seas or elsewhere (not being\ngeographically particular), where it would be good to roam with a\ncongenial partner among groves of bread-fruit, waiting for ships to be\nwafted from the hollow ports of civilization. For, sailors to be got the\nbetter of, were essential to Miss Pleasant's Eden.\n\nNot on a summer evening did she come to her little shop-door, when a\ncertain man standing over against the house on the opposite side of\nthe street took notice of her. That was on a cold shrewd windy evening,\nafter dark. Pleasant Riderhood shared with most of the lady inhabitants\nof the Hole, the peculiarity that her hair was a ragged knot, constantly\ncoming down behind, and that she never could enter upon any undertaking\nwithout first twisting it into place. At that particular moment, being\nnewly come to the threshold to take a look out of doors, she was winding\nherself up with both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent was the\nfashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other disturbance in the\nHole, the ladies would be seen flocking from all quarters universally\ntwisting their back-hair as they came along, and many of them, in the\nhurry of the moment, carrying their back-combs in their mouths.\n\nIt was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man standing in it\ncould touch with his hand; little better than a cellar or cave, down\nthree steps. Yet in its ill-lighted window, among a flaring handkerchief\nor two, an old peacoat or so, a few valueless watches and compasses, a\njar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a bottle of walnut ketchup, and\nsome horrible sweets these creature discomforts serving as a blind to\nthe main business of the Leaving Shop--was displayed the inscription\nSEAMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE.\n\nTaking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man crossed so\nquickly that she was still winding herself up, when he stood close\nbefore her.\n\n'Is your father at home?' said he.\n\n'I think he is,' returned Pleasant, dropping her arms; 'come in.'\n\nIt was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appearance. Her\nfather was not at home, and Pleasant knew it. 'Take a seat by the fire,'\nwere her hospitable words when she had got him in; 'men of your calling\nare always welcome here.'\n\n'Thankee,' said the man.\n\nHis manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were the hands of\na sailor, except that they were smooth. Pleasant had an eye for sailors,\nand she noticed the unused colour and texture of the hands, sunburnt\nthough they were, as sharply as she noticed their unmistakable looseness\nand suppleness, as he sat himself down with his left arm carelessly\nthrown across his left leg a little above the knee, and the right arm\nas carelessly thrown over the elbow of the wooden chair, with the hand\ncurved, half open and half shut, as if it had just let go a rope.\n\n'Might you be looking for a Boarding-House?' Pleasant inquired, taking\nher observant stand on one side of the fire.\n\n'I don't rightly know my plans yet,' returned the man.\n\n'You ain't looking for a Leaving Shop?'\n\n'No,' said the man.\n\n'No,' assented Pleasant, 'you've got too much of an outfit on you for\nthat. But if you should want either, this is both.'\n\n'Ay, ay!' said the man, glancing round the place. 'I know. I've been\nhere before.'\n\n'Did you Leave anything when you were here before?' asked Pleasant, with\na view to principal and interest.\n\n'No.' The man shook his head.\n\n'I am pretty sure you never boarded here?'\n\n'No.' The man again shook his head.\n\n'What DID you do here when you were here before?' asked Pleasant. 'For I\ndon't remember you.'\n\n'It's not at all likely you should. I only stood at the door, one\nnight--on the lower step there--while a shipmate of mine looked in to\nspeak to your father. I remember the place well.' Looking very curiously\nround it.\n\n'Might that have been long ago?'\n\n'Ay, a goodish bit ago. When I came off my last voyage.'\n\n'Then you have not been to sea lately?'\n\n'No. Been in the sick bay since then, and been employed ashore.'\n\n'Then, to be sure, that accounts for your hands.'\n\nThe man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of manner, caught\nher up. 'You're a good observer. Yes. That accounts for my hands.'\n\nPleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned it\nsuspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, though very sudden,\nquite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed, had a\ncertain suppressed confidence and sense of power in it that were half\nthreatening.\n\n'Will your father be long?' he inquired.\n\n'I don't know. I can't say.'\n\n'As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just gone\nout? How's that?'\n\n'I supposed he had come home,' Pleasant explained.\n\n'Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some time out?\nHow's that?'\n\n'I don't want to deceive you. Father's on the river in his boat.'\n\n'At the old work?' asked the man.\n\n'I don't know what you mean,' said Pleasant, shrinking a step back.\n'What on earth d'ye want?'\n\n'I don't want to hurt your father. I don't want to say I might, if I\nchose. I want to speak to him. Not much in that, is there? There shall\nbe no secrets from you; you shall be by. And plainly, Miss Riderhood,\nthere's nothing to be got out of me, or made of me. I am not good for\nthe Leaving Shop, I am not good for the Boarding-House, I am not good\nfor anything in your way to the extent of sixpenn'orth of halfpence. Put\nthe idea aside, and we shall get on together.'\n\n'But you're a seafaring man?' argued Pleasant, as if that were a\nsufficient reason for his being good for something in her way.\n\n'Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am not for you.\nWon't you take my word for it?'\n\nThe conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's hair\nin tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she twisted it up,\nlooking from under her bent forehead at the man. In taking stock of his\nfamiliarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she took\nstock of a formidable knife in a sheath at his waist ready to his hand,\nand of a whistle hanging round his neck, and of a short jagged knotted\nclub with a loaded head that peeped out of a pocket of his loose\nouter jacket or frock. He sat quietly looking at her; but, with these\nappendages partially revealing themselves, and with a quantity\nof bristling oakum-coloured head and whisker, he had a formidable\nappearance.\n\n'Won't you take my word for it?' he asked again.\n\nPleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with another short\ndumb nod. Then he got up and stood with his arms folded, in front of\nthe fire, looking down into it occasionally, as she stood with her arms\nfolded, leaning against the side of the chimney-piece.\n\n'To wile away the time till your father comes,' he said,--'pray is there\nmuch robbing and murdering of seamen about the water-side now?'\n\n'No,' said Pleasant.\n\n'Any?'\n\n'Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Ratcliffe and Wapping\nand up that way. But who knows how many are true?'\n\n'To be sure. And it don't seem necessary.'\n\n'That's what I say,' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it?\nBless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what they have,\nwithout it.'\n\n'You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, without\nviolence,' said the man.\n\n'Of course it may,' said Pleasant; 'and then they ship again and get\nmore. And the best thing for 'em, too, to ship again as soon as ever\nthey can be brought to it. They're never so well off as when they're\nafloat.'\n\n'I'll tell you why I ask,' pursued the visitor, looking up from the\nfire. 'I was once beset that way myself, and left for dead.'\n\n'No?' said Pleasant. 'Where did it happen?'\n\n'It happened,' returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew his\nright hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the pocket of his\nrough outer coat, 'it happened somewhere about here as I reckon. I don't\nthink it can have been a mile from here.'\n\n'Were you drunk?' asked Pleasant.\n\n'I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not been drinking, you\nunderstand. A mouthful did it.'\n\nPleasant with a grave look shook her head; importing that she understood\nthe process, but decidedly disapproved.\n\n'Fair trade is one thing,' said she, 'but that's another. No one has a\nright to carry on with Jack in THAT way.'\n\n'The sentiment does you credit,' returned the man, with a grim smile;\nand added, in a mutter, 'the more so, as I believe it's not your\nfather's.--Yes, I had a bad time of it, that time. I lost everything,\nand had a sharp struggle for my life, weak as I was.'\n\n'Did you get the parties punished?' asked Pleasant.\n\n'A tremendous punishment followed,' said the man, more seriously; 'but\nit was not of my bringing about.'\n\n'Of whose, then?' asked Pleasant.\n\nThe man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly recovering that\nhand, settled his chin in it again as he looked at the fire. Bringing\nher inherited eye to bear upon him, Pleasant Riderhood felt more\nand more uncomfortable, his manner was so mysterious, so stern, so\nself-possessed.\n\n'Anyways,' said the damsel, 'I am glad punishment followed, and I say\nso. Fair trade with seafaring men gets a bad name through deeds of\nviolence. I am as much against deeds of violence being done to seafaring\nmen, as seafaring men can be themselves. I am of the same opinion as my\nmother was, when she was living. Fair trade, my mother used to say, but\nno robbery and no blows.' In the way of trade Miss Pleasant would have\ntaken--and indeed did take when she could--as much as thirty shillings\na week for board that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted the\nLeaving business upon correspondingly equitable principles; yet she had\nthat tenderness of conscience and those feelings of humanity, that the\nmoment her ideas of trade were overstepped, she became the seaman's\nchampion, even against her father whom she seldom otherwise resisted.\n\nBut, she was here interrupted by her father's voice exclaiming angrily,\n'Now, Poll Parrot!' and by her father's hat being heavily flung from his\nhand and striking her face. Accustomed to such occasional manifestations\nof his sense of parental duty, Pleasant merely wiped her face on her\nhair (which of course had tumbled down) before she twisted it up. This\nwas another common procedure on the part of the ladies of the Hole, when\nheated by verbal or fistic altercation.\n\n'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned to\nspeak!' growled Mr Riderhood, stooping to pick up his hat, and making\na feint at her with his head and right elbow; for he took the delicate\nsubject of robbing seamen in extraordinary dudgeon, and was out of\nhumour too. 'What are you Poll Parroting at now? Ain't you got nothing\nto do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting all night?'\n\n'Let her alone,' urged the man. 'She was only speaking to me.'\n\n'Let her alone too!' retorted Mr Riderhood, eyeing him all over. 'Do you\nknow she's my daughter?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the part of\nmy daughter? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll Parroting from no\nman? And who may YOU be, and what may YOU want?'\n\n'How can I tell you until you are silent?' returned the other fiercely.\n\n'Well,' said Mr Riderhood, quailing a little, 'I am willing to be silent\nfor the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll Parrot me.'\n\n'Are you thirsty, you?' the man asked, in the same fierce short way,\nafter returning his look.\n\n'Why nat'rally,' said Mr Riderhood, 'ain't I always thirsty!' (Indignant\nat the absurdity of the question.)\n\n'What will you drink?' demanded the man.\n\n'Sherry wine,' returned Mr Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 'if you're\ncapable of it.'\n\nThe man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, and\nbegged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would fetch a bottle. 'With\nthe cork undrawn,' he added, emphatically, looking at her father.\n\n'I'll take my Alfred David,' muttered Mr Riderhood, slowly relaxing into\na dark smile, 'that you know a move. Do I know YOU? N--n--no, I don't\nknow you.'\n\nThe man replied, 'No, you don't know me.' And so they stood looking at\none another surlily enough, until Pleasant came back.\n\n'There's small glasses on the shelf,' said Riderhood to his daughter.\n'Give me the one without a foot. I gets my living by the sweat of my\nbrow, and it's good enough for ME.' This had a modest self-denying\nappearance; but it soon turned out that as, by reason of the\nimpossibility of standing the glass upright while there was anything in\nit, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr Riderhood managed to\ndrink in the proportion of three to one.\n\nWith his Fortunatus's goblet ready in his hand, Mr Riderhood sat down on\none side of the table before the fire, and the strange man on the other:\nPleasant occupying a stool between the latter and the fireside. The\nbackground, composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and other\nold articles 'On Leaving,' had a general dim resemblance to human\nlisteners; especially where a shiny black sou'wester suit and hat hung,\nlooking very like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company, who\nwas so curious to overhear, that he paused for the purpose with his\ncoat half pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted\naction.\n\nThe visitor first held the bottle against the light of the candle,\nand next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied that it had not been\ntampered with, he slowly took from his breastpocket a rusty clasp-knife,\nand, with a corkscrew in the handle, opened the wine. That done,\nhe looked at the cork, unscrewed it from the corkscrew, laid each\nseparately on the table, and, with the end of the sailor's knot of his\nneckerchief, dusted the inside of the neck of the bottle. All this with\ngreat deliberation.\n\nAt first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at arm's\nlength for filling, while the very deliberate stranger seemed absorbed\nin his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted home to him, and\nhis glass was lowered and lowered until he rested it upside down upon\nthe table. By the same degrees his attention became concentrated on\nthe knife. And now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round,\nRiderhood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the knife,\nand stared from it to him.\n\n'What's the matter?' asked the man.\n\n'Why, I know that knife!' said Riderhood.\n\n'Yes, I dare say you do.'\n\nHe motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. Riderhood\nemptied it to the last drop and began again.\n\n'That there knife--'\n\n'Stop,' said the man, composedly. 'I was going to drink to your\ndaughter. Your health, Miss Riderhood.'\n\n'That knife was the knife of a seaman named George Radfoot.'\n\n'It was.'\n\n'That seaman was well beknown to me.'\n\n'He was.'\n\n'What's come to him?'\n\n'Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly shape. He looked,'\nsaid the man, 'very horrible after it.'\n\n'Arter what?' said Riderhood, with a frowning stare.\n\n'After he was killed.'\n\n'Killed? Who killed him?'\n\nOnly answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless glass, and\nRiderhood emptied it: looking amazedly from his daughter to his visitor.\n\n'You don't mean to tell a honest man--' he was recommencing with\nhis empty glass in his hand, when his eye became fascinated by the\nstranger's outer coat. He leaned across the table to see it nearer,\ntouched the sleeve, turned the cuff to look at the sleeve-lining (the\nman, in his perfect composure, offering not the least objection), and\nexclaimed, 'It's my belief as this here coat was George Radfoot's too!'\n\n'You are right. He wore it the last time you ever saw him, and the last\ntime you ever will see him--in this world.'\n\n'It's my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed him!'\nexclaimed Riderhood; but, nevertheless, allowing his glass to be filled\nagain.\n\nThe man only answered with another shrug, and showed no symptom of\nconfusion.\n\n'Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this chap!' said\nRiderhood, after staring at him, and tossing his last glassful down his\nthroat. 'Let's know what to make of you. Say something plain.'\n\n'I will,' returned the other, leaning forward across the table, and\nspeaking in a low impressive voice. 'What a liar you are!'\n\nThe honest witness rose, and made as though he would fling his glass in\nthe man's face. The man not wincing, and merely shaking his forefinger\nhalf knowingly, half menacingly, the piece of honesty thought better of\nit and sat down again, putting the glass down too.\n\n'And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple with that\ninvented story,' said the stranger, in an exasperatingly comfortable\nsort of confidence, 'you might have had your strong suspicions of a\nfriend of your own, you know. I think you had, you know.'\n\n'Me my suspicions? Of what friend?'\n\n'Tell me again whose knife was this?' demanded the man.\n\n'It was possessed by, and was the property of--him as I have made\nmention on,' said Riderhood, stupidly evading the actual mention of the\nname.\n\n'Tell me again whose coat was this?'\n\n'That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and was wore\nby--him as I have made mention on,' was again the dull Old Bailey\nevasion.\n\n'I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and of keeping\ncleverly out of the way. But there was small cleverness in HIS keeping\nout of the way. The cleverness would have been, to have got back for one\nsingle instant to the light of the sun.'\n\n'Things is come to a pretty pass,' growled Mr Riderhood, rising to his\nfeet, goaded to stand at bay, 'when bullyers as is wearing dead men's\nclothes, and bullyers as is armed with dead men's knives, is to come\ninto the houses of honest live men, getting their livings by the sweats\nof their brows, and is to make these here sort of charges with no rhyme\nand no reason, neither the one nor yet the other! Why should I have had\nmy suspicions of him?'\n\n'Because you knew him,' replied the man; 'because you had been one with\nhim, and knew his real character under a fair outside; because on the\nnight which you had afterwards reason to believe to be the very night of\nthe murder, he came in here, within an hour of his having left his ship\nin the docks, and asked you in what lodgings he could find room. Was\nthere no stranger with him?'\n\n'I'll take my world-without-end everlasting Alfred David that you warn't\nwith him,' answered Riderhood. 'You talk big, you do, but things look\npretty black against yourself, to my thinking. You charge again' me that\nGeorge Radfoot got lost sight of, and was no more thought of. What's\nthat for a sailor? Why there's fifty such, out of sight and out of\nmind, ten times as long as him--through entering in different names,\nre-shipping when the out'ard voyage is made, and what not--a turning\nup to light every day about here, and no matter made of it. Ask my\ndaughter. You could go on Poll Parroting enough with her, when I warn't\ncome in: Poll Parrot a little with her on this pint. You and your\nsuspicions of my suspicions of him! What are my suspicions of you? You\ntell me George Radfoot got killed. I ask you who done it and how you\nknow it. You carry his knife and you wear his coat. I ask you how you\ncome by 'em? Hand over that there bottle!' Here Mr Riderhood appeared\nto labour under a virtuous delusion that it was his own property. 'And\nyou,' he added, turning to his daughter, as he filled the footless\nglass, 'if it warn't wasting good sherry wine on you, I'd chuck this at\nyou, for Poll Parroting with this man. It's along of Poll Parroting\nthat such like as him gets their suspicions, whereas I gets mine by\nargueyment, and being nat'rally a honest man, and sweating away at the\nbrow as a honest man ought.' Here he filled the footless goblet again,\nand stood chewing one half of its contents and looking down into the\nother as he slowly rolled the wine about in the glass; while Pleasant,\nwhose sympathetic hair had come down on her being apostrophised,\nrearranged it, much in the style of the tail of a horse when proceeding\nto market to be sold.\n\n'Well? Have you finished?' asked the strange man.\n\n'No,' said Riderhood, 'I ain't. Far from it. Now then! I want to know\nhow George Radfoot come by his death, and how you come by his kit?'\n\n'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'\n\n'And next I want to know,' proceeded Riderhood 'whether you mean to\ncharge that what-you-may-call-it-murder--'\n\n'Harmon murder, father,' suggested Pleasant.\n\n'No Poll Parroting!' he vociferated, in return. 'Keep your mouth\nshut!--I want to know, you sir, whether you charge that there crime on\nGeorge Radfoot?'\n\n'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'\n\n'Perhaps you done it yourself?' said Riderhood, with a threatening\naction.\n\n'I alone know,' returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 'the\nmysteries of that crime. I alone know that your trumped-up story cannot\npossibly be true. I alone know that it must be altogether false, and\nthat you must know it to be altogether false. I come here to-night to\ntell you so much of what I know, and no more.'\n\nMr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated for some\nmoments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the contents down his\nthroat in three tips.\n\n'Shut the shop-door!' he then said to his daughter, putting the glass\nsuddenly down. 'And turn the key and stand by it! If you know all this,\nyou sir,' getting, as he spoke, between the visitor and the door, 'why\nhan't you gone to Lawyer Lightwood?'\n\n'That, also, is alone known to myself,' was the cool answer.\n\n'Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say you could\ntell is worth from five to ten thousand pound?' asked Riderhood.\n\n'I know it very well, and when I claim the money you shall share it.'\n\nThe honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, and a\nlittle further from the door.\n\n'I know it,' repeated the man, quietly, 'as well as I know that you and\nGeorge Radfoot were one together in more than one dark business; and as\nwell as I know that you, Roger Riderhood, conspired against an innocent\nman for blood-money; and as well as I know that I can--and that I swear\nI will!--give you up on both scores, and be the proof against you in my\nown person, if you defy me!'\n\n'Father!' cried Pleasant, from the door. 'Don't defy him! Give way to\nhim! Don't get into more trouble, father!'\n\n'Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you?' cried Mr Riderhood,\nhalf beside himself between the two. Then, propitiatingly and\ncrawlingly: 'You sir! You han't said what you want of me. Is it fair, is\nit worthy of yourself, to talk of my defying you afore ever you say what\nyou want of me?'\n\n'I don't want much,' said the man. 'This accusation of yours must not be\nleft half made and half unmade. What was done for the blood-money must\nbe thoroughly undone.'\n\n'Well; but Shipmate--'\n\n'Don't call me Shipmate,' said the man.\n\n'Captain, then,' urged Mr Riderhood; 'there! You won't object to\nCaptain. It's a honourable title, and you fully look it. Captain! Ain't\nthe man dead? Now I ask you fair. Ain't Gaffer dead?'\n\n'Well,' returned the other, with impatience, 'yes, he is dead. What\nthen?'\n\n'Can words hurt a dead man, Captain? I only ask you fair.'\n\n'They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can hurt his living\nchildren. How many children had this man?'\n\n'Meaning Gaffer, Captain?'\n\n'Of whom else are we speaking?' returned the other, with a movement of\nhis foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to sneak before him in\nthe body as well as the spirit, and he spurned him off. 'I have heard\nof a daughter, and a son. I ask for information; I ask YOUR daughter; I\nprefer to speak to her. What children did Hexam leave?'\n\nPleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that honest man\nexclaimed with great bitterness:\n\n'Why the devil don't you answer the Captain? You can Poll Parrot enough\nwhen you ain't wanted to Poll Parrot, you perwerse jade!'\n\nThus encouraged, Pleasant explained that there were only Lizzie, the\ndaughter in question, and the youth. Both very respectable, she added.\n\n'It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them,' said the\nvisitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy that he rose, and\npaced to and fro, muttering, 'Dreadful! Unforeseen? How could it be\nforeseen!' Then he stopped, and asked aloud: 'Where do they live?'\n\nPleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided with the\nfather at the time of his accidental death, and that she had immediately\nafterwards quitted the neighbourhood.\n\n'I know that,' said the man, 'for I have been to the place they dwelt\nin, at the time of the inquest. Could you quietly find out for me where\nshe lives now?'\n\nPleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what time, did she\nthink? Within a day. The visitor said that was well, and he would return\nfor the information, relying on its being obtained. To this dialogue\nRiderhood had attended in silence, and he now obsequiously bespake the\nCaptain.\n\n'Captain! Mentioning them unfort'net words of mine respecting Gaffer,\nit is contrairily to be bore in mind that Gaffer always were a precious\nrascal, and that his line were a thieving line. Likeways when I went to\nthem two Governors, Lawyer Lightwood and the t'other Governor, with\nmy information, I may have been a little over-eager for the cause of\njustice, or (to put it another way) a little over-stimilated by them\nfeelings which rouses a man up, when a pot of money is going about,\nto get his hand into that pot of money for his family's sake. Besides\nwhich, I think the wine of them two Governors was--I will not say\na hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind. And\nthere's another thing to be remembered, Captain. Did I stick to them\nwords when Gaffer was no more, and did I say bold to them two Governors,\n\"Governors both, wot I informed I still inform; wot was took down I hold\nto\"? No. I says, frank and open--no shuffling, mind you, Captain!--\"I\nmay have been mistook, I've been a thinking of it, it mayn't have been\ntook down correct on this and that, and I won't swear to thick and thin,\nI'd rayther forfeit your good opinions than do it.\" And so far as\nI know,' concluded Mr Riderhood, by way of proof and evidence to\ncharacter, 'I HAVE actiwally forfeited the good opinions of several\npersons--even your own, Captain, if I understand your words--but I'd\nsooner do it than be forswore. There; if that's conspiracy, call me\nconspirator.'\n\n'You shall sign,' said the visitor, taking very little heed of this\noration, 'a statement that it was all utterly false, and the poor girl\nshall have it. I will bring it with me for your signature, when I come\nagain.'\n\n'When might you be expected, Captain?' inquired Riderhood, again\ndubiously getting between him and door.\n\n'Quite soon enough for you. I shall not disappoint you; don't be\nafraid.'\n\n'Might you be inclined to leave any name, Captain?'\n\n'No, not at all. I have no such intention.'\n\n'\"Shall\" is summ'at of a hard word, Captain,' urged Riderhood, still\nfeebly dodging between him and the door, as he advanced. 'When you say a\nman \"shall\" sign this and that and t'other, Captain, you order him about\nin a grand sort of a way. Don't it seem so to yourself?'\n\nThe man stood still, and angrily fixed him with his eyes.\n\n'Father, father!' entreated Pleasant, from the door, with her disengaged\nhand nervously trembling at her lips; 'don't! Don't get into trouble any\nmore!'\n\n'Hear me out, Captain, hear me out! All I was wishing to mention,\nCaptain, afore you took your departer,' said the sneaking Mr Riderhood,\nfalling out of his path, 'was, your handsome words relating to the\nreward.'\n\n'When I claim it,' said the man, in a tone which seemed to leave some\nsuch words as 'you dog,' very distinctly understood, 'you shall share\nit.'\n\nLooking stedfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in a low voice, this\ntime with a grim sort of admiration of him as a perfect piece of evil,\n'What a liar you are!' and, nodding his head twice or thrice over the\ncompliment, passed out of the shop. But, to Pleasant he said good-night\nkindly.\n\nThe honest man who gained his living by the sweat of his brow remained\nin a state akin to stupefaction, until the footless glass and the\nunfinished bottle conveyed themselves into his mind. From his mind he\nconveyed them into his hands, and so conveyed the last of the wine into\nhis stomach. When that was done, he awoke to a clear perception that\nPoll Parroting was solely chargeable with what had passed. Therefore,\nnot to be remiss in his duty as a father, he threw a pair of sea-boots\nat Pleasant, which she ducked to avoid, and then cried, poor thing,\nusing her hair for a pocket-handkerchief.\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\nA SOLO AND A DUETT\n\n\nThe wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at the shop-door\ninto the darkness and dirt of Limehouse Hole, that it almost blew him\nin again. Doors were slamming violently, lamps were flickering or blown\nout, signs were rocking in their frames, the water of the kennels,\nwind-dispersed, flew about in drops like rain. Indifferent to the\nweather, and even preferring it to better weather for its clearance of\nthe streets, the man looked about him with a scrutinizing glance. 'Thus\nmuch I know,' he murmured. 'I have never been here since that night, and\nnever was here before that night, but thus much I recognize. I wonder\nwhich way did we take when we came out of that shop. We turned to the\nright as I have turned, but I can recall no more. Did we go by this\nalley? Or down that little lane?'\n\nHe tried both, but both confused him equally, and he came straying\nback to the same spot. 'I remember there were poles pushed out of upper\nwindows on which clothes were drying, and I remember a low public-house,\nand the sound flowing down a narrow passage belonging to it of the\nscraping of a fiddle and the shuffling of feet. But here are all these\nthings in the lane, and here are all these things in the alley. And I\nhave nothing else in my mind but a wall, a dark doorway, a flight of\nstairs, and a room.'\n\nHe tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, dark doorways,\nflights of stairs and rooms, were too abundant. And, like most people so\npuzzled, he again and again described a circle, and found himself at\nthe point from which he had begun. 'This is like what I have read in\nnarratives of escape from prison,' said he, 'where the little track of\nthe fugitives in the night always seems to take the shape of the great\nround world, on which they wander; as if it were a secret law.'\n\nHere he ceased to be the oakum-headed, oakum-whiskered man on whom Miss\nPleasant Riderhood had looked, and, allowing for his being still wrapped\nin a nautical overcoat, became as like that same lost wanted Mr Julius\nHandford, as never man was like another in this world. In the breast of\nthe coat he stowed the bristling hair and whisker, in a moment, as the\nfavouring wind went with him down a solitary place that it had swept\nclear of passengers. Yet in that same moment he was the Secretary also,\nMr Boffin's Secretary. For John Rokesmith, too, was as like that same\nlost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like another in this\nworld.\n\n'I have no clue to the scene of my death,' said he. 'Not that it matters\nnow. But having risked discovery by venturing here at all, I should have\nbeen glad to track some part of the way.' With which singular words he\nabandoned his search, came up out of Limehouse Hole, and took the way\npast Limehouse Church. At the great iron gate of the churchyard he\nstopped and looked in. He looked up at the high tower spectrally\nresisting the wind, and he looked round at the white tombstones, like\nenough to the dead in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine\ntolls of the clock-bell.\n\n'It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,' said he, 'to be\nlooking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I no\nmore hold a place among the living than these dead do, and even to know\nthat I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses\nme to it. A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger or\nlonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel.\n\n'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, so\ndifficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thoroughly think\nit out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home. I know\nI evade it, as many men--perhaps most men--do evade thinking their way\nthrough their greatest perplexity. I will try to pin myself to mine.\nDon't evade it, John Harmon; don't evade it; think it out!\n\n\n'When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I had none\nbut most miserable associations, by the accounts of my fine inheritance\nthat found me abroad, I came back, shrinking from my father's money,\nshrinking from my father's memory, mistrustful of being forced on a\nmercenary wife, mistrustful of my father's intention in thrusting that\nmarriage on me, mistrustful that I was already growing avaricious,\nmistrustful that I was slackening in gratitude to the two dear noble\nhonest friends who had made the only sunlight in my childish life or\nthat of my heartbroken sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind,\nafraid of myself and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness\nthat my father's wealth had ever brought about. Now, stop, and so far\nthink it out, John Harmon. Is that so? That is exactly so.\n\n'On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew nothing of\nhim. His name first became known to me about a week before we sailed,\nthrough my being accosted by one of the ship-agent's clerks as\n\"Mr Radfoot.\" It was one day when I had gone aboard to look to my\npreparations, and the clerk, coming behind me as I stood on deck, tapped\nme on the shoulder, and said, \"Mr Rad-foot, look here,\" referring to\nsome papers that he had in his hand. And my name first became known to\nRadfoot, through another clerk within a day or two, and while the ship\nwas yet in port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and\nbeginning, \"I beg your pardon, Mr Harmon--.\" I believe we were alike\nin bulk and stature but not otherwise, and that we were not strikingly\nalike, even in those respects, when we were together and could be\ncompared.\n\n'However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes became an easy\nintroduction between us, and the weather was hot, and he helped me to a\ncool cabin on deck alongside his own, and his first school had been at\nBrussels as mine had been, and he had learnt French as I had learnt it,\nand he had a little history of himself to relate--God only knows how\nmuch of it true, and how much of it false--that had its likeness to\nmine. I had been a seaman too. So we got to be confidential together,\nand the more easily yet, because he and every one on board had known\nby general rumour what I was making the voyage to England for. By such\ndegrees and means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness of mind,\nand of its setting at that time in the direction of desiring to see and\nform some judgment of my allotted wife, before she could possibly know\nme for myself; also to try Mrs Boffin and give her a glad surprise. So\nthe plot was made out of our getting common sailors' dresses (as he was\nable to guide me about London), and throwing ourselves in Bella Wilfer's\nneighbourhood, and trying to put ourselves in her way, and doing\nwhatever chance might favour on the spot, and seeing what came of it. If\nnothing came of it, I should be no worse off, and there would merely\nbe a short delay in my presenting myself to Lightwood. I have all these\nfacts right? Yes. They are all accurately right.\n\n'His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to be lost. It\nmight be for a day or for two days, but I must be lost sight of on\nlanding, or there would be recognition, anticipation, and failure.\nTherefore, I disembarked with my valise in my hand--as Potterson\nthe steward and Mr Jacob Kibble my fellow-passenger afterwards\nremembered--and waited for him in the dark by that very Limehouse Church\nwhich is now behind me.\n\n'As I had always shunned the port of London, I only knew the church\nthrough his pointing out its spire from on board. Perhaps I might\nrecall, if it were any good to try, the way by which I went to it alone\nfrom the river; but how we two went from it to Riderhood's shop, I don't\nknow--any more than I know what turns we took and doubles we made, after\nwe left it. The way was purposely confused, no doubt.\n\n'But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid confusing them with\nmy speculations. Whether he took me by a straight way or a crooked way,\nwhat is that to the purpose now? Steady, John Harmon.\n\n'When we stopped at Riderhood's, and he asked that scoundrel a question\nor two, purporting to refer only to the lodging-houses in which there\nwas accommodation for us, had I the least suspicion of him? None.\nCertainly none until afterwards when I held the clue. I think he must\nhave got from Riderhood in a paper, the drug, or whatever it was, that\nafterwards stupefied me, but I am far from sure. All I felt safe in\ncharging on him to-night, was old companionship in villainy between\nthem. Their undisguised intimacy, and the character I now know Riderhood\nto bear, made that not at all adventurous. But I am not clear about the\ndrug. Thinking out the circumstances on which I found my suspicion, they\nare only two. One: I remember his changing a small folded paper from one\npocket to another, after we came out, which he had not touched before.\nTwo: I now know Riderhood to have been previously taken up for being\nconcerned in the robbery of an unlucky seaman, to whom some such poison\nhad been given.\n\n'It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from that shop,\nbefore we came to the wall, the dark doorway, the flight of stairs, and\nthe room. The night was particularly dark and it rained hard. As I think\nthe circumstances back, I hear the rain splashing on the stone pavement\nof the passage, which was not under cover. The room overlooked the\nriver, or a dock, or a creek, and the tide was out. Being possessed of\nthe time down to that point, I know by the hour that it must have been\nabout low water; but while the coffee was getting ready, I drew back the\ncurtain (a dark-brown curtain), and, looking out, knew by the kind\nof reflection below, of the few neighbouring lights, that they were\nreflected in tidal mud.\n\n'He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit of his\nclothes. I had no change of outer clothes with me, as I was to buy\nslops. \"You are very wet, Mr Harmon,\"--I can hear him saying--\"and I am\nquite dry under this good waterproof coat. Put on these clothes of\nmine. You may find on trying them that they will answer your purpose\nto-morrow, as well as the slops you mean to buy, or better. While you\nchange, I'll hurry the hot coffee.\" When he came back, I had his clothes\non, and there was a black man with him, wearing a linen jacket, like\na steward, who put the smoking coffee on the table in a tray and never\nlooked at me. I am so far literal and exact? Literal and exact, I am\ncertain.\n\n'Now, I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are so strong, that\nI rely upon them; but there are spaces between them that I know nothing\nabout, and they are not pervaded by any idea of time.\n\n'I had drank some coffee, when to my sense of sight he began to swell\nimmensely, and something urged me to rush at him. We had a struggle near\nthe door. He got from me, through my not knowing where to strike, in the\nwhirling round of the room, and the flashing of flames of fire between\nus. I dropped down. Lying helpless on the ground, I was turned over by\na foot. I was dragged by the neck into a corner. I heard men speak\ntogether. I was turned over by other feet. I saw a figure like myself\nlying dressed in my clothes on a bed. What might have been, for anything\nI knew, a silence of days, weeks, months, years, was broken by a violent\nwrestling of men all over the room. The figure like myself was assailed,\nand my valise was in its hand. I was trodden upon and fallen over. I\nheard a noise of blows, and thought it was a wood-cutter cutting down\na tree. I could not have said that my name was John Harmon--I could not\nhave thought it--I didn't know it--but when I heard the blows, I thought\nof the wood-cutter and his axe, and had some dead idea that I was lying\nin a forest.\n\n'This is still correct? Still correct, with the exception that I cannot\npossibly express it to myself without using the word I. But it was not\nI. There was no such thing as I, within my knowledge.\n\n'It was only after a downward slide through something like a tube, and\nthen a great noise and a sparkling and crackling as of fires, that the\nconsciousness came upon me, \"This is John Harmon drowning! John Harmon,\nstruggle for your life. John Harmon, call on Heaven and save yourself!\"\nI think I cried it out aloud in a great agony, and then a heavy horrid\nunintelligible something vanished, and it was I who was struggling there\nalone in the water.\n\n'I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsiness, and\ndriving fast with the tide. Looking over the black water, I saw the\nlights racing past me on the two banks of the river, as if they were\neager to be gone and leave me dying in the dark. The tide was running\ndown, but I knew nothing of up or down then. When, guiding myself safely\nwith Heaven's assistance before the fierce set of the water, I at last\ncaught at a boat moored, one of a tier of boats at a causeway, I was\nsucked under her, and came up, only just alive, on the other side.\n\n'Was I long in the water? Long enough to be chilled to the heart, but\nI don't know how long. Yet the cold was merciful, for it was the cold\nnight air and the rain that restored me from a swoon on the stones of\nthe causeway. They naturally supposed me to have toppled in, drunk, when\nI crept to the public-house it belonged to; for I had no notion where\nI was, and could not articulate--through the poison that had made me\ninsensible having affected my speech--and I supposed the night to be\nthe previous night, as it was still dark and raining. But I had lost\ntwenty-four hours.\n\n'I have checked the calculation often, and it must have been two nights\nthat I lay recovering in that public-house. Let me see. Yes. I am sure\nit was while I lay in that bed there, that the thought entered my head\nof turning the danger I had passed through, to the account of being\nfor some time supposed to have disappeared mysteriously, and of proving\nBella. The dread of our being forced on one another, and perpetuating\nthe fate that seemed to have fallen on my father's riches--the fate that\nthey should lead to nothing but evil--was strong upon the moral timidity\nthat dates from my childhood with my poor sister.\n\n'As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the river where I\nrecovered the shore, being the opposite side to that on which I was\nensnared, I shall never understand it now. Even at this moment, while I\nleave the river behind me, going home, I cannot conceive that it rolls\nbetween me and that spot, or that the sea is where it is. But this is\nnot thinking it out; this is making a leap to the present time.\n\n'I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the waterproof\nbelt round my body. Not a great fortune, forty and odd pounds for the\ninheritor of a hundred and odd thousand! But it was enough. Without it I\nmust have disclosed myself. Without it, I could never have gone to that\nExchequer Coffee House, or taken Mrs Wilfer's lodgings.\n\n'Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night when I saw the\ncorpse of Radfoot at the Police Station. The inexpressible mental horror\nthat I laboured under, as one of the consequences of the poison, makes\nthe interval seem greatly longer, but I know it cannot have been longer.\nThat suffering has gradually weakened and weakened since, and has only\ncome upon me by starts, and I hope I am free from it now; but even now,\nI have sometimes to think, constrain myself, and stop before speaking,\nor I could not say the words I want to say.\n\n'Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. It is not so far\nto the end that I need be tempted to break off. Now, on straight!\n\n'I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was missing, but\nsaw none. Going out that night to walk (for I kept retired while it was\nlight), I found a crowd assembled round a placard posted at Whitehall.\nIt described myself, John Harmon, as found dead and mutilated in the\nriver under circumstances of strong suspicion, described my dress,\ndescribed the papers in my pockets, and stated where I was lying for\nrecognition. In a wild incautious way I hurried there, and there--with\nthe horror of the death I had escaped, before my eyes in its most\nappalling shape, added to the inconceivable horror tormenting me at\nthat time when the poisonous stuff was strongest on me--I perceived that\nRadfoot had been murdered by some unknown hands for the money for which\nhe would have murdered me, and that probably we had both been shot into\nthe river from the same dark place into the same dark tide, when the\nstream ran deep and strong.\n\n'That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected no one,\ncould offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that the\nmurdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, and\nnext day while I hesitated, it seemed as if the whole country were\ndetermined to have me dead. The Inquest declared me dead, the Government\nproclaimed me dead; I could not listen at my fireside for five minutes\nto the outer noises, but it was borne into my ears that I was dead.\n\n'So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John\nRokesmith was born. John Rokesmith's intent to-night has been to repair\na wrong that he could never have imagined possible, coming to his ears\nthrough the Lightwood talk related to him, and which he is bound by\nevery consideration to remedy. In that intent John Rokesmith will\npersevere, as his duty is.\n\n'Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing omitted? No,\nnothing. But beyond this time? To think it out through the future, is a\nharder though a much shorter task than to think it out through the past.\nJohn Harmon is dead. Should John Harmon come to life?\n\n'If yes, why? If no, why?'\n\n'Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning the offence of\none far beyond it who may have a living mother. To enlighten it with the\nlights of a stone passage, a flight of stairs, a brown window-curtain,\nand a black man. To come into possession of my father's money, and with\nit sordidly to buy a beautiful creature whom I love--I cannot help it;\nreason has nothing to do with it; I love her against reason--but who\nwould as soon love me for my own sake, as she would love the beggar at\nthe corner. What a use for the money, and how worthy of its old misuses!\n\n'Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to life.\nBecause he has passively allowed these dear old faithful friends to pass\ninto possession of the property. Because he sees them happy with it,\nmaking a good use of it, effacing the old rust and tarnish on the money.\nBecause they have virtually adopted Bella, and will provide for her.\nBecause there is affection enough in her nature, and warmth enough in\nher heart, to develop into something enduringly good, under favourable\nconditions. Because her faults have been intensified by her place in my\nfather's will, and she is already growing better. Because her marriage\nwith John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be a\nshocking mockery, of which both she and I must always be conscious, and\nwhich would degrade her in her mind, and me in mine, and each of us in\nthe other's. Because if John Harmon comes to life and does not marry\nher, the property falls into the very hands that hold it now.\n\n'What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetime\nstill as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive, and making\nmy memory an incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I have\nfound them when they might have slighted my name, and passed\ngreedily over my grave to ease and wealth, lingering by the way, like\nsingle-hearted children, to recall their love for me when I was a poor\nfrightened child. Dead, I have heard from the woman who would have been\nmy wife if I had lived, the revolting truth that I should have purchased\nher, caring nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave.\n\n'What would I have? If the dead could know, or do know, how the living\nuse them, who among the hosts of dead has found a more disinterested\nfidelity on earth than I? Is not that enough for me? If I had come back,\nthese noble creatures would have welcomed me, wept over me, given up\neverything to me with joy. I did not come back, and they have passed\nunspoiled into my place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest in\nhers.\n\n'What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary life,\ncarefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall have become\nmore accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm of\nswindlers under many names shall have found newer prey. By that time,\nthe method I am establishing through all the affairs, and with which I\nwill every day take new pains to make them both familiar, will be, I may\nhope, a machine in such working order as that they can keep it going.\nI know I need but ask of their generosity, to have. When the right time\ncomes, I will ask no more than will replace me in my former path of\nlife, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he may. But\nJohn Harmon shall come back no more.\n\n'That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak misgiving\nthat Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for my own sake if\nI had plainly asked her, I WILL plainly ask her: proving beyond all\nquestion what I already know too well. And now it is all thought out,\nfrom the beginning to the end, and my mind is easier.'\n\n\nSo deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus communing with\nhimself, that he had regarded neither the wind nor the way, and had\nresisted the former instinctively as he had pursued the latter. But\nbeing now come into the City, where there was a coach-stand, he stood\nirresolute whether to go to his lodgings, or to go first to Mr Boffin's\nhouse. He decided to go round by the house, arguing, as he carried his\novercoat upon his arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if left\nthere, than if taken to Holloway: both Mrs Wilfer and Miss Lavinia being\nravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger stood\npossessed.\n\nArriving at the house, he found that Mr and Mrs Boffin were out, but\nthat Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer had remained at\nhome, in consequence of not feeling very well, and had inquired in the\nevening if Mr Rokesmith were in his room.\n\n'Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now.'\n\nMiss Wilfer's compliments came down in return, and, if it were not too\nmuch trouble, would Mr Rokesmith be so kind as to come up before he\nwent?\n\nIt was not too much trouble, and Mr Rokesmith came up.\n\nOh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the father\nof the late John Harmon had but left his money unconditionally to his\nson, and if his son had but lighted on this loveable girl for himself,\nand had the happiness to make her loving as well as loveable!\n\n'Dear me! Are you not well, Mr Rokesmith?'\n\n'Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that YOU were\nnot.'\n\n'A mere nothing. I had a headache--gone now--and was not quite fit for\na hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you if you were not well,\nbecause you look so white.'\n\n'Do I? I have had a busy evening.'\n\nShe was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining jewel\nof a table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah! what a different\nlife the late John Harmon's, if it had been his happy privilege to take\nhis place upon that ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say,\n'I hope the time has been long without me? What a Home Goddess you look,\nmy darling!'\n\nBut, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John Harmon,\nremained standing at a distance. A little distance in respect of space,\nbut a great distance in respect of separation.\n\n'Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it all\nround the corners, 'I wanted to say something to you when I could have\nthe opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to you the other day.\nYou have no right to think ill of me, sir.'\n\nThe sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitively\ninjured, and half pettishly, would have been very much admired by the\nlate John Harmon.\n\n'You don't know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer.'\n\n'Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr Rokesmith, when you\nbelieve that in prosperity I neglect and forget my old home.'\n\n'Do I believe so?'\n\n'You DID, sir, at any rate,' returned Bella.\n\n'I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which you\nhad fallen--insensibly and naturally fallen. It was no more than that.'\n\n'And I beg leave to ask you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'why you took\nthat liberty?--I hope there is no offence in the phrase; it is your own,\nremember.'\n\n'Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss Wilfer.\nBecause I wish to see you always at your best. Because I--shall I go\non?'\n\n'No, sir,' returned Bella, with a burning face, 'you have said more than\nenough. I beg that you will NOT go on. If you have any generosity, any\nhonour, you will say no more.'\n\nThe late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the down-cast eyes,\nand at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall of bright brown hair\nover the beautiful neck, would probably have remained silent.\n\n'I wish to speak to you, sir,' said Bella, 'once for all, and I don't\nknow how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing to speak to\nyou, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that I must. I beg for\na moment's time.'\n\nHe remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, sometimes\nmaking a slight movement as if she would turn and speak. At length she\ndid so.\n\n'You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am situated\nat home. I must speak to you for myself, since there is no one about\nme whom I could ask to do so. It is not generous in you, it is not\nhonourable in you, to conduct yourself towards me as you do.'\n\n'Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; fascinated by\nyou?'\n\n'Preposterous!' said Bella.\n\nThe late John Harmon might have thought it rather a contemptuous and\nlofty word of repudiation.\n\n'I now feel obliged to go on,' pursued the Secretary, 'though it were\nonly in self-explanation and self-defence. I hope, Miss Wilfer, that\nit is not unpardonable--even in me--to make an honest declaration of an\nhonest devotion to you.'\n\n'An honest declaration!' repeated Bella, with emphasis.\n\n'Is it otherwise?'\n\n'I must request, sir,' said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timely\nresentment, 'that I may not be questioned. You must excuse me if I\ndecline to be cross-examined.'\n\n'Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but what\nyour own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even that question. But\nwhat I have declared, I take my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal of\nmy earnest and deep attachment to you, and I do not recall it.'\n\n'I reject it, sir,' said Bella.\n\n'I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply.\nForgive my offence, for it carries its punishment with it.'\n\n'What punishment?' asked Bella.\n\n'Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean to\ncross-examine you again.'\n\n'You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,' said Bella with a little\nsting of self-reproach, 'to make me seem--I don't know what. I spoke\nwithout consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but\nyou repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least\nno better. For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr Rokesmith, that\nthere is an end of this between us, now and for ever.'\n\n'Now and for ever,' he repeated.\n\n'Yes. I appeal to you, sir,' proceeded Bella with increasing spirit,\n'not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of your\nposition in this house to make my position in it distressing and\ndisagreeable. I appeal to you to discontinue your habit of making your\nmisplaced attentions as plain to Mrs Boffin as to me.'\n\n'Have I done so?'\n\n'I should think you have,' replied Bella. 'In any case it is not your\nfault if you have not, Mr Rokesmith.'\n\n'I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very sorry to\nhave justified it. I think I have not. For the future there is no\napprehension. It is all over.'\n\n'I am much relieved to hear it,' said Bella. 'I have far other views in\nlife, and why should you waste your own?'\n\n'Mine!' said the Secretary. 'My life!'\n\nHis curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with which\nhe said it. It was gone as he glanced back. 'Pardon me, Miss Wilfer,'\nhe proceeded, when their eyes met; 'you have used some hard words, for\nwhich I do not doubt you have a justification in your mind, that I do\nnot understand. Ungenerous and dishonourable. In what?'\n\n'I would rather not be asked,' said Bella, haughtily looking down.\n\n'I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me. Kindly\nexplain; or if not kindly, justly.'\n\n'Oh, sir!' said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little struggle\nto forbear, 'is it generous and honourable to use the power here which\nyour favour with Mr and Mrs Boffin and your ability in your place give\nyou, against me?'\n\n'Against you?'\n\n'Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually bringing\ntheir influence to bear upon a suit which I have shown you that I do not\nlike, and which I tell you that I utterly reject?'\n\nThe late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he would have\nbeen cut to the heart by such a suspicion as this.\n\n'Would it be generous and honourable to step into your place--if you did\nso, for I don't know that you did, and I hope you did not--anticipating,\nor knowing beforehand, that I should come here, and designing to take me\nat this disadvantage?'\n\n'This mean and cruel disadvantage,' said the Secretary.\n\n'Yes,' assented Bella.\n\nThe Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely said, 'You\nare wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer; wonderfully mistaken. I cannot say,\nhowever, that it is your fault. If I deserve better things of you, you\ndo not know it.'\n\n'At least, sir,' retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, 'you\nknow the history of my being here at all. I have heard Mr Boffin say\nthat you are master of every line and word of that will, as you are\nmaster of all his affairs. And was it not enough that I should have been\nwilled away, like a horse, or a dog, or a bird; but must you too begin\nto dispose of me in your mind, and speculate in me, as soon as I had\nceased to be the talk and the laugh of the town? Am I for ever to be\nmade the property of strangers?'\n\n'Believe me,' returned the Secretary, 'you are wonderfully mistaken.'\n\n'I should be glad to know it,' answered Bella.\n\n'I doubt if you ever will. Good-night. Of course I shall be careful to\nconceal any traces of this interview from Mr and Mrs Boffin, as long as\nI remain here. Trust me, what you have complained of is at an end for\never.'\n\n'I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr Rokesmith. It has been painful and\ndifficult, but it is done. If I have hurt you, I hope you will forgive\nme. I am inexperienced and impetuous, and I have been a little spoilt;\nbut I really am not so bad as I dare say I appear, or as you think me.'\n\nHe quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in her wilful\ninconsistent way. Left alone, she threw herself back on her ottoman, and\nsaid, 'I didn't know the lovely woman was such a Dragon!' Then, she\ngot up and looked in the glass, and said to her image, 'You have been\npositively swelling your features, you little fool!' Then, she took an\nimpatient walk to the other end of the room and back, and said, 'I\nwish Pa was here to have a talk about an avaricious marriage; but he\nis better away, poor dear, for I know I should pull his hair if he WAS\nhere.' And then she threw her work away, and threw her book after\nit, and sat down and hummed a tune, and hummed it out of tune, and\nquarrelled with it.\n\nAnd John Rokesmith, what did he?\n\nHe went down to his room, and buried John Harmon many additional fathoms\ndeep. He took his hat, and walked out, and, as he went to Holloway or\nanywhere else--not at all minding where--heaped mounds upon mounds of\nearth over John Harmon's grave. His walking did not bring him home until\nthe dawn of day. And so busy had he been all night, piling and piling\nweights upon weights of earth above John Harmon's grave, that by that\ntime John Harmon lay buried under a whole Alpine range; and still the\nSexton Rokesmith accumulated mountains over him, lightening his labour\nwith the dirge, 'Cover him, crush him, keep him down!'\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\nSTRONG OF PURPOSE\n\n\nThe sexton-task of piling earth above John Harmon all night long, was\nnot conducive to sound sleep; but Rokesmith had some broken morning\nrest, and rose strengthened in his purpose. It was all over now. No\nghost should trouble Mr and Mrs Boffin's peace; invisible and voiceless,\nthe ghost should look on for a little while longer at the state of\nexistence out of which it had departed, and then should for ever cease\nto haunt the scenes in which it had no place.\n\nHe went over it all again. He had lapsed into the condition in which\nhe found himself, as many a man lapses into many a condition, without\nperceiving the accumulative power of its separate circumstances. When\nin the distrust engendered by his wretched childhood and the action for\nevil--never yet for good within his knowledge then--of his father and\nhis father's wealth on all within their influence, he conceived the idea\nof his first deception, it was meant to be harmless, it was to last\nbut a few hours or days, it was to involve in it only the girl so\ncapriciously forced upon him and upon whom he was so capriciously\nforced, and it was honestly meant well towards her. For, if he had\nfound her unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through her heart\ninclining to another man or for any other cause), he would seriously\nhave said: 'This is another of the old perverted uses of the\nmisery-making money. I will let it go to my and my sister's only\nprotectors and friends.' When the snare into which he fell so\noutstripped his first intention as that he found himself placarded by\nthe police authorities upon the London walls for dead, he confusedly\naccepted the aid that fell upon him, without considering how firmly it\nmust seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When he\nsaw them, and knew them, and even from his vantage-ground of inspection\ncould find no flaw in them, he asked himself, 'And shall I come to life\nto dispossess such people as these?' There was no good to set against\nthe putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from Bella's own\nlips when he stood tapping at the door on that night of his taking\nthe lodgings, that the marriage would have been on her part thoroughly\nmercenary. He had since tried her, in his own unknown person and\nsupposed station, and she not only rejected his advances but resented\nthem. Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the meanness of\npunishing her? Yet, by coming to life and accepting the condition of the\ninheritance, he must do the former; and by coming to life and rejecting\nit, he must do the latter.\n\nAnother consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implication\nof an innocent man in his supposed murder. He would obtain complete\nretraction from the accuser, and set the wrong right; but clearly the\nwrong could never have been done if he had never planned a deception.\nThen, whatever inconvenience or distress of mind the deception cost him,\nit was manful repentantly to accept as among its consequences, and make\nno complaint.\n\nThus John Rokesmith in the morning, and it buried John Harmon still many\nfathoms deeper than he had been buried in the night.\n\nGoing out earlier than he was accustomed to do, he encountered the\ncherub at the door. The cherub's way was for a certain space his way,\nand they walked together.\n\nIt was impossible not to notice the change in the cherub's appearance.\nThe cherub felt very conscious of it, and modestly remarked:\n\n'A present from my daughter Bella, Mr Rokesmith.'\n\nThe words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he remembered the\nfifty pounds, and he still loved the girl. No doubt it was very weak--it\nalways IS very weak, some authorities hold--but he loved the girl.\n\n'I don't know whether you happen to have read many books of African\nTravel, Mr Rokesmith?' said R. W.\n\n'I have read several.'\n\n'Well, you know, there's usually a King George, or a King Boy, or a King\nSambo, or a King Bill, or Bull, or Rum, or Junk, or whatever name the\nsailors may have happened to give him.'\n\n'Where?' asked Rokesmith.\n\n'Anywhere. Anywhere in Africa, I mean. Pretty well everywhere, I may\nsay; for black kings are cheap--and I think'--said R. W., with an\napologetic air, 'nasty'.\n\n'I am much of your opinion, Mr Wilfer. You were going to say--?'\n\n'I was going to say, the king is generally dressed in a London hat only,\nor a Manchester pair of braces, or one epaulette, or an uniform coat\nwith his legs in the sleeves, or something of that kind.'\n\n'Just so,' said the Secretary.\n\n'In confidence, I assure you, Mr Rokesmith,' observed the cheerful\ncherub, 'that when more of my family were at home and to be provided\nfor, I used to remind myself immensely of that king. You have no idea,\nas a single man, of the difficulty I have had in wearing more than one\ngood article at a time.'\n\n'I can easily believe it, Mr Wilfer.'\n\n'I only mention it,' said R. W. in the warmth of his heart, 'as a proof\nof the amiable, delicate, and considerate affection of my daughter\nBella. If she had been a little spoilt, I couldn't have thought so very\nmuch of it, under the circumstances. But no, not a bit. And she is so\nvery pretty! I hope you agree with me in finding her very pretty, Mr\nRokesmith?'\n\n'Certainly I do. Every one must.'\n\n'I hope so,' said the cherub. 'Indeed, I have no doubt of it. This is a\ngreat advancement for her in life, Mr Rokesmith. A great opening of her\nprospects?'\n\n'Miss Wilfer could have no better friends than Mr and Mrs Boffin.'\n\n'Impossible!' said the gratified cherub. 'Really I begin to think things\nare very well as they are. If Mr John Harmon had lived--'\n\n'He is better dead,' said the Secretary.\n\n'No, I won't go so far as to say that,' urged the cherub, a little\nremonstrant against the very decisive and unpitying tone; 'but he\nmightn't have suited Bella, or Bella mightn't have suited him, or fifty\nthings, whereas now I hope she can choose for herself.'\n\n'Has she--as you place the confidence in me of speaking on the subject,\nyou will excuse my asking--has she--perhaps--chosen?' faltered the\nSecretary.\n\n'Oh dear no!' returned R. W.\n\n'Young ladies sometimes,' Rokesmith hinted, 'choose without mentioning\ntheir choice to their fathers.'\n\n'Not in this case, Mr Rokesmith. Between my daughter Bella and me there\nis a regular league and covenant of confidence. It was ratified only the\nother day. The ratification dates from--these,' said the cherub,\ngiving a little pull at the lappels of his coat and the pockets of his\ntrousers. 'Oh no, she has not chosen. To be sure, young George Sampson,\nin the days when Mr John Harmon--'\n\n'Who I wish had never been born!' said the Secretary, with a gloomy\nbrow.\n\nR. W. looked at him with surprise, as thinking he had contracted an\nunaccountable spite against the poor deceased, and continued: 'In the\ndays when Mr John Harmon was being sought out, young George Sampson\ncertainly was hovering about Bella, and Bella let him hover. But it\nnever was seriously thought of, and it's still less than ever to be\nthought of now. For Bella is ambitious, Mr Rokesmith, and I think I may\npredict will marry fortune. This time, you see, she will have the person\nand the property before her together, and will be able to make her\nchoice with her eyes open. This is my road. I am very sorry to part\ncompany so soon. Good morning, sir!'\n\nThe Secretary pursued his way, not very much elevated in spirits by this\nconversation, and, arriving at the Boffin mansion, found Betty Higden\nwaiting for him.\n\n'I should thank you kindly, sir,' said Betty, 'if I might make so bold\nas have a word or two wi' you.'\n\nShe should have as many words as she liked, he told her; and took her\ninto his room, and made her sit down.\n\n''Tis concerning Sloppy, sir,' said Betty. 'And that's how I come here\nby myself. Not wishing him to know what I'm a-going to say to you, I got\nthe start of him early and walked up.'\n\n'You have wonderful energy,' returned Rokesmith. 'You are as young as I\nam.'\n\nBetty Higden gravely shook her head. 'I am strong for my time of life,\nsir, but not young, thank the Lord!'\n\n'Are you thankful for not being young?'\n\n'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again,\nand the end would be a weary way off, don't you see? But never mind me;\n'tis concerning Sloppy.'\n\n'And what about him, Betty?'\n\n''Tis just this, sir. It can't be reasoned out of his head by any powers\nof mine but what that he can do right by your kind lady and gentleman\nand do his work for me, both together. Now he can't. To give himself up\nto being put in the way of arning a good living and getting on, he must\ngive me up. Well; he won't.'\n\n'I respect him for it,' said Rokesmith.\n\n'DO ye, sir? I don't know but what I do myself. Still that don't make it\nright to let him have his way. So as he won't give me up, I'm a-going to\ngive him up.'\n\n'How, Betty?'\n\n'I'm a-going to run away from him.'\n\nWith an astonished look at the indomitable old face and the bright eyes,\nthe Secretary repeated, 'Run away from him?'\n\n'Yes, sir,' said Betty, with one nod. And in the nod and in the firm set\nof her mouth, there was a vigour of purpose not to be doubted.\n\n'Come, come!' said the Secretary. 'We must talk about this. Let us take\nour time over it, and try to get at the true sense of the case and the\ntrue course, by degrees.'\n\n'Now, lookee here, by dear,' returned old Betty--'asking your excuse\nfor being so familiar, but being of a time of life a'most to be your\ngrandmother twice over. Now, lookee, here. 'Tis a poor living and a\nhard as is to be got out of this work that I'm a doing now, and but for\nSloppy I don't know as I should have held to it this long. But it did\njust keep us on, the two together. Now that I'm alone--with even Johnny\ngone--I'd far sooner be upon my feet and tiring of myself out, than a\nsitting folding and folding by the fire. And I'll tell you why. There's\na deadness steals over me at times, that the kind of life favours and I\ndon't like. Now, I seem to have Johnny in my arms--now, his mother--now,\nhis mother's mother--now, I seem to be a child myself, a lying once\nagain in the arms of my own mother--then I get numbed, thought and\nsense, till I start out of my seat, afeerd that I'm a growing like the\npoor old people that they brick up in the Unions, as you may sometimes\nsee when they let 'em out of the four walls to have a warm in the sun,\ncrawling quite scared about the streets. I was a nimble girl, and have\nalways been a active body, as I told your lady, first time ever I see\nher good face. I can still walk twenty mile if I am put to it. I'd far\nbetter be a walking than a getting numbed and dreary. I'm a good fair\nknitter, and can make many little things to sell. The loan from your\nlady and gentleman of twenty shillings to fit out a basket with, would\nbe a fortune for me. Trudging round the country and tiring of myself\nout, I shall keep the deadness off, and get my own bread by my own\nlabour. And what more can I want?'\n\n'And this is your plan,' said the Secretary, 'for running away?'\n\n'Show me a better! My deary, show me a better! Why, I know very well,'\nsaid old Betty Higden, 'and you know very well, that your lady and\ngentleman would set me up like a queen for the rest of my life, if so be\nthat we could make it right among us to have it so. But we can't make it\nright among us to have it so. I've never took charity yet, nor yet has\nany one belonging to me. And it would be forsaking of myself indeed, and\nforsaking of my children dead and gone, and forsaking of their children\ndead and gone, to set up a contradiction now at last.'\n\n'It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last,' the Secretary\ngently hinted, with a slight stress on the word.\n\n'I hope it never will! It ain't that I mean to give offence by being\nanyways proud,' said the old creature simply, 'but that I want to be of\na piece like, and helpful of myself right through to my death.'\n\n'And to be sure,' added the Secretary, as a comfort for her, 'Sloppy\nwill be eagerly looking forward to his opportunity of being to you what\nyou have been to him.'\n\n'Trust him for that, sir!' said Betty, cheerfully. 'Though he had need\nto be something quick about it, for I'm a getting to be an old one. But\nI'm a strong one too, and travel and weather never hurt me yet! Now, be\nso kind as speak for me to your lady and gentleman, and tell 'em what I\nask of their good friendliness to let me do, and why I ask it.'\n\nThe Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was urged by\nthis brave old heroine, and he presently repaired to Mrs Boffin and\nrecommended her to let Betty Higden have her way, at all events for the\ntime. 'It would be far more satisfactory to your kind heart, I know,'\nhe said, 'to provide for her, but it may be a duty to respect this\nindependent spirit.' Mrs Boffin was not proof against the consideration\nset before her. She and her husband had worked too, and had brought\ntheir simple faith and honour clean out of dustheaps. If they owed a\nduty to Betty Higden, of a surety that duty must be done.\n\n'But, Betty,' said Mrs Boffin, when she accompanied John Rokesmith back\nto his room, and shone upon her with the light of her radiant face,\n'granted all else, I think I wouldn't run away'.\n\n''Twould come easier to Sloppy,' said Mrs Higden, shaking her head.\n''Twould come easier to me too. But 'tis as you please.'\n\n'When would you go?'\n\n'Now,' was the bright and ready answer. 'To-day, my deary, to-morrow.\nBless ye, I am used to it. I know many parts of the country well. When\nnothing else was to be done, I have worked in many a market-garden afore\nnow, and in many a hop-garden too.'\n\n'If I give my consent to your going, Betty--which Mr Rokesmith thinks I\nought to do--'\n\nBetty thanked him with a grateful curtsey.\n\n'--We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you pass out of our\nknowledge. We must know all about you.'\n\n'Yes, my deary, but not through letter-writing, because\nletter-writing--indeed, writing of most sorts hadn't much come up for\nsuch as me when I was young. But I shall be to and fro. No fear of\nmy missing a chance of giving myself a sight of your reviving face.\nBesides,' said Betty, with logical good faith, 'I shall have a debt to\npay off, by littles, and naturally that would bring me back, if nothing\nelse would.'\n\n'MUST it be done?' asked Mrs Boffin, still reluctant, of the Secretary.\n\n'I think it must.'\n\nAfter more discussion it was agreed that it should be done, and Mrs\nBoffin summoned Bella to note down the little purchases that were\nnecessary to set Betty up in trade. 'Don't ye be timorous for me, my\ndear,' said the stanch old heart, observant of Bella's face: 'when I\ntake my seat with my work, clean and busy and fresh, in a country\nmarket-place, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as ever a farmer's wife\nthere.'\n\nThe Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practical\nquestion of Mr Sloppy's capabilities. He would have made a wonderful\ncabinet-maker, said Mrs Higden, 'if there had been the money to put him\nto it.' She had seen him handle tools that he had borrowed to mend\nthe mangle, or to knock a broken piece of furniture together, in a\nsurprising manner. As to constructing toys for the Minders, out of\nnothing, he had done that daily. And once as many as a dozen people had\ngot together in the lane to see the neatness with which he fitted the\nbroken pieces of a foreign monkey's musical instrument. 'That's well,'\nsaid the Secretary. 'It will not be hard to find a trade for him.'\n\nJohn Harmon being buried under mountains now, the Secretary that very\nsame day set himself to finish his affairs and have done with him. He\ndrew up an ample declaration, to be signed by Rogue Riderhood (knowing\nhe could get his signature to it, by making him another and much shorter\nevening call), and then considered to whom should he give the document?\nTo Hexam's son, or daughter? Resolved speedily, to the daughter. But it\nwould be safer to avoid seeing the daughter, because the son had seen\nJulius Handford, and--he could not be too careful--there might possibly\nbe some comparison of notes between the son and daughter, which would\nawaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to consequences. 'I might even,'\nhe reflected, 'be apprehended as having been concerned in my own\nmurder!' Therefore, best to send it to the daughter under cover by the\npost. Pleasant Riderhood had undertaken to find out where she lived,\nand it was not necessary that it should be attended by a single word of\nexplanation. So far, straight.\n\nBut, all that he knew of the daughter he derived from Mrs Boffin's\naccounts of what she heard from Mr Lightwood, who seemed to have a\nreputation for his manner of relating a story, and to have made this\nstory quite his own. It interested him, and he would like to have\nthe means of knowing more--as, for instance, that she received the\nexonerating paper, and that it satisfied her--by opening some channel\naltogether independent of Lightwood: who likewise had seen Julius\nHandford, who had publicly advertised for Julius Handford, and whom\nof all men he, the Secretary, most avoided. 'But with whom the common\ncourse of things might bring me in a moment face to face, any day in the\nweek or any hour in the day.'\n\nNow, to cast about for some likely means of opening such a channel. The\nboy, Hexam, was training for and with a schoolmaster. The Secretary knew\nit, because his sister's share in that disposal of him seemed to be\nthe best part of Lightwood's account of the family. This young fellow,\nSloppy, stood in need of some instruction. If he, the Secretary, engaged\nthat schoolmaster to impart it to him, the channel might be opened. The\nnext point was, did Mrs Boffin know the schoolmaster's name? No, but she\nknew where the school was. Quite enough. Promptly the Secretary wrote\nto the master of that school, and that very evening Bradley Headstone\nanswered in person.\n\nThe Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object was, to send to\nhim for certain occasional evening instruction, a youth whom Mr and Mrs\nBoffin wished to help to an industrious and useful place in life. The\nschoolmaster was willing to undertake the charge of such a pupil. The\nSecretary inquired on what terms? The schoolmaster stated on what terms.\nAgreed and disposed of.\n\n'May I ask, sir,' said Bradley Headstone, 'to whose good opinion I owe a\nrecommendation to you?'\n\n'You should know that I am not the principal here. I am Mr Boffin's\nSecretary. Mr Boffin is a gentleman who inherited a property of which\nyou may have heard some public mention; the Harmon property.'\n\n'Mr Harmon,' said Bradley: who would have been a great deal more at a\nloss than he was, if he had known to whom he spoke: 'was murdered and\nfound in the river.'\n\n'Was murdered and found in the river.'\n\n'It was not--'\n\n'No,' interposed the Secretary, smiling, 'it was not he who recommended\nyou. Mr Boffin heard of you through a certain Mr Lightwood. I think you\nknow Mr Lightwood, or know of him?'\n\n'I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no acquaintance\nwith Mr Lightwood, and I desire none. I have no objection to Mr\nLightwood, but I have a particular objection to some of Mr Lightwood's\nfriends--in short, to one of Mr Lightwood's friends. His great friend.'\n\nHe could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so fierce did\nhe grow (though keeping himself down with infinite pains of repression),\nwhen the careless and contemptuous bearing of Eugene Wrayburn rose\nbefore his mind.\n\nThe Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore point,\nand he would have made a diversion from it, but for Bradley's holding to\nit in his cumbersome way.\n\n'I have no objection to mention the friend by name,' he said, doggedly.\n'The person I object to, is Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'\n\nThe Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of that\nnight when he was striving against the drugged drink, there was but a\ndim image of Eugene's person; but he remembered his name, and his manner\nof speaking, and how he had gone with them to view the body, and where\nhe had stood, and what he had said.\n\n'Pray, Mr Headstone, what is the name,' he asked, again trying to make a\ndiversion, 'of young Hexam's sister?'\n\n'Her name is Lizzie,' said the schoolmaster, with a strong contraction\nof his whole face.\n\n'She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is she not?'\n\n'She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr Eugene\nWrayburn--though an ordinary person might be that,' said the\nschoolmaster; 'and I hope you will not think it impertinent in me, sir,\nto ask why you put the two names together?'\n\n'By mere accident,' returned the Secretary. 'Observing that Mr Wrayburn\nwas a disagreeable subject with you, I tried to get away from it: though\nnot very successfully, it would appear.'\n\n'Do you know Mr Wrayburn, sir?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority of any\nrepresentation of his?'\n\n'Certainly not.'\n\n'I took the liberty to ask,' said Bradley, after casting his eyes on\nthe ground, 'because he is capable of making any representation, in the\nswaggering levity of his insolence. I--I hope you will not misunderstand\nme, sir. I--I am much interested in this brother and sister, and the\nsubject awakens very strong feelings within me. Very, very, strong\nfeelings.' With a shaking hand, Bradley took out his handkerchief and\nwiped his brow.\n\nThe Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face, that he\nhad opened a channel here indeed, and that it was an unexpectedly dark\nand deep and stormy one, and difficult to sound. All at once, in the\nmidst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley stopped and seemed to challenge\nhis look. Much as though he suddenly asked him, 'What do you see in me?'\n\n'The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommendation here,' said the\nSecretary, quietly going back to the point; 'Mr and Mrs Boffin happening\nto know, through Mr Lightwood, that he was your pupil. Anything that\nI ask respecting the brother and sister, or either of them, I ask for\nmyself out of my own interest in the subject, and not in my official\ncharacter, or on Mr Boffin's behalf. How I come to be interested, I need\nnot explain. You know the father's connection with the discovery of Mr\nHarmon's body.'\n\n'Sir,' replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, 'I know all the\ncircumstances of that case.'\n\n'Pray tell me, Mr Headstone,' said the Secretary. 'Does the sister\nsuffer under any stigma because of the impossible accusation--groundless\nwould be a better word--that was made against the father, and\nsubstantially withdrawn?'\n\n'No, sir,' returned Bradley, with a kind of anger.\n\n'I am very glad to hear it.'\n\n'The sister,' said Bradley, separating his words over-carefully, and\nspeaking as if he were repeating them from a book, 'suffers under no\nreproach that repels a man of unimpeachable character who had made\nfor himself every step of his way in life, from placing her in his own\nstation. I will not say, raising her to his own station; I say, placing\nher in it. The sister labours under no reproach, unless she should\nunfortunately make it for herself. When such a man is not deterred from\nregarding her as his equal, and when he has convinced himself that\nthere is no blemish on her, I think the fact must be taken to be pretty\nexpressive.'\n\n'And there is such a man?' said the Secretary.\n\nBradley Headstone knotted his brows, and squared his large lower jaw,\nand fixed his eyes on the ground with an air of determination that\nseemed unnecessary to the occasion, as he replied: 'And there is such a\nman.'\n\nThe Secretary had no reason or excuse for prolonging the conversation,\nand it ended here. Within three hours the oakum-headed apparition once\nmore dived into the Leaving Shop, and that night Rogue Riderhood's\nrecantation lay in the post office, addressed under cover to Lizzie\nHexam at her right address.\n\nAll these proceedings occupied John Rokesmith so much, that it was not\nuntil the following day that he saw Bella again. It seemed then to be\ntacitly understood between them that they were to be as distantly easy\nas they could, without attracting the attention of Mr and Mrs Boffin to\nany marked change in their manner. The fitting out of old Betty Higden\nwas favourable to this, as keeping Bella engaged and interested, and as\noccupying the general attention.\n\n'I think,' said Rokesmith, when they all stood about her, while she\npacked her tidy basket--except Bella, who was busily helping on her\nknees at the chair on which it stood; 'that at least you might keep a\nletter in your pocket, Mrs Higden, which I would write for you and date\nfrom here, merely stating, in the names of Mr and Mrs Boffin, that they\nare your friends;--I won't say patrons, because they wouldn't like it.'\n\n'No, no, no,' said Mr Boffin; 'no patronizing! Let's keep out of THAT,\nwhatever we come to.'\n\n'There's more than enough of that about, without us; ain't there,\nNoddy?' said Mrs Boffin.\n\n'I believe you, old lady!' returned the Golden Dustman. 'Overmuch\nindeed!'\n\n'But people sometimes like to be patronized; don't they, sir?' asked\nBella, looking up.\n\n'I don't. And if THEY do, my dear, they ought to learn better,' said Mr\nBoffin. 'Patrons and Patronesses, and Vice-Patrons and Vice-Patronesses,\nand Deceased Patrons and Deceased Patronesses, and Ex-Vice-Patrons and\nEx-Vice-Patronesses, what does it all mean in the books of the Charities\nthat come pouring in on Rokesmith as he sits among 'em pretty well up to\nhis neck! If Mr Tom Noakes gives his five shillings ain't he a Patron,\nand if Mrs Jack Styles gives her five shillings ain't she a Patroness?\nWhat the deuce is it all about? If it ain't stark staring impudence,\nwhat do you call it?'\n\n'Don't be warm, Noddy,' Mrs Boffin urged.\n\n'Warm!' cried Mr Boffin. 'It's enough to make a man smoking hot. I can't\ngo anywhere without being Patronized. I don't want to be Patronized. If\nI buy a ticket for a Flower Show, or a Music Show, or any sort of Show,\nand pay pretty heavy for it, why am I to be Patroned and Patronessed as\nif the Patrons and Patronesses treated me? If there's a good thing to be\ndone, can't it be done on its own merits? If there's a bad thing to\nbe done, can it ever be Patroned and Patronessed right? Yet when a new\nInstitution's going to be built, it seems to me that the bricks and\nmortar ain't made of half so much consequence as the Patrons and\nPatronesses; no, nor yet the objects. I wish somebody would tell me\nwhether other countries get Patronized to anything like the extent of\nthis one! And as to the Patrons and Patronesses themselves, I wonder\nthey're not ashamed of themselves. They ain't Pills, or Hair-Washes, or\nInvigorating Nervous Essences, to be puffed in that way!'\n\nHaving delivered himself of these remarks, Mr Boffin took a trot,\naccording to his usual custom, and trotted back to the spot from which\nhe had started.\n\n'As to the letter, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, 'you're as right as a\ntrivet. Give her the letter, make her take the letter, put it in her\npocket by violence. She might fall sick. You know you might fall sick,'\nsaid Mr Boffin. 'Don't deny it, Mrs Higden, in your obstinacy; you know\nyou might.'\n\nOld Betty laughed, and said that she would take the letter and be\nthankful.\n\n'That's right!' said Mr Boffin. 'Come! That's sensible. And don't be\nthankful to us (for we never thought of it), but to Mr Rokesmith.'\n\nThe letter was written, and read to her, and given to her.\n\n'Now, how do you feel?' said Mr Boffin. 'Do you like it?'\n\n'The letter, sir?' said Betty. 'Ay, it's a beautiful letter!'\n\n'No, no, no; not the letter,' said Mr Boffin; 'the idea. Are you sure\nyou're strong enough to carry out the idea?'\n\n'I shall be stronger, and keep the deadness off better, this way, than\nany way left open to me, sir.'\n\n'Don't say than any way left open, you know,' urged Mr Boffin; 'because\nthere are ways without end. A housekeeper would be acceptable over\nyonder at the Bower, for instance. Wouldn't you like to see the\nBower, and know a retired literary man of the name of Wegg that lives\nthere--WITH a wooden leg?'\n\nOld Betty was proof even against this temptation, and fell to adjusting\nher black bonnet and shawl.\n\n'I wouldn't let you go, now it comes to this, after all,' said Mr\nBoffin, 'if I didn't hope that it may make a man and a workman of\nSloppy, in as short a time as ever a man and workman was made yet. Why,\nwhat have you got there, Betty? Not a doll?'\n\nIt was the man in the Guards who had been on duty over Johnny's bed.\nThe solitary old woman showed what it was, and put it up quietly in her\ndress. Then, she gratefully took leave of Mrs Boffin, and of Mr Boffin,\nand of Rokesmith, and then put her old withered arms round Bella's young\nand blooming neck, and said, repeating Johnny's words: 'A kiss for the\nboofer lady.'\n\nThe Secretary looked on from a doorway at the boofer lady thus\nencircled, and still looked on at the boofer lady standing alone there,\nwhen the determined old figure with its steady bright eyes was trudging\nthrough the streets, away from paralysis and pauperism.\n\n\n\nChapter 15\n\nTHE WHOLE CASE SO FAR\n\n\nBradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was to have with\nLizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he had been impelled by a feeling\nlittle short of desperation, and the feeling abided by him. It was very\nsoon after his interview with the Secretary, that he and Charley Hexam\nset out one leaden evening, not unnoticed by Miss Peecher, to have this\ndesperate interview accomplished.\n\n'That dolls' dressmaker,' said Bradley, 'is favourable neither to me nor\nto you, Hexam.'\n\n'A pert crooked little chit, Mr Headstone! I knew she would put herself\nin the way, if she could, and would be sure to strike in with something\nimpertinent. It was on that account that I proposed our going to the\nCity to-night and meeting my sister.'\n\n'So I supposed,' said Bradley, getting his gloves on his nervous hands\nas he walked. 'So I supposed.'\n\n'Nobody but my sister,' pursued Charley, 'would have found out such an\nextraordinary companion. She has done it in a ridiculous fancy of giving\nherself up to another. She told me so, that night when we went there.'\n\n'Why should she give herself up to the dressmaker?' asked Bradley.\n\n'Oh!' said the boy, colouring. 'One of her romantic ideas! I tried to\nconvince her so, but I didn't succeed. However, what we have got to do,\nis, to succeed to-night, Mr Headstone, and then all the rest follows.'\n\n'You are still sanguine, Hexam.'\n\n'Certainly I am, sir. Why, we have everything on our side.'\n\n'Except your sister, perhaps,' thought Bradley. But he only gloomily\nthought it, and said nothing.\n\n'Everything on our side,' repeated the boy with boyish confidence.\n'Respectability, an excellent connexion for me, common sense,\neverything!'\n\n'To be sure, your sister has always shown herself a devoted sister,'\nsaid Bradley, willing to sustain himself on even that low ground of\nhope.\n\n'Naturally, Mr Headstone, I have a good deal of influence with her.\nAnd now that you have honoured me with your confidence and spoken to me\nfirst, I say again, we have everything on our side.'\n\nAnd Bradley thought again, 'Except your sister, perhaps.'\n\nA grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect.\nThe closed warehouses and offices have an air of death about them, and\nthe national dread of colour has an air of mourning. The towers and\nsteeples of the many house-encompassed churches, dark and dingy as the\nsky that seems descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom;\na sun-dial on a church-wall has the look, in its useless black shade, of\nhaving failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment for ever;\nmelancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porter sweep melancholy\nwaifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other more\nmelancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and\npoking for anything to sell. The set of humanity outward from the City\nis as a set of prisoners departing from gaol, and dismal Newgate\nseems quite as fit a stronghold for the mighty Lord Mayor as his own\nstate-dwelling.\n\nOn such an evening, when the city grit gets into the hair and eyes and\nskin, and when the fallen leaves of the few unhappy city trees grind\ndown in corners under wheels of wind, the schoolmaster and the pupil\nemerged upon the Leadenhall Street region, spying eastward for Lizzie.\nBeing something too soon in their arrival, they lurked at a corner,\nwaiting for her to appear. The best-looking among us will not look very\nwell, lurking at a corner, and Bradley came out of that disadvantage\nvery poorly indeed.\n\n'Here she comes, Mr Headstone! Let us go forward and meet her.'\n\nAs they advanced, she saw them coming, and seemed rather troubled. But\nshe greeted her brother with the usual warmth, and touched the extended\nhand of Bradley.\n\n'Why, where are you going, Charley, dear?' she asked him then.\n\n'Nowhere. We came on purpose to meet you.'\n\n'To meet me, Charley?'\n\n'Yes. We are going to walk with you. But don't let us take the great\nleading streets where every one walks, and we can't hear ourselves\nspeak. Let us go by the quiet backways. Here's a large paved court by\nthis church, and quiet, too. Let us go up here.'\n\n'But it's not in the way, Charley.'\n\n'Yes it is,' said the boy, petulantly. 'It's in my way, and my way is\nyours.'\n\nShe had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at him with\na kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes, under pretence of saying, 'Come\nalong, Mr Headstone.' Bradley walked at his side--not at hers--and the\nbrother and sister walked hand in hand. The court brought them to a\nchurchyard; a paved square court, with a raised bank of earth about\nbreast high, in the middle, enclosed by iron rails. Here, conveniently\nand healthfully elevated above the level of the living, were the dead,\nand the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly inclined from the\nperpendicular, as if they were ashamed of the lies they told.\n\nThey paced the whole of this place once, in a constrained and\nuncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped and said:\n\n'Lizzie, Mr Headstone has something to say to you. I don't wish to be an\ninterruption either to him or to you, and so I'll go and take a little\nstroll and come back. I know in a general way what Mr Headstone intends\nto say, and I very highly approve of it, as I hope--and indeed I do\nnot doubt--you will. I needn't tell you, Lizzie, that I am under great\nobligations to Mr Headstone, and that I am very anxious for Mr Headstone\nto succeed in all he undertakes. As I hope--and as, indeed, I don't\ndoubt--you must be.'\n\n'Charley,' returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew it, 'I\nthink you had better stay. I think Mr Headstone had better not say what\nhe thinks of saying.'\n\n'Why, how do you know what it is?' returned the boy.\n\n'Perhaps I don't, but--'\n\n'Perhaps you don't? No, Liz, I should think not. If you knew what\nit was, you would give me a very different answer. There; let go; be\nsensible. I wonder you don't remember that Mr Headstone is looking on.'\n\nShe allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after saying, 'Now\nLiz, be a rational girl and a good sister,' walked away. She remained\nstanding alone with Bradley Headstone, and it was not until she raised\nher eyes, that he spoke.\n\n'I said,' he began, 'when I saw you last, that there was something\nunexplained, which might perhaps influence you. I have come this evening\nto explain it. I hope you will not judge of me by my hesitating manner\nwhen I speak to you. You see me at my greatest disadvantage. It is most\nunfortunate for me that I wish you to see me at my best, and that I know\nyou see me at my worst.'\n\nShe moved slowly on when he paused, and he moved slowly on beside her.\n\n'It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about myself,' he\nresumed, 'but whatever I say to you seems, even in my own ears, below\nwhat I want to say, and different from what I want to say. I can't help\nit. So it is. You are the ruin of me.'\n\nShe started at the passionate sound of the last words, and at the\npassionate action of his hands, with which they were accompanied.\n\n'Yes! you are the ruin--the ruin--the ruin--of me. I have no resources\nin myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have no government of\nmyself when you are near me or in my thoughts. And you are always in my\nthoughts now. I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh,\nthat was a wretched day for me! That was a wretched, miserable day!'\n\nA touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, and she said:\n'Mr Headstone, I am grieved to have done you any harm, but I have never\nmeant it.'\n\n'There!' he cried, despairingly. 'Now, I seem to have reproached you,\ninstead of revealing to you the state of my own mind! Bear with me. I am\nalways wrong when you are in question. It is my doom.'\n\nStruggling with himself, and by times looking up at the deserted windows\nof the houses as if there could be anything written in their grimy panes\nthat would help him, he paced the whole pavement at her side, before he\nspoke again.\n\n'I must try to give expression to what is in my mind; it shall and must\nbe spoken. Though you see me so confounded--though you strike me so\nhelpless--I ask you to believe that there are many people who think well\nof me; that there are some people who highly esteem me; that I have in\nmy way won a Station which is considered worth winning.'\n\n'Surely, Mr Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always known it\nfrom Charley.'\n\n'I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home such as it is, my\nstation such as it is, my affections such as they are, to any one of the\nbest considered, and best qualified, and most distinguished, among the\nyoung women engaged in my calling, they would probably be accepted. Even\nreadily accepted.'\n\n'I do not doubt it,' said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the ground.\n\n'I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer and to settle\ndown as many men of my class do: I on the one side of a school, my wife\non the other, both of us interested in the same work.'\n\n'Why have you not done so?' asked Lizzie Hexam. 'Why do you not do so?'\n\n'Far better that I never did! The only one grain of comfort I have had\nthese many weeks,' he said, always speaking passionately, and, when\nmost emphatic, repeating that former action of his hands, which was\nlike flinging his heart's blood down before her in drops upon the\npavement-stones; 'the only one grain of comfort I have had these many\nweeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and if the same spell had come\nupon me for my ruin, I know I should have broken that tie asunder as if\nit had been thread.'\n\nShe glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking gesture. He\nanswered, as if she had spoken.\n\n'No! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more than it is\nvoluntary in me to be here now. You draw me to you. If I were shut up in\na strong prison, you would draw me out. I should break through the wall\nto come to you. If I were lying on a sick bed, you would draw me up--to\nstagger to your feet and fall there.'\n\nThe wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutely\nterrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece of the coping of the\nburial-ground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the stone.\n\n'No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within him. To some\nmen it never comes; let them rest and be thankful! To me, you brought\nit; on me, you forced it; and the bottom of this raging sea,' striking\nhimself upon the breast, 'has been heaved up ever since.'\n\n'Mr Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be\nbetter for you and better for me. Let us find my brother.'\n\n'Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in torments ever\nsince I stopped short of it before. You are alarmed. It is another of my\nmiseries that I cannot speak to you or speak of you without stumbling at\nevery syllable, unless I let the check go altogether and run mad. Here\nis a man lighting the lamps. He will be gone directly. I entreat of you\nlet us walk round this place again. You have no reason to look alarmed;\nI can restrain myself, and I will.'\n\nShe yielded to the entreaty--how could she do otherwise!--and they paced\nthe stones in silence. One by one the lights leaped up making the cold\ngrey church tower more remote, and they were alone again. He said no\nmore until they had regained the spot where he had broken off; there, he\nagain stood still, and again grasped the stone. In saying what he said\nthen, he never looked at her; but looked at it and wrenched at it.\n\n'You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean\nwhen they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am\nunder the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted\nin vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could\ndraw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to\nany death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could\ndraw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my\nthoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the\nruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer\nof myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good--every good--with\nequal force. My circumstances are quite easy, and you would want for\nnothing. My reputation stands quite high, and would be a shield for\nyours. If you saw me at my work, able to do it well and respected in\nit, you might even come to take a sort of pride in me;--I would try hard\nthat you should. Whatever considerations I may have thought of against\nthis offer, I have conquered, and I make it with all my heart. Your\nbrother favours me to the utmost, and it is likely that we might live\nand work together; anyhow, it is certain that he would have my best\ninfluence and support. I don't know what I could say more if I tried. I\nmight only weaken what is ill enough said as it is. I only add that\nif it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough earnest,\ndreadful earnest.'\n\nThe powdered mortar from under the stone at which he wrenched, rattled\non the pavement to confirm his words.\n\n'Mr Headstone--'\n\n'Stop! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk round this place\nonce more. It will give you a minute's time to think, and me a minute's\ntime to get some fortitude together.'\n\nAgain she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came back to the same\nplace, and again he worked at the stone.\n\n'Is it,' he said, with his attention apparently engrossed by it, 'yes,\nor no?'\n\n'Mr Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you gratefully, and hope\nyou may find a worthy wife before long and be very happy. But it is no.'\n\n'Is no short time necessary for reflection; no weeks or days?' he asked,\nin the same half-suffocated way.\n\n'None whatever.'\n\n'Are you quite decided, and is there no chance of any change in my\nfavour?'\n\n'I am quite decided, Mr Headstone, and I am bound to answer I am certain\nthere is none.'\n\n'Then,' said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning to her, and\nbringing his clenched hand down upon the stone with a force that laid\nthe knuckles raw and bleeding; 'then I hope that I may never kill him!'\n\nThe dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from his\nlivid lips, and with which he stood holding out his smeared hand as\nif it held some weapon and had just struck a mortal blow, made her so\nafraid of him that she turned to run away. But he caught her by the arm.\n\n'Mr Headstone, let me go. Mr Headstone, I must call for help!'\n\n'It is I who should call for help,' he said; 'you don't know yet how\nmuch I need it.'\n\nThe working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing round for her\nbrother and uncertain what to do, might have extorted a cry from her in\nanother instant; but all at once he sternly stopped it and fixed it, as\nif Death itself had done so.\n\n'There! You see I have recovered myself. Hear me out.'\n\nWith much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her self-reliant\nlife and her right to be free from accountability to this man, she\nreleased her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him. She had\nnever been so handsome, in his eyes. A shade came over them while\nhe looked back at her, as if she drew the very light out of them to\nherself.\n\n'This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid,' he went on, folding\nhis hands before him, clearly to prevent his being betrayed into any\nimpetuous gesture; 'this last time at least I will not be tortured with\nafter-thoughts of a lost opportunity. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'\n\n'Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and violence?' Lizzie\nHexam demanded with spirit.\n\nHe bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word.\n\n'Was it Mr Wrayburn that you threatened?'\n\nHe bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a word.\n\n'You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak. Let me find my\nbrother.'\n\n'Stay! I threatened no one.'\n\nHer look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it to\nhis mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the other.\n'Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' he repeated.\n\n'Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr Headstone?'\n\n'Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe! There\nare no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten it upon\nme. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'\n\nA worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name,\ncould hardly have escaped him.\n\n'He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing enough to\nlisten to HIM. I know it, as well as he does.'\n\n'Mr Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir,' said Lizzie,\nproudly, 'in connexion with the death and with the memory of my poor\nfather.'\n\n'No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good man, Mr\nEugene Wrayburn.'\n\n'He is nothing to you, I think,' said Lizzie, with an indignation she\ncould not repress.\n\n'Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me.'\n\n'What can he be to you?'\n\n'He can be a rival to me among other things,' said Bradley.\n\n'Mr Headstone,' returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 'it is cowardly in\nyou to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able to tell you that\nI do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, and\nthat no other living creature has anything to do with the effect you\nhave produced upon me for yourself.'\n\nHis head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then looked up\nagain, moistening his lips. 'I was going on with the little I had left\nto say. I knew all this about Mr Eugene Wrayburn, all the while you were\ndrawing me to you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. It\nmade no difference in me. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I went\non. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now. With Mr\nEugene Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been cast\nout.'\n\n'If you give those names to my thanking you for your proposal\nand declining it, is it my fault, Mr Headstone?' said Lizzie,\ncompassionating the bitter struggle he could not conceal, almost as much\nas she was repelled and alarmed by it.\n\n'I am not complaining,' he returned, 'I am only stating the case. I had\nto wrestle with my self-respect when I submitted to be drawn to you in\nspite of Mr Wrayburn. You may imagine how low my self-respect lies now.'\n\nShe was hurt and angry; but repressed herself in consideration of his\nsuffering, and of his being her brother's friend.\n\n'And it lies under his feet,' said Bradley, unfolding his hands in spite\nof himself, and fiercely motioning with them both towards the stones of\nthe pavement. 'Remember that! It lies under that fellow's feet, and he\ntreads upon it and exults above it.'\n\n'He does not!' said Lizzie.\n\n'He does!' said Bradley. 'I have stood before him face to face, and he\ncrushed me down in the dirt of his contempt, and walked over me. Why?\nBecause he knew with triumph what was in store for me to-night.'\n\n'O, Mr Headstone, you talk quite wildly.'\n\n'Quite collectedly. I know what I say too well. Now I have said all. I\nhave used no threat, remember; I have done no more than show you how the\ncase stands;--how the case stands, so far.'\n\nAt this moment her brother sauntered into view close by. She darted to\nhim, and caught him by the hand. Bradley followed, and laid his heavy\nhand on the boy's opposite shoulder.\n\n'Charley Hexam, I am going home. I must walk home by myself to-night,\nand get shut up in my room without being spoken to. Give me half an\nhour's start, and let me be, till you find me at my work in the morning.\nI shall be at my work in the morning just as usual.'\n\nClasping his hands, he uttered a short unearthly broken cry, and went\nhis way. The brother and sister were left looking at one another near\na lamp in the solitary churchyard, and the boy's face clouded and\ndarkened, as he said in a rough tone: 'What is the meaning of this? What\nhave you done to my best friend? Out with the truth!'\n\n'Charley!' said his sister. 'Speak a little more considerately!'\n\n'I am not in the humour for consideration, or for nonsense of any sort,'\nreplied the boy. 'What have you been doing? Why has Mr Headstone gone\nfrom us in that way?'\n\n'He asked me--you know he asked me--to be his wife, Charley.'\n\n'Well?' said the boy, impatiently.\n\n'And I was obliged to tell him that I could not be his wife.'\n\n'You were obliged to tell him,' repeated the boy angrily, between his\nteeth, and rudely pushing her away. 'You were obliged to tell him! Do\nyou know that he is worth fifty of you?'\n\n'It may easily be so, Charley, but I cannot marry him.'\n\n'You mean that you are conscious that you can't appreciate him, and\ndon't deserve him, I suppose?'\n\n'I mean that I do not like him, Charley, and that I will never marry\nhim.'\n\n'Upon my soul,' exclaimed the boy, 'you are a nice picture of a sister!\nUpon my soul, you are a pretty piece of disinterestedness! And so all my\nendeavours to cancel the past and to raise myself in the world, and to\nraise you with me, are to be beaten down by YOUR low whims; are they?'\n\n'I will not reproach you, Charley.'\n\n'Hear her!' exclaimed the boy, looking round at the darkness. 'She won't\nreproach me! She does her best to destroy my fortunes and her own,\nand she won't reproach me! Why, you'll tell me, next, that you won't\nreproach Mr Headstone for coming out of the sphere to which he is an\nornament, and putting himself at YOUR feet, to be rejected by YOU!'\n\n'No, Charley; I will only tell you, as I told himself, that I thank him\nfor doing so, that I am sorry he did so, and that I hope he will do much\nbetter, and be happy.'\n\nSome touch of compunction smote the boy's hardening heart as he looked\nupon her, his patient little nurse in infancy, his patient friend,\nadviser, and reclaimer in boyhood, the self-forgetting sister who had\ndone everything for him. His tone relented, and he drew her arm through\nhis.\n\n'Now, come, Liz; don't let us quarrel: let us be reasonable and talk\nthis over like brother and sister. Will you listen to me?'\n\n'Oh, Charley!' she replied through her starting tears; 'do I not listen\nto you, and hear many hard things!'\n\n'Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. Only you do put me\nout so. Now see. Mr Headstone is perfectly devoted to you. He has told\nme in the strongest manner that he has never been his old self for one\nsingle minute since I first brought him to see you. Miss Peecher, our\nschoolmistress--pretty and young, and all that--is known to be very much\nattached to him, and he won't so much as look at her or hear of her.\nNow, his devotion to you must be a disinterested one; mustn't it? If he\nmarried Miss Peecher, he would be a great deal better off in all worldly\nrespects, than in marrying you. Well then; he has nothing to get by it,\nhas he?'\n\n'Nothing, Heaven knows!'\n\n'Very well then,' said the boy; 'that's something in his favour, and a\ngreat thing. Then I come in. Mr Headstone has always got me on, and he\nhas a good deal in his power, and of course if he was my brother-in-law\nhe wouldn't get me on less, but would get me on more. Mr Headstone\ncomes and confides in me, in a very delicate way, and says, \"I hope my\nmarrying your sister would be agreeable to you, Hexam, and useful to\nyou?\" I say, \"There's nothing in the world, Mr Headstone, that I could\nbe better pleased with.\" Mr Headstone says, \"Then I may rely upon your\nintimate knowledge of me for your good word with your sister, Hexam?\"\nAnd I say, \"Certainly, Mr Headstone, and naturally I have a good deal of\ninfluence with her.\" So I have; haven't I, Liz?'\n\n'Yes, Charley.'\n\n'Well said! Now, you see, we begin to get on, the moment we begin to\nbe really talking it over, like brother and sister. Very well. Then\nYOU come in. As Mr Headstone's wife you would be occupying a most\nrespectable station, and you would be holding a far better place in\nsociety than you hold now, and you would at length get quit of the\nriver-side and the old disagreeables belonging to it, and you would be\nrid for good of dolls' dressmakers and their drunken fathers, and the\nlike of that. Not that I want to disparage Miss Jenny Wren: I dare\nsay she is all very well in her way; but her way is not your way as\nMr Headstone's wife. Now, you see, Liz, on all three accounts--on\nMr Headstone's, on mine, on yours--nothing could be better or more\ndesirable.'\n\nThey were walking slowly as the boy spoke, and here he stood still, to\nsee what effect he had made. His sister's eyes were fixed upon him; but\nas they showed no yielding, and as she remained silent, he walked her on\nagain. There was some discomfiture in his tone as he resumed, though he\ntried to conceal it.\n\n'Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, perhaps I should\nhave done better to have had a little chat with you in the first\ninstance, before Mr Headstone spoke for himself. But really all this in\nhis favour seemed so plain and undeniable, and I knew you to have always\nbeen so reasonable and sensible, that I didn't consider it worth while.\nVery likely that was a mistake of mine. However, it's soon set right.\nAll that need be done to set it right, is for you to tell me at once\nthat I may go home and tell Mr Headstone that what has taken place is\nnot final, and that it will all come round by-and-by.'\n\nHe stopped again. The pale face looked anxiously and lovingly at him,\nbut she shook her head.\n\n'Can't you speak?' said the boy sharply.\n\n'I am very unwilling to speak, Charley. If I must, I must. I cannot\nauthorize you to say any such thing to Mr Headstone: I cannot allow you\nto say any such thing to Mr Headstone. Nothing remains to be said to him\nfrom me, after what I have said for good and all, to-night.'\n\n'And this girl,' cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her off again,\n'calls herself a sister!'\n\n'Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost struck\nme. Don't be hurt by my words. I don't mean--Heaven forbid!--that you\nintended it; but you hardly know with what a sudden swing you removed\nyourself from me.'\n\n'However!' said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, and\npursuing his own mortified disappointment, 'I know what this means, and\nyou shall not disgrace me.'\n\n'It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing more.'\n\n'That's not true,' said the boy in a violent tone, 'and you know it's\nnot. It means your precious Mr Wrayburn; that's what it means.'\n\n'Charley! If you remember any old days of ours together, forbear!'\n\n'But you shall not disgrace me,' doggedly pursued the boy. 'I am\ndetermined that after I have climbed up out of the mire, you shall not\npull me down. You can't disgrace me if I have nothing to do with you,\nand I will have nothing to do with you for the future.'\n\n'Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse night, I have sat\non the stones of the street, hushing you in my arms. Unsay those words\nwithout even saying you are sorry for them, and my arms are open to you\nstill, and so is my heart.'\n\n'I'll not unsay them. I'll say them again. You are an inveterately bad\ngirl, and a false sister, and I have done with you. For ever, I have\ndone with you!'\n\nHe threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set up a barrier\nbetween them, and flung himself upon his heel and left her. She remained\nimpassive on the same spot, silent and motionless, until the striking\nof the church clock roused her, and she turned away. But then, with the\nbreaking up of her immobility came the breaking up of the waters that\nthe cold heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And 'O that I were lying\nhere with the dead!' and 'O Charley, Charley, that this should be the\nend of our pictures in the fire!' were all the words she said, as she\nlaid her face in her hands on the stone coping.\n\nA figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked round at\nher. It was the figure of an old man with a bowed head, wearing a large\nbrimmed low-crowned hat, and a long-skirted coat. After hesitating a\nlittle, the figure turned back, and, advancing with an air of gentleness\nand compassion, said:\n\n'Pardon me, young woman, for speaking to you, but you are under some\ndistress of mind. I cannot pass upon my way and leave you weeping here\nalone, as if there was nothing in the place. Can I help you? Can I do\nanything to give you comfort?'\n\nShe raised her head at the sound of these kind words, and answered\ngladly, 'O, Mr Riah, is it you?'\n\n'My daughter,' said the old man, 'I stand amazed! I spoke as to a\nstranger. Take my arm, take my arm. What grieves you? Who has done this?\nPoor girl, poor girl!'\n\n'My brother has quarrelled with me,' sobbed Lizzie, 'and renounced me.'\n\n'He is a thankless dog,' said the Jew, angrily. 'Let him go. Shake the\ndust from thy feet and let him go. Come, daughter! Come home with me--it\nis but across the road--and take a little time to recover your peace and\nto make your eyes seemly, and then I will bear you company through the\nstreets. For it is past your usual time, and will soon be late, and the\nway is long, and there is much company out of doors to-night.'\n\nShe accepted the support he offered her, and they slowly passed out\nof the churchyard. They were in the act of emerging into the main\nthoroughfare, when another figure loitering discontentedly by, and\nlooking up the street and down it, and all about, started and exclaimed,\n'Lizzie! why, where have you been? Why, what's the matter?'\n\nAs Eugene Wrayburn thus addressed her, she drew closer to the Jew, and\nbent her head. The Jew having taken in the whole of Eugene at one sharp\nglance, cast his eyes upon the ground, and stood mute.\n\n'Lizzie, what is the matter?'\n\n'Mr Wrayburn, I cannot tell you now. I cannot tell you to-night, if I\never can tell you. Pray leave me.'\n\n'But, Lizzie, I came expressly to join you. I came to walk home with\nyou, having dined at a coffee-house in this neighbourhood and knowing\nyour hour. And I have been lingering about,' added Eugene, 'like a\nbailiff; or,' with a look at Riah, 'an old clothesman.'\n\nThe Jew lifted up his eyes, and took in Eugene once more, at another\nglance.\n\n'Mr Wrayburn, pray, pray, leave me with this protector. And one thing\nmore. Pray, pray be careful of yourself.'\n\n'Mysteries of Udolpho!' said Eugene, with a look of wonder. 'May I be\nexcused for asking, in the elderly gentleman's presence, who is this\nkind protector?'\n\n'A trustworthy friend,' said Lizzie.\n\n'I will relieve him of his trust,' returned Eugene. 'But you must tell\nme, Lizzie, what is the matter?'\n\n'Her brother is the matter,' said the old man, lifting up his eyes\nagain.\n\n'Our brother the matter?' returned Eugene, with airy contempt. 'Our\nbrother is not worth a thought, far less a tear. What has our brother\ndone?'\n\nThe old man lifted up his eyes again, with one grave look at Wrayburn,\nand one grave glance at Lizzie, as she stood looking down. Both were so\nfull of meaning that even Eugene was checked in his light career, and\nsubsided into a thoughtful 'Humph!'\n\nWith an air of perfect patience the old man, remaining mute and keeping\nhis eyes cast down, stood, retaining Lizzie's arm, as though in his\nhabit of passive endurance, it would be all one to him if he had stood\nthere motionless all night.\n\n'If Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, who soon found this fatiguing, 'will be good\nenough to relinquish his charge to me, he will be quite free for any\nengagement he may have at the Synagogue. Mr Aaron, will you have the\nkindness?'\n\nBut the old man stood stock still.\n\n'Good evening, Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, politely; 'we need not detain\nyou.' Then turning to Lizzie, 'Is our friend Mr Aaron a little deaf?'\n\n'My hearing is very good, Christian gentleman,' replied the old man,\ncalmly; 'but I will hear only one voice to-night, desiring me to leave\nthis damsel before I have conveyed her to her home. If she requests it,\nI will do it. I will do it for no one else.'\n\n'May I ask why so, Mr Aaron?' said Eugene, quite undisturbed in his\nease.\n\n'Excuse me. If she asks me, I will tell her,' replied the old man. 'I\nwill tell no one else.'\n\n'I do not ask you,' said Lizzie, 'and I beg you to take me home. Mr\nWrayburn, I have had a bitter trial to-night, and I hope you will not\nthink me ungrateful, or mysterious, or changeable. I am neither; I am\nwretched. Pray remember what I said to you. Pray, pray, take care.'\n\n'My dear Lizzie,' he returned, in a low voice, bending over her on the\nother side; 'of what? Of whom?'\n\n'Of any one you have lately seen and made angry.'\n\nHe snapped his fingers and laughed. 'Come,' said he, 'since no better\nmay be, Mr Aaron and I will divide this trust, and see you home\ntogether. Mr Aaron on that side; I on this. If perfectly agreeable to Mr\nAaron, the escort will now proceed.'\n\nHe knew his power over her. He knew that she would not insist upon his\nleaving her. He knew that, her fears for him being aroused, she would\nbe uneasy if he were out of her sight. For all his seeming levity and\ncarelessness, he knew whatever he chose to know of the thoughts of her\nheart.\n\nAnd going on at her side, so gaily, regardless of all that had been\nurged against him; so superior in his sallies and self-possession to\nthe gloomy constraint of her suitor and the selfish petulance of her\nbrother; so faithful to her, as it seemed, when her own stock was\nfaithless; what an immense advantage, what an overpowering influence,\nwere his that night! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she had heard him\nvilified for her sake, and that she had suffered for his, and where the\nwonder that his occasional tones of serious interest (setting off his\ncarelessness, as if it were assumed to calm her), that his lightest\ntouch, his lightest look, his very presence beside her in the dark\ncommon street, were like glimpses of an enchanted world, which it was\nnatural for jealousy and malice and all meanness to be unable to bear\nthe brightness of, and to gird at as bad spirits might.\n\nNothing more being said of repairing to Riah's, they went direct to\nLizzie's lodging. A little short of the house-door she parted from them,\nand went in alone.\n\n'Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, when they were left together in the street,\n'with many thanks for your company, it remains for me unwillingly to say\nFarewell.'\n\n'Sir,' returned the other, 'I give you good night, and I wish that you\nwere not so thoughtless.'\n\n'Mr Aaron,' returned Eugene, 'I give you good night, and I wish (for you\nare a little dull) that you were not so thoughtful.'\n\nBut now, that his part was played out for the evening, and when in\nturning his back upon the Jew he came off the stage, he was thoughtful\nhimself. 'How did Lightwood's catechism run?' he murmured, as he stopped\nto light his cigar. 'What is to come of it? What are you doing? Where\nare you going? We shall soon know now. Ah!' with a heavy sigh.\n\nThe heavy sigh was repeated as if by an echo, an hour afterwards, when\nRiah, who had been sitting on some dark steps in a corner over against\nthe house, arose and went his patient way; stealing through the streets\nin his ancient dress, like the ghost of a departed Time.\n\n\n\nChapter 16\n\nAN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION\n\n\nThe estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over the\nstable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, and hearing the horses at\ntheir toilette below, finds himself on the whole in a disadvantageous\nposition as compared with the noble animals at livery. For whereas, on\nthe one hand, he has no attendant to slap him soundingly and require him\nin gruff accents to come up and come over, still, on the other hand,\nhe has no attendant at all; and the mild gentleman's finger-joints and\nother joints working rustily in the morning, he could deem it agreeable\neven to be tied up by the countenance at his chamber-door, so he were\nthere skilfully rubbed down and slushed and sluiced and polished and\nclothed, while himself taking merely a passive part in these trying\ntransactions.\n\nHow the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for the\nbewilderment of the senses of men, is known only to the Graces and her\nmaid; but perhaps even that engaging creature, though not reduced to\nthe self-dependence of Twemlow could dispense with a good deal of the\ntrouble attendant on the daily restoration of her charms, seeing that\nas to her face and neck this adorable divinity is, as it were, a diurnal\nspecies of lobster--throwing off a shell every forenoon, and needing to\nkeep in a retired spot until the new crust hardens.\n\nHowbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and cravat\nand wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to breakfast. And to\nbreakfast with whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville\nStreet, who have imparted to him that he will meet his distant kinsman,\nMr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but\nthe peaceable Twemlow reasons, If he IS my kinsman I didn't make him so,\nand to meet a man is not to know him.'\n\nIt is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr and Mrs Lammle,\nand the celebration is a breakfast, because a dinner on the desired\nscale of sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less limits than those\nof the non-existent palatial residence of which so many people are\nmadly envious. So, Twemlow trips with not a little stiffness across\nPiccadilly, sensible of having once been more upright in figure and less\nin danger of being knocked down by swift vehicles. To be sure that was\nin the days when he hoped for leave from the dread Snigsworth to do\nsomething, or be something, in life, and before that magnificent Tartar\nissued the ukase, 'As he will never distinguish himself, he must be a\npoor gentleman-pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himself\npensioned.'\n\nAh! my Twemlow! Say, little feeble grey personage, what thoughts are in\nthy breast to-day, of the Fancy--so still to call her who bruised thy\nheart when it was green and thy head brown--and whether it be better or\nworse, more painful or less, to believe in the Fancy to this hour, than\nto know her for a greedy armour-plated crocodile, with no more capacity\nof imagining the delicate and sensitive and tender spot behind thy\nwaistcoat, than of going straight at it with a knitting-needle. Say\nlikewise, my Twemlow, whether it be the happier lot to be a poor\nrelation of the great, or to stand in the wintry slush giving the hack\nhorses to drink out of the shallow tub at the coach-stand, into which\nthou has so nearly set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, and\ngoes on.\n\nAs he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little one-horse\ncarriage, containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, letting down the\nwindow, playfully extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being in\nwaiting there to hand her out. Twemlow hands her out with as much polite\ngravity as if she were anything real, and they proceed upstairs. Tippins\nall abroad about the legs, and seeking to express that those unsteady\narticles are only skipping in their native buoyancy.\n\nAnd dear Mrs Lammle and dear Mr Lammle, how do you do, and when are\nyou going down to what's-its-name place--Guy, Earl of Warwick, you\nknow--what is it?--Dun Cow--to claim the flitch of bacon? And Mortimer,\nwhose name is for ever blotted out from my list of lovers, by reason\nfirst of fickleness and then of base desertion, how do YOU do, wretch?\nAnd Mr Wrayburn, YOU here! What can YOU come for, because we are all\nvery sure before-hand that you are not going to talk! And Veneering,\nM.P., how are things going on down at the house, and when will you turn\nout those terrible people for us? And Mrs Veneering, my dear, can it\npositively be true that you go down to that stifling place night after\nnight, to hear those men prose? Talking of which, Veneering, why don't\nyou prose, for you haven't opened your lips there yet, and we are dying\nto hear what you have got to say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see\nyou. Pa, here? No! Ma, neither? Oh! Mr Boots! Delighted. Mr Brewer!\nThis IS a gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins, and surveys Fledgeby and\noutsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and about,\nin her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know? No, I think not. Nobody\nthere. Nobody THERE. Nobody anywhere!\n\nMr Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying for the\nhonour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby presented, has the air\nof going to say something, has the air of going to say nothing, has an\nair successively of meditation, of resignation, and of desolation,\nbacks on Brewer, makes the tour of Boots, and fades into the extreme\nbackground, feeling for his whisker, as if it might have turned up since\nhe was there five minutes ago.\n\nBut Lammle has him out again before he has so much as completely\nascertained the bareness of the land. He would seem to be in a bad way,\nFledgeby; for Lammle represents him as dying again. He is dying now, of\nwant of presentation to Twemlow.\n\nTwemlow offers his hand. Glad to see him. 'Your mother, sir, was a\nconnexion of mine.'\n\n'I believe so,' says Fledgeby, 'but my mother and her family were two.'\n\n'Are you staying in town?' asks Twemlow.\n\n'I always am,' says Fledgeby.\n\n'You like town,' says Twemlow. But is felled flat by Fledgeby's taking\nit quite ill, and replying, No, he don't like town. Lammle tries to\nbreak the force of the fall, by remarking that some people do not like\ntown. Fledgeby retorting that he never heard of any such case but his\nown, Twemlow goes down again heavily.\n\n'There is nothing new this morning, I suppose?' says Twemlow, returning\nto the mark with great spirit.\n\nFledgeby has not heard of anything.\n\n'No, there's not a word of news,' says Lammle.\n\n'Not a particle,' adds Boots.\n\n'Not an atom,' chimes in Brewer.\n\nSomehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears to raise\nthe general spirits as with a sense of duty done, and sets the company a\ngoing. Everybody seems more equal than before, to the calamity of being\nin the society of everybody else. Even Eugene standing in a window,\nmoodily swinging the tassel of a blind, gives it a smarter jerk now, as\nif he found himself in better case.\n\nBreakfast announced. Everything on table showy and gaudy, but with\na self-assertingly temporary and nomadic air on the decorations, as\nboasting that they will be much more showy and gaudy in the palatial\nresidence. Mr Lammle's own particular servant behind his chair; the\nAnalytical behind Veneering's chair; instances in point that\nsuch servants fall into two classes: one mistrusting the master's\nacquaintances, and the other mistrusting the master. Mr Lammle's\nservant, of the second class. Appearing to be lost in wonder and low\nspirits because the police are so long in coming to take his master up\non some charge of the first magnitude.\n\nVeneering, M.P., on the right of Mrs Lammle; Twemlow on her left; Mrs\nVeneering, W.M.P. (wife of Member of Parliament), and Lady Tippins on Mr\nLammle's right and left. But be sure that well within the fascination of\nMr Lammle's eye and smile sits little Georgiana. And be sure that\nclose to little Georgiana, also under inspection by the same gingerous\ngentleman, sits Fledgeby.\n\nOftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, Mr Twemlow\ngives a little sudden turn towards Mrs Lammle, and then says to her, 'I\nbeg your pardon!' This not being Twemlow's usual way, why is it his\nway to-day? Why, the truth is, Twemlow repeatedly labours under the\nimpression that Mrs Lammle is going to speak to him, and turning finds\nthat it is not so, and mostly that she has her eyes upon Veneering.\nStrange that this impression so abides by Twemlow after being corrected,\nyet so it is.\n\nLady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth (including\ngrape-juice in the category) becomes livelier, and applies herself to\nelicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is always understood among the\ninitiated, that that faithless lover must be planted at table opposite\nto Lady Tippins, who will then strike conversational fire out of him.\nIn a pause of mastication and deglutition, Lady Tippins, contemplating\nMortimer, recalls that it was at our dear Veneerings, and in the\npresence of a party who are surely all here, that he told them his\nstory of the man from somewhere, which afterwards became so horribly\ninteresting and vulgarly popular.\n\n'Yes, Lady Tippins,' assents Mortimer; 'as they say on the stage, \"Even\nso!\"\n\n'Then we expect you,' retorts the charmer, 'to sustain your reputation,\nand tell us something else.'\n\n'Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there is\nnothing more to be got out of me.'\n\nMortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that elsewhere it is Eugene\nand not he who is the jester, and that in these circles where Eugene\npersists in being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but the double of the\nfriend on whom he has founded himself.\n\n'But,' quoth the fascinating Tippins, 'I am resolved on getting\nsomething more out of you. Traitor! what is this I hear about another\ndisappearance?'\n\n'As it is you who have heard it,' returns Lightwood, 'perhaps you'll\ntell us.'\n\n'Monster, away!' retorts Lady Tippins. 'Your own Golden Dustman referred\nme to you.'\n\nMr Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a sequel\nto the story of the man from somewhere. Silence ensues upon the\nproclamation.\n\n'I assure you,' says Lightwood, glancing round the table, 'I have\nnothing to tell.' But Eugene adding in a low voice, 'There, tell\nit, tell it!' he corrects himself with the addition, 'Nothing worth\nmentioning.'\n\nBoots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is immensely worth\nmentioning, and become politely clamorous. Veneering is also visited by\na perception to the same effect. But it is understood that his attention\nis now rather used up, and difficult to hold, that being the tone of the\nHouse of Commons.\n\n'Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves to listen,' says\nMortimer Lightwood, 'because I shall have finished long before you have\nfallen into comfortable attitudes. It's like--'\n\n'It's like,' impatiently interrupts Eugene, 'the children's narrative:\n\n     \"I'll tell you a story\n     Of Jack a Manory,\n     And now my story's begun;\n     I'll tell you another\n     Of Jack and his brother,\n     And now my story is done.\"\n\n--Get on, and get it over!'\n\nEugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, leaning back in\nhis chair and looking balefully at Lady Tippins, who nods to him as\nher dear Bear, and playfully insinuates that she (a self-evident\nproposition) is Beauty, and he Beast.\n\n'The reference,' proceeds Mortimer, 'which I suppose to be made by my\nhonourable and fair enslaver opposite, is to the following circumstance.\nVery lately, the young woman, Lizzie Hexam, daughter of the late Jesse\nHexam, otherwise Gaffer, who will be remembered to have found the body\nof the man from somewhere, mysteriously received, she knew not from\nwhom, an explicit retraction of the charges made against her father, by\nanother water-side character of the name of Riderhood. Nobody believed\nthem, because little Rogue Riderhood--I am tempted into the paraphrase\nby remembering the charming wolf who would have rendered society a great\nservice if he had devoured Mr Riderhood's father and mother in their\ninfancy--had previously played fast and loose with the said charges,\nand, in fact, abandoned them. However, the retraction I have mentioned\nfound its way into Lizzie Hexam's hands, with a general flavour on it\nof having been favoured by some anonymous messenger in a dark cloak and\nslouched hat, and was by her forwarded, in her father's vindication, to\nMr Boffin, my client. You will excuse the phraseology of the shop, but\nas I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall have, I\nam rather proud of him as a natural curiosity probably unique.'\n\nAlthough as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite as easy\nas usual below it. With an air of not minding Eugene at all, he feels\nthat the subject is not altogether a safe one in that connexion.\n\n'The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my professional\nmuseum,' he resumes, 'hereupon desires his Secretary--an individual\nof the hermit-crab or oyster species, and whose name, I think, is\nChokesmith--but it doesn't in the least matter--say Artichoke--to put\nhimself in communication with Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes his\nreadiness so to do, endeavours to do so, but fails.'\n\n'Why fails?' asks Boots.\n\n'How fails?' asks Brewer.\n\n'Pardon me,' returns Lightwood, 'I must postpone the reply for one\nmoment, or we shall have an anti-climax. Artichoke failing signally, my\nclient refers the task to me: his purpose being to advance the interests\nof the object of his search. I proceed to put myself in communication\nwith her; I even happen to possess some special means,' with a glance\nat Eugene, 'of putting myself in communication with her; but I fail too,\nbecause she has vanished.'\n\n'Vanished!' is the general echo.\n\n'Disappeared,' says Mortimer. 'Nobody knows how, nobody knows when,\nnobody knows where. And so ends the story to which my honourable and\nfair enslaver opposite referred.'\n\nTippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we shall every one\nof us be murdered in our beds. Eugene eyes her as if some of us would\nbe enough for him. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P., remarks that these social\nmysteries make one afraid of leaving Baby. Veneering, M.P., wishes to\nbe informed (with something of a second-hand air of seeing the Right\nHonourable Gentleman at the head of the Home Department in his place)\nwhether it is intended to be conveyed that the vanished person has been\nspirited away or otherwise harmed? Instead of Lightwood's answering,\nEugene answers, and answers hastily and vexedly: 'No, no, no; he doesn't\nmean that; he means voluntarily vanished--but utterly--completely.'\n\nHowever, the great subject of the happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle must\nnot be allowed to vanish with the other vanishments--with the vanishing\nof the murderer, the vanishing of Julius Handford, the vanishing of\nLizzie Hexam,--and therefore Veneering must recall the present sheep\nto the pen from which they have strayed. Who so fit to discourse of\nthe happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle, they being the dearest and oldest\nfriends he has in the world; or what audience so fit for him to take\ninto his confidence as that audience, a noun of multitude or signifying\nmany, who are all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world?\nSo Veneering, without the formality of rising, launches into a familiar\noration, gradually toning into the Parliamentary sing-song, in which he\nsees at that board his dear friend Twemlow who on that day twelvemonth\nbestowed on his dear friend Lammle the fair hand of his dear friend\nSophronia, and in which he also sees at that board his dear friends\nBoots and Brewer whose rallying round him at a period when his dear\nfriend Lady Tippins likewise rallied round him--ay, and in the foremost\nrank--he can never forget while memory holds her seat. But he is free\nto confess that he misses from that board his dear old friend Podsnap,\nthough he is well represented by his dear young friend Georgiana. And he\nfurther sees at that board (this he announces with pomp, as if exulting\nin the powers of an extraordinary telescope) his friend Mr Fledgeby, if\nhe will permit him to call him so. For all of these reasons, and many\nmore which he right well knows will have occurred to persons of your\nexceptional acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the time has\narrived when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears in our eyes,\nwith blessings on our lips, and in a general way with a profusion of\ngammon and spinach in our emotional larders, we should one and all drink\nto our dear friends the Lammles, wishing them many years as happy as\nthe last, and many many friends as congenially united as themselves. And\nthis he will add; that Anastatia Veneering (who is instantly heard to\nweep) is formed on the same model as her old and chosen friend Sophronia\nLammle, in respect that she is devoted to the man who wooed and won her,\nand nobly discharges the duties of a wife.\n\nSeeing no better way out of it, Veneering here pulls up his oratorical\nPegasus extremely short, and plumps down, clean over his head, with:\n'Lammle, God bless you!'\n\nThen Lammle. Too much of him every way; pervadingly too much nose of a\ncoarse wrong shape, and his nose in his mind and his manners; too much\nsmile to be real; too much frown to be false; too many large teeth to be\nvisible at once without suggesting a bite. He thanks you, dear friends,\nfor your kindly greeting, and hopes to receive you--it may be on the\nnext of these delightful occasions--in a residence better suited to\nyour claims on the rites of hospitality. He will never forget that at\nVeneering's he first saw Sophronia. Sophronia will never forget that at\nVeneering's she first saw him. 'They spoke of it soon after they\nwere married, and agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, to\nVeneering they owe their union. They hope to show their sense of this\nsome day ('No, no, from Veneering)--oh yes, yes, and let him rely\nupon it, they will if they can! His marriage with Sophronia was not a\nmarriage of interest on either side: she had her little fortune, he had\nhis little fortune: they joined their little fortunes: it was a marriage\nof pure inclination and suitability. Thank you! Sophronia and he are\nfond of the society of young people; but he is not sure that their house\nwould be a good house for young people proposing to remain single, since\nthe contemplation of its domestic bliss might induce them to change\ntheir minds. He will not apply this to any one present; certainly not\nto their darling little Georgiana. Again thank you! Neither, by-the-by,\nwill he apply it to his friend Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for the\nfeeling manner in which he referred to their common friend Fledgeby, for\nhe holds that gentleman in the highest estimation. Thank you. In fact\n(returning unexpectedly to Fledgeby), the better you know him, the more\nyou find in him that you desire to know. Again thank you! In his dear\nSophronia's name and in his own, thank you!\n\nMrs Lammle has sat quite still, with her eyes cast down upon the\ntable-cloth. As Mr Lammle's address ends, Twemlow once more turns to her\ninvoluntarily, not cured yet of that often recurring impression that she\nis going to speak to him. This time she really is going to speak to him.\nVeneering is talking with his other next neighbour, and she speaks in a\nlow voice.\n\n'Mr Twemlow.'\n\nHe answers, 'I beg your pardon? Yes?' Still a little doubtful, because\nof her not looking at him.\n\n'You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may trust you. Will you\ngive me the opportunity of saying a few words to you when you come up\nstairs?'\n\n'Assuredly. I shall be honoured.'\n\n'Don't seem to do so, if you please, and don't think it inconsistent if\nmy manner should be more careless than my words. I may be watched.'\n\nIntensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and sinks\nback in his chair meditating. Mrs Lammle rises. All rise. The ladies go\nup stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devoted\nthe interval to taking an observation of Boots's whiskers, Brewer's\nwhiskers, and Lammle's whiskers, and considering which pattern of\nwhisker he would prefer to produce out of himself by friction, if the\nGenie of the cheek would only answer to his rubbing.\n\nIn the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots, and Brewer,\nflutter like moths around that yellow wax candle--guttering down,\nand with some hint of a winding-sheet in it--Lady Tippins. Outsiders\ncultivate Veneering, M P., and Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. Lammle stands with\nfolded arms, Mephistophelean in a corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby.\nMrs Lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites Mr Twemlow's attention to a\nbook of portraits in her hand.\n\nMr Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs Lammle\nshows him a portrait.\n\n'You have reason to be surprised,' she says softly, 'but I wish you\nwouldn't look so.'\n\nDisturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks much more so.\n\n'I think, Mr Twemlow, you never saw that distant connexion of yours\nbefore to-day?'\n\n'No, never.'\n\n'Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are not proud of him?'\n\n'To say the truth, Mrs Lammle, no.'\n\n'If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to acknowledge him.\nHere is another portrait. What do you think of it?'\n\nTwemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: 'Very like!\nUncommonly like!'\n\n'You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions? You\nnotice where he is now, and how engaged?'\n\n'Yes. But Mr Lammle--'\n\nShe darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows him\nanother portrait.\n\n'Very good; is it not?'\n\n'Charming!' says Twemlow.\n\n'So like as to be almost a caricature?--Mr Twemlow, it is impossible\nto tell you what the struggle in my mind has been, before I could bring\nmyself to speak to you as I do now. It is only in the conviction that I\nmay trust you never to betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promise\nme that you never will betray my confidence--that you will respect it,\neven though you may no longer respect me,--and I shall be as satisfied\nas if you had sworn it.'\n\n'Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman--'\n\n'Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr Twemlow, I implore you to save that\nchild!'\n\n'That child?'\n\n'Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and married\nto that connexion of yours. It is a partnership affair, a\nmoney-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to help\nherself and she is on the brink of being sold into wretchedness for\nlife.'\n\n'Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it?' demands Twemlow, shocked and\nbewildered to the last degree.\n\n'Here is another portrait. And not good, is it?'\n\nAghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to look at it\ncritically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the expediency of throwing his\nown head back, and does so. Though he no more sees the portrait than if\nit were in China.\n\n'Decidedly not good,' says Mrs Lammle. 'Stiff and exaggerated!'\n\n'And ex--' But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot command the\nword, and trails off into '--actly so.'\n\n'Mr Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous, self-blinded\nfather. You know how much he makes of your family. Lose no time. Warn\nhim.'\n\n'But warn him against whom?'\n\n'Against me.'\n\nBy great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this critical\ninstant. The stimulant is Lammle's voice.\n\n'Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing Twemlow?'\n\n'Public characters, Alfred.'\n\n'Show him the last of me.'\n\n'Yes, Alfred.'\n\nShe puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the leaves, and\npresents the portrait to Twemlow.\n\n'That is the last of Mr Lammle. Do you think it good?--Warn her father\nagainst me. I deserve it, for I have been in the scheme from the first.\nIt is my husband's scheme, your connexion's, and mine. I tell you this,\nonly to show you the necessity of the poor little foolish affectionate\ncreature's being befriended and rescued. You will not repeat this to her\nfather. You will spare me so far, and spare my husband. For, though this\ncelebration of to-day is all a mockery, he is my husband, and we must\nlive.--Do you think it like?'\n\nTwemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait in his\nhand with the original looking towards him from his Mephistophelean\ncorner.\n\n'Very well indeed!' are at length the words which Twemlow with great\ndifficulty extracts from himself.\n\n'I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it the best.\nThe others are so dark. Now here, for instance, is another of Mr\nLammle--'\n\n'But I don't understand; I don't see my way,' Twemlow stammers, as he\nfalters over the book with his glass at his eye. 'How warn her father,\nand not tell him? Tell him how much? Tell him how little? I--I--am\ngetting lost.'\n\n'Tell him I am a match-maker; tell him I am an artful and designing\nwoman; tell him you are sure his daughter is best out of my house and my\ncompany. Tell him any such things of me; they will all be true. You know\nwhat a puffed-up man he is, and how easily you can cause his vanity to\ntake the alarm. Tell him as much as will give him the alarm and make\nhim careful of her, and spare me the rest. Mr Twemlow, I feel my sudden\ndegradation in your eyes; familiar as I am with my degradation in my own\neyes, I keenly feel the change that must have come upon me in yours,\nin these last few moments. But I trust to your good faith with me as\nimplicitly as when I began. If you knew how often I have tried to speak\nto you to-day, you would almost pity me. I want no new promise from you\non my own account, for I am satisfied, and I always shall be satisfied,\nwith the promise you have given me. I can venture to say no more, for\nI see that I am watched. If you would set my mind at rest with the\nassurance that you will interpose with the father and save this harmless\ngirl, close that book before you return it to me, and I shall know what\nyou mean, and deeply thank you in my heart.--Alfred, Mr Twemlow thinks\nthe last one the best, and quite agrees with you and me.'\n\nAlfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins rises to go, and Mrs\nVeneering follows her leader. For the moment, Mrs Lammle does not turn\nto them, but remains looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred's portrait\nthrough his eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its\nribbon's length, rises, and closes the book with an emphasis which makes\nthat fragile nursling of the fairies, Tippins, start.\n\nThen good-bye and good-bye, and charming occasion worthy of the Golden\nAge, and more about the flitch of bacon, and the like of that; and\nTwemlow goes staggering across Piccadilly with his hand to his forehead,\nand is nearly run down by a flushed lettercart, and at last drops\nsafe in his easy-chair, innocent good gentleman, with his hand to his\nforehead still, and his head in a whirl.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE THIRD -- A LONG LANE\n\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nLODGERS IN QUEER STREET\n\n\nIt was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate\nLondon, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing,\nand choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose\nbetween being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.\nGaslights flared in the shops with a haggard and unblest air, as knowing\nthemselves to be night-creatures that had no business abroad under the\nsun; while the sun itself when it was for a few moments dimly indicated\nthrough circling eddies of fog, showed as if it had gone out and were\ncollapsing flat and cold. Even in the surrounding country it was a foggy\nday, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was, at about\nthe boundary line, dark yellow, and a little within it brown, and then\nbrowner, and then browner, until at the heart of the City--which call\nSaint Mary Axe--it was rusty-black. From any point of the high ridge of\nland northward, it might have been discerned that the loftiest buildings\nmade an occasional struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea, and\nespecially that the great dome of Saint Paul's seemed to die hard; but\nthis was not perceivable in the streets at their feet, where the whole\nmetropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels,\nand enfolding a gigantic catarrh.\n\nAt nine o'clock on such a morning, the place of business of Pubsey and\nCo. was not the liveliest object even in Saint Mary Axe--which is not a\nvery lively spot--with a sobbing gaslight in the counting-house window,\nand a burglarious stream of fog creeping in to strangle it through the\nkeyhole of the main door. But the light went out, and the main door\nopened, and Riah came forth with a bag under his arm.\n\nAlmost in the act of coming out at the door, Riah went into the fog, and\nwas lost to the eyes of Saint Mary Axe. But the eyes of this history\ncan follow him westward, by Cornhill, Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the\nStrand, to Piccadilly and the Albany. Thither he went at his grave and\nmeasured pace, staff in hand, skirt at heel; and more than one head,\nturning to look back at his venerable figure already lost in the mist,\nsupposed it to be some ordinary figure indistinctly seen, which fancy\nand the fog had worked into that passing likeness.\n\nArrived at the house in which his master's chambers were on the\nsecond floor, Riah proceeded up the stairs, and paused at Fascination\nFledgeby's door. Making free with neither bell nor knocker, he struck\nupon the door with the top of his staff, and, having listened, sat down\non the threshold. It was characteristic of his habitual submission,\nthat he sat down on the raw dark staircase, as many of his ancestors\nhad probably sat down in dungeons, taking what befell him as it might\nbefall.\n\nAfter a time, when he had grown so cold as to be fain to blow upon his\nfingers, he arose and knocked with his staff again, and listened again,\nand again sat down to wait. Thrice he repeated these actions before his\nlistening ears were greeted by the voice of Fledgeby, calling from his\nbed, 'Hold your row!--I'll come and open the door directly!' But, in\nlieu of coming directly, he fell into a sweet sleep for some quarter of\nan hour more, during which added interval Riah sat upon the stairs and\nwaited with perfect patience.\n\nAt length the door stood open, and Mr Fledgeby's retreating drapery\nplunged into bed again. Following it at a respectful distance, Riah\npassed into the bed-chamber, where a fire had been sometime lighted, and\nwas burning briskly.\n\n'Why, what time of night do you mean to call it?' inquired Fledgeby,\nturning away beneath the clothes, and presenting a comfortable rampart\nof shoulder to the chilled figure of the old man.\n\n'Sir, it is full half-past ten in the morning.'\n\n'The deuce it is! Then it must be precious foggy?'\n\n'Very foggy, sir.'\n\n'And raw, then?'\n\n'Chill and bitter,' said Riah, drawing out a handkerchief, and wiping\nthe moisture from his beard and long grey hair as he stood on the verge\nof the rug, with his eyes on the acceptable fire.\n\nWith a plunge of enjoyment, Fledgeby settled himself afresh.\n\n'Any snow, or sleet, or slush, or anything of that sort?' he asked.\n\n'No, sir, no. Not quite so bad as that. The streets are pretty clean.'\n\n'You needn't brag about it,' returned Fledgeby, disappointed in his\ndesire to heighten the contrast between his bed and the streets. 'But\nyou're always bragging about something. Got the books there?'\n\n'They are here, sir.'\n\n'All right. I'll turn the general subject over in my mind for a minute\nor two, and while I'm about it you can empty your bag and get ready for\nme.'\n\nWith another comfortable plunge, Mr Fledgeby fell asleep again. The old\nman, having obeyed his directions, sat down on the edge of a chair, and,\nfolding his hands before him, gradually yielded to the influence of the\nwarmth, and dozed. He was roused by Mr Fledgeby's appearing erect at\nthe foot of the bed, in Turkish slippers, rose-coloured Turkish trousers\n(got cheap from somebody who had cheated some other somebody out of\nthem), and a gown and cap to correspond. In that costume he would have\nleft nothing to be desired, if he had been further fitted out with a\nbottomless chair, a lantern, and a bunch of matches.\n\n'Now, old 'un!' cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 'what dodgery\nare you up to next, sitting there with your eyes shut? You ain't asleep.\nCatch a weasel at it, and catch a Jew!'\n\n'Truly, sir, I fear I nodded,' said the old man.\n\n'Not you!' returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. 'A telling move with\na good many, I dare say, but it won't put ME off my guard. Not a bad\nnotion though, if you want to look indifferent in driving a bargain. Oh,\nyou are a dodger!'\n\nThe old man shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation, and\nsuppressed a sigh, and moved to the table at which Mr Fledgeby was now\npouring out for himself a cup of steaming and fragrant coffee from a pot\nthat had stood ready on the hob. It was an edifying spectacle, the young\nman in his easy chair taking his coffee, and the old man with his grey\nhead bent, standing awaiting his pleasure.\n\n'Now!' said Fledgeby. 'Fork out your balance in hand, and prove by\nfigures how you make it out that it ain't more. First of all, light that\ncandle.'\n\nRiah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and referring to\nthe sum in the accounts for which they made him responsible, told it out\nupon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great care, and rang every\nsovereign.\n\n'I suppose,' he said, taking one up to eye it closely, 'you haven't been\nlightening any of these; but it's a trade of your people's, you know.\nYOU understand what sweating a pound means, don't you?'\n\n'Much as you do, sir,' returned the old man, with his hands under\nopposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood at the table,\ndeferentially observant of the master's face. 'May I take the liberty to\nsay something?'\n\n'You may,' Fledgeby graciously conceded.\n\n'Do you not, sir--without intending it--of a surety without intending\nit--sometimes mingle the character I fairly earn in your employment,\nwith the character which it is your policy that I should bear?'\n\n'I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into the\ninquiry,' Fascination coolly answered.\n\n'Not in justice?'\n\n'Bother justice!' said Fledgeby.\n\n'Not in generosity?'\n\n'Jews and generosity!' said Fledgeby. 'That's a good connexion! Bring\nout your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem palaver.'\n\nThe vouchers were produced, and for the next half-hour Mr Fledgeby\nconcentrated his sublime attention on them. They and the accounts were\nall found correct, and the books and the papers resumed their places in\nthe bag.\n\n'Next,' said Fledgeby, 'concerning that bill-broking branch of the\nbusiness; the branch I like best. What queer bills are to be bought, and\nat what prices? You have got your list of what's in the market?'\n\n'Sir, a long list,' replied Riah, taking out a pocket-book, and\nselecting from its contents a folded paper, which, being unfolded,\nbecame a sheet of foolscap covered with close writing.\n\n'Whew!' whistled Fledgeby, as he took it in his hand. 'Queer Street is\nfull of lodgers just at present! These are to be disposed of in parcels;\nare they?'\n\n'In parcels as set forth,' returned the old man, looking over his\nmaster's shoulder; 'or the lump.'\n\n'Half the lump will be waste-paper, one knows beforehand,' said\nFledgeby. 'Can you get it at waste-paper price? That's the question.'\n\nRiah shook his head, and Fledgeby cast his small eyes down the list.\nThey presently began to twinkle, and he no sooner became conscious of\ntheir twinkling, than he looked up over his shoulder at the grave face\nabove him, and moved to the chimney-piece. Making a desk of it, he stood\nthere with his back to the old man, warming his knees, perusing the list\nat his leisure, and often returning to some lines of it, as though\nthey were particularly interesting. At those times he glanced in the\nchimney-glass to see what note the old man took of him. He took none\nthat could be detected, but, aware of his employer's suspicions, stood\nwith his eyes on the ground.\n\nMr Fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was heard at the outer\ndoor, and the door was heard to open hastily. 'Hark! That's your doing,\nyou Pump of Israel,' said Fledgeby; 'you can't have shut it.' Then the\nstep was heard within, and the voice of Mr Alfred Lammle called aloud,\n'Are you anywhere here, Fledgeby?' To which Fledgeby, after cautioning\nRiah in a low voice to take his cue as it should be given him, replied,\n'Here I am!' and opened his bedroom door.\n\n'Come in!' said Fledgeby. 'This gentleman is only Pubsey and Co. of\nSaint Mary Axe, that I am trying to make terms for an unfortunate friend\nwith in a matter of some dishonoured bills. But really Pubsey and Co.\nare so strict with their debtors, and so hard to move, that I seem to be\nwasting my time. Can't I make ANY terms with you on my friend's part, Mr\nRiah?'\n\n'I am but the representative of another, sir,' returned the Jew in a low\nvoice. 'I do as I am bidden by my principal. It is not my capital that\nis invested in the business. It is not my profit that arises therefrom.'\n\n'Ha ha!' laughed Fledgeby. 'Lammle?'\n\n'Ha ha!' laughed Lammle. 'Yes. Of course. We know.'\n\n'Devilish good, ain't it, Lammle?' said Fledgeby, unspeakably amused by\nhis hidden joke.\n\n'Always the same, always the same!' said Lammle. 'Mr--'\n\n'Riah, Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe,' Fledgeby put in, as he wiped away\nthe tears that trickled from his eyes, so rare was his enjoyment of his\nsecret joke.\n\n'Mr Riah is bound to observe the invariable forms for such cases made\nand provided,' said Lammle.\n\n'He is only the representative of another!' cried Fledgeby. 'Does as\nhe is told by his principal! Not his capital that's invested in the\nbusiness. Oh, that's good! Ha ha ha ha!' Mr Lammle joined in the laugh\nand looked knowing; and the more he did both, the more exquisite the\nsecret joke became for Mr Fledgeby.\n\n'However,' said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his eyes again, 'if\nwe go on in this way, we shall seem to be almost making game of Mr Riah,\nor of Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe, or of somebody: which is far from\nour intention. Mr Riah, if you would have the kindness to step into the\nnext room for a few moments while I speak with Mr Lammle here, I should\nlike to try to make terms with you once again before you go.'\n\nThe old man, who had never raised his eyes during the whole transaction\nof Mr Fledgeby's joke, silently bowed and passed out by the door which\nFledgeby opened for him. Having closed it on him, Fledgeby returned to\nLammle, standing with his back to the bedroom fire, with one hand under\nhis coat-skirts, and all his whiskers in the other.\n\n'Halloa!' said Fledgeby. 'There's something wrong!'\n\n'How do you know it?' demanded Lammle.\n\n'Because you show it,' replied Fledgeby in unintentional rhyme.\n\n'Well then; there is,' said Lammle; 'there IS something wrong; the whole\nthing's wrong.'\n\n'I say!' remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting down with his\nhands on his knees to stare at his glowering friend with his back to the\nfire.\n\n'I tell you, Fledgeby,' repeated Lammle, with a sweep of his right arm,\n'the whole thing's wrong. The game's up.'\n\n'What game's up?' demanded Fledgeby, as slowly as before, and more\nsternly.\n\n'THE game. OUR game. Read that.'\n\nFledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it aloud. 'Alfred\nLammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs Podsnap and myself to express our united\nsense of the polite attentions of Mrs Alfred Lammle and yourself towards\nour daughter, Georgiana. Allow us also, wholly to reject them for the\nfuture, and to communicate our final desire that the two families\nmay become entire strangers. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most\nobedient and very humble servant, JOHN PODSNAP.' Fledgeby looked at the\nthree blank sides of this note, quite as long and earnestly as at the\nfirst expressive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded with\nanother extensive sweep of his right arm.\n\n'Whose doing is this?' said Fledgeby.\n\n'Impossible to imagine,' said Lammle.\n\n'Perhaps,' suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a very discontented\nbrow, 'somebody has been giving you a bad character.'\n\n'Or you,' said Lammle, with a deeper frown.\n\nMr Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous expressions,\nwhen his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain remembrance\nconnected with that feature operating as a timely warning, he took it\nthoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammle\nmeanwhile eyeing him with furtive eyes.\n\n'Well!' said Fledgeby. 'This won't improve with talking about. If we\never find out who did it, we'll mark that person. There's nothing more\nto be said, except that you undertook to do what circumstances prevent\nyour doing.'\n\n'And that you undertook to do what you might have done by this time, if\nyou had made a prompter use of circumstances,' snarled Lammle.\n\n'Hah! That,' remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the Turkish trousers,\n'is matter of opinion.'\n\n'Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle, in a bullying tone, 'am I to understand that\nyou in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in this\naffair?'\n\n'No,' said Fledgeby; 'provided you have brought my promissory note in\nyour pocket, and now hand it over.'\n\nLammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked at it,\nidentified it, twisted it up, and threw it into the fire. They both\nlooked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash up the\nchimney.\n\n'NOW, Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle, as before; 'am I to understand that\nyou in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in this\naffair?'\n\n'No,' said Fledgeby.\n\n'Finally and unreservedly no?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Fledgeby, my hand.'\n\nMr Fledgeby took it, saying, 'And if we ever find out who did this,\nwe'll mark that person. And in the most friendly manner, let me mention\none thing more. I don't know what your circumstances are, and I don't\nask. You have sustained a loss here. Many men are liable to be involved\nat times, and you may be, or you may not be. But whatever you do,\nLammle, don't--don't--don't, I beg of you--ever fall into the hands of\nPubsey and Co. in the next room, for they are grinders. Regular flayers\nand grinders, my dear Lammle,' repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish,\n'and they'll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to the\nsole of your foot, and grind every inch of your skin to tooth-powder.\nYou have seen what Mr Riah is. Never fall into his hands, Lammle, I beg\nof you as a friend!'\n\nMr Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this affectionate\nadjuration, demanded why the devil he ever should fall into the hands of\nPubsey and Co.?\n\n'To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy,' said the candid\nFledgeby, 'by the manner in which that Jew looked at you when he heard\nyour name. I didn't like his eye. But it may have been the heated\nfancy of a friend. Of course if you are sure that you have no personal\nsecurity out, which you may not be quite equal to meeting, and which can\nhave got into his hands, it must have been fancy. Still, I didn't like\nhis eye.'\n\nThe brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in his\npalpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were pinching it.\nFledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did duty\nthere for a smile, looked very like the tormentor who was pinching.\n\n'But I mustn't keep him waiting too long,' said Fledgeby, 'or he'll\nrevenge it on my unfortunate friend. How's your very clever and\nagreeable wife? She knows we have broken down?'\n\n'I showed her the letter.'\n\n'Very much surprised?' asked Fledgeby.\n\n'I think she would have been more so,' answered Lammle, 'if there had\nbeen more go in YOU?'\n\n'Oh!--She lays it upon me, then?'\n\n'Mr Fledgeby, I will not have my words misconstrued.'\n\n'Don't break out, Lammle,' urged Fledgeby, in a submissive tone,\n'because there's no occasion. I only asked a question. Then she don't\nlay it upon me? To ask another question.'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'Very good,' said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. 'My compliments\nto her. Good-bye!'\n\nThey shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. Fledgeby saw him\ninto the fog, and, returning to the fire and musing with his face to it,\nstretched the legs of the rose-coloured Turkish trousers wide apart, and\nmeditatively bent his knees, as if he were going down upon them.\n\n'You have a pair of whiskers, Lammle, which I never liked,' murmured\nFledgeby, 'and which money can't produce; you are boastful of your\nmanners and your conversation; you wanted to pull my nose, and you have\nlet me in for a failure, and your wife says I am the cause of it. I'll\nbowl you down. I will, though I have no whiskers,' here he rubbed the\nplaces where they were due, 'and no manners, and no conversation!'\n\nHaving thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs of the\nTurkish trousers, straightened himself on his knees, and called out\nto Riah in the next room, 'Halloa, you sir!' At sight of the old man\nre-entering with a gentleness monstrously in contrast with the character\nhe had given him, Mr Fledgeby was so tickled again, that he exclaimed,\nlaughing, 'Good! Good! Upon my soul it is uncommon good!'\n\n'Now, old 'un,' proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh out,\n'you'll buy up these lots that I mark with my pencil--there's a tick\nthere, and a tick there, and a tick there--and I wager two-pence you'll\nafterwards go on squeezing those Christians like the Jew you are. Now,\nnext you'll want a cheque--or you'll say you want it, though you've\ncapital enough somewhere, if one only knew where, but you'd be peppered\nand salted and grilled on a gridiron before you'd own to it--and that\ncheque I'll write.'\n\nWhen he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from it to open another\ndrawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in which\nwas another key that opened another drawer, in which was the cheque\nbook; and when he had written the cheque; and when, reversing the key\nand drawer process, he had placed his cheque book in safety again; he\nbeckoned the old man, with the folded cheque, to come and take it.\n\n'Old 'un,' said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his pocketbook, and\nwas putting that in the breast of his outer garment; 'so much at present\nfor my affairs. Now a word about affairs that are not exactly mine.\nWhere is she?'\n\nWith his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his garment, Riah\nstarted and paused.\n\n'Oho!' said Fledgeby. 'Didn't expect it! Where have you hidden her?'\n\nShowing that he was taken by surprise, the old man looked at his master\nwith some passing confusion, which the master highly enjoyed.\n\n'Is she in the house I pay rent and taxes for in Saint Mary Axe?'\ndemanded Fledgeby.\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'Is she in your garden up atop of that house--gone up to be dead, or\nwhatever the game is?' asked Fledgeby.\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'Where is she then?'\n\nRiah bent his eyes upon the ground, as if considering whether he could\nanswer the question without breach of faith, and then silently raised\nthem to Fledgeby's face, as if he could not.\n\n'Come!' said Fledgeby. 'I won't press that just now. But I want to know\nthis, and I will know this, mind you. What are you up to?'\n\nThe old man, with an apologetic action of his head and hands, as not\ncomprehending the master's meaning, addressed to him a look of mute\ninquiry.\n\n'You can't be a gallivanting dodger,' said Fledgeby. 'For you're a\n\"regular pity the sorrows\", you know--if you DO know any Christian\nrhyme--\"whose trembling limbs have borne him to\"--et cetrer. You're one\nof the Patriarchs; you're a shaky old card; and you can't be in love\nwith this Lizzie?'\n\n'O, sir!' expostulated Riah. 'O, sir, sir, sir!'\n\n'Then why,' retorted Fledgeby, with some slight tinge of a blush, 'don't\nyou out with your reason for having your spoon in the soup at all?'\n\n'Sir, I will tell you the truth. But (your pardon for the stipulation)\nit is in sacred confidence; it is strictly upon honour.'\n\n'Honour too!' cried Fledgeby, with a mocking lip. 'Honour among Jews.\nWell. Cut away.'\n\n'It is upon honour, sir?' the other still stipulated, with respectful\nfirmness.\n\n'Oh, certainly. Honour bright,' said Fledgeby.\n\nThe old man, never bidden to sit down, stood with an earnest hand laid\non the back of the young man's easy chair. The young man sat looking at\nthe fire with a face of listening curiosity, ready to check him off and\ncatch him tripping.\n\n'Cut away,' said Fledgeby. 'Start with your motive.'\n\n'Sir, I have no motive but to help the helpless.'\n\nMr Fledgeby could only express the feelings to which this incredible\nstatement gave rise in his breast, by a prodigiously long derisive\nsniff.\n\n'How I came to know, and much to esteem and to respect, this damsel, I\nmentioned when you saw her in my poor garden on the house-top,' said the\nJew.\n\n'Did you?' said Fledgeby, distrustfully. 'Well. Perhaps you did,\nthough.'\n\n'The better I knew her, the more interest I felt in her fortunes. They\ngathered to a crisis. I found her beset by a selfish and ungrateful\nbrother, beset by an unacceptable wooer, beset by the snares of a more\npowerful lover, beset by the wiles of her own heart.'\n\n'She took to one of the chaps then?'\n\n'Sir, it was only natural that she should incline towards him, for he\nhad many and great advantages. But he was not of her station, and to\nmarry her was not in his mind. Perils were closing round her, and the\ncircle was fast darkening, when I--being as you have said, sir, too\nold and broken to be suspected of any feeling for her but a\nfather's--stepped in, and counselled flight. I said, \"My daughter, there\nare times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution to form\nis flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight.\" She answered,\nshe had had this in her thoughts; but whither to fly without help she\nknew not, and there were none to help her. I showed her there was one to\nhelp her, and it was I. And she is gone.'\n\n'What did you do with her?' asked Fledgeby, feeling his cheek.\n\n'I placed her,' said the old man, 'at a distance;' with a grave smooth\noutward sweep from one another of his two open hands at arm's length;\n'at a distance--among certain of our people, where her industry would\nserve her, and where she could hope to exercise it, unassailed from any\nquarter.'\n\nFledgeby's eyes had come from the fire to notice the action of his hands\nwhen he said 'at a distance.' Fledgeby now tried (very unsuccessfully)\nto imitate that action, as he shook his head and said, 'Placed her in\nthat direction, did you? Oh you circular old dodger!'\n\nWith one hand across his breast and the other on the easy chair, Riah,\nwithout justifying himself, waited for further questioning. But, that it\nwas hopeless to question him on that one reserved point, Fledgeby, with\nhis small eyes too near together, saw full well.\n\n'Lizzie,' said Fledgeby, looking at the fire again, and then looking up.\n'Humph, Lizzie. You didn't tell me the other name in your garden atop of\nthe house. I'll be more communicative with you. The other name's Hexam.'\n\nRiah bent his head in assent.\n\n'Look here, you sir,' said Fledgeby. 'I have a notion I know something\nof the inveigling chap, the powerful one. Has he anything to do with the\nlaw?'\n\n'Nominally, I believe it his calling.'\n\n'I thought so. Name anything like Lightwood?'\n\n'Sir, not at all like.'\n\n'Come, old 'un,' said Fledgeby, meeting his eyes with a wink, 'say the\nname.'\n\n'Wrayburn.'\n\n'By Jupiter!' cried Fledgeby. 'That one, is it? I thought it might be\nthe other, but I never dreamt of that one! I shouldn't object to your\nbaulking either of the pair, dodger, for they are both conceited enough;\nbut that one is as cool a customer as ever I met with. Got a beard\nbesides, and presumes upon it. Well done, old 'un! Go on and prosper!'\n\nBrightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked were there more\ninstructions for him?\n\n'No,' said Fledgeby, 'you may toddle now, Judah, and grope about on the\norders you have got.' Dismissed with those pleasing words, the old man\ntook his broad hat and staff, and left the great presence: more as if he\nwere some superior creature benignantly blessing Mr Fledgeby, than the\npoor dependent on whom he set his foot. Left alone, Mr Fledgeby locked\nhis outer door, and came back to his fire.\n\n'Well done you!' said Fascination to himself. 'Slow, you may be; sure,\nyou are!' This he twice or thrice repeated with much complacency, as he\nagain dispersed the legs of the Turkish trousers and bent the knees.\n\n'A tidy shot that, I flatter myself,' he then soliloquised. 'And a Jew\nbrought down with it! Now, when I heard the story told at Lammle's, I\ndidn't make a jump at Riah. Not a hit of it; I got at him by degrees.'\nHerein he was quite accurate; it being his habit, not to jump, or\nleap, or make an upward spring, at anything in life, but to crawl at\neverything.\n\n'I got at him,' pursued Fledgeby, feeling for his whisker, 'by degrees.\nIf your Lammles or your Lightwoods had got at him anyhow, they would\nhave asked him the question whether he hadn't something to do with that\ngal's disappearance. I knew a better way of going to work. Having got\nbehind the hedge, and put him in the light, I took a shot at him and\nbrought him down plump. Oh! It don't count for much, being a Jew, in a\nmatch against ME!'\n\nAnother dry twist in place of a smile, made his face crooked here.\n\n'As to Christians,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'look out, fellow-Christians,\nparticularly you that lodge in Queer Street! I have got the run of Queer\nStreet now, and you shall see some games there. To work a lot of power\nover you and you not know it, knowing as you think yourselves, would\nbe almost worth laying out money upon. But when it comes to squeezing a\nprofit out of you into the bargain, it's something like!'\n\nWith this apostrophe Mr Fledgeby appropriately proceeded to divest\nhimself of his Turkish garments, and invest himself with Christian\nattire. Pending which operation, and his morning ablutions, and his\nanointing of himself with the last infallible preparation for the\nproduction of luxuriant and glossy hair upon the human countenance\n(quacks being the only sages he believed in besides usurers), the murky\nfog closed about him and shut him up in its sooty embrace. If it had\nnever let him out any more, the world would have had no irreparable\nloss, but could have easily replaced him from its stock on hand.\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nA RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT\n\n\nIn the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow window-blind of\nPubsey and Co. was drawn down upon the day's work, Riah the Jew once\nmore came forth into Saint Mary Axe. But this time he carried no bag,\nand was not bound on his master's affairs. He passed over London Bridge,\nand returned to the Middlesex shore by that of Westminster, and so, ever\nwading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker.\n\nMiss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window by the light\nof her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders that it might\nlast the longer and waste the less when she was out--sitting waiting\nfor him in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the musing\nsolitude in which she sat, and she came to the door to open it; aiding\nher steps with a little crutch-stick.\n\n'Good evening, godmother!' said Miss Jenny Wren.\n\nThe old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on.\n\n'Won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother?' asked Miss Jenny Wren.\n\n'Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear.'\n\n'Well!' exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. 'Now you ARE a clever old boy!\nIf we gave prizes at this establishment (but we only keep blanks), you\nshould have the first silver medal, for taking me up so quick.' As she\nspake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the house-door from the keyhole\nand put it in her pocket, and then bustlingly closed the door, and tried\nit as they both stood on the step. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe,\nshe drew one hand through the old man's arm and prepared to ply her\ncrutch-stick with the other. But the key was an instrument of such\ngigantic proportions, that before they started Riah proposed to carry\nit.\n\n'No, no, no! I'll carry it myself,' returned Miss Wren. 'I'm awfully\nlopsided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket it'll trim the ship. To\nlet you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side, o'\npurpose.'\n\nWith that they began their plodding through the fog.\n\n'Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother,' resumed Miss Wren with\ngreat approbation, 'to understand me. But, you see, you ARE so like the\nfairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the rest\nof people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape,\njust this moment, with some benevolent object. Boh!' cried Miss Jenny,\nputting her face close to the old man's. 'I can see your features,\ngodmother, behind the beard.'\n\n'Does the fancy go to my changing other objects too, Jenny?'\n\n'Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick and tap this piece of\npavement--this dirty stone that my foot taps--it would start up a coach\nand six. I say! Let's believe so!'\n\n'With all my heart,' replied the good old man.\n\n'And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask you\nto be so kind as give my child a tap, and change him altogether. O my\nchild has been such a bad, bad child of late! It worries me nearly\nout of my wits. Not done a stroke of work these ten days. Has had the\nhorrors, too, and fancied that four copper-coloured men in red wanted to\nthrow him into a fiery furnace.'\n\n'But that's dangerous, Jenny.'\n\n'Dangerous, godmother? My child is always dangerous, more or less. He\nmight'--here the little creature glanced back over her shoulder at the\nsky--'be setting the house on fire at this present moment. I don't know\nwho would have a child, for my part! It's no use shaking him. I have\nshaken him till I have made myself giddy. \"Why don't you mind your\nCommandments and honour your parent, you naughty old boy?\" I said to him\nall the time. But he only whimpered and stared at me.'\n\n'What shall be changed, after him?' asked Riah in a compassionately\nplayful voice.\n\n'Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and get\nyou to set me right in the back and the legs. It's a little thing to you\nwith your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor weak aching\nme.'\n\nThere was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the\nless touching for that.\n\n'And then?'\n\n'Yes, and then--YOU know, godmother. We'll both jump up into the coach\nand six and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, godmother, to ask you a\nserious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought\nup by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had a\ngood thing and lost it, or never to have had it?'\n\n'Explain, god-daughter.'\n\n'I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, than I\nused to feel before I knew her.' (Tears were in her eyes as she said\nso.)\n\n'Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear,' said the\nJew,--'that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of promise, has\nfaded out of my own life--but the happiness was.'\n\n'Ah!' said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced, and chopping\nthe exclamation with that sharp little hatchet of hers; 'then I tell you\nwhat change I think you had better begin with, godmother. You had better\nchange Is into Was and Was into Is, and keep them so.'\n\n'Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain then?' asked\nthe old man tenderly.\n\n'Right!' exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. 'You have changed me\nwiser, godmother.--Not,' she added with the quaint hitch of her chin and\neyes, 'that you need be a very wonderful godmother to do that deed.'\n\nThus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they traversed\nthe ground that Riah had lately traversed, and new ground likewise; for,\nwhen they had recrossed the Thames by way of London Bridge, they struck\ndown by the river and held their still foggier course that way.\n\nBut previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerable\nfriend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: 'Now\nlook at 'em! All my work!'\n\nThis referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours of\nthe rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going to\nballs, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going out\nwalking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to get\nmarried, for all the gay events of life.\n\n'Pretty, pretty, pretty!' said the old man with a clap of his hands.\n'Most elegant taste!'\n\n'Glad you like 'em,' returned Miss Wren, loftily. 'But the fun is,\ngodmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it's\nthe hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not\nbad and my legs queer.'\n\nHe looked at her as not understanding what she said.\n\n'Bless you, godmother,' said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town at\nall hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing,\nit would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great\nladies that takes it out of me.'\n\n'How, the trying-on?' asked Riah.\n\n'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!' returned Miss Wren. 'Look\nhere. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park, or a Show, or\na Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I\nlook about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I\nsay \"You'll do, my dear!\" and I take particular notice of her, and run\nhome and cut her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scudding\nback again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again.\nSometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that little creature is\nstaring!' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much more\noften yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, \"I must\nhollow out a bit here; I must slope away there;\" and I am making a\nperfect slave of her, with making her try on my doll's dress. Evening\nparties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for a\nfull view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages\nand the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night.\nHowever, there I have 'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into the\nhall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy\npoked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say they\nthink I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they\nlittle think they're only working for my dolls! There was Lady Belinda\nWhitrose. I made her do double duty in one night. I said when she came\nout of the carriage, \"YOU'll do, my dear!\" and I ran straight home and\ncut her out and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the men\nthat called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, \"Lady Belinda\nWhitrose's carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down!\" And I made her\ntry on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated. That's\nLady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gaslight for a\nwax one, with her toes turned in.'\n\nWhen they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, Riah asked\nthe way to a certain tavern called the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters.\nFollowing the directions he received, they arrived, after two or three\npuzzled stoppages for consideration, and some uncertain looking about\nthem, at the door of Miss Abbey Potterson's dominions. A peep through\nthe glass portion of the door revealed to them the glories of the bar,\nand Miss Abbey herself seated in state on her snug throne, reading the\nnewspaper. To whom, with deference, they presented themselves.\n\nTaking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a suspended\nexpression of countenance, as if she must finish the paragraph in hand\nbefore undertaking any other business whatever, Miss Abbey demanded,\nwith some slight asperity: 'Now then, what's for you?'\n\n'Could we see Miss Potterson?' asked the old man, uncovering his head.\n\n'You not only could, but you can and you do,' replied the hostess.\n\n'Might we speak with you, madam?'\n\nBy this time Miss Abbey's eyes had possessed themselves of the small\nfigure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the closer observation of which, Miss\nAbbey laid aside her newspaper, rose, and looked over the half-door of\nthe bar. The crutch-stick seemed to entreat for its owner leave to come\nin and rest by the fire; so, Miss Abbey opened the half-door, and said,\nas though replying to the crutch-stick:\n\n'Yes, come in and rest by the fire.'\n\n'My name is Riah,' said the old man, with courteous action, 'and my\navocation is in London city. This, my young companion--'\n\n'Stop a bit,' interposed Miss Wren. 'I'll give the lady my card.' She\nproduced it from her pocket with an air, after struggling with the\ngigantic door-key which had got upon the top of it and kept it down.\nMiss Abbey, with manifest tokens of astonishment, took the diminutive\ndocument, and found it to run concisely thus:--\n\n\nMISS JENNY WREN\n\nDOLLS' DRESSMAKER.\n\nDolls attended at their own residences.\n\n\n'Lud!' exclaimed Miss Potterson, staring. And dropped the card.\n\n'We take the liberty of coming, my young companion and I, madam,' said\nRiah, 'on behalf of Lizzie Hexam.'\n\nMiss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnet-strings of the dolls'\ndressmaker. She looked round rather angrily, and said: 'Lizzie Hexam is\na very proud young woman.'\n\n'She would be so proud,' returned Riah, dexterously, 'to stand well in\nyour good opinion, that before she quitted London for--'\n\n'For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope?' asked Miss Potterson,\nas though supposing her to have emigrated.\n\n'For the country,' was the cautious answer,--'she made us promise to\ncome and show you a paper, which she left in our hands for that special\npurpose. I am an unserviceable friend of hers, who began to know her\nafter her departure from this neighbourhood. She has been for some time\nliving with my young companion, and has been a helpful and a comfortable\nfriend to her. Much needed, madam,' he added, in a lower voice. 'Believe\nme; if you knew all, much needed.'\n\n'I can believe that,' said Miss Abbey, with a softening glance at the\nlittle creature.\n\n'And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temper\nthat never tires, and a touch that never hurts,' Miss Jenny struck in,\nflushed, 'she is proud. And if it's not, she is NOT.'\n\nHer set purpose of contradicting Miss Abbey point blank, was so far from\noffending that dread authority, as to elicit a gracious smile. 'You do\nright, child,' said Miss Abbey, 'to speak well of those who deserve well\nof you.'\n\n'Right or wrong,' muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with a visible hitch of\nher chin, 'I mean to do it, and you may make up your mind to THAT, old\nlady.'\n\n'Here is the paper, madam,' said the Jew, delivering into Miss\nPotterson's hands the original document drawn up by Rokesmith, and\nsigned by Riderhood. 'Will you please to read it?'\n\n'But first of all,' said Miss Abbey, '--did you ever taste shrub,\nchild?'\n\nMiss Wren shook her head.\n\n'Should you like to?'\n\n'Should if it's good,' returned Miss Wren.\n\n'You shall try. And, if you find it good, I'll mix some for you with hot\nwater. Put your poor little feet on the fender. It's a cold, cold night,\nand the fog clings so.' As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, her\nloosened bonnet dropped on the floor. 'Why, what lovely hair!' cried\nMiss Abbey. 'And enough to make wigs for all the dolls in the world.\nWhat a quantity!'\n\n'Call THAT a quantity?' returned Miss Wren. 'Poof! What do you say to\nthe rest of it?' As she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden stream\nfell over herself and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground.\nMiss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She beckoned\nthe Jew towards her, as she reached down the shrub-bottle from its\nniche, and whispered:\n\n'Child, or woman?'\n\n'Child in years,' was the answer; 'woman in self-reliance and trial.'\n\n'You are talking about Me, good people,' thought Miss Jenny, sitting in\nher golden bower, warming her feet. 'I can't hear what you say, but I\nknow your tricks and your manners!'\n\nThe shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonizing with Miss\nJenny's palate, a judicious amount was mixed by Miss Potterson's skilful\nhands, whereof Riah too partook. After this preliminary, Miss Abbey read\nthe document; and, as often as she raised her eyebrows in so doing,\nthe watchful Miss Jenny accompanied the action with an expressive and\nemphatic sip of the shrub and water.\n\n'As far as this goes,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, when she had read it\nseveral times, and thought about it, 'it proves (what didn't much need\nproving) that Rogue Riderhood is a villain. I have my doubts whether he\nis not the villain who solely did the deed; but I have no expectation of\nthose doubts ever being cleared up now. I believe I did Lizzie's father\nwrong, but never Lizzie's self; because when things were at the worst I\ntrusted her, had perfect confidence in her, and tried to persuade her\nto come to me for a refuge. I am very sorry to have done a man wrong,\nparticularly when it can't be undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie know\nwhat I say; not forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, after\nall, bygones being bygones, she will find a home at the Porters, and a\nfriend at the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey of old, remind her, and she\nknows what-like the home, and what-like the friend, is likely to turn\nout. I am generally short and sweet--or short and sour, according as it\nmay be and as opinions vary--' remarked Miss Abbey, 'and that's about\nall I have got to say, and enough too.'\n\nBut before the shrub and water was sipped out, Miss Abbey bethought\nherself that she would like to keep a copy of the paper by her. 'It's\nnot long, sir,' said she to Riah, 'and perhaps you wouldn't mind just\njotting it down.' The old man willingly put on his spectacles, and,\nstanding at the little desk in the corner where Miss Abbey filed her\nreceipts and kept her sample phials (customers' scores were interdicted\nby the strict administration of the Porters), wrote out the copy in\na fair round character. As he stood there, doing his methodical\npenmanship, his ancient scribelike figure intent upon the work, and the\nlittle dolls' dressmaker sitting in her golden bower before the fire,\nMiss Abbey had her doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rare\nfigures into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wake\nwith a nod next moment and find them gone.\n\nMiss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her eyes and\nopening them again, still finding the figures there, when, dreamlike,\na confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she started up, and they\nall three looked at one another, it became a noise of clamouring voices\nand of the stir of feet; then all the windows were heard to be hastily\nthrown up, and shouts and cries came floating into the house from\nthe river. A moment more, and Bob Gliddery came clattering along the\npassage, with the noise of all the nails in his boots condensed into\nevery separate nail.\n\n'What is it?' asked Miss Abbey.\n\n'It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am,' answered Bob. 'There's ever so\nmany people in the river.'\n\n'Tell 'em to put on all the kettles!' cried Miss Abbey. 'See that the\nboiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some blankets to the fire. Heat some\nstone bottles. Have your senses about you, you girls down stairs, and\nuse 'em.'\n\nWhile Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bob--whom she\nseized by the hair, and whose head she knocked against the wall, as a\ngeneral injunction to vigilance and presence of mind--and partly hailed\nthe kitchen with them--the company in the public room, jostling one\nanother, rushed out to the causeway, and the outer noise increased.\n\n'Come and look,' said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all three hurried\nto the vacated public room, and passed by one of the windows into the\nwooden verandah overhanging the river.\n\n'Does anybody down there know what has happened?' demanded Miss Abbey,\nin her voice of authority.\n\n'It's a steamer, Miss Abbey,' cried one blurred figure in the fog.\n\n'It always IS a steamer, Miss Abbey,' cried another.\n\n'Them's her lights, Miss Abbey, wot you see a-blinking yonder,' cried\nanother.\n\n'She's a-blowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that's what makes the\nfog and the noise worse, don't you see?' explained another.\n\nBoats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were rushing\ntumultuously to the water's edge. Some man fell in with a splash, and\nwas pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The drags were called for.\nA cry for the life-buoy passed from mouth to mouth. It was impossible to\nmake out what was going on upon the river, for every boat that put off\nsculled into the fog and was lost to view at a boat's length. Nothing\nwas clear but that the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproaches\non all sides. She was the Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay; she was the\nManslaughterer, bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to be\ntried for his life; her crew ran down men in row-boats with a relish;\nshe mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles; she fired property\nwith her funnels; she always was, and she always would be, wreaking\ndestruction upon somebody or something, after the manner of all her\nkind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with such taunts, uttered in\ntones of universal hoarseness. All the while, the steamer's lights moved\nspectrally a very little, as she lay-to, waiting the upshot of whatever\naccident had happened. Now, she began burning blue-lights. These made a\nluminous patch about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in the\npatch--the cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and more\nexcited--shadows of men and boats could be seen moving, while voices\nshouted: 'There!' 'There again!' 'A couple more strokes a-head!'\n'Hurrah!' 'Look out!' 'Hold on!' 'Haul in!' and the like. Lastly, with\na few tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark again,\nthe wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her lights glided\nsmoothly away in the direction of the sea.\n\nIt appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that a considerable\ntime had been thus occupied. There was now as eager a set towards the\nshore beneath the house as there had been from it; and it was only\non the first boat of the rush coming in that it was known what had\noccurred.\n\n'If that's Tom Tootle,' Miss Abbey made proclamation, in her most\ncommanding tones, 'let him instantly come underneath here.'\n\nThe submissive Tom complied, attended by a crowd.\n\n'What is it, Tootle?' demanded Miss Abbey.\n\n'It's a foreign steamer, miss, run down a wherry.'\n\n'How many in the wherry?'\n\n'One man, Miss Abbey.'\n\n'Found?'\n\n'Yes. He's been under water a long time, Miss; but they've grappled up\nthe body.'\n\n'Let 'em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the house-door and stand\nby it on the inside, and don't you open till I tell you. Any police down\nthere?'\n\n'Here, Miss Abbey,' was official rejoinder.\n\n'After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, will you? And\nhelp Bob Gliddery to shut 'em out.'\n\n'All right, Miss Abbey.'\n\nThe autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah and Miss\nJenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side of her, within the\nhalf-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork.\n\n'You two stand close here,' said Miss Abbey, 'and you'll come to no\nhurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you stand by the door.'\n\nThat sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirt-sleeves an extra and a\nfinal tuck on his shoulders, obeyed.\n\nSound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. Shuffle and talk\nwithout. Momentary pause. Two peculiarly blunt knocks or pokes at the\ndoor, as if the dead man arriving on his back were striking at it with\nthe soles of his motionless feet.\n\n'That's the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the two they are\ncarrying,' said Miss Abbey, with experienced ear. 'Open, you Bob!'\n\nDoor opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A rush. Stoppage of rush.\nDoor shut. Baffled boots from the vexed souls of disappointed outsiders.\n\n'Come on, men!' said Miss Abbey; for so potent was she with her subjects\nthat even then the bearers awaited her permission. 'First floor.'\n\nThe entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so took up the\nburden they had set down, as to carry that low. The recumbent figure, in\npassing, lay hardly as high as the half door.\n\nMiss Abbey started back at sight of it. 'Why, good God!' said she,\nturning to her two companions, 'that's the very man who made the\ndeclaration we have just had in our hands. That's Riderhood!'\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nTHE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE\n\n\nIn sooth, it is Riderhood and no other, or it is the outer husk and\nshell of Riderhood and no other, that is borne into Miss Abbey's\nfirst-floor bedroom. Supple to twist and turn as the Rogue has ever\nbeen, he is sufficiently rigid now; and not without much shuffling of\nattendant feet, and tilting of his bier this way and that way, and\nperil even of his sliding off it and being tumbled in a heap over the\nbalustrades, can he be got up stairs.\n\n'Fetch a doctor,' quoth Miss Abbey. And then, 'Fetch his daughter.' On\nboth of which errands, quick messengers depart.\n\nThe doctor-seeking messenger meets the doctor halfway, coming under\nconvoy of police. Doctor examines the dank carcase, and pronounces, not\nhopefully, that it is worth while trying to reanimate the same. All the\nbest means are at once in action, and everybody present lends a hand,\nand a heart and soul. No one has the least regard for the man; with them\nall, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; but\nthe spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now,\nand they have a deep interest in it, probably because it IS life, and\nthey are living and must die.\n\nIn answer to the doctor's inquiry how did it happen, and was anyone to\nblame, Tom Tootle gives in his verdict, unavoidable accident and no one\nto blame but the sufferer. 'He was slinking about in his boat,' says\nTom, 'which slinking were, not to speak ill of the dead, the manner of\nthe man, when he come right athwart the steamer's bows and she cut him\nin two.' Mr Tootle is so far figurative, touching the dismemberment, as\nthat he means the boat, and not the man. For, the man lies whole before\nthem.\n\nCaptain Joey, the bottle-nosed regular customer in the glazed hat, is a\npupil of the much-respected old school, and (having insinuated himself\ninto the chamber, in the execution of the important service of carrying\nthe drowned man's neck-kerchief) favours the doctor with a sagacious\nold-scholastic suggestion that the body should be hung up by the heels,\n'sim'lar', says Captain Joey, 'to mutton in a butcher's shop,' and\nshould then, as a particularly choice manoeuvre for promoting easy\nrespiration, be rolled upon casks. These scraps of the wisdom of the\ncaptain's ancestors are received with such speechless indignation by\nMiss Abbey, that she instantly seizes the Captain by the collar, and\nwithout a single word ejects him, not presuming to remonstrate, from the\nscene.\n\nThere then remain, to assist the doctor and Tom, only those three other\nregular customers, Bob Glamour, William Williams, and Jonathan (family\nname of the latter, if any, unknown to man-kind), who are quite enough.\nMiss Abbey having looked in to make sure that nothing is wanted,\ndescends to the bar, and there awaits the result, with the gentle Jew\nand Miss Jenny Wren.\n\nIf you are not gone for good, Mr Riderhood, it would be something to\nknow where you are hiding at present. This flabby lump of mortality that\nwe work so hard at with such patient perseverance, yields no sign of\nyou. If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are\ncoming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of\nthe latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is a\nsolemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance\nalike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those below\nstart at the least sound of a creaking plank in the floor.\n\nStay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing low, and closely\nwatching, asks himself.\n\nNo.\n\nDid that nostril twitch?\n\nNo.\n\nThis artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter under\nmy hand upon the chest?\n\nNo.\n\nOver and over again No. No. But try over and over again, nevertheless.\n\nSee! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The spark may\nsmoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see! The four\nrough fellows, seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world, nor\nRiderhood in the other, could draw tears from them; but a striving human\nsoul between the two can do it easily.\n\nHe is struggling to come back. Now, he is almost here, now he is far\naway again. Now he is struggling harder to get back. And yet--like us\nall, when we swoon--like us all, every day of our lives when we wake--he\nis instinctively unwilling to be restored to the consciousness of this\nexistence, and would be left dormant, if he could.\n\nBob Gliddery returns with Pleasant Riderhood, who was out when sought\nfor, and hard to find. She has a shawl over her head, and her first\naction, when she takes it off weeping, and curtseys to Miss Abbey, is to\nwind her hair up.\n\n'Thank you, Miss Abbey, for having father here.'\n\n'I am bound to say, girl, I didn't know who it was,' returns Miss Abbey;\n'but I hope it would have been pretty much the same if I had known.'\n\nPoor Pleasant, fortified with a sip of brandy, is ushered into the\nfirst-floor chamber. She could not express much sentiment about her\nfather if she were called upon to pronounce his funeral oration, but she\nhas a greater tenderness for him than he ever had for her, and crying\nbitterly when she sees him stretched unconscious, asks the doctor, with\nclasped hands: 'Is there no hope, sir? O poor father! Is poor father\ndead?'\n\nTo which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy and watchful,\nonly rejoins without looking round: 'Now, my girl, unless you have the\nself-command to be perfectly quiet, I cannot allow you to remain in the\nroom.'\n\nPleasant, consequently, wipes her eyes with her back-hair, which is in\nfresh need of being wound up, and having got it out of the way, watches\nwith terrified interest all that goes on. Her natural woman's aptitude\nsoon renders her able to give a little help. Anticipating the doctor's\nwant of this or that, she quietly has it ready for him, and so by\ndegrees is intrusted with the charge of supporting her father's head\nupon her arm.\n\nIt is something so new to Pleasant to see her father an object of\nsympathy and interest, to find any one very willing to tolerate his\nsociety in this world, not to say pressingly and soothingly entreating\nhim to belong to it, that it gives her a sensation she never experienced\nbefore. Some hazy idea that if affairs could remain thus for a long time\nit would be a respectable change, floats in her mind. Also some vague\nidea that the old evil is drowned out of him, and that if he should\nhappily come back to resume his occupation of the empty form that lies\nupon the bed, his spirit will be altered. In which state of mind she\nkisses the stony lips, and quite believes that the impassive hand she\nchafes will revive a tender hand, if it revive ever.\n\nSweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister to him with\nsuch extraordinary interest, their anxiety is so keen, their vigilance\nis so great, their excited joy grows so intense as the signs of life\nstrengthen, that how can she resist it, poor thing! And now he begins\nto breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor declares him to have\ncome back from that inexplicable journey where he stopped on the dark\nroad, and to be here.\n\nTom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says this, grasps\nthe doctor fervently by the hand. Bob Glamour, William Williams, and\nJonathan of the no surname, all shake hands with one another round, and\nwith the doctor too. Bob Glamour blows his nose, and Jonathan of the\nno surname is moved to do likewise, but lacking a pocket handkerchief\nabandons that outlet for his emotion. Pleasant sheds tears deserving her\nown name, and her sweet delusion is at its height.\n\nThere is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. He\nwonders where he is. Tell him.\n\n'Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss Abbey\nPotterson's.'\n\nHe stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his eyes, and\nlies slumbering on her arm.\n\nThe short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, unimpressible\nface is coming up from the depths of the river, or what other depths, to\nthe surface again. As he grows warm, the doctor and the four men cool.\nAs his lineaments soften with life, their faces and their hearts harden\nto him.\n\n'He will do now,' says the doctor, washing his hands, and looking at the\npatient with growing disfavour.\n\n'Many a better man,' moralizes Tom Tootle with a gloomy shake of the\nhead, 'ain't had his luck.'\n\n'It's to be hoped he'll make a better use of his life,' says Bob\nGlamour, 'than I expect he will.'\n\n'Or than he done afore,' adds William Williams.\n\n'But no, not he!' says Jonathan of the no surname, clinching the\nquartette.\n\nThey speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she sees that they\nhave all drawn off, and that they stand in a group at the other end of\nthe room, shunning him. It would be too much to suspect them of being\nsorry that he didn't die when he had done so much towards it, but they\nclearly wish that they had had a better subject to bestow their pains\non. Intelligence is conveyed to Miss Abbey in the bar, who reappears on\nthe scene, and contemplates from a distance, holding whispered discourse\nwith the doctor. The spark of life was deeply interesting while it was\nin abeyance, but now that it has got established in Mr Riderhood, there\nappears to be a general desire that circumstances had admitted of its\nbeing developed in anybody else, rather than that gentleman.\n\n'However,' says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, 'you have done your duty\nlike good and true men, and you had better come down and take something\nat the expense of the Porters.'\n\nThis they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. To whom, in\ntheir absence, Bob Gliddery presents himself.\n\n'His gills looks rum; don't they?' says Bob, after inspecting the\npatient.\n\nPleasant faintly nods.\n\n'His gills'll look rummer when he wakes; won't they?' says Bob.\n\nPleasant hopes not. Why?\n\n'When he finds himself here, you know,' Bob explains. 'Cause Miss Abbey\nforbid him the house and ordered him out of it. But what you may call\nthe Fates ordered him into it again. Which is rumness; ain't it?'\n\n'He wouldn't have come here of his own accord,' returns poor Pleasant,\nwith an effort at a little pride.\n\n'No,' retorts Bob. 'Nor he wouldn't have been let in, if he had.'\n\nThe short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as she sees on her\narm the old father, unimproved, Pleasant sees that everybody there will\ncut him when he recovers consciousness. 'I'll take him away ever so soon\nas I can,' thinks Pleasant with a sigh; 'he's best at home.'\n\nPresently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious that\nthey will all be glad to get rid of him. Some clothes are got together\nfor him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and his present\ndress being composed of blankets.\n\nBecoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent dislike\nwere finding him out somewhere in his sleep and expressing itself to\nhim, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by his\ndaughter to sit up in bed.\n\n'Well, Riderhood,' says the doctor, 'how do you feel?'\n\nHe replies gruffly, 'Nothing to boast on.' Having, in fact, returned to\nlife in an uncommonly sulky state.\n\n'I don't mean to preach; but I hope,' says the doctor, gravely shaking\nhis head, 'that this escape may have a good effect upon you, Riderhood.'\n\nThe patient's discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible; his\ndaughter, however, could interpret, if she would, that what he says is,\nhe 'don't want no Poll-Parroting'.\n\nMr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (with\nhis daughter's help) exactly as if he had just had a Fight.\n\n'Warn't it a steamer?' he pauses to ask her.\n\n'Yes, father.'\n\n'I'll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay for it.'\n\nHe then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping to\nexamine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he has received\nin the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowly\ngets them on, with an appearance of great malevolence towards his late\nopponent and all the spectators. He has an impression that his nose is\nbleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, and\nlooks for the result, in a pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening that\nincongruous resemblance.\n\n'Where's my fur cap?' he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled his\nclothes on.\n\n'In the river,' somebody rejoins.\n\n'And warn't there no honest man to pick it up? O' course there was\nthough, and to cut off with it arterwards. You are a rare lot, all on\nyou!'\n\nThus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of his daughter, with special\nill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down over his ears.\nThen, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon her, and\ngrowling, 'Hold still, can't you? What! You must be a staggering next,\nmust you?' he takes his departure out of the ring in which he has had\nthat little turn-up with Death.\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nA HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY\n\n\nMr and Mrs Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred more\nanniversaries of their wedding day than Mr and Mrs Lammle had seen of\ntheirs, but they still celebrated the occasion in the bosom of\ntheir family. Not that these celebrations ever resulted in anything\nparticularly agreeable, or that the family was ever disappointed by that\ncircumstance on account of having looked forward to the return of the\nauspicious day with sanguine anticipations of enjoyment. It was kept\nmorally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, enabling Mrs Wilfer to hold\na sombre darkling state, which exhibited that impressive woman in her\nchoicest colours.\n\nThe noble lady's condition on these delightful occasions was one\ncompounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness. Lurid indications\nof the better marriages she might have made, shone athwart the awful\ngloom of her composure, and fitfully revealed the cherub as a little\nmonster unaccountably favoured by Heaven, who had possessed himself of a\nblessing for which many of his superiors had sued and contended in vain.\nSo firmly had this his position towards his treasure become established,\nthat when the anniversary arrived, it always found him in an apologetic\nstate. It is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gone\nthe length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever took the\nliberty of making so exalted a character his wife.\n\nAs for the children of the union, their experience of these festivals\nhad been sufficiently uncomfortable to lead them annually to wish, when\nout of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married somebody else\ninstead of much-teased Pa, or that Pa had married somebody else instead\nof Ma. When there came to be but two sisters left at home, the daring\nmind of Bella on the next of these occasions scaled the height of\nwondering with droll vexation 'what on earth Pa ever could have seen in\nMa, to induce him to make such a little fool of himself as to ask her to\nhave him.'\n\nThe revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly sequence,\nBella arrived in the Boffin chariot to assist at the celebration. It was\nthe family custom when the day recurred, to sacrifice a pair of fowls\non the altar of Hymen; and Bella had sent a note beforehand, to intimate\nthat she would bring the votive offering with her. So, Bella and the\nfowls, by the united energies of two horses, two men, four wheels, and a\nplum-pudding carriage dog with as uncomfortable a collar on as if he\nhad been George the Fourth, were deposited at the door of the parental\ndwelling. They were there received by Mrs Wilfer in person, whose\ndignity on this, as on most special occasions, was heightened by a\nmysterious toothache.\n\n'I shall not require the carriage at night,' said Bella. 'I shall walk\nback.'\n\nThe male domestic of Mrs Boffin touched his hat, and in the act of\ndeparture had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs Wilfer, intended\nto carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that, whatever his\nprivate suspicions might be, male domestics in livery were no rarity\nthere.\n\n'Well, dear Ma,' said Bella, 'and how do you do?'\n\n'I am as well, Bella,' replied Mrs Wilfer, 'as can be expected.'\n\n'Dear me, Ma,' said Bella; 'you talk as if one was just born!'\n\n'That's exactly what Ma has been doing,' interposed Lavvy, over the\nmaternal shoulder, 'ever since we got up this morning. It's all very\nwell to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible to\nconceive.'\n\nMrs Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied by any\nwords, attended both her daughters to the kitchen, where the sacrifice\nwas to be prepared.\n\n'Mr Rokesmith,' said she, resignedly, 'has been so polite as to place\nhis sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will therefore, Bella, be\nentertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in accordance\nwith your present style of living, that there will be a drawing-room for\nyour reception as well as a dining-room. Your papa invited Mr Rokesmith\nto partake of our lowly fare. In excusing himself on account of a\nparticular engagement, he offered the use of his apartment.'\n\nBella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own room at\nMr Boffin's, but she approved of his staying away. 'We should only have\nput one another out of countenance,' she thought, 'and we do that quite\noften enough as it is.'\n\nYet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it with\nthe least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its contents.\nIt was tastefully though economically furnished, and very neatly\narranged. There were shelves and stands of books, English, French, and\nItalian; and in a portfolio on the writing-table there were sheets upon\nsheets of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently referring to\nthe Boffin property. On that table also, carefully backed with canvas,\nvarnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was the placard descriptive\nof the murdered man who had come from afar to be her husband. She shrank\nfrom this ghostly surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled and\ntied it up again. Peeping about here and there, she came upon a print, a\ngraceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in the corner\nby the easy chair. 'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Bella, after stopping to\nruminate before it. 'Oh, indeed, sir! I fancy I can guess whom you\nthink THAT'S like. But I'll tell you what it's much more like--your\nimpudence!' Having said which she decamped: not solely because she was\noffended, but because there was nothing else to look at.\n\n'Now, Ma,' said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some remains of a\nblush, 'you and Lavvy think magnificent me fit for nothing, but I intend\nto prove the contrary. I mean to be Cook today.'\n\n'Hold!' rejoined her majestic mother. 'I cannot permit it. Cook, in that\ndress!'\n\n'As for my dress, Ma,' returned Bella, merrily searching in a\ndresser-drawer, 'I mean to apron it and towel it all over the front; and\nas to permission, I mean to do without.'\n\n'YOU cook?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'YOU, who never cooked when you were at\nhome?'\n\n'Yes, Ma,' returned Bella; 'that is precisely the state of the case.'\n\nShe girded herself with a white apron, and busily with knots and pins\ncontrived a bib to it, coming close and tight under her chin, as if it\nhad caught her round the neck to kiss her. Over this bib her dimples\nlooked delightful, and under it her pretty figure not less so. 'Now,\nMa,' said Bella, pushing back her hair from her temples with both hands,\n'what's first?'\n\n'First,' returned Mrs Wilfer solemnly, 'if you persist in what I cannot\nbut regard as conduct utterly incompatible with the equipage in which\nyou arrived--'\n\n('Which I do, Ma.')\n\n'First, then, you put the fowls down to the fire.'\n\n'To--be--sure!' cried Bella; 'and flour them, and twirl them round, and\nthere they go!' sending them spinning at a great rate. 'What's next,\nMa?'\n\n'Next,' said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of\nabdication under protest from the culinary throne, 'I would recommend\nexamination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of the\npotatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens will\nfurther become necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour.'\n\n'As of course I do, Ma.'\n\nPersisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot the\nother, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the third, and\nremembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made amends\nwhenever she went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin,\nwhich made their chance of ever getting cooked exceedingly doubtful. But\nit was pleasant cookery too. Meantime Miss Lavinia, oscillating between\nthe kitchen and the opposite room, prepared the dining-table in the\nlatter chamber. This office she (always doing her household spiriting\nwith unwillingness) performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps;\nlaying the table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down\nthe glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the door, and\nclashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive of\nhand-to-hand conflict.\n\n'Look at Ma,' whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and they\nstood over the roasting fowls. 'If one was the most dutiful child in\nexistence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't she enough\nto make one want to poke her with something wooden, sitting there bolt\nupright in a corner?'\n\n'Only suppose,' returned Bella, 'that poor Pa was to sit bolt upright in\nanother corner.'\n\n'My dear, he couldn't do it,' said Lavvy. 'Pa would loll directly. But\nindeed I do not believe there ever was any human creature who could keep\nso bolt upright as Ma, 'or put such an amount of aggravation into one\nback! What's the matter, Ma? Ain't you well, Ma?'\n\n'Doubtless I am very well,' returned Mrs Wilfer, turning her eyes upon\nher youngest born, with scornful fortitude. 'What should be the matter\nwith Me?'\n\n'You don't seem very brisk, Ma,' retorted Lavvy the bold.\n\n'Brisk?' repeated her parent, 'Brisk? Whence the low expression,\nLavinia? If I am uncomplaining, if I am silently contented with my lot,\nlet that suffice for my family.'\n\n'Well, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'since you will force it out of me, I must\nrespectfully take leave to say that your family are no doubt under\nthe greatest obligations to you for having an annual toothache on your\nwedding day, and that it's very disinterested in you, and an immense\nblessing to them. Still, on the whole, it is possible to be too boastful\neven of that boon.'\n\n'You incarnation of sauciness,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'do you speak like that\nto me? On this day, of all days in the year? Pray do you know what\nwould have become of you, if I had not bestowed my hand upon R. W., your\nfather, on this day?'\n\n'No, Ma,' replied Lavvy, 'I really do not; and, with the greatest\nrespect for your abilities and information, I very much doubt if you do\neither.'\n\nWhether or no the sharp vigour of this sally on a weak point of Mrs\nWilfer's entrenchments might have routed that heroine for the time, is\nrendered uncertain by the arrival of a flag of truce in the person of\nMr George Sampson: bidden to the feast as a friend of the family, whose\naffections were now understood to be in course of transference from\nBella to Lavinia, and whom Lavinia kept--possibly in remembrance of his\nbad taste in having overlooked her in the first instance--under a course\nof stinging discipline.\n\n'I congratulate you, Mrs Wilfer,' said Mr George Sampson, who had\nmeditated this neat address while coming along, 'on the day.' Mrs Wilfer\nthanked him with a magnanimous sigh, and again became an unresisting\nprey to that inscrutable toothache.\n\n'I am surprised,' said Mr Sampson feebly, 'that Miss Bella condescends\nto cook.'\n\nHere Miss Lavinia descended on the ill-starred young gentleman with a\ncrushing supposition that at all events it was no business of his. This\ndisposed of Mr Sampson in a melancholy retirement of spirit, until the\ncherub arrived, whose amazement at the lovely woman's occupation was\ngreat.\n\nHowever, she persisted in dishing the dinner as well as cooking it, and\nthen sat down, bibless and apronless, to partake of it as an illustrious\nguest: Mrs Wilfer first responding to her husband's cheerful 'For what\nwe are about to receive--' with a sepulchral Amen, calculated to cast a\ndamp upon the stoutest appetite.\n\n'But what,' said Bella, as she watched the carving of the fowls, 'makes\nthem pink inside, I wonder, Pa! Is it the breed?'\n\n'No, I don't think it's the breed, my dear,' returned Pa. 'I rather\nthink it is because they are not done.'\n\n'They ought to be,' said Bella.\n\n'Yes, I am aware they ought to be, my dear,' rejoined her father, 'but\nthey--ain't.'\n\nSo, the gridiron was put in requisition, and the good-tempered cherub,\nwho was often as un-cherubically employed in his own family as if he had\nbeen in the employment of some of the Old Masters, undertook to grill\nthe fowls. Indeed, except in respect of staring about him (a branch of\nthe public service to which the pictorial cherub is much addicted), this\ndomestic cherub discharged as many odd functions as his prototype; with\nthe difference, say, that he performed with a blacking-brush on the\nfamily's boots, instead of performing on enormous wind instruments and\ndouble-basses, and that he conducted himself with cheerful alacrity to\nmuch useful purpose, instead of foreshortening himself in the air with\nthe vaguest intentions.\n\nBella helped him with his supplemental cookery, and made him very happy,\nbut put him in mortal terror too by asking him when they sat down at\ntable again, how he supposed they cooked fowls at the Greenwich dinners,\nand whether he believed they really were such pleasant dinners as people\nsaid? His secret winks and nods of remonstrance, in reply, made the\nmischievous Bella laugh until she choked, and then Lavinia was obliged\nto slap her on the back, and then she laughed the more.\n\nBut her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of the table; to\nwhom her father, in the innocence of his good-fellowship, at intervals\nappealed with: 'My dear, I am afraid you are not enjoying yourself?'\n\n'Why so, R. W.?' she would sonorously reply.\n\n'Because, my dear, you seem a little out of sorts.'\n\n'Not at all,' would be the rejoinder, in exactly the same tone.\n\n'Would you take a merry-thought, my dear?'\n\n'Thank you. I will take whatever you please, R. W.'\n\n'Well, but my dear, do you like it?'\n\n'I like it as well as I like anything, R. W.' The stately woman would\nthen, with a meritorious appearance of devoting herself to the general\ngood, pursue her dinner as if she were feeding somebody else on high\npublic grounds.\n\nBella had brought dessert and two bottles of wine, thus shedding\nunprecedented splendour on the occasion. Mrs Wilfer did the honours of\nthe first glass by proclaiming: 'R. W. I drink to you.\n\n'Thank you, my dear. And I to you.'\n\n'Pa and Ma!' said Bella.\n\n'Permit me,' Mrs Wilfer interposed, with outstretched glove. 'No. I\nthink not. I drank to your papa. If, however, you insist on including\nme, I can in gratitude offer no objection.'\n\n'Why, Lor, Ma,' interposed Lavvy the bold, 'isn't it the day that made\nyou and Pa one and the same? I have no patience!'\n\n'By whatever other circumstance the day may be marked, it is not the\nday, Lavinia, on which I will allow a child of mine to pounce upon me.\nI beg--nay, command!--that you will not pounce. R. W., it is appropriate\nto recall that it is for you to command and for me to obey. It is your\nhouse, and you are master at your own table. Both our healths!' Drinking\nthe toast with tremendous stiffness.\n\n'I really am a little afraid, my dear,' hinted the cherub meekly, 'that\nyou are not enjoying yourself?'\n\n'On the contrary,' returned Mrs Wilfer, 'quite so. Why should I not?'\n\n'I thought, my dear, that perhaps your face might--'\n\n'My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that import, or who should\nknow it, if I smiled?'\n\nAnd she did smile; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr George Sampson\nby so doing. For that young gentleman, catching her smiling eye, was so\nvery much appalled by its expression as to cast about in his thoughts\nconcerning what he had done to bring it down upon himself.\n\n'The mind naturally falls,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'shall I say into a\nreverie, or shall I say into a retrospect? on a day like this.'\n\nLavvy, sitting with defiantly folded arms, replied (but not audibly),\n'For goodness' sake say whichever of the two you like best, Ma, and get\nit over.'\n\n'The mind,' pursued Mrs Wilfer in an oratorical manner, 'naturally\nreverts to Papa and Mamma--I here allude to my parents--at a period\nbefore the earliest dawn of this day. I was considered tall; perhaps I\nwas. Papa and Mamma were unquestionably tall. I have rarely seen a finer\nwomen than my mother; never than my father.'\n\nThe irrepressible Lavvy remarked aloud, 'Whatever grandpapa was, he\nwasn't a female.'\n\n'Your grandpapa,' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with an awful look, and in an\nawful tone, 'was what I describe him to have been, and would have struck\nany of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question it. It\nwas one of mamma's cherished hopes that I should become united to a\ntall member of society. It may have been a weakness, but if so, it was\nequally the weakness, I believe, of King Frederick of Prussia.' These\nremarks being offered to Mr George Sampson, who had not the courage to\ncome out for single combat, but lurked with his chest under the table\nand his eyes cast down, Mrs Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasing\nsternness and impressiveness, until she should force that skulker\nto give himself up. 'Mamma would appear to have had an indefinable\nforeboding of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urge\nupon me, \"Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man.\nNever, never, never, marry a little man!\" Papa also would remark to me\n(he possessed extraordinary humour), \"that a family of whales must not\nally themselves with sprats.\" His company was eagerly sought, as may\nbe supposed, by the wits of the day, and our house was their continual\nresort. I have known as many as three copper-plate engravers exchanging\nthe most exquisite sallies and retorts there, at one time.' (Here Mr\nSampson delivered himself captive, and said, with an uneasy movement on\nhis chair, that three was a large number, and it must have been highly\nentertaining.) 'Among the most prominent members of that distinguished\ncircle, was a gentleman measuring six feet four in height. HE was NOT\nan engraver.' (Here Mr Sampson said, with no reason whatever, Of course\nnot.) 'This gentleman was so obliging as to honour me with attentions\nwhich I could not fail to understand.' (Here Mr Sampson murmured that\nwhen it came to that, you could always tell.) 'I immediately announced\nto both my parents that those attentions were misplaced, and that I\ncould not favour his suit. They inquired was he too tall? I replied it\nwas not the stature, but the intellect was too lofty. At our house,\nI said, the tone was too brilliant, the pressure was too high, to be\nmaintained by me, a mere woman, in every-day domestic life. I well\nremember mamma's clasping her hands, and exclaiming \"This will end in\na little man!\"' (Here Mr Sampson glanced at his host and shook his head\nwith despondency.) 'She afterwards went so far as to predict that it\nwould end in a little man whose mind would be below the average, but\nthat was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal disappointment.\nWithin a month,' said Mrs Wilfer, deepening her voice, as if she were\nrelating a terrible ghost story, 'within a-month, I first saw R. W. my\nhusband. Within a year, I married him. It is natural for the mind to\nrecall these dark coincidences on the present day.'\n\nMr Sampson at length released from the custody of Mrs Wilfer's eye, now\ndrew a long breath, and made the original and striking remark that there\nwas no accounting for these sort of presentiments. R. W. scratched his\nhead and looked apologetically all round the table until he came to his\nwife, when observing her as it were shrouded in a more sombre veil than\nbefore, he once more hinted, 'My dear, I am really afraid you are not\naltogether enjoying yourself?' To which she once more replied, 'On the\ncontrary, R. W. Quite so.'\n\nThe wretched Mr Sampson's position at this agreeable entertainment\nwas truly pitiable. For, not only was he exposed defenceless to the\nharangues of Mrs Wilfer, but he received the utmost contumely at the\nhands of Lavinia; who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could do\nwhat she liked with him, and partly to pay him off for still obviously\nadmiring Bella's beauty, led him the life of a dog. Illuminated on the\none hand by the stately graces of Mrs Wilfer's oratory, and shadowed\non the other by the checks and frowns of the young lady to whom he\nhad devoted himself in his destitution, the sufferings of this young\ngentleman were distressing to witness. If his mind for the moment reeled\nunder them, it may be urged, in extenuation of its weakness, that it\nwas constitutionally a knock-knee'd mind and never very strong upon its\nlegs.\n\nThe rosy hours were thus beguiled until it was time for Bella to have\nPa's escort back. The dimples duly tied up in the bonnet-strings and the\nleave-taking done, they got out into the air, and the cherub drew a long\nbreath as if he found it refreshing.\n\n'Well, dear Pa,' said Bella, 'the anniversary may be considered over.'\n\n'Yes, my dear,' returned the cherub, 'there's another of 'em gone.'\n\nBella drew his arm closer through hers as they walked along, and gave it\na number of consolatory pats. 'Thank you, my dear,' he said, as if\nshe had spoken; 'I am all right, my dear. Well, and how do you get on,\nBella?'\n\n'I am not at all improved, Pa.'\n\n'Ain't you really though?'\n\n'No, Pa. On the contrary, I am worse.'\n\n'Lor!' said the cherub.\n\n'I am worse, Pa. I make so many calculations how much a year I must have\nwhen I marry, and what is the least I can manage to do with, that I am\nbeginning to get wrinkles over my nose. Did you notice any wrinkles over\nmy nose this evening, Pa?'\n\nPa laughing at this, Bella gave him two or three shakes.\n\n'You won't laugh, sir, when you see your lovely woman turning haggard.\nYou had better be prepared in time, I can tell you. I shall not be able\nto keep my greediness for money out of my eyes long, and when you see it\nthere you'll be sorry, and serve you right for not being warned in time.\nNow, sir, we entered into a bond of confidence. Have you anything to\nimpart?'\n\n'I thought it was you who was to impart, my love.'\n\n'Oh! did you indeed, sir? Then why didn't you ask me, the moment we came\nout? The confidences of lovely women are not to be slighted. However, I\nforgive you this once, and look here, Pa; that's'--Bella laid the\nlittle forefinger of her right glove on her lip, and then laid it on her\nfather's lip--'that's a kiss for you. And now I am going seriously\nto tell you--let me see how many--four secrets. Mind! Serious, grave,\nweighty secrets. Strictly between ourselves.'\n\n'Number one, my dear?' said her father, settling her arm comfortably and\nconfidentially.\n\n'Number one,' said Bella, 'will electrify you, Pa. Who do you think\nhas'--she was confused here in spite of her merry way of beginning 'has\nmade an offer to me?'\n\nPa looked in her face, and looked at the ground, and looked in her face\nagain, and declared he could never guess.\n\n'Mr Rokesmith.'\n\n'You don't tell me so, my dear!'\n\n'Mis--ter Roke--smith, Pa,' said Bella separating the syllables for\nemphasis. 'What do you say to THAT?'\n\nPa answered quietly with the counter-question, 'What did YOU say to\nthat, my love?'\n\n'I said No,' returned Bella sharply. 'Of course.'\n\n'Yes. Of course,' said her father, meditating.\n\n'And I told him why I thought it a betrayal of trust on his part, and an\naffront to me,' said Bella.\n\n'Yes. To be sure. I am astonished indeed. I wonder he committed himself\nwithout seeing more of his way first. Now I think of it, I suspect he\nalways has admired you though, my dear.'\n\n'A hackney coachman may admire me,' remarked Bella, with a touch of her\nmother's loftiness.\n\n'It's highly probable, my love. Number two, my dear?'\n\n'Number two, Pa, is much to the same purpose, though not so\npreposterous. Mr Lightwood would propose to me, if I would let him.'\n\n'Then I understand, my dear, that you don't intend to let him?'\n\nBella again saying, with her former emphasis, 'Why, of course not!' her\nfather felt himself bound to echo, 'Of course not.'\n\n'I don't care for him,' said Bella.\n\n'That's enough,' her father interposed.\n\n'No, Pa, it's NOT enough,' rejoined Bella, giving him another shake or\ntwo. 'Haven't I told you what a mercenary little wretch I am? It\nonly becomes enough when he has no money, and no clients, and no\nexpectations, and no anything but debts.'\n\n'Hah!' said the cherub, a little depressed. 'Number three, my dear?'\n\n'Number three, Pa, is a better thing. A generous thing, a noble thing, a\ndelightful thing. Mrs Boffin has herself told me, as a secret, with her\nown kind lips--and truer lips never opened or closed in this life, I am\nsure--that they wish to see me well married; and that when I marry with\ntheir consent they will portion me most handsomely.' Here the grateful\ngirl burst out crying very heartily.\n\n'Don't cry, my darling,' said her father, with his hand to his eyes;\n'it's excusable in me to be a little overcome when I find that my dear\nfavourite child is, after all disappointments, to be so provided for\nand so raised in the world; but don't YOU cry, don't YOU cry. I am very\nthankful. I congratulate you with all my heart, my dear.' The good soft\nlittle fellow, drying his eyes, here, Bella put her arms round his neck\nand tenderly kissed him on the high road, passionately telling him\nhe was the best of fathers and the best of friends, and that on her\nwedding-morning she would go down on her knees to him and beg his pardon\nfor having ever teased him or seemed insensible to the worth of such\na patient, sympathetic, genial, fresh young heart. At every one of her\nadjectives she redoubled her kisses, and finally kissed his hat off, and\nthen laughed immoderately when the wind took it and he ran after it.\n\nWhen he had recovered his hat and his breath, and they were going on\nagain once more, said her father then: 'Number four, my dear?'\n\nBella's countenance fell in the midst of her mirth. 'After all, perhaps\nI had better put off number four, Pa. Let me try once more, if for never\nso short a time, to hope that it may not really be so.'\n\nThe change in her, strengthened the cherub's interest in number four,\nand he said quietly: 'May not be so, my dear? May not be how, my dear?'\n\nBella looked at him pensively, and shook her head.\n\n'And yet I know right well it is so, Pa. I know it only too well.'\n\n'My love,' returned her father, 'you make me quite uncomfortable. Have\nyou said No to anybody else, my dear?'\n\n'No, Pa.'\n\n'Yes to anybody?' he suggested, lifting up his eyebrows.\n\n'No, Pa.'\n\n'Is there anybody else who would take his chance between Yes and No, if\nyou would let him, my dear?'\n\n'Not that I know of, Pa.'\n\n'There can't be somebody who won't take his chance when you want him\nto?' said the cherub, as a last resource.\n\n'Why, of course not, Pa,' said Bella, giving him another shake or two.\n\n'No, of course not,' he assented. 'Bella, my dear, I am afraid I must\neither have no sleep to-night, or I must press for number four.'\n\n'Oh, Pa, there is no good in number four! I am so sorry for it, I am so\nunwilling to believe it, I have tried so earnestly not to see it, that\nit is very hard to tell, even to you. But Mr Boffin is being spoilt by\nprosperity, and is changing every day.'\n\n'My dear Bella, I hope and trust not.'\n\n'I have hoped and trusted not too, Pa; but every day he changes for\nthe worse, and for the worse. Not to me--he is always much the same\nto me--but to others about him. Before my eyes he grows suspicious,\ncapricious, hard, tyrannical, unjust. If ever a good man were ruined by\ngood fortune, it is my benefactor. And yet, Pa, think how terrible the\nfascination of money is! I see this, and hate this, and dread this, and\ndon't know but that money might make a much worse change in me. And yet\nI have money always in my thoughts and my desires; and the whole life I\nplace before myself is money, money, money, and what money can make of\nlife!'\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nTHE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY\n\n\nWere Bella Wilfer's bright and ready little wits at fault, or was the\nGolden Dustman passing through the furnace of proof and coming out\ndross? Ill news travels fast. We shall know full soon.\n\nOn that very night of her return from the Happy Return, something\nchanced which Bella closely followed with her eyes and ears. There was\nan apartment at the side of the Boffin mansion, known as Mr Boffin's\nroom. Far less grand than the rest of the house, it was far more\ncomfortable, being pervaded by a certain air of homely snugness, which\nupholstering despotism had banished to that spot when it inexorably set\nits face against Mr Boffin's appeals for mercy in behalf of any other\nchamber. Thus, although a room of modest situation--for its windows gave\non Silas Wegg's old corner--and of no pretensions to velvet, satin, or\ngilding, it had got itself established in a domestic position analogous\nto that of an easy dressing-gown or pair of slippers; and whenever the\nfamily wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant fireside evening, they\nenjoyed it, as an institution that must be, in Mr Boffin's room.\n\nMr and Mrs Boffin were reported sitting in this room, when Bella got\nback. Entering it, she found the Secretary there too; in official\nattendance it would appear, for he was standing with some papers in his\nhand by a table with shaded candles on it, at which Mr Boffin was seated\nthrown back in his easy chair.\n\n'You are busy, sir,' said Bella, hesitating at the door.\n\n'Not at all, my dear, not at all. You're one of ourselves. We never\nmake company of you. Come in, come in. Here's the old lady in her usual\nplace.'\n\nMrs Boffin adding her nod and smile of welcome to Mr Boffin's words,\nBella took her book to a chair in the fireside corner, by Mrs Boffin's\nwork-table. Mr Boffin's station was on the opposite side.\n\n'Now, Rokesmith,' said the Golden Dustman, so sharply rapping the table\nto bespeak his attention as Bella turned the leaves of her book, that\nshe started; 'where were we?'\n\n'You were saying, sir,' returned the Secretary, with an air of some\nreluctance and a glance towards those others who were present, 'that you\nconsidered the time had come for fixing my salary.'\n\n'Don't be above calling it wages, man,' said Mr Boffin, testily. 'What\nthe deuce! I never talked of any salary when I was in service.'\n\n'My wages,' said the Secretary, correcting himself.\n\n'Rokesmith, you are not proud, I hope?' observed Mr Boffin, eyeing him\naskance.\n\n'I hope not, sir.'\n\n'Because I never was, when I was poor,' said Mr Boffin. 'Poverty and\npride don't go at all well together. Mind that. How can they go well\ntogether? Why it stands to reason. A man, being poor, has nothing to be\nproud of. It's nonsense.'\n\nWith a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some surprise,\nthe Secretary seemed to assent by forming the syllables of the word\n'nonsense' on his lips.\n\n'Now, concerning these same wages,' said Mr Boffin. 'Sit down.'\n\nThe Secretary sat down.\n\n'Why didn't you sit down before?' asked Mr Boffin, distrustfully. 'I\nhope that wasn't pride? But about these wages. Now, I've gone into the\nmatter, and I say two hundred a year. What do you think of it? Do you\nthink it's enough?'\n\n'Thank you. It is a fair proposal.'\n\n'I don't say, you know,' Mr Boffin stipulated, 'but what it may be more\nthan enough. And I'll tell you why, Rokesmith. A man of property, like\nme, is bound to consider the market-price. At first I didn't enter into\nthat as much as I might have done; but I've got acquainted with other\nmen of property since, and I've got acquainted with the duties of\nproperty. I mustn't go putting the market-price up, because money may\nhappen not to be an object with me. A sheep is worth so much in the\nmarket, and I ought to give it and no more. A secretary is worth so much\nin the market, and I ought to give it and no more. However, I don't mind\nstretching a point with you.'\n\n'Mr Boffin, you are very good,' replied the Secretary, with an effort.\n\n'Then we put the figure,' said Mr Boffin, 'at two hundred a year.\nThen the figure's disposed of. Now, there must be no misunderstanding\nregarding what I buy for two hundred a year. If I pay for a sheep, I buy\nit out and out. Similarly, if I pay for a secretary, I buy HIM out and\nout.'\n\n'In other words, you purchase my whole time?'\n\n'Certainly I do. Look here,' said Mr Boffin, 'it ain't that I want to\noccupy your whole time; you can take up a book for a minute or two when\nyou've nothing better to do, though I think you'll a'most always find\nsomething useful to do. But I want to keep you in attendance. It's\nconvenient to have you at all times ready on the premises. Therefore,\nbetwixt your breakfast and your supper,--on the premises I expect to\nfind you.'\n\nThe Secretary bowed.\n\n'In bygone days, when I was in service myself,' said Mr Boffin, 'I\ncouldn't go cutting about at my will and pleasure, and you won't expect\nto go cutting about at your will and pleasure. You've rather got into\na habit of that, lately; but perhaps it was for want of a right\nspecification betwixt us. Now, let there be a right specification\nbetwixt us, and let it be this. If you want leave, ask for it.'\n\nAgain the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and astonished, and\nshowed a sense of humiliation.\n\n'I'll have a bell,' said Mr Boffin, 'hung from this room to yours,\nand when I want you, I'll touch it. I don't call to mind that I have\nanything more to say at the present moment.'\n\nThe Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. Bella's eyes\nfollowed him to the door, lighted on Mr Boffin complacently thrown back\nin his easy chair, and drooped over her book.\n\n'I have let that chap, that young man of mine,' said Mr Boffin, taking a\ntrot up and down the room, 'get above his work. It won't do. I must have\nhim down a peg. A man of property owes a duty to other men of property,\nand must look sharp after his inferiors.'\n\nBella felt that Mrs Boffin was not comfortable, and that the eyes of\nthat good creature sought to discover from her face what attention she\nhad given to this discourse, and what impression it had made upon her.\nFor which reason Bella's eyes drooped more engrossedly over her book,\nand she turned the page with an air of profound absorption in it.\n\n'Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, after thoughtfully pausing in her work.\n\n'My dear,' returned the Golden Dustman, stopping short in his trot.\n\n'Excuse my putting it to you, Noddy, but now really! Haven't you been\na little strict with Mr Rokesmith to-night? Haven't you been a\nlittle--just a little little--not quite like your old self?'\n\n'Why, old woman, I hope so,' returned Mr Boffin, cheerfully, if not\nboastfully.\n\n'Hope so, deary?'\n\n'Our old selves wouldn't do here, old lady. Haven't you found that out\nyet? Our old selves would be fit for nothing here but to be robbed and\nimposed upon. Our old selves weren't people of fortune; our new selves\nare; it's a great difference.'\n\n'Ah!' said Mrs Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly to draw a long\nbreath and to look at the fire. 'A great difference.'\n\n'And we must be up to the difference,' pursued her husband; 'we must be\nequal to the change; that's what we must be. We've got to hold our own\nnow, against everybody (for everybody's hand is stretched out to be\ndipped into our pockets), and we have got to recollect that money makes\nmoney, as well as makes everything else.'\n\n'Mentioning recollecting,' said Mrs Boffin, with her work abandoned,\nher eyes upon the fire, and her chin upon her hand, 'do you recollect,\nNoddy, how you said to Mr Rokesmith when he first came to see us at the\nBower, and you engaged him--how you said to him that if it had pleased\nHeaven to send John Harmon to his fortune safe, we could have been\ncontent with the one Mound which was our legacy, and should never have\nwanted the rest?'\n\n'Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn't tried what it was to have the\nrest then. Our new shoes had come home, but we hadn't put 'em on. We're\nwearing 'em now, we're wearing 'em, and must step out accordingly.'\n\nMrs Boffin took up her work again, and plied her needle in silence.\n\n'As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine,' said Mr Boffin, dropping\nhis voice and glancing towards the door with an apprehension of being\noverheard by some eavesdropper there, 'it's the same with him as with\nthe footmen. I have found out that you must either scrunch them, or let\nthem scrunch you. If you ain't imperious with 'em, they won't believe\nin your being any better than themselves, if as good, after the stories\n(lies mostly) that they have heard of your beginnings. There's nothing\nbetwixt stiffening yourself up, and throwing yourself away; take my word\nfor that, old lady.'\n\nBella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him under her\neyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion, covetousness, and\nconceit, overshadowing the once open face.\n\n'Hows'ever,' said he, 'this isn't entertaining to Miss Bella. Is it,\nBella?'\n\nA deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pensively abstracted\nair, as if her mind were full of her book, and she had not heard a\nsingle word!\n\n'Hah! Better employed than to attend to it,' said Mr Boffin. 'That's\nright, that's right. Especially as you have no call to be told how to\nvalue yourself, my dear.'\n\nColouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, 'I hope sir,\nyou don't think me vain?'\n\n'Not a bit, my dear,' said Mr Boffin. 'But I think it's very creditable\nin you, at your age, to be so well up with the pace of the world, and to\nknow what to go in for. You are right. Go in for money, my love. Money's\nthe article. You'll make money of your good looks, and of the money Mrs\nBoffin and me will have the pleasure of settling upon you, and you'll\nlive and die rich. That's the state to live and die in!' said Mr Boffin,\nin an unctuous manner. R--r--rich!'\n\nThere was an expression of distress in Mrs Boffin's face, as, after\nwatching her husband's, she turned to their adopted girl, and said:\n\n'Don't mind him, Bella, my dear.'\n\n'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin. 'What! Not mind him?'\n\n'I don't mean that,' said Mrs Boffin, with a worried look, 'but I mean,\ndon't believe him to be anything but good and generous, Bella, because\nhe is the best of men. No, I must say that much, Noddy. You are always\nthe best of men.'\n\nShe made the declaration as if he were objecting to it: which assuredly\nhe was not in any way.\n\n'And as to you, my dear Bella,' said Mrs Boffin, still with that\ndistressed expression, 'he is so much attached to you, whatever he says,\nthat your own father has not a truer interest in you and can hardly like\nyou better than he does.'\n\n'Says too!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Whatever he says! Why, I say so, openly.\nGive me a kiss, my dear child, in saying Good Night, and let me confirm\nwhat my old lady tells you. I am very fond of you, my dear, and I am\nentirely of your mind, and you and I will take care that you shall be\nrich. These good looks of yours (which you have some right to be vain\nof; my dear, though you are not, you know) are worth money, and you\nshall make money of 'em. The money you will have, will be worth money,\nand you shall make money of that too. There's a golden ball at your\nfeet. Good night, my dear.'\n\nSomehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance and this\nprospect as she might have been. Somehow, when she put her arms\nround Mrs Boffin's neck and said Good Night, she derived a sense of\nunworthiness from the still anxious face of that good woman and her\nobvious wish to excuse her husband. 'Why, what need to excuse him?'\nthought Bella, sitting down in her own room. 'What he said was very\nsensible, I am sure, and very true, I am sure. It is only what I often\nsay to myself. Don't I like it then? No, I don't like it, and, though\nhe is my liberal benefactor, I disparage him for it. Then pray,' said\nBella, sternly putting the question to herself in the looking-glass as\nusual, 'what do you mean by this, you inconsistent little Beast?'\n\nThe looking-glass preserving a discreet ministerial silence when thus\ncalled upon for explanation, Bella went to bed with a weariness upon her\nspirit which was more than the weariness of want of sleep. And again\nin the morning, she looked for the cloud, and for the deepening of the\ncloud, upon the Golden Dustman's face.\n\nShe had begun by this time to be his frequent companion in his morning\nstrolls about the streets, and it was at this time that he made her a\nparty to his engaging in a curious pursuit. Having been hard at work in\none dull enclosure all his life, he had a child's delight in looking\nat shops. It had been one of the first novelties and pleasures of his\nfreedom, and was equally the delight of his wife. For many years their\nonly walks in London had been taken on Sundays when the shops were shut;\nand when every day in the week became their holiday, they derived an\nenjoyment from the variety and fancy and beauty of the display in the\nwindows, which seemed incapable of exhaustion. As if the principal\nstreets were a great Theatre and the play were childishly new to them,\nMr and Mrs Boffin, from the beginning of Bella's intimacy in their\nhouse, had been constantly in the front row, charmed with all they saw\nand applauding vigorously. But now, Mr Boffin's interest began to centre\nin book-shops; and more than that--for that of itself would not have\nbeen much--in one exceptional kind of book.\n\n'Look in here, my dear,' Mr Boffin would say, checking Bella's arm at a\nbookseller's window; 'you can read at sight, and your eyes are as sharp\nas they're bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if you\nsee any book about a Miser.'\n\nIf Bella saw such a book, Mr Boffin would instantly dart in and buy\nit. And still, as if they had not found it, they would seek out another\nbook-shop, and Mr Boffin would say, 'Now, look well all round, my\ndear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any Lives of odd\ncharacters who may have been Misers.'\n\nBella, thus directed, would examine the window with the greatest\nattention, while Mr Boffin would examine her face. The moment she\npointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric personages,\nAnecdotes of strange characters, Records of remarkable individuals, or\nanything to that purpose, Mr Boffin's countenance would light up, and\nhe would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, price, quality, were of no\naccount. Any book that seemed to promise a chance of miserly biography,\nMr Boffin purchased without a moment's delay and carried home. Happening\nto be informed by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register was\ndevoted to 'Characters', Mr Boffin at once bought a whole set of that\ningenious compilation, and began to carry it home piecemeal, confiding\na volume to Bella, and bearing three himself. The completion of this\nlabour occupied them about a fortnight. When the task was done, Mr\nBoffin, with his appetite for Misers whetted instead of satiated, began\nto look out again.\n\nIt very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, and an\nunderstanding was established between her and Mr Boffin that she was\nalways to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after morning they roamed\nabout the town together, pursuing this singular research. Miserly\nliterature not being abundant, the proportion of failures to successes\nmay have been as a hundred to one; still Mr Boffin, never wearied,\nremained as avaricious for misers as he had been at the first onset. It\nwas curious that Bella never saw the books about the house, nor did she\never hear from Mr Boffin one word of reference to their contents. He\nseemed to save up his Misers as they had saved up their money. As they\nhad been greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so he\nwas greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond all\ndoubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella very clearly noticed, that,\nas he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records with the ardour of\nDon Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began to spend his money with\na more sparing hand. And often when he came out of a shop with some new\naccount of one of those wretched lunatics, she would almost shrink from\nthe sly dry chuckle with which he would take her arm again and trot\naway. It did not appear that Mrs Boffin knew of this taste. He made\nno allusion to it, except in the morning walks when he and Bella were\nalways alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that he took her\ninto his confidence by implication, and partly in remembrance of Mrs\nBoffin's anxious face that night, held the same reserve.\n\nWhile these occurrences were in progress, Mrs Lammle made the discovery\nthat Bella had a fascinating influence over her. The Lammles, originally\npresented by the dear Veneerings, visited the Boffins on all grand\noccasions, and Mrs Lammle had not previously found this out; but now the\nknowledge came upon her all at once. It was a most extraordinary thing\n(she said to Mrs Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the power of\nbeauty, but it wasn't altogether that; she never had been able to resist\na natural grace of manner, but it wasn't altogether that; it was more\nthan that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree\nto which she was captivated by this charming girl.\n\nThis charming girl having the words repeated to her by Mrs Boffin (who\nwas proud of her being admired, and would have done anything to give her\npleasure), naturally recognized in Mrs Lammle a woman of penetration\nand taste. Responding to the sentiments, by being very gracious to Mrs\nLammle, she gave that lady the means of so improving her opportunity,\nas that the captivation became reciprocal, though always wearing an\nappearance of greater sobriety on Bella's part than on the enthusiastic\nSophronia's. Howbeit, they were so much together that, for a time, the\nBoffin chariot held Mrs Lammle oftener than Mrs Boffin: a preference\nof which the latter worthy soul was not in the least jealous, placidly\nremarking, 'Mrs Lammle is a younger companion for her than I am, and\nLor! she's more fashionable.'\n\nBut between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there was this one\ndifference, among many others, that Bella was in no danger of being\ncaptivated by Alfred. She distrusted and disliked him. Indeed, her\nperception was so quick, and her observation so sharp, that after all\nshe mistrusted his wife too, though with her giddy vanity and wilfulness\nshe squeezed the mistrust away into a corner of her mind, and blocked it\nup there.\n\nMrs Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella's making a good match.\nMrs Lammle said, in a sportive way, she really must show her beautiful\nBella what kind of wealthy creatures she and Alfred had on hand, who\nwould as one man fall at her feet enslaved. Fitting occasion made,\nMrs Lammle accordingly produced the most passable of those feverish,\nboastful, and indefinably loose gentlemen who were always lounging in\nand out of the City on questions of the Bourse and Greek and Spanish and\nIndia and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three-quarters\nand seven-eighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to Bella\nas if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred horse, well-built\ndrag, and remarkable pipe. But without the least effect, though even Mr\nFledgeby's attractions were cast into the scale.\n\n'I fear, Bella dear,' said Mrs Lammle one day in the chariot, 'that you\nwill be very hard to please.'\n\n'I don't expect to be pleased, dear,' said Bella, with a languid turn of\nher eyes.\n\n'Truly, my love,' returned Sophronia, shaking her head, and smiling\nher best smile, 'it would not be very easy to find a man worthy of your\nattractions.'\n\n'The question is not a man, my dear,' said Bella, coolly, 'but an\nestablishment.'\n\n'My love,' returned Mrs Lammle, 'your prudence amazes me--where DID you\nstudy life so well!--you are right. In such a case as yours, the object\nis a fitting establishment. You could not descend to an inadequate one\nfrom Mr Boffin's house, and even if your beauty alone could not command\nit, it is to be assumed that Mr and Mrs Boffin will--'\n\n'Oh! they have already,' Bella interposed.\n\n'No! Have they really?'\n\nA little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken precipitately, and\nwithal a little defiant of her own vexation, Bella determined not to\nretreat.\n\n'That is to say,' she explained, 'they have told me they mean to portion\nme as their adopted child, if you mean that. But don't mention it.'\n\n'Mention it!' replied Mrs Lammle, as if she were full of awakened\nfeeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. 'Men-tion it!'\n\n'I don't mind telling you, Mrs Lammle--' Bella began again.\n\n'My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella.'\n\nWith a little short, petulant 'Oh!' Bella complied. 'Oh!--Sophronia\nthen--I don't mind telling you, Sophronia, that I am convinced I have\nno heart, as people call it; and that I think that sort of thing is\nnonsense.'\n\n'Brave girl!' murmured Mrs Lammle.\n\n'And so,' pursued Bella, 'as to seeking to please myself, I don't;\nexcept in the one respect I have mentioned. I am indifferent otherwise.'\n\n'But you can't help pleasing, Bella,' said Mrs Lammle, rallying her with\nan arch look and her best smile, 'you can't help making a proud and an\nadmiring husband. You may not care to please yourself, and you may not\ncare to please him, but you are not a free agent as to pleasing: you\nare forced to do that, in spite of yourself, my dear; so it may be a\nquestion whether you may not as well please yourself too, if you can.'\n\nNow, the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon proving that she\nactually did please in spite of herself. She had a misgiving that she\nwas doing wrong--though she had an indistinct foreshadowing that some\nharm might come of it thereafter, she little thought what consequences\nit would really bring about--but she went on with her confidence.\n\n'Don't talk of pleasing in spite of one's self, dear,' said Bella. 'I\nhave had enough of that.'\n\n'Ay?' cried Mrs Lammle. 'Am I already corroborated, Bella?'\n\n'Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. Don't ask me\nabout it.'\n\nThis plainly meaning Do ask me about it, Mrs Lammle did as she was\nrequested.\n\n'Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr has been\ninconveniently attracted to the charming skirts, and with difficulty\nshaken off?'\n\n'Provoking indeed,' said Bella, 'and no burr to boast of! But don't ask\nme.'\n\n'Shall I guess?'\n\n'You would never guess. What would you say to our Secretary?'\n\n'My dear! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and down the back stairs,\nand is never seen!'\n\n'I don't know about his creeping up and down the back stairs,' said\nBella, rather contemptuously, 'further than knowing that he does no such\nthing; and as to his never being seen, I should be content never to have\nseen him, though he is quite as visible as you are. But I pleased HIM\n(for my sins) and he had the presumption to tell me so.'\n\n'The man never made a declaration to you, my dear Bella!'\n\n'Are you sure of that, Sophronia?' said Bella. 'I am not. In fact, I am\nsure of the contrary.'\n\n'The man must be mad,' said Mrs Lammle, with a kind of resignation.\n\n'He appeared to be in his senses,' returned Bella, tossing her head,\n'and he had plenty to say for himself. I told him my opinion of his\ndeclaration and his conduct, and dismissed him. Of course this has all\nbeen very inconvenient to me, and very disagreeable. It has remained a\nsecret, however. That word reminds me to observe, Sophronia, that I have\nglided on into telling you the secret, and that I rely upon you never to\nmention it.'\n\n'Mention it!' repeated Mrs Lammle with her former feeling. 'Men-tion\nit!'\n\nThis time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it necessary\nto bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. A Judas order of\nkiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella's hand after giving\nit, 'Upon your own showing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by the\ndoting folly of a dustman, I need have no relenting towards YOU. If my\nhusband, who sends me here, should form any schemes for making YOU a\nvictim, I should certainly not cross him again.' In those very same\nmoments, Bella was thinking, 'Why am I always at war with myself? Why\nhave I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to\nhave withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in\nspite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart?'\n\nAs usual, there was no answer in the looking-glass when she got home and\nreferred these questions to it. Perhaps if she had consulted some better\noracle, the result might have been more satisfactory; but she did not,\nand all things consequent marched the march before them.\n\nOn one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr Boffin, she felt\nvery inquisitive, and that was the question whether the Secretary\nwatched him too, and followed the sure and steady change in him, as she\ndid? Her very limited intercourse with Mr Rokesmith rendered this hard\nto find out. Their communication now, at no time extended beyond the\npreservation of commonplace appearances before Mr and Mrs Boffin; and if\nBella and the Secretary were ever left alone together by any chance,\nhe immediately withdrew. She consulted his face when she could do so\ncovertly, as she worked or read, and could make nothing of it. He looked\nsubdued; but he had acquired a strong command of feature, and, whenever\nMr Boffin spoke to him in Bella's presence, or whatever revelation of\nhimself Mr Boffin made, the Secretary's face changed no more than a\nwall. A slightly knitted brow, that expressed nothing but an almost\nmechanical attention, and a compression of the mouth, that might have\nbeen a guard against a scornful smile--these she saw from morning to\nnight, from day to day, from week to week, monotonous, unvarying, set,\nas in a piece of sculpture.\n\nThe worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly--and most\nprovokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in her impetuous little\nmanner--that her observation of Mr Boffin involved a continual\nobservation of Mr Rokesmith. 'Won't THAT extract a look from him?'--'Can\nit be possible THAT makes no impression on him?' Such questions Bella\nwould propose to herself, often as many times in a day as there were\nhours in it. Impossible to know. Always the same fixed face.\n\n'Can he be so base as to sell his very nature for two hundred a year?'\nBella would think. And then, 'But why not? It's a mere question of price\nwith others besides him. I suppose I would sell mine, if I could get\nenough for it.' And so she would come round again to the war with\nherself.\n\nA kind of illegibility, though a different kind, stole over Mr\nBoffin's face. Its old simplicity of expression got masked by a certain\ncraftiness that assimilated even his good-humour to itself. His very\nsmile was cunning, as if he had been studying smiles among the portraits\nof his misers. Saving an occasional burst of impatience, or coarse\nassertion of his mastery, his good-humour remained to him, but it had\nnow a sordid alloy of distrust; and though his eyes should twinkle and\nall his face should laugh, he would sit holding himself in his own\narms, as if he had an inclination to hoard himself up, and must always\ngrudgingly stand on the defensive.\n\nWhat with taking heed of these two faces, and what with feeling\nconscious that the stealthy occupation must set some mark on her own,\nBella soon began to think that there was not a candid or a natural face\namong them all but Mrs Boffin's. None the less because it was far less\nradiant than of yore, faithfully reflecting in its anxiety and regret\nevery line of change in the Golden Dustman's.\n\n'Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin one evening when they were all in his room\nagain, and he and the Secretary had been going over some accounts, 'I\nam spending too much money. Or leastways, you are spending too much for\nme.'\n\n'You are rich, sir.'\n\n'I am not,' said Mr Boffin.\n\nThe sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary that he\nlied. But it brought no change of expression into the set face.\n\n'I tell you I am not rich,' repeated Mr Boffin, 'and I won't have it.'\n\n'You are not rich, sir?' repeated the Secretary, in measured words.\n\n'Well,' returned Mr Boffin, 'if I am, that's my business. I am not going\nto spend at this rate, to please you, or anybody. You wouldn't like it,\nif it was your money.'\n\n'Even in that impossible case, sir, I--'\n\n'Hold your tongue!' said Mr Boffin. 'You oughtn't to like it in any\ncase. There! I didn't mean to be rude, but you put me out so, and after\nall I'm master. I didn't intend to tell you to hold your tongue. I beg\nyour pardon. Don't hold your tongue. Only, don't contradict. Did you\never come across the life of Mr Elwes?' referring to his favourite\nsubject at last.\n\n'The miser?'\n\n'Ah, people called him a miser. People are always calling other people\nsomething. Did you ever read about him?'\n\n'I think so.'\n\n'He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought me twice\nover. Did you ever hear of Daniel Dancer?'\n\n'Another miser? Yes.'\n\n'He was a good 'un,' said Mr Boffin, 'and he had a sister worthy of him.\nThey never called themselves rich neither. If they HAD called themselves\nrich, most likely they wouldn't have been so.'\n\n'They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, sir?'\n\n'No, I don't know that they did,' said Mr Boffin, curtly.\n\n'Then they are not the Misers I mean. Those abject wretches--'\n\n'Don't call names, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'--That exemplary brother and sister--lived and died in the foulest and\nfilthiest degradation.'\n\n'They pleased themselves,' said Mr Boffin, 'and I suppose they could\nhave done no more if they had spent their money. But however, I ain't\ngoing to fling mine away. Keep the expenses down. The fact is, you ain't\nenough here, Rokesmith. It wants constant attention in the littlest\nthings. Some of us will be dying in a workhouse next.'\n\n'As the persons you have cited,' quietly remarked the Secretary,\n'thought they would, if I remember, sir.'\n\n'And very creditable in 'em too,' said Mr Boffin. 'Very independent in\n'em! But never mind them just now. Have you given notice to quit your\nlodgings?'\n\n'Under your direction, I have, sir.'\n\n'Then I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin; 'pay the quarter's rent--pay the\nquarter's rent, it'll be the cheapest thing in the end--and come here at\nonce, so that you may be always on the spot, day and night, and keep the\nexpenses down. You'll charge the quarter's rent to me, and we must try\nand save it somewhere. You've got some lovely furniture; haven't you?'\n\n'The furniture in my rooms is my own.'\n\n'Then we shan't have to buy any for you. In case you was to think it,'\nsaid Mr Boffin, with a look of peculiar shrewdness, 'so honourably\nindependent in you as to make it a relief to your mind, to make that\nfurniture over to me in the light of a set-off against the quarter's\nrent, why ease your mind, ease your mind. I don't ask it, but I won't\nstand in your way if you should consider it due to yourself. As to your\nroom, choose any empty room at the top of the house.'\n\n'Any empty room will do for me,' said the Secretary.\n\n'You can take your pick,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it'll be as good as eight\nor ten shillings a week added to your income. I won't deduct for it; I\nlook to you to make it up handsomely by keeping the expenses down. Now,\nif you'll show a light, I'll come to your office-room and dispose of a\nletter or two.'\n\nOn that clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin's, Bella had seen such traces\nof a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being held, that she\nhad not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were left alone.\nFeigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until\nher busy hand was stopped by Mrs Boffin's hand being lightly laid upon\nit. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul's\nlips, and felt a tear fall on it.\n\n'Oh, my loved husband!' said Mrs Boffin. 'This is hard to see and hear.\nBut my dear Bella, believe me that in spite of all the change in him, he\nis the best of men.'\n\nHe came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand comfortingly\nbetween her own.\n\n'Eh?' said he, mistrustfully looking in at the door. 'What's she telling\nyou?'\n\n'She is only praising you, sir,' said Bella.\n\n'Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for standing on my own\ndefence against a crew of plunderers, who could suck me dry by driblets?\nNot blaming me for getting a little hoard together?'\n\nHe came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon his shoulder, and\nshook her head as she laid it on her hands.\n\n'There, there, there!' urged Mr Boffin, not unkindly. 'Don't take on,\nold lady.'\n\n'But I can't bear to see you so, my dear.'\n\n'Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, we must\nscrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must hold our own. Recollect,\nmoney makes money. Don't you be uneasy, Bella, my child; don't you be\ndoubtful. The more I save, the more you shall have.'\n\nBella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing with her\naffectionate face on his shoulder; for there was a cunning light in\nhis eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a disagreeable\nillumination on the change in him, and make it morally uglier.\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nTHE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY\n\n\nIt had come to pass that Mr Silas Wegg now rarely attended the minion of\nfortune and the worm of the hour, at his (the worm's and minion's) own\nhouse, but lay under general instructions to await him within a certain\nmargin of hours at the Bower. Mr Wegg took this arrangement in great\ndudgeon, because the appointed hours were evening hours, and those he\nconsidered precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it was\nquite in character, he bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart\nwho had trampled on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master\nGeorge, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his literary man.\n\nThe Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr Boffin next\nappeared in a cab with Rollin's Ancient History, which valuable work\nbeing found to possess lethargic properties, broke down, at about the\nperiod when the whole of the army of Alexander the Macedonian (at that\ntime about forty thousand strong) burst into tears simultaneously, on\nhis being taken with a shivering fit after bathing. The Wars of the\nJews, likewise languishing under Mr Wegg's generalship, Mr Boffin\narrived in another cab with Plutarch: whose Lives he found in the sequel\nextremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not expect him to\nbelieve them all. What to believe, in the course of his reading, was Mr\nBoffin's chief literary difficulty indeed; for some time he was divided\nin his mind between half, all, or none; at length, when he decided, as a\nmoderate man, to compound with half, the question still remained, which\nhalf? And that stumbling-block he never got over.\n\nOne evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of\nhis patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with\nunutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent,\nwaging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying\nillimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond the\nconfines of geography--one evening the usual time passed by, and no\npatron appeared. After half an hour's grace, Mr Wegg proceeded to the\nouter gate, and there executed a whistle, conveying to Mr Venus,\nif perchance within hearing, the tidings of his being at home and\ndisengaged. Forth from the shelter of a neighbouring wall, Mr Venus then\nemerged.\n\n'Brother in arms,' said Mr Wegg, in excellent spirits, 'welcome!'\n\nIn return, Mr Venus gave him a rather dry good evening.\n\n'Walk in, brother,' said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, 'and take\nyour seat in my chimley corner; for what says the ballad?\n\n     \"No malice to dread, sir,\n     And no falsehood to fear,\n     But truth to delight me, Mr Venus,\n     And I forgot what to cheer.\n     Li toddle de om dee.\n     And something to guide,\n     My ain fireside, sir,\n     My ain fireside.\"'\n\nWith this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spirit\nthan the words), Mr Wegg conducted his guest to his hearth.\n\n'And you come, brother,' said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, 'you come\nlike I don't know what--exactly like it--I shouldn't know you from\nit--shedding a halo all around you.'\n\n'What kind of halo?' asked Mr Venus.\n\n''Ope sir,' replied Silas. 'That's YOUR halo.'\n\nMr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather\ndiscontentedly at the fire.\n\n'We'll devote the evening, brother,' exclaimed Wegg, 'to prosecute our\nfriendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing wine-cup--which I\nallude to brewing rum and water--we'll pledge one another. For what says\nthe Poet?\n\n     \"And you needn't Mr Venus be your black bottle,\n     For surely I'll be mine,\n     And we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which\n     you're partial,\n     For auld lang syne.\"'\n\nThis flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observation\nof some little querulousness on the part of Venus.\n\n'Why, as to the friendly move,' observed the last-named gentleman,\nrubbing his knees peevishly, 'one of my objections to it is, that it\nDON'T move.'\n\n'Rome, brother,' returned Wegg: 'a city which (it may not be generally\nknown) originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in Imperial marble:\nwasn't built in a day.'\n\n'Did I say it was?' asked Venus.\n\n'No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired.'\n\n'But I do say,' proceeded Venus, 'that I am taken from among my trophies\nof anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human warious for mere\ncoal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up.'\n\n'No, sir!' remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. 'No, Sir!\n\n     \"Charge, Chester, charge,\n     On, Mr Venus, on!\"\n\nNever say die, sir! A man of your mark!'\n\n'It's not so much saying it that I object to,' returned Mr Venus, 'as\ndoing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can't afford to waste\nmy time on groping for nothing in cinders.'\n\n'But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,'\nurged Wegg. 'Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do they\ncome to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, and\nfeelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires the whole\nframework of society--I allude to the human skelinton--you to give in so\nsoon!'\n\n'I don't like it,' returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head between\nhis knees and stuck up his dusty hair. 'And there's no encouragement to\ngo on.'\n\n'Not them Mounds without,' said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand with\nan air of solemn reasoning, 'encouragement? Not them Mounds now looking\ndown upon us?'\n\n'They're too big,' grumbled Venus. 'What's a scratch here and a scrape\nthere, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them. Besides;\nwhat have we found?'\n\n'What HAVE we found?' cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce.\n'Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade,\nwhat MAY we find? There you'll grant me. Anything.'\n\n'I don't like it,' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came into\nit without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't your own Mr\nBoffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well acquainted\nwith the deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation\nof finding anything?'\n\nAt that moment wheels were heard.\n\n'Now, I should be loth,' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury,\n'to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this time\nof night. And yet it sounds like him.'\n\nA ring at the yard bell.\n\n'It is him,' said Mr Wegg, 'and he is capable of it. I am sorry, because\nI could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment of respect\nfor him.'\n\nHere Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 'Halloa!\nWegg! Halloa!'\n\n'Keep your seat, Mr Venus,' said Wegg. 'He may not stop.' And then\ncalled out, 'Halloa, sir! Halloa! I'm with you directly, sir! Half a\nminute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!' And\nso with a show of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with\na light, and there, through the window of a cab, descried Mr Boffin\ninside, blocked up with books.\n\n'Here! lend a hand, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin excitedly, 'I can't get out\ntill the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in a\ncab-full of wollumes. Do you know him?'\n\n'Know the Animal Register, sir?' returned the Impostor, who had caught\nthe name imperfectly. 'For a trifling wager, I think I could find any\nAnimal in him, blindfold, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum,' said Mr Boffin, 'and Caulfield's\nCharacters, and Wilson's. Such Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I must\nhave one or two of the best of 'em to-night. It's amazing what places\nthey used to put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that\npile of wollumes, Wegg, or it'll bulge out and burst into the mud. Is\nthere anyone about, to help?'\n\n'There's a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending\nthe evening with me when I gave you up--much against my will--for the\nnight.'\n\n'Call him out,' cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; 'get him to bear a hand.\nDon't drop that one under your arm. It's Dancer. Him and his sister made\npies of a dead sheep they found when they were out a walking. Where's\nyour friend? Oh, here's your friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg\nand myself with these books? But don't take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark,\nnor yet Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I'll carry\nthem myself.'\n\nNot ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, Mr\nBoffin directed the removal and arrangement of the books, appearing\nto be in some sort beside himself until they were all deposited on the\nfloor, and the cab was dismissed.\n\n'There!' said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. 'There they are, like the\nfour-and-twenty fiddlers--all of a row. Get on your spectacles, Wegg;\nI know where to find the best of 'em, and we'll have a taste at once of\nwhat we have got before us. What's your friend's name?'\n\nMr Wegg presented his friend as Mr Venus.\n\n'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin, catching at the name. 'Of Clerkenwell?'\n\n'Of Clerkenwell, sir,' said Mr Venus.\n\n'Why, I've heard of you,' cried Mr Boffin, 'I heard of you in the\nold man's time. You knew him. Did you ever buy anything of him?' With\npiercing eagerness.\n\n'No, sir,' returned Venus.\n\n'But he showed you things; didn't he?'\n\nMr Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative.\n\n'What did he show you?' asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands behind him,\nand eagerly advancing his head. 'Did he show you boxes, little cabinets,\npocket-books, parcels, anything locked or sealed, anything tied up?'\n\nMr Venus shook his head.\n\n'Are you a judge of china?'\n\nMr Venus again shook his head.\n\n'Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to know of\nit,' said Mr Boffin. And then, with his right hand at his lips, repeated\nthoughtfully, 'a Teapot, a Teapot', and glanced over the books on the\nfloor, as if he knew there was something interesting connected with a\nteapot, somewhere among them.\n\nMr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and Mr Wegg, in\nfitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, over their rims, and\ntapped the side of his nose: as an admonition to Venus to keep himself\ngenerally wide awake.\n\n'A Teapot,' repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the books;\n'a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, Wegg?'\n\n'I am at your service, sir,' replied that gentleman, taking his usual\nseat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the table\nbefore it. 'Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a seat\nbeside me, sir, for the conveniency of snuffing the candles?'\n\nVenus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, Silas\npegged at him with his wooden leg, to call his particular attention to\nMr Boffin standing musing before the fire, in the space between the two\nsettles.\n\n'Hem! Ahem!' coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer's attention. 'Would\nyou wish to commence with an Animal, sir--from the Register?'\n\n'No,' said Mr Boffin, 'no, Wegg.' With that, producing a little book\nfrom his breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to the literary\ngentlemen, and inquired, 'What do you call that, Wegg?'\n\n'This, sir,' replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to\nthe title-page, 'is Merryweather's Lives and Anecdotes of Misers. Mr\nVenus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles a little\nnearer, sir?' This to have a special opportunity of bestowing a stare\nupon his comrade.\n\n'Which of 'em have you got in that lot?' asked Mr Boffin. 'Can you find\nout pretty easy?'\n\n'Well, sir,' replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly\nfluttering the leaves of the book, 'I should say they must be pretty\nwell all here, sir; here's a large assortment, sir; my eye catches John\nOvers, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr\nJones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer--'\n\n'Give us Dancer, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin.\n\nWith another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the place.\n\n'Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter,\n\"His birth and estate. His garments and outward appearance. Miss Dancer\nand her feminine graces. The Miser's Mansion. The finding of a treasure.\nThe Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser's\ncur. Griffiths and his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a\nFire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a\nShirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill--\"'\n\n'Eh? What's that?' demanded Mr Boffin.\n\n'\"The Treasures,\" sir,' repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, '\"of a\nDunghill.\" Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?' This, to\nsecure attention to his adding with his lips only, 'Mounds!'\n\nMr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and said,\nseating himself and slyly rubbing his hands:\n\n'Give us Dancer.'\n\nMr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its various\nphases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer's death on a sick\nregimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer's keeping his rags\ntogether with a hayband, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down\nto the consolatory incident of his dying naked in a sack. After which he\nread on as follows:\n\n'\"The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, and\nwhich at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes, was a most\nmiserable, decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more than\nhalf a century.\"'\n\n(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had\nnot been repaired for a long time.)\n\n'\"But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very\nrich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole contents;\nand Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into the\nmiser's secret hoards.\"'\n\n(Here Mr Wegg repeated 'secret hoards', and pegged his comrade again.)\n\n'\"One of Mr Dancer's richest escretoires was found to be a dungheap in\nthe cowhouse; a sum but little short of two thousand five hundred\npounds was contained in this rich piece of manure; and in an old jacket,\ncarefully tied, and strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notes\nand gold were found five hundred pounds more.\"'\n\n(Here Mr Wegg's wooden leg started forward under the table, and slowly\nelevated itself as he read on.)\n\n'\"Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half-guineas;\nand at different times on searching the corners of the house they found\nvarious parcels of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices of\nthe wall\"';\n\n(Here Mr Venus looked at the wall.)\n\n'\"Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the chairs\"';\n\n(Here Mr Venus looked under himself on the settle.)\n\n'\"Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; and notes\namounting to six hundred pounds were found neatly doubled up in the\ninside of an old teapot. In the stable the Captain found jugs full of\nold dollars and shillings. The chimney was not left unsearched, and paid\nvery well for the trouble; for in nineteen different holes, all filled\nwith soot, were found various sums of money, amounting together to more\nthan two hundred pounds.\"'\n\nOn the way to this crisis Mr Wegg's wooden leg had gradually elevated\nitself more and more, and he had nudged Mr Venus with his opposite\nelbow deeper and deeper, until at length the preservation of his balance\nbecame incompatible with the two actions, and he now dropped over\nsideways upon that gentleman, squeezing him against the settle's edge.\nNor did either of the two, for some few seconds, make any effort to\nrecover himself; both remaining in a kind of pecuniary swoon.\n\nBut the sight of Mr Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging himself,\nwith his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. Counterfeiting a\nsneeze to cover their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic 'Tish-ho!'\npulled himself and Mr Venus up in a masterly manner.\n\n'Let's have some more,' said Mr Boffin, hungrily.\n\n'John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasure to take John Elwes?'\n\n'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Let's hear what John did.'\n\nHe did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly.\nBut an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed away gold and\nsilver in a pickle-pot in a clock-case, a canister-full of treasure in\na hole under her stairs, and a quantity of money in an old rat-trap,\nrevived the interest. To her succeeded another lady, claiming to be a\npauper, whose wealth was found wrapped up in little scraps of paper and\nold rag. To her, another lady, apple-woman by trade, who had saved a\nfortune of ten thousand pounds and hidden it 'here and there, in cracks\nand corners, behind bricks and under the flooring.' To her, a French\ngentleman, who had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment\nof its drawing powers, 'a leather valise, containing twenty thousand\nfrancs, gold coins, and a large quantity of precious stones,' as\ndiscovered by a chimneysweep after his death. By these steps Mr Wegg\narrived at a concluding instance of the human Magpie:\n\n'Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old couple of the\nname of Jardine: they had two sons: the father was a perfect miser, and\nat his death one thousand guineas were discovered secreted in his bed.\nThe two sons grew up as parsimonious as their sire. When about twenty\nyears of age, they commenced business at Cambridge as drapers, and\nthey continued there until their death. The establishment of the Messrs\nJardine was the most dirty of all the shops in Cambridge. Customers\nseldom went in to purchase, except perhaps out of curiosity. The\nbrothers were most disreputable-looking beings; for, although surrounded\nwith gay apparel as their staple in trade, they wore the most filthy\nrags themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, to save the\nexpense of one, always slept on a bundle of packing-cloths under the\ncounter. In their housekeeping they were penurious in the extreme. A\njoint of meat did not grace their board for twenty years. Yet when the\nfirst of the brothers died, the other, much to his surprise, found large\nsums of money which had been secreted even from him.'\n\n'There!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Even from him, you see! There was only two of\n'em, and yet one of 'em hid from the other.'\n\nMr Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman, had been\nstooping to peer up the chimney, had his attention recalled by the last\nsentence, and took the liberty of repeating it.\n\n'Do you like it?' asked Mr Boffin, turning suddenly.\n\n'I beg your pardon, sir?'\n\n'Do you like what Wegg's been a-reading?'\n\nMr Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting.\n\n'Then come again,' said Mr Boffin, 'and hear some more. Come when you\nlike; come the day after to-morrow, half an hour sooner. There's plenty\nmore; there's no end to it.'\n\nMr Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted the invitation.\n\n'It's wonderful what's been hid, at one time and another,' said Mr\nBoffin, ruminating; 'truly wonderful.'\n\n'Meaning sir,' observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw him out,\nand with another peg at his friend and brother, 'in the way of money?'\n\n'Money,' said Mr Boffin. 'Ah! And papers.'\n\nMr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr Venus, and\nagain recovering himself, masked his emotions with a sneeze.\n\n'Tish-ho! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, sir?'\n\n'Hidden and forgot,' said Mr Boffin. 'Why the bookseller that sold me\nthe Wonderful Museum--where's the Wonderful Museum?' He was on his knees\non the floor in a moment, groping eagerly among the books.\n\n'Can I assist you, sir?' asked Wegg.\n\n'No, I have got it; here it is,' said Mr Boffin, dusting it with the\nsleeve of his coat. 'Wollume four. I know it was the fourth wollume,\nthat the bookseller read it to me out of. Look for it, Wegg.'\n\nSilas took the book and turned the leaves.\n\n'Remarkable petrefaction, sir?'\n\n'No, that's not it,' said Mr Boffin. 'It can't have been a\npetrefaction.'\n\n'Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking Rushlight,\nsir? With portrait?'\n\n'No, nor yet him,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown-piece, sir?'\n\n'To hide it?' asked Mr Boffin.\n\n'Why, no, sir,' replied Wegg, consulting the text, 'it appears to have\nbeen done by accident. Oh! This next must be it. \"Singular discovery of\na will, lost twenty-one years.\"'\n\n'That's it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Read that.'\n\n'\"A most extraordinary case,\"' read Silas Wegg aloud, '\"was tried at\nthe last Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It was briefly this. Robert\nBaldwin, in March 1782, made his will, in which he devised the lands now\nin question, to the children of his youngest son; soon after which his\nfaculties failed him, and he became altogether childish and died, above\neighty years old. The defendant, the eldest son, immediately afterwards\ngave out that his father had destroyed the will; and no will being\nfound, he entered into possession of the lands in question, and so\nmatters remained for twenty-one years, the whole family during all\nthat time believing that the father had died without a will. But after\ntwenty-one years the defendant's wife died, and he very soon afterwards,\nat the age of seventy-eight, married a very young woman: which caused\nsome anxiety to his two sons, whose poignant expressions of this feeling\nso exasperated their father, that he in his resentment executed a will\nto disinherit his eldest son, and in his fit of anger showed it to his\nsecond son, who instantly determined to get at it, and destroy it, in\norder to preserve the property to his brother. With this view, he broke\nopen his father's desk, where he found--not his father's will which he\nsought after, but the will of his grandfather, which was then altogether\nforgotten in the family.\"'\n\n'There!' said Mr Boffin. 'See what men put away and forget, or mean to\ndestroy, and don't!' He then added in a slow tone, 'As--ton--ish--ing!'\nAnd as he rolled his eyes all round the room, Wegg and Venus likewise\nrolled their eyes all round the room. And then Wegg, singly, fixed his\neyes on Mr Boffin looking at the fire again; as if he had a mind to\nspring upon him and demand his thoughts or his life.\n\n'However, time's up for to-night,' said Mr Boffin, waving his hand after\na silence. 'More, the day after to-morrow. Range the books upon the\nshelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr Venus will be so kind as help you.'\n\nWhile speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat,\nand struggled with some object there that was too large to be got out\neasily. What was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when this\nobject at last emerging, proved to be a much-dilapidated dark lantern!\n\nWithout at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument,\nMr Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of matches,\ndeliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindled\nmatch, and cast the end into the fire. 'I'm going, Wegg,' he then\nannounced, 'to take a turn about the place and round the yard. I don't\nwant you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds--thousands--of\nsuch turns in our time together.'\n\n'But I couldn't think, sir--not on any account, I couldn't,'--Wegg was\npolitely beginning, when Mr Boffin, who had risen and was going towards\nthe door, stopped:\n\n'I have told you that I don't want you, Wegg.'\n\nWegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred to his\nmind until he now brought it to bear on the circumstance. He had nothing\nfor it but to let Mr Boffin go out and shut the door behind him. But,\nthe instant he was on the other side of it, Wegg clutched Venus\nwith both hands, and said in a choking whisper, as if he were being\nstrangled:\n\n'Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn't be lost\nsight of for a moment.'\n\n'Why mustn't he?' asked Venus, also strangling.\n\n'Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits when\nyou come in to-night. I've found something.'\n\n'What have you found?' asked Venus, clutching him with both hands, so\nthat they stood interlocked like a couple of preposterous gladiators.\n\n'There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look for\nit. We must have an eye upon him instantly.'\n\nReleasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, and\npeeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of the Mounds\nmade the dark yard darker. 'If not a double swindler,' whispered Wegg,\n'why a dark lantern? We could have seen what he was about, if he had\ncarried a light one. Softly, this way.'\n\nCautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of crockery set\nin ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear him at his peculiar\ntrot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. 'He knows the place by\nheart,' muttered Silas, 'and don't need to turn his lantern on, confound\nhim!' But he did turn it on, almost in that same instant, and flashed\nits light upon the first of the Mounds.\n\n'Is that the spot?' asked Venus in a whisper.\n\n'He's warm,' said Silas in the same tone. 'He's precious warm. He's\nclose. I think he must be going to look for it. What's that he's got in\nhis hand?'\n\n'A shovel,' answered Venus. 'And he knows how to use it, remember, fifty\ntimes as well as either of us.'\n\n'If he looks for it and misses it, partner,' suggested Wegg, 'what shall\nwe do?'\n\n'First of all, wait till he does,' said Venus.\n\nDiscreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the mound\nturned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on once more, and\nwas seen standing at the foot of the second mound, slowly raising the\nlantern little by little until he held it up at arm's length, as if he\nwere examining the condition of the whole surface.\n\n'That can't be the spot too?' said Venus.\n\n'No,' said Wegg, 'he's getting cold.'\n\n'It strikes me,' whispered Venus, 'that he wants to find out whether any\none has been groping about there.'\n\n'Hush!' returned Wegg, 'he's getting colder and colder.--Now he's\nfreezing!'\n\nThis exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off\nagain, and on again, and being visible at the foot of the third mound.\n\n'Why, he's going up it!' said Venus.\n\n'Shovel and all!' said Wegg.\n\nAt a nimbler trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimulated him by\nreviving old associations, Mr Boffin ascended the 'serpentining walk',\nup the Mound which he had described to Silas Wegg on the occasion of\ntheir beginning to decline and fall. On striking into it he turned his\nlantern off. The two followed him, stooping low, so that their figures\nmight make no mark in relief against the sky when he should turn his\nlantern on again. Mr Venus took the lead, towing Mr Wegg, in order that\nhis refractory leg might be promptly extricated from any pitfalls it\nshould dig for itself. They could just make out that the Golden Dustman\nstopped to breathe. Of course they stopped too, instantly.\n\n'This is his own Mound,' whispered Wegg, as he recovered his wind, 'this\none.\n\n'Why all three are his own,' returned Venus.\n\n'So he thinks; but he's used to call this his own, because it's the one\nfirst left to him; the one that was his legacy when it was all he took\nunder the will.'\n\n'When he shows his light,' said Venus, keeping watch upon his dusky\nfigure all the time, 'drop lower and keep closer.'\n\nHe went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of the Mound,\nhe turned on his light--but only partially--and stood it on the ground.\nA bare lopsided weatherbeaten pole was planted in the ashes there,\nand had been there many a year. Hard by this pole, his lantern stood:\nlighting a few feet of the lower part of it and a little of the ashy\nsurface around, and then casting off a purposeless little clear trail of\nlight into the air.\n\n'He can never be going to dig up the pole!' whispered Venus as they\ndropped low and kept close.\n\n'Perhaps it's holler and full of something,' whispered Wegg.\n\nHe was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up his cuffs\nand spat on his hands, and then went at it like an old digger as he\nwas. He had no design upon the pole, except that he measured a shovel's\nlength from it before beginning, nor was it his purpose to dig deep.\nSome dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed. Then, he stopped, looked\ndown into the cavity, bent over it, and took out what appeared to be an\nordinary case-bottle: one of those squat, high-shouldered, short-necked\nglass bottles which the Dutchman is said to keep his Courage in. As soon\nas he had done this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that\nhe was filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved by\na skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to make off in good time.\nAccordingly, Mr Venus slipped past Mr Wegg and towed him down. But Mr\nWegg's descent was not accomplished without some personal inconvenience,\nfor his self-willed leg sticking into the ashes about half way down, and\ntime pressing, Mr Venus took the liberty of hauling him from his tether\nby the collar: which occasioned him to make the rest of the journey on\nhis back, with his head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and his\nwooden leg coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr Wegg by this\nmode of travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with his\nintellectual developments uppermost, he was quite unconscious of his\nbearings, and had not the least idea where his place of residence was\nto be found, until Mr Venus shoved him into it. Even then he staggered\nround and round, weakly staring about him, until Mr Venus with a hard\nbrush brushed his senses into him and the dust out of him.\n\nMr Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had been well\naccomplished, and Mr Venus had had time to take his breath, before he\nreappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere about him could not be\ndoubted; where, was not so clear. He wore a large rough coat, buttoned\nover, and it might be in any one of half a dozen pockets.\n\n'What's the matter, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin. 'You are as pale as a\ncandle.'\n\nMr Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if he had had a\nturn.\n\n'Bile,' said Mr Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, shutting\nit up, and stowing it away in the breast of his coat as before. 'Are you\nsubject to bile, Wegg?'\n\nMr Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he didn't\nthink he had ever had a similar sensation in his head, to anything like\nthe same extent.\n\n'Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, 'to be in order\nfor next night. By-the-by, this neighbourhood is going to have a loss,\nWegg.'\n\n'A loss, sir?'\n\n'Going to lose the Mounds.'\n\nThe friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at one\nanother, that they might as well have stared at one another with all\ntheir might.\n\n'Have you parted with them, Mr Boffin?' asked Silas.\n\n'Yes; they're going. Mine's as good as gone already.'\n\n'You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, sir.'\n\n'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that new\ntouch of craftiness added to it. 'It has fetched a penny. It'll begin to\nbe carted off to-morrow.'\n\n'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked Silas,\njocosely.\n\n'No,' said Mr Boffin. 'What the devil put that in your head?'\n\nHe was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering closer\nand closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on exploring\nexpeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two or three\npaces.\n\n'No offence, sir,' said Wegg, humbly. 'No offence.'\n\nMr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone;\nand actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might have retorted.\n\n'Good-night,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with\nhis hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wandering about\nWegg.--'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light.'\n\nAvarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatory\neffect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill-conditioned\nblood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of\ninsatiable appetite, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and\ndrew Venus along with him.\n\n'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that\nbottle about him. We must have that bottle.'\n\n'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him.\n\n'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at any\nprice! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you coward?'\n\n'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus, sturdily,\nclasping him in his arms.\n\n'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he was\nresolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that he was\ngoing to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will\nbe rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights,\nI have. Let me go after him.'\n\nAs in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venus\ndeemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with him; well\nknowing that, once down, he would not be up again easily with his wooden\nleg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffin\nshut the gate.\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nTHE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION\n\n\nThe friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing one\nanother, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. In the weak\neyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock of\nhair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him\non perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained face of Wegg,\nand in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy),\nthere was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity in\nit. Both were flushed, flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; and\nWegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the back\nof his devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of\nhaving been highly--but disagreeably--astonished. Each was silent for\nsome time, leaving it to the other to begin.\n\n'Brother,' said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 'you were right,\nand I was wrong. I forgot myself.'\n\nMr Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather thinking Mr Wegg\nhad remembered himself, in respect of appearing without any disguise.\n\n'But comrade,' pursued Wegg, 'it was never your lot to know Miss\nElizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor Uncle Parker.'\n\nMr Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished persons,\nand added, in effect, that he had never so much as desired the honour of\ntheir acquaintance.\n\n'Don't say that, comrade!' retorted Wegg: 'No, don't say that! Because,\nwithout having known them, you never can fully know what it is to be\nstimilated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper.'\n\nOffering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit on\nhimself, Mr Wegg impelled himself with his hands towards a chair in\na corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward gambols,\nattained a perpendicular position. Mr Venus also rose.\n\n'Comrade,' said Wegg, 'take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking countenance\nis yours!'\n\nMr Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked at his hand,\nas if to see whether any of its speaking properties came off.\n\n'For clearly do I know, mark you,' pursued Wegg, pointing his words\nwith his forefinger, 'clearly do I know what question your expressive\nfeatures puts to me.'\n\n'What question?' said Venus.\n\n'The question,' returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 'why\nI didn't mention sooner, that I had found something. Says your speaking\ncountenance to me: \"Why didn't you communicate that, when I first come\nin this evening? Why did you keep it back till you thought Mr Boffin had\ncome to look for the article?\" Your speaking countenance,' said Wegg,\n'puts it plainer than language. Now, you can't read in my face what\nanswer I give?'\n\n'No, I can't,' said Venus.\n\n'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful candour.\n'Because I lay no claims to a speaking countenance. Because I am well\naware of my deficiencies. All men are not gifted alike. But I can answer\nin words. And in what words? These. I wanted to give you a delightful\nsap--pur--IZE!'\n\nHaving thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr Wegg shook\nhis friend and brother by both hands, and then clapped him on both\nknees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him not to mention so\nsmall a service as that which it had been his happy privilege to render.\n\n'Your speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'being answered to its\nsatisfaction, only asks then, \"What have you found?\" Why, I hear it say\nthe words!'\n\n'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you hear\nit say the words, why don't you answer it?'\n\n'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm a-going to. Hear me out! Man and brother,\npartner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I have found\na cash-box.'\n\n'Where?'\n\n'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could, and,\nwhenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a radiant gush of\nHear me out.) 'On a certain day, sir--'\n\n'When?' said Venus bluntly.\n\n'N--no,' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly,\nthoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's not your expressive\ncountenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely your\nvoice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking in\nthe yard--taking my lonely round--for in the words of a friend of my own\nfamily, the author of All's Well arranged as a duett:\n\n     \"Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning\n     moon,\n     When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim\n     night's cheerless noon,\n     On tower, fort, or tented ground,\n     The sentry walks his lonely round,\n     The sentry walks:\"\n\n--under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard\nearly one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my hand, with\nwhich I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile the monotony of a\nliterary life, when I struck it against an object not necessary to\ntrouble you by naming--'\n\n'It is necessary. What object?' demanded Venus, in a wrathful tone.\n\n'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump.--When I struck it against the\nPump, and found, not only that the top was loose and opened with a lid,\nbut that something in it rattled. That something, comrade, I discovered\nto be a small flat oblong cash-box. Shall I say it was disappointingly\nlight?'\n\n'There were papers in it,' said Venus.\n\n'There your expressive countenance speaks indeed!' cried Wegg. 'A\npaper. The box was locked, tied up, and sealed, and on the outside was\na parchment label, with the writing, \"MY WILL, JOHN HARMON, TEMPORARILY\nDEPOSITED HERE.\"'\n\n'We must know its contents,' said Venus.\n\n'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so, and I broke the box open.'\n\n'Without coming to me!' exclaimed Venus.\n\n'Exactly so, sir!' returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 'I see I take\nyou with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved, as your discriminating good\nsense perceives, that if you was to have a sap--pur--IZE, it should be\na complete one! Well, sir. And so, as you have honoured me by\nanticipating, I examined the document. Regularly executed, regularly\nwitnessed, very short. Inasmuch as he has never made friends, and has\never had a rebellious family, he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffin\nthe Little Mound, which is quite enough for him, and gives the whole\nrest and residue of his property to the Crown.'\n\n'The date of the will that has been proved, must be looked to,' remarked\nVenus. 'It may be later than this one.'\n\n'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so. I paid a shilling (never mind\nyour sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, that will is dated\nmonths before this will. And now, as a fellow-man, and as a partner in a\nfriendly move,' added Wegg, benignantly taking him by both hands again,\nand clapping him on both knees again, 'say have I completed my labour of\nlove to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sap--pur--IZED?'\n\nMr Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubting eyes, and\nthen rejoined stiffly:\n\n'This is great news indeed, Mr Wegg. There's no denying it. But I could\nhave wished you had told it me before you got your fright to-night, and\nI could have wished you had ever asked me as your partner what we were\nto do, before you thought you were dividing a responsibility.'\n\n'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I knew you was a-going to say so. But\nalone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll bear the blame!' This with an\nair of great magnanimity.\n\n'No,' said Venus. 'Let's see this will and this box.'\n\n'Do I understand, brother,' returned Wegg with considerable reluctance,\n'that it is your wish to see this will and this--?'\n\nMr Venus smote the table with his hand.\n\n'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'Hear me out! I'll go and fetch 'em.'\n\nAfter being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could hardly\nmake up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, he returned\nwith an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put the other box,\nfor the better preservation of commonplace appearances, and for the\ndisarming of suspicion. 'But I don't half like opening it here,' said\nSilas in a low voice, looking around: 'he might come back, he may not be\ngone; we don't know what he may be up to, after what we've seen.'\n\n'There's something in that,' assented Venus. 'Come to my place.'\n\nJealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it under\nthe existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. 'Come, I tell you,' repeated\nVenus, chafing, 'to my place.' Not very well seeing his way to a\nrefusal, Mr Wegg then rejoined in a gush, '--Hear me out!--Certainly.'\nSo he locked up the Bower and they set forth: Mr Venus taking his arm,\nand keeping it with remarkable tenacity.\n\nThey found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr Venus's\nestablishment, imperfectly disclosing to the public the usual pair\nof preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of honour still\nunsettled. Mr Venus had closed his shop door on coming out, and now\nopened it with the key and shut it again as soon as they were within;\nbut not before he had put up and barred the shutters of the shop window.\n'No one can get in without being let in,' said he then, 'and we couldn't\nbe more snug than here.' So he raked together the yet warm cinders in\nthe rusty grate, and made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little\ncounter. As the fire cast its flickering gleams here and there upon the\ndark greasy walls; the Hindoo baby, the African baby, the articulated\nEnglish baby, the assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collection,\ncame starting to their various stations as if they had all been out,\nlike their master and were punctual in a general rendezvous to assist\nat the secret. The French gentleman had grown considerably since Mr Wegg\nlast saw him, being now accommodated with a pair of legs and a head,\nthough his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever the head had\noriginally belonged, Silas Wegg would have regarded it as a personal\nfavour if he had not cut quite so many teeth.\n\nSilas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, and\nVenus dropping into his low chair produced from among his skeleton\nhands, his tea-tray and tea-cups, and put the kettle on. Silas inwardly\napproved of these preparations, trusting they might end in Mr Venus's\ndiluting his intellect.\n\n'Now, sir,' said Venus, 'all is safe and quiet. Let us see this\ndiscovery.'\n\nWith still reluctant hands, and not without several glances towards the\nskeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple of them might spring\nforth and clutch the document, Wegg opened the hat-box and revealed the\ncash-box, opened the cash-box and revealed the will. He held a corner\nof it tight, while Venus, taking hold of another corner, searchingly and\nattentively read it.\n\n'Was I correct in my account of it, partner?' said Mr Wegg at length.\n\n'Partner, you were,' said Mr Venus.\n\nMr Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, as though he would\nfold it up; but Mr Venus held on by his corner.\n\n'No, sir,' said Mr Venus, winking his weak eyes and shaking his head.\n'No, partner. The question is now brought up, who is going to take care\nof this. Do you know who is going to take care of this, partner?'\n\n'I am,' said Wegg.\n\n'Oh dear no, partner,' retorted Venus. 'That's a mistake. I am. Now look\nhere, Mr Wegg. I don't want to have any words with you, and still less\ndo I want to have any anatomical pursuits with you.'\n\n'What do you mean?' said Wegg, quickly.\n\n'I mean, partner,' replied Venus, slowly, 'that it's hardly possible\nfor a man to feel in a more amiable state towards another man than I\ndo towards you at this present moment. But I am on my own ground, I am\nsurrounded by the trophies of my art, and my tools is very handy.'\n\n'What do you mean, Mr Venus?' asked Wegg again.\n\n'I am surrounded, as I have observed,' said Mr Venus, placidly, 'by\nthe trophies of my art. They are numerous, my stock of human warious is\nlarge, the shop is pretty well crammed, and I don't just now want any\nmore trophies of my art. But I like my art, and I know how to exercise\nmy art.'\n\n'No man better,' assented Mr Wegg, with a somewhat staggered air.\n\n'There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens,' said Venus,\n'(though you mightn't think it) in the box on which you're sitting.\nThere's the Miscellanies of several human specimens, in the lovely\ncompo-one behind the door'; with a nod towards the French gentleman. 'It\nstill wants a pair of arms. I DON'T say that I'm in any hurry for 'em.'\n\n'You must be wandering in your mind, partner,' Silas remonstrated.\n\n'You'll excuse me if I wander,' returned Venus; 'I am sometimes rather\nsubject to it. I like my art, and I know how to exercise my art, and I\nmean to have the keeping of this document.'\n\n'But what has that got to do with your art, partner?' asked Wegg, in an\ninsinuating tone.\n\nMr Venus winked his chronically-fatigued eyes both at once, and\nadjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to himself, in a hollow\nvoice, 'She'll bile in a couple of minutes.'\n\nSilas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, glanced at the\nFrench gentleman behind the door, and shrank a little as he glanced at\nMr Venus winking his red eyes, and feeling in his waistcoat pocket--as\nfor a lancet, say--with his unoccupied hand. He and Venus were\nnecessarily seated close together, as each held a corner of the\ndocument, which was but a common sheet of paper.\n\n'Partner,' said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than before, 'I propose\nthat we cut it in half, and each keep a half.'\n\nVenus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, 'It wouldn't do to\nmutilate it, partner. It might seem to be cancelled.'\n\n'Partner,' said Wegg, after a silence, during which they had\ncontemplated one another, 'don't your speaking countenance say that\nyou're a-going to suggest a middle course?'\n\nVenus shook his shock of hair as he replied, 'Partner, you have kept\nthis paper from me once. You shall never keep it from me again. I offer\nyou the box and the label to take care of, but I'll take care of the\npaper.'\n\nSilas hesitated a little longer, and then suddenly releasing his corner,\nand resuming his buoyant and benignant tone, exclaimed, 'What's life\nwithout trustfulness! What's a fellow-man without honour! You're welcome\nto it, partner, in a spirit of trust and confidence.'\n\nContinuing to wink his red eyes both together--but in a self-communing\nway, and without any show of triumph--Mr Venus folded the paper now left\nin his hand, and locked it in a drawer behind him, and pocketed the key.\nHe then proposed 'A cup of tea, partner?' To which Mr Wegg returned,\n'Thank'ee, partner,' and the tea was made and poured out.\n\n'Next,' said Venus, blowing at his tea in his saucer, and looking over\nit at his confidential friend, 'comes the question, What's the course to\nbe pursued?'\n\nOn this head, Silas Wegg had much to say. Silas had to say That, he\nwould beg to remind his comrade, brother, and partner, of the impressive\npassages they had read that evening; of the evident parallel in Mr\nBoffin's mind between them and the late owner of the Bower, and the\npresent circumstances of the Bower; of the bottle; and of the box. That,\nthe fortunes of his brother and comrade, and of himself were evidently\nmade, inasmuch as they had but to put their price upon this document,\nand get that price from the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour:\nwho now appeared to be less of a minion and more of a worm than had been\npreviously supposed. That, he considered it plain that such price was\nstateable in a single expressive word, and that the word was, 'Halves!'\nThat, the question then arose when 'Halves!' should be called. That,\nhere he had a plan of action to recommend, with a conditional clause.\nThat, the plan of action was that they should lie by with patience;\nthat, they should allow the Mounds to be gradually levelled and cleared\naway, while retaining to themselves their present opportunity of\nwatching the process--which would be, he conceived, to put the trouble\nand cost of daily digging and delving upon somebody else, while they\nmight nightly turn such complete disturbance of the dust to the account\nof their own private investigations--and that, when the Mounds were\ngone, and they had worked those chances for their own joint benefit\nsolely, they should then, and not before, explode on the minion and\nworm. But here came the conditional clause, and to this he entreated the\nspecial attention of his comrade, brother, and partner. It was not to\nbe borne that the minion and worm should carry off any of that property\nwhich was now to be regarded as their own property. When he, Mr Wegg,\nhad seen the minion surreptitiously making off with that bottle, and its\nprecious contents unknown, he had looked upon him in the light of a mere\nrobber, and, as such, would have despoiled him of his ill-gotten gain,\nbut for the judicious interference of his comrade, brother, and partner.\nTherefore, the conditional clause he proposed was, that, if the minion\nshould return in his late sneaking manner, and if, being closely\nwatched, he should be found to possess himself of anything, no matter\nwhat, the sharp sword impending over his head should be instantly shown\nhim, he should be strictly examined as to what he knew or suspected,\nshould be severely handled by them his masters, and should be kept in\na state of abject moral bondage and slavery until the time when they\nshould see fit to permit him to purchase his freedom at the price of\nhalf his possessions. If, said Mr Wegg by way of peroration, he had\nerred in saying only 'Halves!' he trusted to his comrade, brother, and\npartner not to hesitate to set him right, and to reprove his weakness.\nIt might be more according to the rights of things, to say\nTwo-thirds; it might be more according to the rights of things, to say\nThree-fourths. On those points he was ever open to correction.\n\nMr Venus, having wafted his attention to this discourse over three\nsuccessive saucers of tea, signified his concurrence in the views\nadvanced. Inspirited hereby, Mr Wegg extended his right hand, and\ndeclared it to be a hand which never yet. Without entering into more\nminute particulars. Mr Venus, sticking to his tea, briefly professed his\nbelief as polite forms required of him, that it WAS a hand which never\nyet. But contented himself with looking at it, and did not take it to\nhis bosom.\n\n'Brother,' said Wegg, when this happy understanding was established, 'I\nshould like to ask you something. You remember the night when I first\nlooked in here, and found you floating your powerful mind in tea?'\n\nStill swilling tea, Mr Venus nodded assent.\n\n'And there you sit, sir,' pursued Wegg with an air of thoughtful\nadmiration, 'as if you had never left off! There you sit, sir, as if you\nhad an unlimited capacity of assimilating the flagrant article! There\nyou sit, sir, in the midst of your works, looking as if you'd been\ncalled upon for Home, Sweet Home, and was obleeging the company!\n\n     \"A exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,\n     O give you your lowly Preparations again,\n     The birds stuffed so sweetly that can't be expected to come at\n     your call,\n     Give you these with the peace of mind dearer than all.\n     Home, Home, Home, sweet Home!\"\n\n--Be it ever,' added Mr Wegg in prose as he glanced about the shop,\n'ever so ghastly, all things considered there's no place like it.'\n\n'You said you'd like to ask something; but you haven't asked it,'\nremarked Venus, very unsympathetic in manner.\n\n'Your peace of mind,' said Wegg, offering condolence, 'your peace of\nmind was in a poor way that night. HOW'S it going on? IS it looking up\nat all?'\n\n'She does not wish,' replied Mr Venus with a comical mixture of\nindignant obstinacy and tender melancholy, 'to regard herself, nor yet\nto be regarded, in that particular light. There's no more to be said.'\n\n'Ah, dear me, dear me!' exclaimed Wegg with a sigh, but eyeing him while\npretending to keep him company in eyeing the fire, 'such is Woman! And\nI remember you said that night, sitting there as I sat here--said that\nnight when your peace of mind was first laid low, that you had taken an\ninterest in these very affairs. Such is coincidence!'\n\n'Her father,' rejoined Venus, and then stopped to swallow more tea, 'her\nfather was mixed up in them.'\n\n'You didn't mention her name, sir, I think?' observed Wegg, pensively.\n'No, you didn't mention her name that night.'\n\n'Pleasant Riderhood.'\n\n'In--deed!' cried Wegg. 'Pleasant Riderhood. There's something moving in\nthe name. Pleasant. Dear me! Seems to express what she might have\nbeen, if she hadn't made that unpleasant remark--and what she ain't,\nin consequence of having made it. Would it at all pour balm into your\nwounds, Mr Venus, to inquire how you came acquainted with her?'\n\n'I was down at the water-side,' said Venus, taking another gulp of\ntea and mournfully winking at the fire--'looking for parrots'--taking\nanother gulp and stopping.\n\nMr Wegg hinted, to jog his attention: 'You could hardly have been out\nparrot-shooting, in the British climate, sir?'\n\n'No, no, no,' said Venus fretfully. 'I was down at the water-side,\nlooking for parrots brought home by sailors, to buy for stuffing.'\n\n'Ay, ay, ay, sir!'\n\n'--And looking for a nice pair of rattlesnakes, to articulate for a\nMuseum--when I was doomed to fall in with her and deal with her. It was\njust at the time of that discovery in the river. Her father had seen the\ndiscovery being towed in the river. I made the popularity of the subject\na reason for going back to improve the acquaintance, and I have never\nsince been the man I was. My very bones is rendered flabby by brooding\nover it. If they could be brought to me loose, to sort, I should hardly\nhave the face to claim 'em as mine. To such an extent have I fallen off\nunder it.'\n\nMr Wegg, less interested than he had been, glanced at one particular\nshelf in the dark.\n\n'Why I remember, Mr Venus,' he said in a tone of friendly commiseration\n'(for I remember every word that falls from you, sir), I remember that\nyou said that night, you had got up there--and then your words was,\n\"Never mind.\"'\n\n'--The parrot that I bought of her,' said Venus, with a despondent rise\nand fall of his eyes. 'Yes; there it lies on its side, dried up; except\nfor its plumage, very like myself. I've never had the heart to prepare\nit, and I never shall have now.'\n\nWith a disappointed face, Silas mentally consigned this parrot to\nregions more than tropical, and, seeming for the time to have lost\nhis power of assuming an interest in the woes of Mr Venus, fell to\ntightening his wooden leg as a preparation for departure: its gymnastic\nperformances of that evening having severely tried its constitution.\n\nAfter Silas had left the shop, hat-box in hand, and had left Mr Venus\nto lower himself to oblivion-point with the requisite weight of tea, it\ngreatly preyed on his ingenuous mind that he had taken this artist into\npartnership at all. He bitterly felt that he had overreached himself in\nthe beginning, by grasping at Mr Venus's mere straws of hints, now shown\nto be worthless for his purpose. Casting about for ways and means of\ndissolving the connexion without loss of money, reproaching himself for\nhaving been betrayed into an avowal of his secret, and complimenting\nhimself beyond measure on his purely accidental good luck, he beguiled\nthe distance between Clerkenwell and the mansion of the Golden Dustman.\n\nFor, Silas Wegg felt it to be quite out of the question that he could\nlay his head upon his pillow in peace, without first hovering over\nMr Boffin's house in the superior character of its Evil Genius. Power\n(unless it be the power of intellect or virtue) has ever the greatest\nattraction for the lowest natures; and the mere defiance of the\nunconscious house-front, with his power to strip the roof off the\ninhabiting family like the roof of a house of cards, was a treat which\nhad a charm for Silas Wegg.\n\nAs he hovered on the opposite side of the street, exulting, the carriage\ndrove up.\n\n'There'll shortly be an end of YOU,' said Wegg, threatening it with the\nhat-box. 'YOUR varnish is fading.'\n\nMrs Boffin descended and went in.\n\n'Look out for a fall, my Lady Dustwoman,' said Wegg.\n\nBella lightly descended, and ran in after her.\n\n'How brisk we are!' said Wegg. 'You won't run so gaily to your old\nshabby home, my girl. You'll have to go there, though.'\n\nA little while, and the Secretary came out.\n\n'I was passed over for you,' said Wegg. 'But you had better provide\nyourself with another situation, young man.'\n\nMr Boffin's shadow passed upon the blinds of three large windows as he\ntrotted down the room, and passed again as he went back.\n\n'Yoop!' cried Wegg. 'You're there, are you? Where's the bottle? You\nwould give your bottle for my box, Dustman!'\n\nHaving now composed his mind for slumber, he turned homeward. Such\nwas the greed of the fellow, that his mind had shot beyond halves,\ntwo-thirds, three-fourths, and gone straight to spoliation of the whole.\n'Though that wouldn't quite do,' he considered, growing cooler as he got\naway. 'That's what would happen to him if he didn't buy us up. We should\nget nothing by that.'\n\nWe so judge others by ourselves, that it had never come into his head\nbefore, that he might not buy us up, and might prove honest, and prefer\nto be poor. It caused him a slight tremor as it passed; but a very\nslight one, for the idle thought was gone directly.\n\n'He's grown too fond of money for that,' said Wegg; 'he's grown too fond\nof money.' The burden fell into a strain or tune as he stumped along the\npavements. All the way home he stumped it out of the rattling streets,\nPIANO with his own foot, and FORTE with his wooden leg, 'He's GROWN too\nFOND of MONEY for THAT, he's GROWN too FOND of MONEY.'\n\nEven next day Silas soothed himself with this melodious strain, when he\nwas called out of bed at daybreak, to set open the yard-gate and admit\nthe train of carts and horses that came to carry off the little Mound.\nAnd all day long, as he kept unwinking watch on the slow process which\npromised to protract itself through many days and weeks, whenever\n(to save himself from being choked with dust) he patrolled a little\ncinderous beat he established for the purpose, without taking his eyes\nfrom the diggers, he still stumped to the tune: He's GROWN too FOND of\nMONEY for THAT, he's GROWN too FOND of MONEY.'\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\nTHE END OF A LONG JOURNEY\n\n\nThe train of carts and horses came and went all day from dawn to\nnightfall, making little or no daily impression on the heap of ashes,\nthough, as the days passed on, the heap was seen to be slowly melting.\nMy lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, when you in the course\nof your dust-shovelling and cinder-raking have piled up a mountain of\npretentious failure, you must off with your honourable coats for the\nremoval of it, and fall to the work with the power of all the queen's\nhorses and all the queen's men, or it will come rushing down and bury us\nalive.\n\nYes, verily, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, adapting your\nCatechism to the occasion, and by God's help so you must. For when we\nhave got things to the pass that with an enormous treasure at disposal\nto relieve the poor, the best of the poor detest our mercies, hide their\nheads from us, and shame us by starving to death in the midst of us, it\nis a pass impossible of prosperity, impossible of continuance. It may\nnot be so written in the Gospel according to Podsnappery; you may not\n'find these words' for the text of a sermon, in the Returns of the Board\nof Trade; but they have been the truth since the foundations of the\nuniverse were laid, and they will be the truth until the foundations of\nthe universe are shaken by the Builder. This boastful handiwork of\nours, which fails in its terrors for the professional pauper, the sturdy\nbreaker of windows and the rampant tearer of clothes, strikes with a\ncruel and a wicked stab at the stricken sufferer, and is a horror to\nthe deserving and unfortunate. We must mend it, lords and gentlemen and\nhonourable boards, or in its own evil hour it will mar every one of us.\n\nOld Betty Higden fared upon her pilgrimage as many ruggedly honest\ncreatures, women and men, fare on their toiling way along the roads\nof life. Patiently to earn a spare bare living, and quietly to die,\nuntouched by workhouse hands--this was her highest sublunary hope.\n\nNothing had been heard of her at Mr Boffin's house since she trudged\noff. The weather had been hard and the roads had been bad, and her\nspirit was up. A less stanch spirit might have been subdued by such\nadverse influences; but the loan for her little outfit was in no part\nrepaid, and it had gone worse with her than she had foreseen, and she\nwas put upon proving her case and maintaining her independence.\n\nFaithful soul! When she had spoken to the Secretary of that 'deadness\nthat steals over me at times', her fortitude had made too little of it.\nOftener and ever oftener, it came stealing over her; darker and ever\ndarker, like the shadow of advancing Death. That the shadow should\nbe deep as it came on, like the shadow of an actual presence, was in\naccordance with the laws of the physical world, for all the Light that\nshone on Betty Higden lay beyond Death.\n\nThe poor old creature had taken the upward course of the river Thames as\nher general track; it was the track in which her last home lay, and of\nwhich she had last had local love and knowledge. She had hovered for a\nlittle while in the near neighbourhood of her abandoned dwelling, and\nhad sold, and knitted and sold, and gone on. In the pleasant towns of\nChertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, her figure came to be quite\nwell known for some short weeks, and then again passed on.\n\nShe would take her stand in market-places, where there were such things,\non market days; at other times, in the busiest (that was seldom very\nbusy) portion of the little quiet High Street; at still other times she\nwould explore the outlying roads for great houses, and would ask leave\nat the Lodge to pass in with her basket, and would not often get it. But\nladies in carriages would frequently make purchases from her trifling\nstock, and were usually pleased with her bright eyes and her hopeful\nspeech. In these and her clean dress originated a fable that she was\nwell to do in the world: one might say, for her station, rich. As making\na comfortable provision for its subject which costs nobody anything,\nthis class of fable has long been popular.\n\nIn those pleasant little towns on Thames, you may hear the fall of\nthe water over the weirs, or even, in still weather, the rustle of the\nrushes; and from the bridge you may see the young river, dimpled like a\nyoung child, playfully gliding away among the trees, unpolluted by the\ndefilements that lie in wait for it on its course, and as yet out of\nhearing of the deep summons of the sea. It were too much to pretend that\nBetty Higden made out such thoughts; no; but she heard the tender river\nwhispering to many like herself, 'Come to me, come to me! When the cruel\nshame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me!\nI am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work;\nI am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My breast is softer\nthan the pauper-nurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than among the\npauper-wards. Come to me!'\n\nThere was abundant place for gentler fancies too, in her untutored mind.\nThose gentlefolks and their children inside those fine houses, could\nthey think, as they looked out at her, what it was to be really hungry,\nreally cold? Did they feel any of the wonder about her, that she felt\nabout them? Bless the dear laughing children! If they could have seen\nsick Johnny in her arms, would they have cried for pity? If they could\nhave seen dead Johnny on that little bed, would they have understood it?\nBless the dear children for his sake, anyhow! So with the humbler houses\nin the little street, the inner firelight shining on the panes as the\nouter twilight darkened. When the families gathered in-doors there, for\nthe night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if it were a little\nhard in them to close the shutter and blacken the flame. So with the\nlighted shops, and speculations whether their masters and mistresses\ntaking tea in a perspective of back-parlour--not so far within but that\nthe flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with the glow of light,\ninto the street--ate or drank or wore what they sold, with the greater\nrelish because they dealt in it. So with the churchyard on a branch of\nthe solitary way to the night's sleeping-place. 'Ah me! The dead and\nI seem to have it pretty much to ourselves in the dark and in this\nweather! But so much the better for all who are warmly housed at home.'\nThe poor soul envied no one in bitterness, and grudged no one anything.\n\nBut, the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew weaker, and\nit found more sustaining food than she did in her wanderings. Now, she\nwould light upon the shameful spectacle of some desolate creature--or\nsome wretched ragged groups of either sex, or of both sexes, with\nchildren among them, huddled together like the smaller vermin for\na little warmth--lingering and lingering on a doorstep, while the\nappointed evader of the public trust did his dirty office of trying to\nweary them out and so get rid of them. Now, she would light upon some\npoor decent person, like herself, going afoot on a pilgrimage of\nmany weary miles to see some worn-out relative or friend who had been\ncharitably clutched off to a great blank barren Union House, as far from\nold home as the County Jail (the remoteness of which is always its worst\npunishment for small rural offenders), and in its dietary, and in\nits lodging, and in its tending of the sick, a much more penal\nestablishment. Sometimes she would hear a newspaper read out, and would\nlearn how the Registrar General cast up the units that had within the\nlast week died of want and of exposure to the weather: for which that\nRecording Angel seemed to have a regular fixed place in his sum, as if\nthey were its halfpence. All such things she would hear discussed, as\nwe, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in our unapproachable\nmagnificence never hear them, and from all such things she would fly\nwith the wings of raging Despair.\n\nThis is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty Higden\nhowever tired, however footsore, would start up and be driven away\nby her awakened horror of falling into the hands of Charity. It is a\nremarkable Christian improvement, to have made a pursuing Fury of the\nGood Samaritan; but it was so in this case, and it is a type of many,\nmany, many.\n\nTwo incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning\nabhorrence--granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, because the\npeople always are unreasoning, and invariably make a point of producing\nall their smoke without fire.\n\nOne day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an inn,\nwith her little wares for sale, when the deadness that she strove\nagainst came over her so heavily that the scene departed from before\nher eyes; when it returned, she found herself on the ground, her head\nsupported by some good-natured market-women, and a little crowd about\nher.\n\n'Are you better now, mother?' asked one of the women. 'Do you think you\ncan do nicely now?'\n\n'Have I been ill then?' asked old Betty.\n\n'You have had a faint like,' was the answer, 'or a fit. It ain't that\nyou've been a-struggling, mother, but you've been stiff and numbed.'\n\n'Ah!' said Betty, recovering her memory. 'It's the numbness. Yes. It\ncomes over me at times.'\n\nWas it gone? the women asked her.\n\n'It's gone now,' said Betty. 'I shall be stronger than I was afore.\nMany thanks to ye, my dears, and when you come to be as old as I am, may\nothers do as much for you!'\n\nThey assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and they\nsupported her when she sat down again upon the bench.\n\n'My head's a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy,' said old Betty,\nleaning her face drowsily on the breast of the woman who had spoken\nbefore. 'They'll both come nat'ral in a minute. There's nothing more the\nmatter.'\n\n'Ask her,' said some farmers standing by, who had come out from their\nmarket-dinner, 'who belongs to her.'\n\n'Are there any folks belonging to you, mother?' said the woman.\n\n'Yes sure,' answered Betty. 'I heerd the gentleman say it, but I\ncouldn't answer quick enough. There's plenty belonging to me. Don't ye\nfear for me, my dear.'\n\n'But are any of 'em near here?' said the men's voices; the women's\nvoices chiming in when it was said, and prolonging the strain.\n\n'Quite near enough,' said Betty, rousing herself. 'Don't ye be afeard\nfor me, neighbours.'\n\n'But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going?' was the next\ncompassionate chorus she heard.\n\n'I'm a going to London when I've sold out all,' said Betty, rising with\ndifficulty. 'I've right good friends in London. I want for nothing. I\nshall come to no harm. Thankye. Don't ye be afeard for me.'\n\nA well-meaning bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced, said\nhoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that she\n'oughtn't to be let to go'.\n\n'For the Lord's love don't meddle with me!' cried old Betty, all her\nfears crowding on her. 'I am quite well now, and I must go this minute.'\n\nShe caught up her basket as she spoke and was making an unsteady rush\naway from them, when the same bystander checked her with his hand on\nher sleeve, and urged her to come with him and see the parish-doctor.\nStrengthening herself by the utmost exercise of her resolution, the poor\ntrembling creature shook him off, almost fiercely, and took to flight.\nNor did she feel safe until she had set a mile or two of by-road between\nherself and the marketplace, and had crept into a copse, like a hunted\nanimal, to hide and recover breath. Not until then for the first time\ndid she venture to recall how she had looked over her shoulder before\nturning out of the town, and had seen the sign of the White Lion hanging\nacross the road, and the fluttering market booths, and the old grey\nchurch, and the little crowd gazing after her but not attempting to\nfollow her.\n\nThe second frightening incident was this. She had been again as bad, and\nhad been for some days better, and was travelling along by a part of\nthe road where it touched the river, and in wet seasons was so often\noverflowed by it that there were tall white posts set up to mark the\nway. A barge was being towed towards her, and she sat down on the bank\nto rest and watch it. As the tow-rope was slackened by a turn of the\nstream and dipped into the water, such a confusion stole into her\nmind that she thought she saw the forms of her dead children and dead\ngrandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in\nsolemn measure; then, as the rope tightened and came up, dropping\ndiamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her,\nwith a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was no\nbarge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she had never before seen\nheld a candle close to her face.\n\n'Now, Missis,' said he; 'where did you come from and where are you going\nto?'\n\nThe poor soul confusedly asked the counter-question where she was?\n\n'I am the Lock,' said the man.\n\n'The Lock?'\n\n'I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lock-house. (Lock or\nDeputy Lock, it's all one, while the t'other man's in the hospital.)\nWhat's your Parish?'\n\n'Parish!' She was up from the truckle-bed directly, wildly feeling about\nher for her basket, and gazing at him in affright.\n\n'You'll be asked the question down town,' said the man. 'They won't let\nyou be more than a Casual there. They'll pass you on to your settlement,\nMissis, with all speed. You're not in a state to be let come upon\nstrange parishes 'ceptin as a Casual.'\n\n''Twas the deadness again!' murmured Betty Higden, with her hand to her\nhead.\n\n'It was the deadness, there's not a doubt about it,' returned the man.\n'I should have thought the deadness was a mild word for it, if it had\nbeen named to me when we brought you in. Have you got any friends,\nMissis?'\n\n'The best of friends, Master.'\n\n'I should recommend your looking 'em up if you consider 'em game to do\nanything for you,' said the Deputy Lock. 'Have you got any money?'\n\n'Just a morsel of money, sir.'\n\n'Do you want to keep it?'\n\n'Sure I do!'\n\n'Well, you know,' said the Deputy Lock, shrugging his shoulders with his\nhands in his pockets, and shaking his head in a sulkily ominous manner,\n'the parish authorities down town will have it out of you, if you go on,\nyou may take your Alfred David.'\n\n'Then I'll not go on.'\n\n'They'll make you pay, as fur as your money will go,' pursued the\nDeputy, 'for your relief as a Casual and for your being passed to your\nParish.'\n\n'Thank ye kindly, Master, for your warning, thank ye for your shelter,\nand good night.'\n\n'Stop a bit,' said the Deputy, striking in between her and the door.\n'Why are you all of a shake, and what's your hurry, Missis?'\n\n'Oh, Master, Master,' returned Betty Higden, 'I've fought against the\nParish and fled from it, all my life, and I want to die free of it!'\n\n'I don't know,' said the Deputy, with deliberation, 'as I ought to let\nyou go. I'm a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my brow, and\nI may fall into trouble by letting you go. I've fell into trouble afore\nnow, by George, and I know what it is, and it's made me careful. You\nmight be took with your deadness again, half a mile off--or half of half\na quarter, for the matter of that--and then it would be asked, Why did\nthat there honest Deputy Lock, let her go, instead of putting her safe\nwith the Parish? That's what a man of his character ought to have done,\nit would be argueyfied,' said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on the\nstrong string of her terror; 'he ought to have handed her over safe to\nthe Parish. That was to be expected of a man of his merits.'\n\nAs he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn wayworn woman burst\ninto tears, and clasped her hands, as if in a very agony she prayed to\nhim.\n\n'As I've told you, Master, I've the best of friends. This letter will\nshow how true I spoke, and they will be thankful for me.'\n\nThe Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, which underwent no\nchange as he eyed its contents. But it might have done, if he could have\nread them.\n\n'What amount of small change, Missis,' he said, with an abstracted air,\nafter a little meditation, 'might you call a morsel of money?'\n\nHurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the table, a\nshilling, and two sixpenny pieces, and a few pence.\n\n'If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe to the Parish,'\nsaid the Deputy, counting the money with his eyes, 'might it be your own\nfree wish to leave that there behind you?'\n\n'Take it, Master, take it, and welcome and thankful!'\n\n'I'm a man,' said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, and pocketing\nthe coins, one by one, 'as earns his living by the sweat of his brow;'\nhere he drew his sleeve across his forehead, as if this particular\nportion of his humble gains were the result of sheer hard labour and\nvirtuous industry; 'and I won't stand in your way. Go where you like.'\n\nShe was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her this\npermission, and her tottering steps were on the road again. But, afraid\nto go back and afraid to go forward; seeing what she fled from, in the\nsky-glare of the lights of the little town before her, and leaving a\nconfused horror of it everywhere behind her, as if she had escaped it\nin every stone of every market-place; she struck off by side ways, among\nwhich she got bewildered and lost. That night she took refuge from the\nSamaritan in his latest accredited form, under a farmer's rick; and\nif--worth thinking of, perhaps, my fellow-Christians--the Samaritan had\nin the lonely night, 'passed by on the other side', she would have most\ndevoutly thanked High Heaven for her escape from him.\n\nThe morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as to the\nclearness of her thoughts, though not as to the steadiness of her\npurpose. Comprehending that her strength was quitting her, and that the\nstruggle of her life was almost ended, she could neither reason out the\nmeans of getting back to her protectors, nor even form the idea. The\novermastering dread, and the proud stubborn resolution it engendered\nin her to die undegraded, were the two distinct impressions left in her\nfailing mind. Supported only by a sense that she was bent on conquering\nin her life-long fight, she went on.\n\nThe time was come, now, when the wants of this little life were passing\naway from her. She could not have swallowed food, though a table had\nbeen spread for her in the next field. The day was cold and wet, but\nshe scarcely knew it. She crept on, poor soul, like a criminal afraid of\nbeing taken, and felt little beyond the terror of falling down while it\nwas yet daylight, and being found alive. She had no fear that she would\nlive through another night.\n\nSewn in the breast of her gown, the money to pay for her burial was\nstill intact. If she could wear through the day, and then lie down to\ndie under cover of the darkness, she would die independent. If she were\ncaptured previously, the money would be taken from her as a pauper who\nhad no right to it, and she would be carried to the accursed workhouse.\nGaining her end, the letter would be found in her breast, along with\nthe money, and the gentlefolks would say when it was given back to them,\n'She prized it, did old Betty Higden; she was true to it; and while she\nlived, she would never let it be disgraced by falling into the hands\nof those that she held in horror.' Most illogical, inconsequential, and\nlight-headed, this; but travellers in the valley of the shadow of death\nare apt to be light-headed; and worn-out old people of low estate have\na trick of reasoning as indifferently as they live, and doubtless\nwould appreciate our Poor Law more philosophically on an income of ten\nthousand a year.\n\nSo, keeping to byways, and shunning human approach, this troublesome\nold woman hid herself, and fared on all through the dreary day. Yet so\nunlike was she to vagrant hiders in general, that sometimes, as the day\nadvanced, there was a bright fire in her eyes, and a quicker beating at\nher feeble heart, as though she said exultingly, 'The Lord will see me\nthrough it!'\n\nBy what visionary hands she was led along upon that journey of escape\nfrom the Samaritan; by what voices, hushed in the grave, she seemed\nto be addressed; how she fancied the dead child in her arms again, and\ntimes innumerable adjusted her shawl to keep it warm; what infinite\nvariety of forms of tower and roof and steeple the trees took; how many\nfurious horsemen rode at her, crying, 'There she goes! Stop! Stop,\nBetty Higden!' and melted away as they came close; be these things left\nuntold. Faring on and hiding, hiding and faring on, the poor harmless\ncreature, as though she were a Murderess and the whole country were up\nafter her, wore out the day, and gained the night.\n\n'Water-meadows, or such like,' she had sometimes murmured, on the day's\npilgrimage, when she had raised her head and taken any note of the real\nobjects about her. There now arose in the darkness, a great building,\nfull of lighted windows. Smoke was issuing from a high chimney in\nthe rear of it, and there was the sound of a water-wheel at the side.\nBetween her and the building, lay a piece of water, in which the lighted\nwindows were reflected, and on its nearest margin was a plantation of\ntrees. 'I humbly thank the Power and the Glory,' said Betty Higden,\nholding up her withered hands, 'that I have come to my journey's end!'\n\nShe crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence she could see,\nbeyond some intervening trees and branches, the lighted windows, both in\ntheir reality and their reflection in the water. She placed her orderly\nlittle basket at her side, and sank upon the ground, supporting herself\nagainst the tree. It brought to her mind the foot of the Cross, and\nshe committed herself to Him who died upon it. Her strength held out to\nenable her to arrange the letter in her breast, so as that it could\nbe seen that she had a paper there. It had held out for this, and it\ndeparted when this was done.\n\n'I am safe here,' was her last benumbed thought. 'When I am found dead\nat the foot of the Cross, it will be by some of my own sort; some of\nthe working people who work among the lights yonder. I cannot see the\nlighted windows now, but they are there. I am thankful for all!'\n\n\nThe darkness gone, and a face bending down.\n\n'It cannot be the boofer lady?'\n\n'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again with this\nbrandy. I have been away to fetch it. Did you think that I was long\ngone?'\n\nIt is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich dark hair.\nIt is the earnest face of a woman who is young and handsome. But all is\nover with me on earth, and this must be an Angel.\n\n'Have I been long dead?'\n\n'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again. I hurried\nall I could, and brought no one back with me, lest you should die of the\nshock of strangers.'\n\n'Am I not dead?'\n\n'I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so low and broken that\nI cannot hear you. Do you hear me?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Do you mean Yes?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'I was coming from my work just now, along the path outside (I was up\nwith the night-hands last night), and I heard a groan, and found you\nlying here.'\n\n'What work, deary?'\n\n'Did you ask what work? At the paper-mill.'\n\n'Where is it?'\n\n'Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can't see it. It is close\nby. You can see my face, here, between you and the sky?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Dare I lift you?'\n\n'Not yet.'\n\n'Not even lift your head to get it on my arm? I will do it by very\ngentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it.'\n\n'Not yet. Paper. Letter.'\n\n'This paper in your breast?'\n\n'Bless ye!'\n\n'Let me wet your lips again. Am I to open it? To read it?'\n\n'Bless ye!'\n\nShe reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new expression and an\nadded interest on the motionless face she kneels beside.\n\n'I know these names. I have heard them often.'\n\n'Will you send it, my dear?'\n\n'I cannot understand you. Let me wet your lips again, and your forehead.\nThere. O poor thing, poor thing!' These words through her fast-dropping\ntears. 'What was it that you asked me? Wait till I bring my ear quite\nclose.'\n\n'Will you send it, my dear?'\n\n'Will I send it to the writers? Is that your wish? Yes, certainly.'\n\n'You'll not give it up to any one but them?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'As you must grow old in time, and come to your dying hour, my dear,\nyou'll not give it up to any one but them?'\n\n'No. Most solemnly.'\n\n'Never to the Parish!' with a convulsed struggle.\n\n'No. Most solemnly.'\n\n'Nor let the Parish touch me, not yet so much as look at me!' with\nanother struggle.\n\n'No. Faithfully.'\n\nA look of thankfulness and triumph lights the worn old face.\n\nThe eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the sky, turn with meaning\nin them towards the compassionate face from which the tears are\ndropping, and a smile is on the aged lips as they ask:\n\n'What is your name, my dear?'\n\n'My name is Lizzie Hexam.'\n\n'I must be sore disfigured. Are you afraid to kiss me?'\n\nThe answer is, the ready pressure of her lips upon the cold but smiling\nmouth.\n\n'Bless ye! NOW lift me, my love.'\n\nLizzie Hexam very softly raised the weather-stained grey head, and\nlifted her as high as Heaven.\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nSOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION\n\n\n'\"We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver\nthis our sister out of the miseries of this sinful world.\"' So read the\nReverend Frank Milvey in a not untroubled voice, for his heart misgave\nhim that all was not quite right between us and our sister--or say our\nsister in Law--Poor Law--and that we sometimes read these words in an\nawful manner, over our Sister and our Brother too.\n\nAnd Sloppy--on whom the brave deceased had never turned her back until\nshe ran away from him, knowing that otherwise he would not be separated\nfrom her--Sloppy could not in his conscience as yet find the hearty\nthanks required of it. Selfish in Sloppy, and yet excusable, it may be\nhumbly hoped, because our sister had been more than his mother.\n\nThe words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in a corner of a\nchurchyard near the river; in a churchyard so obscure that there was\nnothing in it but grass-mounds, not so much as one single tombstone.\nIt might not be to do an unreasonably great deal for the diggers and\nhewers, in a registering age, if we ticketed their graves at the common\ncharge; so that a new generation might know which was which: so that the\nsoldier, sailor, emigrant, coming home, should be able to identify the\nresting-place of father, mother, playmate, or betrothed. For, we turn up\nour eyes and say that we are all alike in death, and we might turn\nthem down and work the saying out in this world, so far. It would\nbe sentimental, perhaps? But how say ye, my lords and gentleman and\nhonourable boards, shall we not find good standing-room left for a\nlittle sentiment, if we look into our crowds?\n\nNear unto the Reverend Frank Milvey as he read, stood his little wife,\nJohn Rokesmith the Secretary, and Bella Wilfer. These, over and above\nSloppy, were the mourners at the lowly grave. Not a penny had been\nadded to the money sewn in her dress: what her honest spirit had so long\nprojected, was fulfilled.\n\n'I've took it in my head,' said Sloppy, laying it, inconsolable, against\nthe church door, when all was done: 'I've took it in my wretched head\nthat I might have sometimes turned a little harder for her, and it cuts\nme deep to think so now.'\n\nThe Reverend Frank Milvey, comforting Sloppy, expounded to him how the\nbest of us were more or less remiss in our turnings at our respective\nMangles--some of us very much so--and how we were all a halting,\nfailing, feeble, and inconstant crew.\n\n'SHE warn't, sir,' said Sloppy, taking this ghostly counsel rather ill,\nin behalf of his late benefactress. 'Let us speak for ourselves, sir.\nShe went through with whatever duty she had to do. She went through with\nme, she went through with the Minders, she went through with herself,\nshe went through with everythink. O Mrs Higden, Mrs Higden, you was a\nwoman and a mother and a mangler in a million million!'\n\nWith those heartfelt words, Sloppy removed his dejected head from the\nchurch door, and took it back to the grave in the corner, and laid it\ndown there, and wept alone. 'Not a very poor grave,' said the Reverend\nFrank Milvey, brushing his hand across his eyes, 'when it has that\nhomely figure on it. Richer, I think, than it could be made by most of\nthe sculpture in Westminster Abbey!'\n\nThey left him undisturbed, and passed out at the wicket-gate. The\nwater-wheel of the paper-mill was audible there, and seemed to have a\nsoftening influence on the bright wintry scene. They had arrived but a\nlittle while before, and Lizzie Hexam now told them the little she could\nadd to the letter in which she had enclosed Mr Rokesmith's letter and\nhad asked for their instructions. This was merely how she had heard the\ngroan, and what had afterwards passed, and how she had obtained leave\nfor the remains to be placed in that sweet, fresh, empty store-room of\nthe mill from which they had just accompanied them to the churchyard,\nand how the last requests had been religiously observed.\n\n'I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself,' said Lizzie.\n'I should not have wanted the will; but I should not have had the power,\nwithout our managing partner.'\n\n'Surely not the Jew who received us?' said Mrs Milvey.\n\n('My dear,' observed her husband in parenthesis, 'why not?')\n\n'The gentleman certainly is a Jew,' said Lizzie, 'and the lady, his\nwife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to their notice by a Jew. But\nI think there cannot be kinder people in the world.'\n\n'But suppose they try to convert you!' suggested Mrs Milvey, bristling\nin her good little way, as a clergyman's wife.\n\n'To do what, ma'am?' asked Lizzie, with a modest smile.\n\n'To make you change your religion,' said Mrs Milvey.\n\nLizzie shook her head, still smiling. 'They have never asked me what\nmy religion is. They asked me what my story was, and I told them. They\nasked me to be industrious and faithful, and I promised to be so.\nThey most willingly and cheerfully do their duty to all of us who are\nemployed here, and we try to do ours to them. Indeed they do much more\nthan their duty to us, for they are wonderfully mindful of us in many\nways.'\n\n'It is easy to see you're a favourite, my dear,' said little Mrs Milvey,\nnot quite pleased.\n\n'It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not,' returned Lizzie,\n'for I have been already raised to a place of confidence here. But that\nmakes no difference in their following their own religion and leaving\nall of us to ours. They never talk of theirs to us, and they never talk\nof ours to us. If I was the last in the mill, it would be just the same.\nThey never asked me what religion that poor thing had followed.'\n\n'My dear,' said Mrs Milvey, aside to the Reverend Frank, 'I wish you\nwould talk to her.'\n\n'My dear,' said the Reverend Frank aside to his good little wife, 'I\nthink I will leave it to somebody else. The circumstances are hardly\nfavourable. There are plenty of talkers going about, my love, and she\nwill soon find one.'\n\nWhile this discourse was interchanging, both Bella and the Secretary\nobserved Lizzie Hexam with great attention. Brought face to face for the\nfirst time with the daughter of his supposed murderer, it was natural\nthat John Harmon should have his own secret reasons for a careful\nscrutiny of her countenance and manner. Bella knew that Lizzie's\nfather had been falsely accused of the crime which had had so great an\ninfluence on her own life and fortunes; and her interest, though it had\nno secret springs, like that of the Secretary, was equally natural. Both\nhad expected to see something very different from the real Lizzie Hexam,\nand thus it fell out that she became the unconscious means of bringing\nthem together.\n\nFor, when they had walked on with her to the little house in the clean\nvillage by the paper-mill, where Lizzie had a lodging with an elderly\ncouple employed in the establishment, and when Mrs Milvey and Bella\nhad been up to see her room and had come down, the mill bell rang.\nThis called Lizzie away for the time, and left the Secretary and Bella\nstanding rather awkwardly in the small street; Mrs Milvey being engaged\nin pursuing the village children, and her investigations whether they\nwere in danger of becoming children of Israel; and the Reverend Frank\nbeing engaged--to say the truth--in evading that branch of his spiritual\nfunctions, and getting out of sight surreptitiously.\n\nBella at length said:\n\n'Hadn't we better talk about the commission we have undertaken, Mr\nRokesmith?'\n\n'By all means,' said the Secretary.\n\n'I suppose,' faltered Bella, 'that we ARE both commissioned, or we\nshouldn't both be here?'\n\n'I suppose so,' was the Secretary's answer.\n\n'When I proposed to come with Mr and Mrs Milvey,' said Bella, 'Mrs\nBoffin urged me to do so, in order that I might give her my small\nreport--it's not worth anything, Mr Rokesmith, except for it's being\na woman's--which indeed with you may be a fresh reason for it's being\nworth nothing--of Lizzie Hexam.'\n\n'Mr Boffin,' said the Secretary, 'directed me to come for the same\npurpose.'\n\nAs they spoke they were leaving the little street and emerging on the\nwooded landscape by the river.\n\n'You think well of her, Mr Rokesmith?' pursued Bella, conscious of\nmaking all the advances.\n\n'I think highly of her.'\n\n'I am so glad of that! Something quite refined in her beauty, is there\nnot?'\n\n'Her appearance is very striking.'\n\n'There is a shade of sadness upon her that is quite touching. At least\nI--I am not setting up my own poor opinion, you know, Mr Rokesmith,'\nsaid Bella, excusing and explaining herself in a pretty shy way; 'I am\nconsulting you.'\n\n'I noticed that sadness. I hope it may not,' said the Secretary in\na lower voice, 'be the result of the false accusation which has been\nretracted.'\n\nWhen they had passed on a little further without speaking, Bella, after\nstealing a glance or two at the Secretary, suddenly said:\n\n'Oh, Mr Rokesmith, don't be hard with me, don't be stern with me; be\nmagnanimous! I want to talk with you on equal terms.'\n\nThe Secretary as suddenly brightened, and returned: 'Upon my honour I\nhad no thought but for you. I forced myself to be constrained, lest you\nmight misinterpret my being more natural. There. It's gone.'\n\n'Thank you,' said Bella, holding out her little hand. 'Forgive me.'\n\n'No!' cried the Secretary, eagerly. 'Forgive ME!' For there were tears\nin her eyes, and they were prettier in his sight (though they smote him\non the heart rather reproachfully too) than any other glitter in the\nworld.\n\nWhen they had walked a little further:\n\n'You were going to speak to me,' said the Secretary, with the shadow so\nlong on him quite thrown off and cast away, 'about Lizzie Hexam. So was\nI going to speak to you, if I could have begun.'\n\n'Now that you CAN begin, sir,' returned Bella, with a look as if she\nitalicized the word by putting one of her dimples under it, 'what were\nyou going to say?'\n\n'You remember, of course, that in her short letter to Mrs Boffin--short,\nbut containing everything to the purpose--she stipulated that either\nher name, or else her place of residence, must be kept strictly a secret\namong us.'\n\nBella nodded Yes.\n\n'It is my duty to find out why she made that stipulation. I have it in\ncharge from Mr Boffin to discover, and I am very desirous for myself to\ndiscover, whether that retracted accusation still leaves any stain upon\nher. I mean whether it places her at any disadvantage towards any one,\neven towards herself.'\n\n'Yes,' said Bella, nodding thoughtfully; 'I understand. That seems wise,\nand considerate.'\n\n'You may not have noticed, Miss Wilfer, that she has the same kind of\ninterest in you, that you have in her. Just as you are attracted by her\nbeaut--by her appearance and manner, she is attracted by yours.'\n\n'I certainly have NOT noticed it,' returned Bella, again italicizing\nwith the dimple, 'and I should have given her credit for--'\n\nThe Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plainly interposing 'not\nfor better taste', that Bella's colour deepened over the little piece of\ncoquetry she was checked in.\n\n'And so,' resumed the Secretary, 'if you would speak with her alone\nbefore we go away from here, I feel quite sure that a natural and easy\nconfidence would arise between you. Of course you would not be asked to\nbetray it; and of course you would not, if you were. But if you do not\nobject to put this question to her--to ascertain for us her own feeling\nin this one matter--you can do so at a far greater advantage than I or\nany else could. Mr Boffin is anxious on the subject. And I am,' added\nthe Secretary after a moment, 'for a special reason, very anxious.'\n\n'I shall be happy, Mr Rokesmith,' returned Bella, 'to be of the least\nuse; for I feel, after the serious scene of to-day, that I am useless\nenough in this world.'\n\n'Don't say that,' urged the Secretary.\n\n'Oh, but I mean that,' said Bella, raising her eyebrows.\n\n'No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, 'who lightens\nthe burden of it for any one else.'\n\n'But I assure you I DON'T, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, half-crying.\n\n'Not for your father?'\n\n'Dear, loving, self-forgetting, easily-satisfied Pa! Oh, yes! He thinks\nso.'\n\n'It is enough if he only thinks so,' said the Secretary. 'Excuse the\ninterruption: I don't like to hear you depreciate yourself.'\n\n'But YOU once depreciated ME, sir,' thought Bella, pouting, 'and I hope\nyou may be satisfied with the consequences you brought upon your head!'\nHowever, she said nothing to that purpose; she even said something to a\ndifferent purpose.\n\n'Mr Rokesmith, it seems so long since we spoke together naturally, that\nI am embarrassed in approaching another subject. Mr Boffin. You know I\nam very grateful to him; don't you? You know I feel a true respect for\nhim, and am bound to him by the strong ties of his own generosity; now\ndon't you?'\n\n'Unquestionably. And also that you are his favourite companion.'\n\n'That makes it,' said Bella, 'so very difficult to speak of him. But--.\nDoes he treat you well?'\n\n'You see how he treats me,' the Secretary answered, with a patient and\nyet proud air.\n\n'Yes, and I see it with pain,' said Bella, very energetically.\n\nThe Secretary gave her such a radiant look, that if he had thanked her a\nhundred times, he could not have said as much as the look said.\n\n'I see it with pain,' repeated Bella, 'and it often makes me miserable.\nMiserable, because I cannot bear to be supposed to approve of it, or\nhave any indirect share in it. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be\nforced to admit to myself that Fortune is spoiling Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, with a beaming face, 'if you could\nknow with what delight I make the discovery that Fortune isn't spoiling\nYOU, you would know that it more than compensates me for any slight at\nany other hands.'\n\n'Oh, don't speak of ME,' said Bella, giving herself an impatient little\nslap with her glove. 'You don't know me as well as--'\n\n'As you know yourself?' suggested the Secretary, finding that she\nstopped. 'DO you know yourself?'\n\n'I know quite enough of myself,' said Bella, with a charming air of\nbeing inclined to give herself up as a bad job, 'and I don't improve\nupon acquaintance. But Mr Boffin.'\n\n'That Mr Boffin's manner to me, or consideration for me, is not what it\nused to be,' observed the Secretary, 'must be admitted. It is too plain\nto be denied.'\n\n'Are you disposed to deny it, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella, with a look of\nwonder.\n\n'Ought I not to be glad to do so, if I could: though it were only for my\nown sake?'\n\n'Truly,' returned Bella, 'it must try you very much, and--you must\nplease promise me that you won't take ill what I am going to add, Mr\nRokesmith?'\n\n'I promise it with all my heart.'\n\n'--And it must sometimes, I should think,' said Bella, hesitating, 'a\nlittle lower you in your own estimation?'\n\nAssenting with a movement of his head, though not at all looking as if\nit did, the Secretary replied:\n\n'I have very strong reasons, Miss Wilfer, for bearing with the drawbacks\nof my position in the house we both inhabit. Believe that they are not\nall mercenary, although I have, through a series of strange fatalities,\nfaded out of my place in life. If what you see with such a gracious\nand good sympathy is calculated to rouse my pride, there are other\nconsiderations (and those you do not see) urging me to quiet endurance.\nThe latter are by far the stronger.'\n\n'I think I have noticed, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, looking at him with\ncuriosity, as not quite making him out, 'that you repress yourself, and\nforce yourself, to act a passive part.'\n\n'You are right. I repress myself and force myself to act a part. It is\nnot in tameness of spirit that I submit. I have a settled purpose.'\n\n'And a good one, I hope,' said Bella.\n\n'And a good one, I hope,' he answered, looking steadily at her.\n\n'Sometimes I have fancied, sir,' said Bella, turning away her eyes,\n'that your great regard for Mrs Boffin is a very powerful motive with\nyou.'\n\n'You are right again; it is. I would do anything for her, bear anything\nfor her. There are no words to express how I esteem that good, good\nwoman.'\n\n'As I do too! May I ask you one thing more, Mr Rokesmith?'\n\n'Anything more.'\n\n'Of course you see that she really suffers, when Mr Boffin shows how he\nis changing?'\n\n'I see it, every day, as you see it, and am grieved to give her pain.'\n\n'To give her pain?' said Bella, repeating the phrase quickly, with her\neyebrows raised.\n\n'I am generally the unfortunate cause of it.'\n\n'Perhaps she says to you, as she often says to me, that he is the best\nof men, in spite of all.'\n\n'I often overhear her, in her honest and beautiful devotion to him,\nsaying so to you,' returned the Secretary, with the same steady look,\n'but I cannot assert that she ever says so to me.'\n\nBella met the steady look for a moment with a wistful, musing little\nlook of her own, and then, nodding her pretty head several times, like\na dimpled philosopher (of the very best school) who was moralizing on\nLife, heaved a little sigh, and gave up things in general for a bad job,\nas she had previously been inclined to give up herself.\n\nBut, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were bare of\nleaves, and the river was bare of water-lilies; but the sky was not bare\nof its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, and a delicious\nwind ran with the stream, touching the surface crisply. Perhaps the old\nmirror was never yet made by human hands, which, if all the images it\nhas in its time reflected could pass across its surface again, would\nfail to reveal some scene of horror or distress. But the great serene\nmirror of the river seemed as if it might have reproduced all it had\never reflected between those placid banks, and brought nothing to the\nlight save what was peaceful, pastoral, and blooming.\n\nSo, they walked, speaking of the newly filled-up grave, and of Johnny,\nand of many things. So, on their return, they met brisk Mrs Milvey\ncoming to seek them, with the agreeable intelligence that there was no\nfear for the village children, there being a Christian school in the\nvillage, and no worse Judaical interference with it than to plant its\ngarden. So, they got back to the village as Lizzie Hexam was coming from\nthe paper-mill, and Bella detached herself to speak with her in her own\nhome.\n\n'I am afraid it is a poor room for you,' said Lizzie, with a smile of\nwelcome, as she offered the post of honour by the fireside.\n\n'Not so poor as you think, my dear,' returned Bella, 'if you knew all.'\nIndeed, though attained by some wonderful winding narrow stairs, which\nseemed to have been erected in a pure white chimney, and though very low\nin the ceiling, and very rugged in the floor, and rather blinking as\nto the proportions of its lattice window, it was a pleasanter room than\nthat despised chamber once at home, in which Bella had first bemoaned\nthe miseries of taking lodgers.\n\nThe day was closing as the two girls looked at one another by the\nfireside. The dusky room was lighted by the fire. The grate might have\nbeen the old brazier, and the glow might have been the old hollow down\nby the flare.\n\n'It's quite new to me,' said Lizzie, 'to be visited by a lady so nearly\nof my own age, and so pretty, as you. It's a pleasure to me to look at\nyou.'\n\n'I have nothing left to begin with,' returned Bella, blushing, 'because\nI was going to say that it was a pleasure to me to look at you, Lizzie.\nBut we can begin without a beginning, can't we?'\n\nLizzie took the pretty little hand that was held out in as pretty a\nlittle frankness.\n\n'Now, dear,' said Bella, drawing her chair a little nearer, and taking\nLizzie's arm as if they were going out for a walk, 'I am commissioned\nwith something to say, and I dare say I shall say it wrong, but I\nwon't if I can help it. It is in reference to your letter to Mr and Mrs\nBoffin, and this is what it is. Let me see. Oh yes! This is what it is.'\n\nWith this exordium, Bella set forth that request of Lizzie's touching\nsecrecy, and delicately spoke of that false accusation and its\nretraction, and asked might she beg to be informed whether it had any\nbearing, near or remote, on such request. 'I feel, my dear,' said Bella,\nquite amazing herself by the business-like manner in which she was\ngetting on, 'that the subject must be a painful one to you, but I\nam mixed up in it also; for--I don't know whether you may know it or\nsuspect it--I am the willed-away girl who was to have been married to\nthe unfortunate gentleman, if he had been pleased to approve of me. So\nI was dragged into the subject without my consent, and you were dragged\ninto it without your consent, and there is very little to choose between\nus.'\n\n'I had no doubt,' said Lizzie, 'that you were the Miss Wilfer I have\noften heard named. Can you tell me who my unknown friend is?'\n\n'Unknown friend, my dear?' said Bella.\n\n'Who caused the charge against poor father to be contradicted, and sent\nme the written paper.'\n\nBella had never heard of him. Had no notion who he was.\n\n'I should have been glad to thank him,' returned Lizzie. 'He has done a\ngreat deal for me. I must hope that he will let me thank him some day.\nYou asked me has it anything to do--'\n\n'It or the accusation itself,' Bella put in.\n\n'Yes. Has either anything to do with my wishing to live quite secret and\nretired here? No.'\n\nAs Lizzie Hexam shook her head in giving this reply and as her glance\nsought the fire, there was a quiet resolution in her folded hands, not\nlost on Bella's bright eyes.\n\n'Have you lived much alone?' asked Bella.\n\n'Yes. It's nothing new to me. I used to be always alone many hours\ntogether, in the day and in the night, when poor father was alive.'\n\n'You have a brother, I have been told?'\n\n'I have a brother, but he is not friendly with me. He is a very good\nboy though, and has raised himself by his industry. I don't complain of\nhim.'\n\nAs she said it, with her eyes upon the fire-glow, there was an\ninstantaneous escape of distress into her face. Bella seized the moment\nto touch her hand.\n\n'Lizzie, I wish you would tell me whether you have any friend of your\nown sex and age.'\n\n'I have lived that lonely kind of life, that I have never had one,' was\nthe answer.\n\n'Nor I neither,' said Bella. 'Not that my life has been lonely, for I\ncould have sometimes wished it lonelier, instead of having Ma going on\nlike the Tragic Muse with a face-ache in majestic corners, and Lavvy\nbeing spiteful--though of course I am very fond of them both. I wish\nyou could make a friend of me, Lizzie. Do you think you could? I have\nno more of what they call character, my dear, than a canary-bird, but I\nknow I am trustworthy.'\n\nThe wayward, playful, affectionate nature, giddy for want of the\nweight of some sustaining purpose, and capricious because it was always\nfluttering among little things, was yet a captivating one. To Lizzie it\nwas so new, so pretty, at once so womanly and so childish, that it won\nher completely. And when Bella said again, 'Do you think you could,\nLizzie?' with her eyebrows raised, her head inquiringly on one side,\nand an odd doubt about it in her own bosom, Lizzie showed beyond all\nquestion that she thought she could.\n\n'Tell me, my dear,' said Bella, 'what is the matter, and why you live\nlike this.'\n\nLizzie presently began, by way of prelude, 'You must have many lovers--'\nwhen Bella checked her with a little scream of astonishment.\n\n'My dear, I haven't one!'\n\n'Not one?'\n\n'Well! Perhaps one,' said Bella. 'I am sure I don't know. I HAD one, but\nwhat he may think about it at the present time I can't say. Perhaps I\nhave half a one (of course I don't count that Idiot, George Sampson).\nHowever, never mind me. I want to hear about you.'\n\n'There is a certain man,' said Lizzie, 'a passionate and angry man, who\nsays he loves me, and who I must believe does love me. He is the friend\nof my brother. I shrank from him within myself when my brother first\nbrought him to me; but the last time I saw him he terrified me more than\nI can say.' There she stopped.\n\n'Did you come here to escape from him, Lizzie?'\n\n'I came here immediately after he so alarmed me.'\n\n'Are you afraid of him here?'\n\n'I am not timid generally, but I am always afraid of him. I am afraid\nto see a newspaper, or to hear a word spoken of what is done in London,\nlest he should have done some violence.'\n\n'Then you are not afraid of him for yourself, dear?' said Bella, after\npondering on the words.\n\n'I should be even that, if I met him about here. I look round for him\nalways, as I pass to and fro at night.'\n\n'Are you afraid of anything he may do to himself in London, my dear?'\n\n'No. He might be fierce enough even to do some violence to himself, but\nI don't think of that.'\n\n'Then it would almost seem, dear,' said Bella quaintly, 'as if there\nmust be somebody else?'\n\nLizzie put her hands before her face for a moment before replying: 'The\nwords are always in my ears, and the blow he struck upon a stone wall as\nhe said them is always before my eyes. I have tried hard to think it\nnot worth remembering, but I cannot make so little of it. His hand was\ntrickling down with blood as he said to me, \"Then I hope that I may\nnever kill him!\"\n\nRather startled, Bella made and clasped a girdle of her arms round\nLizzie's waist, and then asked quietly, in a soft voice, as they both\nlooked at the fire:\n\n'Kill him! Is this man so jealous, then?'\n\n'Of a gentleman,' said Lizzie. '--I hardly know how to tell you--of a\ngentleman far above me and my way of life, who broke father's death to\nme, and has shown an interest in me since.'\n\n'Does he love you?'\n\nLizzie shook her head.\n\n'Does he admire you?'\n\nLizzie ceased to shake her head, and pressed her hand upon her living\ngirdle.\n\n'Is it through his influence that you came here?'\n\n'O no! And of all the world I wouldn't have him know that I am here, or\nget the least clue where to find me.'\n\n'Lizzie, dear! Why?' asked Bella, in amazement at this burst. But then\nquickly added, reading Lizzie's face: 'No. Don't say why. That was a\nfoolish question of mine. I see, I see.'\n\nThere was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping head, glanced\ndown at the glow in the fire where her first fancies had been nursed,\nand her first escape made from the grim life out of which she had\nplucked her brother, foreseeing her reward.\n\n'You know all now,' she said, raising her eyes to Bella's. 'There is\nnothing left out. This is my reason for living secret here, with the aid\nof a good old man who is my true friend. For a short part of my life\nat home with father, I knew of things--don't ask me what--that I set my\nface against, and tried to better. I don't think I could have done more,\nthen, without letting my hold on father go; but they sometimes lie heavy\non my mind. By doing all for the best, I hope I may wear them out.'\n\n'And wear out too,' said Bella soothingly, 'this weakness, Lizzie, in\nfavour of one who is not worthy of it.'\n\n'No. I don't want to wear that out,' was the flushed reply, 'nor do I\nwant to believe, nor do I believe, that he is not worthy of it. What\nshould I gain by that, and how much should I lose!'\n\nBella's expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the fire for some\nshort time before she rejoined:\n\n'Don't think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn't you gain in peace,\nand hope, and even in freedom? Wouldn't it be better not to live a\nsecret life in hiding, and not to be shut out from your natural and\nwholesome prospects? Forgive my asking you, would that be no gain?'\n\n'Does a woman's heart that--that has that weakness in it which you have\nspoken of,' returned Lizzie, 'seek to gain anything?'\n\nThe question was so directly at variance with Bella's views in life, as\nset forth to her father, that she said internally, 'There, you little\nmercenary wretch! Do you hear that? Ain't you ashamed of your self?'\nand unclasped the girdle of her arms, expressly to give herself a\npenitential poke in the side.\n\n'But you said, Lizzie,' observed Bella, returning to her subject when\nshe had administered this chastisement, 'that you would lose, besides.\nWould you mind telling me what you would lose, Lizzie?'\n\n'I should lose some of the best recollections, best encouragements,\nand best objects, that I carry through my daily life. I should lose my\nbelief that if I had been his equal, and he had loved me, I should have\ntried with all my might to make him better and happier, as he would have\nmade me. I should lose almost all the value that I put upon the little\nlearning I have, which is all owing to him, and which I conquered the\ndifficulties of, that he might not think it thrown away upon me. I\nshould lose a kind of picture of him--or of what he might have been,\nif I had been a lady, and he had loved me--which is always with me, and\nwhich I somehow feel that I could not do a mean or a wrong thing before.\nI should leave off prizing the remembrance that he has done me nothing\nbut good since I have known him, and that he has made a change within\nme, like--like the change in the grain of these hands, which were\ncoarse, and cracked, and hard, and brown when I rowed on the river with\nfather, and are softened and made supple by this new work as you see\nthem now.'\n\nThey trembled, but with no weakness, as she showed them.\n\n'Understand me, my dear;' thus she went on. 'I have never dreamed of\nthe possibility of his being anything to me on this earth but the\nkind picture that I know I could not make you understand, if the\nunderstanding was not in your own breast already. I have no more dreamed\nof the possibility of MY being his wife, than he ever has--and words\ncould not be stronger than that. And yet I love him. I love him so much,\nand so dearly, that when I sometimes think my life may be but a weary\none, I am proud of it and glad of it. I am proud and glad to suffer\nsomething for him, even though it is of no service to him, and he will\nnever know of it or care for it.'\n\nBella sat enchained by the deep, unselfish passion of this girl or woman\nof her own age, courageously revealing itself in the confidence of her\nsympathetic perception of its truth. And yet she had never experienced\nanything like it, or thought of the existence of anything like it.\n\n'It was late upon a wretched night,' said Lizzie, 'when his eyes first\nlooked at me in my old river-side home, very different from this. His\neyes may never look at me again. I would rather that they never did; I\nhope that they never may. But I would not have the light of them taken\nout of my life, for anything my life can give me. I have told you\neverything now, my dear. If it comes a little strange to me to have\nparted with it, I am not sorry. I had no thought of ever parting with a\nsingle word of it, a moment before you came in; but you came in, and my\nmind changed.'\n\nBella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly for her\nconfidence. 'I only wish,' said Bella, 'I was more deserving of it.'\n\n'More deserving of it?' repeated Lizzie, with an incredulous smile.\n\n'I don't mean in respect of keeping it,' said Bella, 'because any\none should tear me to bits before getting at a syllable of it--though\nthere's no merit in that, for I am naturally as obstinate as a Pig. What\nI mean is, Lizzie, that I am a mere impertinent piece of conceit, and\nyou shame me.'\n\nLizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling down, owing to\nthe energy with which Bella shook her head; and she remonstrated while\nthus engaged, 'My dear!'\n\n'Oh, it's all very well to call me your dear,' said Bella, with a\npettish whimper, 'and I am glad to be called so, though I have slight\nenough claim to be. But I AM such a nasty little thing!'\n\n'My dear!' urged Lizzie again.\n\n'Such a shallow, cold, worldly, Limited little brute!' said Bella,\nbringing out her last adjective with culminating force.\n\n'Do you think,' inquired Lizzie with her quiet smile, the hair being now\nsecured, 'that I don't know better?'\n\n'DO you know better though?' said Bella. 'Do you really believe you know\nbetter? Oh, I should be so glad if you did know better, but I am so very\nmuch afraid that I must know best!'\n\nLizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw her own face\nor heard her own voice?\n\n'I suppose so,' returned Bella; 'I look in the glass often enough, and I\nchatter like a Magpie.'\n\n'I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate,' said Lizzie,\n'and they have tempted me to say to you--with a certainty of not going\nwrong--what I thought I should never say to any one. Does that look\nill?'\n\n'No, I hope it doesn't,' pouted Bella, stopping herself in something\nbetween a humoured laugh and a humoured sob.\n\n'I used once to see pictures in the fire,' said Lizzie playfully, 'to\nplease my brother. Shall I tell you what I see down there where the fire\nis glowing?'\n\nThey had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time being come for\nseparating; each had drawn an arm around the other to take leave.\n\n'Shall I tell you,' asked Lizzie, 'what I see down there?'\n\n'Limited little b?' suggested Bella with her eyebrows raised.\n\n'A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes\nthrough fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never\ndaunted.'\n\n'Girl's heart?' asked Bella, with accompanying eyebrows.\n\nLizzie nodded. 'And the figure to which it belongs--'\n\nIs yours,' suggested Bella.\n\n'No. Most clearly and distinctly yours.'\n\nSo the interview terminated with pleasant words on both sides, and with\nmany reminders on the part of Bella that they were friends, and pledges\nthat she would soon come down into that part of the country again. There\nwith Lizzie returned to her occupation, and Bella ran over to the little\ninn to rejoin her company.\n\n'You look rather serious, Miss Wilfer,' was the Secretary's first\nremark.\n\n'I feel rather serious,' returned Miss Wilfer.\n\nShe had nothing else to tell him but that Lizzie Hexam's secret had\nno reference whatever to the cruel charge, or its withdrawal. Oh yes\nthough! said Bella; she might as well mention one other thing; Lizzie\nwas very desirous to thank her unknown friend who had sent her the\nwritten retractation. Was she, indeed? observed the Secretary. Ah! Bella\nasked him, had he any notion who that unknown friend might be? He had no\nnotion whatever.\n\nThey were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor old Betty\nHigden strayed. They were to return by the train presently, and, the\nstation being near at hand, the Reverend Frank and Mrs Frank, and Sloppy\nand Bella and the Secretary, set out to walk to it. Few rustic paths are\nwide enough for five, and Bella and the Secretary dropped behind.\n\n'Can you believe, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'that I feel as if whole\nyears had passed since I went into Lizzie Hexam's cottage?'\n\n'We have crowded a good deal into the day,' he returned, 'and you were\nmuch affected in the churchyard. You are over-tired.'\n\n'No, I am not at all tired. I have not quite expressed what I mean. I\ndon't mean that I feel as if a great space of time had gone by, but that\nI feel as if much had happened--to myself, you know.'\n\n'For good, I hope?'\n\n'I hope so,' said Bella.\n\n'You are cold; I felt you tremble. Pray let me put this wrapper of mine\nabout you. May I fold it over this shoulder without injuring your dress?\nNow, it will be too heavy and too long. Let me carry this end over my\narm, as you have no arm to give me.'\n\nYes she had though. How she got it out, in her muffled state, Heaven\nknows; but she got it out somehow--there it was--and slipped it through\nthe Secretary's.\n\n'I have had a long and interesting talk with Lizzie, Mr Rokesmith, and\nshe gave me her full confidence.'\n\n'She could not withhold it,' said the Secretary.\n\n'I wonder how you come,' said Bella, stopping short as she glanced at\nhim, 'to say to me just what she said about it!'\n\n'I infer that it must be because I feel just as she felt about it.'\n\n'And how was that, do you mean to say, sir?' asked Bella, moving again.\n\n'That if you were inclined to win her confidence--anybody's\nconfidence--you were sure to do it.'\n\nThe railway, at this point, knowingly shutting a green eye and opening\na red one, they had to run for it. As Bella could not run easily so\nwrapped up, the Secretary had to help her. When she took her opposite\nplace in the carriage corner, the brightness in her face was so charming\nto behold, that on her exclaiming, 'What beautiful stars and what a\nglorious night!' the Secretary said 'Yes,' but seemed to prefer to see\nthe night and the stars in the light of her lovely little countenance,\nto looking out of window.\n\nO boofer lady, fascinating boofer lady! If I were but legally executor\nof Johnny's will! If I had but the right to pay your legacy and to take\nyour receipt!--Something to this purpose surely mingled with the blast\nof the train as it cleared the stations, all knowingly shutting up their\ngreen eyes and opening their red ones when they prepared to let the\nboofer lady pass.\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\nSCOUTS OUT\n\n\n'And so, Miss Wren,' said Mr Eugene Wrayburn, 'I cannot persuade you to\ndress me a doll?'\n\n'No,' replied Miss Wren snappishly; 'if you want one, go and buy one at\nthe shop.'\n\n'And my charming young goddaughter,' said Mr Wrayburn plaintively, 'down\nin Hertfordshire--'\n\n('Humbugshire you mean, I think,' interposed Miss Wren.)\n\n'--is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is\nto derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the Court\nDressmaker?'\n\n'If it's any advantage to your charming godchild--and oh, a precious\ngodfather she has got!'--replied Miss Wren, pricking at him in the air\nwith her needle, 'to be informed that the Court Dressmaker knows\nyour tricks and your manners, you may tell her so by post, with my\ncompliments.'\n\nMiss Wren was busy at her work by candle-light, and Mr Wrayburn, half\namused and half vexed, and all idle and shiftless, stood by her bench\nlooking on. Miss Wren's troublesome child was in the corner in deep\ndisgrace, and exhibiting great wretchedness in the shivering stage of\nprostration from drink.\n\n'Ugh, you disgraceful boy!' exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the sound\nof his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd all drop down your throat and\nplay at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee-baa, black sheep!'\n\nOn her accompanying each of these reproaches with a threatening stamp of\nthe foot, the wretched creature protested with a whine.\n\n'Pay five shillings for you indeed!' Miss Wren proceeded; 'how many\nhours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, you infamous\nboy?--Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a doll at you. Pay five\nshillings fine for you indeed. Fine in more ways than one, I think! I'd\ngive the dustman five shillings, to carry you off in the dust cart.'\n\n'No, no,' pleaded the absurd creature. 'Please!'\n\n'He's enough to break his mother's heart, is this boy,' said Miss Wren,\nhalf appealing to Eugene. 'I wish I had never brought him up. He'd be\nsharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as dull as ditch water.\nLook at him. There's a pretty object for a parent's eyes!'\n\nAssuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at least fatten on\ntheir guzzling, and make themselves good to eat), he was a pretty object\nfor any eyes.\n\n'A muddling and a swipey old child,' said Miss Wren, rating him with\ngreat severity, 'fit for nothing but to be preserved in the liquor\nthat destroys him, and put in a great glass bottle as a sight for other\nswipey children of his own pattern,--if he has no consideration for his\nliver, has he none for his mother?'\n\n'Yes. Deration, oh don't!' cried the subject of these angry remarks.\n\n'Oh don't and oh don't,' pursued Miss Wren. 'It's oh do and oh do. And\nwhy do you?'\n\n'Won't do so any more. Won't indeed. Pray!'\n\n'There!' said Miss Wren, covering her eyes with her hand. 'I can't\nbear to look at you. Go up stairs and get me my bonnet and shawl. Make\nyourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me have your room instead\nof your company, for one half minute.'\n\nObeying her, he shambled out, and Eugene Wrayburn saw the tears exude\nfrom between the little creature's fingers as she kept her hand before\nher eyes. He was sorry, but his sympathy did not move his carelessness\nto do anything but feel sorry.\n\n'I'm going to the Italian Opera to try on,' said Miss Wren, taking away\nher hand after a little while, and laughing satirically to hide that she\nhad been crying; 'I must see your back before I go, Mr Wrayburn. Let me\nfirst tell you, once for all, that it's of no use your paying visits\nto me. You wouldn't get what you want, of me, no, not if you brought\npincers with you to tear it out.'\n\n'Are you so obstinate on the subject of a doll's dress for my godchild?'\n\n'Ah!' returned Miss Wren with a hitch of her chin, 'I am so\nobstinate. And of course it's on the subject of a doll's dress--or\nADdress--whichever you like. Get along and give it up!'\n\nHer degraded charge had come back, and was standing behind her with the\nbonnet and shawl.\n\n'Give 'em to me and get back into your corner, you naughty old thing!'\nsaid Miss Wren, as she turned and espied him. 'No, no, I won't have your\nhelp. Go into your corner, this minute!'\n\nThe miserable man, feebly rubbing the back of his faltering hands\ndownward from the wrists, shuffled on to his post of disgrace; but not\nwithout a curious glance at Eugene in passing him, accompanied with what\nseemed as if it might have been an action of his elbow, if any action of\nany limb or joint he had, would have answered truly to his will. Taking\nno more particular notice of him than instinctively falling away from\nthe disagreeable contact, Eugene, with a lazy compliment or so to Miss\nWren, begged leave to light his cigar, and departed.\n\n'Now you prodigal old son,' said Jenny, shaking her head and her\nemphatic little forefinger at her burden, 'you sit there till I come\nback. You dare to move out of your corner for a single instant while I'm\ngone, and I'll know the reason why.'\n\nWith this admonition, she blew her work candles out, leaving him to the\nlight of the fire, and, taking her big door-key in her pocket and her\ncrutch-stick in her hand, marched off.\n\nEugene lounged slowly towards the Temple, smoking his cigar, but saw\nno more of the dolls' dressmaker, through the accident of their taking\nopposite sides of the street. He lounged along moodily, and stopped at\nCharing Cross to look about him, with as little interest in the crowd\nas any man might take, and was lounging on again, when a most unexpected\nobject caught his eyes. No less an object than Jenny Wren's bad boy\ntrying to make up his mind to cross the road.\n\nA more ridiculous and feeble spectacle than this tottering wretch making\nunsteady sallies into the roadway, and as often staggering back again,\noppressed by terrors of vehicles that were a long way off or were\nnowhere, the streets could not have shown. Over and over again, when the\ncourse was perfectly clear, he set out, got half way, described a loop,\nturned, and went back again; when he might have crossed and re-crossed\nhalf a dozen times. Then, he would stand shivering on the edge of the\npavement, looking up the street and looking down, while scores of people\njostled him, and crossed, and went on. Stimulated in course of time\nby the sight of so many successes, he would make another sally, make\nanother loop, would all but have his foot on the opposite pavement,\nwould see or imagine something coming, and would stagger back again.\nThere, he would stand making spasmodic preparations as if for a great\nleap, and at last would decide on a start at precisely the wrong moment,\nand would be roared at by drivers, and would shrink back once more, and\nstand in the old spot shivering, with the whole of the proceedings to go\nthrough again.\n\n'It strikes me,' remarked Eugene coolly, after watching him for some\nminutes, 'that my friend is likely to be rather behind time if he has\nany appointment on hand.' With which remark he strolled on, and took no\nfurther thought of him.\n\nLightwood was at home when he got to the Chambers, and had dined alone\nthere. Eugene drew a chair to the fire by which he was having his wine\nand reading the evening paper, and brought a glass, and filled it for\ngood fellowship's sake.\n\n'My dear Mortimer, you are the express picture of contented industry,\nreposing (on credit) after the virtuous labours of the day.'\n\n'My dear Eugene, you are the express picture of discontented idleness\nnot reposing at all. Where have you been?'\n\n'I have been,' replied Wrayburn, '--about town. I have turned up at the\npresent juncture, with the intention of consulting my highly intelligent\nand respected solicitor on the position of my affairs.'\n\n'Your highly intelligent and respect solicitor is of opinion that your\naffairs are in a bad way, Eugene.'\n\n'Though whether,' said Eugene thoughtfully, 'that can be intelligently\nsaid, now, of the affairs of a client who has nothing to lose and who\ncannot possibly be made to pay, may be open to question.'\n\n'You have fallen into the hands of the Jews, Eugene.'\n\n'My dear boy,' returned the debtor, very composedly taking up his glass,\n'having previously fallen into the hands of some of the Christians, I\ncan bear it with philosophy.'\n\n'I have had an interview to-day, Eugene, with a Jew, who seems\ndetermined to press us hard. Quite a Shylock, and quite a Patriarch. A\npicturesque grey-headed and grey-bearded old Jew, in a shovel-hat and\ngaberdine.'\n\n'Not,' said Eugene, pausing in setting down his glass, 'surely not my\nworthy friend Mr Aaron?'\n\n'He calls himself Mr Riah.'\n\n'By-the-by,' said Eugene, 'it comes into my mind that--no doubt with an\ninstinctive desire to receive him into the bosom of our Church--I gave\nhim the name of Aaron!'\n\n'Eugene, Eugene,' returned Lightwood, 'you are more ridiculous than\nusual. Say what you mean.'\n\n'Merely, my dear fellow, that I have the honour and pleasure of a\nspeaking acquaintance with such a Patriarch as you describe, and that I\naddress him as Mr Aaron, because it appears to me Hebraic, expressive,\nappropriate, and complimentary. Notwithstanding which strong reasons for\nits being his name, it may not be his name.'\n\n'I believe you are the absurdest man on the face of the earth,' said\nLightwood, laughing.\n\n'Not at all, I assure you. Did he mention that he knew me?'\n\n'He did not. He only said of you that he expected to be paid by you.'\n\n'Which looks,' remarked Eugene with much gravity, 'like NOT knowing me.\nI hope it may not be my worthy friend Mr Aaron, for, to tell you the\ntruth, Mortimer, I doubt he may have a prepossession against me. I\nstrongly suspect him of having had a hand in spiriting away Lizzie.'\n\n'Everything,' returned Lightwood impatiently, 'seems, by a fatality,\nto bring us round to Lizzie. \"About town\" meant about Lizzie, just now,\nEugene.'\n\n'My solicitor, do you know,' observed Eugene, turning round to the\nfurniture, 'is a man of infinite discernment!'\n\n'Did it not, Eugene?'\n\n'Yes it did, Mortimer.'\n\n'And yet, Eugene, you know you do not really care for her.'\n\nEugene Wrayburn rose, and put his hands in his pockets, and stood with a\nfoot on the fender, indolently rocking his body and looking at the fire.\nAfter a prolonged pause, he replied: 'I don't know that. I must ask you\nnot to say that, as if we took it for granted.'\n\n'But if you do care for her, so much the more should you leave her to\nherself.'\n\nHaving again paused as before, Eugene said: 'I don't know that, either.\nBut tell me. Did you ever see me take so much trouble about anything, as\nabout this disappearance of hers? I ask, for information.'\n\n'My dear Eugene, I wish I ever had!'\n\n'Then you have not? Just so. You confirm my own impression. Does that\nlook as if I cared for her? I ask, for information.'\n\n'I asked YOU for information, Eugene,' said Mortimer reproachfully.\n\n'Dear boy, I know it, but I can't give it. I thirst for information.\nWhat do I mean? If my taking so much trouble to recover her does not\nmean that I care for her, what does it mean? \"If Peter Piper picked a\npeck of pickled pepper, where's the peck,\" &c.?'\n\nThough he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed and inquisitive\nface, as if he actually did not know what to make of himself. 'Look on\nto the end--' Lightwood was beginning to remonstrate, when he caught at\nthe words:\n\n'Ah! See now! That's exactly what I am incapable of doing. How very\nacute you are, Mortimer, in finding my weak place! When we were at\nschool together, I got up my lessons at the last moment, day by day and\nbit by bit; now we are out in life together, I get up my lessons in the\nsame way. In the present task I have not got beyond this:--I am bent\non finding Lizzie, and I mean to find her, and I will take any means\nof finding her that offer themselves. Fair means or foul means, are all\nalike to me. I ask you--for information--what does that mean? When I\nhave found her I may ask you--also for information--what do I mean now?\nBut it would be premature in this stage, and it's not the character of\nmy mind.'\n\nLightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his friend held\nforth thus--an air so whimsically open and argumentative as almost to\ndeprive what he said of the appearance of evasion--when a shuffling was\nheard at the outer door, and then an undecided knock, as though\nsome hand were groping for the knocker. 'The frolicsome youth of the\nneighbourhood,' said Eugene, 'whom I should be delighted to pitch from\nthis elevation into the churchyard below, without any intermediate\nceremonies, have probably turned the lamp out. I am on duty to-night,\nand will see to the door.'\n\nHis friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam of\ndetermination with which he had spoken of finding this girl, and which\nhad faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, when Eugene\ncame back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking from\nhead to foot, and clothed in shabby grease and smear.\n\n'This interesting gentleman,' said Eugene, 'is the son--the\noccasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings--of a lady of my\nacquaintance. My dear Mortimer--Mr Dolls.' Eugene had no idea what his\nname was, knowing the little dressmaker's to be assumed, but presented\nhim with easy confidence under the first appellation that his\nassociations suggested.\n\n'I gather, my dear Mortimer,' pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared at\nthe obscene visitor, 'from the manner of Mr Dolls--which is occasionally\ncomplicated--that he desires to make some communication to me. I have\nmentioned to Mr Dolls that you and I are on terms of confidence, and\nhave requested Mr Dolls to develop his views here.'\n\nThe wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what remained\nof his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the door, and put him down in a\nchair.\n\n'It will be necessary, I think,' he observed, 'to wind up Mr Dolls,\nbefore anything to any mortal purpose can be got out of him. Brandy, Mr\nDolls, or--?'\n\n'Threepenn'orth Rum,' said Mr Dolls.\n\nA judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in a\nwine-glass, and he began to convey it to his mouth, with all kinds of\nfalterings and gyrations on the road.\n\n'The nerves of Mr Dolls,' remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'are\nconsiderably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to fumigate\nMr Dolls.'\n\nHe took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live ashes on it, and\nfrom a box on the chimney-piece took a few pastiles, which he set upon\nthem; then, with great composure began placidly waving the shovel in\nfront of Mr Dolls, to cut him off from his company.\n\n'Lord bless my soul, Eugene!' cried Lightwood, laughing again, 'what a\nmad fellow you are! Why does this creature come to see you?'\n\n'We shall hear,' said Wrayburn, very observant of his face withal. 'Now\nthen. Speak out. Don't be afraid. State your business, Dolls.'\n\n'Mist Wrayburn!' said the visitor, thickly and huskily. '--'TIS Mist\nWrayburn, ain't?' With a stupid stare.\n\n'Of course it is. Look at me. What do you want?'\n\nMr Dolls collapsed in his chair, and faintly said 'Threepenn'orth Rum.'\n\n'Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind up Mr Dolls\nagain?' said Eugene. 'I am occupied with the fumigation.'\n\nA similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got it to his lips\nby similar circuitous ways. Having drunk it, Mr Dolls, with an evident\nfear of running down again unless he made haste, proceeded to business.\n\n'Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn't. You want that\ndrection. You want t'know where she lives. DO you Mist Wrayburn?'\n\nWith a glance at his friend, Eugene replied to the question sternly, 'I\ndo.'\n\n'I am er man,' said Mr Dolls, trying to smite himself on the breast, but\nbringing his hand to bear upon the vicinity of his eye, 'er do it. I am\ner man er do it.'\n\n'What are you the man to do?' demanded Eugene, still sternly.\n\n'Er give up that drection.'\n\n'Have you got it?'\n\nWith a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr Dolls rolled\nhis head for some time, awakening the highest expectations, and then\nanswered, as if it were the happiest point that could possibly be\nexpected of him: 'No.'\n\n'What do you mean then?'\n\nMr Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his late intellectual\ntriumph, replied: 'Threepenn'orth Rum.'\n\n'Wind him up again, my dear Mortimer,' said Wrayburn; 'wind him up\nagain.'\n\n'Eugene, Eugene,' urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he complied, 'can\nyou stoop to the use of such an instrument as this?'\n\n'I said,' was the reply, made with that former gleam of determination,\n'that I would find her out by any means, fair or foul. These are foul,\nand I'll take them--if I am not first tempted to break the head of Mr\nDolls with the fumigator. Can you get the direction? Do you mean that?\nSpeak! If that's what you have come for, say how much you want.'\n\n'Ten shillings--Threepenn'orths Rum,' said Mr Dolls.\n\n'You shall have it.'\n\n'Fifteen shillings--Threepenn'orths Rum,' said Mr Dolls, making an\nattempt to stiffen himself.\n\n'You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get the direction you\ntalk of?'\n\n'I am er man,' said Mr Dolls, with majesty, 'er get it, sir.'\n\n'How will you get it, I ask you?'\n\n'I am ill-used vidual,' said Mr Dolls. 'Blown up morning t'night. Called\nnames. She makes Mint money, sir, and never stands Threepenn'orth Rum.'\n\n'Get on,' rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with the\nfire-shovel, as it sank on his breast. 'What comes next?'\n\nMaking a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it were,\ndropping half a dozen pieces of himself while he tried in vain to pick\nup one, Mr Dolls, swaying his head from side to side, regarded his\nquestioner with what he supposed to be a haughty smile and a scornful\nglance.\n\n'She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am NOT mere child, sir. Man.\nMan talent. Lerrers pass betwixt 'em. Postman lerrers. Easy for man\ntalent er get drection, as get his own drection.'\n\n'Get it then,' said Eugene; adding very heartily under his breath,\n'--You Brute! Get it, and bring it here to me, and earn the money for\nsixty threepenn'orths of rum, and drink them all, one a top of another,\nand drink yourself dead with all possible expedition.' The latter\nclauses of these special instructions he addressed to the fire, as he\ngave it back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the shovel.\n\nMr Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that he had been\ninsulted by Lightwood, and stated his desire to 'have it out with him'\non the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the liberal terms of\na sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr Dolls then fell a crying, and then\nexhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last manifestation as by far\nthe most alarming, by reason of its threatening his prolonged stay\non the premises, necessitated vigorous measures. Eugene picked up his\nworn-out hat with the tongs, clapped it on his head, and, taking him by\nthe collar--all this at arm's length--conducted him down stairs and out\nof the precincts into Fleet Street. There, he turned his face westward,\nand left him.\n\nWhen he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, brooding in a\nsufficiently low-spirited manner.\n\n'I'll wash my hands of Mr Dolls physically--' said Eugene, 'and be with\nyou again directly, Mortimer.'\n\n'I would much prefer,' retorted Mortimer, 'your washing your hands of Mr\nDolls, morally, Eugene.'\n\n'So would I,' said Eugene; 'but you see, dear boy, I can't do without\nhim.'\n\nIn a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly unconcerned as\nusual, and rallied his friend on having so narrowly escaped the prowess\nof their muscular visitor.\n\n'I can't be amused on this theme,' said Mortimer, restlessly. 'You can\nmake almost any theme amusing to me, Eugene, but not this.'\n\n'Well!' cried Eugene, 'I am a little ashamed of it myself, and therefore\nlet us change the subject.'\n\n'It is so deplorably underhanded,' said Mortimer. 'It is so unworthy of\nyou, this setting on of such a shameful scout.'\n\n'We have changed the subject!' exclaimed Eugene, airily. 'We have found\na new one in that word, scout. Don't be like Patience on a mantelpiece\nfrowning at Dolls, but sit down, and I'll tell you something that you\nreally will find amusing. Take a cigar. Look at this of mine. I\nlight it--draw one puff--breathe the smoke out--there it goes--it's\nDolls!--it's gone--and being gone you are a man again.'\n\n'Your subject,' said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, and comforting\nhimself with a whiff or two, 'was scouts, Eugene.'\n\n'Exactly. Isn't it droll that I never go out after dark, but I find\nmyself attended, always by one scout, and often by two?'\n\nLightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and looked at his\nfriend, as if with a latent suspicion that there must be a jest or\nhidden meaning in his words.\n\n'On my honour, no,' said Wrayburn, answering the look and smiling\ncarelessly; 'I don't wonder at your supposing so, but on my honour, no.\nI say what I mean. I never go out after dark, but I find myself in the\nludicrous situation of being followed and observed at a distance, always\nby one scout, and often by two.'\n\n'Are you sure, Eugene?'\n\n'Sure? My dear boy, they are always the same.'\n\n'But there's no process out against you. The Jews only threaten. They\nhave done nothing. Besides, they know where to find you, and I represent\nyou. Why take the trouble?'\n\n'Observe the legal mind!' remarked Eugene, turning round to the\nfurniture again, with an air of indolent rapture. 'Observe the dyer's\nhand, assimilating itself to what it works in,--or would work in, if\nanybody would give it anything to do. Respected solicitor, it's not\nthat. The schoolmaster's abroad.'\n\n'The schoolmaster?'\n\n'Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are both abroad. Why, how\nsoon you rust in my absence! You don't understand yet? Those fellows\nwho were here one night. They are the scouts I speak of, as doing me the\nhonour to attend me after dark.'\n\n'How long has this been going on?' asked Lightwood, opposing a serious\nface to the laugh of his friend.\n\n'I apprehend it has been going on, ever since a certain person went off.\nProbably, it had been going on some little time before I noticed it:\nwhich would bring it to about that time.'\n\n'Do you think they suppose you to have inveigled her away?'\n\n'My dear Mortimer, you know the absorbing nature of my professional\noccupations; I really have not had leisure to think about it.'\n\n'Have you asked them what they want? Have you objected?'\n\n'Why should I ask them what they want, dear fellow, when I am\nindifferent what they want? Why should I express objection, when I don't\nobject?'\n\n'You are in your most reckless mood. But you called the situation just\nnow, a ludicrous one; and most men object to that, even those who are\nutterly indifferent to everything else.'\n\n'You charm me, Mortimer, with your reading of my weaknesses. (By-the-by,\nthat very word, Reading, in its critical use, always charms me. An\nactress's Reading of a chambermaid, a dancer's Reading of a hornpipe, a\nsinger's Reading of a song, a marine painter's Reading of the sea,\nthe kettle-drum's Reading of an instrumental passage, are phrases\never youthful and delightful.) I was mentioning your perception of my\nweaknesses. I own to the weakness of objecting to occupy a ludicrous\nposition, and therefore I transfer the position to the scouts.'\n\n'I wish, Eugene, you would speak a little more soberly and plainly, if\nit were only out of consideration for my feeling less at ease than you\ndo.'\n\n'Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the schoolmaster to madness.\nI make the schoolmaster so ridiculous, and so aware of being made\nridiculous, that I see him chafe and fret at every pore when we cross\none another. The amiable occupation has been the solace of my life,\nsince I was baulked in the manner unnecessary to recall. I have derived\ninexpressible comfort from it. I do it thus: I stroll out after dark,\nstroll a little way, look in at a window and furtively look out for the\nschoolmaster. Sooner or later, I perceive the schoolmaster on the watch;\nsometimes accompanied by his hopeful pupil; oftener, pupil-less. Having\nmade sure of his watching me, I tempt him on, all over London. One\nnight I go east, another night north, in a few nights I go all round the\ncompass. Sometimes, I walk; sometimes, I proceed in cabs, draining the\npocket of the schoolmaster who then follows in cabs. I study and get\nup abstruse No Thoroughfares in the course of the day. With Venetian\nmystery I seek those No Thoroughfares at night, glide into them by means\nof dark courts, tempt the schoolmaster to follow, turn suddenly, and\ncatch him before he can retreat. Then we face one another, and I pass\nhim as unaware of his existence, and he undergoes grinding torments.\nSimilarly, I walk at a great pace down a short street, rapidly turn the\ncorner, and, getting out of his view, as rapidly turn back. I catch him\ncoming on post, again pass him as unaware of his existence, and again\nhe undergoes grinding torments. Night after night his disappointment is\nacute, but hope springs eternal in the scholastic breast, and he follows\nme again to-morrow. Thus I enjoy the pleasures of the chase, and derive\ngreat benefit from the healthful exercise. When I do not enjoy the\npleasures of the chase, for anything I know he watches at the Temple\nGate all night.'\n\n'This is an extraordinary story,' observed Lightwood, who had heard it\nout with serious attention. 'I don't like it.'\n\n'You are a little hipped, dear fellow,' said Eugene; 'you have been too\nsedentary. Come and enjoy the pleasures of the chase.'\n\n'Do you mean that you believe he is watching now?'\n\n'I have not the slightest doubt he is.'\n\n'Have you seen him to-night?'\n\n'I forgot to look for him when I was last out,' returned Eugene with the\ncalmest indifference; 'but I dare say he was there. Come! Be a British\nsportsman and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. It will do you good.'\n\nLightwood hesitated; but, yielding to his curiosity, rose.\n\n'Bravo!' cried Eugene, rising too. 'Or, if Yoicks would be in better\nkeeping, consider that I said Yoicks. Look to your feet, Mortimer, for\nwe shall try your boots. When you are ready, I am--need I say with a Hey\nHo Chivey, and likewise with a Hark Forward, Hark Forward, Tantivy?'\n\n'Will nothing make you serious?' said Mortimer, laughing through his\ngravity.\n\n'I am always serious, but just now I am a little excited by the glorious\nfact that a southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a hunting evening.\nReady? So. We turn out the lamp and shut the door, and take the field.'\n\nAs the two friends passed out of the Temple into the public street,\nEugene demanded with a show of courteous patronage in which direction\nMortimer would you like the run to be? 'There is a rather difficult\ncountry about Bethnal Green,' said Eugene, 'and we have not taken in\nthat direction lately. What is your opinion of Bethnal Green?' Mortimer\nassented to Bethnal Green, and they turned eastward. 'Now, when we come\nto St Paul's churchyard,' pursued Eugene, 'we'll loiter artfully, and\nI'll show you the schoolmaster.' But, they both saw him, before they got\nthere; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the houses, on\nthe opposite side of the way.\n\n'Get your wind,' said Eugene, 'for I am off directly. Does it occur\nto you that the boys of Merry England will begin to deteriorate in an\neducational light, if this lasts long? The schoolmaster can't attend to\nme and the boys too. Got your wind? I am off!'\n\nAt what a rate he went, to breathe the schoolmaster; and how he then\nlounged and loitered, to put his patience to another kind of wear;\nwhat preposterous ways he took, with no other object on earth than to\ndisappoint and punish him; and how he wore him out by every piece of\ningenuity that his eccentric humour could devise; all this Lightwood\nnoted, with a feeling of astonishment that so careless a man could be so\nwary, and that so idle a man could take so much trouble. At last, far on\nin the third hour of the pleasures of the chase, when he had brought the\npoor dogging wretch round again into the City, he twisted Mortimer up\na few dark entries, twisted him into a little square court, twisted him\nsharp round again, and they almost ran against Bradley Headstone.\n\n'And you see, as I was saying, Mortimer,' remarked Eugene aloud with\nthe utmost coolness, as though there were no one within hearing\nby themselves: 'and you see, as I was saying--undergoing grinding\ntorments.'\n\nIt was not too strong a phrase for the occasion. Looking like the hunted\nand not the hunter, baffled, worn, with the exhaustion of deferred\nhope and consuming hate and anger in his face, white-lipped, wild-eyed,\ndraggle-haired, seamed with jealousy and anger, and torturing himself\nwith the conviction that he showed it all and they exulted in it, he\nwent by them in the dark, like a haggard head suspended in the air: so\ncompletely did the force of his expression cancel his figure.\n\nMortimer Lightwood was not an extraordinarily impressible man, but this\nface impressed him. He spoke of it more than once on the remainder of\nthe way home, and more than once when they got home.\n\nThey had been abed in their respective rooms two or three hours, when\nEugene was partly awakened by hearing a footstep going about, and was\nfully awakened by seeing Lightwood standing at his bedside.\n\n'Nothing wrong, Mortimer?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'What fancy takes you, then, for walking about in the night?'\n\n'I am horribly wakeful.'\n\n'How comes that about, I wonder!'\n\n'Eugene, I cannot lose sight of that fellow's face.'\n\n'Odd!' said Eugene with a light laugh, 'I can.' And turned over, and\nfell asleep again.\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\nIN THE DARK\n\n\nThere was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night when Eugene\nWrayburn turned so easily in his bed; there was no sleep for little\nMiss Peecher. Bradley consumed the lonely hours, and consumed himself in\nhaunting the spot where his careless rival lay a dreaming; little Miss\nPeecher wore them away in listening for the return home of the master\nof her heart, and in sorrowfully presaging that much was amiss with him.\nYet more was amiss with him than Miss Peecher's simply arranged little\nwork-box of thoughts, fitted with no gloomy and dark recesses, could\nhold. For, the state of the man was murderous.\n\nThe state of the man was murderous, and he knew it. More; he irritated\nit, with a kind of perverse pleasure akin to that which a sick man\nsometimes has in irritating a wound upon his body. Tied up all day with\nhis disciplined show upon him, subdued to the performance of his routine\nof educational tricks, encircled by a gabbling crowd, he broke loose at\nnight like an ill-tamed wild animal. Under his daily restraint, it was\nhis compensation, not his trouble, to give a glance towards his state at\nnight, and to the freedom of its being indulged. If great criminals told\nthe truth--which, being great criminals, they do not--they would very\nrarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles are\ntowards it. They buffet with opposing waves, to gain the bloody shore,\nnot to recede from it. This man perfectly comprehended that he hated his\nrival with his strongest and worst forces, and that if he tracked him to\nLizzie Hexam, his so doing would never serve himself with her, or serve\nher. All his pains were taken, to the end that he might incense himself\nwith the sight of the detested figure in her company and favour, in her\nplace of concealment. And he knew as well what act of his would follow\nif he did, as he knew that his mother had borne him. Granted, that he\nmay not have held it necessary to make express mention to himself of the\none familiar truth any more than of the other.\n\nHe knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, and that he\naccumulated provocation and self-justification, by being made the\nnightly sport of the reckless and insolent Eugene. Knowing all\nthis,--and still always going on with infinite endurance, pains, and\nperseverance, could his dark soul doubt whither he went?\n\nBaffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the Temple gate\nwhen it closed on Wrayburn and Lightwood, debating with himself should\nhe go home for that time or should he watch longer. Possessed in his\njealousy by the fixed idea that Wrayburn was in the secret, if it were\nnot altogether of his contriving, Bradley was as confident of getting\nthe better of him at last by sullenly sticking to him, as he would have\nbeen--and often had been--of mastering any piece of study in the way\nof his vocation, by the like slow persistent process. A man of rapid\npassions and sluggish intelligence, it had served him often and should\nserve him again.\n\nThe suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his eyes upon\nthe Temple gate, that perhaps she was even concealed in that set of\nChambers. It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn's purposeless\nwalks, and it might be. He thought of it and thought of it, until\nhe resolved to steal up the stairs, if the gatekeeper would let him\nthrough, and listen. So, the haggard head suspended in the air flitted\nacross the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads erst hoisted\nupon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped before the watchman.\n\nThe watchman looked at it, and asked: 'Who for?'\n\n'Mr Wrayburn.'\n\n'It's very late.'\n\n'He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours ago. But if\nhe has gone to bed, I'll put a paper in his letter-box. I am expected.'\n\nThe watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though rather\ndoubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and fast in\nthe right direction, he seemed satisfied.\n\nThe haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly descended\nnearer to the floor outside the outer door of the chambers. The doors\nof the rooms within, appeared to be standing open. There were rays of\ncandlelight from one of them, and there was the sound of a footstep\ngoing about. There were two voices. The words they uttered were not\ndistinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In a few moments\nthe voices were silent, and there was no sound of footstep, and the\ninner light went out. If Lightwood could have seen the face which kept\nhim awake, staring and listening in the darkness outside the door as\nhe spoke of it, he might have been less disposed to sleep, through the\nremainder of the night.\n\n'Not there,' said Bradley; 'but she might have been.' The head arose to\nits former height from the ground, floated down the stair-case again,\nand passed on to the gate. A man was standing there, in parley with the\nwatchman.\n\n'Oh!' said the watchman. 'Here he is!'\n\nPerceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from the\nwatchman to the man.\n\n'This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood,' the watchman explained,\nshowing it in his hand; 'and I was mentioning that a person had just\ngone up to Mr Lightwood's chambers. It might be the same business\nperhaps?'\n\n'No,' said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to him.\n\n'No,' the man assented in a surly way; 'my letter--it's wrote by my\ndaughter, but it's mine--is about my business, and my business ain't\nnobody else's business.'\n\nAs Bradley passed out at the gate with an undecided foot, he heard it\nshut behind him, and heard the footstep of the man coming after him.\n\n''Scuse me,' said the man, who appeared to have been drinking and rather\nstumbled at him than touched him, to attract his attention: 'but might\nyou be acquainted with the T'other Governor?'\n\n'With whom?' asked Bradley.\n\n'With,' returned the man, pointing backward over his right shoulder with\nhis right thumb, 'the T'other Governor?'\n\n'I don't know what you mean.'\n\n'Why look here,' hooking his proposition on his left-hand fingers with\nthe forefinger of his right. 'There's two Governors, ain't there? One\nand one, two--Lawyer Lightwood, my first finger, he's one, ain't he?\nWell; might you be acquainted with my middle finger, the T'other?'\n\n'I know quite as much of him,' said Bradley, with a frown and a distant\nlook before him, 'as I want to know.'\n\n'Hooroar!' cried the man. 'Hooroar T'other t'other Governor. Hooroar\nT'otherest Governor! I am of your way of thinkin'.'\n\n'Don't make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. What are you\ntalking about?'\n\n'Look here, T'otherest Governor,' replied the man, becoming hoarsely\nconfidential. 'The T'other Governor he's always joked his jokes agin me,\nowing, as I believe, to my being a honest man as gets my living by the\nsweat of my brow. Which he ain't, and he don't.'\n\n'What is that to me?'\n\n'T'otherest Governor,' returned the man in a tone of injured innocence,\n'if you don't care to hear no more, don't hear no more. You begun it.\nYou said, and likeways showed pretty plain, as you warn't by no means\nfriendly to him. But I don't seek to force my company nor yet my\nopinions on no man. I am a honest man, that's what I am. Put me in the\ndock anywhere--I don't care where--and I says, \"My Lord, I am a honest\nman.\" Put me in the witness-box anywhere--I don't care where--and I\nsays the same to his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don't kiss my\ncoat-cuff; I kisses the book.'\n\nIt was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials to\ncharacter, as in his restless casting about for any way or help towards\nthe discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley Headstone\nreplied: 'You needn't take offence. I didn't mean to stop you. You were\ntoo--loud in the open street; that was all.'\n\n''Totherest Governor,' replied Mr Riderhood, mollified and mysterious,\n'I know wot it is to be loud, and I know wot it is to be soft. Nat'rally\nI do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by the Chris'en name of\nRoger, which took it arter my own father, which took it from his own\nfather, though which of our fam'ly fust took it nat'ral I will not in\nany ways mislead you by undertakin' to say. And wishing that your elth\nmay be better than your looks, which your inside must be bad indeed if\nit's on the footing of your out.'\n\nStartled by the implication that his face revealed too much of his mind,\nBradley made an effort to clear his brow. It might be worth knowing what\nthis strange man's business was with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or both, at\nsuch an unseasonable hour. He set himself to find out, for the man might\nprove to be a messenger between those two.\n\n'You call at the Temple late,' he remarked, with a lumbering show of\nease.\n\n'Wish I may die,' cried Mr Riderhood, with a hoarse laugh, 'if I warn't\na goin' to say the self-same words to you, T'otherest Governor!'\n\n'It chanced so with me,' said Bradley, looking disconcertedly about him.\n\n'And it chanced so with me,' said Riderhood. 'But I don't mind telling\nyou how. Why should I mind telling you? I'm a Deputy Lock-keeper up the\nriver, and I was off duty yes'day, and I shall be on to-morrow.'\n\n'Yes?'\n\n'Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. My private\naffairs is to get appinted to the Lock as reg'lar keeper at fust hand,\nand to have the law of a busted B'low-Bridge steamer which drownded of\nme. I ain't a goin' to be drownded and not paid for it!'\n\nBradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be a Ghost.\n\n'The steamer,' said Mr Riderhood, obstinately, 'run me down and drownded\nof me. Interference on the part of other parties brought me round; but\nI never asked 'em to bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked 'em\nto it. I mean to be paid for the life as the steamer took.'\n\n'Was that your business at Mr Lightwood's chambers in the middle of the\nnight?' asked Bradley, eyeing him with distrust.\n\n'That and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock Keeper. A recommendation\nin writing being looked for, who else ought to give it to me? As I says\nin the letter in my daughter's hand, with my mark put to it to make it\ngood in law, Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this here\nstifficate, and who but you ought to go in for damages on my account\nagin the Steamer? For (as I says under my mark) I have had trouble\nenough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer Lightwood, had\nbacked me good and true, and if the T'other Governor had took me down\ncorrect (I says under my mark), I should have been worth money at the\npresent time, instead of having a barge-load of bad names chucked at me,\nand being forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of food\nwotever a man's appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night,\nT'otherest Governor,' growled Mr Riderhood, winding up his monotonous\nsummary of his wrongs, 'throw your eye on this here bundle under my arm,\nand bear in mind that I'm a walking back to my Lock, and that the Temple\nlaid upon my line of road.'\n\nBradley Headstone's face had changed during this latter recital, and he\nhad observed the speaker with a more sustained attention.\n\n'Do you know,' said he, after a pause, during which they walked on side\nby side, 'that I believe I could tell you your name, if I tried?'\n\n'Prove your opinion,' was the answer, accompanied with a stop and a\nstare. 'Try.'\n\n'Your name is Riderhood.'\n\n'I'm blest if it ain't,' returned that gentleman. 'But I don't know\nyour'n.'\n\n'That's quite another thing,' said Bradley. 'I never supposed you did.'\n\nAs Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his side\nmuttering. The purport of the muttering was: 'that Rogue Riderhood, by\nGeorge! seemed to be made public property on, now, and that every man\nseemed to think himself free to handle his name as if it was a Street\nPump.' The purport of the meditating was: 'Here is an instrument. Can I\nuse it?'\n\nThey had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turned\nup-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone waiting on the pace\nand lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So slow\nwere the schoolmaster's thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes when\nthey were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose or rather when,\nlike dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista at\nthe end of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie on\nwhich his eyes were fixed--that at least a good half-mile was traversed\nbefore he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask:\n\n'Where is your Lock?'\n\n'Twenty mile and odd--call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, if you\nlike--up stream,' was the sullen reply.\n\n'How is it called?'\n\n'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock.'\n\n'Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then?'\n\n'Why, then, I'd take it,' said Mr Riderhood.\n\nThe schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced two\nhalf-crowns, and placed them in Mr Riderhood's palm: who stopped at\na convenient doorstep to ring them both, before acknowledging their\nreceipt.\n\n'There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor,' said Riderhood,\nfaring on again, 'as looks well and goes fur. You're a ready money man.\nNow;' when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himself\nwhich was furthest from his new friend; 'what's this for?'\n\n'For you.'\n\n'Why, o' course I know THAT,' said Riderhood, as arguing something that\nwas self-evident. 'O' course I know very well as no man in his right\nsenses would suppose as anythink would make me give it up agin when I'd\nonce got it. But what do you want for it?'\n\n'I don't know that I want anything for it. Or if I do want anything\nfor it, I don't know what it is.' Bradley gave this answer in a stolid,\nvacant, and self-communing manner, which Mr Riderhood found very\nextraordinary.\n\n'You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn,' said Bradley, coming to\nthe name in a reluctant and forced way, as if he were dragged to it.\n\n'No.'\n\n'Neither have I.'\n\nRiderhood nodded, and asked: 'Is it for that?'\n\n'It's as much for that as anything else. It's something to be agreed\nwith, on a subject that occupies so much of one's thoughts.'\n\n'It don't agree with YOU,' returned Mr Riderhood, bluntly. 'No! It\ndon't, T'otherest Governor, and it's no use a lookin' as if you wanted\nto make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in you. It rankles in\nyou, rusts in you, and pisons you.'\n\n'Say that it does so,' returned Bradley with quivering lips; 'is there\nno cause for it?'\n\n'Cause enough, I'll bet a pound!' cried Mr Riderhood.\n\n'Haven't you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped provocations,\ninsults, and affronts on you, or something to that effect? He has done\nthe same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from the\ncrown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or so\nstupid, as not to know that he and the other will treat your application\nwith contempt, and light their cigars with it?'\n\n'I shouldn't wonder if they did, by George!' said Riderhood, turning\nangry.\n\n'If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. I know something\nmore than your name about you; I knew something about Gaffer Hexam. When\ndid you last set eyes upon his daughter?'\n\n'When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T'otherest Governor?'\nrepeated Mr Riderhood, growing intentionally slower of comprehension as\nthe other quickened in his speech.\n\n'Yes. Not to speak to her. To see her--anywhere?'\n\nThe Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it with a clumsy\nhand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate face, as if he were trying\nto work out a sum in his mind, he slowly answered:\n\n'I ain't set eyes upon her--never once--not since the day of Gaffer's\ndeath.'\n\n'You know her well, by sight?'\n\n'I should think I did! No one better.'\n\n'And you know him as well?'\n\n'Who's him?' asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and rubbing his\nforehead, as he directed a dull look at his questioner.\n\n'Curse the name! Is it so agreeable to you that you want to hear it\nagain?'\n\n'Oh! HIM!' said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster into\nthis corner, that he might again take note of his face under its evil\npossession. 'I'd know HIM among a thousand.'\n\n'Did you--' Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he might\nwith his voice, he could not subdue his face;--'did you ever see them\ntogether?'\n\n(The Rogue had got the clue in both hands now.)\n\n'I see 'em together, T'otherest Governor, on the very day when Gaffer\nwas towed ashore.'\n\nBradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharp\neyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyes\nof the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast.\n'You shall put it plain if you want it answered,' thought the Rogue,\ndoggedly; 'I ain't a-going a wolunteering.'\n\n'Well! was he insolent to her too?' asked Bradley after a struggle. 'Or\ndid he make a show of being kind to her?'\n\n'He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,' said Riderhood. 'By\nGeorge! now I--'\n\nHis flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked at\nhim for the reason.\n\n'Now I think of it,' said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he was\nsubstituting those words for 'Now I see you so jealous,' which was the\nphrase really in his mind; 'P'r'aps he went and took me down wrong, a\npurpose, on account o' being sweet upon her!'\n\nThe baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (for\nhe could not have really entertained it), was a line's breadth beyond\nthe mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing and\nintriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, and\nupon her brother too, was attained. The line's breadth further, lay\nbeyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face.\n\nWhat he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work out in his\nslow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had an injury against the object of\nhis hatred, and that was something; though it was less than he supposed,\nfor there dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as burned\nin his own breast. The man knew her, and might by a fortunate chance see\nher, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes\nand ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in\nhis pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were as\nbad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from the\npossession of a congenial instrument, though it might never be used.\n\nSuddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank if he knew\nwhere she was? Clearly, he did not know. He asked Riderhood if he would\nbe willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seeking\nher or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate it\nif it were paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was 'agin 'em\nboth,' he said with an oath, and for why? 'Cause they had both stood\nbetwixt him and his getting his living by the sweat of his brow.\n\n'It will not be long then,' said Bradley Headstone, after some more\ndiscourse to this effect, 'before we see one another again. Here is the\ncountry road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise.'\n\n'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood, 'I don't know where to\nfind you.'\n\n'It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll come to\nyour Lock.'\n\n'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood again, 'no luck never\ncome yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's wet it, in a mouth-fill of rum and\nmilk, T'otherest Governor.'\n\nBradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, haunted by\nunsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts,\nfarmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain human\nnightbirds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves after\ntheir several manners; and where not one of the nightbirds hovering\nabout the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wasted\nnightbird with respectable feathers, the worst nightbird of all.\n\nAn inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going his way led\nto Mr Riderhood's being elevated on a high heap of baskets on a waggon,\nand pursuing his journey recumbent on his back with his head on his\nbundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his steps, and by-and-by struck\noff through little-traversed ways, and by-and-by reached school and\nhome. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodically\ndressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, and\npepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket,\nand its decent hair-guard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad for\nthe field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him.\n\nYet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of the\nmuch-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities under a\ncontagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture,\nhe had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newly\ngone. He had been spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a record\nof the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scripture\non the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken fright\nand run away from the master.\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\nMEANING MISCHIEF\n\n\nUp came the sun, steaming all over London, and in its glorious\nimpartiality even condescending to make prismatic sparkles in the\nwhiskers of Mr Alfred Lammle as he sat at breakfast. In need of some\nbrightening from without, was Mr Alfred Lammle, for he had the air of\nbeing dull enough within, and looked grievously discontented.\n\nMrs Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of swindlers, with\nthe comfortable tie between them that each had swindled the other, sat\nmoodily observant of the tablecloth. Things looked so gloomy in the\nbreakfast-room, albeit on the sunny side of Sackville Street, that any\nof the family tradespeople glancing through the blinds might have taken\nthe hint to send in his account and press for it. But this, indeed, most\nof the family tradespeople had already done, without the hint.\n\n'It seems to me,' said Mrs Lammle, 'that you have had no money at all,\never since we have been married.'\n\n'What seems to you,' said Mr Lammle, 'to have been the case, may\npossibly have been the case. It doesn't matter.'\n\nWas it the speciality of Mr and Mrs Lammle, or does it ever obtain\nwith other loving couples? In these matrimonial dialogues they never\naddressed each other, but always some invisible presence that appeared\nto take a station about midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in the\ncupboard comes out to be talked to, on such domestic occasions?\n\n'I have never seen any money in the house,' said Mrs Lammle to the\nskeleton, 'except my own annuity. That I swear.'\n\n'You needn't take the trouble of swearing,' said Mr Lammle to the\nskeleton; 'once more, it doesn't matter. You never turned your annuity\nto so good an account.'\n\n'Good an account! In what way?' asked Mrs Lammle.\n\n'In the way of getting credit, and living well,' said Mr Lammle. Perhaps\nthe skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted with this question\nand this answer; certainly Mrs Lammle did, and Mr Lammle did.\n\n'And what is to happen next?' asked Mrs Lammle of the skeleton.\n\n'Smash is to happen next,' said Mr Lammle to the same authority.\n\nAfter this, Mrs Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton--but without\ncarrying the look on to Mr Lammle--and drooped her eyes. After that, Mr\nLammle did exactly the same thing, and drooped HIS eyes. A servant then\nentering with toast, the skeleton retired into the closet, and shut\nitself up.\n\n'Sophronia,' said Mr Lammle, when the servant had withdrawn. And then,\nvery much louder: 'Sophronia!'\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Attend to me, if you please.' He eyed her sternly until she did attend,\nand then went on. 'I want to take counsel with you. Come, come; no more\ntrifling. You know our league and covenant. We are to work together for\nour joint interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn't\nbe together, if you were not. What's to be done? We are hemmed into a\ncorner. What shall we do?'\n\n'Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in anything?'\n\nMr Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came out\nhopeless: 'No; as adventurers we are obliged to play rash games for\nchances of high winnings, and there has been a run of luck against us.'\n\nShe was resuming, 'Have you nothing--' when he stopped her.\n\n'We, Sophronia. We, we, we.'\n\n'Have we nothing to sell?'\n\n'Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this furniture, and\nhe could take it to-morrow, to-day, now. He would have taken it before\nnow, I believe, but for Fledgeby.'\n\n'What has Fledgeby to do with him?'\n\n'Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into his claws.\nCouldn't persuade him then, in behalf of somebody else.'\n\n'Do you mean that Fledgeby has at all softened him towards you?'\n\n'Us, Sophronia. Us, us, us.'\n\n'Towards us?'\n\n'I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might have done, and that\nFledgeby takes the credit of having got him to hold his hand.'\n\n'Do you believe Fledgeby?'\n\n'Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my dear, since I\nbelieved you. But it looks like it.'\n\nHaving given her this back-handed reminder of her mutinous observations\nto the skeleton, Mr Lammle rose from table--perhaps, the better to\nconceal a smile, and a white dint or two about his nose--and took a turn\non the carpet and came to the hearthrug.\n\n'If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana;--but however;\nthat's spilled milk.'\n\nAs Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown with\nhis back to the fire, said this, looking down at his wife, she turned\npale and looked down at the ground. With a sense of disloyalty upon\nher, and perhaps with a sense of personal danger--for she was afraid of\nhim--even afraid of his hand and afraid of his foot, though he had never\ndone her violence--she hastened to put herself right in his eyes.\n\n'If we could borrow money, Alfred--'\n\n'Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be all one to us,\nSophronia,' her husband struck in.\n\n'--Then, we could weather this?'\n\n'No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, Sophronia,\ntwo and two make four.'\n\nBut, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he gathered up\nthe skirts of his dressing-gown again, and, tucking them under one arm,\nand collecting his ample whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye upon\nher, silently.\n\n'It is natural, Alfred,' she said, looking up with some timidity into\nhis face, 'to think in such an emergency of the richest people we know,\nand the simplest.'\n\n'Just so, Sophronia.'\n\n'The Boffins.'\n\n'Just so, Sophronia.'\n\n'Is there nothing to be done with them?'\n\n'What is there to be done with them, Sophronia?'\n\nShe cast about in her thoughts again, and he kept his eye upon her as\nbefore.\n\n'Of course I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, Sophronia,' he\nresumed, after a fruitless silence; 'but I have seen my way to nothing.\nThey are well guarded. That infernal Secretary stands between them\nand--people of merit.'\n\n'If he could be got rid of?' said she, brightening a little, after more\ncasting about.\n\n'Take time, Sophronia,' observed her watchful husband, in a patronizing\nmanner.\n\n'If working him out of the way could be presented in the light of a\nservice to Mr Boffin?'\n\n'Take time, Sophronia.'\n\n'We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the old man is turning very\nsuspicious and distrustful.'\n\n'Miserly too, my dear; which is far the most unpromising for us.\nNevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take time.'\n\nShe took time and then said:\n\n'Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in him of which we\nhave made ourselves quite sure. Suppose my conscience--'\n\n'And we know what a conscience it is, my soul. Yes?'\n\n'Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to myself any\nlonger what that upstart girl told me of the Secretary's having made a\ndeclaration to her. Suppose my conscience should oblige me to repeat it\nto Mr Boffin.'\n\n'I rather like that,' said Lammle.\n\n'Suppose I so repeated it to Mr Boffin, as to insinuate that my\nsensitive delicacy and honour--'\n\n'Very good words, Sophronia.'\n\n'--As to insinuate that OUR sensitive delicacy and honour,' she resumed,\nwith a bitter stress upon the phrase, 'would not allow us to be silent\nparties to so mercenary and designing a speculation on the Secretary's\npart, and so gross a breach of faith towards his confiding employer.\nSuppose I had imparted my virtuous uneasiness to my excellent husband,\nand he had said, in his integrity, \"Sophronia, you must immediately\ndisclose this to Mr Boffin.\"'\n\n'Once more, Sophronia,' observed Lammle, changing the leg on which he\nstood, 'I rather like that.'\n\n'You remark that he is well guarded,' she pursued. 'I think so too. But\nif this should lead to his discharging his Secretary, there would be a\nweak place made.'\n\n'Go on expounding, Sophronia. I begin to like this very much.'\n\n'Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the service of opening\nhis eyes to the treachery of the person he trusted, we shall have\nestablished a claim upon him and a confidence with him. Whether it\ncan be made much of, or little of, we must wait--because we can't help\nit--to see. Probably we shall make the most of it that is to be made.'\n\n'Probably,' said Lammle.\n\n'Do you think it impossible,' she asked, in the same cold plotting way,\n'that you might replace the Secretary?'\n\n'Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. At any rate it\nmight be skilfully led up to.'\n\nShe nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked at the fire. 'Mr\nLammle,' she said, musingly: not without a slight ironical touch: 'Mr\nLammle would be so delighted to do anything in his power. Mr Lammle,\nhimself a man of business as well as a capitalist. Mr Lammle, accustomed\nto be intrusted with the most delicate affairs. Mr Lammle, who has\nmanaged my own little fortune so admirably, but who, to be sure, began\nto make his reputation with the advantage of being a man of property,\nabove temptation, and beyond suspicion.'\n\nMr Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his sinister\nrelish of the scheme, as he stood above her, making it the subject of\nhis cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose on his face as he\nhad ever had in his life.\n\nHe stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire without\nmoving, for some time. But, the moment he began to speak again she\nlooked up with a wince and attended to him, as if that double-dealing of\nhers had been in her mind, and the fear were revived in her of his hand\nor his foot.\n\n'It appears to me, Sophronia, that you have omitted one branch of the\nsubject. Perhaps not, for women understand women. We might oust the girl\nherself?'\n\nMrs Lammle shook her head. 'She has an immensely strong hold upon them\nboth, Alfred. Not to be compared with that of a paid secretary.'\n\n'But the dear child,' said Lammle, with a crooked smile, 'ought to have\nbeen open with her benefactor and benefactress. The darling love\nought to have reposed unbounded confidence in her benefactor and\nbenefactress.'\n\nSophronia shook her head again.\n\n'Well! Women understand women,' said her husband, rather disappointed.\n'I don't press it. It might be the making of our fortune to make a\nclean sweep of them both. With me to manage the property, and my wife to\nmanage the people--Whew!'\n\nAgain shaking her head, she returned: 'They will never quarrel with the\ngirl. They will never punish the girl. We must accept the girl, rely\nupon it.'\n\n'Well!' cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, 'so be it: only always\nremember that we don't want her.'\n\n'Now, the sole remaining question is,' said Mrs Lammle, 'when shall I\nbegin?'\n\n'You cannot begin too soon, Sophronia. As I have told you, the condition\nof our affairs is desperate, and may be blown upon at any moment.'\n\n'I must secure Mr Boffin alone, Alfred. If his wife was present, she\nwould throw oil upon the waters. I know I should fail to move him to an\nangry outburst, if his wife was there. And as to the girl herself--as I\nam going to betray her confidence, she is equally out of the question.'\n\n'It wouldn't do to write for an appointment?' said Lammle.\n\n'No, certainly not. They would wonder among themselves why I wrote, and\nI want to have him wholly unprepared.'\n\n'Call, and ask to see him alone?' suggested Lammle.\n\n'I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare me the little\ncarriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don't succeed to-day), and\nI'll lie in wait for him.'\n\nIt was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pass the windows\nand heard to knock and ring. 'Here's Fledgeby,' said Lammle. 'He admires\nyou, and has a high opinion of you. I'll be out. Coax him to use his\ninfluence with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the House of Pubsey and\nCo.' Adding these words under his breath, lest he should be audible\nin the erect ears of Mr Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall,\nLammle, making signals of discretion to his servant, went softly up\nstairs.\n\n'Mr Fledgeby,' said Mrs Lammle, giving him a very gracious reception,\n'so glad to see you! My poor dear Alfred, who is greatly worried just\nnow about his affairs, went out rather early. Dear Mr Fledgeby, do sit\ndown.'\n\nDear Mr Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judging from\nthe expression of his countenance, DISsatisfied himself) that nothing\nnew had occurred in the way of whisker-sprout since he came round the\ncorner from the Albany.\n\n'Dear Mr Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my poor dear\nAlfred is much worried about his affairs at present, for he has told me\nwhat a comfort you are to him in his temporary difficulties, and what a\ngreat service you have rendered him.'\n\n'Oh!' said Mr Fledgeby.\n\n'Yes,' said Mrs Lammle.\n\n'I didn't know,' remarked Mr Fledgeby, trying a new part of his chair,\n'but that Lammle might be reserved about his affairs.'\n\n'Not to me,' said Mrs Lammle, with deep feeling.\n\n'Oh, indeed?' said Fledgeby.\n\n'Not to me, dear Mr Fledgeby. I am his wife.'\n\n'Yes. I--I always understood so,' said Mr Fledgeby.\n\n'And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr Fledgeby, wholly without his\nauthority or knowledge, as I am sure your discernment will perceive,\nentreat you to continue that great service, and once more use your\nwell-earned influence with Mr Riah for a little more indulgence? The\nname I have heard Alfred mention, tossing in his dreams, IS Riah; is it\nnot?'\n\n'The name of the Creditor is Riah,' said Mr Fledgeby, with a rather\nuncompromising accent on his noun-substantive. 'Saint Mary Axe. Pubsey\nand Co.'\n\n'Oh yes!' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, clasping her hands with a certain\ngushing wildness. 'Pubsey and Co.!'\n\n'The pleading of the feminine--' Mr Fledgeby began, and there stuck so\nlong for a word to get on with, that Mrs Lammle offered him sweetly,\n'Heart?'\n\n'No,' said Mr Fledgeby, 'Gender--is ever what a man is bound to listen\nto, and I wish it rested with myself. But this Riah is a nasty one, Mrs\nLammle; he really is.'\n\n'Not if YOU speak to him, dear Mr Fledgeby.'\n\n'Upon my soul and body he is!' said Fledgeby.\n\n'Try. Try once more, dearest Mr Fledgeby. What is there you cannot do,\nif you will!'\n\n'Thank you,' said Fledgeby, 'you're very complimentary to say so. I\ndon't mind trying him again, at your request. But of course I can't\nanswer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, and when he says\nhe'll do a thing, he'll do it.'\n\n'Exactly so,' cried Mrs Lammle, 'and when he says to you he'll wait,\nhe'll wait.'\n\n('She is a devilish clever woman,' thought Fledgeby. 'I didn't see that\nopening, but she spies it out and cuts into it as soon as it's made. ')\n\n'In point of fact, dear Mr Fledgeby,' Mrs Lammle went on in a very\ninteresting manner, 'not to affect concealment of Alfred's hopes, to you\nwho are so much his friend, there is a distant break in his horizon.'\n\nThis figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascination Fledgeby,\nwho said, 'There's a what in his--eh?'\n\n'Alfred, dear Mr Fledgeby, discussed with me this very morning before he\nwent out, some prospects he has, which might entirely change the aspect\nof his present troubles.'\n\n'Really?' said Fledgeby.\n\n'O yes!' Here Mrs Lammle brought her handkerchief into play. 'And you\nknow, dear Mr Fledgeby--you who study the human heart, and study the\nworld--what an affliction it would be to lose position and to lose\ncredit, when ability to tide over a very short time might save all\nappearances.'\n\n'Oh!' said Fledgeby. 'Then you think, Mrs Lammle, that if Lammle\ngot time, he wouldn't burst up?--To use an expression,' Mr Fledgeby\napologetically explained, 'which is adopted in the Money Market.'\n\n'Indeed yes. Truly, truly, yes!'\n\n'That makes all the difference,' said Fledgeby. 'I'll make a point of\nseeing Riah at once.'\n\n'Blessings on you, dearest Mr Fledgeby!'\n\n'Not at all,' said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. 'The hand,' said Mr\nFledgeby, 'of a lovely and superior-minded female is ever the repayment\nof a--'\n\n'Noble action!' said Mrs Lammle, extremely anxious to get rid of him.\n\n'It wasn't what I was going to say,' returned Fledgeby, who never would,\nunder any circumstances, accept a suggested expression, 'but you're very\ncomplimentary. May I imprint a--a one--upon it? Good morning!'\n\n'I may depend upon your promptitude, dearest Mr Fledgeby?'\n\nSaid Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully kissing his\nhand, 'You may depend upon it.'\n\nIn fact, Mr Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the streets,\nat so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good\nspirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station\nin his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh\ntrill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe,\nand finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the\nstaircase: 'Now, Judah, what are you up to there?'\n\nThe old man appeared, with his accustomed deference.\n\n'Halloa!' said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. 'You mean mischief,\nJerusalem!'\n\nThe old man raised his eyes inquiringly.\n\n'Yes you do,' said Fledgeby. 'Oh, you sinner! Oh, you dodger! What!\nYou're going to act upon that bill of sale at Lammle's, are you? Nothing\nwill turn you, won't it? You won't be put off for another single minute,\nwon't you?'\n\nOrdered to immediate action by the master's tone and look, the old man\ntook up his hat from the little counter where it lay.\n\n'You have been told that he might pull through it, if you didn't go in\nto win, Wide-Awake; have you?' said Fledgeby. 'And it's not your game\nthat he should pull through it; ain't it? You having got security, and\nthere being enough to pay you? Oh, you Jew!'\n\nThe old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, as if there\nmight be further instructions for him in reserve.\n\n'Do I go, sir?' he at length asked in a low voice.\n\n'Asks me if he is going!' exclaimed Fledgeby. 'Asks me, as if he didn't\nknow his own purpose! Asks me, as if he hadn't got his hat on ready!\nAsks me, as if his sharp old eye--why, it cuts like a knife--wasn't\nlooking at his walking-stick by the door!'\n\n'Do I go, sir?'\n\n'Do you go?' sneered Fledgeby. 'Yes, you do go. Toddle, Judah!'\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\nGIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM\n\n\nFascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, strolled about\nwith his hat on one side, whistling, and investigating the drawers, and\nprying here and there for any small evidences of his being cheated,\nbut could find none. 'Not his merit that he don't cheat me,' was Mr\nFledgeby's commentary delivered with a wink, 'but my precaution.' He\nthen with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as lord of Pubsey and\nCo. by poking his cane at the stools and boxes, and spitting in the\nfireplace, and so loitered royally to the window and looked out into the\nnarrow street, with his small eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey\nand Co.'s blind. As a blind in more senses than one, it reminded him\nthat he was alone in the counting-house with the front door open. He was\nmoving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified with\nthe establishment, when he was stopped by some one coming to the door.\n\nThis some one was the dolls' dressmaker, with a little basket on her\narm, and her crutch stick in her hand. Her keen eyes had espied Mr\nFledgeby before Mr Fledgeby had espied her, and he was paralysed in his\npurpose of shutting her out, not so much by her approaching the door, as\nby her favouring him with a shower of nods, the instant he saw her. This\nadvantage she improved by hobbling up the steps with such despatch that\nbefore Mr Fledgeby could take measures for her finding nobody at home,\nshe was face to face with him in the counting-house.\n\n'Hope I see you well, sir,' said Miss Wren. 'Mr Riah in?'\n\nFledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the attitude of one waiting\nwearily. 'I suppose he will be back soon,' he replied; 'he has cut\nout and left me expecting him back, in an odd way. Haven't I seen you\nbefore?'\n\n'Once before--if you had your eyesight,' replied Miss Wren; the\nconditional clause in an under-tone.\n\n'When you were carrying on some games up at the top of the house. I\nremember. How's your friend?'\n\n'I have more friends than one, sir, I hope,' replied Miss Wren. 'Which\nfriend?'\n\n'Never mind,' said Mr Fledgeby, shutting up one eye, 'any of your\nfriends, all your friends. Are they pretty tolerable?'\n\nSomewhat confounded, Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, and sat down in a\ncorner behind the door, with her basket in her lap. By-and-by, she said,\nbreaking a long and patient silence:\n\n'I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr Riah at this time, and\nso I generally come at this time. I only want to buy my poor little two\nshillings' worth of waste. Perhaps you'll kindly let me have it, and\nI'll trot off to my work.'\n\n'I let you have it?' said Fledgeby, turning his head towards her; for he\nhad been sitting blinking at the light, and feeling his cheek. 'Why, you\ndon't really suppose that I have anything to do with the place, or the\nbusiness; do you?'\n\n'Suppose?' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'He said, that day, you were the\nmaster!'\n\n'The old cock in black said? Riah said? Why, he'd say anything.'\n\n'Well; but you said so too,' returned Miss Wren. 'Or at least you took\non like the master, and didn't contradict him.'\n\n'One of his dodges,' said Mr Fledgeby, with a cool and contemptuous\nshrug. 'He's made of dodges. He said to me, \"Come up to the top of the\nhouse, sir, and I'll show you a handsome girl. But I shall call you\nthe master.\" So I went up to the top of the house and he showed me the\nhandsome girl (very well worth looking at she was), and I was called the\nmaster. I don't know why. I dare say he don't. He loves a dodge for\nits own sake; being,' added Mr Fledgeby, after casting about for an\nexpressive phrase, 'the dodgerest of all the dodgers.'\n\n'Oh my head!' cried the dolls' dressmaker, holding it with both her\nhands, as if it were cracking. 'You can't mean what you say.'\n\n'I can, my little woman, retorted Fledgeby, 'and I do, I assure you.'\n\nThis repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on Fledgeby's\npart, in case of his being surprised by any other caller, but was also a\nretort upon Miss Wren for her over-sharpness, and a pleasant instance\nof his humour as regarded the old Jew. 'He has got a bad name as an old\nJew, and he is paid for the use of it, and I'll have my money's worth\nout of him.' This was Fledgeby's habitual reflection in the way of\nbusiness, and it was sharpened just now by the old man's presuming\nto have a secret from him: though of the secret itself, as annoying\nsomebody else whom he disliked, he by no means disapproved.\n\nMiss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door looking\nthoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient silence had\nagain set in for some time, when the expression of Mr Fledgeby's face\nbetokened that through the upper portion of the door, which was of\nglass, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the counting-house.\nPresently there was a rustle and a tap, and then some more rustling and\nanother tap. Fledgeby taking no notice, the door was at length softly\nopened, and the dried face of a mild little elderly gentleman looked in.\n\n'Mr Riah?' said this visitor, very politely.\n\n'I am waiting for him, sir,' returned Mr Fledgeby. 'He went out and left\nme here. I expect him back every minute. Perhaps you had better take a\nchair.'\n\nThe gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as if\nhe were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr Fledgeby eyed him aside, and\nseemed to relish his attitude.\n\n'A fine day, sir,' remarked Fledgeby.\n\nThe little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own depressed\nreflections that he did not notice the remark until the sound of Mr\nFledgeby's voice had died out of the counting-house. Then he started,\nand said: 'I beg your pardon, sir. I fear you spoke to me?'\n\n'I said,' remarked Fledgeby, a little louder than before, 'it was a fine\nday.'\n\n'I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. Yes.'\n\nAgain the little dried gentleman put his hand to his forehead, and again\nMr Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his doing it. When the gentleman changed his\nattitude with a sigh, Fledgeby spake with a grin.\n\n'Mr Twemlow, I think?'\n\nThe dried gentleman seemed much surprised.\n\n'Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle's,' said Fledgeby. 'Even\nhave the honour of being a connexion of yours. An unexpected sort of\nplace this to meet in; but one never knows, when one gets into the City,\nwhat people one may knock up against. I hope you have your health, and\nare enjoying yourself.'\n\nThere might have been a touch of impertinence in the last words; on the\nother hand, it might have been but the native grace of Mr Fledgeby's\nmanner. Mr Fledgeby sat on a stool with a foot on the rail of another\nstool, and his hat on. Mr Twemlow had uncovered on looking in at the\ndoor, and remained so. Now the conscientious Twemlow, knowing what he\nhad done to thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly disconcerted\nby this encounter. He was as ill at ease as a gentleman well could be.\nHe felt himself bound to conduct himself stiffly towards Fledgeby,\nand he made him a distant bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes smaller\nin taking special note of his manner. The dolls' dressmaker sat in her\ncorner behind the door, with her eyes on the ground and her hands folded\non her basket, holding her crutch-stick between them, and appearing to\ntake no heed of anything.\n\n'He's a long time,' muttered Mr Fledgeby, looking at his watch. 'What\ntime may you make it, Mr Twemlow?'\n\nMr Twemlow made it ten minutes past twelve, sir.\n\n'As near as a toucher,' assented Fledgeby. 'I hope, Mr Twemlow, your\nbusiness here may be of a more agreeable character than mine.'\n\n'Thank you, sir,' said Mr Twemlow.\n\nFledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced with great\ncomplacency at Twemlow, who was timorously tapping the table with a\nfolded letter.\n\n'What I know of Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby, with a very disparaging\nutterance of his name, 'leads me to believe that this is about the shop\nfor disagreeable business. I have always found him the bitingest and\ntightest screw in London.'\n\nMr Twemlow acknowledged the remark with a little distant bow. It\nevidently made him nervous.\n\n'So much so,' pursued Fledgeby, 'that if it wasn't to be true to a\nfriend, nobody should catch me waiting here a single minute. But if you\nhave friends in adversity, stand by them. That's what I say and act up\nto.'\n\nThe equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of the\nutterer, demanded his cordial assent. 'You are very right, sir,' he\nrejoined with spirit. 'You indicate the generous and manly course.'\n\n'Glad to have your approbation,' returned Fledgeby. 'It's a coincidence,\nMr Twemlow;' here he descended from his perch, and sauntered towards\nhim; 'that the friends I am standing by to-day are the friends at whose\nhouse I met you! The Lammles. She's a very taking and agreeable woman?'\n\nConscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. 'Yes,' he said. 'She is.'\n\n'And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try what I could\ndo to pacify their creditor, this Mr Riah--that I certainly have gained\nsome little influence with in transacting business for another friend,\nbut nothing like so much as she supposes--and when a woman like that\nspoke to me as her dearest Mr Fledgeby, and shed tears--why what could I\ndo, you know?'\n\nTwemlow gasped 'Nothing but come.'\n\n'Nothing but come. And so I came. But why,' said Fledgeby, putting\nhis hands in his pockets and counterfeiting deep meditation, 'why Riah\nshould have started up, when I told him that the Lammles entreated him\nto hold over a Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why he\nshould have cut out, saying he would be back directly; and why he should\nhave left me here alone so long; I cannot understand.'\n\nThe chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was not in a\ncondition to offer any suggestion. He was too penitent, too remorseful.\nFor the first time in his life he had done an underhanded action, and he\nhad done wrong. He had secretly interposed against this confiding young\nman, for no better real reason than because the young man's ways were\nnot his ways.\n\nBut, the confiding young man proceeded to heap coals of fire on his\nsensitive head.\n\n'I beg your pardon, Mr Twemlow; you see I am acquainted with the nature\nof the affairs that are transacted here. Is there anything I can do for\nyou here? You have always been brought up as a gentleman, and never as a\nman of business;' another touch of possible impertinence in this place;\n'and perhaps you are but a poor man of business. What else is to be\nexpected!'\n\n'I am even a poorer man of business than I am a man, sir,' returned\nTwemlow, 'and I could hardly express my deficiency in a stronger way. I\nreally do not so much as clearly understand my position in the matter\non which I am brought here. But there are reasons which make me\nvery delicate of accepting your assistance. I am greatly, greatly,\ndisinclined to profit by it. I don't deserve it.'\n\nGood childish creature! Condemned to a passage through the world by such\nnarrow little dimly-lighted ways, and picking up so few specks or spots\non the road!\n\n'Perhaps,' said Fledgeby, 'you may be a little proud of entering on the\ntopic,--having been brought up as a gentleman.'\n\n'It's not that, sir,' returned Twemlow, 'it's not that. I hope I\ndistinguish between true pride and false pride.'\n\n'I have no pride at all, myself,' said Fledgeby, 'and perhaps I don't\ncut things so fine as to know one from t'other. But I know this is a\nplace where even a man of business needs his wits about him; and if mine\ncan be of any use to you here, you're welcome to them.'\n\n'You are very good,' said Twemlow, faltering. 'But I am most\nunwilling--'\n\n'I don't, you know,' proceeded Fledgeby with an ill-favoured glance,\n'entertain the vanity of supposing that my wits could be of any use\nto you in society, but they might be here. You cultivate society and\nsociety cultivates you, but Mr Riah's not society. In society, Mr Riah\nis kept dark; eh, Mr Twemlow?'\n\nTwemlow, much disturbed, and with his hand fluttering about his\nforehead, replied: 'Quite true.'\n\nThe confiding young man besought him to state his case. The innocent\nTwemlow, expecting Fledgeby to be astounded by what he should unfold,\nand not for an instant conceiving the possibility of its happening every\nday, but treating of it as a terrible phenomenon occurring in the course\nof ages, related how that he had had a deceased friend, a married civil\nofficer with a family, who had wanted money for change of place on\nchange of post, and how he, Twemlow, had 'given him his name,' with the\nusual, but in the eyes of Twemlow almost incredible result that he had\nbeen left to repay what he had never had. How, in the course of years,\nhe had reduced the principal by trifling sums, 'having,' said Twemlow,\n'always to observe great economy, being in the enjoyment of a fixed\nincome limited in extent, and that depending on the munificence of\na certain nobleman,' and had always pinched the full interest out of\nhimself with punctual pinches. How he had come, in course of time,\nto look upon this one only debt of his life as a regular quarterly\ndrawback, and no worse, when 'his name' had some way fallen into the\npossession of Mr Riah, who had sent him notice to redeem it by paying up\nin full, in one plump sum, or take tremendous consequences. This, with\nhazy remembrances of how he had been carried to some office to 'confess\njudgment' (as he recollected the phrase), and how he had been carried\nto another office where his life was assured for somebody not wholly\nunconnected with the sherry trade whom he remembered by the remarkable\ncircumstance that he had a Straduarius violin to dispose of, and also a\nMadonna, formed the sum and substance of Mr Twemlow's narrative. Through\nwhich stalked the shadow of the awful Snigsworth, eyed afar off by\nmoney-lenders as Security in the Mist, and menacing Twemlow with his\nbaronial truncheon.\n\nTo all, Mr Fledgeby listened with the modest gravity becoming a\nconfiding young man who knew it all beforehand, and, when it was\nfinished, seriously shook his head. 'I don't like, Mr Twemlow,' said\nFledgeby, 'I don't like Riah's calling in the principal. If he's\ndetermined to call it in, it must come.'\n\n'But supposing, sir,' said Twemlow, downcast, 'that it can't come?'\n\n'Then,' retorted Fledgeby, 'you must go, you know.'\n\n'Where?' asked Twemlow, faintly.\n\n'To prison,' returned Fledgeby. Whereat Mr Twemlow leaned his innocent\nhead upon his hand, and moaned a little moan of distress and disgrace.\n\n'However,' said Fledgeby, appearing to pluck up his spirits, 'we'll hope\nit's not so bad as that comes to. If you'll allow me, I'll mention to Mr\nRiah when he comes in, who you are, and I'll tell him you're my friend,\nand I'll say my say for you, instead of your saying it for yourself; I\nmay be able to do it in a more business-like way. You won't consider it\na liberty?'\n\n'I thank you again and again, sir,' said Twemlow. 'I am strong,\nstrongly, disinclined to avail myself of your generosity, though my\nhelplessness yields. For I cannot but feel that I--to put it in the\nmildest form of speech--that I have done nothing to deserve it.'\n\n'Where CAN he be?' muttered Fledgeby, referring to his watch again.\n'What CAN he have gone out for? Did you ever see him, Mr Twemlow?'\n\n'Never.'\n\n'He is a thorough Jew to look at, but he is a more thorough Jew to deal\nwith. He's worst when he's quiet. If he's quiet, I shall take it as a\nvery bad sign. Keep your eye upon him when he comes in, and, if he's\nquiet, don't be hopeful. Here he is!--He looks quiet.'\n\nWith these words, which had the effect of causing the harmless Twemlow\npainful agitation, Mr Fledgeby withdrew to his former post, and the old\nman entered the counting-house.\n\n'Why, Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby, 'I thought you were lost!'\n\nThe old man, glancing at the stranger, stood stock-still. He perceived\nthat his master was leading up to the orders he was to take, and he\nwaited to understand them.\n\n'I really thought,' repeated Fledgeby slowly, 'that you were lost, Mr\nRiah. Why, now I look at you--but no, you can't have done it; no, you\ncan't have done it!'\n\nHat in hand, the old man lifted his head, and looked distressfully at\nFledgeby as seeking to know what new moral burden he was to bear.\n\n'You can't have rushed out to get the start of everybody else, and put\nin that bill of sale at Lammle's?' said Fledgeby. 'Say you haven't, Mr\nRiah.'\n\n'Sir, I have,' replied the old man in a low voice.\n\n'Oh my eye!' cried Fledgeby. 'Tut, tut, tut! Dear, dear, dear! Well! I\nknew you were a hard customer, Mr Riah, but I never thought you were as\nhard as that.'\n\n'Sir,' said the old man, with great uneasiness, 'I do as I am directed.\nI am not the principal here. I am but the agent of a superior, and I\nhave no choice, no power.'\n\n'Don't say so,' retorted Fledgeby, secretly exultant as the old man\nstretched out his hands, with a shrinking action of defending himself\nagainst the sharp construction of the two observers. 'Don't play the\ntune of the trade, Mr Riah. You've a right to get in your debts, if\nyou're determined to do it, but don't pretend what every one in your\nline regularly pretends. At least, don't do it to me. Why should you, Mr\nRiah? You know I know all about you.'\n\nThe old man clasped the skirt of his long coat with his disengaged hand,\nand directed a wistful look at Fledgeby.\n\n'And don't,' said Fledgeby, 'don't, I entreat you as a favour, Mr Riah,\nbe so devilish meek, for I know what'll follow if you are. Look here, Mr\nRiah. This gentleman is Mr Twemlow.'\n\nThe Jew turned to him and bowed. That poor lamb bowed in return; polite,\nand terrified.\n\n'I have made such a failure,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'in trying to do\nanything with you for my friend Lammle, that I've hardly a hope of doing\nanything with you for my friend (and connexion indeed) Mr Twemlow. But\nI do think that if you would do a favour for anybody, you would for me,\nand I won't fail for want of trying, and I've passed my promise to Mr\nTwemlow besides. Now, Mr Riah, here is Mr Twemlow. Always good for his\ninterest, always coming up to time, always paying his little way. Now,\nwhy should you press Mr Twemlow? You can't have any spite against Mr\nTwemlow! Why not be easy with Mr Twemlow?'\n\nThe old man looked into Fledgeby's little eyes for any sign of leave to\nbe easy with Mr Twemlow; but there was no sign in them.\n\n'Mr Twemlow is no connexion of yours, Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby; 'you\ncan't want to be even with him for having through life gone in for a\ngentleman and hung on to his Family. If Mr Twemlow has a contempt for\nbusiness, what can it matter to you?'\n\n'But pardon me,' interposed the gentle victim, 'I have not. I should\nconsider it presumption.'\n\n'There, Mr Riah!' said Fledgeby, 'isn't that handsomely said? Come! Make\nterms with me for Mr Twemlow.'\n\nThe old man looked again for any sign of permission to spare the poor\nlittle gentleman. No. Mr Fledgeby meant him to be racked.\n\n'I am very sorry, Mr Twemlow,' said Riah. 'I have my instructions. I am\ninvested with no authority for diverging from them. The money must be\npaid.'\n\n'In full and slap down, do you mean, Mr Riah?' asked Fledgeby, to make\nthings quite explicit.\n\n'In full, sir, and at once,' was Riah's answer.\n\nMr Fledgeby shook his head deploringly at Twemlow, and mutely expressed\nin reference to the venerable figure standing before him with eyes upon\nthe ground: 'What a Monster of an Israelite this is!'\n\n'Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby.\n\nThe old man lifted up his eyes once more to the little eyes in Mr\nFledgeby's head, with some reviving hope that the sign might be coming\nyet.\n\n'Mr Riah, it's of no use my holding back the fact. There's a certain\ngreat party in the background in Mr Twemlow's case, and you know it.'\n\n'I know it,' the old man admitted.\n\n'Now, I'll put it as a plain point of business, Mr Riah. Are you fully\ndetermined (as a plain point of business) either to have that said great\nparty's security, or that said great party's money?'\n\n'Fully determined,' answered Riah, as he read his master's face, and\nlearnt the book.\n\n'Not at all caring for, and indeed as it seems to me rather enjoying,'\nsaid Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, 'the precious kick-up and row that\nwill come off between Mr Twemlow and the said great party?'\n\nThis required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr Twemlow, who had\nbetrayed the keenest mental terrors since his noble kinsman loomed in\nthe perspective, rose with a sigh to take his departure. 'I thank you\nvery much, sir,' he said, offering Fledgeby his feverish hand. 'You have\ndone me an unmerited service. Thank you, thank you!'\n\n'Don't mention it,' answered Fledgeby. 'It's a failure so far, but I'll\nstay behind, and take another touch at Mr Riah.'\n\n'Do not deceive yourself Mr Twemlow,' said the Jew, then addressing him\ndirectly for the first time. 'There is no hope for you. You must expect\nno leniency here. You must pay in full, and you cannot pay too promptly,\nor you will be put to heavy charges. Trust nothing to me, sir. Money,\nmoney, money.' When he had said these words in an emphatic manner, he\nacknowledged Mr Twemlow's still polite motion of his head, and that\namiable little worthy took his departure in the lowest spirits.\n\nFascination Fledgeby was in such a merry vein when the counting-house\nwas cleared of him, that he had nothing for it but to go to the window,\nand lean his arms on the frame of the blind, and have his silent laugh\nout, with his back to his subordinate. When he turned round again with a\ncomposed countenance, his subordinate still stood in the same place, and\nthe dolls' dressmaker sat behind the door with a look of horror.\n\n'Halloa!' cried Mr Fledgeby, 'you're forgetting this young lady, Mr\nRiah, and she has been waiting long enough too. Sell her her waste,\nplease, and give her good measure if you can make up your mind to do the\nliberal thing for once.'\n\nHe looked on for a time, as the Jew filled her little basket with such\nscraps as she was used to buy; but, his merry vein coming on again, he\nwas obliged to turn round to the window once more, and lean his arms on\nthe blind.\n\n'There, my Cinderella dear,' said the old man in a whisper, and with a\nworn-out look, 'the basket's full now. Bless you! And get you gone!'\n\n'Don't call me your Cinderella dear,' returned Miss Wren. 'O you cruel\ngodmother!'\n\nShe shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at\nparting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she had ever shaken it at her\ngrim old child at home.\n\n'You are not the godmother at all!' said she. 'You are the Wolf in\nthe Forest, the wicked Wolf! And if ever my dear Lizzie is sold and\nbetrayed, I shall know who sold and betrayed her!'\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\nMR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN'S NOSE\n\n\nHaving assisted at a few more expositions of the lives of Misers, Mr\nVenus became almost indispensable to the evenings at the Bower. The\ncircumstance of having another listener to the wonders unfolded by\nWegg, or, as it were, another calculator to cast up the guineas found in\nteapots, chimneys, racks and mangers, and other such banks of deposit,\nseemed greatly to heighten Mr Boffin's enjoyment; while Silas Wegg, for\nhis part, though of a jealous temperament which might under ordinary\ncircumstances have resented the anatomist's getting into favour, was\nso very anxious to keep his eye on that gentleman--lest, being too\nmuch left to himself, he should be tempted to play any tricks with the\nprecious document in his keeping--that he never lost an opportunity of\ncommending him to Mr Boffin's notice as a third party whose company was\nmuch to be desired. Another friendly demonstration towards him Mr Wegg\nnow regularly gratified. After each sitting was over, and the patron\nhad departed, Mr Wegg invariably saw Mr Venus home. To be sure, he as\ninvariably requested to be refreshed with a sight of the paper in which\nhe was a joint proprietor; but he never failed to remark that it was the\ngreat pleasure he derived from Mr Venus's improving society which had\ninsensibly lured him round to Clerkenwell again, and that, finding\nhimself once more attracted to the spot by the social powers of Mr V.,\nhe would beg leave to go through that little incidental procedure, as a\nmatter of form. 'For well I know, sir,' Mr Wegg would add, 'that a\nman of your delicate mind would wish to be checked off whenever the\nopportunity arises, and it is not for me to baulk your feelings.'\n\nA certain rustiness in Mr Venus, which never became so lubricated by\nthe oil of Mr Wegg but that he turned under the screw in a creaking and\nstiff manner, was very noticeable at about this period. While assisting\nat the literary evenings, he even went so far, on two or three\noccasions, as to correct Mr Wegg when he grossly mispronounced a word,\nor made nonsense of a passage; insomuch that Mr Wegg took to surveying\nhis course in the day, and to making arrangements for getting round\nrocks at night instead of running straight upon them. Of the slightest\nanatomical reference he became particularly shy, and, if he saw a bone\nahead, would go any distance out of his way rather than mention it by\nname.\n\nThe adverse destinies ordained that one evening Mr Wegg's labouring\nbark became beset by polysyllables, and embarrassed among a perfect\narchipelago of hard words. It being necessary to take soundings every\nminute, and to feel the way with the greatest caution, Mr Wegg's\nattention was fully employed. Advantage was taken of this dilemma by\nMr Venus, to pass a scrap of paper into Mr Boffin's hand, and lay his\nfinger on his own lip.\n\nWhen Mr Boffin got home at night he found that the paper contained Mr\nVenus's card and these words: 'Should be glad to be honoured with a call\nrespecting business of your own, about dusk on an early evening.'\n\nThe very next evening saw Mr Boffin peeping in at the preserved frogs\nin Mr Venus's shop-window, and saw Mr Venus espying Mr Boffin with the\nreadiness of one on the alert, and beckoning that gentleman into his\ninterior. Responding, Mr Boffin was invited to seat himself on the box\nof human miscellanies before the fire, and did so, looking round the\nplace with admiring eyes. The fire being low and fitful, and the dusk\ngloomy, the whole stock seemed to be winking and blinking with both\neyes, as Mr Venus did. The French gentleman, though he had no eyes, was\nnot at all behind-hand, but appeared, as the flame rose and fell, to\nopen and shut his no eyes, with the regularity of the glass-eyed dogs\nand ducks and birds. The big-headed babies were equally obliging in\nlending their grotesque aid to the general effect.\n\n'You see, Mr Venus, I've lost no time,' said Mr Boffin. 'Here I am.'\n\n'Here you are, sir,' assented Mr Venus.\n\n'I don't like secrecy,' pursued Mr Boffin--'at least, not in a general\nway I don't--but I dare say you'll show me good reason for being secret\nso far.'\n\n'I think I shall, sir,' returned Venus.\n\n'Good,' said Mr Boffin. 'You don't expect Wegg, I take it for granted?'\n\n'No, sir. I expect no one but the present company.'\n\nMr Boffin glanced about him, as accepting under that inclusive\ndenomination the French gentleman and the circle in which he didn't\nmove, and repeated, 'The present company.'\n\n'Sir,' said Mr Venus, 'before entering upon business, I shall have to\nask you for your word and honour that we are in confidence.'\n\n'Let's wait a bit and understand what the expression means,' answered Mr\nBoffin. 'In confidence for how long? In confidence for ever and a day?'\n\n'I take your hint, sir,' said Venus; 'you think you might consider the\nbusiness, when you came to know it, to be of a nature incompatible with\nconfidence on your part?'\n\n'I might,' said Mr Boffin with a cautious look.\n\n'True, sir. Well, sir,' observed Venus, after clutching at his dusty\nhair, to brighten his ideas, 'let us put it another way. I open the\nbusiness with you, relying upon your honour not to do anything in it,\nand not to mention me in it, without my knowledge.'\n\n'That sounds fair,' said Mr Boffin. 'I agree to that.'\n\n'I have your word and honour, sir?'\n\n'My good fellow,' retorted Mr Boffin, 'you have my word; and how you\ncan have that, without my honour too, I don't know. I've sorted a lot\nof dust in my time, but I never knew the two things go into separate\nheaps.'\n\nThis remark seemed rather to abash Mr Venus. He hesitated, and said,\n'Very true, sir;' and again, 'Very true, sir,' before resuming the\nthread of his discourse.\n\n'Mr Boffin, if I confess to you that I fell into a proposal of which you\nwere the subject, and of which you oughtn't to have been the subject,\nyou will allow me to mention, and will please take into favourable\nconsideration, that I was in a crushed state of mind at the time.'\n\nThe Golden Dustman, with his hands folded on the top of his stout\nstick, with his chin resting upon them, and with something leering and\nwhimsical in his eyes, gave a nod, and said, 'Quite so, Venus.'\n\n'That proposal, sir, was a conspiring breach of your confidence, to\nsuch an extent, that I ought at once to have made it known to you. But I\ndidn't, Mr Boffin, and I fell into it.'\n\nWithout moving eye or finger, Mr Boffin gave another nod, and placidly\nrepeated, 'Quite so, Venus.'\n\n'Not that I was ever hearty in it, sir,' the penitent anatomist went\non, 'or that I ever viewed myself with anything but reproach for having\nturned out of the paths of science into the paths of--' he was going\nto say 'villany,' but, unwilling to press too hard upon himself,\nsubstituted with great emphasis--'Weggery.'\n\nPlacid and whimsical of look as ever, Mr Boffin answered:\n\n'Quite so, Venus.'\n\n'And now, sir,' said Venus, 'having prepared your mind in the rough, I\nwill articulate the details.' With which brief professional exordium, he\nentered on the history of the friendly move, and truly recounted it. One\nmight have thought that it would have extracted some show of surprise or\nanger, or other emotion, from Mr Boffin, but it extracted nothing beyond\nhis former comment:\n\n'Quite so, Venus.'\n\n'I have astonished you, sir, I believe?' said Mr Venus, pausing\ndubiously.\n\nMr Boffin simply answered as aforesaid: 'Quite so, Venus.'\n\nBy this time the astonishment was all on the other side. It did not,\nhowever, so continue. For, when Venus passed to Wegg's discovery, and\nfrom that to their having both seen Mr Boffin dig up the Dutch bottle,\nthat gentleman changed colour, changed his attitude, became extremely\nrestless, and ended (when Venus ended) by being in a state of manifest\nanxiety, trepidation, and confusion.\n\n'Now, sir,' said Venus, finishing off; 'you best know what was in that\nDutch bottle, and why you dug it up, and took it away. I don't pretend\nto know anything more about it than I saw. All I know is this: I am\nproud of my calling after all (though it has been attended by one\ndreadful drawback which has told upon my heart, and almost equally upon\nmy skeleton), and I mean to live by my calling. Putting the same meaning\ninto other words, I do not mean to turn a single dishonest penny by this\naffair. As the best amends I can make you for having ever gone into it,\nI make known to you, as a warning, what Wegg has found out. My opinion\nis, that Wegg is not to be silenced at a modest price, and I build that\nopinion on his beginning to dispose of your property the moment he knew\nhis power. Whether it's worth your while to silence him at any price,\nyou will decide for yourself, and take your measures accordingly. As\nfar as I am concerned, I have no price. If I am ever called upon for\nthe truth, I tell it, but I want to do no more than I have now done and\nended.'\n\n'Thank'ee, Venus!' said Mr Boffin, with a hearty grip of his hand;\n'thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus!' And then walked up and down the\nlittle shop in great agitation. 'But look here, Venus,' he by-and-by\nresumed, nervously sitting down again; 'if I have to buy Wegg up, I\nshan't buy him any cheaper for your being out of it. Instead of his\nhaving half the money--it was to have been half, I suppose? Share and\nshare alike?'\n\n'It was to have been half, sir,' answered Venus.\n\n'Instead of that, he'll now have all. I shall pay the same, if not more.\nFor you tell me he's an unconscionable dog, a ravenous rascal.'\n\n'He is,' said Venus.\n\n'Don't you think, Venus,' insinuated Mr Boffin, after looking at the\nfire for a while--'don't you feel as if--you might like to pretend to be\nin it till Wegg was bought up, and then ease your mind by handing over\nto me what you had made believe to pocket?'\n\n'No I don't, sir,' returned Venus, very positively.\n\n'Not to make amends?' insinuated Mr Boffin.\n\n'No, sir. It seems to me, after maturely thinking it over, that the best\namends for having got out of the square is to get back into the square.'\n\n'Humph!' mused Mr Boffin. 'When you say the square, you mean--'\n\n'I mean,' said Venus, stoutly and shortly, 'the right.'\n\n'It appears to me,' said Mr Boffin, grumbling over the fire in an\ninjured manner, 'that the right is with me, if it's anywhere. I have\nmuch more right to the old man's money than the Crown can ever have.\nWhat was the Crown to him except the King's Taxes? Whereas, me and my\nwife, we was all in all to him.'\n\nMr Venus, with his head upon his hands, rendered melancholy by the\ncontemplation of Mr Boffin's avarice, only murmured to steep himself\nin the luxury of that frame of mind: 'She did not wish so to regard\nherself, nor yet to be so regarded.'\n\n'And how am I to live,' asked Mr Boffin, piteously, 'if I'm to be going\nbuying fellows up out of the little that I've got? And how am I to set\nabout it? When am I to get my money ready? When am I to make a bid? You\nhaven't told me when he threatens to drop down upon me.'\n\nVenus explained under what conditions, and with what views, the dropping\ndown upon Mr Boffin was held over until the Mounds should be cleared\naway. Mr Boffin listened attentively. 'I suppose,' said he, with a\ngleam of hope, 'there's no doubt about the genuineness and date of this\nconfounded will?'\n\n'None whatever,' said Mr Venus.\n\n'Where might it be deposited at present?' asked Mr Boffin, in a\nwheedling tone.\n\n'It's in my possession, sir.'\n\n'Is it?' he cried, with great eagerness. 'Now, for any liberal sum of\nmoney that could be agreed upon, Venus, would you put it in the fire?'\n\n'No, sir, I wouldn't,' interrupted Mr Venus.\n\n'Nor pass it over to me?'\n\n'That would be the same thing. No, sir,' said Mr Venus.\n\nThe Golden Dustman seemed about to pursue these questions, when a\nstumping noise was heard outside, coming towards the door. 'Hush! here's\nWegg!' said Venus. 'Get behind the young alligator in the corner, Mr\nBoffin, and judge him for yourself. I won't light a candle till he's\ngone; there'll only be the glow of the fire; Wegg's well acquainted with\nthe alligator, and he won't take particular notice of him. Draw your\nlegs in, Mr Boffin, at present I see a pair of shoes at the end of his\ntail. Get your head well behind his smile, Mr Boffin, and you'll lie\ncomfortable there; you'll find plenty of room behind his smile. He's a\nlittle dusty, but he's very like you in tone. Are you right, sir?'\n\nMr Boffin had but whispered an affirmative response, when Wegg came\nstumping in. 'Partner,' said that gentleman in a sprightly manner,\n'how's yourself?'\n\n'Tolerable,' returned Mr Venus. 'Not much to boast of.'\n\n'In-deed!' said Wegg: 'sorry, partner, that you're not picking up\nfaster, but your soul's too large for your body, sir; that's where\nit is. And how's our stock in trade, partner? Safe bind, safe find,\npartner? Is that about it?'\n\n'Do you wish to see it?' asked Venus.\n\n'If you please, partner,' said Wegg, rubbing his hands. 'I wish to see\nit jintly with yourself. Or, in similar words to some that was set to\nmusic some time back:\n\n     \"I wish you to see it with your eyes,\n     And I will pledge with mine.\"'\n\nTurning his back and turning a key, Mr Venus produced the document,\nholding on by his usual corner. Mr Wegg, holding on by the opposite\ncorner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by Mr Boffin, and looked\nit over. 'All right, sir,' he slowly and unwillingly admitted, in his\nreluctance to loose his hold, 'all right!' And greedily watched his\npartner as he turned his back again, and turned his key again.\n\n'There's nothing new, I suppose?' said Venus, resuming his low chair\nbehind the counter.\n\n'Yes there is, sir,' replied Wegg; 'there was something new this\nmorning. That foxey old grasper and griper--'\n\n'Mr Boffin?' inquired Venus, with a glance towards the alligator's yard\nor two of smile.\n\n'Mister be blowed!' cried Wegg, yielding to his honest indignation.\n'Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and grinder, sir, turns\ninto the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial tool\nof his own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him,\n\"What do you want here, young man? This is a private yard,\" he pulls out\na paper from Boffin's other blackguard, the one I was passed over for.\n\"This is to authorize Sloppy to overlook the carting and to watch the\nwork.\" That's pretty strong, I think, Mr Venus?'\n\n'Remember he doesn't know yet of our claim on the property,' suggested\nVenus.\n\n'Then he must have a hint of it,' said Wegg, 'and a strong one that'll\njog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and he'll take an ell. Let him\nalone this time, and what'll he do with our property next? I tell you\nwhat, Mr Venus; it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, or\nI shall fly into several pieces. I can't contain myself when I look\nat him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his pocket, I see him\nputting it into my pocket. Every time I hear him jingling his money, I\nhear him taking liberties with my money. Flesh and blood can't bear it.\nNo,' said Mr Wegg, greatly exasperated, 'and I'll go further. A wooden\nleg can't bear it!'\n\n'But, Mr Wegg,' urged Venus, 'it was your own idea that he should not be\nexploded upon, till the Mounds were carted away.'\n\n'But it was likewise my idea, Mr Venus,' retorted Wegg, 'that if he came\nsneaking and sniffing about the property, he should be threatened, given\nto understand that he has no right to it, and be made our slave. Wasn't\nthat my idea, Mr Venus?'\n\n'It certainly was, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'It certainly was, as you say, partner,' assented Wegg, put into\na better humour by the ready admission. 'Very well. I consider his\nplanting one of his menial tools in the yard, an act of sneaking and\nsniffing. And his nose shall be put to the grindstone for it.'\n\n'It was not your fault, Mr Wegg, I must admit,' said Venus, 'that he got\noff with the Dutch bottle that night.'\n\n'As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not my fault. I'd have\nhad that bottle out of him. Was it to be borne that he should come, like\na thief in the dark, digging among stuff that was far more ours than his\n(seeing that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn't buy\nus at our own figure), and carrying off treasure from its bowels? No,\nit was not to be borne. And for that, too, his nose shall be put to the\ngrindstone.'\n\n'How do you propose to do it, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose,' returned that estimable\nman, 'to insult him openly. And, if looking into this eye of mine, he\ndares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him before he can take\nhis breath, \"Add another word to that, you dusty old dog, and you're a\nbeggar.\"'\n\n'Suppose he says nothing, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'Then,' replied Wegg, 'we shall have come to an understanding with very\nlittle trouble, and I'll break him and drive him, Mr Venus. I'll put\nhim in harness, and I'll bear him up tight, and I'll break him and drive\nhim. The harder the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he'll pay. And I\nmean to be paid high, Mr Venus, I promise you.'\n\n'You speak quite revengefully, Mr Wegg.'\n\n'Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and falled,\nnight after night? Is it for his pleasure that I've waited at home of an\nevening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and knocked over, set up\nand knocked over, by whatever balls--or books--he chose to bring against\nme? Why, I'm a hundred times the man he is, sir; five hundred times!'\n\nPerhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worst\nthat Mr Venus looked as if he doubted that.\n\n'What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace,\nby that minion of fortune and worm of the hour,' said Wegg, falling back\nupon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter,\n'that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all\nweathers, waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that very\nhouse as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I\nwas selling halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel in\nthe dust for HIM to walk over? No!'\n\nThere was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French gentleman\nunder the influence of the firelight, as if he were computing how many\nthousand slanderers and traitors array themselves against the fortunate,\non premises exactly answering to those of Mr Wegg. One might have\nfancied that the big-headed babies were toppling over with their\nhydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who transform\ntheir benefactors into their injurers by the same process. The yard or\ntwo of smile on the part of the alligator might have been invested with\nthe meaning, 'All about this was quite familiar knowledge down in the\ndepths of the slime, ages ago.'\n\n'But,' said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to the foregoing\neffect, 'your speaking countenance remarks, Mr Venus, that I'm duller\nand savager than usual. Perhaps I HAVE allowed myself to brood too much.\nBegone, dull Care! 'Tis gone, sir. I've looked in upon you, and empire\nresumes her sway. For, as the song says--subject to your correction,\nsir--\n\n     \"When the heart of a man is depressed with cares,\n     The mist is dispelled if Venus appears.\n     Like the notes of a fiddle, you sweetly, sir, sweetly,\n     Raises our spirits and charms our ears.\"\n\nGood-night, sir.'\n\n'I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr Wegg, before long,'\nremarked Venus, 'respecting my share in the project we've been speaking\nof.'\n\n'My time, sir,' returned Wegg, 'is yours. In the meanwhile let it be\nfully understood that I shall not neglect bringing the grindstone to\nbear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin's nose to it. His nose once brought\nto it, shall be held to it by these hands, Mr Venus, till the sparks\nflies out in showers.'\n\nWith this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut the shop-door\nafter him. 'Wait till I light a candle, Mr Boffin,' said Venus, 'and\nyou'll come out more comfortable.' So, he lighting a candle and holding\nit up at arm's length, Mr Boffin disengaged himself from behind the\nalligator's smile, with an expression of countenance so very downcast\nthat it not only appeared as if the alligator had the whole of the joke\nto himself, but further as if it had been conceived and executed at Mr\nBoffin's expense.\n\n'That's a treacherous fellow,' said Mr Boffin, dusting his arms and legs\nas he came forth, the alligator having been but musty company. 'That's a\ndreadful fellow.'\n\n'The alligator, sir?' said Venus.\n\n'No, Venus, no. The Serpent.'\n\n'You'll have the goodness to notice, Mr Boffin,' remarked Venus, 'that I\nsaid nothing to him about my going out of the affair altogether, because\nI didn't wish to take you anyways by surprise. But I can't be too soon\nout of it for my satisfaction, Mr Boffin, and I now put it to you when\nit will suit your views for me to retire?'\n\n'Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus; but I don't know what to say,'\nreturned Mr Boffin, 'I don't know what to do. He'll drop down on me any\nway. He seems fully determined to drop down; don't he?'\n\nMr Venus opined that such was clearly his intention.\n\n'You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained in it,' said\nMr Boffin; 'you might stand betwixt him and me, and take the edge off\nhim. Don't you feel as if you could make a show of remaining in it,\nVenus, till I had time to turn myself round?'\n\nVenus naturally inquired how long Mr Boffin thought it might take him to\nturn himself round?\n\n'I am sure I don't know,' was the answer, given quite at a loss.\n'Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had never come into the\nproperty, I shouldn't have minded. But being in it, it would be very\ntrying to be turned out; now, don't you acknowledge that it would,\nVenus?'\n\nMr Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr Boffin to arrive at his own\nconclusions on that delicate question.\n\n'I am sure I don't know what to do,' said Mr Boffin. 'If I ask advice of\nany one else, it's only letting in another person to be bought out, and\nthen I shall be ruined that way, and might as well have given up the\nproperty and gone slap to the workhouse. If I was to take advice of my\nyoung man, Rokesmith, I should have to buy HIM out. Sooner or later, of\ncourse, he'd drop down upon me, like Wegg. I was brought into the world\nto be dropped down upon, it appears to me.'\n\nMr Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while Mr Boffin\njogged to and fro, holding his pockets as if he had a pain in them.\n\n'After all, you haven't said what you mean to do yourself, Venus. When\nyou do go out of it, how do you mean to go?'\n\nVenus replied that as Wegg had found the document and handed it to him,\nit was his intention to hand it back to Wegg, with the declaration that\nhe himself would have nothing to say to it, or do with it, and that Wegg\nmust act as he chose, and take the consequences.\n\n'And then he drops down with his whole weight upon ME!' cried Mr Boffin,\nruefully. 'I'd sooner be dropped upon by you than by him, or even by you\njintly, than by him alone!'\n\nMr Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed intention to betake\nhimself to the paths of science, and to walk in the same all the days\nof his life; not dropping down upon his fellow-creatures until they were\ndeceased, and then only to articulate them to the best of his humble\nability.\n\n'How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appearance of remaining\nin it?' asked Mr Boffin, retiring on his other idea. 'Could you be got\nto do so, till the Mounds are gone?'\n\nNo. That would protract the mental uneasiness of Mr Venus too long, he\nsaid.\n\n'Not if I was to show you reason now?' demanded Mr Boffin; 'not if I was\nto show you good and sufficient reason?'\n\nIf by good and sufficient reason Mr Boffin meant honest and\nunimpeachable reason, that might weigh with Mr Venus against his\npersonal wishes and convenience. But he must add that he saw no opening\nto the possibility of such reason being shown him.\n\n'Come and see me, Venus,' said Mr Boffin, 'at my house.'\n\n'Is the reason there, sir?' asked Mr Venus, with an incredulous smile\nand blink.\n\n'It may be, or may not be,' said Mr Boffin, 'just as you view it. But\nin the meantime don't go out of the matter. Look here. Do this. Give me\nyour word that you won't take any steps with Wegg, without my knowledge,\njust as I have given you my word that I won't without yours.'\n\n'Done, Mr Boffin!' said Venus, after brief consideration.\n\n'Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus! Done!'\n\n'When shall I come to see you, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'When you like. The sooner the better. I must be going now. Good-night,\nVenus.'\n\n'Good-night, sir.'\n\n'And good-night to the rest of the present company,' said Mr Boffin,\nglancing round the shop. 'They make a queer show, Venus, and I should\nlike to be better acquainted with them some day. Good-night, Venus,\ngood-night! Thankee, Venus, thankee, Venus!' With that he jogged out\ninto the street, and jogged upon his homeward way.\n\n'Now, I wonder,' he meditated as he went along, nursing his stick,\n'whether it can be, that Venus is setting himself to get the better of\nWegg? Whether it can be, that he means, when I have bought Wegg out, to\nhave me all to himself and to pick me clean to the bones!'\n\nIt was a cunning and suspicious idea, quite in the way of his school\nof Misers, and he looked very cunning and suspicious as he went jogging\nthrough the streets. More than once or twice, more than twice or thrice,\nsay half a dozen times, he took his stick from the arm on which he\nnursed it, and hit a straight sharp rap at the air with its head.\nPossibly the wooden countenance of Mr Silas Wegg was incorporeally\nbefore him at those moments, for he hit with intense satisfaction.\n\nHe was within a few streets of his own house, when a little private\ncarriage, coming in the contrary direction, passed him, turned round,\nand passed him again. It was a little carriage of eccentric movement,\nfor again he heard it stop behind him and turn round, and again he saw\nit pass him. Then it stopped, and then went on, out of sight. But, not\nfar out of sight, for, when he came to the corner of his own street,\nthere it stood again.\n\nThere was a lady's face at the window as he came up with this carriage,\nand he was passing it when the lady softly called to him by his name.\n\n'I beg your pardon, Ma'am?' said Mr Boffin, coming to a stop.\n\n'It is Mrs Lammle,' said the lady.\n\nMr Boffin went up to the window, and hoped Mrs Lammle was well.\n\n'Not very well, dear Mr Boffin; I have fluttered myself by\nbeing--perhaps foolishly--uneasy and anxious. I have been waiting for\nyou some time. Can I speak to you?'\n\nMr Boffin proposed that Mrs Lammle should drive on to his house, a few\nhundred yards further.\n\n'I would rather not, Mr Boffin, unless you particularly wish it. I feel\nthe difficulty and delicacy of the matter so much that I would rather\navoid speaking to you at your own home. You must think this very\nstrange?'\n\nMr Boffin said no, but meant yes.\n\n'It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all my\nfriends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot bear to run the risk of\nforfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of duty. I have asked my\nhusband (my dear Alfred, Mr Boffin) whether it is the cause of duty,\nand he has most emphatically said Yes. I wish I had asked him sooner. It\nwould have spared me much distress.'\n\n('Can this be more dropping down upon me!' thought Mr Boffin, quite\nbewildered.)\n\n'It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr Boffin. Alfred said, \"Don't\ncome back, Sophronia, until you have seen Mr Boffin, and told him all.\nWhatever he may think of it, he ought certainly to know it.\" Would you\nmind coming into the carriage?'\n\nMr Boffin answered, 'Not at all,' and took his seat at Mrs Lammle's\nside.\n\n'Drive slowly anywhere,' Mrs Lammle called to her coachman, 'and don't\nlet the carriage rattle.'\n\n'It MUST be more dropping down, I think,' said Mr Boffin to himself.\n'What next?'\n\n\n\nChapter 15\n\nTHE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST\n\n\nThe breakfast table at Mr Boffin's was usually a very pleasant one, and\nwas always presided over by Bella. As though he began each new day in\nhis healthy natural character, and some waking hours were necessary to\nhis relapse into the corrupting influences of his wealth, the face and\nthe demeanour of the Golden Dustman were generally unclouded at that\nmeal. It would have been easy to believe then, that there was no change\nin him. It was as the day went on that the clouds gathered, and the\nbrightness of the morning became obscured. One might have said that the\nshadows of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow lengthened,\nand that the night closed around him gradually.\n\nBut, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black midnight\nwith the Golden Dustman when he first appeared. His altered character\nhad never been so grossly marked. His bearing towards his Secretary was\nso charged with insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter rose\nand left the table before breakfast was half done. The look he directed\nat the Secretary's retiring figure was so cunningly malignant, that\nBella would have sat astounded and indignant, even though he had not\ngone the length of secretly threatening Rokesmith with his clenched\nfist as he closed the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings in the\nyear, was the morning next after Mr Boffin's interview with Mrs Lammle\nin her little carriage.\n\nBella looked to Mrs Boffin's face for comment on, or explanation of,\nthis stormy humour in her husband, but none was there. An anxious and\na distressed observation of her own face was all she could read in it.\nWhen they were left alone together--which was not until noon, for Mr\nBoffin sat long in his easy-chair, by turns jogging up and down\nthe breakfast-room, clenching his fist and muttering--Bella, in\nconsternation, asked her what had happened, what was wrong? 'I am\nforbidden to speak to you about it, Bella dear; I mustn't tell you,'\nwas all the answer she could get. And still, whenever, in her wonder and\ndismay, she raised her eyes to Mrs Boffin's face, she saw in it the same\nanxious and distressed observation of her own.\n\nOppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and lost in\nspeculations why Mrs Boffin should look at her as if she had any part in\nit, Bella found the day long and dreary. It was far on in the afternoon\nwhen, she being in her own room, a servant brought her a message from Mr\nBoffin begging her to come to his.\n\nMrs Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr Boffin was jogging up and\ndown. On seeing Bella he stopped, beckoned her to him, and drew her arm\nthrough his. 'Don't be alarmed, my dear,' he said, gently; 'I am not\nangry with you. Why you actually tremble! Don't be alarmed, Bella my\ndear. I'll see you righted.'\n\n'See me righted?' thought Bella. And then repeated aloud in a tone of\nastonishment: 'see me righted, sir?'\n\n'Ay, ay!' said Mr Boffin. 'See you righted. Send Mr Rokesmith here, you\nsir.'\n\nBella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been pause\nenough; but the servant found Mr Rokesmith near at hand, and he almost\nimmediately presented himself.\n\n'Shut the door, sir!' said Mr Boffin. 'I have got something to say to\nyou which I fancy you'll not be pleased to hear.'\n\n'I am sorry to reply, Mr Boffin,' returned the Secretary, as, having\nclosed the door, he turned and faced him, 'that I think that very\nlikely.'\n\n'What do you mean?' blustered Mr Boffin.\n\n'I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from your lips what\nI would rather not hear.'\n\n'Oh! Perhaps we shall change that,' said Mr Boffin with a threatening\nroll of his head.\n\n'I hope so,' returned the Secretary. He was quiet and respectful; but\nstood, as Bella thought (and was glad to think), on his manhood too.\n\n'Now, sir,' said Mr Boffin, 'look at this young lady on my arm.'\n\nBella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference was\nmade to herself, met those of Mr Rokesmith. He was pale and seemed\nagitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin's, and she met the look\nagain. In a flash it enlightened her, and she began to understand what\nshe had done.\n\n'I say to you, sir,' Mr Boffin repeated, 'look at this young lady on my\narm.'\n\n'I do so,' returned the Secretary.\n\nAs his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she thought there was\nreproach in it. But it is possible that the reproach was within herself.\n\n'How dare you, sir,' said Mr Boffin, 'tamper, unknown to me, with this\nyoung lady? How dare you come out of your station, and your place in my\nhouse, to pester this young lady with your impudent addresses?'\n\n'I must decline to answer questions,' said the Secretary, 'that are so\noffensively asked.'\n\n'You decline to answer?' retorted Mr Boffin. 'You decline to answer,\ndo you? Then I'll tell you what it is, Rokesmith; I'll answer for you.\nThere are two sides to this matter, and I'll take 'em separately. The\nfirst side is, sheer Insolence. That's the first side.'\n\nThe Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he would have said,\n'So I see and hear.'\n\n'It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you,' said Mr Boffin, 'even to\nthink of this young lady. This young lady was far above YOU. This young\nlady was no match for YOU. This young lady was lying in wait (as she was\nqualified to do) for money, and you had no money.'\n\nBella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from Mr Boffin's\nprotecting arm.\n\n'What are you, I should like to know,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'that you were\nto have the audacity to follow up this young lady? This young lady was\nlooking about the market for a good bid; she wasn't in it to be snapped\nup by fellows that had no money to lay out; nothing to buy with.'\n\n'Oh, Mr Boffin! Mrs Boffin, pray say something for me!' murmured Bella,\ndisengaging her arm, and covering her face with her hands.\n\n'Old lady,' said Mr Boffin, anticipating his wife, 'you hold your\ntongue. Bella, my dear, don't you let yourself be put out. I'll right\nyou.'\n\n'But you don't, you don't right me!' exclaimed Bella, with great\nemphasis. 'You wrong me, wrong me!'\n\n'Don't you be put out, my dear,' complacently retorted Mr Boffin. 'I'll\nbring this young man to book. Now, you Rokesmith! You can't decline\nto hear, you know, as well as to answer. You hear me tell you that the\nfirst side of your conduct was Insolence--Insolence and Presumption.\nAnswer me one thing, if you can. Didn't this young lady tell you so\nherself?'\n\n'Did I, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella with her face still covered. 'O say,\nMr Rokesmith! Did I?'\n\n'Don't be distressed, Miss Wilfer; it matters very little now.'\n\n'Ah! You can't deny it, though!' said Mr Boffin, with a knowing shake of\nhis head.\n\n'But I have asked him to forgive me since,' cried Bella; 'and I would\nask him to forgive me now again, upon my knees, if it would spare him!'\n\nHere Mrs Boffin broke out a-crying.\n\n'Old lady,' said Mr Boffin, 'stop that noise! Tender-hearted in you,\nMiss Bella; but I mean to have it out right through with this young man,\nhaving got him into a corner. Now, you Rokesmith. I tell you that's one\nside of your conduct--Insolence and Presumption. Now, I'm a-coming to\nthe other, which is much worse. This was a speculation of yours.'\n\n'I indignantly deny it.'\n\n'It's of no use your denying it; it doesn't signify a bit whether\nyou deny it or not; I've got a head upon my shoulders, and it ain't a\nbaby's. What!' said Mr Boffin, gathering himself together in his most\nsuspicious attitude, and wrinkling his face into a very map of curves\nand corners. 'Don't I know what grabs are made at a man with money? If\nI didn't keep my eyes open, and my pockets buttoned, shouldn't I\nbe brought to the workhouse before I knew where I was? Wasn't the\nexperience of Dancer, and Elwes, and Hopkins, and Blewbury Jones, and\never so many more of 'em, similar to mine? Didn't everybody want to make\ngrabs at what they'd got, and bring 'em to poverty and ruin? Weren't\nthey forced to hide everything belonging to 'em, for fear it should be\nsnatched from 'em? Of course they was. I shall be told next that they\ndidn't know human natur!'\n\n'They! Poor creatures,' murmured the Secretary.\n\n'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him. 'However, you\nneedn't be at the trouble of repeating it, for it ain't worth hearing,\nand won't go down with ME. I'm a-going to unfold your plan, before this\nyoung lady; I'm a-going to show this young lady the second view of you;\nand nothing you can say will stave it off. (Now, attend here, Bella, my\ndear.) Rokesmith, you're a needy chap. You're a chap that I pick up in\nthe street. Are you, or ain't you?'\n\n'Go on, Mr Boffin; don't appeal to me.'\n\n'Not appeal to YOU,' retorted Mr Boffin as if he hadn't done so. 'No,\nI should hope not! Appealing to YOU, would be rather a rum course. As I\nwas saying, you're a needy chap that I pick up in the street. You come\nand ask me in the street to take you for a Secretary, and I take you.\nVery good.'\n\n'Very bad,' murmured the Secretary.\n\n'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him again.\n\nHe returned no answer. Mr Boffin, after eyeing him with a comical look\nof discomfited curiosity, was fain to begin afresh.\n\n'This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for my Secretary out\nof the open street. This Rokesmith gets acquainted with my affairs, and\ngets to know that I mean to settle a sum of money on this young lady.\n\"Oho!\" says this Rokesmith;' here Mr Boffin clapped a finger against\nhis nose, and tapped it several times with a sneaking air, as embodying\nRokesmith confidentially confabulating with his own nose; '\"This will\nbe a good haul; I'll go in for this!\" And so this Rokesmith, greedy and\nhungering, begins a-creeping on his hands and knees towards the money.\nNot so bad a speculation either: for if this young lady had had less\nspirit, or had had less sense, through being at all in the romantic\nline, by George he might have worked it out and made it pay! But\nfortunately she was too many for him, and a pretty figure he cuts now\nhe is exposed. There he stands!' said Mr Boffin, addressing Rokesmith\nhimself with ridiculous inconsistency. 'Look at him!'\n\n'Your unfortunate suspicions, Mr Boffin--' began the Secretary.\n\n'Precious unfortunate for you, I can tell you,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'--are not to be combated by any one, and I address myself to no such\nhopeless task. But I will say a word upon the truth.'\n\n'Yah! Much you care about the truth,' said Mr Boffin, with a snap of his\nfingers.\n\n'Noddy! My dear love!' expostulated his wife.\n\n'Old lady,' returned Mr Boffin, 'you keep still. I say to this Rokesmith\nhere, much he cares about the truth. I tell him again, much he cares\nabout the truth.'\n\n'Our connexion being at an end, Mr Boffin,' said the Secretary, 'it can\nbe of very little moment to me what you say.'\n\n'Oh! You are knowing enough,' retorted Mr Boffin, with a sly look, 'to\nhave found out that our connexion's at an end, eh? But you can't get\nbeforehand with me. Look at this in my hand. This is your pay, on your\ndischarge. You can only follow suit. You can't deprive me of the lead.\nLet's have no pretending that you discharge yourself. I discharge you.'\n\n'So that I go,' remarked the Secretary, waving the point aside with his\nhand, 'it is all one to me.'\n\n'Is it?' said Mr Boffin. 'But it's two to me, let me tell you.\nAllowing a fellow that's found out, to discharge himself, is one thing;\ndischarging him for insolence and presumption, and likewise for designs\nupon his master's money, is another. One and one's two; not one. (Old\nlady, don't you cut in. You keep still.)'\n\n'Have you said all you wish to say to me?' demanded the Secretary.\n\n'I don't know whether I have or not,' answered Mr Boffin. 'It depends.'\n\n'Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other strong\nexpressions that you would like to bestow upon me?'\n\n'I'll consider that,' said Mr Boffin, obstinately, 'at my convenience,\nand not at yours. You want the last word. It may not be suitable to let\nyou have it.'\n\n'Noddy! My dear, dear Noddy! You sound so hard!' cried poor Mrs Boffin,\nnot to be quite repressed.\n\n'Old lady,' said her husband, but without harshness, 'if you cut in when\nrequested not, I'll get a pillow and carry you out of the room upon it.\nWhat do you want to say, you Rokesmith?'\n\n'To you, Mr Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and to your good kind\nwife, a word.'\n\n'Out with it then,' replied Mr Boffin, 'and cut it short, for we've had\nenough of you.'\n\n'I have borne,' said the Secretary, in a low voice, 'with my false\nposition here, that I might not be separated from Miss Wilfer. To be\nnear her, has been a recompense to me from day to day, even for the\nundeserved treatment I have had here, and for the degraded aspect in\nwhich she has often seen me. Since Miss Wilfer rejected me, I have never\nagain urged my suit, to the best of my belief, with a spoken syllable or\na look. But I have never changed in my devotion to her, except--if she\nwill forgive my saying so--that it is deeper than it was, and better\nfounded.'\n\n'Now, mark this chap's saying Miss Wilfer, when he means L.s.d.!' cried\nMr Boffin, with a cunning wink. 'Now, mark this chap's making Miss\nWilfer stand for Pounds, Shillings, and Pence!'\n\n'My feeling for Miss Wilfer,' pursued the Secretary, without deigning to\nnotice him, 'is not one to be ashamed of. I avow it. I love her. Let\nme go where I may when I presently leave this house, I shall go into a\nblank life, leaving her.'\n\n'Leaving L.s.d. behind me,' said Mr Boffin, by way of commentary, with\nanother wink.\n\n'That I am incapable,' the Secretary went on, still without heeding him,\n'of a mercenary project, or a mercenary thought, in connexion with Miss\nWilfer, is nothing meritorious in me, because any prize that I could\nput before my fancy would sink into insignificance beside her. If\nthe greatest wealth or the highest rank were hers, it would only be\nimportant in my sight as removing her still farther from me, and making\nme more hopeless, if that could be. Say,' remarked the Secretary,\nlooking full at his late master, 'say that with a word she could strip\nMr Boffin of his fortune and take possession of it, she would be of no\ngreater worth in my eyes than she is.'\n\n'What do you think by this time, old lady,' asked Mr Boffin, turning to\nhis wife in a bantering tone, 'about this Rokesmith here, and his caring\nfor the truth? You needn't say what you think, my dear, because I don't\nwant you to cut in, but you can think it all the same. As to taking\npossession of my property, I warrant you he wouldn't do that himself if\nhe could.'\n\n'No,' returned the Secretary, with another full look.\n\n'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr Boffin. 'There's nothing like a good 'un while\nyou ARE about it.'\n\n'I have been for a moment,' said the Secretary, turning from him and\nfalling into his former manner, 'diverted from the little I have to say.\nMy interest in Miss Wilfer began when I first saw her; even began when I\nhad only heard of her. It was, in fact, the cause of my throwing myself\nin Mr Boffin's way, and entering his service. Miss Wilfer has never\nknown this until now. I mention it now, only as a corroboration (though\nI hope it may be needless) of my being free from the sordid design\nattributed to me.'\n\n'Now, this is a very artful dog,' said Mr Boffin, with a deep look.\n'This is a longer-headed schemer than I thought him. See how patiently\nand methodically he goes to work. He gets to know about me and my\nproperty, and about this young lady, and her share in poor young John's\nstory, and he puts this and that together, and he says to himself, \"I'll\nget in with Boffin, and I'll get in with this young lady, and I'll work\n'em both at the same time, and I'll bring my pigs to market somewhere.\"\nI hear him say it, bless you! I look at him, now, and I see him say it!'\n\nMr Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, and hugged\nhimself in his great penetration.\n\n'But luckily he hadn't to deal with the people he supposed, Bella, my\ndear!' said Mr Boffin. 'No! Luckily he had to deal with you, and with\nme, and with Daniel and Miss Dancer, and with Elwes, and with Vulture\nHopkins, and with Blewbury Jones and all the rest of us, one down\nt'other come on. And he's beat; that's what he is; regularly beat. He\nthought to squeeze money out of us, and he has done for himself instead,\nBella my dear!'\n\nBella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquiescence. When she\nhad first covered her face she had sunk upon a chair with her hands\nresting on the back of it, and had never moved since. There was a short\nsilence at this point, and Mrs Boffin softly rose as if to go to her.\nBut, Mr Boffin stopped her with a gesture, and she obediently sat down\nagain and stayed where she was.\n\n'There's your pay, Mister Rokesmith,' said the Golden Dustman,\njerking the folded scrap of paper he had in his hand, towards his late\nSecretary. 'I dare say you can stoop to pick it up, after what you have\nstooped to here.'\n\n'I have stooped to nothing but this,' Rokesmith answered as he took it\nfrom the ground; 'and this is mine, for I have earned it by the hardest\nof hard labour.'\n\n'You're a pretty quick packer, I hope,' said Mr Boffin; 'because the\nsooner you are gone, bag and baggage, the better for all parties.'\n\n'You need have no fear of my lingering.'\n\n'There's just one thing though,' said Mr Boffin, 'that I should like to\nask you before we come to a good riddance, if it was only to show this\nyoung lady how conceited you schemers are, in thinking that nobody finds\nout how you contradict yourselves.'\n\n'Ask me anything you wish to ask,' returned Rokesmith, 'but use the\nexpedition that you recommend.'\n\n'You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young lady?' said Mr\nBoffin, laying his hand protectingly on Bella's head without looking\ndown at her.\n\n'I do not pretend.'\n\n'Oh! Well. You HAVE a mighty admiration for this young lady--since you\nare so particular?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'How do you reconcile that, with this young lady's being a\nweak-spirited, improvident idiot, not knowing what was due to herself,\nflinging up her money to the church-weathercocks, and racing off at a\nsplitting pace for the workhouse?'\n\n'I don't understand you.'\n\n'Don't you? Or won't you? What else could you have made this young lady\nout to be, if she had listened to such addresses as yours?'\n\n'What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections and possess\nher heart?'\n\n'Win her affections,' retorted Mr Boffin, with ineffable contempt,\n'and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack-quack says the duck,\nBow-wow-wow says the dog! Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew,\nQuack-quack, Bow-wow!'\n\nJohn Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with some faint idea\nthat he had gone mad.\n\n'What is due to this young lady,' said Mr Boffin, 'is Money, and this\nyoung lady right well knows it.'\n\n'You slander the young lady.'\n\n'YOU slander the young lady; you with your affections and hearts and\ntrumpery,' returned Mr Boffin. 'It's of a piece with the rest of your\nbehaviour. I heard of these doings of yours only last night, or you\nshould have heard of 'em from me, sooner, take your oath of it. I heard\nof 'em from a lady with as good a headpiece as the best, and she knows\nthis young lady, and I know this young lady, and we all three know that\nit's Money she makes a stand for--money, money, money--and that you and\nyour affections and hearts are a Lie, sir!'\n\n'Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, 'for your delicate\nand unvarying kindness I thank you with the warmest gratitude. Good-bye!\nMiss Wilfer, good-bye!'\n\n'And now, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, laying his hand on Bella's head\nagain, 'you may begin to make yourself quite comfortable, and I hope you\nfeel that you've been righted.'\n\nBut, Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she shrank from\nhis hand and from the chair, and, starting up in an incoherent passion\nof tears, and stretching out her arms, cried, 'O Mr Rokesmith, before\nyou go, if you could but make me poor again! O! Make me poor again,\nSomebody, I beg and pray, or my heart will break if this goes on! Pa,\ndear, make me poor again and take me home! I was bad enough there, but\nI have been so much worse here. Don't give me money, Mr Boffin, I won't\nhave money. Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good little\nPa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs.\nNobody else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, nobody else\nknows how unworthy I am, and yet can love me like a little child. I am\nbetter with Pa than any one--more innocent, more sorry, more glad!' So,\ncrying out in a wild way that she could not bear this, Bella drooped her\nhead on Mrs Boffin's ready breast.\n\nJohn Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr Boffin from his,\nlooked on at her in silence until she was silent herself. Then Mr Boffin\nobserved in a soothing and comfortable tone, 'There, my dear, there; you\nare righted now, and it's ALL right. I don't wonder, I'm sure, at your\nbeing a little flurried by having a scene with this fellow, but it's all\nover, my dear, and you're righted, and it's--and it's ALL right!' Which\nMr Boffin repeated with a highly satisfied air of completeness and\nfinality.\n\n'I hate you!' cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, with a stamp of\nher little foot--'at least, I can't hate you, but I don't like you!'\n\n'HUL--LO!' exclaimed Mr Boffin in an amazed under-tone.\n\n'You're a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature!'\ncried Bella. 'I am angry with my ungrateful self for calling you names;\nbut you are, you are; you know you are!'\n\nMr Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting that he must be\nin some sort of fit.\n\n'I have heard you with shame,' said Bella. 'With shame for myself, and\nwith shame for you. You ought to be above the base tale-bearing of a\ntime-serving woman; but you are above nothing now.'\n\nMr Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was a fit, rolled his\neyes and loosened his neckcloth.\n\n'When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, and I soon loved\nyou,' cried Bella. 'And now I can't bear the sight of you. At least, I\ndon't know that I ought to go so far as that--only you're a--you're a\nMonster!' Having shot this bolt out with a great expenditure of force,\nBella hysterically laughed and cried together.\n\n'The best wish I can wish you is,' said Bella, returning to the charge,\n'that you had not one single farthing in the world. If any true friend\nand well-wisher could make you a bankrupt, you would be a Duck; but as a\nman of property you are a Demon!'\n\nAfter despatching this second bolt with a still greater expenditure of\nforce, Bella laughed and cried still more.\n\n'Mr Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word from me before\nyou go! I am deeply sorry for the reproaches you have borne on my\naccount. Out of the depths of my heart I earnestly and truly beg your\npardon.'\n\nAs she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave him her hand, he put\nit to his lips, and said, 'God bless you!' No laughing was mixed with\nBella's crying then; her tears were pure and fervent.\n\n'There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard addressed to\nyou--heard with scorn and indignation, Mr Rokesmith--but it has wounded\nme far more than you, for I have deserved it, and you never have. Mr\nRokesmith, it is to me you owe this perverted account of what passed\nbetween us that night. I parted with the secret, even while I was angry\nwith myself for doing so. It was very bad in me, but indeed it was not\nwicked. I did it in a moment of conceit and folly--one of my many such\nmoments--one of my many such hours--years. As I am punished for it\nseverely, try to forgive it!'\n\n'I do with all my soul.'\n\n'Thank you. O thank you! Don't part from me till I have said one other\nword, to do you justice. The only fault you can be truly charged with,\nin having spoken to me as you did that night--with how much delicacy\nand how much forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to you\nfor--is, that you laid yourself open to be slighted by a worldly shallow\ngirl whose head was turned, and who was quite unable to rise to the\nworth of what you offered her. Mr Rokesmith, that girl has often seen\nherself in a pitiful and poor light since, but never in so pitiful\nand poor a light as now, when the mean tone in which she answered\nyou--sordid and vain girl that she was--has been echoed in her ears by\nMr Boffin.'\n\nHe kissed her hand again.\n\n'Mr Boffin's speeches were detestable to me, shocking to me,' said\nBella, startling that gentleman with another stamp of her little\nfoot. 'It is quite true that there was a time, and very lately, when I\ndeserved to be so \"righted,\" Mr Rokesmith; but I hope that I shall never\ndeserve it again!'\n\nHe once more put her hand to his lips, and then relinquished it, and\nleft the room. Bella was hurrying back to the chair in which she had\nhidden her face so long, when, catching sight of Mrs Boffin by the\nway, she stopped at her. 'He is gone,' sobbed Bella indignantly,\ndespairingly, in fifty ways at once, with her arms round Mrs Boffin's\nneck. 'He has been most shamefully abused, and most unjustly and most\nbasely driven away, and I am the cause of it!'\n\nAll this time, Mr Boffin had been rolling his eyes over his loosened\nneckerchief, as if his fit were still upon him. Appearing now to think\nthat he was coming to, he stared straight before him for a while, tied\nhis neckerchief again, took several long inspirations, swallowed several\ntimes, and ultimately exclaimed with a deep sigh, as if he felt himself\non the whole better: 'Well!'\n\nNo word, good or bad, did Mrs Boffin say; but she tenderly took care of\nBella, and glanced at her husband as if for orders. Mr Boffin, without\nimparting any, took his seat on a chair over against them, and there\nsat leaning forward, with a fixed countenance, his legs apart, a hand on\neach knee, and his elbows squared, until Bella should dry her eyes and\nraise her head, which in the fulness of time she did.\n\n'I must go home,' said Bella, rising hurriedly. 'I am very grateful to\nyou for all you have done for me, but I can't stay here.'\n\n'My darling girl!' remonstrated Mrs Boffin.\n\n'No, I can't stay here,' said Bella; 'I can't indeed.--Ugh! you vicious\nold thing!' (This to Mr Boffin.)\n\n'Don't be rash, my love,' urged Mrs Boffin. 'Think well of what you do.'\n\n'Yes, you had better think well,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'I shall never more think well of YOU,' cried Bella, cutting him\nshort, with intense defiance in her expressive little eyebrows, and\nchampionship of the late Secretary in every dimple. 'No! Never again!\nYour money has changed you to marble. You are a hard-hearted Miser. You\nare worse than Dancer, worse than Hopkins, worse than Blackberry Jones,\nworse than any of the wretches. And more!' proceeded Bella, breaking\ninto tears again, 'you were wholly undeserving of the Gentleman you have\nlost.'\n\n'Why, you don't mean to say, Miss Bella,' the Golden Dustman slowly\nremonstrated, 'that you set up Rokesmith against me?'\n\n'I do!' said Bella. 'He is worth a Million of you.'\n\nVery pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made herself as\ntall as she possibly could (which was not extremely tall), and utterly\nrenounced her patron with a lofty toss of her rich brown head.\n\n'I would rather he thought well of me,' said Bella, 'though he swept the\nstreet for bread, than that you did, though you splashed the mud upon\nhim from the wheels of a chariot of pure gold.--There!'\n\n'Well I'm sure!' cried Mr Boffin, staring.\n\n'And for a long time past, when you have thought you set yourself above\nhim, I have only seen you under his feet,' said Bella--'There! And\nthroughout I saw in him the master, and I saw in you the man--There! And\nwhen you used him shamefully, I took his part and loved him--There! I\nboast of it!'\n\nAfter which strong avowal Bella underwent reaction, and cried to any\nextent, with her face on the back of her chair.\n\n'Now, look here,' said Mr Boffin, as soon as he could find an opening\nfor breaking the silence and striking in. 'Give me your attention,\nBella. I am not angry.'\n\n'I AM!' said Bella.\n\n'I say,' resumed the Golden Dustman, 'I am not angry, and I mean kindly\nto you, and I want to overlook this. So you'll stay where you are, and\nwe'll agree to say no more about it.'\n\n'No, I can't stay here,' cried Bella, rising hurriedly again; 'I can't\nthink of staying here. I must go home for good.'\n\n'Now, don't be silly,' Mr Boffin reasoned. 'Don't do what you can't\nundo; don't do what you're sure to be sorry for.'\n\n'I shall never be sorry for it,' said Bella; 'and I should always be\nsorry, and should every minute of my life despise myself if I remained\nhere after what has happened.'\n\n'At least, Bella,' argued Mr Boffin, 'let there be no mistake about it.\nLook before you leap, you know. Stay where you are, and all's well, and\nall's as it was to be. Go away, and you can never come back.'\n\n'I know that I can never come back, and that's what I mean,' said Bella.\n\n'You mustn't expect,' Mr Boffin pursued, 'that I'm a-going to settle\nmoney on you, if you leave us like this, because I am not. No, Bella! Be\ncareful! Not one brass farthing.'\n\n'Expect!' said Bella, haughtily. 'Do you think that any power on earth\ncould make me take it, if you did, sir?'\n\nBut there was Mrs Boffin to part from, and, in the full flush of her\ndignity, the impressible little soul collapsed again. Down upon her\nknees before that good woman, she rocked herself upon her breast, and\ncried, and sobbed, and folded her in her arms with all her might.\n\n'You're a dear, a dear, the best of dears!' cried Bella. 'You're the\nbest of human creatures. I can never be thankful enough to you, and I\ncan never forget you. If I should live to be blind and deaf I know I\nshall see and hear you, in my fancy, to the last of my dim old days!'\n\nMrs Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all fondness; but\nsaid not one single word except that she was her dear girl. She said\nthat often enough, to be sure, for she said it over and over again; but\nnot one word else.\n\nBella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out of the room,\nwhen in her own little queer affectionate way, she half relented towards\nMr Boffin.\n\n'I am very glad,' sobbed Bella, 'that I called you names, sir, because\nyou richly deserved it. But I am very sorry that I called you names,\nbecause you used to be so different. Say good-bye!'\n\n'Good-bye,' said Mr Boffin, shortly.\n\n'If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would ask you\nto let me touch it,' said Bella, 'for the last time. But not because I\nrepent of what I have said to you. For I don't. It's true!'\n\n'Try the left hand,' said Mr Boffin, holding it out in a stolid manner;\n'it's the least used.'\n\n'You have been wonderfully good and kind to me,' said Bella, 'and I kiss\nit for that. You have been as bad as bad could be to Mr Rokesmith, and I\nthrow it away for that. Thank you for myself, and good-bye!'\n\n'Good-bye,' said Mr Boffin as before.\n\nBella caught him round the neck and kissed him, and ran out for ever.\n\nShe ran up-stairs, and sat down on the floor in her own room, and cried\nabundantly. But the day was declining and she had no time to lose. She\nopened all the places where she kept her dresses; selected only those\nshe had brought with her, leaving all the rest; and made a great\nmisshapen bundle of them, to be sent for afterwards.\n\n'I won't take one of the others,' said Bella, tying the knots of the\nbundle very tight, in the severity of her resolution. 'I'll leave all\nthe presents behind, and begin again entirely on my own account.' That\nthe resolution might be thoroughly carried into practice, she even\nchanged the dress she wore, for that in which she had come to the grand\nmansion. Even the bonnet she put on, was the bonnet that had mounted\ninto the Boffin chariot at Holloway.\n\n'Now, I am complete,' said Bella. 'It's a little trying, but I have\nsteeped my eyes in cold water, and I won't cry any more. You have been\na pleasant room to me, dear room. Adieu! We shall never see each other\nagain.'\n\nWith a parting kiss of her fingers to it, she softly closed the door and\nwent with a light foot down the great staircase, pausing and listening\nas she went, that she might meet none of the household. No one chanced\nto be about, and she got down to the hall in quiet. The door of the late\nSecretary's room stood open. She peeped in as she passed, and divined\nfrom the emptiness of his table, and the general appearance of things,\nthat he was already gone. Softly opening the great hall door, and\nsoftly closing it upon herself, she turned and kissed it on the\noutside--insensible old combination of wood and iron that it\nwas!--before she ran away from the house at a swift pace.\n\n'That was well done!' panted Bella, slackening in the next street, and\nsubsiding into a walk. 'If I had left myself any breath to cry with, I\nshould have cried again. Now poor dear darling little Pa, you are going\nto see your lovely woman unexpectedly.'\n\n\n\nChapter 16\n\nTHE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS\n\n\nThe City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her way along its\ngritty streets. Most of its money-mills were slackening sail, or had\nleft off grinding for the day. The master-millers had already departed,\nand the journeymen were departing. There was a jaded aspect on\nthe business lanes and courts, and the very pavements had a weary\nappearance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must be\nhours of night to temper down the day's distraction of so feverish a\nplace. As yet the worry of the newly-stopped whirling and grinding on\nthe part of the money-mills seemed to linger in the air, and the quiet\nwas more like the prostration of a spent giant than the repose of one\nwho was renewing his strength.\n\nIf Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank, how agreeable it\nwould be to have an hour's gardening there, with a bright copper shovel,\namong the money, still she was not in an avaricious vein. Much improved\nin that respect, and with certain half-formed images which had little\ngold in their composition, dancing before her bright eyes, she arrived\nin the drug-flavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the sensation of\nhaving just opened a drawer in a chemist's shop.\n\nThe counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles was pointed out\nby an elderly female accustomed to the care of offices, who dropped upon\nBella out of a public-house, wiping her mouth, and accounted for its\nhumidity on natural principles well known to the physical sciences, by\nexplaining that she had looked in at the door to see what o'clock it\nwas. The counting-house was a wall-eyed ground floor by a dark gateway,\nand Bella was considering, as she approached it, could there be any\nprecedent in the City for her going in and asking for R. Wilfer, when\nwhom should she see, sitting at one of the windows with the plate-glass\nsash raised, but R. Wilfer himself, preparing to take a slight\nrefection.\n\nOn approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection had\nthe appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth of milk.\nSimultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discovered\nher, and invoked the echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim 'My gracious me!'\n\nHe then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and embraced her,\nand handed her in. 'For it's after hours and I am all alone, my dear,'\nhe explained, 'and am having--as I sometimes do when they are all\ngone--a quiet tea.'\n\nLooking round the office, as if her father were a captive and this his\ncell, Bella hugged him and choked him to her heart's content.\n\n'I never was so surprised, my dear!' said her father. 'I couldn't\nbelieve my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they had taken to lying! The\nidea of your coming down the Lane yourself! Why didn't you send the\nfootman down the Lane, my dear?'\n\n'I have brought no footman with me, Pa.'\n\n'Oh indeed! But you have brought the elegant turn-out, my love?'\n\n'No, Pa.'\n\n'You never can have walked, my dear?'\n\n'Yes, I have, Pa.'\n\nHe looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make up her mind\nto break it to him just yet.\n\n'The consequence is, Pa, that your lovely woman feels a little faint,\nand would very much like to share your tea.'\n\nThe cottage loaf and the pennyworth of milk had been set forth on a\nsheet of paper on the window-seat. The cherubic pocket-knife, with the\nfirst bit of the loaf still on its point, lay beside them where it had\nbeen hastily thrown down. Bella took the bit off, and put it in her\nmouth. 'My dear child,' said her father, 'the idea of your partaking of\nsuch lowly fare! But at least you must have your own loaf and your own\npenn'orth. One moment, my dear. The Dairy is just over the way and round\nthe corner.'\n\nRegardless of Bella's dissuasions he ran out, and quickly returned with\nthe new supply. 'My dear child,' he said, as he spread it on another\npiece of paper before her, 'the idea of a splendid--!' and then looked\nat her figure, and stopped short.\n\n'What's the matter, Pa?'\n\n'--of a splendid female,' he resumed more slowly, 'putting up with\nsuch accommodation as the present!--Is that a new dress you have on, my\ndear?'\n\n'No, Pa, an old one. Don't you remember it?'\n\n'Why, I THOUGHT I remembered it, my dear!'\n\n'You should, for you bought it, Pa.'\n\n'Yes, I THOUGHT I bought it my dear!' said the cherub, giving himself a\nlittle shake, as if to rouse his faculties.\n\n'And have you grown so fickle that you don't like your own taste, Pa\ndear?'\n\n'Well, my love,' he returned, swallowing a bit of the cottage loaf with\nconsiderable effort, for it seemed to stick by the way: 'I should have\nthought it was hardly sufficiently splendid for existing circumstances.'\n\n'And so, Pa,' said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side instead of\nremaining opposite, 'you sometimes have a quiet tea here all alone? I\nam not in the tea's way, if I draw my arm over your shoulder like this,\nPa?'\n\n'Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, and Certainly\nNot to the second. Respecting the quiet tea, my dear, why you see the\noccupations of the day are sometimes a little wearing; and if there's\nnothing interposed between the day and your mother, why SHE is sometimes\na little wearing, too.'\n\n'I know, Pa.'\n\n'Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the window here, with\na little quiet contemplation of the Lane (which comes soothing), between\nthe day, and domestic--'\n\n'Bliss,' suggested Bella, sorrowfully.\n\n'And domestic Bliss,' said her father, quite contented to accept the\nphrase.\n\nBella kissed him. 'And it is in this dark dingy place of captivity,\npoor dear, that you pass all the hours of your life when you are not at\nhome?'\n\n'Not at home, or not on the road there, or on the road here, my love.\nYes. You see that little desk in the corner?'\n\n'In the dark corner, furthest both from the light and from the\nfireplace? The shabbiest desk of all the desks?'\n\n'Now, does it really strike you in that point of view, my dear?' said\nher father, surveying it artistically with his head on one side: 'that's\nmine. That's called Rumty's Perch.'\n\n'Whose Perch?' asked Bella with great indignation.\n\n'Rumty's. You see, being rather high and up two steps they call it a\nPerch. And they call ME Rumty.'\n\n'How dare they!' exclaimed Bella.\n\n'They're playful, Bella my dear; they're playful. They're more or less\nyounger than I am, and they're playful. What does it matter? It might\nbe Surly, or Sulky, or fifty disagreeable things that I really shouldn't\nlike to be considered. But Rumty! Lor, why not Rumty?'\n\nTo inflict a heavy disappointment on this sweet nature, which had been,\nthrough all her caprices, the object of her recognition, love, and\nadmiration from infancy, Bella felt to be the hardest task of her hard\nday. 'I should have done better,' she thought, 'to tell him at first;\nI should have done better to tell him just now, when he had some slight\nmisgiving; he is quite happy again, and I shall make him wretched.'\n\nHe was falling back on his loaf and milk, with the pleasantest\ncomposure, and Bella stealing her arm a little closer about him, and at\nthe same time sticking up his hair with an irresistible propensity\nto play with him founded on the habit of her whole life, had prepared\nherself to say: 'Pa dear, don't be cast down, but I must tell you\nsomething disagreeable!' when he interrupted her in an unlooked-for\nmanner.\n\n'My gracious me!' he exclaimed, invoking the Mincing Lane echoes as\nbefore. 'This is very extraordinary!'\n\n'What is, Pa?'\n\n'Why here's Mr Rokesmith now!'\n\n'No, no, Pa, no,' cried Bella, greatly flurried. 'Surely not.'\n\n'Yes there is! Look here!'\n\nSooth to say, Mr Rokesmith not only passed the window, but came into the\ncounting-house. And not only came into the counting-house, but, finding\nhimself alone there with Bella and her father, rushed at Bella and\ncaught her in his arms, with the rapturous words 'My dear, dear girl; my\ngallant, generous, disinterested, courageous, noble girl!' And not only\nthat even, (which one might have thought astonishment enough for one\ndose), but Bella, after hanging her head for a moment, lifted it up and\nlaid it on his breast, as if that were her head's chosen and lasting\nresting-place!\n\n'I knew you would come to him, and I followed you,' said Rokesmith. 'My\nlove, my life! You ARE mine?'\n\nTo which Bella responded, 'Yes, I AM yours if you think me worth\ntaking!' And after that, seemed to shrink to next to nothing in the\nclasp of his arms, partly because it was such a strong one on his part,\nand partly because there was such a yielding to it on hers.\n\nThe cherub, whose hair would have done for itself under the influence of\nthis amazing spectacle, what Bella had just now done for it, staggered\nback into the window-seat from which he had risen, and surveyed the pair\nwith his eyes dilated to their utmost.\n\n'But we must think of dear Pa,' said Bella; 'I haven't told dear Pa; let\nus speak to Pa.' Upon which they turned to do so.\n\n'I wish first, my dear,' remarked the cherub faintly, 'that you'd have\nthe kindness to sprinkle me with a little milk, for I feel as if I\nwas--Going.'\n\nIn fact, the good little fellow had become alarmingly limp, and his\nsenses seemed to be rapidly escaping, from the knees upward. Bella\nsprinkled him with kisses instead of milk, but gave him a little of that\narticle to drink; and he gradually revived under her caressing care.\n\n'We'll break it to you gently, dearest Pa,' said Bella.\n\n'My dear,' returned the cherub, looking at them both, 'you broke so much\nin the first--Gush, if I may so express myself--that I think I am equal\nto a good large breakage now.'\n\n'Mr Wilfer,' said John Rokesmith, excitedly and joyfully, 'Bella takes\nme, though I have no fortune, even no present occupation; nothing but\nwhat I can get in the life before us. Bella takes me!'\n\n'Yes, I should rather have inferred, my dear sir,' returned the cherub\nfeebly, 'that Bella took you, from what I have within these few minutes\nremarked.'\n\n'You don't know, Pa,' said Bella, 'how ill I have used him!'\n\n'You don't know, sir,' said Rokesmith, 'what a heart she has!'\n\n'You don't know, Pa,' said Bella, 'what a shocking creature I was\ngrowing, when he saved me from myself!'\n\n'You don't know, sir,' said Rokesmith, 'what a sacrifice she has made\nfor me!'\n\n'My dear Bella,' replied the cherub, still pathetically scared, 'and my\ndear John Rokesmith, if you will allow me so to call you--'\n\n'Yes do, Pa, do!' urged Bella. 'I allow you, and my will is his law.\nIsn't it--dear John Rokesmith?'\n\nThere was an engaging shyness in Bella, coupled with an engaging\ntenderness of love and confidence and pride, in thus first calling him\nby name, which made it quite excusable in John Rokesmith to do what he\ndid. What he did was, once more to give her the appearance of vanishing\nas aforesaid.\n\n'I think, my dears,' observed the cherub, 'that if you could make it\nconvenient to sit one on one side of me, and the other on the other, we\nshould get on rather more consecutively, and make things rather\nplainer. John Rokesmith mentioned, a while ago, that he had no present\noccupation.'\n\n'None,' said Rokesmith.\n\n'No, Pa, none,' said Bella.\n\n'From which I argue,' proceeded the cherub, 'that he has left Mr\nBoffin?'\n\n'Yes, Pa. And so--'\n\n'Stop a bit, my dear. I wish to lead up to it by degrees. And that Mr\nBoffin has not treated him well?'\n\n'Has treated him most shamefully, dear Pa!' cried Bella with a flashing\nface.\n\n'Of which,' pursued the cherub, enjoining patience with his hand, 'a\ncertain mercenary young person distantly related to myself, could not\napprove? Am I leading up to it right?'\n\n'Could not approve, sweet Pa,' said Bella, with a tearful laugh and a\njoyful kiss.\n\n'Upon which,' pursued the cherub, 'the certain mercenary young person\ndistantly related to myself, having previously observed and mentioned\nto myself that prosperity was spoiling Mr Boffin, felt that she must not\nsell her sense of what was right and what was wrong, and what was true\nand what was false, and what was just and what was unjust, for any\nprice that could be paid to her by any one alive? Am I leading up to it\nright?'\n\nWith another tearful laugh Bella joyfully kissed him again.\n\n'And therefore--and therefore,' the cherub went on in a glowing voice,\nas Bella's hand stole gradually up his waistcoat to his neck, 'this\nmercenary young person distantly related to myself, refused the\nprice, took off the splendid fashions that were part of it, put on the\ncomparatively poor dress that I had last given her, and trusting to my\nsupporting her in what was right, came straight to me. Have I led up to\nit?'\n\nBella's hand was round his neck by this time, and her face was on it.\n\n'The mercenary young person distantly related to myself,' said her\ngood father, 'did well! The mercenary young person distantly related\nto myself, did not trust to me in vain! I admire this mercenary young\nperson distantly related to myself, more in this dress than if she had\ncome to me in China silks, Cashmere shawls, and Golconda diamonds. I\nlove this young person dearly. I say to the man of this young person's\nheart, out of my heart and with all of it, \"My blessing on this\nengagement betwixt you, and she brings you a good fortune when she\nbrings you the poverty she has accepted for your sake and the honest\ntruth's!\"'\n\nThe stanch little man's voice failed him as he gave John Rokesmith his\nhand, and he was silent, bending his face low over his daughter. But,\nnot for long. He soon looked up, saying in a sprightly tone:\n\n'And now, my dear child, if you think you can entertain John Rokesmith\nfor a minute and a half, I'll run over to the Dairy, and fetch HIM a\ncottage loaf and a drink of milk, that we may all have tea together.'\n\nIt was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for the three\nnursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, without their\nthunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, 'Somebody's been\ndrinking MY milk!' It was a delicious repast; by far the most delicious\nthat Bella, or John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer had ever made. The\nuncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with the two brass knobs of the\niron safe of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles staring from a corner,\nlike the eyes of some dull dragon, only made it the more delightful.\n\n'To think,' said the cherub, looking round the office with unspeakable\nenjoyment, 'that anything of a tender nature should come off here, is\nwhat tickles me. To think that ever I should have seen my Bella folded\nin the arms of her future husband, HERE, you know!'\n\nIt was not until the cottage loaves and the milk had for some time\ndisappeared, and the foreshadowings of night were creeping over Mincing\nLane, that the cherub by degrees became a little nervous, and said to\nBella, as he cleared his throat:\n\n'Hem!--Have you thought at all about your mother, my dear?'\n\n'Yes, Pa.'\n\n'And your sister Lavvy, for instance, my dear?'\n\n'Yes, Pa. I think we had better not enter into particulars at home. I\nthink it will be quite enough to say that I had a difference with Mr\nBoffin, and have left for good.'\n\n'John Rokesmith being acquainted with your Ma, my love,' said her\nfather, after some slight hesitation, 'I need have no delicacy in\nhinting before him that you may perhaps find your Ma a little wearing.'\n\n'A little, patient Pa?' said Bella with a tuneful laugh: the tune fuller\nfor being so loving in its tone.\n\n'Well! We'll say, strictly in confidence among ourselves, wearing;\nwe won't qualify it,' the cherub stoutly admitted. 'And your sister's\ntemper is wearing.'\n\n'I don't mind, Pa.'\n\n'And you must prepare yourself you know, my precious,' said her father,\nwith much gentleness, 'for our looking very poor and meagre at home, and\nbeing at the best but very uncomfortable, after Mr Boffin's house.'\n\n'I don't mind, Pa. I could bear much harder trials--for John.'\n\nThe closing words were not so softly and blushingly said but that John\nheard them, and showed that he heard them by again assisting Bella to\nanother of those mysterious disappearances.\n\n'Well!' said the cherub gaily, and not expressing disapproval, 'when\nyou--when you come back from retirement, my love, and reappear on the\nsurface, I think it will be time to lock up and go.'\n\nIf the counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles had ever been\nshut up by three happier people, glad as most people were to shut it up,\nthey must have been superlatively happy indeed. But first Bella mounted\nupon Rumty's Perch, and said, 'Show me what you do here all day long,\ndear Pa. Do you write like this?' laying her round cheek upon her plump\nleft arm, and losing sight of her pen in waves of hair, in a highly\nunbusiness-like manner. Though John Rokesmith seemed to like it.\n\nSo, the three hobgoblins, having effaced all traces of their feast, and\nswept up the crumbs, came out of Mincing Lane to walk to Holloway; and\nif two of the hobgoblins didn't wish the distance twice as long as it\nwas, the third hobgoblin was much mistaken. Indeed, that modest spirit\ndeemed himself so much in the way of their deep enjoyment of the\njourney, that he apologetically remarked: 'I think, my dears, I'll take\nthe lead on the other side of the road, and seem not to belong to you.'\nWhich he did, cherubically strewing the path with smiles, in the absence\nof flowers.\n\nIt was almost ten o'clock when they stopped within view of Wilfer\nCastle; and then, the spot being quiet and deserted, Bella began a\nseries of disappearances which threatened to last all night.\n\n'I think, John,' the cherub hinted at last, 'that if you can spare me\nthe young person distantly related to myself, I'll take her in.'\n\n'I can't spare her,' answered John, 'but I must lend her to you.--My\nDarling!' A word of magic which caused Bella instantly to disappear\nagain.\n\n'Now, dearest Pa,' said Bella, when she became visible, 'put your hand\nin mine, and we'll run home as fast as ever we can run, and get it over.\nNow, Pa. Once!--'\n\n'My dear,' the cherub faltered, with something of a craven air, 'I was\ngoing to observe that if your mother--'\n\n'You mustn't hang back, sir, to gain time,' cried Bella, putting out her\nright foot; 'do you see that, sir? That's the mark; come up to the mark,\nsir. Once! Twice! Three times and away, Pa!' Off she skimmed, bearing\nthe cherub along, nor ever stopped, nor suffered him to stop, until she\nhad pulled at the bell. 'Now, dear Pa,' said Bella, taking him by both\nears as if he were a pitcher, and conveying his face to her rosy lips,\n'we are in for it!'\n\nMiss Lavvy came out to open the gate, waited on by that attentive\ncavalier and friend of the family, Mr George Sampson. 'Why, it's never\nBella!' exclaimed Miss Lavvy starting back at the sight. And then\nbawled, 'Ma! Here's Bella!'\n\nThis produced, before they could get into the house, Mrs Wilfer. Who,\nstanding in the portal, received them with ghostly gloom, and all her\nother appliances of ceremony.\n\n'My child is welcome, though unlooked for,' said she, at the time\npresenting her cheek as if it were a cool slate for visitors to enrol\nthemselves upon. 'You too, R. W., are welcome, though late. Does the\nmale domestic of Mrs Boffin hear me there?' This deep-toned inquiry was\ncast forth into the night, for response from the menial in question.\n\n'There is no one waiting, Ma, dear,' said Bella.\n\n'There is no one waiting?' repeated Mrs Wilfer in majestic accents.\n\n'No, Ma, dear.'\n\nA dignified shiver pervaded Mrs Wilfer's shoulders and gloves, as\nwho should say, 'An Enigma!' and then she marched at the head of the\nprocession to the family keeping-room, where she observed:\n\n'Unless, R. W.': who started on being solemnly turned upon: 'you have\ntaken the precaution of making some addition to our frugal supper on\nyour way home, it will prove but a distasteful one to Bella. Cold neck\nof mutton and a lettuce can ill compete with the luxuries of Mr Boffin's\nboard.'\n\n'Pray don't talk like that, Ma dear,' said Bella; 'Mr Boffin's board is\nnothing to me.'\n\nBut, here Miss Lavinia, who had been intently eyeing Bella's bonnet,\nstruck in with 'Why, Bella!'\n\n'Yes, Lavvy, I know.'\n\nThe Irrepressible lowered her eyes to Bella's dress, and stooped to look\nat it, exclaiming again: 'Why, Bella!'\n\n'Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going to tell Ma when you\ninterrupted. I have left Mr Boffin's house for good, Ma, and I have come\nhome again.'\n\nMrs Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her offspring for a\nminute or two in an awful silence, retired into her corner of state\nbackward, and sat down: like a frozen article on sale in a Russian\nmarket.\n\n'In short, dear Ma,' said Bella, taking off the depreciated bonnet and\nshaking out her hair, 'I have had a very serious difference with Mr\nBoffin on the subject of his treatment of a member of his household, and\nit's a final difference, and there's an end of all.'\n\n'And I am bound to tell you, my dear,' added R. W., submissively, 'that\nBella has acted in a truly brave spirit, and with a truly right feeling.\nAnd therefore I hope, my dear, you'll not allow yourself to be greatly\ndisappointed.'\n\n'George!' said Miss Lavvy, in a sepulchral, warning voice, founded on\nher mother's; 'George Sampson, speak! What did I tell you about those\nBoffins?'\n\nMr Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring among shoals and\nbreakers, thought it safest not to refer back to any particular thing\nthat he had been told, lest he should refer back to the wrong thing.\nWith admirable seamanship he got his bark into deep water by murmuring\n'Yes indeed.'\n\n'Yes! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells you,' said Miss\nLavvy, 'that those hateful Boffins would pick a quarrel with Bella, as\nsoon as her novelty had worn off. Have they done it, or have they not?\nWas I right, or was I wrong? And what do you say to us, Bella, of your\nBoffins now?'\n\n'Lavvy and Ma,' said Bella, 'I say of Mr and Mrs Boffin what I always\nhave said; and I always shall say of them what I always have said. But\nnothing will induce me to quarrel with any one to-night. I hope you\nare not sorry to see me, Ma dear,' kissing her; 'and I hope you are not\nsorry to see me, Lavvy,' kissing her too; 'and as I notice the lettuce\nMa mentioned, on the table, I'll make the salad.'\n\nBella playfully setting herself about the task, Mrs Wilfer's impressive\ncountenance followed her with glaring eyes, presenting a combination\nof the once popular sign of the Saracen's Head, with a piece of\nDutch clock-work, and suggesting to an imaginative mind that from the\ncomposition of the salad, her daughter might prudently omit the vinegar.\nBut no word issued from the majestic matron's lips. And this was more\nterrific to her husband (as perhaps she knew) than any flow of eloquence\nwith which she could have edified the company.\n\n'Now, Ma dear,' said Bella in due course, 'the salad's ready, and it's\npast supper-time.'\n\nMrs Wilfer rose, but remained speechless. 'George!' said Miss Lavinia\nin her voice of warning, 'Ma's chair!' Mr Sampson flew to the excellent\nlady's back, and followed her up close chair in hand, as she stalked\nto the banquet. Arrived at the table, she took her rigid seat, after\nfavouring Mr Sampson with a glare for himself, which caused the young\ngentleman to retire to his place in much confusion.\n\nThe cherub not presuming to address so tremendous an object, transacted\nher supper through the agency of a third person, as 'Mutton to your Ma,\nBella, my dear'; and 'Lavvy, I dare say your Ma would take some lettuce\nif you were to put it on her plate.' Mrs Wilfer's manner of receiving\nthose viands was marked by petrified absence of mind; in which state,\nlikewise, she partook of them, occasionally laying down her knife and\nfork, as saying within her own spirit, 'What is this I am doing?' and\nglaring at one or other of the party, as if in indignant search of\ninformation. A magnetic result of such glaring was, that the person\nglared at could not by any means successfully pretend to be ignorant of\nthe fact: so that a bystander, without beholding Mrs Wilfer at all, must\nhave known at whom she was glaring, by seeing her refracted from the\ncountenance of the beglared one.\n\nMiss Lavinia was extremely affable to Mr Sampson on this special\noccasion, and took the opportunity of informing her sister why.\n\n'It was not worth troubling you about, Bella, when you were in a sphere\nso far removed from your family as to make it a matter in which you\ncould be expected to take very little interest,' said Lavinia with a\ntoss of her chin; 'but George Sampson is paying his addresses to me.'\n\nBella was glad to hear it. Mr Sampson became thoughtfully red, and\nfelt called upon to encircle Miss Lavinia's waist with his arm; but,\nencountering a large pin in the young lady's belt, scarified a finger,\nuttered a sharp exclamation, and attracted the lightning of Mrs Wilfer's\nglare.\n\n'George is getting on very well,' said Miss Lavinia which might not have\nbeen supposed at the moment--'and I dare say we shall be married, one of\nthese days. I didn't care to mention it when you were with your Bof--'\nhere Miss Lavinia checked herself in a bounce, and added more placidly,\n'when you were with Mr and Mrs Boffin; but now I think it sisterly to\nname the circumstance.'\n\n'Thank you, Lavvy dear. I congratulate you.'\n\n'Thank you, Bella. The truth is, George and I did discuss whether\nI should tell you; but I said to George that you wouldn't be much\ninterested in so paltry an affair, and that it was far more likely you\nwould rather detach yourself from us altogether, than have him added to\nthe rest of us.'\n\n'That was a mistake, dear Lavvy,' said Bella.\n\n'It turns out to be,' replied Miss Lavinia; 'but circumstances have\nchanged, you know, my dear. George is in a new situation, and his\nprospects are very good indeed. I shouldn't have had the courage to tell\nyou so yesterday, when you would have thought his prospects poor, and\nnot worth notice; but I feel quite bold tonight.'\n\n'When did you begin to feel timid, Lavvy?' inquired Bella, with a smile.\n\n'I didn't say that I ever felt timid, Bella,' replied the Irrepressible.\n'But perhaps I might have said, if I had not been restrained by delicacy\ntowards a sister's feelings, that I have for some time felt independent;\ntoo independent, my dear, to subject myself to have my intended match\n(you'll prick yourself again, George) looked down upon. It is not that I\ncould have blamed you for looking down upon it, when you were looking up\nto a rich and great match, Bella; it is only that I was independent.'\n\nWhether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella's declaration that she\nwould not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked by Bella's\nreturn to the sphere of Mr George Sampson's courtship, or whether it was\na necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collision\nwith somebody on the present occasion,--anyhow she made a dash at her\nstately parent now, with the greatest impetuosity.\n\n'Ma, pray don't sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating manner!\nIf you see a black on my nose, tell me so; if you don't, leave me\nalone.'\n\n'Do you address Me in those words?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Do you presume?'\n\n'Don't talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness' sake. A girl who is old\nenough to be engaged, is quite old enough to object to be stared at as\nif she was a Clock.'\n\n'Audacious one!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Your grandmamma, if so addressed by\none of her daughters, at any age, would have insisted on her retiring to\na dark apartment.'\n\n'My grandmamma,' returned Lavvy, folding her arms and leaning back\nin her chair, 'wouldn't have sat staring people out of countenance, I\nthink.'\n\n'She would!' said Mrs Wilfer.\n\n'Then it's a pity she didn't know better,' said Lavvy. 'And if my\ngrandmamma wasn't in her dotage when she took to insisting on people's\nretiring to dark apartments, she ought to have been. A pretty exhibition\nmy grandmamma must have made of herself! I wonder whether she ever\ninsisted on people's retiring into the ball of St Paul's; and if she\ndid, how she got them there!'\n\n'Silence!' proclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'I command silence!'\n\n'I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma,' returned\nLavinia coolly, 'but quite the contrary. I am not going to be eyed as if\nI had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. I am not going\nto have George Sampson eyed as if HE had come from the Boffins, and sit\nsilent under it. If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if HE had come from\nthe Boffins also, well and good. I don't choose to. And I won't!'\n\nLavinia's engineering having made this crooked opening at Bella, Mrs\nWilfer strode into it.\n\n'You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, Lavinia. If\nin violation of your mother's sentiments, you had condescended to allow\nyourself to be patronized by the Boffins, and if you had come from those\nhalls of slavery--'\n\n'That's mere nonsense, Ma,' said Lavinia.\n\n'How!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, with sublime severity.\n\n'Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense,' returned the unmoved\nIrrepressible.\n\n'I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neighbourhood of\nPortland Place, bending under the yoke of patronage and attended by its\ndomestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you think my deep-seated\nfeelings could have been expressed in looks?'\n\n'All I think about it, is,' returned Lavinia, 'that I should wish them\nexpressed to the right person.'\n\n'And if,' pursued her mother, 'if making light of my warnings that the\nface of Mrs Boffin alone was a face teeming with evil, you had clung to\nMrs Boffin instead of to me, and had after all come home rejected by Mrs\nBoffin, trampled under foot by Mrs Boffin, and cast out by Mrs Boffin,\ndo you think my feelings could have been expressed in looks?'\n\nLavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that she might as well\nhave dispensed with her looks altogether then, when Bella rose and said,\n'Good night, dear Ma. I have had a tiring day, and I'll go to bed.' This\nbroke up the agreeable party. Mr George Sampson shortly afterwards took\nhis leave, accompanied by Miss Lavinia with a candle as far as the hall,\nand without a candle as far as the garden gate; Mrs Wilfer, washing her\nhands of the Boffins, went to bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth; and\nR. W. was left alone among the dilapidations of the supper table, in a\nmelancholy attitude.\n\nBut, a light footstep roused him from his meditations, and it was\nBella's. Her pretty hair was hanging all about her, and she had tripped\ndown softly, brush in hand, and barefoot, to say good-night to him.\n\n'My dear, you most unquestionably ARE a lovely woman,' said the cherub,\ntaking up a tress in his hand.\n\n'Look here, sir,' said Bella; 'when your lovely woman marries, you shall\nhave that piece if you like, and she'll make you a chain of it. Would\nyou prize that remembrance of the dear creature?'\n\n'Yes, my precious.'\n\n'Then you shall have it if you're good, sir. I am very, very sorry,\ndearest Pa, to have brought home all this trouble.'\n\n'My pet,' returned her father, in the simplest good faith, 'don't make\nyourself uneasy about that. It really is not worth mentioning, because\nthings at home would have taken pretty much the same turn any way. If\nyour mother and sister don't find one subject to get at times a little\nwearing on, they find another. We're never out of a wearing subject,\nmy dear, I assure you. I am afraid you find your old room with Lavvy,\ndreadfully inconvenient, Bella?'\n\n'No I don't, Pa; I don't mind. Why don't I mind, do you think, Pa?'\n\n'Well, my child, you used to complain of it when it wasn't such a\ncontrast as it must be now. Upon my word, I can only answer, because you\nare so much improved.'\n\n'No, Pa. Because I am so thankful and so happy!'\n\nHere she choked him until her long hair made him sneeze, and then she\nlaughed until she made him laugh, and then she choked him again that\nthey might not be overheard.\n\n'Listen, sir,' said Bella. 'Your lovely woman was told her fortune\nto night on her way home. It won't be a large fortune, because if the\nlovely woman's Intended gets a certain appointment that he hopes to get\nsoon, she will marry on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. But that's at\nfirst, and even if it should never be more, the lovely woman will make\nit quite enough. But that's not all, sir. In the fortune there's a\ncertain fair man--a little man, the fortune-teller said--who, it seems,\nwill always find himself near the lovely woman, and will always have\nkept, expressly for him, such a peaceful corner in the lovely woman's\nlittle house as never was. Tell me the name of that man, sir.'\n\n'Is he a Knave in the pack of cards?' inquired the cherub, with a\ntwinkle in his eyes.\n\n'Yes!' cried Bella, in high glee, choking him again. 'He's the Knave of\nWilfers! Dear Pa, the lovely woman means to look forward to this fortune\nthat has been told for her, so delightfully, and to cause it to make her\na much better lovely woman than she ever has been yet. What the little\nfair man is expected to do, sir, is to look forward to it also, by\nsaying to himself when he is in danger of being over-worried, \"I see\nland at last!\"\n\n'I see land at last!' repeated her father.\n\n'There's a dear Knave of Wilfers!' exclaimed Bella; then putting out her\nsmall white bare foot, 'That's the mark, sir. Come to the mark. Put your\nboot against it. We keep to it together, mind! Now, sir, you may kiss\nthe lovely woman before she runs away, so thankful and so happy. O yes,\nfair little man, so thankful and so happy!'\n\n\n\nChapter 17\n\nA SOCIAL CHORUS\n\n\nAmazement sits enthroned upon the countenances of Mr and Mrs Alfred\nLammle's circle of acquaintance, when the disposal of their first-class\nfurniture and effects (including a Billiard Table in capital letters),\n'by auction, under a bill of sale,' is publicly announced on a waving\nhearthrug in Sackville Street. But, nobody is half so much amazed as\nHamilton Veneering, Esquire, M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, who instantly\nbegins to find out that the Lammles are the only people ever entered on\nhis soul's register, who are NOT the oldest and dearest friends he has\nin the world. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, like a faithful\nwife shares her husband's discovery and inexpressible astonishment.\nPerhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last unutterable feeling\nparticularly due to their reputation, by reason that once upon a time\nsome of the longer heads in the City are whispered to have shaken\nthemselves, when Veneering's extensive dealings and great wealth were\nmentioned. But, it is certain that neither Mr nor Mrs Veneering can\nfind words to wonder in, and it becomes necessary that they give to the\noldest and dearest friends they have in the world, a wondering dinner.\n\nFor, it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befals, the Veneerings\nmust give a dinner upon it. Lady Tippins lives in a chronic state\nof invitation to dine with the Veneerings, and in a chronic state of\ninflammation arising from the dinners. Boots and Brewer go about in\ncabs, with no other intelligible business on earth than to beat up\npeople to come and dine with the Veneerings. Veneering pervades the\nlegislative lobbies, intent upon entrapping his fellow-legislators to\ndinner. Mrs Veneering dined with five-and-twenty bran-new faces over\nnight; calls upon them all to day; sends them every one a dinner-card\nto-morrow, for the week after next; before that dinner is digested,\ncalls upon their brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, their\nnephews and nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and invites\nthem all to dinner. And still, as at first, howsoever, the dining circle\nwidens, it is to be observed that all the diners are consistent in\nappearing to go to the Veneerings, not to dine with Mr and Mrs Veneering\n(which would seem to be the last thing in their minds), but to dine with\none another.\n\nPerhaps, after all,--who knows?--Veneering may find this dining, though\nexpensive, remunerative, in the sense that it makes champions.\nMr Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone in caring very\nparticularly for his own dignity, if not for that of his acquaintances,\nand therefore in angrily supporting the acquaintances who have taken out\nhis Permit, lest, in their being lessened, he should be. The gold and\nsilver camels, and the ice-pails, and the rest of the Veneering table\ndecorations, make a brilliant show, and when I, Podsnap, casually remark\nelsewhere that I dined last Monday with a gorgeous caravan of camels,\nI find it personally offensive to have it hinted to me that they are\nbroken-kneed camels, or camels labouring under suspicion of any sort. 'I\ndon't display camels myself, I am above them: I am a more solid man; but\nthese camels have basked in the light of my countenance, and how dare\nyou, sir, insinuate to me that I have irradiated any but unimpeachable\ncamels?'\n\nThe camels are polishing up in the Analytical's pantry for the dinner\nof wonderment on the occasion of the Lammles going to pieces, and Mr\nTwemlow feels a little queer on the sofa at his lodgings over the stable\nyard in Duke Street, Saint James's, in consequence of having taken\ntwo advertised pills at about mid-day, on the faith of the printed\nrepresentation accompanying the box (price one and a penny halfpenny,\ngovernment stamp included), that the same 'will be found highly salutary\nas a precautionary measure in connection with the pleasures of the\ntable.' To whom, while sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pill\nsticking in his gullet, and also with the sensation of a deposit of warm\ngum languidly wandering within him a little lower down, a servant enters\nwith the announcement that a lady wishes to speak with him.\n\n'A lady!' says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. 'Ask the favour of\nthe lady's name.'\n\nThe lady's name is Lammle. The lady will not detain Mr Twemlow longer\nthan a very few minutes. The lady is sure that Mr Twemlow will do her\nthe kindness to see her, on being told that she particularly desires\na short interview. The lady has no doubt whatever of Mr Twemlow's\ncompliance when he hears her name. Has begged the servant to be\nparticular not to mistake her name. Would have sent in a card, but has\nnone.\n\n'Show the lady in.' Lady shown in, comes in.\n\nMr Twemlow's little rooms are modestly furnished, in an old-fashioned\nmanner (rather like the housekeeper's room at Snigsworthy Park), and\nwould be bare of mere ornament, were it not for a full-length engraving\nof the sublime Snigsworth over the chimneypiece, snorting at a\nCorinthian column, with an enormous roll of paper at his feet, and a\nheavy curtain going to tumble down on his head; those accessories being\nunderstood to represent the noble lord as somehow in the act of saving\nhis country.\n\n'Pray take a seat, Mrs Lammle.' Mrs Lammle takes a seat and opens the\nconversation.\n\n'I have no doubt, Mr Twemlow, that you have heard of a reverse of\nfortune having befallen us. Of course you have heard of it, for no kind\nof news travels so fast--among one's friends especially.'\n\nMindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little twinge, admits\nthe imputation.\n\n'Probably it will not,' says Mrs Lammle, with a certain hardened manner\nupon her, that makes Twemlow shrink, 'have surprised you so much as some\nothers, after what passed between us at the house which is now turned\nout at windows. I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Mr\nTwemlow, to add a sort of postscript to what I said that day.'\n\nMr Twemlow's dry and hollow cheeks become more dry and hollow at the\nprospect of some new complication.\n\n'Really,' says the uneasy little gentleman, 'really, Mrs Lammle, I\nshould take it as a favour if you could excuse me from any further\nconfidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my life--which,\nunfortunately, has not had many objects--to be inoffensive, and to keep\nout of cabals and interferences.'\n\nMrs Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely finds it\nnecessary to look at Twemlow while he speaks, so easily does she read\nhim.\n\n'My postscript--to retain the term I have used'--says Mrs Lammle, fixing\nher eyes on his face, to enforce what she says herself--'coincides\nexactly with what you say, Mr Twemlow. So far from troubling you with\nany new confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one was. So\nfar from asking you for interference, I merely wish to claim your strict\nneutrality.'\n\nTwemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, knowing her ears to\nbe quite enough for the contents of so weak a vessel.\n\n'I can, I suppose,' says Twemlow, nervously, 'offer no reasonable\nobjection to hearing anything that you do me the honour to wish to say\nto me under those heads. But if I may, with all possible delicacy and\npoliteness, entreat you not to range beyond them, I--I beg to do so.'\n\n'Sir,' says Mrs Lammle, raising her eyes to his face again, and quite\ndaunting him with her hardened manner, 'I imparted to you a certain\npiece of knowledge, to be imparted again, as you thought best, to a\ncertain person.'\n\n'Which I did,' says Twemlow.\n\n'And for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I scarcely know why\nI turned traitress to my husband in the matter, for the girl is a poor\nlittle fool. I was a poor little fool once myself; I can find no better\nreason.' Seeing the effect she produces on him by her indifferent laugh\nand cold look, she keeps her eyes upon him as she proceeds. 'Mr Twemlow,\nif you should chance to see my husband, or to see me, or to see both of\nus, in the favour or confidence of any one else--whether of our common\nacquaintance or not, is of no consequence--you have no right to use\nagainst us the knowledge I intrusted you with, for one special purpose\nwhich has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. It is not a\nstipulation; to a gentleman it is simply a reminder.'\n\nTwemlow sits murmuring to himself with his hand to his forehead.\n\n'It is so plain a case,' Mrs Lammle goes on, 'as between me (from the\nfirst relying on your honour) and you, that I will not waste another\nword upon it.' She looks steadily at Mr Twemlow, until, with a shrug,\nhe makes her a little one-sided bow, as though saying 'Yes, I think you\nhave a right to rely upon me,' and then she moistens her lips, and shows\na sense of relief.\n\n'I trust I have kept the promise I made through your servant, that I\nwould detain you a very few minutes. I need trouble you no longer, Mr\nTwemlow.'\n\n'Stay!' says Twemlow, rising as she rises. 'Pardon me a moment. I should\nnever have sought you out, madam, to say what I am going to say, but\nsince you have sought me out and are here, I will throw it off my mind.\nWas it quite consistent, in candour, with our taking that resolution\nagainst Mr Fledgeby, that you should afterwards address Mr Fledgeby as\nyour dear and confidential friend, and entreat a favour of Mr Fledgeby?\nAlways supposing that you did; I assert no knowledge of my own on the\nsubject; it has been represented to me that you did.'\n\n'Then he told you?' retorts Mrs Lammle, who again has saved her eyes\nwhile listening, and uses them with strong effect while speaking.\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'It is strange that he should have told you the truth,' says Mrs\nLammle, seriously pondering. 'Pray where did a circumstance so very\nextraordinary happen?'\n\nTwemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well as weaker, and,\nas she stands above him with her hardened manner and her well-used eyes,\nhe finds himself at such a disadvantage that he would like to be of the\nopposite sex.\n\n'May I ask where it happened, Mr Twemlow? In strict confidence?'\n\n'I must confess,' says the mild little gentleman, coming to his answer\nby degrees, 'that I felt some compunctions when Mr Fledgeby mentioned\nit. I must admit that I could not regard myself in an agreeable light.\nMore particularly, as Mr Fledgeby did, with great civility, which I\ncould not feel that I deserved from him, render me the same service that\nyou had entreated him to render you.'\n\nIt is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman's soul to say\nthis last sentence. 'Otherwise,' he has reflected, 'I shall assume the\nsuperior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know of\nhers. Which would be mean, very mean.'\n\n'Was Mr Fledgeby's advocacy as effectual in your case as in ours?' Mrs\nLammle demands.\n\n'As ineffectual.'\n\n'Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr Fledgeby, Mr\nTwemlow?'\n\n'I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservation\nwas not intentional. I encountered Mr Fledgeby, quite by accident, on\nthe spot.--By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr Riah's in Saint\nMary Axe.'\n\n'Have you the misfortune to be in Mr Riah's hands then?'\n\n'Unfortunately, madam,' returns Twemlow, 'the one money obligation to\nwhich I stand committed, the one debt of my life (but it is a just debt;\npray observe that I don't dispute it), has fallen into Mr Riah's hands.'\n\n'Mr Twemlow,' says Mrs Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he would\nprevent her doing if he could, but he can't; 'it has fallen into Mr\nFledgeby's hands. Mr Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr Fledgeby's\nhands. Let me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may be\nof use to you, if only to prevent your credulity, in judging another\nman's truthfulness by your own, from being imposed upon.'\n\n'Impossible!' cries Twemlow, standing aghast. 'How do you know it?'\n\n'I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of circumstances seemed\nto take fire at once, and show it to me.'\n\n'Oh! Then you have no proof.'\n\n'It is very strange,' says Mrs Lammle, coldly and boldly, and with some\ndisdain, 'how like men are to one another in some things, though their\ncharacters are as different as can be! No two men can have less affinity\nbetween them, one would say, than Mr Twemlow and my husband. Yet my\nhusband replies to me \"You have no proof,\" and Mr Twemlow replies to me\nwith the very same words!'\n\n'But why, madam?' Twemlow ventures gently to argue. 'Consider why\nthe very same words? Because they state the fact. Because you HAVE no\nproof.'\n\n'Men are very wise in their way,' quoth Mrs Lammle, glancing haughtily\nat the Snigsworth portrait, and shaking out her dress before departing;\n'but they have wisdom to learn. My husband, who is not over-confiding,\ningenuous, or inexperienced, sees this plain thing no more than Mr\nTwemlow does--because there is no proof! Yet I believe five women out of\nsix, in my place, would see it as clearly as I do. However, I will never\nrest (if only in remembrance of Mr Fledgeby's having kissed my hand)\nuntil my husband does see it. And you will do well for yourself to see\nit from this time forth, Mr Twemlow, though I CAN give you no proof.'\n\nAs she moves towards the door, Mr Twemlow, attending on her, expresses\nhis soothing hope that the condition of Mr Lammle's affairs is not\nirretrievable.\n\n'I don't know,' Mrs Lammle answers, stopping, and sketching out the\npattern of the paper on the wall with the point of her parasol; 'it\ndepends. There may be an opening for him dawning now, or there may be\nnone. We shall soon find out. If none, we are bankrupt here, and must go\nabroad, I suppose.'\n\nMr Twemlow, in his good-natured desire to make the best of it, remarks\nthat there are pleasant lives abroad.\n\n'Yes,' returns Mrs Lammle, still sketching on the wall; 'but I doubt\nwhether billiard-playing, card-playing, and so forth, for the means to\nlive under suspicion at a dirty table-d'hote, is one of them.'\n\nIt is much for Mr Lammle, Twemlow politely intimates (though greatly\nshocked), to have one always beside him who is attached to him in all\nhis fortunes, and whose restraining influence will prevent him from\ncourses that would be discreditable and ruinous. As he says it, Mrs\nLammle leaves off sketching, and looks at him.\n\n'Restraining influence, Mr Twemlow? We must eat and drink, and dress,\nand have a roof over our heads. Always beside him and attached in all\nhis fortunes? Not much to boast of in that; what can a woman at my age\ndo? My husband and I deceived one another when we married; we must bear\nthe consequences of the deception--that is to say, bear one another, and\nbear the burden of scheming together for to-day's dinner and to-morrow's\nbreakfast--till death divorces us.'\n\nWith those words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint James's. Mr\nTwemlow returning to his sofa, lays down his aching head on its slippery\nlittle horsehair bolster, with a strong internal conviction that a\npainful interview is not the kind of thing to be taken after the dinner\npills which are so highly salutary in connexion with the pleasures of\nthe table.\n\nBut, six o'clock in the evening finds the worthy little gentleman\ngetting better, and also getting himself into his obsolete little silk\nstockings and pumps, for the wondering dinner at the Veneerings. And\nseven o'clock in the evening finds him trotting out into Duke Street, to\ntrot to the corner and save a sixpence in coach-hire.\n\nTippins the divine has dined herself into such a condition by this time,\nthat a morbid mind might desire her, for a blessed change, to sup\nat last, and turn into bed. Such a mind has Mr Eugene Wrayburn, whom\nTwemlow finds contemplating Tippins with the moodiest of visages,\nwhile that playful creature rallies him on being so long overdue at the\nwoolsack. Skittish is Tippins with Mortimer Lightwood too, and has raps\nto give him with her fan for having been best man at the nuptials of\nthese deceiving what's-their-names who have gone to pieces. Though,\nindeed, the fan is generally lively, and taps away at the men in\nall directions, with something of a grisly sound suggestive of the\nclattering of Lady Tippins's bones.\n\nA new race of intimate friends has sprung up at Veneering's since he\nwent into Parliament for the public good, to whom Mrs Veneering is very\nattentive. These friends, like astronomical distances, are only to be\nspoken of in the very largest figures. Boots says that one of them is a\nContractor who (it has been calculated) gives employment, directly and\nindirectly, to five hundred thousand men. Brewer says that another of\nthem is a Chairman, in such request at so many Boards, so far apart,\nthat he never travels less by railway than three thousand miles a week.\nBuffer says that another of them hadn't a sixpence eighteen months ago,\nand, through the brilliancy of his genius in getting those shares issued\nat eighty-five, and buying them all up with no money and selling them\nat par for cash, has now three hundred and seventy-five thousand\npounds--Buffer particularly insisting on the odd seventy-five, and\ndeclining to take a farthing less. With Buffer, Boots, and Brewer, Lady\nTippins is eminently facetious on the subject of these Fathers of the\nScrip-Church: surveying them through her eyeglass, and inquiring whether\nBoots and Brewer and Buffer think they will make her fortune if she\nmakes love to them? with other pleasantries of that nature. Veneering,\nin his different way, is much occupied with the Fathers too, piously\nretiring with them into the conservatory, from which retreat the word\n'Committee' is occasionally heard, and where the Fathers instruct\nVeneering how he must leave the valley of the piano on his left,\ntake the level of the mantelpiece, cross by an open cutting at the\ncandelabra, seize the carrying-traffic at the console, and cut up the\nopposition root and branch at the window curtains.\n\nMr and Mrs Podsnap are of the company, and the Fathers descry in Mrs\nPodsnap a fine woman. She is consigned to a Father--Boots's Father,\nwho employs five hundred thousand men--and is brought to anchor on\nVeneering's left; thus affording opportunity to the sportive Tippins on\nhis right (he, as usual, being mere vacant space), to entreat to be told\nsomething about those loves of Navvies, and whether they really do live\non raw beefsteaks, and drink porter out of their barrows. But, in spite\nof such little skirmishes it is felt that this was to be a wondering\ndinner, and that the wondering must not be neglected. Accordingly,\nBrewer, as the man who has the greatest reputation to sustain, becomes\nthe interpreter of the general instinct.\n\n'I took,' says Brewer in a favourable pause, 'a cab this morning, and I\nrattled off to that Sale.'\n\nBoots (devoured by envy) says, 'So did I.'\n\nBuffer says, 'So did I'; but can find nobody to care whether he did or\nnot.\n\n'And what was it like?' inquires Veneering.\n\n'I assure you,' replies Brewer, looking about for anybody else to\naddress his answer to, and giving the preference to Lightwood; 'I assure\nyou, the things were going for a song. Handsome things enough, but\nfetching nothing.'\n\n'So I heard this afternoon,' says Lightwood.\n\nBrewer begs to know now, would it be fair to ask a professional man\nhow--on--earth--these--people--ever--did--come--TO--such--A--total\nsmash? (Brewer's divisions being for emphasis.)\n\nLightwood replies that he was consulted certainly, but could give no\nopinion which would pay off the Bill of Sale, and therefore violates no\nconfidence in supposing that it came of their living beyond their means.\n\n'But how,' says Veneering, 'CAN people do that!'\n\nHah! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull's eye. How CAN\npeople do that! The Analytical Chemist going round with champagne, looks\nvery much as if HE could give them a pretty good idea how people did\nthat, if he had a mind.\n\n'How,' says Mrs Veneering, laying down her fork to press her aquiline\nhands together at the tips of the fingers, and addressing the Father who\ntravels the three thousand miles per week: 'how a mother can look at\nher baby, and know that she lives beyond her husband's means, I cannot\nimagine.'\n\nEugene suggests that Mrs Lammle, not being a mother, had no baby to look\nat.\n\n'True,' says Mrs Veneering, 'but the principle is the same.'\n\nBoots is clear that the principle is the same. So is Buffer. It is the\nunfortunate destiny of Buffer to damage a cause by espousing it. The\nrest of the company have meekly yielded to the proposition that the\nprinciple is the same, until Buffer says it is; when instantly a general\nmurmur arises that the principle is not the same.\n\n'But I don't understand,' says the Father of the three hundred and\nseventy-five thousand pounds, '--if these people spoken of, occupied the\nposition of being in society--they were in society?'\n\nVeneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and were even\nmarried from here.\n\n'Then I don't understand,' pursues the Father, 'how even their living\nbeyond their means could bring them to what has been termed a total\nsmash. Because, there is always such a thing as an adjustment of\naffairs, in the case of people of any standing at all.'\n\nEugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of suggestiveness),\nsuggests, 'Suppose you have no means and live beyond them?'\n\nThis is too insolvent a state of things for the Father to entertain. It\nis too insolvent a state of things for any one with any self-respect\nto entertain, and is universally scouted. But, it is so amazing how any\npeople can have come to a total smash, that everybody feels bound to\naccount for it specially. One of the Fathers says, 'Gaming table.'\nAnother of the Fathers says, 'Speculated without knowing that\nspeculation is a science.' Boots says 'Horses.' Lady Tippins says to her\nfan, 'Two establishments.' Mr Podsnap, saying nothing, is referred\nto for his opinion; which he delivers as follows; much flushed and\nextremely angry:\n\n'Don't ask me. I desire to take no part in the discussion of these\npeople's affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an odious subject, an\noffensive subject, a subject that makes me sick, and I--' And with his\nfavourite right-arm flourish which sweeps away everything and settles it\nfor ever, Mr Podsnap sweeps these inconveniently unexplainable wretches\nwho have lived beyond their means and gone to total smash, off the face\nof the universe.\n\nEugene, leaning back in his chair, is observing Mr Podsnap with an\nirreverent face, and may be about to offer a new suggestion, when\nthe Analytical is beheld in collision with the Coachman; the Coachman\nmanifesting a purpose of coming at the company with a silver salver,\nas though intent upon making a collection for his wife and family; the\nAnalytical cutting him off at the sideboard. The superior stateliness,\nif not the superior generalship, of the Analytical prevails over a man\nwho is as nothing off the box; and the Coachman, yielding up his salver,\nretires defeated.\n\nThen, the Analytical, perusing a scrap of paper lying on the salver,\nwith the air of a literary Censor, adjusts it, takes his time about\ngoing to the table with it, and presents it to Mr Eugene Wrayburn.\nWhereupon the pleasant Tippins says aloud, 'The Lord Chancellor has\nresigned!'\n\nWith distracting coolness and slowness--for he knows the curiosity of\nthe Charmer to be always devouring--Eugene makes a pretence of getting\nout an eyeglass, polishing it, and reading the paper with difficulty,\nlong after he has seen what is written on it. What is written on it in\nwet ink, is:\n\n'Young Blight.'\n\n'Waiting?' says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence, with the\nAnalytical.\n\n'Waiting,' returns the Analytical in responsive confidence.\n\nEugene looks 'Excuse me,' towards Mrs Veneering, goes out, and finds\nYoung Blight, Mortimer's clerk, at the hall-door.\n\n'You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if he come while\nyou was out and I was in,' says that discreet young gentleman, standing\non tiptoe to whisper; 'and I've brought him.'\n\n'Sharp boy. Where is he?' asks Eugene.\n\n'He's in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to show him, you\nsee, if it could be helped; for he's a-shaking all over, like--Blight's\nsimile is perhaps inspired by the surrounding dishes of sweets--'like\nGlue Monge.'\n\n'Sharp boy again,' returns Eugene. 'I'll go to him.'\n\nGoes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on the open window\nof a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr Dolls: who has brought his own\natmosphere with him, and would seem from its odour to have brought it,\nfor convenience of carriage, in a rum-cask.\n\n'Now Dolls, wake up!'\n\n'Mist Wrayburn? Drection! Fifteen shillings!'\n\nAfter carefully reading the dingy scrap of paper handed to him, and as\ncarefully tucking it into his waistcoat pocket, Eugene tells out the\nmoney; beginning incautiously by telling the first shilling into Mr\nDolls's hand, which instantly jerks it out of window; and ending by\ntelling the fifteen shillings on the seat.\n\n'Give him a ride back to Charing Cross, sharp boy, and there get rid of\nhim.'\n\nReturning to the dining-room, and pausing for an instant behind the\nscreen at the door, Eugene overhears, above the hum and clatter, the\nfair Tippins saying: 'I am dying to ask him what he was called out for!'\n\n'Are you?' mutters Eugene, 'then perhaps if you can't ask him, you'll\ndie. So I'll be a benefactor to society, and go. A stroll and a cigar,\nand I can think this over. Think this over.' Thus, with a thoughtful\nface, he finds his hat and cloak, unseen of the Analytical, and goes his\nway.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FOURTH -- A TURNING\n\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nSETTING TRAPS\n\n\nPlashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an evening in\nthe summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves of the fresh green trees,\nand passed like a smooth shadow over the river, and like a smoother\nshadow over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, like\nthe voices of the sea and the wind, were as an outer memory to a\ncontemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr Riderhood, who sat\non one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. Wine must\nbe got into a butt by some agency before it can be drawn out; and the\nwine of sentiment never having been got into Mr Riderhood by any agency,\nnothing in nature tapped him.\n\nAs the Rogue sat, ever and again nodding himself off his balance, his\nrecovery was always attended by an angry stare and growl, as if, in the\nabsence of any one else, he had aggressive inclinations towards himself.\nIn one of these starts the cry of 'Lock, ho! Lock!' prevented his\nrelapse into a doze. Shaking himself as he got up like the surly brute\nhe was, he gave his growl a responsive twist at the end, and turned his\nface down-stream to see who hailed.\n\nIt was an amateur-sculler, well up to his work though taking it easily,\nin so light a boat that the Rogue remarked: 'A little less on you, and\nyou'd a'most ha' been a Wagerbut'; then went to work at his windlass\nhandles and sluices, to let the sculler in. As the latter stood in his\nboat, holding on by the boat-hook to the woodwork at the lock side,\nwaiting for the gates to open, Rogue Riderhood recognized his 'T'other\ngovernor,' Mr Eugene Wrayburn; who was, however, too indifferent or too\nmuch engaged to recognize him.\n\nThe creaking lock-gates opened slowly, and the light boat passed in as\nsoon as there was room enough, and the creaking lock-gates closed upon\nit, and it floated low down in the dock between the two sets of gates,\nuntil the water should rise and the second gates should open and let it\nout. When Riderhood had run to his second windlass and turned it, and\nwhile he leaned against the lever of that gate to help it to swing\nopen presently, he noticed, lying to rest under the green hedge by the\ntowing-path astern of the Lock, a Bargeman.\n\nThe water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing the scum\nwhich had formed behind the lumbering gates, and sending the boat up,\nso that the sculler gradually rose like an apparition against the light\nfrom the bargeman's point of view. Riderhood observed that the bargeman\nrose too, leaning on his arm, and seemed to have his eyes fastened on\nthe rising figure.\n\nBut, there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now complaining\nand opening. The T'other governor tossed it ashore, twisted in a piece\nof paper, and as he did so, knew his man.\n\n'Ay, ay? It's you, is it, honest friend?' said Eugene, seating himself\npreparatory to resuming his sculls. 'You got the place, then?'\n\n'I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet none to Lawyer\nLightwood,' gruffly answered Riderhood.\n\n'We saved our recommendation, honest fellow,' said Eugene, 'for the next\ncandidate--the one who will offer himself when you are transported or\nhanged. Don't be long about it; will you be so good?'\n\nSo imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent to his work that\nRiderhood remained staring at him, without having found a retort, until\nhe had rowed past a line of wooden objects by the weir, which showed\nlike huge teetotums standing at rest in the water, and was almost hidden\nby the drooping boughs on the left bank, as he rowed away, keeping\nout of the opposing current. It being then too late to retort with\nany effect--if that could ever have been done--the honest man confined\nhimself to cursing and growling in a grim under-tone. Having then\ngot his gates shut, he crossed back by his plank lock-bridge to the\ntowing-path side of the river.\n\nIf, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he did it by\nstealth. He cast himself on the grass by the Lock side, in an indolent\nway, with his back in that direction, and, having gathered a few blades,\nfell to chewing them. The dip of Eugene Wrayburn's sculls had become\nhardly audible in his ears when the bargeman passed him, putting the\nutmost width that he could between them, and keeping under the hedge.\nThen, Riderhood sat up and took a long look at his figure, and then\ncried: 'Hi--I--i! Lock, ho! Lock! Plashwater Weir Mill Lock!'\n\nThe bargeman stopped, and looked back.\n\n'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, T'otherest gov--er--nor--or--or--or!' cried\nMr Riderhood, with his hands to his mouth.\n\nThe bargeman turned back. Approaching nearer and nearer, the bargeman\nbecame Bradley Headstone, in rough water-side second-hand clothing.\n\n'Wish I may die,' said Riderhood, smiting his right leg, and laughing,\nas he sat on the grass, 'if you ain't ha' been a imitating me,\nT'otherest governor! Never thought myself so good-looking afore!'\n\nTruly, Bradley Headstone had taken careful note of the honest man's\ndress in the course of that night-walk they had had together. He must\nhave committed it to memory, and slowly got it by heart. It was\nexactly reproduced in the dress he now wore. And whereas, in his own\nschoolmaster clothes, he usually looked as if they were the clothes of\nsome other man, he now looked, in the clothes of some other man or men,\nas if they were his own.\n\n'THIS your Lock?' said Bradley, whose surprise had a genuine air; 'they\ntold me, where I last inquired, it was the third I should come to. This\nis only the second.'\n\n'It's my belief, governor,' returned Riderhood, with a wink and shake of\nhis head, 'that you've dropped one in your counting. It ain't Locks as\nYOU'VE been giving your mind to. No, no!'\n\nAs he expressively jerked his pointing finger in the direction the boat\nhad taken, a flush of impatience mounted into Bradley's face, and he\nlooked anxiously up the river.\n\n'It ain't Locks as YOU'VE been a reckoning up,' said Riderhood, when the\nschoolmaster's eyes came back again. 'No, no!'\n\n'What other calculations do you suppose I have been occupied with?\nMathematics?'\n\n'I never heerd it called that. It's a long word for it. Hows'ever,\np'raps you call it so,' said Riderhood, stubbornly chewing his grass.\n\n'It. What?'\n\n'I'll say them, instead of it, if you like,' was the coolly growled\nreply. 'It's safer talk too.'\n\n'What do you mean that I should understand by them?'\n\n'Spites, affronts, offences giv' and took, deadly aggrawations, such\nlike,' answered Riderhood.\n\nDo what Bradley Headstone would, he could not keep that former flush of\nimpatience out of his face, or so master his eyes as to prevent their\nagain looking anxiously up the river.\n\n'Ha ha! Don't be afeerd, T'otherest,' said Riderhood. 'The T'other's got\nto make way agin the stream, and he takes it easy. You can soon come up\nwith him. But wot's the good of saying that to you! YOU know how fur\nyou could have outwalked him betwixt anywheres about where he lost the\ntide--say Richmond--and this, if you had a mind to it.'\n\n'You think I have been following him?' said Bradley.\n\n'I KNOW you have,' said Riderhood.\n\n'Well! I have, I have,' Bradley admitted. 'But,' with another anxious\nlook up the river, 'he may land.'\n\n'Easy you! He won't be lost if he does land,' said Riderhood. 'He must\nleave his boat behind him. He can't make a bundle or a parcel on it, and\ncarry it ashore with him under his arm.'\n\n'He was speaking to you just now,' said Bradley, kneeling on one knee on\nthe grass beside the Lock-keeper. 'What did he say?'\n\n'Cheek,' said Riderhood.\n\n'What?'\n\n'Cheek,' repeated Riderhood, with an angry oath; 'cheek is what he said.\nHe can't say nothing but cheek. I'd ha' liked to plump down aboard of\nhim, neck and crop, with a heavy jump, and sunk him.'\n\nBradley turned away his haggard face for a few moments, and then said,\ntearing up a tuft of grass:\n\n'Damn him!'\n\n'Hooroar!' cried Riderhood. 'Does you credit! Hooroar! I cry chorus to\nthe T'otherest.'\n\n'What turn,' said Bradley, with an effort at self-repression that forced\nhim to wipe his face, 'did his insolence take to-day?'\n\n'It took the turn,' answered Riderhood, with sullen ferocity, 'of hoping\nas I was getting ready to be hanged.'\n\n'Let him look to that,' cried Bradley. 'Let him look to that! It will\nbe bad for him when men he has injured, and at whom he has jeered, are\nthinking of getting hanged. Let HIM get ready for HIS fate, when that\ncomes about. There was more meaning in what he said than he knew of, or\nhe wouldn't have had brains enough to say it. Let him look to it; let\nhim look to it! When men he has wronged, and on whom he has bestowed\nhis insolence, are getting ready to be hanged, there is a death-bell\nringing. And not for them.'\n\nRiderhood, looking fixedly at him, gradually arose from his recumbent\nposture while the schoolmaster said these words with the utmost\nconcentration of rage and hatred. So, when the words were all spoken,\nhe too kneeled on one knee on the grass, and the two men looked at one\nanother.\n\n'Oh!' said Riderhood, very deliberately spitting out the grass he had\nbeen chewing. 'Then, I make out, T'otherest, as he is a-going to her?'\n\n'He left London,' answered Bradley, 'yesterday. I have hardly a doubt,\nthis time, that at last he is going to her.'\n\n'You ain't sure, then?'\n\n'I am as sure here,' said Bradley, with a clutch at the breast of his\ncoarse shirt, 'as if it was written there;' with a blow or a stab at the\nsky.\n\n'Ah! But judging from the looks on you,' retorted Riderhood, completely\nridding himself of his grass, and drawing his sleeve across his mouth,\n'you've made ekally sure afore, and have got disapinted. It has told\nupon you.'\n\n'Listen,' said Bradley, in a low voice, bending forward to lay his hand\nupon the Lock-keeper's shoulder. 'These are my holidays.'\n\n'Are they, by George!' muttered Riderhood, with his eyes on the\npassion-wasted face. 'Your working days must be stiff 'uns, if these is\nyour holidays.'\n\n'And I have never left him,' pursued Bradley, waving the interruption\naside with an impatient hand, 'since they began. And I never will leave\nhim now, till I have seen him with her.'\n\n'And when you have seen him with her?' said Riderhood.\n\n'--I'll come back to you.'\n\nRiderhood stiffened the knee on which he had been resting, got up, and\nlooked gloomily at his new friend. After a few moments they walked side\nby side in the direction the boat had taken, as if by tacit consent;\nBradley pressing forward, and Riderhood holding back; Bradley getting\nout his neat prim purse into his hand (a present made him by penny\nsubscription among his pupils); and Riderhood, unfolding his arms to\nsmear his coat-cuff across his mouth with a thoughtful air.\n\n'I have a pound for you,' said Bradley.\n\n'You've two,' said Riderhood.\n\nBradley held a sovereign between his fingers. Slouching at his side with\nhis eyes upon the towing-path, Riderhood held his left hand open, with\na certain slight drawing action towards himself. Bradley dipped in his\npurse for another sovereign, and two chinked in Riderhood's hand, the\ndrawing action of which, promptly strengthening, drew them home to his\npocket.\n\n'Now, I must follow him,' said Bradley Headstone. 'He takes this\nriver-road--the fool!--to confuse observation, or divert attention, if\nnot solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himself\ninvisible before he can shake Me off.'\n\nRiderhood stopped. 'If you don't get disapinted agin, T'otherest, maybe\nyou'll put up at the Lock-house when you come back?'\n\n'I will.'\n\nRiderhood nodded, and the figure of the bargeman went its way along the\nsoft turf by the side of the towing-path, keeping near the hedge and\nmoving quickly. They had turned a point from which a long stretch of\nriver was visible. A stranger to the scene might have been certain that\nhere and there along the line of hedge a figure stood, watching the\nbargeman, and waiting for him to come up. So he himself had often\nbelieved at first, until his eyes became used to the posts, bearing the\ndagger that slew Wat Tyler, in the City of London shield.\n\nWithin Mr Riderhood's knowledge all daggers were as one. Even to Bradley\nHeadstone, who could have told to the letter without book all about Wat\nTyler, Lord Mayor Walworth, and the King, that it is dutiful for youth\nto know, there was but one subject living in the world for every sharp\ndestructive instrument that summer evening. So, Riderhood looking after\nhim as he went, and he with his furtive hand laid upon the dagger as he\npassed it, and his eyes upon the boat, were much upon a par.\n\nThe boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their tranquil\nshadows in the water. The bargeman skulking on the opposite bank of the\nstream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed Riderhood when\nand where the rower dipped his blades, until, even as he stood idly\nwatching, the sun went down and the landscape was dyed red. And then the\nred had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven, as\nwe say that blood, guiltily shed, does.\n\nTurning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of view of it), the\nRogue pondered as deeply as it was within the contracted power of such\na fellow to do. 'Why did he copy my clothes? He could have looked like\nwhat he wanted to look like, without that.' This was the subject-matter\nin his thoughts; in which, too, there came lumbering up, by times, like\nany half floating and half sinking rubbish in the river, the question,\nWas it done by accident? The setting of a trap for finding out whether\nit was accidentally done, soon superseded, as a practical piece of\ncunning, the abstruser inquiry why otherwise it was done. And he devised\na means.\n\nRogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought forth, into the\nnow sober grey light, his chest of clothes. Sitting on the grass beside\nit, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, until he came\nto a conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black here and there by\nwear. It arrested his attention, and he sat pausing over it, until he\ntook off the rusty colourless wisp that he wore round his throat, and\nsubstituted the red neckerchief, leaving the long ends flowing. 'Now,'\nsaid the Rogue, 'if arter he sees me in this neckhankecher, I see him in\na sim'lar neckhankecher, it won't be accident!' Elated by his device, he\ncarried his chest in again and went to supper.\n\n'Lock ho! Lock!' It was a light night, and a barge coming down summoned\nhim out of a long doze. In due course he had let the barge through\nand was alone again, looking to the closing of his gates, when Bradley\nHeadstone appeared before him, standing on the brink of the Lock.\n\n'Halloa!' said Riderhood. 'Back a' ready, T'otherest?'\n\n'He has put up for the night, at an Angler's Inn,' was the fatigued and\nhoarse reply. 'He goes on, up the river, at six in the morning. I have\ncome back for a couple of hours' rest.'\n\n'You want 'em,' said Riderhood, making towards the schoolmaster by his\nplank bridge.\n\n'I don't want them,' returned Bradley, irritably, 'because I would\nrather not have them, but would much prefer to follow him all night.\nHowever, if he won't lead, I can't follow. I have been waiting about,\nuntil I could discover, for a certainty, at what time he starts; if I\ncouldn't have made sure of it, I should have stayed there.--This would\nbe a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. These\nslippery smooth walls would give him no chance. And I suppose those\ngates would suck him down?'\n\n'Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn't get out,' said Riderhood.\n'Not even, if his hands warn't tied, he wouldn't. Shut him in at both\nends, and I'd give him a pint o' old ale ever to come up to me standing\nhere.'\n\nBradley looked down with a ghastly relish. 'You run about the brink, and\nrun across it, in this uncertain light, on a few inches width of rotten\nwood,' said he. 'I wonder you have no thought of being drowned.'\n\n'I can't be!' said Riderhood.\n\n'You can't be drowned?'\n\n'No!' said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of thorough\nconviction, 'it's well known. I've been brought out o' drowning, and I\ncan't be drowned. I wouldn't have that there busted B'lowbridger aware\non it, or her people might make it tell agin' the damages I mean to get.\nBut it's well known to water-side characters like myself, that him as\nhas been brought out o drowning, can never be drowned.'\n\nBradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have corrected in one of\nhis pupils, and continued to look down into the water, as if the place\nhad a gloomy fascination for him.\n\n'You seem to like it,' said Riderhood.\n\nHe took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had not heard the\nwords. There was a very dark expression on his face; an expression\nthat the Rogue found it hard to understand. It was fierce, and full\nof purpose; but the purpose might have been as much against himself as\nagainst another. If he had stepped back for a spring, taken a leap, and\nthrown himself in, it would have been no surprising sequel to the look.\nPerhaps his troubled soul, set upon some violence, did hover for the\nmoment between that violence and another.\n\n'Didn't you say,' asked Riderhood, after watching him for a while with\na sidelong glance, 'as you had come back for a couple o' hours' rest?'\nBut, even then he had to jog him with his elbow before he answered.\n\n'Eh? Yes.'\n\n'Hadn't you better come in and take your couple o' hours' rest?'\n\n'Thank you. Yes.'\n\nWith the look of one just awakened, he followed Riderhood into the\nLock-house, where the latter produced from a cupboard some cold salt\nbeef and half a loaf, some gin in a bottle, and some water in a jug. The\nlast he brought in, cool and dripping, from the river.\n\n'There, T'otherest,' said Riderhood, stooping over him to put it on\nthe table. 'You'd better take a bite and a sup, afore you takes\nyour snooze.' The draggling ends of the red neckerchief caught the\nschoolmaster's eyes. Riderhood saw him look at it.\n\n'Oh!' thought that worthy. 'You're a-taking notice, are you? Come! You\nshall have a good squint at it then.' With which reflection he sat down\non the other side of the table, threw open his vest, and made a pretence\nof re-tying the neckerchief with much deliberation.\n\nBradley ate and drank. As he sat at his platter and mug, Riderhood saw\nhim, again and yet again, steal a look at the neckerchief, as if he were\ncorrecting his slow observation and prompting his sluggish memory.\n'When you're ready for your snooze,' said that honest creature, 'chuck\nyourself on my bed in the corner, T'otherest. It'll be broad day afore\nthree. I'll call you early.'\n\n'I shall require no calling,' answered Bradley. And soon afterwards,\ndivesting himself only of his shoes and coat, laid himself down.\n\nRiderhood, leaning back in his wooden arm-chair with his arms folded\non his breast, looked at him lying with his right hand clenched in his\nsleep and his teeth set, until a film came over his own sight, and he\nslept too. He awoke to find that it was daylight, and that his\nvisitor was already astir, and going out to the river-side to cool his\nhead:--'Though I'm blest,' muttered Riderhood at the Lock-house door,\nlooking after him, 'if I think there's water enough in all the Thames\nto do THAT for you!' Within five minutes he had taken his departure,\nand was passing on into the calm distance as he had passed yesterday.\nRiderhood knew when a fish leaped, by his starting and glancing round.\n\n'Lock ho! Lock!' at intervals all day, and 'Lock ho! Lock!' thrice in\nthe ensuing night, but no return of Bradley. The second day was sultry\nand oppressive. In the afternoon, a thunderstorm came up, and had but\nnewly broken into a furious sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door,\nlike the storm itself.\n\n'You've seen him with her!' exclaimed Riderhood, starting up.\n\n'I have.'\n\n'Where?'\n\n'At his journey's end. His boat's hauled up for three days. I heard\nhim give the order. Then, I saw him wait for her and meet her. I saw\nthem'--he stopped as though he were suffocating, and began again--'I saw\nthem walking side by side, last night.'\n\n'What did you do?'\n\n'Nothing.'\n\n'What are you going to do?'\n\nHe dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately afterwards, a great\nspirt of blood burst from his nose.\n\n'How does that happen?' asked Riderhood.\n\n'I don't know. I can't keep it back. It has happened twice--three\ntimes--four times--I don't know how many times--since last night. I\ntaste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it breaks out like\nthis.'\n\nHe went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, bending low\nover the river, and scooping up the water with his two hands, washed the\nblood away. All beyond his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door,\nwas a vast dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of the\nheavens. He raised his head and came back, wet from head to foot, but\nwith the lower parts of his sleeves, where he had dipped into the river,\nstreaming water.\n\n'Your face is like a ghost's,' said Riderhood.\n\n'Did you ever see a ghost?' was the sullen retort.\n\n'I mean to say, you're quite wore out.'\n\n'That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. I don't\nremember that I have so much as sat down since I left here.'\n\n'Lie down now, then,' said Riderhood.\n\n'I will, if you'll give me something to quench my thirst first.'\n\nThe bottle and jug were again produced, and he mixed a weak draught, and\nanother, and drank both in quick succession. 'You asked me something,'\nhe said then.\n\n'No, I didn't,' replied Riderhood.\n\n'I tell you,' retorted Bradley, turning upon him in a wild and desperate\nmanner, 'you asked me something, before I went out to wash my face in\nthe river.\n\n'Oh! Then?' said Riderhood, backing a little. 'I asked you wot you wos\na-going to do.'\n\n'How can a man in this state know?' he answered, protesting with both\nhis tremulous hands, with an action so vigorously angry that he shook\nthe water from his sleeves upon the floor, as if he had wrung them. 'How\ncan I plan anything, if I haven't sleep?'\n\n'Why, that's what I as good as said,' returned the other. 'Didn't I say\nlie down?'\n\n'Well, perhaps you did.'\n\n'Well! Anyways I says it again. Sleep where you slept last; the sounder\nand longer you can sleep, the better you'll know arterwards what you're\nup to.'\n\nHis pointing to the truckle bed in the corner, seemed gradually to bring\nthat poor couch to Bradley's wandering remembrance. He slipped off his\nworn down-trodden shoes, and cast himself heavily, all wet as he was,\nupon the bed.\n\nRiderhood sat down in his wooden arm-chair, and looked through the\nwindow at the lightning, and listened to the thunder. But, his thoughts\nwere far from being absorbed by the thunder and the lightning, for again\nand again and again he looked very curiously at the exhausted man upon\nthe bed. The man had turned up the collar of the rough coat he wore,\nto shelter himself from the storm, and had buttoned it about his neck.\nUnconscious of that, and of most things, he had left the coat so, both\nwhen he had laved his face in the river, and when he had cast himself\nupon the bed; though it would have been much easier to him if he had\nunloosened it.\n\nThe thunder rolled heavily, and the forked lightning seemed to make\njagged rents in every part of the vast curtain without, as Riderhood sat\nby the window, glancing at the bed. Sometimes, he saw the man upon the\nbed, by a red light; sometimes, by a blue; sometimes, he scarcely saw\nhim in the darkness of the storm; sometimes he saw nothing of him in\nthe blinding glare of palpitating white fire. Anon, the rain would come\nagain with a tremendous rush, and the river would seem to rise to meet\nit, and a blast of wind, bursting upon the door, would flutter the hair\nand dress of the man, as if invisible messengers were come around the\nbed to carry him away. From all these phases of the storm, Riderhood\nwould turn, as if they were interruptions--rather striking interruptions\npossibly, but interruptions still--of his scrutiny of the sleeper.\n\n'He sleeps sound,' he said within himself; 'yet he's that up to me and\nthat noticing of me that my getting out of my chair may wake him, when a\nrattling peal won't; let alone my touching of him.'\n\nHe very cautiously rose to his feet. 'T'otherest,' he said, in a low,\ncalm voice, 'are you a lying easy? There's a chill in the air, governor.\nShall I put a coat over you?'\n\nNo answer.\n\n'That's about what it is a'ready, you see,' muttered Riderhood in a\nlower and a different voice; 'a coat over you, a coat over you!'\n\nThe sleeper moving an arm, he sat down again in his chair, and feigned\nto watch the storm from the window. It was a grand spectacle, but not so\ngrand as to keep his eyes, for half a minute together, from stealing a\nlook at the man upon the bed.\n\nIt was at the concealed throat of the sleeper that Riderhood so often\nlooked so curiously, until the sleep seemed to deepen into the stupor\nof the dead-tired in mind and body. Then, Riderhood came from the window\ncautiously, and stood by the bed.\n\n'Poor man!' he murmured in a low tone, with a crafty face, and a very\nwatchful eye and ready foot, lest he should start up; 'this here coat\nof his must make him uneasy in his sleep. Shall I loosen it for him,\nand make him more comfortable? Ah! I think I ought to do it, poor man. I\nthink I will.'\n\nHe touched the first button with a very cautious hand, and a step\nbackward. But, the sleeper remaining in profound unconsciousness, he\ntouched the other buttons with a more assured hand, and perhaps the more\nlightly on that account. Softly and slowly, he opened the coat and drew\nit back.\n\nThe draggling ends of a bright-red neckerchief were then disclosed, and\nhe had even been at the pains of dipping parts of it in some liquid,\nto give it the appearance of having become stained by wear. With a\nmuch-perplexed face, Riderhood looked from it to the sleeper, and from\nthe sleeper to it, and finally crept back to his chair, and there, with\nhis hand to his chin, sat long in a brown study, looking at both.\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nTHE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE\n\n\nMr and Mrs Lammle had come to breakfast with Mr and Mrs Boffin. They\nwere not absolutely uninvited, but had pressed themselves with so much\nurgency on the golden couple, that evasion of the honour and pleasure\nof their company would have been difficult, if desired. They were in a\ncharming state of mind, were Mr and Mrs Lammle, and almost as fond of Mr\nand Mrs Boffin as of one another.\n\n'My dear Mrs Boffin,' said Mrs Lammle, 'it imparts new life to me, to\nsee my Alfred in confidential communication with Mr Boffin. The two\nwere formed to become intimate. So much simplicity combined with so much\nforce of character, such natural sagacity united to such amiability and\ngentleness--these are the distinguishing characteristics of both.'\n\nThis being said aloud, gave Mr Lammle an opportunity, as he came with Mr\nBoffin from the window to the breakfast table, of taking up his dear and\nhonoured wife.\n\n'My Sophronia,' said that gentleman, 'your too partial estimate of your\nhusband's character--'\n\n'No! Not too partial, Alfred,' urged the lady, tenderly moved; 'never\nsay that.'\n\n'My child, your favourable opinion, then, of your husband--you don't\nobject to that phrase, darling?'\n\n'How can I, Alfred?'\n\n'Your favourable opinion then, my Precious, does less than justice to Mr\nBoffin, and more than justice to me.'\n\n'To the first charge, Alfred, I plead guilty. But to the second, oh no,\nno!'\n\n'Less than justice to Mr Boffin, Sophronia,' said Mr Lammle, soaring\ninto a tone of moral grandeur, 'because it represents Mr Boffin as on my\nlower level; more than justice to me, Sophronia, because it represents\nme as on Mr Boffin's higher level. Mr Boffin bears and forbears far more\nthan I could.'\n\n'Far more than you could for yourself, Alfred?'\n\n'My love, that is not the question.'\n\n'Not the question, Lawyer?' said Mrs Lammle, archly.\n\n'No, dear Sophronia. From my lower level, I regard Mr Boffin as too\ngenerous, as possessed of too much clemency, as being too good to\npersons who are unworthy of him and ungrateful to him. To those noble\nqualities I can lay no claim. On the contrary, they rouse my indignation\nwhen I see them in action.'\n\n'Alfred!'\n\n'They rouse my indignation, my dear, against the unworthy persons,\nand give me a combative desire to stand between Mr Boffin and all such\npersons. Why? Because, in my lower nature I am more worldly and less\ndelicate. Not being so magnanimous as Mr Boffin, I feel his injuries\nmore than he does himself, and feel more capable of opposing his\ninjurers.'\n\nIt struck Mrs Lammle that it appeared rather difficult this morning\nto bring Mr and Mrs Boffin into agreeable conversation. Here had been\nseveral lures thrown out, and neither of them had uttered a word. Here\nwere she, Mrs Lammle, and her husband discoursing at once affectingly\nand effectively, but discoursing alone. Assuming that the dear old\ncreatures were impressed by what they heard, still one would like to be\nsure of it, the more so, as at least one of the dear old creatures\nwas somewhat pointedly referred to. If the dear old creatures were too\nbashful or too dull to assume their required places in the discussion,\nwhy then it would seem desirable that the dear old creatures should be\ntaken by their heads and shoulders and brought into it.\n\n'But is not my husband saying in effect,' asked Mrs Lammle, therefore,\nwith an innocent air, of Mr and Mrs Boffin, 'that he becomes unmindful\nof his own temporary misfortunes in his admiration of another whom he is\nburning to serve? And is not that making an admission that his nature is\na generous one? I am wretched in argument, but surely this is so, dear\nMr and Mrs Boffin?'\n\nStill, neither Mr and Mrs Boffin said a word. He sat with his eyes on\nhis plate, eating his muffins and ham, and she sat shyly looking at the\nteapot. Mrs Lammle's innocent appeal was merely thrown into the air, to\nmingle with the steam of the urn. Glancing towards Mr and Mrs Boffin,\nshe very slightly raised her eyebrows, as though inquiring of her\nhusband: 'Do I notice anything wrong here?'\n\nMr Lammle, who had found his chest effective on a variety of occasions,\nmanoeuvred his capacious shirt front into the largest demonstration\npossible, and then smiling retorted on his wife, thus:\n\n'Sophronia, darling, Mr and Mrs Boffin will remind you of the old adage,\nthat self-praise is no recommendation.'\n\n'Self-praise, Alfred? Do you mean because we are one and the same?'\n\n'No, my dear child. I mean that you cannot fail to remember, if you\nreflect for a single moment, that what you are pleased to compliment me\nupon feeling in the case of Mr Boffin, you have yourself confided to me\nas your own feeling in the case of Mrs Boffin.'\n\n('I shall be beaten by this Lawyer,' Mrs Lammle gaily whispered to\nMrs Boffin. 'I am afraid I must admit it, if he presses me, for it's\ndamagingly true.')\n\nSeveral white dints began to come and go about Mr Lammle's nose, as he\nobserved that Mrs Boffin merely looked up from the teapot for a moment\nwith an embarrassed smile, which was no smile, and then looked down\nagain.\n\n'Do you admit the charge, Sophronia?' inquired Alfred, in a rallying\ntone.\n\n'Really, I think,' said Mrs Lammle, still gaily, 'I must throw myself\non the protection of the Court. Am I bound to answer that question, my\nLord?' To Mr Boffin.\n\n'You needn't, if you don't like, ma'am,' was his answer. 'It's not of\nthe least consequence.'\n\nBoth husband and wife glanced at him, very doubtfully. His manner was\ngrave, but not coarse, and derived some dignity from a certain repressed\ndislike of the tone of the conversation.\n\nAgain Mrs Lammle raised her eyebrows for instruction from her husband.\nHe replied in a slight nod, 'Try 'em again.'\n\n'To protect myself against the suspicion of covert self-laudation, my\ndear Mrs Boffin,' said the airy Mrs Lammle therefore, 'I must tell you\nhow it was.'\n\n'No. Pray don't,' Mr Boffin interposed.\n\nMrs Lammle turned to him laughingly. 'The Court objects?'\n\n'Ma'am,' said Mr Boffin, 'the Court (if I am the Court) does object. The\nCourt objects for two reasons. First, because the Court don't think it\nfair. Secondly, because the dear old lady, Mrs Court (if I am Mr) gets\ndistressed by it.'\n\nA very remarkable wavering between two bearings--between her\npropitiatory bearing there, and her defiant bearing at Mr Twemlow's--was\nobservable on the part of Mrs Lammle as she said:\n\n'What does the Court not consider fair?'\n\n'Letting you go on,' replied Mr Boffin, nodding his head soothingly, as\nwho should say, We won't be harder on you than we can help; we'll make\nthe best of it. 'It's not above-board and it's not fair. When the old\nlady is uncomfortable, there's sure to be good reason for it. I see she\nis uncomfortable, and I plainly see this is the good reason wherefore.\nHAVE you breakfasted, ma'am.'\n\nMrs Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed her plate away,\nlooked at her husband, and laughed; but by no means gaily.\n\n'Have YOU breakfasted, sir?' inquired Mr Boffin.\n\n'Thank you,' replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. 'If Mrs Boffin will\noblige me, I'll take another cup of tea.'\n\nHe spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have been so\neffective, and which had done so little; but on the whole drank it with\nsomething of an air, though the coming and going dints got almost as\nlarge, the while, as if they had been made by pressure of the teaspoon.\n'A thousand thanks,' he then observed. 'I have breakfasted.'\n\n'Now, which,' said Mr Boffin softly, taking out a pocket-book, 'which of\nyou two is Cashier?'\n\n'Sophronia, my dear,' remarked her husband, as he leaned back in his\nchair, waving his right hand towards her, while he hung his left hand\nby the thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat: 'it shall be your\ndepartment.'\n\n'I would rather,' said Mr Boffin, 'that it was your husband's, ma'am,\nbecause--but never mind, because, I would rather have to do with him.\nHowever, what I have to say, I will say with as little offence as\npossible; if I can say it without any, I shall be heartily glad. You two\nhave done me a service, a very great service, in doing what you did (my\nold lady knows what it was), and I have put into this envelope a bank\nnote for a hundred pound. I consider the service well worth a hundred\npound, and I am well pleased to pay the money. Would you do me the\nfavour to take it, and likewise to accept my thanks?'\n\nWith a haughty action, and without looking towards him, Mrs Lammle held\nout her left hand, and into it Mr Boffin put the little packet. When she\nhad conveyed it to her bosom, Mr Lammle had the appearance of feeling\nrelieved, and breathing more freely, as not having been quite certain\nthat the hundred pounds were his, until the note had been safely\ntransferred out of Mr Boffin's keeping into his own Sophronia's.\n\n'It is not impossible,' said Mr Boffin, addressing Alfred, 'that you\nhave had some general idea, sir, of replacing Rokesmith, in course of\ntime?'\n\n'It is not,' assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a great deal\nof nose, 'not impossible.'\n\n'And perhaps, ma'am,' pursued Mr Boffin, addressing Sophronia, 'you have\nbeen so kind as to take up my old lady in your own mind, and to do her\nthe honour of turning the question over whether you mightn't one of\nthese days have her in charge, like? Whether you mightn't be a sort of\nMiss Bella Wilfer to her, and something more?'\n\n'I should hope,' returned Mrs Lammle, with a scornful look and in a loud\nvoice, 'that if I were anything to your wife, sir, I could hardly fail\nto be something more than Miss Bella Wilfer, as you call her.'\n\n'What do YOU call her, ma'am?' asked Mr Boffin.\n\nMrs Lammle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating one foot on the\nground.\n\n'Again I think I may say, that's not impossible. Is it, sir?' asked Mr\nBoffin, turning to Alfred.\n\n'It is not,' said Alfred, smiling assent as before, 'not impossible.'\n\n'Now,' said Mr Boffin, gently, 'it won't do. I don't wish to say a\nsingle word that might be afterwards remembered as unpleasant; but it\nwon't do.'\n\n'Sophronia, my love,' her husband repeated in a bantering manner, 'you\nhear? It won't do.'\n\n'No,' said Mr Boffin, with his voice still dropped, 'it really won't.\nYou positively must excuse us. If you'll go your way, we'll go ours, and\nso I hope this affair ends to the satisfaction of all parties.'\n\nMrs Lammle gave him the look of a decidedly dissatisfied party demanding\nexemption from the category; but said nothing.\n\n'The best thing we can make of the affair,' said Mr Boffin, 'is a matter\nof business, and as a matter of business it's brought to a conclusion.\nYou have done me a great service, a very great service, and I have paid\nfor it. Is there any objection to the price?'\n\nMr and Mrs Lammle looked at one another across the table, but neither\ncould say that there was. Mr Lammle shrugged his shoulders, and Mrs\nLammle sat rigid.\n\n'Very good,' said Mr Boffin. 'We hope (my old lady and me) that you'll\ngive us credit for taking the plainest and honestest short-cut that\ncould be taken under the circumstances. We have talked it over with a\ndeal of care (my old lady and me), and we have felt that at all to lead\nyou on, or even at all to let you go on of your own selves, wouldn't be\nthe right thing. So, I have openly given you to understand that--'\nMr Boffin sought for a new turn of speech, but could find none so\nexpressive as his former one, repeated in a confidential tone, '--that\nit won't do. If I could have put the case more pleasantly I would; but\nI hope I haven't put it very unpleasantly; at all events I haven't meant\nto. So,' said Mr Boffin, by way of peroration, 'wishing you well in the\nway you go, we now conclude with the observation that perhaps you'll go\nit.'\n\nMr Lammle rose with an impudent laugh on his side of the table, and Mrs\nLammle rose with a disdainful frown on hers. At this moment a hasty foot\nwas heard on the staircase, and Georgiana Podsnap broke into the room,\nunannounced and in tears.\n\n'Oh, my dear Sophronia,' cried Georgiana, wringing her hands as she ran\nup to embrace her, 'to think that you and Alfred should be ruined! Oh,\nmy poor dear Sophronia, to think that you should have had a Sale at your\nhouse after all your kindness to me! Oh, Mr and Mrs Boffin, pray forgive\nme for this intrusion, but you don't know how fond I was of Sophronia\nwhen Pa wouldn't let me go there any more, or what I have felt for\nSophronia since I heard from Ma of her having been brought low in the\nworld. You don't, you can't, you never can, think, how I have lain awake\nat night and cried for my good Sophronia, my first and only friend!'\n\nMrs Lammle's manner changed under the poor silly girl's embraces, and\nshe turned extremely pale: directing one appealing look, first to Mrs\nBoffin, and then to Mr Boffin. Both understood her instantly, with\na more delicate subtlety than much better educated people, whose\nperception came less directly from the heart, could have brought to bear\nupon the case.\n\n'I haven't a minute,' said poor little Georgiana, 'to stay. I am out\nshopping early with Ma, and I said I had a headache and got Ma to leave\nme outside in the phaeton, in Piccadilly, and ran round to Sackville\nStreet, and heard that Sophronia was here, and then Ma came to see, oh\nsuch a dreadful old stony woman from the country in a turban in Portland\nPlace, and I said I wouldn't go up with Ma but would drive round and\nleave cards for the Boffins, which is taking a liberty with the name;\nbut oh my goodness I am distracted, and the phaeton's at the door, and\nwhat would Pa say if he knew it!'\n\n'Don't ye be timid, my dear,' said Mrs Boffin. 'You came in to see us.'\n\n'Oh, no, I didn't,' cried Georgiana. 'It's very impolite, I know, but\nI came to see my poor Sophronia, my only friend. Oh! how I felt the\nseparation, my dear Sophronia, before I knew you were brought low in the\nworld, and how much more I feel it now!'\n\nThere were actually tears in the bold woman's eyes, as the soft-headed\nand soft-hearted girl twined her arms about her neck.\n\n'But I've come on business,' said Georgiana, sobbing and drying her\nface, and then searching in a little reticule, 'and if I don't despatch\nit I shall have come for nothing, and oh good gracious! what would Pa\nsay if he knew of Sackville Street, and what would Ma say if she was\nkept waiting on the doorsteps of that dreadful turban, and there never\nwere such pawing horses as ours unsettling my mind every moment more\nand more when I want more mind than I have got, by pawing up Mr Boffin's\nstreet where they have no business to be. Oh! where is, where is it?\nOh! I can't find it!' All this time sobbing, and searching in the little\nreticule.\n\n'What do you miss, my dear?' asked Mr Boffin, stepping forward.\n\n'Oh! it's little enough,' replied Georgiana, 'because Ma always treats\nme as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I wish I was!), but I hardly\never spend it and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and I\nhope three five-pound notes are better than nothing, though so little,\nso little! And now I have found that--oh, my goodness! there's the other\ngone next! Oh no, it isn't, here it is!'\n\nWith that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgiana\nproduced a necklace.\n\n'Ma says chits and jewels have no business together,' pursued Georgiana,\n'and that's the reason why I have no trinkets except this, but I suppose\nmy aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this,\nthough I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it's\nalways kept in jewellers' cotton. However, here it is, I am thankful\nto say, and of use at last, and you'll sell it, dear Sophronia, and buy\nthings with it.'\n\n'Give it to me,' said Mr Boffin, gently taking it. 'I'll see that it's\nproperly disposed of.'\n\n'Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia's, Mr Boffin?' cried Georgiana.\n'Oh, how good of you! Oh, my gracious! there was something else, and\nit's gone out of my head! Oh no, it isn't, I remember what it was. My\ngrandmamma's property, that'll come to me when I am of age, Mr Boffin,\nwill be all my own, and neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else will have\nany control over it, and what I wish to do it so make some of it over\nsomehow to Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that'll\nprevail on somebody to advance them something. I want them to have\nsomething handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my goodness\nme! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia's, you won't refuse me,\nwill you?'\n\n'No, no,' said Mr Boffin, 'it shall be seen to.'\n\n'Oh, thank you, thank you!' cried Georgiana. 'If my maid had a little\nnote and half a crown, I could run round to the pastrycook's to sign\nsomething, or I could sign something in the Square if somebody would\ncome and cough for me to let 'em in with the key, and would bring a pen\nand ink with 'em and a bit of blotting-paper. Oh, my gracious! I must\ntear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! Dear, dear Sophronia,\ngood, good-bye!'\n\nThe credulous little creature again embraced Mrs Lammle most\naffectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr Lammle.\n\n'Good-bye, dear Mr Lammle--I mean Alfred. You won't think after to-day\nthat I have deserted you and Sophronia because you have been brought low\nin the world, will you? Oh me! oh me! I have been crying my eyes out of\nmy head, and Ma will be sure to ask me what's the matter. Oh, take me\ndown, somebody, please, please, please!'\n\nMr Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with her poor\nlittle red eyes and weak chin peering over the great apron of the\ncustard-coloured phaeton, as if she had been ordered to expiate some\nchildish misdemeanour by going to bed in the daylight, and were peeping\nover the counterpane in a miserable flutter of repentance and low\nspirits. Returning to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs Lammle still\nstanding on her side of the table, and Mr Lammle on his.\n\n'I'll take care,' said Mr Boffin, showing the money and the necklace,\n'that these are soon given back.'\n\nMrs Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, and stood\nsketching with it on the pattern of the damask cloth, as she had\nsketched on the pattern of Mr Twemlow's papered wall.\n\n'You will not undeceive her I hope, Mr Boffin?' she said, turning her\nhead towards him, but not her eyes.\n\n'No,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend,' Mrs Lammle explained,\nin a measured voice, and with an emphasis on her last word.\n\n'No,' he returned. 'I may try to give a hint at her home that she is in\nwant of kind and careful protection, but I shall say no more than that\nto her parents, and I shall say nothing to the young lady herself.'\n\n'Mr and Mrs Boffin,' said Mrs Lammle, still sketching, and seeming to\nbestow great pains upon it, 'there are not many people, I think, who,\nunder the circumstances, would have been so considerate and sparing as\nyou have been to me just now. Do you care to be thanked?'\n\n'Thanks are always worth having,' said Mrs Boffin, in her ready good\nnature.\n\n'Then thank you both.'\n\n'Sophronia,' asked her husband, mockingly, 'are you sentimental?'\n\n'Well, well, my good sir,' Mr Boffin interposed, 'it's a very good\nthing to think well of another person, and it's a very good thing to be\nthought well of BY another person. Mrs Lammle will be none the worse for\nit, if she is.'\n\n'Much obliged. But I asked Mrs Lammle if she was.'\n\nShe stood sketching on the table-cloth, with her face clouded and set,\nand was silent.\n\n'Because,' said Alfred, 'I am disposed to be sentimental myself, on\nyour appropriation of the jewels and the money, Mr Boffin. As our little\nGeorgiana said, three five-pound notes are better than nothing, and if\nyou sell a necklace you can buy things with the produce.'\n\n'IF you sell it,' was Mr Boffin's comment, as he put it in his pocket.\n\nAlfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued the notes\nuntil they vanished into Mr Boffin's waistcoat pocket. Then he directed\na look, half exasperated and half jeering, at his wife. She still stood\nsketching; but, as she sketched, there was a struggle within her, which\nfound expression in the depth of the few last lines the parasol point\nindented into the table-cloth, and then some tears fell from her eyes.\n\n'Why, confound the woman,' exclaimed Lammle, 'she IS sentimental!\n\nShe walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, looked out\nfor a moment, and turned round quite coldly.\n\n'You have had no former cause of complaint on the sentimental score,\nAlfred, and you will have none in future. It is not worth your noticing.\nWe go abroad soon, with the money we have earned here?'\n\n'You know we do; you know we must.'\n\n'There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. I should soon be\neased of it, if I did. But it will be all left behind. It IS all left\nbehind. Are you ready, Alfred?'\n\n'What the deuce have I been waiting for but you, Sophronia?'\n\n'Let us go then. I am sorry I have delayed our dignified departure.'\n\nShe passed out and he followed her. Mr and Mrs Boffin had the curiosity\nsoftly to raise a window and look after them as they went down the long\nstreet. They walked arm-in-arm, showily enough, but without appearing\nto interchange a syllable. It might have been fanciful to suppose that\nunder their outer bearing there was something of the shamed air of two\ncheats who were linked together by concealed handcuffs; but, not so, to\nsuppose that they were haggardly weary of one another, of themselves,\nand of all this world. In turning the street corner they might have\nturned out of this world, for anything Mr and Mrs Boffin ever saw of\nthem to the contrary; for, they set eyes on the Lammles never more.\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nTHE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN\n\n\nThe evening of that day being one of the reading evenings at the Bower,\nMr Boffin kissed Mrs Boffin after a five o'clock dinner, and trotted\nout, nursing his big stick in both arms, so that, as of old, it seemed\nto be whispering in his ear. He carried so very attentive an expression\non his countenance that it appeared as if the confidential discourse of\nthe big stick required to be followed closely. Mr Boffin's face was like\nthe face of a thoughtful listener to an intricate communication, and, in\ntrotting along, he occasionally glanced at that companion with the look\nof a man who was interposing the remark: 'You don't mean it!'\n\nMr Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they arrived at\ncertain cross-ways where they would be likely to fall in with any one\ncoming, at about the same time, from Clerkenwell to the Bower. Here they\nstopped, and Mr Boffin consulted his watch.\n\n'It wants five minutes, good, to Venus's appointment,' said he. 'I'm\nrather early.'\n\nBut Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr Boffin replaced his watch\nin its pocket, was to be descried coming towards him. He quickened his\npace on seeing Mr Boffin already at the place of meeting, and was soon\nat his side.\n\n'Thank'ee, Venus,' said Mr Boffin. 'Thank'ee, thank'ee, thank'ee!'\n\nIt would not have been very evident why he thanked the anatomist, but\nfor his furnishing the explanation in what he went on to say.\n\n'All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you've been to see me, and have\nconsented to keep up the appearance before Wegg of remaining in it for a\ntime, I have got a sort of a backer. All right, Venus. Thank'ee, Venus.\nThank'ee, thank'ee, thank'ee!'\n\nMr Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, and they pursued\nthe direction of the Bower.\n\n'Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me to-night, Venus?'\ninquired Mr Boffin, wistfully, as they went along.\n\n'I think he is, sir.'\n\n'Have you any particular reason for thinking so, Venus?'\n\n'Well, sir,' returned that personage, 'the fact is, he has given me\nanother look-in, to make sure of what he calls our stock-in-trade being\ncorrect, and he has mentioned his intention that he was not to be put\noff beginning with you the very next time you should come. And this,'\nhinted Mr Venus, delicately, 'being the very next time, you know, sir--'\n\n--'Why, therefore you suppose he'll turn to at the grindstone, eh,\nWegg?' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Just so, sir.'\n\nMr Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already excoriated,\nand the sparks were beginning to fly out of that feature. 'He's a\nterrible fellow, Venus; he's an awful fellow. I don't know how ever I\nshall go through with it. You must stand by me, Venus like a good man\nand true. You'll do all you can to stand by me, Venus; won't you?'\n\nMr Venus replied with the assurance that he would; and Mr Boffin,\nlooking anxious and dispirited, pursued the way in silence until they\nrang at the Bower gate. The stumping approach of Wegg was soon heard\nbehind it, and as it turned upon its hinges he became visible with his\nhand on the lock.\n\n'Mr Boffin, sir?' he remarked. 'You're quite a stranger!'\n\n'Yes. I've been otherwise occupied, Wegg.'\n\n'Have you indeed, sir?' returned the literary gentleman, with a\nthreatening sneer. 'Hah! I've been looking for you, sir, rather what I\nmay call specially.'\n\n'You don't say so, Wegg?'\n\n'Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn't come round to me tonight, dash\nmy wig if I wouldn't have come round to you tomorrow. Now! I tell you!'\n\n'Nothing wrong, I hope, Wegg?'\n\n'Oh no, Mr Boffin,' was the ironical answer. 'Nothing wrong! What should\nbe wrong in Boffinses Bower! Step in, sir.'\n\n     '\"If you'll come to the Bower I've shaded for you,\n     Your bed shan't be roses all spangled with doo:\n     Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower?\n     Oh, won't you, won't you, won't you, won't you, come to the\n          Bower?\"'\n\nAn unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the eyes of Mr\nWegg, as he turned the key on his patron, after ushering him into the\nyard with this vocal quotation. Mr Boffin's air was crestfallen and\nsubmissive. Whispered Wegg to Venus, as they crossed the yard behind\nhim: 'Look at the worm and minion; he's down in the mouth already.'\nWhispered Venus to Wegg: 'That's because I've told him. I've prepared\nthe way for you.'\n\nMr Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon the settle\nusually reserved for him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and,\nwith his shoulders raised and his hat drooping back upon them, looking\ndisconsolately at Wegg. 'My friend and partner, Mr Venus, gives me to\nunderstand,' remarked that man of might, addressing him, 'that you are\naware of our power over you. Now, when you have took your hat off, we'll\ngo into that pint.'\n\nMr Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped on the floor\nbehind him, and remained in his former attitude with his former rueful\nlook upon him.\n\n'First of all, I'm a-going to call you Boffin, for short,' said Wegg.\n'If you don't like it, it's open to you to lump it.'\n\n'I don't mind it, Wegg,' Mr Boffin replied.\n\n'That's lucky for you, Boffin. Now, do you want to be read to?'\n\n'I don't particularly care about it to-night, Wegg.'\n\n'Because if you did want to,' pursued Mr Wegg, the brilliancy of whose\npoint was dimmed by his having been unexpectedly answered: 'you wouldn't\nbe. I've been your slave long enough. I'm not to be trampled under-foot\nby a dustman any more. With the single exception of the salary, I\nrenounce the whole and total sitiwation.'\n\n'Since you say it is to be so, Wegg,' returned Mr Boffin, with folded\nhands, 'I suppose it must be.'\n\n'I suppose it must be,' Wegg retorted. 'Next (to clear the ground before\ncoming to business), you've placed in this yard a skulking, a sneaking,\nand a sniffing, menial.'\n\n'He hadn't a cold in his head when I sent him here,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Boffin!' retorted Wegg, 'I warn you not to attempt a joke with me!'\n\nHere Mr Venus interposed, and remarked that he conceived Mr Boffin to\nhave taken the description literally; the rather, forasmuch as he, Mr\nVenus, had himself supposed the menial to have contracted an affliction\nor a habit of the nose, involving a serious drawback on the pleasures of\nsocial intercourse, until he had discovered that Mr Wegg's description\nof him was to be accepted as merely figurative.\n\n'Anyhow, and every how,' said Wegg, 'he has been planted here, and he\nis here. Now, I won't have him here. So I call upon Boffin, before I say\nanother word, to fetch him in and send him packing to the right-about.'\n\nThe unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his many buttons\nwithin view of the window. Mr Boffin, after a short interval of\nimpassive discomfiture, opened the window and beckoned him to come in.\n\n'I call upon Boffin,' said Wegg, with one arm a-kimbo and his head on\none side, like a bullying counsel pausing for an answer from a witness,\n'to inform that menial that I am Master here!'\n\nIn humble obedience, when the button-gleaming Sloppy entered Mr Boffin\nsaid to him: 'Sloppy, my fine fellow, Mr Wegg is Master here. He doesn't\nwant you, and you are to go from here.'\n\n'For good!' Mr Wegg severely stipulated.\n\n'For good,' said Mr Boffin.\n\nSloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and his mouth\nwide open; but was without loss of time escorted forth by Silas Wegg,\npushed out at the yard gate by the shoulders, and locked out.\n\n'The atomspear,' said Wegg, stumping back into the room again, a\nlittle reddened by his late exertion, 'is now freer for the purposes of\nrespiration. Mr Venus, sir, take a chair. Boffin, you may sit down.'\n\nMr Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, sat on\nthe edge of the settle, shrunk into a small compass, and eyed the potent\nSilas with conciliatory looks.\n\n'This gentleman,' said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, 'this gentleman,\nBoffin, is more milk and watery with you than I'll be. But he hasn't\nborne the Roman yoke as I have, nor yet he hasn't been required to\npander to your depraved appetite for miserly characters.'\n\n'I never meant, my dear Wegg--' Mr Boffin was beginning, when Silas\nstopped him.\n\n'Hold your tongue, Boffin! Answer when you're called upon to answer.\nYou'll find you've got quite enough to do. Now, you're aware--are\nyou--that you're in possession of property to which you've no right at\nall? Are you aware of that?'\n\n'Venus tells me so,' said Mr Boffin, glancing towards him for any\nsupport he could give.\n\n'I tell you so,' returned Silas. 'Now, here's my hat, Boffin, and here's\nmy walking-stick. Trifle with me, and instead of making a bargain with\nyou, I'll put on my hat and take up my walking-stick, and go out, and\nmake a bargain with the rightful owner. Now, what do you say?'\n\n'I say,' returned Mr Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed appeal, with his\nhands on his knees, 'that I am sure I don't want to trifle. Wegg. I have\nsaid so to Venus.'\n\n'You certainly have, sir,' said Venus.\n\n'You're too milk and watery with our friend, you are indeed,'\nremonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of his wooden head. 'Then\nat once you confess yourself desirous to come to terms, do you Boffin?\nBefore you answer, keep this hat well in your mind and also this\nwalking-stick.'\n\n'I am willing, Wegg, to come to terms.'\n\n'Willing won't do, Boffin. I won't take willing. Are you desirous to\ncome to terms? Do you ask to be allowed as a favour to come to terms?'\nMr Wegg again planted his arm, and put his head on one side.\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Yes what?' said the inexorable Wegg: 'I won't take yes. I'll have it\nout of you in full, Boffin.'\n\n'Dear me!' cried that unfortunate gentleman. 'I am so worrited! I ask to\nbe allowed to come to terms, supposing your document is all correct.'\n\n'Don't you be afraid of that,' said Silas, poking his head at him. 'You\nshall be satisfied by seeing it. Mr Venus will show it you, and I'll\nhold you the while. Then you want to know what the terms are. Is\nthat about the sum and substance of it? Will you or won't you answer,\nBoffin?' For he had paused a moment.\n\n'Dear me!' cried that unfortunate gentleman again, 'I am worrited to\nthat degree that I'm almost off my head. You hurry me so. Be so good as\nname the terms, Wegg.'\n\n'Now, mark, Boffin,' returned Silas: 'Mark 'em well, because they're\nthe lowest terms and the only terms. You'll throw your Mound (the little\nMound as comes to you any way) into the general estate, and then you'll\ndivide the whole property into three parts, and you'll keep one and hand\nover the others.'\n\nMr Venus's mouth screwed itself up, as Mr Boffin's face lengthened\nitself, Mr Venus not having been prepared for such a rapacious demand.\n\n'Now, wait a bit, Boffin,' Wegg proceeded, 'there's something more.\nYou've been a squandering this property--laying some of it out on\nyourself. THAT won't do. You've bought a house. You'll be charged for\nit.'\n\n'I shall be ruined, Wegg!' Mr Boffin faintly protested.\n\n'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. You'll leave me in\nsole custody of these Mounds till they're all laid low. If any waluables\nshould be found in 'em, I'll take care of such waluables. You'll produce\nyour contract for the sale of the Mounds, that we may know to a penny\nwhat they're worth, and you'll make out likewise an exact list of\nall the other property. When the Mounds is cleared away to the last\nshovel-full, the final diwision will come off.'\n\n'Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! I shall die in a workhouse!' cried the\nGolden Dustman, with his hands to his head.\n\n'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. You've been unlawfully\nferreting about this yard. You've been seen in the act of ferreting\nabout this yard. Two pair of eyes at the present moment brought to bear\nupon you, have seen you dig up a Dutch bottle.'\n\n'It was mine, Wegg,' protested Mr Boffin. 'I put it there myself.'\n\n'What was in it, Boffin?' inquired Silas.\n\n'Not gold, not silver, not bank notes, not jewels, nothing that you\ncould turn into money, Wegg; upon my soul!'\n\n'Prepared, Mr Venus,' said Wegg, turning to his partner with a knowing\nand superior air, 'for an ewasive answer on the part of our dusty friend\nhere, I have hit out a little idea which I think will meet your views.\nWe charge that bottle against our dusty friend at a thousand pound.'\n\nMr Boffin drew a deep groan.\n\n'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. In your employment\nis an under-handed sneak, named Rokesmith. It won't answer to have HIM\nabout, while this business of ours is about. He must be discharged.'\n\n'Rokesmith is already discharged,' said Mr Boffin, speaking in a muffled\nvoice, with his hands before his face, as he rocked himself on the\nsettle.\n\n'Already discharged, is he?' returned Wegg, surprised. 'Oh! Then,\nBoffin, I believe there's nothing more at present.'\n\nThe unlucky gentleman continuing to rock himself to and fro, and to\nutter an occasional moan, Mr Venus besought him to bear up against his\nreverses, and to take time to accustom himself to the thought of his new\nposition. But, his taking time was exactly the thing of all others that\nSilas Wegg could not be induced to hear of. 'Yes or no, and no half\nmeasures!' was the motto which that obdurate person many times repeated;\nshaking his fist at Mr Boffin, and pegging his motto into the floor with\nhis wooden leg, in a threatening and alarming manner.\n\nAt length, Mr Boffin entreated to be allowed a quarter of an hour's\ngrace, and a cooling walk of that duration in the yard. With some\ndifficulty Mr Wegg granted this great favour, but only on condition\nthat he accompanied Mr Boffin in his walk, as not knowing what he might\nfraudulently unearth if he were left to himself. A more absurd sight\nthan Mr Boffin in his mental irritation trotting very nimbly, and Mr\nWegg hopping after him with great exertion, eager to watch the slightest\nturn of an eyelash, lest it should indicate a spot rich with some\nsecret, assuredly had never been seen in the shadow of the Mounds. Mr\nWegg was much distressed when the quarter of an hour expired, and came\nhopping in, a very bad second.\n\n'I can't help myself!' cried Mr Boffin, flouncing on the settle in a\nforlorn manner, with his hands deep in his pockets, as if his pockets\nhad sunk. 'What's the good of my pretending to stand out, when I can't\nhelp myself? I must give in to the terms. But I should like to see the\ndocument.'\n\nWegg, who was all for clinching the nail he had so strongly driven home,\nannounced that Boffin should see it without an hour's delay. Taking him\ninto custody for that purpose, or overshadowing him as if he really were\nhis Evil Genius in visible form, Mr Wegg clapped Mr Boffin's hat\nupon the back of his head, and walked him out by the arm, asserting a\nproprietorship over his soul and body that was at once more grim and\nmore ridiculous than anything in Mr Venus's rare collection. That\nlight-haired gentleman followed close upon their heels, at least backing\nup Mr Boffin in a literal sense, if he had not had recent opportunities\nof doing so spiritually; while Mr Boffin, trotting on as hard as he\ncould trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions with the public,\nmuch as a pre-occupied blind man's dog may be seen to involve his\nmaster.\n\nThus they reached Mr Venus's establishment, somewhat heated by the\nnature of their progress thither. Mr Wegg, especially, was in a flaming\nglow, and stood in the little shop, panting and mopping his head with\nhis pocket-handkerchief, speechless for several minutes.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight it out in\nhis absence by candlelight for the public delectation, put the shutters\nup. When all was snug, and the shop-door fastened, he said to the\nperspiring Silas: 'I suppose, Mr Wegg, we may now produce the paper?'\n\n'Hold on a minute, sir,' replied that discreet character; 'hold on a\nminute. Will you obligingly shove that box--which you mentioned on a\nformer occasion as containing miscellanies--towards me in the midst of\nthe shop here?'\n\nMr Venus did as he was asked.\n\n'Very good,' said Silas, looking about: 've--ry good. Will you hand me\nthat chair, sir, to put a-top of it?'\n\nVenus handed him the chair.\n\n'Now, Boffin,' said Wegg, 'mount up here and take your seat, will you?'\n\nMr Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, or to be\nelectrified, or to be made a Freemason, or to be placed at any other\nsolitary disadvantage, ascended the rostrum prepared for him.\n\n'Now, Mr Venus,' said Silas, taking off his coat, 'when I catches our\nfriend here round the arms and body, and pins him tight to the back of\nthe chair, you may show him what he wants to see. If you'll open it and\nhold it well up in one hand, sir, and a candle in the other, he can read\nit charming.'\n\nMr Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these precautionary\narrangements, but, being immediately embraced by Wegg, resigned himself.\nVenus then produced the document, and Mr Boffin slowly spelt it out\naloud: so very slowly, that Wegg, who was holding him in the chair\nwith the grip of a wrestler, became again exceedingly the worse for his\nexertions. 'Say when you've put it safe back, Mr Venus,' he uttered with\ndifficulty, 'for the strain of this is terrimenjious.'\n\nAt length the document was restored to its place; and Wegg, whose\nuncomfortable attitude had been that of a very persevering man\nunsuccessfully attempting to stand upon his head, took a seat to recover\nhimself. Mr Boffin, for his part, made no attempt to come down, but\nremained aloft disconsolate.\n\n'Well, Boffin!' said Wegg, as soon as he was in a condition to speak.\n'Now, you know.'\n\n'Yes, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, meekly. 'Now, I know.'\n\n'You have no doubts about it, Boffin.'\n\n'No, Wegg. No, Wegg. None,' was the slow and sad reply.\n\n'Then, take care, you,' said Wegg, 'that you stick to your conditions.\nMr Venus, if on this auspicious occasion, you should happen to have a\ndrop of anything not quite so mild as tea in the 'ouse, I think I'd take\nthe friendly liberty of asking you for a specimen of it.'\n\nMr Venus, reminded of the duties of hospitality, produced some rum.\nIn answer to the inquiry, 'Will you mix it, Mr Wegg?' that gentleman\npleasantly rejoined, 'I think not, sir. On so auspicious an occasion, I\nprefer to take it in the form of a Gum-Tickler.'\n\nMr Boffin, declining rum, being still elevated on his pedestal, was in\na convenient position to be addressed. Wegg having eyed him with an\nimpudent air at leisure, addressed him, therefore, while refreshing\nhimself with his dram.\n\n'Bof--fin!'\n\n'Yes, Wegg,' he answered, coming out of a fit of abstraction, with a\nsigh.\n\n'I haven't mentioned one thing, because it's a detail that comes of\ncourse. You must be followed up, you know. You must be kept under\ninspection.'\n\n'I don't quite understand,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Don't you?' sneered Wegg. 'Where's your wits, Boffin? Till the Mounds\nis down and this business completed, you're accountable for all the\nproperty, recollect. Consider yourself accountable to me. Mr Venus here\nbeing too milk and watery with you, I am the boy for you.'\n\n'I've been a-thinking,' said Mr Boffin, in a tone of despondency, 'that\nI must keep the knowledge from my old lady.'\n\n'The knowledge of the diwision, d'ye mean?' inquired Wegg, helping\nhimself to a third Gum-Tickler--for he had already taken a second.\n\n'Yes. If she was to die first of us two she might then think all her\nlife, poor thing, that I had got the rest of the fortune still, and was\nsaving it.'\n\n'I suspect, Boffin,' returned Wegg, shaking his head sagaciously, and\nbestowing a wooden wink upon him, 'that you've found out some account\nof some old chap, supposed to be a Miser, who got himself the credit of\nhaving much more money than he had. However, I don't mind.'\n\n'Don't you see, Wegg?' Mr Boffin feelingly represented to him: 'don't\nyou see? My old lady has got so used to the property. It would be such a\nhard surprise.'\n\n'I don't see it at all,' blustered Wegg. 'You'll have as much as I\nshall. And who are you?'\n\n'But then, again,' Mr Boffin gently represented; 'my old lady has very\nupright principles.'\n\n'Who's your old lady,' returned Wegg, 'to set herself up for having\nuprighter principles than mine?'\n\nMr Boffin seemed a little less patient at this point than at any other\nof the negotiations. But he commanded himself, and said tamely enough:\n'I think it must be kept from my old lady, Wegg.'\n\n'Well,' said Wegg, contemptuously, though, perhaps, perceiving some hint\nof danger otherwise, 'keep it from your old lady. I ain't going to tell\nher. I can have you under close inspection without that. I'm as good a\nman as you, and better. Ask me to dinner. Give me the run of your 'ouse.\nI was good enough for you and your old lady once, when I helped you out\nwith your weal and hammers. Was there no Miss Elizabeth, Master George,\nAunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, before YOU two?'\n\n'Gently, Mr Wegg, gently,' Venus urged.\n\n'Milk and water-erily you mean, sir,' he returned, with some little\nthickness of speech, in consequence of the Gum-Ticklers having tickled\nit. 'I've got him under inspection, and I'll inspect him.\n\n     \"Along the line the signal ran\n     England expects as this present man\n     Will keep Boffin to his duty.\"\n\n--Boffin, I'll see you home.'\n\nMr Boffin descended with an air of resignation, and gave himself up,\nafter taking friendly leave of Mr Venus. Once more, Inspector and\nInspected went through the streets together, and so arrived at Mr\nBoffin's door.\n\nBut even there, when Mr Boffin had given his keeper good-night, and had\nlet himself in with his key, and had softly closed the door, even there\nand then, the all-powerful Silas must needs claim another assertion of\nhis newly-asserted power.\n\n'Bof--fin!' he called through the keyhole.\n\n'Yes, Wegg,' was the reply through the same channel.\n\n'Come out. Show yourself again. Let's have another look at you!'\nMr Boffin--ah, how fallen from the high estate of his honest\nsimplicity!--opened the door and obeyed.\n\n'Go in. You may get to bed now,' said Wegg, with a grin.\n\nThe door was hardly closed, when he again called through the keyhole:\n'Bof--fin!'\n\n'Yes, Wegg.'\n\nThis time Silas made no reply, but laboured with a will at turning an\nimaginary grindstone outside the keyhole, while Mr Boffin stooped at it\nwithin; he then laughed silently, and stumped home.\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nA RUNAWAY MATCH\n\n\nCherubic Pa arose with as little noise as possible from beside majestic\nMa, one morning early, having a holiday before him. Pa and the lovely\nwoman had a rather particular appointment to keep.\n\nYet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. Bella was up\nbefore four, but had no bonnet on. She was waiting at the foot of the\nstairs--was sitting on the bottom stair, in fact--to receive Pa when he\ncame down, but her only object seemed to be to get Pa well out of the\nhouse.\n\n'Your breakfast is ready, sir,' whispered Bella, after greeting him with\na hug, 'and all you have to do, is, to eat it up and drink it up, and\nescape. How do you feel, Pa?'\n\n'To the best of my judgement, like a housebreaker new to the business,\nmy dear, who can't make himself quite comfortable till he is off the\npremises.'\n\nBella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and they went\ndown to the kitchen on tiptoe; she stopping on every separate stair to\nput the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on his\nlips, according to her favourite petting way of kissing Pa.\n\n'How do YOU feel, my love?' asked R. W., as she gave him his breakfast.\n\n'I feel as if the Fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, and the fair\nlittle man was turning out as was predicted.'\n\n'Ho! Only the fair little man?' said her father.\n\nBella put another of those finger-seals upon his lips, and then said,\nkneeling down by him as he sat at table: 'Now, look here, sir. If you\nkeep well up to the mark this day, what do you think you deserve?\nWhat did I promise you should have, if you were good, upon a certain\noccasion?'\n\n'Upon my word I don't remember, Precious. Yes, I do, though. Wasn't\nit one of these beau--tiful tresses?' with his caressing hand upon her\nhair.\n\n'Wasn't it, too!' returned Bella, pretending to pout. 'Upon my word! Do\nyou know, sir, that the Fortune-teller would give five thousand guineas\n(if it was quite convenient to him, which it isn't) for the lovely piece\nI have cut off for you? You can form no idea, sir, of the number of\ntimes he kissed quite a scrubby little piece--in comparison--that I cut\noff for HIM. And he wears it, too, round his neck, I can tell you! Near\nhis heart!' said Bella, nodding. 'Ah! very near his heart! However, you\nhave been a good, good boy, and you are the best of all the dearest boys\nthat ever were, this morning, and here's the chain I have made of\nit, Pa, and you must let me put it round your neck with my own loving\nhands.'\n\nAs Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then said (after\nhaving stopped to dry her eyes on his white waistcoat, the discovery of\nwhich incongruous circumstance made her laugh): 'Now, darling Pa,\ngive me your hands that I may fold them together, and do you say after\nme:--My little Bella.'\n\n'My little Bella,' repeated Pa.\n\n'I am very fond of you.'\n\n'I am very fond of you, my darling,' said Pa.\n\n'You mustn't say anything not dictated to you, sir. You daren't do it in\nyour responses at Church, and you mustn't do it in your responses out of\nChurch.'\n\n'I withdraw the darling,' said Pa.\n\n'That's a pious boy! Now again:--You were always--'\n\n'You were always,' repeated Pa.\n\n'A vexatious--'\n\n'No you weren't,' said Pa.\n\n'A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless,\ntroublesome, Animal; but I hope you'll do better in the time to come,\nand I bless you and forgive you!' Here, she quite forgot that it was\nPa's turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck. 'Dear Pa, if you\nknew how much I think this morning of what you told me once, about the\nfirst time of our seeing old Mr Harmon, when I stamped and screamed\nand beat you with my detestable little bonnet! I feel as if I had been\nstamping and screaming and beating you with my hateful little bonnet,\never since I was born, darling!'\n\n'Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always been nice\nbonnets, for they have always become you--or you have become them;\nperhaps it was that--at every age.'\n\n'Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?' asked Bella, laughing\n(notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic pleasure in the\npicture, 'when I beat you with my bonnet?'\n\n'No, my child. Wouldn't have hurt a fly!'\n\n'Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn't have beat you at all, unless I had\nmeant to hurt you,' said Bella. 'Did I pinch your legs, Pa?'\n\n'Not much, my dear; but I think it's almost time I--'\n\n'Oh, yes!' cried Bella. 'If I go on chattering, you'll be taken alive.\nFly, Pa, fly!'\n\nSo, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella with\nher light hand softly removed the fastenings of the house door, and Pa,\nhaving received a parting hug, made off. When he had gone a little way,\nhe looked back. Upon which, Bella set another of those finger seals upon\nthe air, and thrust out her little foot expressive of the mark. Pa, in\nappropriate action, expressed fidelity to the mark, and made off as fast\nas he could go.\n\nBella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and more, and then,\nreturning to the bedroom where Lavvy the Irrepressible still slumbered,\nput on a little bonnet of quiet, but on the whole of sly appearance,\nwhich she had yesterday made. 'I am going for a walk, Lavvy,' she said,\nas she stooped down and kissed her. The Irrepressible, with a bounce in\nthe bed, and a remark that it wasn't time to get up yet, relapsed into\nunconsciousness, if she had come out of it.\n\nBehold Bella tripping along the streets, the dearest girl afoot under\nthe summer sun! Behold Pa waiting for Bella behind a pump, at least\nthree miles from the parental roof-tree. Behold Bella and Pa aboard an\nearly steamboat for Greenwich.\n\nWere they expected at Greenwich? Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith\nwas on the pier looking out, about a couple of hours before the coaly\n(but to him gold-dusty) little steamboat got her steam up in London.\nProbably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith seemed perfectly satisfied when\nhe descried them on board. Probably. At least, Bella no sooner stepped\nashore than she took Mr John Rokesmith's arm, without evincing surprise,\nand the two walked away together with an ethereal air of happiness\nwhich, as it were, wafted up from the earth and drew after them a gruff\nand glum old pensioner to see it out. Two wooden legs had this gruff and\nglum old pensioner, and, a minute before Bella stepped out of the boat,\nand drew that confiding little arm of hers through Rokesmith's, he had\nhad no object in life but tobacco, and not enough of that. Stranded was\nGruff and Glum in a harbour of everlasting mud, when all in an instant\nBella floated him, and away he went.\n\nSay, cherubic parent taking the lead, in what direction do we steer\nfirst? With some such inquiry in his thoughts, Gruff and Glum, stricken\nby so sudden an interest that he perked his neck and looked over the\nintervening people, as if he were trying to stand on tiptoe with his two\nwooden legs, took an observation of R. W. There was no 'first' in the\ncase, Gruff and Glum made out; the cherubic parent was bearing down and\ncrowding on direct for Greenwich church, to see his relations.\n\nFor, Gruff and Glum, though most events acted on him simply as\ntobacco-stoppers, pressing down and condensing the quids within him,\nmight be imagined to trace a family resemblance between the cherubs in\nthe church architecture, and the cherub in the white waistcoat. Some\nremembrance of old Valentines, wherein a cherub, less appropriately\nattired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had been seen conducting\nlovers to the altar, might have been fancied to inflame the ardour of\nhis timber toes. Be it as it might, he gave his moorings the slip, and\nfollowed in chase.\n\nThe cherub went before, all beaming smiles; Bella and John Rokesmith\nfollowed; Gruff and Glum stuck to them like wax. For years, the wings\nof his mind had gone to look after the legs of his body; but Bella had\nbrought them back for him per steamer, and they were spread again.\n\nHe was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took a cross cut\nfor the rendezvous, and pegged away as if he were scoring furiously\nat cribbage. When the shadow of the church-porch swallowed them up,\nvictorious Gruff and Glum likewise presented himself to be swallowed up.\nAnd by this time the cherubic parent was so fearful of surprise, that,\nbut for the two wooden legs on which Gruff and Glum was reassuringly\nmounted, his conscience might have introduced, in the person of that\npensioner, his own stately lady disguised, arrived at Greenwich in a\ncar and griffins, like the spiteful Fairy at the christenings of the\nPrincesses, to do something dreadful to the marriage service. And truly\nhe had a momentary reason to be pale of face, and to whisper to Bella,\n'You don't think that can be your Ma; do you, my dear?' on account of\na mysterious rustling and a stealthy movement somewhere in the remote\nneighbourhood of the organ, though it was gone directly and was heard no\nmore. Albeit it was heard of afterwards, as will afterwards be read in\nthis veracious register of marriage.\n\nWho taketh? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth? I, R. W. Forasmuch,\nGruff and Glum, as John and Bella have consented together in holy\nwedlock, you may (in short) consider it done, and withdraw your two\nwooden legs from this temple. To the foregoing purport, the Minister\nspeaking, as directed by the Rubric, to the People, selectly represented\nin the present instance by G. and G. above mentioned.\n\nAnd now, the church-porch having swallowed up Bella Wilfer for ever and\never, had it not in its power to relinquish that young woman, but slid\ninto the happy sunlight, Mrs John Rokesmith instead. And long on the\nbright steps stood Gruff and Glum, looking after the pretty bride, with\na narcotic consciousness of having dreamed a dream.\n\nAfter which, Bella took out from her pocket a little letter, and read it\naloud to Pa and John; this being a true copy of the same.\n\n\n'DEAREST MA,\n\nI hope you won't be angry, but I am most happily married to Mr John\nRokesmith, who loves me better than I can ever deserve, except by loving\nhim with all my heart. I thought it best not to mention it beforehand,\nin case it should cause any little difference at home. Please tell\ndarling Pa. With love to Lavvy,\n\nEver dearest Ma, Your affectionate daughter, BELLA (P.S.--Rokesmith).'\n\n\nThen, John Rokesmith put the queen's countenance on the letter--when had\nHer Gracious Majesty looked so benign as on that blessed morning!--and\nthen Bella popped it into the post-office, and said merrily, 'Now,\ndearest Pa, you are safe, and will never be taken alive!'\n\nPa was, at first, in the stirred depths of his conscience, so far from\nsure of being safe yet, that he made out majestic matrons lurking in\nambush among the harmless trees of Greenwich Park, and seemed to see a\nstately countenance tied up in a well-known pocket-handkerchief glooming\ndown at him from a window of the Observatory, where the Familiars of the\nAstronomer Royal nightly outwatch the winking stars. But, the minutes\npassing on and no Mrs Wilfer in the flesh appearing, he became more\nconfident, and so repaired with good heart and appetite to Mr and Mrs\nJohn Rokesmith's cottage on Blackheath, where breakfast was ready.\n\nA modest little cottage but a bright and a fresh, and on the snowy\ntablecloth the prettiest of little breakfasts. In waiting, too, like\nan attendant summer breeze, a fluttering young damsel, all pink and\nribbons, blushing as if she had been married instead of Bella, and yet\nasserting the triumph of her sex over both John and Pa, in an exulting\nand exalted flurry: as who should say, 'This is what you must all come\nto, gentlemen, when we choose to bring you to book.' This same young\ndamsel was Bella's serving-maid, and unto her did deliver a bunch of\nkeys, commanding treasures in the way of dry-saltery, groceries, jams\nand pickles, the investigation of which made pastime after breakfast,\nwhen Bella declared that 'Pa must taste everything, John dear, or it\nwill never be lucky,' and when Pa had all sorts of things poked into\nhis mouth, and didn't quite know what to do with them when they were put\nthere.\n\nThen they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a charming stroll\namong heath in bloom, and there behold the identical Gruff and Glum with\nhis wooden legs horizontally disposed before him, apparently sitting\nmeditating on the vicissitudes of life! To whom said Bella, in her\nlight-hearted surprise: 'Oh! How do you do again? What a dear old\npensioner you are!' To which Gruff and Glum responded that he see her\nmarried this morning, my Beauty, and that if it warn't a liberty he\nwished her ji and the fairest of fair wind and weather; further, in a\ngeneral way requesting to know what cheer? and scrambling up on his two\nwooden legs to salute, hat in hand, ship-shape, with the gallantry of a\nman-of-warsman and a heart of oak.\n\nIt was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see this\nsalt old Gruff and Glum, waving his shovel hat at Bella, while his thin\nwhite hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched him into blue\nwater again. 'You are a charming old pensioner,' said Bella, 'and I am\nso happy that I wish I could make you happy, too.' Answered Gruff and\nGlum, 'Give me leave to kiss your hand, my Lovely, and it's done!' So it\nwas done to the general contentment; and if Gruff and Glum didn't in the\ncourse of the afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want of\nthe means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bands\nof Hope.\n\nBut, the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for what had bride\nand bridegroom plotted to do, but to have and to hold that dinner in the\nvery room of the very hotel where Pa and the lovely woman had once dined\ntogether! Bella sat between Pa and John, and divided her attentions\npretty equally, but felt it necessary (in the waiter's absence before\ndinner) to remind Pa that she was HIS lovely woman no longer.\n\n'I am well aware of it, my dear,' returned the cherub, 'and I resign you\nwillingly.'\n\n'Willingly, sir? You ought to be brokenhearted.'\n\n'So I should be, my dear, if I thought that I was going to lose you.'\n\n'But you know you are not; don't you, poor dear Pa? You know that you\nhave only made a new relation who will be as fond of you and as thankful\nto you--for my sake and your own sake both--as I am; don't you, dear\nlittle Pa? Look here, Pa!' Bella put her finger on her own lip, and then\non Pa's, and then on her own lip again, and then on her husband's. 'Now,\nwe are a partnership of three, dear Pa.'\n\nThe appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of her\ndisappearances: the more effectually, because it was put on under the\nauspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, who\nlooked much more like a clergyman than THE clergyman, and seemed to\nhave mounted a great deal higher in the church: not to say, scaled the\nsteeple. This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith on\nthe subject of punch and wines, bent his head as though stooping to\nthe Papistical practice of receiving auricular confession. Likewise,\non John's offering a suggestion which didn't meet his views, his face\nbecame overcast and reproachful, as enjoining penance.\n\nWhat a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea, surely\nhad swum their way to it, and if samples of the fishes of divers\ncolours that made a speech in the Arabian Nights (quite a ministerial\nexplanation in respect of cloudiness), and then jumped out of the\nfrying-pan, were not to be recognized, it was only because they had all\nbecome of one hue by being cooked in batter among the whitebait. And the\ndishes being seasoned with Bliss--an article which they are sometimes\nout of, at Greenwich--were of perfect flavour, and the golden drinks\nhad been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever\nsince.\n\nThe best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had made a\ncovenant that they would not reveal to mortal eyes any appearance\nwhatever of being a wedding party. Now, the supervising dignitary, the\nArchbishop of Greenwich, knew this as well as if he had performed the\nnuptial ceremony. And the loftiness with which his Grace entered into\ntheir confidence without being invited, and insisted on a show\nof keeping the waiters out of it, was the crowning glory of the\nentertainment.\n\nThere was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with weakish\nlegs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiterhood, and but too evidently\nof a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not too much to add\nhopelessly) in love with some young female not aware of his merit.\nThis guileless youth, descrying the position of affairs, which even\nhis innocence could not mistake, limited his waiting to languishing\nadmiringly against the sideboard when Bella didn't want anything, and\nswooping at her when she did. Him, his Grace the Archbishop perpetually\nobstructed, cutting him out with his elbow in the moment of success,\ndespatching him in degrading quest of melted butter, and, when by any\nchance he got hold of any dish worth having, bereaving him of it, and\nordering him to stand back.\n\n'Pray excuse him, madam,' said the Archbishop in a low stately voice;\n'he is a very young man on liking, and we DON'T like him.'\n\nThis induced John Rokesmith to observe--by way of making the thing more\nnatural--'Bella, my love, this is so much more successful than any\nof our past anniversaries, that I think we must keep our future\nanniversaries here.'\n\nWhereunto Bella replied, with probably the least successful attempt at\nlooking matronly that ever was seen: 'Indeed, I think so, John, dear.'\n\nHere the Archbishop of Greenwich coughed a stately cough to attract the\nattention of three of his ministers present, and staring at them, seemed\nto say: 'I call upon you by your fealty to believe this!'\n\nWith his own hands he afterwards put on the dessert, as remarking to the\nthree guests, 'The period has now arrived at which we can dispense with\nthe assistance of those fellows who are not in our confidence,' and\nwould have retired with complete dignity but for a daring action issuing\nfrom the misguided brain of the young man on liking. He finding, by\nill-fortune, a piece of orange flower somewhere in the lobbies now\napproached undetected with the same in a finger-glass, and placed it on\nBella's right hand. The Archbishop instantly ejected and excommunicated\nhim; but the thing was done.\n\n'I trust, madam,' said his Grace, returning alone, 'that you will have\nthe kindness to overlook it, in consideration of its being the act of a\nvery young man who is merely here on liking, and who will never answer.'\n\nWith that, he solemnly bowed and retired, and they all burst into\nlaughter, long and merry. 'Disguise is of no use,' said Bella; 'they\nall find me out; I think it must be, Pa and John dear, because I look so\nhappy!'\n\nHer husband feeling it necessary at this point to demand one of those\nmysterious disappearances on Bella's part, she dutifully obeyed; saying\nin a softened voice from her place of concealment:\n\n'You remember how we talked about the ships that day, Pa?'\n\n'Yes, my dear.'\n\n'Isn't it strange, now, to think that there was no John in all the\nships, Pa?'\n\n'Not at all, my dear.'\n\n'Oh, Pa! Not at all?'\n\n'No, my dear. How can we tell what coming people are aboard the ships\nthat may be sailing to us now from the unknown seas!'\n\nBella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained at his\ndessert and wine, until he remembered it was time for him to get home to\nHolloway. 'Though I positively cannot tear myself away,' he cherubically\nadded, '--it would be a sin--without drinking to many, many happy\nreturns of this most happy day.'\n\n'Here! ten thousand times!' cried John. 'I fill my glass and my precious\nwife's.'\n\n'Gentlemen,' said the cherub, inaudibly addressing, in his Anglo-Saxon\ntendency to throw his feelings into the form of a speech, the boys down\nbelow, who were bidding against each other to put their heads in the mud\nfor sixpence: 'Gentlemen--and Bella and John--you will readily suppose\nthat it is not my intention to trouble you with many observations on the\npresent occasion. You will also at once infer the nature and even\nthe terms of the toast I am about to propose on the present occasion.\nGentlemen--and Bella and John--the present occasion is an occasion\nfraught with feelings that I cannot trust myself to express. But\ngentlemen--and Bella and John--for the part I have had in it, for the\nconfidence you have placed in me, and for the affectionate good-nature\nand kindness with which you have determined not to find me in the way,\nwhen I am well aware that I cannot be otherwise than in it more or less,\nI do most heartily thank you. Gentlemen--and Bella and John--my love\nto you, and may we meet, as on the present occasion, on many future\noccasions; that is to say, gentlemen--and Bella and John--on many happy\nreturns of the present happy occasion.'\n\nHaving thus concluded his address, the amiable cherub embraced his\ndaughter, and took his flight to the steamboat which was to convey him\nto London, and was then lying at the floating pier, doing its best to\nbump the same to bits. But, the happy couple were not going to part with\nhim in that way, and before he had been on board two minutes, there they\nwere, looking down at him from the wharf above.\n\n'Pa, dear!' cried Bella, beckoning him with her parasol to approach the\nside, and bending gracefully to whisper.\n\n'Yes, my darling.'\n\n'Did I beat you much with that horrid little bonnet, Pa?'\n\n'Nothing to speak of; my dear.'\n\n'Did I pinch your legs, Pa?'\n\n'Only nicely, my pet.'\n\n'You are sure you quite forgive me, Pa? Please, Pa, please, forgive me\nquite!' Half laughing at him and half crying to him, Bella besought him\nin the prettiest manner; in a manner so engaging and so playful and\nso natural, that her cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she had\nnever grown up, and said, 'What a silly little Mouse it is!'\n\n'But you do forgive me that, and everything else; don't you, Pa?'\n\n'Yes, my dearest.'\n\n'And you don't feel solitary or neglected, going away by yourself; do\nyou, Pa?'\n\n'Lord bless you! No, my Life!'\n\n'Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!'\n\n'Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. Take her home!'\n\nSo, she leaning on her husband's arm, they turned homeward by a rosy\npath which the gracious sun struck out for them in its setting. And O\nthere are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a\nbright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes\nthe world go round!\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nCONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE\n\n\nThe impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received her husband on his\nreturn from the wedding, knocked so hard at the door of the cherubic\nconscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs,\nthat the culprit's tottering condition of mind and body might have\nroused suspicion in less occupied persons that the grimly heroic lady,\nMiss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson.\nBut, the attention of all three being fully possessed by the main\nfact of the marriage, they had happily none to bestow on the guilty\nconspirator; to which fortunate circumstance he owed the escape for\nwhich he was in nowise indebted to himself.\n\n'You do not, R. W.' said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, 'inquire\nfor your daughter Bella.'\n\n'To be sure, my dear,' he returned, with a most flagrant assumption of\nunconsciousness, 'I did omit it. How--or perhaps I should rather say\nwhere--IS Bella?'\n\n'Not here,' Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms.\n\nThe cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of 'Oh,\nindeed, my dear!'\n\n'Not here,' repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. 'In a word,\nR. W., you have no daughter Bella.'\n\n'No daughter Bella, my dear?'\n\n'No. Your daughter Bella,' said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of never\nhaving had the least copartnership in that young lady: of whom she now\nmade reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband had\nset up entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to her\nadvice: '--your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant.'\n\n'Good gracious, my dear!'\n\n'Show your father his daughter Bella's letter, Lavinia,' said Mrs\nWilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, and waving her hand.\n'I think your father will admit it to be documentary proof of what I\ntell him. I believe your father is acquainted with his daughter Bella's\nwriting. But I do not know. He may tell you he is not. Nothing will\nsurprise me.'\n\n'Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,' said the Irrepressible,\nflouncing at her father in handing him the evidence. 'Hopes Ma won't be\nangry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, and didn't mention\nit beforehand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and love\nto me, and I should like to know what you'd have said if any other\nunmarried member of the family had done it!'\n\nHe read the letter, and faintly exclaimed 'Dear me!'\n\n'You may well say Dear me!' rejoined Mrs Wilfer, in a deep tone. Upon\nwhich encouragement he said it again, though scarcely with the success\nhe had expected; for the scornful lady then remarked, with extreme\nbitterness: 'You said that before.'\n\n'It's very surprising. But I suppose, my dear,' hinted the cherub, as he\nfolded the letter after a disconcerting silence, 'that we must make the\nbest of it? Would you object to my pointing out, my dear, that Mr\nJohn Rokesmith is not (so far as I am acquainted with him), strictly\nspeaking, a Mendicant.'\n\n'Indeed?' returned Mrs Wilfer, with an awful air of politeness. 'Truly\nso? I was not aware that Mr John Rokesmith was a gentleman of landed\nproperty. But I am much relieved to hear it.'\n\n'I doubt if you HAVE heard it, my dear,' the cherub submitted with\nhesitation.\n\n'Thank you,' said Mrs Wilfer. 'I make false statements, it appears? So\nbe it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The one\nthing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the\narrangement. By all means!' Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a\ndeadly cheerfulness.\n\nBut, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging the\nreluctant form of Mr Sampson after her.\n\n'Ma,' interposed the young lady, 'I must say I think it would be much\nbetter if you would keep to the point, and not hold forth about\npeople's flying into people's faces, which is nothing more nor less than\nimpossible nonsense.'\n\n'How!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, knitting her dark brows.\n\n'Just im-possible nonsense, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'and George Sampson\nknows it is, as well as I do.'\n\nMrs Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes upon\nthe wretched George: who, divided between the support due from him to\nhis love, and the support due from him to his love's mamma, supported\nnobody, not even himself.\n\n'The true point is,' pursued Lavinia, 'that Bella has behaved in a most\nunsisterly way to me, and might have severely compromised me with George\nand with George's family, by making off and getting married in this very\nlow and disreputable manner--with some pew-opener or other, I suppose,\nfor a bridesmaid--when she ought to have confided in me, and ought\nto have said, \"If, Lavvy, you consider it due to your engagement with\nGeorge, that you should countenance the occasion by being present, then\nLavvy, I beg you to BE present, keeping my secret from Ma and Pa.\" As of\ncourse I should have done.'\n\n'As of course you would have done? Ingrate!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer.\n'Viper!'\n\n'I say! You know ma'am. Upon my honour you mustn't,' Mr Sampson\nremonstrated, shaking his head seriously, 'With the highest respect for\nyou, ma'am, upon my life you mustn't. No really, you know. When a man\nwith the feelings of a gentleman finds himself engaged to a young lady,\nand it comes (even on the part of a member of the family) to vipers, you\nknow!--I would merely put it to your own good feeling, you know,' said\nMr Sampson, in rather lame conclusion.\n\nMrs Wilfer's baleful stare at the young gentleman in acknowledgment of\nhis obliging interference was of such a nature that Miss Lavinia burst\ninto tears, and caught him round the neck for his protection.\n\n'My own unnatural mother,' screamed the young lady, 'wants to annihilate\nGeorge! But you shan't be annihilated, George. I'll die first!'\n\nMr Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled to shake his\nhead at Mrs Wilfer, and to remark: 'With every sentiment of respect for\nyou, you know, ma'am--vipers really doesn't do you credit.'\n\n'You shall not be annihilated, George!' cried Miss Lavinia. 'Ma shall\ndestroy me first, and then she'll be contented. Oh, oh, oh! Have I lured\nGeorge from his happy home to expose him to this! George, dear, be free!\nLeave me, ever dearest George, to Ma and to my fate. Give my love to\nyour aunt, George dear, and implore her not to curse the viper that has\ncrossed your path and blighted your existence. Oh, oh, oh!' The young\nlady who, hysterically speaking, was only just come of age, and had\nnever gone off yet, here fell into a highly creditable crisis, which,\nregarded as a first performance, was very successful; Mr Sampson,\nbending over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, which\ninduced him to address Mrs Wilfer in the inconsistent expressions:\n'Demon--with the highest respect for you--behold your work!'\n\nThe cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, but on the\nwhole was inclined to welcome this diversion as one in which, by reason\nof the absorbent properties of hysterics, the previous question would\nbecome absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressible\ngradually coming to herself; and asking with wild emotion, 'George dear,\nare you safe?' and further, 'George love, what has happened? Where is\nMa?' Mr Sampson, with words of comfort, raised her prostrate form, and\nhanded her to Mrs Wilfer as if the young lady were something in the\nnature of refreshments. Mrs Wilfer with dignity partaking of the\nrefreshments, by kissing her once on the brow (as if accepting an\noyster), Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the protection of Mr\nSampson; to whom she said, 'George dear, I am afraid I have been\nfoolish; but I am still a little weak and giddy; don't let go my hand,\nGeorge!' And whom she afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, by\ngiving utterance, when least expected, to a sound between a sob and a\nbottle of soda water, that seemed to rend the bosom of her frock.\n\nAmong the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be mentioned its\nhaving, when peace was restored, an inexplicable moral influence, of an\nelevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs Wilfer, and Mr George Sampson, from\nwhich R. W. was altogether excluded, as an outsider and non-sympathizer.\nMiss Lavinia assumed a modest air of having distinguished herself; Mrs\nWilfer, a serene air of forgiveness and resignation; Mr Sampson, an air\nof having been improved and chastened. The influence pervaded the spirit\nin which they returned to the previous question.\n\n'George dear,' said Lavvy, with a melancholy smile, 'after what has\npassed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he may tell Bella we shall all be\nglad to see her and her husband.'\n\nMr Sampson said he was sure of it too; murmuring how eminently he\nrespected Mrs Wilfer, and ever must, and ever would. Never more\neminently, he added, than after what had passed.\n\n'Far be it from me,' said Mrs Wilfer, making deep proclamation from her\ncorner, 'to run counter to the feelings of a child of mine, and of a\nYouth,' Mr Sampson hardly seemed to like that word, 'who is the object\nof her maiden preference. I may feel--nay, know--that I have been\ndeluded and deceived. I may feel--nay, know--that I have been set\naside and passed over. I may feel--nay, know--that after having so far\novercome my repugnance towards Mr and Mrs Boffin as to receive them\nunder this roof, and to consent to your daughter Bella's,' here turning\nto her husband, 'residing under theirs, it were well if your daughter\nBella,' again turning to her husband, 'had profited in a worldly\npoint of view by a connection so distasteful, so disreputable. I may\nfeel--nay, know--that in uniting herself to Mr Rokesmith she has united\nherself to one who is, in spite of shallow sophistry, a Mendicant. And\nI may feel well assured that your daughter Bella,' again turning to her\nhusband, 'does not exalt her family by becoming a Mendicant's bride. But\nI suppress what I feel, and say nothing of it.'\n\nMr Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing you might expect\nfrom one who had ever in her own family been an example and never\nan outrage. And ever more so (Mr Sampson added, with some degree of\nobscurity,) and never more so, than in and through what had passed. He\nmust take the liberty of adding, that what was true of the mother\nwas true of the youngest daughter, and that he could never forget the\ntouching feelings that the conduct of both had awakened within him. In\nconclusion, he did hope that there wasn't a man with a beating heart who\nwas capable of something that remained undescribed, in consequence of\nMiss Lavinia's stopping him as he reeled in his speech.\n\n'Therefore, R. W.' said Mrs Wilfer, resuming her discourse and turning\nto her lord again, 'let your daughter Bella come when she will, and she\nwill be received. So,' after a short pause, and an air of having taken\nmedicine in it, 'so will her husband.'\n\n'And I beg, Pa,' said Lavinia, 'that you will not tell Bella what I\nhave undergone. It can do no good, and it might cause her to reproach\nherself.'\n\n'My dearest girl,' urged Mr Sampson, 'she ought to know it.'\n\n'No, George,' said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute self-denial. 'No,\ndearest George, let it be buried in oblivion.'\n\nMr Sampson considered that, 'too noble.'\n\n'Nothing is too noble, dearest George,' returned Lavinia. 'And Pa, I\nhope you will be careful not to refer before Bella, if you can help\nit, to my engagement to George. It might seem like reminding her of her\nhaving cast herself away. And I hope, Pa, that you will think it equally\nright to avoid mentioning George's rising prospects, when Bella is\npresent. It might seem like taunting her with her own poor fortunes.\nLet me ever remember that I am her younger sister, and ever spare her\npainful contrasts, which could not but wound her sharply.'\n\nMr Sampson expressed his belief that such was the demeanour of Angels.\nMiss Lavvy replied with solemnity, 'No, dearest George, I am but too\nwell aware that I am merely human.'\n\nMrs Wilfer, for her part, still further improved the occasion by sitting\nwith her eyes fastened on her husband, like two great black notes of\ninterrogation, severely inquiring, Are you looking into your breast? Do\nyou deserve your blessings? Can you lay your hand upon your heart and\nsay that you are worthy of so hysterical a daughter? I do not ask you if\nyou are worthy of such a wife--put Me out of the question--but are\nyou sufficiently conscious of, and thankful for, the pervading moral\ngrandeur of the family spectacle on which you are gazing? These\ninquiries proved very harassing to R. W. who, besides being a little\ndisturbed by wine, was in perpetual terror of committing himself by the\nutterance of stray words that would betray his guilty foreknowledge.\nHowever, the scene being over, and--all things considered--well over, he\nsought refuge in a doze; which gave his lady immense offence.\n\n'Can you think of your daughter Bella, and sleep?' she disdainfully\ninquired.\n\nTo which he mildly answered, 'Yes, I think I can, my dear.'\n\n'Then,' said Mrs Wilfer, with solemn indignation, 'I would recommend\nyou, if you have a human feeling, to retire to bed.'\n\n'Thank you, my dear,' he replied; 'I think it IS the best place for me.'\nAnd with these unsympathetic words very gladly withdrew.\n\nWithin a few weeks afterwards, the Mendicant's bride (arm-in-arm with\nthe Mendicant) came to tea, in fulfilment of an engagement made through\nher father. And the way in which the Mendicant's bride dashed at the\nunassailable position so considerately to be held by Miss Lavy, and\nscattered the whole of the works in all directions in a moment, was\ntriumphant.\n\n'Dearest Ma,' cried Bella, running into the room with a radiant face,\n'how do you do, dearest Ma?' And then embraced her, joyously. 'And Lavvy\ndarling, how do YOU do, and how's George Sampson, and how is he getting\non, and when are you going to be married, and how rich are you going\nto grow? You must tell me all about it, Lavvy dear, immediately.\nJohn, love, kiss Ma and Lavvy, and then we shall all be at home and\ncomfortable.'\n\nMrs Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, but was\nhelpless. Apparently with no compunction, and assuredly with no\nceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, and sat down to make the tea.\n\n'Dearest Ma and Lavvy, you both take sugar, I know. And Pa (you good\nlittle Pa), you don't take milk. John does. I didn't before I was\nmarried; but I do now, because John does. John dear, did you kiss Ma and\nLavvy? Oh, you did! Quite correct, John dear; but I didn't see you do\nit, so I asked. Cut some bread and butter, John; that's a love. Ma likes\nit doubled. And now you must tell me, dearest Ma and Lavvy, upon your\nwords and honours! Didn't you for a moment--just a moment--think I was a\ndreadful little wretch when I wrote to say I had run away?'\n\nBefore Mrs Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant's bride in her\nmerriest affectionate manner went on again.\n\n'I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and Lavvy, and I\nknow I deserved that you should be very cross. But you see I had been\nsuch a heedless, heartless creature, and had led you so to expect that\nI should marry for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable of\nmarrying for love, that I thought you couldn't believe me. Because, you\nsee, you didn't know how much of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt from\nJohn. Well! So I was sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me\nto be, and fearful that we couldn't understand one another and might\ncome to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so I\nsaid to John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. And\nas he did like, I let him. And we were married at Greenwich church in\nthe presence of nobody--except an unknown individual who dropped in,'\nhere her eyes sparkled more brightly, 'and half a pensioner. And now,\nisn't it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to know that no words have been\nsaid which any of us can be sorry for, and that we are all the best of\nfriends at the pleasantest of teas!'\n\nHaving got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her chair\n(after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband round the neck) and\nagain went on.\n\n'And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and Lavvy, how\nwe live, and what we have got to live upon. Well! And so we live on\nBlackheath, in the charm--ingest of dolls' houses, de--lightfully\nfurnished, and we have a clever little servant who is de--cidedly\npretty, and we are economical and orderly, and do everything by\nclockwork, and we have a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and we\nhave all we want, and more. And lastly, if you would like to know in\nconfidence, as perhaps you may, what is my opinion of my husband, my\nopinion is--that I almost love him!'\n\n'And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may,'\nsaid her husband, smiling, as he stood by her side, without her having\ndetected his approach, 'my opinion of my wife, my opinion is--.' But\nBella started up, and put her hand upon his lips.\n\n'Stop, Sir! No, John, dear! Seriously! Please not yet a while! I want to\nbe something so much worthier than the doll in the doll's house.'\n\n'My darling, are you not?'\n\n'Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you may some\nday find me! Try me through some reverse, John--try me through some\ntrial--and tell them after THAT, what you think of me.'\n\n'I will, my Life,' said John. 'I promise it.'\n\n'That's my dear John. And you won't speak a word now; will you?'\n\n'And I won't,' said John, with a very expressive look of admiration\naround him, 'speak a word now!'\n\nShe laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, and said,\nlooking at the rest of them sideways out of her bright eyes: 'I'll go\nfurther, Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John don't suspect it--he has no idea of\nit--but I quite love him!'\n\nEven Mrs Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her married daughter, and\nseemed in a majestic manner to imply remotely that if R. W. had been a\nmore deserving object, she too might have condescended to come down from\nher pedestal for his beguilement. Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, had\nstrong doubts of the policy of the course of treatment, and whether it\nmight not spoil Mr Sampson, if experimented on in the case of that young\ngentleman. R. W. himself was for his part convinced that he was father\nof one of the most charming of girls, and that Rokesmith was the most\nfavoured of men; which opinion, if propounded to him, Rokesmith would\nprobably not have contested.\n\nThe newly-married pair left early, so that they might walk at leisure to\ntheir starting-place from London, for Greenwich. At first they were\nvery cheerful and talked much; but after a while, Bella fancied that her\nhusband was turning somewhat thoughtful. So she asked him:\n\n'John dear, what's the matter?'\n\n'Matter, my love?'\n\n'Won't you tell me,' said Bella, looking up into his face, 'what you are\nthinking of?'\n\n'There's not much in the thought, my soul. I was thinking whether you\nwouldn't like me to be rich?'\n\n'You rich, John?' repeated Bella, shrinking a little.\n\n'I mean, really rich. Say, as rich as Mr Boffin. You would like that?'\n\n'I should be almost afraid to try, John dear. Was he much the better for\nhis wealth? Was I much the better for the little part I once had in it?'\n\n'But all people are not the worse for riches, my own.'\n\n'Most people?' Bella musingly suggested with raised eyebrows.\n\n'Nor even most people, it may be hoped. If you were rich, for instance,\nyou would have a great power of doing good to others.'\n\n'Yes, sir, for instance,' Bella playfully rejoined; 'but should I\nexercise the power, for instance? And again, sir, for instance; should\nI, at the same time, have a great power of doing harm to myself?'\n\nLaughing and pressing her arm, he retorted: 'But still, again for\ninstance; would you exercise that power?'\n\n'I don't know,' said Bella, thoughtfully shaking her head. 'I hope not.\nI think not. But it's so easy to hope not and think not, without the\nriches.'\n\n'Why don't you say, my darling--instead of that phrase--being poor?' he\nasked, looking earnestly at her.\n\n'Why don't I say, being poor! Because I am not poor. Dear John, it's not\npossible that you suppose I think we are poor?'\n\n'I do, my love.'\n\n'Oh John!'\n\n'Understand me, sweetheart. I know that I am rich beyond all wealth in\nhaving you; but I think OF you, and think FOR you. In such a dress as\nyou are wearing now, you first charmed me, and in no dress could you\never look, to my thinking, more graceful or more beautiful. But you have\nadmired many finer dresses this very day; and is it not natural that I\nwish I could give them to you?'\n\n'It's very nice that you should wish it, John. It brings these tears of\ngrateful pleasure into my eyes, to hear you say so with such tenderness.\nBut I don't want them.'\n\n'Again,' he pursued, 'we are now walking through the muddy streets. I\nlove those pretty feet so dearly, that I feel as if I could not bear the\ndirt to soil the sole of your shoe. Is it not natural that I wish you\ncould ride in a carriage?'\n\n'It's very nice,' said Bella, glancing downward at the feet in question,\n'to know that you admire them so much, John dear, and since you do, I\nam sorry that these shoes are a full size too large. But I don't want a\ncarriage, believe me.'\n\n'You would like one if you could have one, Bella?'\n\n'I shouldn't like it for its own sake, half so well as such a wish for\nit. Dear John, your wishes are as real to me as the wishes in the Fairy\nstory, that were all fulfilled as soon as spoken. Wish me everything\nthat you can wish for the woman you dearly love, and I have as good as\ngot it, John. I have better than got it, John!'\n\nThey were not the less happy for such talk, and home was not the less\nhome for coming after it. Bella was fast developing a perfect genius\nfor home. All the loves and graces seemed (her husband thought) to have\ntaken domestic service with her, and to help her to make home engaging.\n\nHer married life glided happily on. She was alone all day, for, after an\nearly breakfast her husband repaired every morning to the City, and did\nnot return until their late dinner hour. He was 'in a China house,' he\nexplained to Bella: which she found quite satisfactory, without pursuing\nthe China house into minuter details than a wholesale vision of tea,\nrice, odd-smelling silks, carved boxes, and tight-eyed people in more\nthan double-soled shoes, with their pigtails pulling their heads of\nhair off, painted on transparent porcelain. She always walked with her\nhusband to the railroad, and was always there again to meet him; her old\ncoquettish ways a little sobered down (but not much), and her dress\nas daintily managed as if she managed nothing else. But, John gone to\nbusiness and Bella returned home, the dress would be laid aside, trim\nlittle wrappers and aprons would be substituted, and Bella, putting back\nher hair with both hands, as if she were making the most business-like\narrangements for going dramatically distracted, would enter on the\nhousehold affairs of the day. Such weighing and mixing and chopping\nand grating, such dusting and washing and polishing, such snipping\nand weeding and trowelling and other small gardening, such making and\nmending and folding and airing, such diverse arrangements, and above all\nsuch severe study! For Mrs J. R., who had never been wont to do too much\nat home as Miss B. W., was under the constant necessity of referring for\nadvice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British Family\nHousewife, which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the table\nand her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring\nover the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete British\nHousewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means an expert\nBriton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue,\nand sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose in the\nKamskatchan language. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would suddenly\nexclaim aloud, 'Oh you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that?\nYou must have been drinking!' And having made this marginal note, would\ntry the Housewife again, with all her dimples screwed into an expression\nof profound research.\n\nThere was likewise a coolness on the part of the British Housewife,\nwhich Mrs John Rokesmith found highly exasperating. She would say,\n'Take a salamander,' as if a general should command a private to catch\na Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the order, 'Throw in a handful--'\nof something entirely unattainable. In these, the Housewife's most\nglaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up and knock her on\nthe table, apostrophising her with the compliment, 'O you ARE a stupid\nold Donkey! Where am I to get it, do you think?'\n\nAnother branch of study claimed the attention of Mrs John Rokesmith for\na regular period every day. This was the mastering of the newspaper, so\nthat she might be close up with John on general topics when John came\nhome. In her desire to be in all things his companion, she would have\nset herself with equal zeal to master Algebra, or Euclid, if he had\ndivided his soul between her and either. Wonderful was the way in which\nshe would store up the City Intelligence, and beamingly shed it\nupon John in the course of the evening; incidentally mentioning the\ncommodities that were looking up in the markets, and how much gold had\nbeen taken to the Bank, and trying to look wise and serious over it\nuntil she would laugh at herself most charmingly and would say, kissing\nhim: 'It all comes of my love, John dear.'\n\nFor a City man, John certainly did appear to care as little as might be\nfor the looking up or looking down of things, as well as for the gold\nthat got taken to the Bank. But he cared, beyond all expression, for his\nwife, as a most precious and sweet commodity that was always looking up,\nand that never was worth less than all the gold in the world. And she,\nbeing inspired by her affection, and having a quick wit and a fine ready\ninstinct, made amazing progress in her domestic efficiency, though,\nas an endearing creature, she made no progress at all. This was her\nhusband's verdict, and he justified it by telling her that she had begun\nher married life as the most endearing creature that could possibly be.\n\n'And you have such a cheerful spirit!' he said, fondly. 'You are like a\nbright light in the house.'\n\n'Am I truly, John?'\n\n'Are you truly? Yes, indeed. Only much more, and much better.'\n\n'Do you know, John dear,' said Bella, taking him by a button of his\ncoat, 'that I sometimes, at odd moments--don't laugh, John, please.'\n\nNothing should induce John to do it, when she asked him not to do it.\n\n'--That I sometimes think, John, I feel a little serious.'\n\n'Are you too much alone, my darling?'\n\n'O dear, no, John! The time is so short that I have not a moment too\nmuch in the week.'\n\n'Why serious, my life, then? When serious?'\n\n'When I laugh, I think,' said Bella, laughing as she laid her head upon\nhis shoulder. 'You wouldn't believe, sir, that I feel serious now? But I\ndo.' And she laughed again, and something glistened in her eyes.\n\n'Would you like to be rich, pet?' he asked her coaxingly.\n\n'Rich, John! How CAN you ask such goose's questions?'\n\n'Do you regret anything, my love?'\n\n'Regret anything? No!' Bella confidently answered. But then, suddenly\nchanging, she said, between laughing and glistening: 'Oh yes, I do\nthough. I regret Mrs Boffin.'\n\n'I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps it is only\ntemporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as that you may sometimes see\nher again--as that we may sometimes see her again.' Bella might be very\nanxious on the subject, but she scarcely seemed so at the moment. With\nan absent air, she was investigating that button on her husband's coat,\nwhen Pa came in to spend the evening.\n\nPa had his special chair and his special corner reserved for him on\nall occasions, and--without disparagement of his domestic joys--was far\nhappier there, than anywhere. It was always pleasantly droll to see Pa\nand Bella together; but on this present evening her husband thought her\nmore than usually fantastic with him.\n\n'You are a very good little boy,' said Bella, 'to come unexpectedly,\nas soon as you could get out of school. And how have they used you at\nschool to-day, you dear?'\n\n'Well, my pet,' replied the cherub, smiling and rubbing his hands as she\nsat him down in his chair, 'I attend two schools. There's the Mincing\nLane establishment, and there's your mother's Academy. Which might you\nmean, my dear?'\n\n'Both,' said Bella.\n\n'Both, eh? Why, to say the truth, both have taken a little out of me\nto-day, my dear, but that was to be expected. There's no royal road to\nlearning; and what is life but learning!'\n\n'And what do you do with yourself when you have got your learning by\nheart, you silly child?'\n\n'Why then, my dear,' said the cherub, after a little consideration, 'I\nsuppose I die.'\n\n'You are a very bad boy,' retorted Bella, 'to talk about dismal things\nand be out of spirits.'\n\n'My Bella,' rejoined her father, 'I am not out of spirits. I am as gay\nas a lark.' Which his face confirmed.\n\n'Then if you are sure and certain it's not you, I suppose it must be\nI,' said Bella; 'so I won't do so any more. John dear, we must give this\nlittle fellow his supper, you know.'\n\n'Of course we must, my darling.'\n\n'He has been grubbing and grubbing at school,' said Bella, looking at\nher father's hand and lightly slapping it, 'till he's not fit to be\nseen. O what a grubby child!'\n\n'Indeed, my dear,' said her father, 'I was going to ask to be allowed to\nwash my hands, only you find me out so soon.'\n\n'Come here, sir!' cried Bella, taking him by the front of his coat,\n'come here and be washed directly. You are not to be trusted to do it\nfor yourself. Come here, sir!'\n\nThe cherub, to his genial amusement, was accordingly conducted to a\nlittle washing-room, where Bella soaped his face and rubbed his face,\nand soaped his hands and rubbed his hands, and splashed him and rinsed\nhim and towelled him, until he was as red as beet-root, even to his very\nears: 'Now you must be brushed and combed, sir,' said Bella, busily.\n'Hold the light, John. Shut your eyes, sir, and let me take hold of your\nchin. Be good directly, and do as you are told!'\n\nHer father being more than willing to obey, she dressed his hair in her\nmost elaborate manner, brushing it out straight, parting it, winding it\nover her fingers, sticking it up on end, and constantly falling back on\nJohn to get a good look at the effect of it. Who always received her\non his disengaged arm, and detained her, while the patient cherub stood\nwaiting to be finished.\n\n'There!' said Bella, when she had at last completed the final touches.\n'Now, you are something like a genteel boy! Put your jacket on, and come\nand have your supper.'\n\nThe cherub investing himself with his coat was led back to his\ncorner--where, but for having no egotism in his pleasant nature, he\nwould have answered well enough for that radiant though self-sufficient\nboy, Jack Horner--Bella with her own hands laid a cloth for him, and\nbrought him his supper on a tray. 'Stop a moment,' said she, 'we must\nkeep his little clothes clean;' and tied a napkin under his chin, in a\nvery methodical manner.\n\nWhile he took his supper, Bella sat by him, sometimes admonishing him\nto hold his fork by the handle, like a polite child, and at other times\ncarving for him, or pouring out his drink. Fantastic as it all was, and\naccustomed as she ever had been to make a plaything of her good father,\never delighted that she should put him to that account, still there was\nan occasional something on Bella's part that was new. It could not be\nsaid that she was less playful, whimsical, or natural, than she always\nhad been; but it seemed, her husband thought, as if there were some\nrather graver reason than he had supposed for what she had so lately\nsaid, and as if throughout all this, there were glimpses of an\nunderlying seriousness.\n\nIt was a circumstance in support of this view of the case, that when she\nhad lighted her father's pipe, and mixed him his glass of grog, she sat\ndown on a stool between her father and her husband, leaning her arm upon\nthe latter, and was very quiet. So quiet, that when her father rose to\ntake his leave, she looked round with a start, as if she had forgotten\nhis being there.\n\n'You go a little way with Pa, John?'\n\n'Yes, my dear. Do you?'\n\n'I have not written to Lizzie Hexam since I wrote and told her that I\nreally had a lover--a whole one. I have often thought I would like to\ntell her how right she was when she pretended to read in the live coals\nthat I would go through fire and water for him. I am in the humour to\ntell her so to-night, John, and I'll stay at home and do it.'\n\n'You are tired.'\n\n'Not at all tired, John dear, but in the humour to write to Lizzie. Good\nnight, dear Pa. Good night, you dear, good, gentle Pa!'\n\nLeft to herself she sat down to write, and wrote Lizzie a long letter.\nShe had but completed it and read it over, when her husband came back.\n'You are just in time, sir,' said Bella; 'I am going to give you your\nfirst curtain lecture. It shall be a parlour-curtain lecture. You shall\ntake this chair of mine when I have folded my letter, and I will take\nthe stool (though you ought to take it, I can tell you, sir, if it's\nthe stool of repentance), and you'll soon find yourself taken to task\nsoundly.'\n\nHer letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her pen wiped, and her\nmiddle finger wiped, and her desk locked up and put away, and these\ntransactions performed with an air of severe business sedateness, which\nthe Complete British Housewife might have assumed, and certainly would\nnot have rounded off and broken down in with a musical laugh, as Bella\ndid: she placed her husband in his chair, and placed herself upon her\nstool.\n\n'Now, sir! To begin at the beginning. What is your name?'\n\nA question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was keeping from\nher, could not have astounded him. But he kept his countenance and his\nsecret, and answered, 'John Rokesmith, my dear.'\n\n'Good boy! Who gave you that name?'\n\nWith a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed him to\nher, he answered, interrogatively, 'My godfathers and my godmothers,\ndear love?'\n\n'Pretty good!' said Bella. 'Not goodest good, because you hesitate about\nit. However, as you know your Catechism fairly, so far, I'll let you off\nthe rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of my own head. John dear,\nwhy did you go back, this evening, to the question you once asked me\nbefore--would I like to be rich?'\n\nAgain, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked up at him, with\nher hands folded on his knee, and it was as nearly told as ever secret\nwas.\n\nHaving no reply ready, he could do no better than embrace her.\n\n'In short, dear John,' said Bella, 'this is the topic of my lecture: I\nwant nothing on earth, and I want you to believe it.'\n\n'If that's all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do.'\n\n'It's not all, John dear,' Bella hesitated. 'It's only Firstly. There's\na dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to come--as I used to say to\nmyself in sermon-time when I was a very small-sized sinner at church.'\n\n'Let them come, my dearest.'\n\n'Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in your innermost\nheart of hearts--?'\n\n'Which is not in my keeping,' he rejoined.\n\n'No, John, but the key is.--Are you absolutely certain that down at the\nbottom of that heart of hearts, which you have given to me as I\nhave given mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was once very\nmercenary?'\n\n'Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time you speak of,' he\nsoftly asked her with his lips to hers, 'could I love you quite as well\nas I do; could I have in the Calendar of my life the brightest of its\ndays; could I whenever I look at your dear face, or hear your dear\nvoice, see and hear my noble champion? It can never have been that which\nmade you serious, darling?'\n\n'No John, it wasn't that, and still less was it Mrs Boffin, though I\nlove her. Wait a moment, and I'll go on with the lecture. Give me a\nmoment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to\ncry for joy.'\n\nShe did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, laughed a little when\nshe said, 'I think I am ready now for Thirdly, John.'\n\n'I am ready for Thirdly,' said John, 'whatever it is.'\n\n'I believe, John,' pursued Bella, 'that you believe that I believe--'\n\n'My dear child,' cried her husband gaily, 'what a quantity of\nbelieving!'\n\n'Isn't there?' said Bella, with another laugh. 'I never knew such a\nquantity! It's like verbs in an exercise. But I can't get on with less\nbelieving. I'll try again. I believe, dear John, that you believe that\nI believe that we have as much money as we require, and that we want for\nnothing.'\n\n'It is strictly true, Bella.'\n\n'But if our money should by any means be rendered not so much--if we\nhad to stint ourselves a little in purchases that we can afford to\nmake now--would you still have the same confidence in my being quite\ncontented, John?'\n\n'Precisely the same confidence, my soul.'\n\n'Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of times. And I may take\nit for granted, no doubt,' with a little faltering, 'that you would be\nquite as contented yourself John? But, yes, I know I may. For, knowing\nthat I should be so, how surely I may know that you would be so; you who\nare so much stronger, and firmer, and more reasonable and more generous,\nthan I am.'\n\n'Hush!' said her husband, 'I must not hear that. You are all wrong\nthere, though otherwise as right as can be. And now I am brought to a\nlittle piece of news, my dearest, that I might have told you earlier\nin the evening. I have strong reason for confidently believing that\nwe shall never be in the receipt of a smaller income than our present\nincome.'\n\nShe might have shown herself more interested in the intelligence;\nbut she had returned to the investigation of the coat-button that had\nengaged her attention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed to heed\nwhat he said.\n\n'And now we have got to the bottom of it at last,' cried her husband,\nrallying her, 'and this is the thing that made you serious?'\n\n'No dear,' said Bella, twisting the button and shaking her head, 'it\nwasn't this.'\n\n'Why then, Lord bless this little wife of mine, there's a Fourthly!'\nexclaimed John.\n\n'This worried me a little, and so did Secondly,' said Bella, occupied\nwith the button, 'but it was quite another sort of seriousness--a much\ndeeper and quieter sort of seriousness--that I spoke of John dear.'\n\nAs he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid her\nlittle right hand on his eyes, and kept it there.\n\n'Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa's speaking of the\nships that might be sailing towards us from the unknown seas?'\n\n'Perfectly, my darling!'\n\n'I think...among them...there is a ship upon the ocean...bringing...to\nyou and me...a little baby, John.'\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nA CRY FOR HELP\n\n\nThe Paper Mill had stopped work for the night, and the paths and roads\nin its neighbourhood were sprinkled with clusters of people going home\nfrom their day's labour in it. There were men, women, and children in\nthe groups, and there was no want of lively colour to flutter in the\ngentle evening wind. The mingling of various voices and the sound of\nlaughter made a cheerful impression upon the ear, analogous to that of\nthe fluttering colours upon the eye. Into the sheet of water reflecting\nthe flushed sky in the foreground of the living picture, a knot of\nurchins were casting stones, and watching the expansion of the rippling\ncircles. So, in the rosy evening, one might watch the ever-widening\nbeauty of the landscape--beyond the newly-released workers wending\nhome--beyond the silver river--beyond the deep green fields of corn, so\nprospering, that the loiterers in their narrow threads of pathway seemed\nto float immersed breast-high--beyond the hedgerows and the clumps of\ntrees--beyond the windmills on the ridge--away to where the sky appeared\nto meet the earth, as if there were no immensity of space between\nmankind and Heaven.\n\nIt was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village dogs, always\nmuch more interested in the doings of humanity than in the affairs of\ntheir own species, were particularly active. At the general shop, at\nthe butcher's and at the public-house, they evinced an inquiring spirit\nnever to be satiated. Their especial interest in the public-house would\nseem to imply some latent rakishness in the canine character; for little\nwas eaten there, and they, having no taste for beer or tobacco (Mrs\nHubbard's dog is said to have smoked, but proof is wanting), could only\nhave been attracted by sympathy with loose convivial habits. Moreover,\na most wretched fiddle played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, that\none lean long-bodied cur, with a better ear than the rest, found himself\nunder compulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, even\nhe returned to the public-house on each occasion with the tenacity of a\nconfirmed drunkard.\n\nFearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the village.\nSome despairing gingerbread that had been vainly trying to dispose of\nitself all over the country, and had cast a quantity of dust upon its\nhead in its mortification, again appealed to the public from an infirm\nbooth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from Barcelona, and yet\nspeaking English so indifferently as to call fourteen of themselves\na pint. A Peep-show which had originally started with the Battle of\nWaterloo, and had since made it every other battle of later date\nby altering the Duke of Wellington's nose, tempted the student of\nillustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps in part sustained upon\npostponed pork, her professional associate being a Learned Pig,\ndisplayed her life-size picture in a low dress as she appeared when\npresented at Court, several yards round. All this was a vicious\nspectacle as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougher\nhewers of wood and drawers of water in this land of England ever is and\nshall be. They MUST NOT vary the rheumatism with amusement. They may\nvary it with fever and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations as\nthey have joints; but positively not with entertainment after their own\nmanner.\n\nThe various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, and floating\naway into the still evening air, made the evening, at any point which\nthey just reached fitfully, mellowed by the distance, more still by\ncontrast. Such was the stillness of the evening to Eugene Wrayburn, as\nhe walked by the river with his hands behind him.\n\nHe walked slowly, and with the measured step and preoccupied air of one\nwho was waiting. He walked between the two points, an osier-bed at this\nend and some floating lilies at that, and at each point stopped and\nlooked expectantly in one direction.\n\n'It is very quiet,' said he.\n\nIt was very quiet. Some sheep were grazing on the grass by the\nriver-side, and it seemed to him that he had never before heard the\ncrisp tearing sound with which they cropped it. He stopped idly, and\nlooked at them.\n\n'You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever enough to get\nthrough life tolerably to your satisfaction, you have got the better of\nme, Man as I am, and Mutton as you are!'\n\nA rustle in a field beyond the hedge attracted his attention. 'What's\nhere to do?' he asked himself leisurely going towards the gate and\nlooking over. 'No jealous paper-miller? No pleasures of the chase in\nthis part of the country? Mostly fishing hereabouts!'\n\nThe field had been newly mown, and there were yet the marks of the\nscythe on the yellow-green ground, and the track of wheels where the hay\nhad been carried. Following the tracks with his eyes, the view closed\nwith the new hayrick in a corner.\n\nNow, if he had gone on to the hayrick, and gone round it? But, say\nthat the event was to be, as the event fell out, and how idle are such\nsuppositions! Besides, if he had gone; what is there of warning in a\nBargeman lying on his face?\n\n'A bird flying to the hedge,' was all he thought about it; and came\nback, and resumed his walk.\n\n'If I had not a reliance on her being truthful,' said Eugene, after\ntaking some half-dozen turns, 'I should begin to think she had given me\nthe slip for the second time. But she promised, and she is a girl of her\nword.'\n\nTurning again at the water-lilies, he saw her coming, and advanced to\nmeet her.\n\n'I was saying to myself, Lizzie, that you were sure to come, though you\nwere late.'\n\n'I had to linger through the village as if I had no object before me,\nand I had to speak to several people in passing along, Mr Wrayburn.'\n\n'Are the lads of the village--and the ladies--such scandal-mongers?' he\nasked, as he took her hand and drew it through his arm.\n\nShe submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. He put her hand to\nhis lips, and she quietly drew it away.\n\n'Will you walk beside me, Mr Wrayburn, and not touch me?' For, his arm\nwas already stealing round her waist.\n\nShe stopped again, and gave him an earnest supplicating look. 'Well,\nLizzie, well!' said he, in an easy way though ill at ease with himself\n'don't be unhappy, don't be reproachful.'\n\n'I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be reproachful. Mr\nWrayburn, I implore you to go away from this neighbourhood, to-morrow\nmorning.'\n\n'Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!' he remonstrated. 'As well be reproachful as\nwholly unreasonable. I can't go away.'\n\n'Why not?'\n\n'Faith!' said Eugene in his airily candid manner. 'Because you won't let\nme. Mind! I don't mean to be reproachful either. I don't complain that\nyou design to keep me here. But you do it, you do it.'\n\n'Will you walk beside me, and not touch me;' for, his arm was coming\nabout her again; 'while I speak to you very seriously, Mr Wrayburn?'\n\n'I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for you, Lizzie,'\nhe answered with pleasant gaiety as he folded his arms. 'See here!\nNapoleon Buonaparte at St Helena.'\n\n'When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the night before last,'\nsaid Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him with the look of supplication\nwhich troubled his better nature, 'you told me that you were much\nsurprised to see me, and that you were on a solitary fishing excursion.\nWas it true?'\n\n'It was not,' replied Eugene composedly, 'in the least true. I came\nhere, because I had information that I should find you here.'\n\n'Can you imagine why I left London, Mr Wrayburn?'\n\n'I am afraid, Lizzie,' he openly answered, 'that you left London to get\nrid of me. It is not flattering to my self-love, but I am afraid you\ndid.'\n\n'I did.'\n\n'How could you be so cruel?'\n\n'O Mr Wrayburn,' she answered, suddenly breaking into tears, 'is the\ncruelty on my side! O Mr Wrayburn, Mr Wrayburn, is there no cruelty in\nyour being here to-night!'\n\n'In the name of all that's good--and that is not conjuring you in my\nown name, for Heaven knows I am not good'--said Eugene, 'don't be\ndistressed!'\n\n'What else can I be, when I know the distance and the difference between\nus? What else can I be, when to tell me why you came here, is to put me\nto shame!' said Lizzie, covering her face.\n\nHe looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful tenderness and\npity. It was not strong enough to impell him to sacrifice himself and\nspare her, but it was a strong emotion.\n\n'Lizzie! I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who\ncould affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in your\nconstruction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is.\nYou don't know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don't know how the\ncursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other\nturning of my life, WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, I\nthink, and I sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along with\nit.'\n\nShe had not been prepared for such passionate expressions, and they\nawakened some natural sparks of feminine pride and joy in her breast. To\nconsider, wrong as he was, that he could care so much for her, and that\nshe had the power to move him so!\n\n'It grieves you to see me distressed, Mr Wrayburn; it grieves me to see\nyou distressed. I don't reproach you. Indeed I don't reproach you.\nYou have not felt this as I feel it, being so different from me, and\nbeginning from another point of view. You have not thought. But I\nentreat you to think now, think now!'\n\n'What am I to think of?' asked Eugene, bitterly.\n\n'Think of me.'\n\n'Tell me how NOT to think of you, Lizzie, and you'll change me\naltogether.'\n\n'I don't mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging to another station,\nand quite cut off from you in honour. Remember that I have no protector\nnear me, unless I have one in your noble heart. Respect my good name.\nIf you feel towards me, in one particular, as you might if I was a lady,\ngive me the full claims of a lady upon your generous behaviour. I am\nremoved from you and your family by being a working girl. How true a\ngentleman to be as considerate of me as if I was removed by being a\nQueen!'\n\nHe would have been base indeed to have stood untouched by her appeal.\nHis face expressed contrition and indecision as he asked:\n\n'Have I injured you so much, Lizzie?'\n\n'No, no. You may set me quite right. I don't speak of the past, Mr\nWrayburn, but of the present and the future. Are we not here now,\nbecause through two days you have followed me so closely where there\nare so many eyes to see you, that I consented to this appointment as an\nescape?'\n\n'Again, not very flattering to my self-love,' said Eugene, moodily; 'but\nyes. Yes. Yes.'\n\n'Then I beseech you, Mr Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, leave this\nneighbourhood. If you do not, consider to what you will drive me.'\n\nHe did consider within himself for a moment or two, and then retorted,\n'Drive you? To what shall I drive you, Lizzie?'\n\n'You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and respected, and I am\nwell employed here. You will force me to quit this place as I quitted\nLondon, and--by following me again--will force me to quit the next place\nin which I may find refuge, as I quitted this.'\n\n'Are you so determined, Lizzie--forgive the word I am going to use, for\nits literal truth--to fly from a lover?'\n\n'I am so determined,' she answered resolutely, though trembling, 'to fly\nfrom such a lover. There was a poor woman died here but a little while\nago, scores of years older than I am, whom I found by chance, lying on\nthe wet earth. You may have heard some account of her?'\n\n'I think I have,' he answered, 'if her name was Higden.'\n\n'Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, she kept true to\none purpose to the very last. Even at the very last, she made me promise\nthat her purpose should be kept to, after she was dead, so settled\nwas her determination. What she did, I can do. Mr Wrayburn, if I\nbelieved--but I do not believe--that you could be so cruel to me as\nto drive me from place to place to wear me out, you should drive me to\ndeath and not do it.'\n\nHe looked full at her handsome face, and in his own handsome face there\nwas a light of blended admiration, anger, and reproach, which she--who\nloved him so in secret whose heart had long been so full, and he the\ncause of its overflowing--drooped before. She tried hard to retain her\nfirmness, but he saw it melting away under his eyes. In the moment of\nits dissolution, and of his first full knowledge of his influence upon\nher, she dropped, and he caught her on his arm.\n\n'Lizzie! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. If I had not been what\nyou call removed from you and cut off from you, would you have made this\nappeal to me to leave you?'\n\n'I don't know, I don't know. Don't ask me, Mr Wrayburn. Let me go back.'\n\n'I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to you, you\nshall go alone. I'll not accompany you, I'll not follow you, if you will\nreply.'\n\n'How can I, Mr Wrayburn? How can I tell you what I should have done, if\nyou had not been what you are?'\n\n'If I had not been what you make me out to be,' he struck in, skilfully\nchanging the form of words, 'would you still have hated me?'\n\n'O Mr Wrayburn,' she replied appealingly, and weeping, 'you know me\nbetter than to think I do!'\n\n'If I had not been what you make me out to be, Lizzie, would you still\nhave been indifferent to me?'\n\n'O Mr Wrayburn,' she answered as before, 'you know me better than that\ntoo!'\n\nThere was something in the attitude of her whole figure as he supported\nit, and she hung her head, which besought him to be merciful and not\nforce her to disclose her heart. He was not merciful with her, and he\nmade her do it.\n\n'If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate dog though I\nam!) that you hate me, or even that you are wholly indifferent to me,\nLizzie, let me know so much more from yourself before we separate. Let\nme know how you would have dealt with me if you had regarded me as being\nwhat you would have considered on equal terms with you.'\n\n'It is impossible, Mr Wrayburn. How can I think of you as being on equal\nterms with me? If my mind could put you on equal terms with me, you\ncould not be yourself. How could I remember, then, the night when I\nfirst saw you, and when I went out of the room because you looked at\nme so attentively? Or, the night that passed into the morning when you\nbroke to me that my father was dead? Or, the nights when you used to\ncome to see me at my next home? Or, your having known how uninstructed\nI was, and having caused me to be taught better? Or, my having so looked\nup to you and wondered at you, and at first thought you so good to be at\nall mindful of me?'\n\n'Only \"at first\" thought me so good, Lizzie? What did you think me after\n\"at first\"? So bad?'\n\n'I don't say that. I don't mean that. But after the first wonder and\npleasure of being noticed by one so different from any one who had ever\nspoken to me, I began to feel that it might have been better if I had\nnever seen you.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Because you WERE so different,' she answered in a lower voice. 'Because\nit was so endless, so hopeless. Spare me!'\n\n'Did you think for me at all, Lizzie?' he asked, as if he were a little\nstung.\n\n'Not much, Mr Wrayburn. Not much until to-night.'\n\n'Will you tell me why?'\n\n'I never supposed until to-night that you needed to be thought for. But\nif you do need to be; if you do truly feel at heart that you have indeed\nbeen towards me what you have called yourself to-night, and that there\nis nothing for us in this life but separation; then Heaven help you, and\nHeaven bless you!'\n\nThe purity with which in these words she expressed something of her\nown love and her own suffering, made a deep impression on him for the\npassing time. He held her, almost as if she were sanctified to him by\ndeath, and kissed her, once, almost as he might have kissed the dead.\n\n'I promised that I would not accompany you, nor follow you. Shall I keep\nyou in view? You have been agitated, and it's growing dark.'\n\n'I am used to be out alone at this hour, and I entreat you not to do\nso.'\n\n'I promise. I can bring myself to promise nothing more tonight, Lizzie,\nexcept that I will try what I can do.'\n\n'There is but one means, Mr Wrayburn, of sparing yourself and of sparing\nme, every way. Leave this neighbourhood to-morrow morning.'\n\n'I will try.'\n\nAs he spoke the words in a grave voice, she put her hand in his, removed\nit, and went away by the river-side.\n\n'Now, could Mortimer believe this?' murmured Eugene, still remaining,\nafter a while, where she had left him. 'Can I even believe it myself?'\n\nHe referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon his hand,\nas he stood covering his eyes. 'A most ridiculous position this, to be\nfound out in!' was his next thought. And his next struck its root in a\nlittle rising resentment against the cause of the tears.\n\n'Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let her be as much\nin earnest as she will!'\n\nThe reflection brought back the yielding of her face and form as she\nhad drooped under his gaze. Contemplating the reproduction, he seemed\nto see, for the second time, in the appeal and in the confession of\nweakness, a little fear.\n\n'And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be very earnest in\nthat passion. She cannot choose for herself to be strong in this fancy,\nwavering in that, and weak in the other. She must go through with her\nnature, as I must go through with mine. If mine exacts its pains and\npenalties all round, so must hers, I suppose.'\n\nPursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, 'Now, if I married\nher. If, outfacing the absurdity of the situation in correspondence with\nM. R. F., I astonished M. R. F. to the utmost extent of his respected\npowers, by informing him that I had married her, how would M. R. F.\nreason with the legal mind? \"You wouldn't marry for some money and some\nstation, because you were frightfully likely to become bored. Are you\nless frightfully likely to become bored, marrying for no money and no\nstation? Are you sure of yourself?\" Legal mind, in spite of forensic\nprotestations, must secretly admit, \"Good reasoning on the part of M. R.\nF. NOT sure of myself.\"'\n\nIn the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, he felt it to\nbe profligate and worthless, and asserted her against it.\n\n'And yet,' said Eugene, 'I should like to see the fellow (Mortimer\nexcepted) who would undertake to tell me that this was not a real\nsentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her worth,\nin spite of myself, and that I would not be true to her. I should\nparticularly like to see the fellow to-night who would tell me so, or\nwho would tell me anything that could be construed to her disadvantage;\nfor I am wearily out of sorts with one Wrayburn who cuts a sorry figure,\nand I would far rather be out of sorts with somebody else. \"Eugene,\nEugene, Eugene, this is a bad business.\" Ah! So go the Mortimer\nLightwood bells, and they sound melancholy to-night.'\n\nStrolling on, he thought of something else to take himself to task for.\n'Where is the analogy, Brute Beast,' he said impatiently, 'between a\nwoman whom your father coolly finds out for you and a woman whom you\nhave found out for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more and\nmore of constancy since you first set eyes upon her? Ass! Can you reason\nno better than that?'\n\nBut, again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full knowledge\nof his power just now, and of her disclosure of her heart. To try no\nmore to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless conclusion it\nturned uppermost. And yet again, 'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad\nbusiness!' And, 'I wish I could stop the Lightwood peal, for it sounds\nlike a knell.'\n\nLooking above, he found that the young moon was up, and that the stars\nwere beginning to shine in the sky from which the tones of red and\nyellow were flickering out, in favour of the calm blue of a summer\nnight. He was still by the river-side. Turning suddenly, he met a man,\nso close upon him that Eugene, surprised, stepped back, to avoid a\ncollision. The man carried something over his shoulder which might\nhave been a broken oar, or spar, or bar, and took no notice of him, but\npassed on.\n\n'Halloa, friend!' said Eugene, calling after him, 'are you blind?'\n\nThe man made no reply, but went his way.\n\nEugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands behind him and his\npurpose in his thoughts. He passed the sheep, and passed the gate, and\ncame within hearing of the village sounds, and came to the bridge. The\ninn where he stayed, like the village and the mill, was not across\nthe river, but on that side of the stream on which he walked. However,\nknowing the rushy bank and the backwater on the other side to be a\nretired place, and feeling out of humour for noise or company, he\ncrossed the bridge, and sauntered on: looking up at the stars as they\nseemed one by one to be kindled in the sky, and looking down at the\nriver as the same stars seemed to be kindled deep in the water. A\nlanding-place overshadowed by a willow, and a pleasure-boat lying moored\nthere among some stakes, caught his eye as he passed along. The spot was\nin such dark shadow, that he paused to make out what was there, and then\npassed on again.\n\nThe rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his\nuneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but they\nwere in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong\ncurrent. As the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then,\nand palely flashed in a new shape and with a new sound, so parts of\nhis thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and revealed their\nwickedness. 'Out of the question to marry her,' said Eugene, 'and out of\nthe question to leave her. The crisis!'\n\nHe had sauntered far enough. Before turning to retrace his steps, he\nstopped upon the margin, to look down at the reflected night. In an\ninstant, with a dreadful crash, the reflected night turned crooked,\nflames shot jaggedly across the air, and the moon and stars came\nbursting from the sky.\n\nWas he struck by lightning? With some incoherent half-formed thought\nto that effect, he turned under the blows that were blinding him and\nmashing his life, and closed with a murderer, whom he caught by a red\nneckerchief--unless the raining down of his own blood gave it that hue.\n\nEugene was light, active, and expert; but his arms were broken, or he\nwas paralysed, and could do no more than hang on to the man, with his\nhead swung back, so that he could see nothing but the heaving sky. After\ndragging at the assailant, he fell on the bank with him, and then there\nwas another great crash, and then a splash, and all was done.\n\nLizzie Hexam, too, had avoided the noise, and the Saturday movement of\npeople in the straggling street, and chose to walk alone by the water\nuntil her tears should be dry, and she could so compose herself as\nto escape remark upon her looking ill or unhappy on going home. The\npeaceful serenity of the hour and place, having no reproaches or evil\nintentions within her breast to contend against, sank healingly into\nits depths. She had meditated and taken comfort. She, too, was turning\nhomeward, when she heard a strange sound.\n\nIt startled her, for it was like a sound of blows. She stood still, and\nlistened. It sickened her, for blows fell heavily and cruelly on the\nquiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, all was silent. As she\nyet listened, she heard a faint groan, and a fall into the river.\n\nHer old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. Without vain waste\nof breath in crying for help where there were none to hear, she ran\ntowards the spot from which the sounds had come. It lay between her and\nthe bridge, but it was more removed from her than she had thought; the\nnight being so very quiet, and sound travelling far with the help of\nwater.\n\nAt length, she reached a part of the green bank, much and newly trodden,\nwhere there lay some broken splintered pieces of wood and some torn\nfragments of clothes. Stooping, she saw that the grass was bloody.\nFollowing the drops and smears, she saw that the watery margin of the\nbank was bloody. Following the current with her eyes, she saw a bloody\nface turned up towards the moon, and drifting away.\n\nNow, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, and grant, O Blessed\nLord, that through thy wonderful workings it may turn to good at last!\nTo whomsoever the drifting face belongs, be it man's or woman's, help\nmy humble hands, Lord God, to raise it from death and restore it to some\none to whom it must be dear!\n\nIt was thought, fervently thought, but not for a moment did the prayer\ncheck her. She was away before it welled up in her mind, away, swift\nand true, yet steady above all--for without steadiness it could never\nbe done--to the landing-place under the willow-tree, where she also had\nseen the boat lying moored among the stakes.\n\nA sure touch of her old practised hand, a sure step of her old practised\nfoot, a sure light balance of her body, and she was in the boat. A\nquick glance of her practised eye showed her, even through the deep dark\nshadow, the sculls in a rack against the red-brick garden-wall. Another\nmoment, and she had cast off (taking the line with her), and the boat\nhad shot out into the moonlight, and she was rowing down the stream as\nnever other woman rowed on English water.\n\nIntently over her shoulder, without slackening speed, she looked ahead\nfor the driving face. She passed the scene of the struggle--yonder it\nwas, on her left, well over the boat's stern--she passed on her right,\nthe end of the village street, a hilly street that almost dipped into\nthe river; its sounds were growing faint again, and she slackened;\nlooking as the boat drove, everywhere, everywhere, for the floating\nface.\n\nShe merely kept the boat before the stream now, and rested on her oars,\nknowing well that if the face were not soon visible, it had gone down,\nand she would overshoot it. An untrained sight would never have seen by\nthe moonlight what she saw at the length of a few strokes astern. She\nsaw the drowning figure rise to the surface, slightly struggle, and as\nif by instinct turn over on its back to float. Just so had she first\ndimly seen the face which she now dimly saw again.\n\nFirm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on,\nuntil it was very near; then, with a touch unshipped her sculls, and\ncrept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let the\nbody evade her, not being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seized\nit by its bloody hair.\n\nIt was insensible, if not virtually dead; it was mutilated, and streaked\nthe water all about it with dark red streaks. As it could not help\nitself, it was impossible for her to get it on board. She bent over the\nstern to secure it with the line, and then the river and its shores rang\nto the terrible cry she uttered.\n\nBut, as if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, she lashed\nit safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in, desperately, for the nearest\nshallow water where she might run the boat aground. Desperately, but not\nwildly, for she knew that if she lost distinctness of intention, all was\nlost and gone.\n\nShe ran the boat ashore, went into the water, released him from the\nline, and by main strength lifted him in her arms and laid him in the\nbottom of the boat. He had fearful wounds upon him, and she bound them\nup with her dress torn into strips. Else, supposing him to be still\nalive, she foresaw that he must bleed to death before he could be landed\nat his inn, which was the nearest place for succour.\n\nThis done very rapidly, she kissed his disfigured forehead, looked up\nin anguish to the stars, and blessed him and forgave him, 'if she had\nanything to forgive.' It was only in that instant that she thought of\nherself, and then she thought of herself only for him.\n\nNow, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, enabling me, without\na wasted moment, to have got the boat afloat again, and to row back\nagainst the stream! And grant, O Blessed Lord God, that through poor me\nhe may be raised from death, and preserved to some one else to whom he\nmay be dear one day, though never dearer than to me!\n\nShe rowed hard--rowed desperately, but never wildly--and seldom removed\nher eyes from him in the bottom of the boat. She had so laid him there,\nas that she might see his disfigured face; it was so much disfigured\nthat his mother might have covered it, but it was above and beyond\ndisfigurement in her eyes.\n\nThe boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn, sloping gently to\nthe water. There were lights in the windows, but there chanced to be\nno one out of doors. She made the boat fast, and again by main strength\ntook him up, and never laid him down until she laid him down in the\nhouse.\n\nSurgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his head. She had\noftentimes heard in days that were gone, how doctors would lift the hand\nof an insensible wounded person, and would drop it if the person were\ndead. She waited for the awful moment when the doctors might lift this\nhand, all broken and bruised, and let it fall.\n\nThe first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceeding to his\nexamination, 'Who brought him in?'\n\n'I brought him in, sir,' answered Lizzie, at whom all present looked.\n\n'You, my dear? You could not lift, far less carry, this weight.'\n\n'I think I could not, at another time, sir; but I am sure I did.'\n\nThe surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with some\ncompassion. Having with a grave face touched the wounds upon the head,\nand the broken arms, he took the hand.\n\nO! would he let it drop?\n\nHe appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it gently down,\ntook a candle, looked more closely at the injuries on the head, and at\nthe pupils of the eyes. That done, he replaced the candle and took the\nhand again. Another surgeon then coming in, the two exchanged a whisper,\nand the second took the hand. Neither did he let it fall at once, but\nkept it for a while and laid it gently down.\n\n'Attend to the poor girl,' said the first surgeon then. 'She is quite\nunconscious. She sees nothing and hears nothing. All the better for\nher! Don't rouse her, if you can help it; only move her. Poor girl, poor\ngirl! She must be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much to be feared\nthat she has set her heart upon the dead. Be gentle with her.'\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nBETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN\n\n\nDay was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. Stars were yet visible,\nbut there was dull light in the east that was not the light of night.\nThe moon had gone down, and a mist crept along the banks of the river,\nseen through which the trees were the ghosts of trees, and the water\nwas the ghost of water. This earth looked spectral, and so did the\npale stars: while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to heat or\ncolour, with the eye of the firmament quenched, might have been likened\nto the stare of the dead.\n\nPerhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing on the brink\nof the lock. For certain, Bradley Headstone looked that way, when a\nchill air came up, and when it passed on murmuring, as if it\nwhispered something that made the phantom trees and water tremble--or\nthreaten--for fancy might have made it either.\n\nHe turned away, and tried the Lock-house door. It was fastened on the\ninside.\n\n'Is he afraid of me?' he muttered, knocking.\n\nRogue Riderhood was soon roused, and soon undrew the bolt and let him\nin.\n\n'Why, T'otherest, I thought you had been and got lost! Two nights away!\nI a'most believed as you'd giv' me the slip, and I had as good as half a\nmind for to advertise you in the newspapers to come for'ard.'\n\nBradley's face turned so dark on this hint, that Riderhood deemed it\nexpedient to soften it into a compliment.\n\n'But not you, governor, not you,' he went on, stolidly shaking his head.\n'For what did I say to myself arter having amused myself with that there\nstretch of a comic idea, as a sort of a playful game? Why, I says to\nmyself; \"He's a man o' honour.\" That's what I says to myself. \"He's a\nman o' double honour.\"'\n\nVery remarkably, Riderhood put no question to him. He had looked at him\non opening the door, and he now looked at him again (stealthily this\ntime), and the result of his looking was, that he asked him no question.\n\n'You'll be for another forty on 'em, governor, as I judges, afore you\nturns your mind to breakfast,' said Riderhood, when his visitor sat\ndown, resting his chin on his hand, with his eyes on the ground. And\nvery remarkably again: Riderhood feigned to set the scanty furniture in\norder, while he spoke, to have a show of reason for not looking at him.\n\n'Yes. I had better sleep, I think,' said Bradley, without changing his\nposition.\n\n'I myself should recommend it, governor,' assented Riderhood. 'Might you\nbe anyways dry?'\n\n'Yes. I should like a drink,' said Bradley; but without appearing to\nattend much.\n\nMr Riderhood got out his bottle, and fetched his jug-full of water,\nand administered a potation. Then, he shook the coverlet of his bed and\nspread it smooth, and Bradley stretched himself upon it in the clothes\nhe wore. Mr Riderhood poetically remarking that he would pick the bones\nof his night's rest, in his wooden chair, sat in the window as before;\nbut, as before, watched the sleeper narrowly until he was very sound\nasleep. Then, he rose and looked at him close, in the bright daylight,\non every side, with great minuteness. He went out to his Lock to sum up\nwhat he had seen.\n\n'One of his sleeves is tore right away below the elber, and the\nt'other's had a good rip at the shoulder. He's been hung on to, pretty\ntight, for his shirt's all tore out of the neck-gathers. He's been in\nthe grass and he's been in the water. And he's spotted, and I know with\nwhat, and with whose. Hooroar!'\n\nBradley slept long. Early in the afternoon a barge came down. Other\nbarges had passed through, both ways, before it; but the Lock-keeper\nhailed only this particular barge, for news, as if he had made a time\ncalculation with some nicety. The men on board told him a piece of news,\nand there was a lingering on their part to enlarge upon it.\n\nTwelve hours had intervened since Bradley's lying down, when he got up.\n'Not that I swaller it,' said Riderhood, squinting at his Lock, when he\nsaw Bradley coming out of the house, 'as you've been a sleeping all the\ntime, old boy!'\n\nBradley came to him, sitting on his wooden lever, and asked what o'clock\nit was? Riderhood told him it was between two and three.\n\n'When are you relieved?' asked Bradley.\n\n'Day arter to-morrow, governor.'\n\n'Not sooner?'\n\n'Not a inch sooner, governor.'\n\nOn both sides, importance seemed attached to this question of relief.\nRiderhood quite petted his reply; saying a second time, and prolonging a\nnegative roll of his head, 'n--n--not a inch sooner, governor.'\n\n'Did I tell you I was going on to-night?' asked Bradley.\n\n'No, governor,' returned Riderhood, in a cheerful, affable, and\nconversational manner, 'you did not tell me so. But most like you meant\nto it and forgot to it. How, otherways, could a doubt have come into\nyour head about it, governor?'\n\n'As the sun goes down, I intend to go on,' said Bradley.\n\n'So much the more necessairy is a Peck,' returned Riderhood. 'Come in\nand have it, T'otherest.'\n\nThe formality of spreading a tablecloth not being observed in Mr\nRiderhood's establishment, the serving of the 'peck' was the affair of\na moment; it merely consisting in the handing down of a capacious baking\ndish with three-fourths of an immense meat pie in it, and the production\nof two pocket-knives, an earthenware mug, and a large brown bottle of\nbeer.\n\nBoth ate and drank, but Riderhood much the more abundantly. In lieu of\nplates, that honest man cut two triangular pieces from the thick crust\nof the pie, and laid them, inside uppermost, upon the table: the one\nbefore himself, and the other before his guest. Upon these platters he\nplaced two goodly portions of the contents of the pie, thus imparting\nthe unusual interest to the entertainment that each partaker scooped out\nthe inside of his plate, and consumed it with his other fare, besides\nhaving the sport of pursuing the clots of congealed gravy over the plain\nof the table, and successfully taking them into his mouth at last from\nthe blade of his knife, in case of their not first sliding off it.\n\nBradley Headstone was so remarkably awkward at these exercises, that the\nRogue observed it.\n\n'Look out, T'otherest!' he cried, 'you'll cut your hand!'\n\nBut, the caution came too late, for Bradley gashed it at the instant.\nAnd, what was more unlucky, in asking Riderhood to tie it up, and in\nstanding close to him for the purpose, he shook his hand under the smart\nof the wound, and shook blood over Riderhood's dress.\n\nWhen dinner was done, and when what remained of the platters and what\nremained of the congealed gravy had been put back into what remained of\nthe pie, which served as an economical investment for all miscellaneous\nsavings, Riderhood filled the mug with beer and took a long drink. And\nnow he did look at Bradley, and with an evil eye.\n\n'T'otherest!' he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the table to touch\nhis arm. 'The news has gone down the river afore you.'\n\n'What news?'\n\n'Who do you think,' said Riderhood, with a hitch of his head, as if he\ndisdainfully jerked the feint away, 'picked up the body? Guess.'\n\n'I am not good at guessing anything.'\n\n'She did. Hooroar! You had him there agin. She did.'\n\nThe convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone's face, and the sudden\nhot humour that broke out upon it, showed how grimly the intelligence\ntouched him. But he said not a single word, good or bad. He only smiled\nin a lowering manner, and got up and stood leaning at the window,\nlooking through it. Riderhood followed him with his eyes. Riderhood cast\ndown his eyes on his own besprinkled clothes. Riderhood began to have an\nair of being better at a guess than Bradley owned to being.\n\n'I have been so long in want of rest,' said the schoolmaster, 'that with\nyour leave I'll lie down again.'\n\n'And welcome, T'otherest!' was the hospitable answer of his host. He had\nlaid himself down without waiting for it, and he remained upon the bed\nuntil the sun was low. When he arose and came out to resume his journey,\nhe found his host waiting for him on the grass by the towing-path\noutside the door.\n\n'Whenever it may be necessary that you and I should have any further\ncommunication together,' said Bradley, 'I will come back. Good-night!'\n\n'Well, since no better can be,' said Riderhood, turning on his heel,\n'Good-night!' But he turned again as the other set forth, and added\nunder his breath, looking after him with a leer: 'You wouldn't be let to\ngo like that, if my Relief warn't as good as come. I'll catch you up in\na mile.'\n\nIn a word, his real time of relief being that evening at sunset, his\nmate came lounging in, within a quarter of an hour. Not staying to fill\nup the utmost margin of his time, but borrowing an hour or so, to be\nrepaid again when he should relieve his reliever, Riderhood straightway\nfollowed on the track of Bradley Headstone.\n\nHe was a better follower than Bradley. It had been the calling of his\nlife to slink and skulk and dog and waylay, and he knew his calling\nwell. He effected such a forced march on leaving the Lock House that he\nwas close up with him--that is to say, as close up with him as he deemed\nit convenient to be--before another Lock was passed. His man looked back\npretty often as he went, but got no hint of him. HE knew how to take\nadvantage of the ground, and where to put the hedge between them, and\nwhere the wall, and when to duck, and when to drop, and had a thousand\narts beyond the doomed Bradley's slow conception.\n\nBut, all his arts were brought to a standstill, like himself when\nBradley, turning into a green lane or riding by the river-side--a\nsolitary spot run wild in nettles, briars, and brambles, and encumbered\nwith the scathed trunks of a whole hedgerow of felled trees, on the\noutskirts of a little wood--began stepping on these trunks and dropping\ndown among them and stepping on them again, apparently as a schoolboy\nmight have done, but assuredly with no schoolboy purpose, or want of\npurpose.\n\n'What are you up to?' muttered Riderhood, down in the ditch, and holding\nthe hedge a little open with both hands. And soon his actions made a\nmost extraordinary reply. 'By George and the Draggin!' cried Riderhood,\n'if he ain't a going to bathe!'\n\nHe had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees again, and has\npassed on to the water-side and had begun undressing on the grass. For\na moment it had a suspicious look of suicide, arranged to counterfeit\naccident. 'But you wouldn't have fetched a bundle under your arm, from\namong that timber, if such was your game!' said Riderhood. Nevertheless\nit was a relief to him when the bather after a plunge and a few strokes\ncame out. 'For I shouldn't,' he said in a feeling manner, 'have liked to\nlose you till I had made more money out of you neither.'\n\nProne in another ditch (he had changed his ditch as his man had changed\nhis position), and holding apart so small a patch of the hedge that the\nsharpest eyes could not have detected him, Rogue Riderhood watched the\nbather dressing. And now gradually came the wonder that he stood up,\ncompletely clothed, another man, and not the Bargeman.\n\n'Aha!' said Riderhood. 'Much as you was dressed that night. I see.\nYou're a taking me with you, now. You're deep. But I knows a deeper.'\n\nWhen the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the grass, doing\nsomething with his hands, and again stood up with his bundle under his\narm. Looking all around him with great attention, he then went to the\nriver's edge, and flung it in as far, and yet as lightly as he could. It\nwas not until he was so decidedly upon his way again as to be beyond a\nbend of the river and for the time out of view, that Riderhood scrambled\nfrom the ditch.\n\n'Now,' was his debate with himself 'shall I foller you on, or shall I\nlet you loose for this once, and go a fishing?' The debate continuing,\nhe followed, as a precautionary measure in any case, and got him again\nin sight. 'If I was to let you loose this once,' said Riderhood then,\nstill following, 'I could make you come to me agin, or I could find\nyou out in one way or another. If I wasn't to go a fishing, others\nmight.--I'll let you loose this once, and go a fishing!' With that, he\nsuddenly dropped the pursuit and turned.\n\nThe miserable man whom he had released for the time, but not for long,\nwent on towards London. Bradley was suspicious of every sound he heard,\nand of every face he saw, but was under a spell which very commonly\nfalls upon the shedder of blood, and had no suspicion of the real danger\nthat lurked in his life, and would have it yet. Riderhood was much\nin his thoughts--had never been out of his thoughts since the\nnight-adventure of their first meeting; but Riderhood occupied a very\ndifferent place there, from the place of pursuer; and Bradley had been\nat the pains of devising so many means of fitting that place to him, and\nof wedging him into it, that his mind could not compass the possibility\nof his occupying any other. And this is another spell against which\nthe shedder of blood for ever strives in vain. There are fifty doors by\nwhich discovery may enter. With infinite pains and cunning, he double\nlocks and bars forty-nine of them, and cannot see the fiftieth standing\nwide open.\n\nNow, too, was he cursed with a state of mind more wearing and more\nwearisome than remorse. He had no remorse; but the evildoer who can hold\nthat avenger at bay, cannot escape the slower torture of incessantly\ndoing the evil deed again and doing it more efficiently. In the\ndefensive declarations and pretended confessions of murderers, the\npursuing shadow of this torture may be traced through every lie they\ntell. If I had done it as alleged, is it conceivable that I would have\nmade this and this mistake? If I had done it as alleged, should I have\nleft that unguarded place which that false and wicked witness against me\nso infamously deposed to? The state of that wretch who continually finds\nthe weak spots in his own crime, and strives to strengthen them when\nit is unchangeable, is a state that aggravates the offence by doing\nthe deed a thousand times instead of once; but it is a state, too, that\ntauntingly visits the offence upon a sullen unrepentant nature with its\nheaviest punishment every time.\n\nBradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred and his\nvengeance, and thinking how he might have satiated both in many better\nways than the way he had taken. The instrument might have been better,\nthe spot and the hour might have been better chosen. To batter a man\ndown from behind in the dark, on the brink of a river, was well enough,\nbut he ought to have been instantly disabled, whereas he had turned and\nseized his assailant; and so, to end it before chance-help came, and\nto be rid of him, he had been hurriedly thrown backward into the river\nbefore the life was fully beaten out of him. Now if it could be done\nagain, it must not be so done. Supposing his head had been held down\nunder water for a while. Supposing the first blow had been truer.\nSupposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled. Suppose\nthis way, that way, the other way. Suppose anything but getting\nunchained from the one idea, for that was inexorably impossible.\n\nThe school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or no change in\ntheir master's face, for it always wore its slowly labouring expression.\nBut, as he heard his classes, he was always doing the deed and doing it\nbetter. As he paused with his piece of chalk at the black board before\nwriting on it, he was thinking of the spot, and whether the water was\nnot deeper and the fall straighter, a little higher up, or a little\nlower down. He had half a mind to draw a line or two upon the board, and\nshow himself what he meant. He was doing it again and improving on\nthe manner, at prayers, in his mental arithmetic, all through his\nquestioning, all through the day.\n\nCharley Hexam was a master now, in another school, under another head.\nIt was evening, and Bradley was walking in his garden observed from\nbehind a blind by gentle little Miss Peecher, who contemplated offering\nhim a loan of her smelling salts for headache, when Mary Anne, in\nfaithful attendance, held up her arm.\n\n'Yes, Mary Anne?'\n\n'Young Mr Hexam, if you please, ma'am, coming to see Mr Headstone.'\n\n'Very good, Mary Anne.'\n\nAgain Mary Anne held up her arm.\n\n'You may speak, Mary Anne?'\n\n'Mr Headstone has beckoned young Mr Hexam into his house, ma'am, and he\nhas gone in himself without waiting for young Mr Hexam to come up, and\nnow HE has gone in too, ma'am, and has shut the door.'\n\n'With all my heart, Mary Anne.'\n\nAgain Mary Anne's telegraphic arm worked.\n\n'What more, Mary Anne?'\n\n'They must find it rather dull and dark, Miss Peecher, for the parlour\nblind's down, and neither of them pulls it up.'\n\n'There is no accounting,' said good Miss Peecher with a little sad sigh\nwhich she repressed by laying her hand on her neat methodical boddice,\n'there is no accounting for tastes, Mary Anne.'\n\nCharley, entering the dark room, stopped short when he saw his old\nfriend in its yellow shade.\n\n'Come in, Hexam, come in.'\n\nCharley advanced to take the hand that was held out to him; but stopped\nagain, short of it. The heavy, bloodshot eyes of the schoolmaster,\nrising to his face with an effort, met his look of scrutiny.\n\n'Mr Headstone, what's the matter?'\n\n'Matter? Where?'\n\n'Mr Headstone, have you heard the news? This news about the fellow, Mr\nEugene Wrayburn? That he is killed?'\n\n'He is dead, then!' exclaimed Bradley.\n\nYoung Hexam standing looking at him, he moistened his lips with his\ntongue, looked about the room, glanced at his former pupil, and looked\ndown. 'I heard of the outrage,' said Bradley, trying to constrain his\nworking mouth, 'but I had not heard the end of it.'\n\n'Where were you,' said the boy, advancing a step as he lowered his\nvoice, 'when it was done? Stop! I don't ask that. Don't tell me. If you\nforce your confidence upon me, Mr Headstone, I'll give up every word of\nit. Mind! Take notice. I'll give up it, and I'll give up you. I will!'\n\nThe wretched creature seemed to suffer acutely under this renunciation.\nA desolate air of utter and complete loneliness fell upon him, like a\nvisible shade.\n\n'It's for me to speak, not you,' said the boy. 'If you do, you'll do\nit at your peril. I am going to put your selfishness before you, Mr\nHeadstone--your passionate, violent, and ungovernable selfishness--to\nshow you why I can, and why I will, have nothing more to do with you.'\n\nHe looked at young Hexam as if he were waiting for a scholar to go on\nwith a lesson that he knew by heart and was deadly tired of. But he had\nsaid his last word to him.\n\n'If you had any part--I don't say what--in this attack,' pursued the\nboy; 'or if you know anything about it--I don't say how much--or if you\nknow who did it--I go no closer--you did an injury to me that's never\nto be forgiven. You know that I took you with me to his chambers in the\nTemple when I told him my opinion of him, and made myself responsible\nfor my opinion of you. You know that I took you with me when I was\nwatching him with a view to recovering my sister and bringing her to her\nsenses; you know that I have allowed myself to be mixed up with you, all\nthrough this business, in favouring your desire to marry my sister. And\nhow do you know that, pursuing the ends of your own violent temper, you\nhave not laid me open to suspicion? Is that your gratitude to me, Mr\nHeadstone?'\n\nBradley sat looking steadily before him at the vacant air. As often\nas young Hexam stopped, he turned his eyes towards him, as if he were\nwaiting for him to go on with the lesson, and get it done. As often as\nthe boy resumed, Bradley resumed his fixed face.\n\n'I am going to be plain with you, Mr Headstone,' said young Hexam,\nshaking his head in a half-threatening manner, 'because this is no time\nfor affecting not to know things that I do know--except certain things\nat which it might not be very safe for you, to hint again. What I mean\nis this: if you were a good master, I was a good pupil. I have done you\nplenty of credit, and in improving my own reputation I have improved\nyours quite as much. Very well then. Starting on equal terms, I want to\nput before you how you have shown your gratitude to me, for doing all\nI could to further your wishes with reference to my sister. You have\ncompromised me by being seen about with me, endeavouring to counteract\nthis Mr Eugene Wrayburn. That's the first thing you have done. If my\ncharacter, and my now dropping you, help me out of that, Mr Headstone,\nthe deliverance is to be attributed to me, and not to you. No thanks to\nyou for it!'\n\nThe boy stopping again, he moved his eyes again.\n\n'I am going on, Mr Headstone, don't you be afraid. I am going on to the\nend, and I have told you beforehand what the end is. Now, you know my\nstory. You are as well aware as I am, that I have had many disadvantages\nto leave behind me in life. You have heard me mention my father, and you\nare sufficiently acquainted with the fact that the home from which I, as\nI may say, escaped, might have been a more creditable one than it was.\nMy father died, and then it might have been supposed that my way to\nrespectability was pretty clear. No. For then my sister begins.'\n\nHe spoke as confidently, and with as entire an absence of any tell-tale\ncolour in his cheek, as if there were no softening old time behind him.\nNot wonderful, for there WAS none in his hollow empty heart. What is\nthere but self, for selfishness to see behind it?\n\n'When I speak of my sister, I devoutly wish that you had never seen\nher, Mr Headstone. However, you did see her, and that's useless now. I\nconfided in you about her. I explained her character to you, and how she\ninterposed some ridiculous fanciful notions in the way of our being as\nrespectable as I tried for. You fell in love with her, and I favoured\nyou with all my might. She could not be induced to favour you, and so\nwe came into collision with this Mr Eugene Wrayburn. Now, what have you\ndone? Why, you have justified my sister in being firmly set against you\nfrom first to last, and you have put me in the wrong again! And why\nhave you done it? Because, Mr Headstone, you are in all your passions\nso selfish, and so concentrated upon yourself that you have not bestowed\none proper thought on me.'\n\nThe cool conviction with which the boy took up and held his position,\ncould have been derived from no other vice in human nature.\n\n'It is,' he went on, actually with tears, 'an extraordinary circumstance\nattendant on my life, that every effort I make towards perfect\nrespectability, is impeded by somebody else through no fault of mine!\nNot content with doing what I have put before you, you will drag my name\ninto notoriety through dragging my sister's--which you are pretty sure\nto do, if my suspicions have any foundation at all--and the worse you\nprove to be, the harder it will be for me to detach myself from being\nassociated with you in people's minds.'\n\nWhen he had dried his eyes and heaved a sob over his injuries, he began\nmoving towards the door.\n\n'However, I have made up my mind that I will become respectable in the\nscale of society, and that I will not be dragged down by others. I have\ndone with my sister as well as with you. Since she cares so little for\nme as to care nothing for undermining my respectability, she shall go\nher way and I will go mine. My prospects are very good, and I mean to\nfollow them alone. Mr Headstone, I don't say what you have got upon your\nconscience, for I don't know. Whatever lies upon it, I hope you will see\nthe justice of keeping wide and clear of me, and will find a consolation\nin completely exonerating all but yourself. I hope, before many years\nare out, to succeed the master in my present school, and the mistress\nbeing a single woman, though some years older than I am, I might even\nmarry her. If it is any comfort to you to know what plans I may work out\nby keeping myself strictly respectable in the scale of society, these\nare the plans at present occurring to me. In conclusion, if you feel a\nsense of having injured me, and a desire to make some small reparation,\nI hope you will think how respectable you might have been yourself and\nwill contemplate your blighted existence.'\n\nWas it strange that the wretched man should take this heavily to\nheart? Perhaps he had taken the boy to heart, first, through some\nlong laborious years; perhaps through the same years he had found\nhis drudgery lightened by communication with a brighter and more\napprehensive spirit than his own; perhaps a family resemblance of face\nand voice between the boy and his sister, smote him hard in the gloom\nof his fallen state. For whichsoever reason, or for all, he drooped his\ndevoted head when the boy was gone, and shrank together on the floor,\nand grovelled there, with the palms of his hands tight-clasping his hot\ntemples, in unutterable misery, and unrelieved by a single tear.\n\n\nRogue Riderhood had been busy with the river that day. He had fished\nwith assiduity on the previous evening, but the light was short, and\nhe had fished unsuccessfully. He had fished again that day with better\nluck, and had carried his fish home to Plashwater Weir Mill Lock-house,\nin a bundle.\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\nA FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER\n\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker went no more to the business-premises of Pubsey\nand Co. in St Mary Axe, after chance had disclosed to her (as she\nsupposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr Riah. She often\nmoralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that venerable\ncheat, but made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a secluded\nlife. After much consultation with herself, she decided not to put\nLizzie Hexam on her guard against the old man, arguing that the\ndisappointment of finding him out would come upon her quite soon enough.\nTherefore, in her communication with her friend by letter, she was\nsilent on this theme, and principally dilated on the backslidings of her\nbad child, who every day grew worse and worse.\n\n'You wicked old boy,' Miss Wren would say to him, with a menacing\nforefinger, 'you'll force me to run away from you, after all, you will;\nand then you'll shake to bits, and there'll be nobody to pick up the\npieces!'\n\nAt this foreshadowing of a desolate decease, the wicked old boy would\nwhine and whimper, and would sit shaking himself into the lowest of low\nspirits, until such time as he could shake himself out of the house and\nshake another threepennyworth into himself. But dead drunk or dead\nsober (he had come to such a pass that he was least alive in the latter\nstate), it was always on the conscience of the paralytic scarecrow that\nhe had betrayed his sharp parent for sixty threepennyworths of rum,\nwhich were all gone, and that her sharpness would infallibly detect his\nhaving done it, sooner or later. All things considered therefore, and\naddition made of the state of his body to the state of his mind, the bed\non which Mr Dolls reposed was a bed of roses from which the flowers\nand leaves had entirely faded, leaving him to lie upon the thorns and\nstalks.\n\nOn a certain day, Miss Wren was alone at her work, with the house-door\nset open for coolness, and was trolling in a small sweet voice a\nmournful little song which might have been the song of the doll she was\ndressing, bemoaning the brittleness and meltability of wax, when whom\nshould she descry standing on the pavement, looking in at her, but Mr\nFledgeby.\n\n'I thought it was you?' said Fledgeby, coming up the two steps.\n\n'Did you?' Miss Wren retorted. 'And I thought it was you, young man.\nQuite a coincidence. You're not mistaken, and I'm not mistaken. How\nclever we are!'\n\n'Well, and how are you?' said Fledgeby.\n\n'I am pretty much as usual, sir,' replied Miss Wren. 'A very unfortunate\nparent, worried out of my life and senses by a very bad child.'\n\nFledgeby's small eyes opened so wide that they might have passed for\nordinary-sized eyes, as he stared about him for the very young person\nwhom he supposed to be in question.\n\n'But you're not a parent,' said Miss Wren, 'and consequently it's of no\nuse talking to you upon a family subject.--To what am I to attribute the\nhonour and favour?'\n\n'To a wish to improve your acquaintance,' Mr Fledgeby replied.\n\nMiss Wren, stopping to bite her thread, looked at him very knowingly.\n\n'We never meet now,' said Fledgeby; 'do we?'\n\n'No,' said Miss Wren, chopping off the word.\n\n'So I had a mind,' pursued Fledgeby, 'to come and have a talk with you\nabout our dodging friend, the child of Israel.'\n\n'So HE gave you my address; did he?' asked Miss Wren.\n\n'I got it out of him,' said Fledgeby, with a stammer.\n\n'You seem to see a good deal of him,' remarked Miss Wren, with shrewd\ndistrust. 'A good deal of him you seem to see, considering.'\n\n'Yes, I do,' said Fledgeby. 'Considering.'\n\n'Haven't you,' inquired the dressmaker, bending over the doll on which\nher art was being exercised, 'done interceding with him yet?'\n\n'No,' said Fledgeby, shaking his head.\n\n'La! Been interceding with him all this time, and sticking to him\nstill?' said Miss Wren, busy with her work.\n\n'Sticking to him is the word,' said Fledgeby.\n\nMiss Wren pursued her occupation with a concentrated air, and asked,\nafter an interval of silent industry:\n\n'Are you in the army?'\n\n'Not exactly,' said Fledgeby, rather flattered by the question.\n\n'Navy?' asked Miss Wren.\n\n'N--no,' said Fledgeby. He qualified these two negatives, as if he were\nnot absolutely in either service, but was almost in both.\n\n'What are you then?' demanded Miss Wren.\n\n'I am a gentleman, I am,' said Fledgeby.\n\n'Oh!' assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an appearance of\nconviction. 'Yes, to be sure! That accounts for your having so much\ntime to give to interceding. But only to think how kind and friendly a\ngentleman you must be!'\n\nMr Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board marked Dangerous,\nand had better cut out a fresh track. 'Let's get back to the dodgerest\nof the dodgers,' said he. 'What's he up to in the case of your friend\nthe handsome gal? He must have some object. What's his object?'\n\n'Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!' returned Miss Wren,\ncomposedly.\n\n'He won't acknowledge where she's gone,' said Fledgeby; 'and I have\na fancy that I should like to have another look at her. Now I know he\nknows where she is gone.'\n\n'Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!' Miss Wren again rejoined.\n\n'And you know where she is gone,' hazarded Fledgeby.\n\n'Cannot undertake to say, sir, really,' replied Miss Wren.\n\nThe quaint little chin met Mr Fledgeby's gaze with such a baffling\nhitch, that that agreeable gentleman was for some time at a loss how to\nresume his fascinating part in the dialogue. At length he said:\n\n'Miss Jenny!--That's your name, if I don't mistake?'\n\n'Probably you don't mistake, sir,' was Miss Wren's cool answer; 'because\nyou had it on the best authority. Mine, you know.'\n\n'Miss Jenny! Instead of coming up and being dead, let's come out and\nlook alive. It'll pay better, I assure you,' said Fledgeby, bestowing\nan inveigling twinkle or two upon the dressmaker. 'You'll find it pay\nbetter.'\n\n'Perhaps,' said Miss Jenny, holding out her doll at arm's length, and\ncritically contemplating the effect of her art with her scissors on her\nlips and her head thrown back, as if her interest lay there, and not in\nthe conversation; 'perhaps you'll explain your meaning, young man, which\nis Greek to me.--You must have another touch of blue in your trimming,\nmy dear.' Having addressed the last remark to her fair client, Miss\nWren proceeded to snip at some blue fragments that lay before her, among\nfragments of all colours, and to thread a needle from a skein of blue\nsilk.\n\n'Look here,' said Fledgeby.--'Are you attending?'\n\n'I am attending, sir,' replied Miss Wren, without the slightest\nappearance of so doing. 'Another touch of blue in your trimming, my\ndear.'\n\n'Well, look here,' said Fledgeby, rather discouraged by the\ncircumstances under which he found himself pursuing the conversation.\n'If you're attending--'\n\n('Light blue, my sweet young lady,' remarked Miss Wren, in a sprightly\ntone, 'being best suited to your fair complexion and your flaxen\ncurls.')\n\n'I say, if you're attending,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'it'll pay better in\nthis way. It'll lead in a roundabout manner to your buying damage and\nwaste of Pubsey and Co. at a nominal price, or even getting it for\nnothing.'\n\n'Aha!' thought the dressmaker. 'But you are not so roundabout, Little\nEyes, that I don't notice your answering for Pubsey and Co. after all!\nLittle Eyes, Little Eyes, you're too cunning by half.'\n\n'And I take it for granted,' pursued Fledgeby, 'that to get the most of\nyour materials for nothing would be well worth your while, Miss Jenny?'\n\n'You may take it for granted,' returned the dressmaker with many knowing\nnods, 'that it's always well worth my while to make money.'\n\n'Now,' said Fledgeby approvingly, 'you're answering to a sensible\npurpose. Now, you're coming out and looking alive! So I make so free,\nMiss Jenny, as to offer the remark, that you and Judah were too thick\ntogether to last. You can't come to be intimate with such a deep file\nas Judah without beginning to see a little way into him, you know,' said\nFledgeby with a wink.\n\n'I must own,' returned the dressmaker, with her eyes upon her work,\n'that we are not good friends at present.'\n\n'I know you're not good friends at present,' said Fledgeby. 'I know all\nabout it. I should like to pay off Judah, by not letting him have his\nown deep way in everything. In most things he'll get it by hook or\nby crook, but--hang it all!--don't let him have his own deep way in\neverything. That's too much.' Mr Fledgeby said this with some display of\nindignant warmth, as if he was counsel in the cause for Virtue.\n\n'How can I prevent his having his own way?' began the dressmaker.\n\n'Deep way, I called it,' said Fledgeby.\n\n'--His own deep way, in anything?'\n\n'I'll tell you,' said Fledgeby. 'I like to hear you ask it, because\nit's looking alive. It's what I should expect to find in one of your\nsagacious understanding. Now, candidly.'\n\n'Eh?' cried Miss Jenny.\n\n'I said, now candidly,' Mr Fledgeby explained, a little put out.\n\n'Oh-h!'\n\n'I should be glad to countermine him, respecting the handsome gal, your\nfriend. He means something there. You may depend upon it, Judah means\nsomething there. He has a motive, and of course his motive is a dark\nmotive. Now, whatever his motive is, it's necessary to his motive'--Mr\nFledgeby's constructive powers were not equal to the avoidance of some\ntautology here--'that it should be kept from me, what he has done with\nher. So I put it to you, who know: What HAS he done with her? I ask no\nmore. And is that asking much, when you understand that it will pay?'\n\nMiss Jenny Wren, who had cast her eyes upon the bench again after her\nlast interruption, sat looking at it, needle in hand but not working,\nfor some moments. She then briskly resumed her work, and said with a\nsidelong glance of her eyes and chin at Mr Fledgeby:\n\n'Where d'ye live?'\n\n'Albany, Piccadilly,' replied Fledgeby.\n\n'When are you at home?'\n\n'When you like.'\n\n'Breakfast-time?' said Jenny, in her abruptest and shortest manner.\n\n'No better time in the day,' said Fledgeby.\n\n'I'll look in upon you to-morrow, young man. Those two ladies,' pointing\nto dolls, 'have an appointment in Bond Street at ten precisely. When\nI've dropped 'em there, I'll drive round to you.' With a weird little\nlaugh, Miss Jenny pointed to her crutch-stick as her equipage.\n\n'This is looking alive indeed!' cried Fledgeby, rising.\n\n'Mark you! I promise you nothing,' said the dolls' dressmaker, dabbing\ntwo dabs at him with her needle, as if she put out both his eyes.\n\n'No no. I understand,' returned Fledgeby. 'The damage and waste question\nshall be settled first. It shall be made to pay; don't you be afraid.\nGood-day, Miss Jenny.'\n\n'Good-day, young man.'\n\nMr Fledgeby's prepossessing form withdrew itself; and the little\ndressmaker, clipping and snipping and stitching, and stitching and\nsnipping and clipping, fell to work at a great rate; musing and\nmuttering all the time.\n\n'Misty, misty, misty. Can't make it out. Little Eyes and the wolf in a\nconspiracy? Or Little Eyes and the wolf against one another? Can't make\nit out. My poor Lizzie, have they both designs against you, either way?\nCan't make it out. Is Little Eyes Pubsey, and the wolf Co? Can't make it\nout. Pubsey true to Co, and Co to Pubsey? Pubsey false to Co, and Co to\nPubsey? Can't make it out. What said Little Eyes? \"Now, candidly?\"\nAh! However the cat jumps, HE'S a liar. That's all I can make out at\npresent; but you may go to bed in the Albany, Piccadilly, with THAT for\nyour pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed\nout his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and\ndeftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring him\ninto the bargain.\n\nFor the terrors undergone by Mr Dolls that evening when his little\nparent sat profoundly meditating over her work, and when he imagined\nhimself found out, as often as she changed her attitude, or turned her\neyes towards him, there is no adequate name. Moreover it was her habit\nto shake her head at that wretched old boy whenever she caught his eye\nas he shivered and shook. What are popularly called 'the trembles' being\nin full force upon him that evening, and likewise what are popularly\ncalled 'the horrors,' he had a very bad time of it; which was not\nmade better by his being so remorseful as frequently to moan 'Sixty\nthreepennorths.' This imperfect sentence not being at all intelligible\nas a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram,\nbrought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce\nat him in a more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm him with\nbitter reproaches.\n\nWhat was a bad time for Mr Dolls, could not fail to be a bad time for\nthe dolls' dressmaker. However, she was on the alert next morning, and\ndrove to Bond Street, and set down the two ladies punctually, and then\ndirected her equipage to conduct her to the Albany. Arrived at the\ndoorway of the house in which Mr Fledgeby's chambers were, she found a\nlady standing there in a travelling dress, holding in her hand--of all\nthings in the world--a gentleman's hat.\n\n'You want some one?' said the lady in a stern manner.\n\n'I am going up stairs to Mr Fledgeby's.'\n\n'You cannot do that at this moment. There is a gentleman with him. I am\nwaiting for the gentleman. His business with Mr Fledgeby will very soon\nbe transacted, and then you can go up. Until the gentleman comes down,\nyou must wait here.'\n\nWhile speaking, and afterwards, the lady kept watchfully between her and\nthe staircase, as if prepared to oppose her going up, by force. The\nlady being of a stature to stop her with a hand, and looking mightily\ndetermined, the dressmaker stood still.\n\n'Well? Why do you listen?' asked the lady.\n\n'I am not listening,' said the dressmaker.\n\n'What do you hear?' asked the lady, altering her phrase.\n\n'Is it a kind of a spluttering somewhere?' said the dressmaker, with an\ninquiring look.\n\n'Mr Fledgeby in his shower-bath, perhaps,' remarked the lady, smiling.\n\n'And somebody's beating a carpet, I think?'\n\n'Mr Fledgeby's carpet, I dare say,' replied the smiling lady.\n\nMiss Wren had a reasonably good eye for smiles, being well accustomed\nto them on the part of her young friends, though their smiles mostly ran\nsmaller than in nature. But she had never seen so singular a smile\nas that upon this lady's face. It twitched her nostrils open in a\nremarkable manner, and contracted her lips and eyebrows. It was a smile\nof enjoyment too, though of such a fierce kind that Miss Wren thought\nshe would rather not enjoy herself than do it in that way.\n\n'Well!' said the lady, watching her. 'What now?'\n\n'I hope there's nothing the matter!' said the dressmaker.\n\n'Where?' inquired the lady.\n\n'I don't know where,' said Miss Wren, staring about her. 'But I never\nheard such odd noises. Don't you think I had better call somebody?'\n\n'I think you had better not,' returned the lady with a significant\nfrown, and drawing closer.\n\nOn this hint, the dressmaker relinquished the idea, and stood looking\nat the lady as hard as the lady looked at her. Meanwhile the dressmaker\nlistened with amazement to the odd noises which still continued, and the\nlady listened too, but with a coolness in which there was no trace of\namazement.\n\nSoon afterwards, came a slamming and banging of doors; and then came\nrunning down stairs, a gentleman with whiskers, and out of breath, who\nseemed to be red-hot.\n\n'Is your business done, Alfred?' inquired the lady.\n\n'Very thoroughly done,' replied the gentleman, as he took his hat from\nher.\n\n'You can go up to Mr Fledgeby as soon as you like,' said the lady,\nmoving haughtily away.\n\n'Oh! And you can take these three pieces of stick with you,' added the\ngentleman politely, 'and say, if you please, that they come from Mr\nAlfred Lammle, with his compliments on leaving England. Mr Alfred\nLammle. Be so good as not to forget the name.'\n\nThe three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed fragments of a\nstout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking them wonderingly, and the gentleman\nrepeating with a grin, 'Mr Alfred Lammle, if you'll be so good.\nCompliments, on leaving England,' the lady and gentleman walked away\nquite deliberately, and Miss Jenny and her crutch-stick went up stairs.\n'Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?' Miss Jenny repeated as she panted from stair\nto stair, 'where have I heard that name? Lammle, Lammle? I know! Saint\nMary Axe!'\n\nWith a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls'\ndressmaker pulled at Fledgeby's bell. No one answered; but, from within\nthe chambers, there proceeded a continuous spluttering sound of a highly\nsingular and unintelligible nature.\n\n'Good gracious! Is Little Eyes choking?' cried Miss Jenny.\n\nPulling at the bell again and getting no reply, she pushed the outer\ndoor, and found it standing ajar. No one being visible on her opening it\nwider, and the spluttering continuing, she took the liberty of opening\nan inner door, and then beheld the extraordinary spectacle of Mr\nFledgeby in a shirt, a pair of Turkish trousers, and a Turkish cap,\nrolling over and over on his own carpet, and spluttering wonderfully.\n\n'Oh Lord!' gasped Mr Fledgeby. 'Oh my eye! Stop thief! I am strangling.\nFire! Oh my eye! A glass of water. Give me a glass of water. Shut the\ndoor. Murder! Oh Lord!' And then rolled and spluttered more than ever.\n\nHurrying into another room, Miss Jenny got a glass of water, and brought\nit for Fledgeby's relief: who, gasping, spluttering, and rattling in his\nthroat betweenwhiles, drank some water, and laid his head faintly on her\narm.\n\n'Oh my eye!' cried Fledgeby, struggling anew. 'It's salt and snuff. It's\nup my nose, and down my throat, and in my wind-pipe. Ugh! Ow! Ow! Ow!\nAh--h--h--h!' And here, crowing fearfully, with his eyes starting out of\nhis head, appeared to be contending with every mortal disease incidental\nto poultry.\n\n'And Oh my Eye, I'm so sore!' cried Fledgeby, starting, over on his\nback, in a spasmodic way that caused the dressmaker to retreat to the\nwall. 'Oh I smart so! Do put something to my back and arms, and legs and\nshoulders. Ugh! It's down my throat again and can't come up. Ow! Ow! Ow!\nAh--h--h--h! Oh I smart so!' Here Mr Fledgeby bounded up, and bounded\ndown, and went rolling over and over again.\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker looked on until he rolled himself into a corner\nwith his Turkish slippers uppermost, and then, resolving in the first\nplace to address her ministration to the salt and snuff, gave him more\nwater and slapped his back. But, the latter application was by no means\na success, causing Mr Fledgeby to scream, and to cry out, 'Oh my eye!\ndon't slap me! I'm covered with weales and I smart so!'\n\nHowever, he gradually ceased to choke and crow, saving at intervals,\nand Miss Jenny got him into an easy-chair: where, with his eyes red and\nwatery, with his features swollen, and with some half-dozen livid bars\nacross his face, he presented a most rueful sight.\n\n'What ever possessed you to take salt and snuff, young man?' inquired\nMiss Jenny.\n\n'I didn't take it,' the dismal youth replied. 'It was crammed into my\nmouth.'\n\n'Who crammed it?' asked Miss Jenny.\n\n'He did,' answered Fledgeby. 'The assassin. Lammle. He rubbed it into\nmy mouth and up my nose and down my throat--Ow! Ow! Ow! Ah--h--h--h!\nUgh!--to prevent my crying out, and then cruelly assaulted me.'\n\n'With this?' asked Miss Jenny, showing the pieces of cane.\n\n'That's the weapon,' said Fledgeby, eyeing it with the air of an\nacquaintance. 'He broke it over me. Oh I smart so! How did you come by\nit?'\n\n'When he ran down stairs and joined the lady he had left in the hall\nwith his hat'--Miss Jenny began.\n\n'Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, writhing, 'she was holding his hat, was she?\nI might have known she was in it.'\n\n'When he came down stairs and joined the lady who wouldn't let me come\nup, he gave me the pieces for you, and I was to say, \"With Mr Alfred\nLammle's compliments on his leaving England.\"' Miss Jenny said it with\nsuch spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes as\nmight have added to Mr Fledgeby's miseries, if he could have noticed\neither, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head.\n\n'Shall I go for the police?' inquired Miss Jenny, with a nimble start\ntowards the door.\n\n'Stop! No, don't!' cried Fledgeby. 'Don't, please. We had better keep it\nquiet. Will you be so good as shut the door? Oh I do smart so!'\n\nIn testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr Fledgeby came\nwallowing out of the easy-chair, and took another roll on the carpet.\n\n'Now the door's shut,' said Mr Fledgeby, sitting up in anguish, with\nhis Turkish cap half on and half off, and the bars on his face getting\nbluer, 'do me the kindness to look at my back and shoulders. They must\nbe in an awful state, for I hadn't got my dressing-gown on, when the\nbrute came rushing in. Cut my shirt away from the collar; there's a pair\nof scissors on that table. Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, with his hand to\nhis head again. 'How I do smart, to be sure!'\n\n'There?' inquired Miss Jenny, alluding to the back and shoulders.\n\n'Oh Lord, yes!' moaned Fledgeby, rocking himself. 'And all over!\nEverywhere!'\n\nThe busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, and laid\nbare the results of as furious and sound a thrashing as even Mr Fledgeby\nmerited. 'You may well smart, young man!' exclaimed Miss Jenny. And\nstealthily rubbed her little hands behind him, and poked a few exultant\npokes with her two forefingers over the crown of his head.\n\n'What do you think of vinegar and brown paper?' inquired the suffering\nFledgeby, still rocking and moaning. 'Does it look as if vinegar and\nbrown paper was the sort of application?'\n\n'Yes,' said Miss Jenny, with a silent chuckle. 'It looks as if it ought\nto be Pickled.'\n\nMr Fledgeby collapsed under the word 'Pickled,' and groaned again.\n'My kitchen is on this floor,' he said; 'you'll find brown paper in a\ndresser-drawer there, and a bottle of vinegar on a shelf. Would you have\nthe kindness to make a few plasters and put 'em on? It can't be kept too\nquiet.'\n\n'One, two--hum--five, six. You'll want six,' said the dress-maker.\n\n'There's smart enough,' whimpered Mr Fledgeby, groaning and writhing\nagain, 'for sixty.'\n\nMiss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found the brown\npaper and found the vinegar, and skilfully cut out and steeped six\nlarge plasters. When they were all lying ready on the dresser, an idea\noccurred to her as she was about to gather them up.\n\n'I think,' said Miss Jenny with a silent laugh, 'he ought to have a\nlittle pepper? Just a few grains? I think the young man's tricks and\nmanners make a claim upon his friends for a little pepper?'\n\nMr Fledgeby's evil star showing her the pepper-box on the chimneypiece,\nshe climbed upon a chair, and got it down, and sprinkled all the\nplasters with a judicious hand. She then went back to Mr Fledgeby, and\nstuck them all on him: Mr Fledgeby uttering a sharp howl as each was put\nin its place.\n\n'There, young man!' said the dolls' dressmaker. 'Now I hope you feel\npretty comfortable?'\n\nApparently, Mr Fledgeby did not, for he cried by way of answer, 'Oh--h\nhow I do smart!'\n\nMiss Jenny got his Persian gown upon him, extinguished his eyes\ncrookedly with his Persian cap, and helped him to his bed: upon which he\nclimbed groaning. 'Business between you and me being out of the question\nto-day, young man, and my time being precious,' said Miss Jenny then,\n'I'll make myself scarce. Are you comfortable now?'\n\n'Oh my eye!' cried Mr Fledgeby. 'No, I ain't. Oh--h--h! how I do smart!'\n\nThe last thing Miss Jenny saw, as she looked back before closing the\nroom door, was Mr Fledgeby in the act of plunging and gambolling all\nover his bed, like a porpoise or dolphin in its native element. She then\nshut the bedroom door, and all the other doors, and going down stairs\nand emerging from the Albany into the busy streets, took omnibus for\nSaint Mary Axe: pressing on the road all the gaily-dressed ladies whom\nshe could see from the window, and making them unconscious lay-figures\nfor dolls, while she mentally cut them out and basted them.\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nTWO PLACES VACATED\n\n\nSet down by the omnibus at the corner of Saint Mary Axe, and trusting\nto her feet and her crutch-stick within its precincts, the dolls'\ndressmaker proceeded to the place of business of Pubsey and Co. All\nthere was sunny and quiet externally, and shady and quiet internally.\nHiding herself in the entry outside the glass door, she could see from\nthat post of observation the old man in his spectacles sitting writing\nat his desk.\n\n'Boh!' cried the dressmaker, popping in her head at the glass-door. 'Mr\nWolf at home?'\n\nThe old man took his glasses off, and mildly laid them down beside him.\n'Ah Jenny, is it you? I thought you had given me up.'\n\n'And so I had given up the treacherous wolf of the forest,' she replied;\n'but, godmother, it strikes me you have come back. I am not quite sure,\nbecause the wolf and you change forms. I want to ask you a question or\ntwo, to find out whether you are really godmother or really wolf. May\nI?'\n\n'Yes, Jenny, yes.' But Riah glanced towards the door, as if he thought\nhis principal might appear there, unseasonably.\n\n'If you're afraid of the fox,' said Miss Jenny, 'you may dismiss all\npresent expectations of seeing that animal. HE won't show himself\nabroad, for many a day.'\n\n'What do you mean, my child?'\n\n'I mean, godmother,' replied Miss Wren, sitting down beside the Jew,\n'that the fox has caught a famous flogging, and that if his skin and\nbones are not tingling, aching, and smarting at this present instant, no\nfox did ever tingle, ache, and smart.' Therewith Miss Jenny related what\nhad come to pass in the Albany, omitting the few grains of pepper.\n\n'Now, godmother,' she went on, 'I particularly wish to ask you what has\ntaken place here, since I left the wolf here? Because I have an idea\nabout the size of a marble, rolling about in my little noddle. First and\nforemost, are you Pubsey and Co., or are you either? Upon your solemn\nword and honour.'\n\nThe old man shook his head.\n\n'Secondly, isn't Fledgeby both Pubsey and Co.?'\n\nThe old man answered with a reluctant nod.\n\n'My idea,' exclaimed Miss Wren, 'is now about the size of an orange. But\nbefore it gets any bigger, welcome back, dear godmother!'\n\nThe little creature folded her arms about the old man's neck with great\nearnestness, and kissed him. 'I humbly beg your forgiveness, godmother.\nI am truly sorry. I ought to have had more faith in you. But what could\nI suppose when you said nothing for yourself, you know? I don't mean to\noffer that as a justification, but what could I suppose, when you were a\nsilent party to all he said? It did look bad; now didn't it?'\n\n'It looked so bad, Jenny,' responded the old man, with gravity, 'that I\nwill straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I was\nhateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful\nto the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that,\nand to pass out far and broad beyond myself--I reflected that evening,\nsitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour\nto my ancient faith and race. I reflected--clearly reflected for the\nfirst time--that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear,\nI bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in\nChristian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, 'This\nis a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there\nare good Turks.' Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily\nenough--among what peoples are the bad not easily found?--but they take\nthe worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as\npresentations of the highest; and they say \"All Jews are alike.\" If,\ndoing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the past\nand have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have\ndone it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a\nJew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and\nall countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I would\nthat all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so,\nseeing that it came home so late to me.'\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker sat holding the old man by the hand, and looking\nthoughtfully in his face.\n\n'Thus I reflected, I say, sitting that evening in my garden on the\nhousetop. And passing the painful scene of that day in review before\nme many times, I always saw that the poor gentleman believed the story\nreadily, because I was one of the Jews--that you believed the story\nreadily, my child, because I was one of the Jews--that the story itself\nfirst came into the invention of the originator thereof, because I was\none of the Jews. This was the result of my having had you three before\nme, face to face, and seeing the thing visibly presented as upon a\ntheatre. Wherefore I perceived that the obligation was upon me to leave\nthis service. But Jenny, my dear,' said Riah, breaking off, 'I promised\nthat you should pursue your questions, and I obstruct them.'\n\n'On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as a pumpkin--and\nYOU know what a pumpkin is, don't you? So you gave notice that you\nwere going? Does that come next?' asked Miss Jenny with a look of close\nattention.\n\n'I indited a letter to my master. Yes. To that effect.'\n\n'And what said Tingling-Tossing-Aching-Screaming-Scratching-Smarter?'\nasked Miss Wren with an unspeakable enjoyment in the utterance of those\nhonourable titles and in the recollection of the pepper.\n\n'He held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful term\nof notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon their expiration--not before--I\nhad meant to set myself right with my Cinderella.'\n\n'My idea is getting so immense now,' cried Miss Wren, clasping her\ntemples, 'that my head won't hold it! Listen, godmother; I am going to\nexpound. Little Eyes (that's Screaming-Scratching-Smarter) owes you a\nheavy grudge for going. Little Eyes casts about how best to pay you off.\nLittle Eyes thinks of Lizzie. Little Eyes says to himself, 'I'll find\nout where he has placed that girl, and I'll betray his secret because\nit's dear to him.' Perhaps Little Eyes thinks, \"I'll make love to her\nmyself too;\" but that I can't swear--all the rest I can. So, Little Eyes\ncomes to me, and I go to Little Eyes. That's the way of it. And now the\nmurder's all out, I'm sorry,' added the dolls' dressmaker, rigid from\nhead to foot with energy as she shook her little fist before her eyes,\n'that I didn't give him Cayenne pepper and chopped pickled Capsicum!'\n\nThis expression of regret being but partially intelligible to Mr Riah,\nthe old man reverted to the injuries Fledgeby had received, and hinted\nat the necessity of his at once going to tend that beaten cur.\n\n'Godmother, godmother, godmother!' cried Miss Wren irritably, 'I really\nlose all patience with you. One would think you believed in the Good\nSamaritan. How can you be so inconsistent?'\n\n'Jenny dear,' began the old man gently, 'it is the custom of our people\nto help--'\n\n'Oh! Bother your people!' interposed Miss Wren, with a toss of her head.\n'If your people don't know better than to go and help Little Eyes, it's\na pity they ever got out of Egypt. Over and above that,' she added, 'he\nwouldn't take your help if you offered it. Too much ashamed. Wants to\nkeep it close and quiet, and to keep you out of the way.'\n\nThey were still debating this point when a shadow darkened the entry,\nand the glass door was opened by a messenger who brought a letter\nunceremoniously addressed, 'Riah.' To which he said there was an answer\nwanted.\n\nThe letter, which was scrawled in pencil uphill and downhill and round\ncrooked corners, ran thus:\n\n\n'OLD RIAH,\n\nYour accounts being all squared, go. Shut up the place, turn out\ndirectly, and send me the key by bearer. Go. You are an unthankful dog\nof a Jew. Get out.\n\nF.'\n\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker found it delicious to trace the screaming and\nsmarting of Little Eyes in the distorted writing of this epistle. She\nlaughed over it and jeered at it in a convenient corner (to the great\nastonishment of the messenger) while the old man got his few goods\ntogether in a black bag. That done, the shutters of the upper windows\nclosed, and the office blind pulled down, they issued forth upon the\nsteps with the attendant messenger. There, while Miss Jenny held the\nbag, the old man locked the house door, and handed over the key to him;\nwho at once retired with the same.\n\n'Well, godmother,' said Miss Wren, as they remained upon the steps\ntogether, looking at one another. 'And so you're thrown upon the world!'\n\n'It would appear so, Jenny, and somewhat suddenly.'\n\n'Where are you going to seek your fortune?' asked Miss Wren.\n\nThe old man smiled, but looked about him with a look of having lost his\nway in life, which did not escape the dolls' dressmaker.\n\n'Verily, Jenny,' said he, 'the question is to the purpose, and more\neasily asked than answered. But as I have experience of the ready\ngoodwill and good help of those who have given occupation to Lizzie, I\nthink I will seek them out for myself.'\n\n'On foot?' asked Miss Wren, with a chop.\n\n'Ay!' said the old man. 'Have I not my staff?'\n\nIt was exactly because he had his staff, and presented so quaint an\naspect, that she mistrusted his making the journey.\n\n'The best thing you can do,' said Jenny, 'for the time being, at all\nevents, is to come home with me, godmother. Nobody's there but my bad\nchild, and Lizzie's lodging stands empty.' The old man when satisfied\nthat no inconvenience could be entailed on any one by his compliance,\nreadily complied; and the singularly-assorted couple once more went\nthrough the streets together.\n\nNow, the bad child having been strictly charged by his parent to remain\nat home in her absence, of course went out; and, being in the very last\nstage of mental decrepitude, went out with two objects; firstly,\nto establish a claim he conceived himself to have upon any licensed\nvictualler living, to be supplied with threepennyworth of rum for\nnothing; and secondly, to bestow some maudlin remorse on Mr Eugene\nWrayburn, and see what profit came of it. Stumblingly pursuing these\ntwo designs--they both meant rum, the only meaning of which he was\ncapable--the degraded creature staggered into Covent Garden Market and\nthere bivouacked, to have an attack of the trembles succeeded by an\nattack of the horrors, in a doorway.\n\nThis market of Covent Garden was quite out of the creature's line of\nroad, but it had the attraction for him which it has for the worst of\nthe solitary members of the drunken tribe. It may be the companionship\nof the nightly stir, or it may be the companionship of the gin and\nbeer that slop about among carters and hucksters, or it may be the\ncompanionship of the trodden vegetable refuse which is so like their own\ndress that perhaps they take the Market for a great wardrobe; but be\nit what it may, you shall see no such individual drunkards on doorsteps\nanywhere, as there. Of dozing women-drunkards especially, you shall come\nupon such specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you might\nseek out of doors in vain through London. Such stale vapid rejected\ncabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged-orange countenance,\nsuch squashed pulp of humanity, are open to the day nowhere else. So,\nthe attraction of the Market drew Mr Dolls to it, and he had out his two\nfits of trembles and horrors in a doorway on which a woman had had out\nher sodden nap a few hours before.\n\nThere is a swarm of young savages always flitting about this same place,\ncreeping off with fragments of orange-chests, and mouldy litter--Heaven\nknows into what holes they can convey them, having no home!--whose bare\nfeet fall with a blunt dull softness on the pavement as the policeman\nhunts them, and who are (perhaps for that reason) little heard by\nthe Powers that be, whereas in top-boots they would make a deafening\nclatter. These, delighting in the trembles and the horrors of Mr Dolls,\nas in a gratuitous drama, flocked about him in his doorway, butted\nat him, leaped at him, and pelted him. Hence, when he came out of\nhis invalid retirement and shook off that ragged train, he was much\nbespattered, and in worse case than ever. But, not yet at his worst;\nfor, going into a public-house, and being supplied in stress of business\nwith his rum, and seeking to vanish without payment, he was collared,\nsearched, found penniless, and admonished not to try that again,\nby having a pail of dirty water cast over him. This application\nsuperinduced another fit of the trembles; after which Mr Dolls, as\nfinding himself in good cue for making a call on a professional friend,\naddressed himself to the Temple.\n\nThere was nobody at the chambers but Young Blight. That discreet youth,\nsensible of a certain incongruity in the association of such a\nclient with the business that might be coming some day, with the best\nintentions temporized with Dolls, and offered a shilling for coach-hire\nhome. Mr Dolls, accepting the shilling, promptly laid it out in\ntwo threepennyworths of conspiracy against his life, and two\nthreepennyworths of raging repentance. Returning to the Chambers with\nwhich burden, he was descried coming round into the court, by the wary\nyoung Blight watching from the window: who instantly closed the outer\ndoor, and left the miserable object to expend his fury on the panels.\n\nThe more the door resisted him, the more dangerous and imminent became\nthat bloody conspiracy against his life. Force of police arriving,\nhe recognized in them the conspirators, and laid about him hoarsely,\nfiercely, staringly, convulsively, foamingly. A humble machine, familiar\nto the conspirators and called by the expressive name of Stretcher,\nbeing unavoidably sent for, he was rendered a harmless bundle of torn\nrags by being strapped down upon it, with voice and consciousness gone\nout of him, and life fast going. As this machine was borne out at the\nTemple gate by four men, the poor little dolls' dressmaker and her\nJewish friend were coming up the street.\n\n'Let us see what it is,' cried the dressmaker. 'Let us make haste and\nlook, godmother.'\n\nThe brisk little crutch-stick was but too brisk. 'O gentlemen,\ngentlemen, he belongs to me!'\n\n'Belongs to you?' said the head of the party, stopping it.\n\n'O yes, dear gentlemen, he's my child, out without leave. My poor bad,\nbad boy! and he don't know me, he don't know me! O what shall I do,'\ncried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, 'when my\nown child don't know me!'\n\nThe head of the party looked (as well he might) to the old man for\nexplanation. He whispered, as the dolls' dressmaker bent over the\nexhausted form and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition from\nit: 'It's her drunken father.'\n\nAs the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the head of the party\naside, and whispered that he thought the man was dying. 'No, surely\nnot?' returned the other. But he became less confident, on looking, and\ndirected the bearers to 'bring him to the nearest doctor's shop.'\n\nThither he was brought; the window becoming from within, a wall of\nfaces, deformed into all kinds of shapes through the agency of globular\nred bottles, green bottles, blue bottles, and other coloured bottles. A\nghastly light shining upon him that he didn't need, the beast so furious\nbut a few minutes gone, was quiet enough now, with a strange mysterious\nwriting on his face, reflected from one of the great bottles, as if\nDeath had marked him: 'Mine.'\n\nThe medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than it\nsometimes is in a Court of Justice. 'You had better send for something\nto cover it. All's over.'\n\nTherefore, the police sent for something to cover it, and it was covered\nand borne through the streets, the people falling away. After it,\nwent the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish skirts, and\nclinging to them with one hand, while with the other she plied her\nstick. It was carried home, and, by reason that the staircase was very\nnarrow, it was put down in the parlour--the little working-bench being\nset aside to make room for it--and there, in the midst of the dolls with\nno speculation in their eyes, lay Mr Dolls with no speculation in his.\n\nMany flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in\nthe dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for Mr Dolls. As the old man,\nRiah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it\ndifficult to make out whether she really did realize that the deceased\nhad been her father.\n\n'If my poor boy,' she would say, 'had been brought up better, he might\nhave done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause for\nthat.'\n\n'None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain.'\n\n'Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it\nis so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day.\nWhen he was out of employment, I couldn't always keep him near me. He\ngot fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the\nstreets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of\nsight. How often it happens with children!'\n\n'Too often, even in this sad sense!' thought the old man.\n\n'How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my back\nhaving been so bad and my legs so queer, when I was young!' the\ndressmaker would go on. 'I had nothing to do but work, and so I worked.\nI couldn't play. But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turned\nout the worse for him.'\n\n'And not for him alone, Jenny.'\n\n'Well! I don't know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate\nboy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity of\nnames;' shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. 'I don't\nknow that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, let\nus forget it.'\n\n'You are a good girl, you are a patient girl.'\n\n'As for patience,' she would reply with a shrug, 'not much of that,\ngodmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names.\nBut I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility\nas a mother, so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried\ncoaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding and scolding failed. But I\nwas bound to try everything, you know, with such a charge upon my hands.\nWhere would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried\neverything!'\n\nWith such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious\nlittle creature, the day-work and the night-work were beguiled until\nenough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into the kitchen,\nwhere the working-bench now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasion\nrequired, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations.\n'And now,' said Miss Jenny, 'having knocked off my rosy-cheeked young\nfriends, I'll knock off my white-cheeked self.' This referred to her\nmaking her own dress, which at last was done. 'The disadvantage of\nmaking for yourself,' said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to look\nat the result in the glass, 'is, that you can't charge anybody else for\nthe job, and the advantage is, that you haven't to go out to try on.\nHumph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now (whoever he is) I hope\nhe wouldn't repent of his bargain!'\n\nThe simple arrangements were of her own making, and were stated to Riah\nthus:\n\n'I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you'll be so\nkind as keep house while I am gone. It's not far off. And when I return,\nwe'll have a cup of tea, and a chat over future arrangements. It's a\nvery plain last house that I have been able to give my poor unfortunate\nboy; but he'll accept the will for the deed if he knows anything about\nit; and if he doesn't know anything about it,' with a sob, and wiping\nher eyes, 'why, it won't matter to him. I see the service in the\nPrayer-book says, that we brought nothing into this world and it is\ncertain we can take nothing out. It comforts me for not being able to\nhire a lot of stupid undertaker's things for my poor child, and seeming\nas if I was trying to smuggle 'em out of this world with him, when of\ncourse I must break down in the attempt, and bring 'em all back again.\nAs it is, there'll be nothing to bring back but me, and that's quite\nconsistent, for I shan't be brought back, some day!'\n\nAfter that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched old\nfellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken on the shoulders of half\na dozen blossom-faced men, who shuffled with him to the churchyard,\nand who were preceded by another blossom-faced man, affecting a\nstately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of the D(eath) Division, and\nceremoniously pretending not to know his intimate acquaintances, as he\nled the pageant. Yet, the spectacle of only one little mourner hobbling\nafter, caused many people to turn their heads with a look of interest.\n\nAt last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be buried\nno more, and the stately stalker stalked back before the solitary\ndressmaker, as if she were bound in honour to have no notion of the way\nhome. Those Furies, the conventionalities, being thus appeased, he left\nher.\n\n'I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for good,'\nsaid the little creature, coming in. 'Because after all a child is a\nchild, you know.'\n\nIt was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, it wore\nitself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker came forth, and\nwashed her face, and made the tea. 'You wouldn't mind my cutting out\nsomething while we are at tea, would you?' she asked her Jewish friend,\nwith a coaxing air.\n\n'Cinderella, dear child,' the old man expostulated, 'will you never\nrest?'\n\n'Oh! It's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't,' said Miss Jenny, with\nher busy little scissors already snipping at some paper. 'The truth is,\ngodmother, I want to fix it while I have it correct in my mind.'\n\n'Have you seen it to-day then?' asked Riah.\n\n'Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It's a surplice, that's what it\nis. Thing our clergymen wear, you know,' explained Miss Jenny, in\nconsideration of his professing another faith.\n\n'And what have you to do with that, Jenny?'\n\n'Why, godmother,' replied the dressmaker, 'you must know that we\nProfessors who live upon our taste and invention, are obliged to keep\nour eyes always open. And you know already that I have many extra\nexpenses to meet just now. So, it came into my head while I was weeping\nat my poor boy's grave, that something in my way might be done with a\nclergyman.'\n\n'What can be done?' asked the old man.\n\n'Not a funeral, never fear!' returned Miss Jenny, anticipating his\nobjection with a nod. 'The public don't like to be made melancholy, I\nknow very well. I am seldom called upon to put my young friends into\nmourning; not into real mourning, that is; Court mourning they are\nrather proud of. But a doll clergyman, my dear,--glossy black curls\nand whiskers--uniting two of my young friends in matrimony,' said Miss\nJenny, shaking her forefinger, 'is quite another affair. If you don't\nsee those three at the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name's Jack\nRobinson!'\n\nWith her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into\nwhitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and was displaying\nit for the edification of the Jewish mind, when a knock was heard at the\nstreet-door. Riah went to open it, and presently came back, ushering in,\nwith the grave and courteous air that sat so well upon him, a gentleman.\n\nThe gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker; but even in the moment\nof his casting his eyes upon her, there was something in his manner\nwhich brought to her remembrance Mr Eugene Wrayburn.\n\n'Pardon me,' said the gentleman. 'You are the dolls' dressmaker?'\n\n'I am the dolls' dressmaker, sir.'\n\n'Lizzie Hexam's friend?'\n\n'Yes, sir,' replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. 'And Lizzie\nHexam's friend.'\n\n'Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the request of\nMr Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr Riah chances to know that I am Mr\nMortimer Lightwood, and will tell you so.'\n\nRiah bent his head in corroboration.\n\n'Will you read the note?'\n\n'It's very short,' said Jenny, with a look of wonder, when she had read\nit.\n\n'There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very precious. My dear\nfriend Mr Eugene Wrayburn is dying.'\n\nThe dressmaker clasped her hands, and uttered a little piteous cry.\n\n'Is dying,' repeated Lightwood, with emotion, 'at some distance from\nhere. He is sinking under injuries received at the hands of a villain\nwho attacked him in the dark. I come straight from his bedside. He is\nalmost always insensible. In a short restless interval of sensibility,\nor partial sensibility, I made out that he asked for you to be brought\nto sit by him. Hardly relying on my own interpretation of the indistinct\nsounds he made, I caused Lizzie to hear them. We were both sure that he\nasked for you.'\n\nThe dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked affrightedly from\nthe one to the other of her two companions.\n\n'If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, with his\nlast wish--intrusted to me--we have long been much more than\nbrothers--unfulfilled. I shall break down, if I try to say more.'\n\nIn a few moments the black bonnet and the crutch-stick were on duty, the\ngood Jew was left in possession of the house, and the dolls' dressmaker,\nside by side in a chaise with Mortimer Lightwood, was posting out of\ntown.\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\nTHE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD\n\n\nA darkened and hushed room; the river outside the windows flowing on\nto the vast ocean; a figure on the bed, swathed and bandaged and bound,\nlying helpless on its back, with its two useless arms in splints at its\nsides. Only two days of usage so familiarized the little dressmaker\nwith this scene, that it held the place occupied two days ago by the\nrecollections of years.\n\nHe had scarcely moved since her arrival. Sometimes his eyes were open,\nsometimes closed. When they were open, there was no meaning in their\nunwinking stare at one spot straight before them, unless for a moment\nthe brow knitted into a faint expression of anger, or surprise. Then,\nMortimer Lightwood would speak to him, and on occasions he would be so\nfar roused as to make an attempt to pronounce his friend's name. But, in\nan instant consciousness was gone again, and no spirit of Eugene was in\nEugene's crushed outer form.\n\nThey provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, and she had a\nlittle table placed at the foot of his bed. Sitting there, with her rich\nshower of hair falling over the chair-back, they hoped she might attract\nhis notice. With the same object, she would sing, just above her breath,\nwhen he opened his eyes, or she saw his brow knit into that faint\nexpression, so evanescent that it was like a shape made in water. But\nas yet he had not heeded. The 'they' here mentioned were the medical\nattendant; Lizzie, who was there in all her intervals of rest; and\nLightwood, who never left him.\n\nThe two days became three, and the three days became four. At length,\nquite unexpectedly, he said something in a whisper.\n\n'What was it, my dear Eugene?'\n\n'Will you, Mortimer--'\n\n'Will I--?\n\n--'Send for her?'\n\n'My dear fellow, she is here.'\n\nQuite unconscious of the long blank, he supposed that they were still\nspeaking together.\n\nThe little dressmaker stood up at the foot of the bed, humming her song,\nand nodded to him brightly. 'I can't shake hands, Jenny,' said Eugene,\nwith something of his old look; 'but I am very glad to see you.'\n\nMortimer repeated this to her, for it could only be made out by bending\nover him and closely watching his attempts to say it. In a little while,\nhe added:\n\n'Ask her if she has seen the children.'\n\nMortimer could not understand this, neither could Jenny herself, until\nhe added:\n\n'Ask her if she has smelt the flowers.'\n\n'Oh! I know!' cried Jenny. 'I understand him now!' Then, Lightwood\nyielded his place to her quick approach, and she said, bending over the\nbed, with that better look: 'You mean my long bright slanting rows of\nchildren, who used to bring me ease and rest? You mean the children who\nused to take me up, and make me light?'\n\nEugene smiled, 'Yes.'\n\n'I have not seen them since I saw you. I never see them now, but I am\nhardly ever in pain now.'\n\n'It was a pretty fancy,' said Eugene.\n\n'But I have heard my birds sing,' cried the little creature, 'and I have\nsmelt my flowers. Yes, indeed I have! And both were most beautiful and\nmost Divine!'\n\n'Stay and help to nurse me,' said Eugene, quietly. 'I should like you to\nhave the fancy here, before I die.'\n\nShe touched his lips with her hand, and shaded her eyes with that same\nhand as she went back to her work and her little low song. He heard the\nsong with evident pleasure, until she allowed it gradually to sink away\ninto silence.\n\n'Mortimer.'\n\n'My dear Eugene.'\n\n'If you can give me anything to keep me here for only a few minutes--'\n\n'To keep you here, Eugene?'\n\n'To prevent my wandering away I don't know where--for I begin to be\nsensible that I have just come back, and that I shall lose myself\nagain--do so, dear boy!'\n\nMortimer gave him such stimulants as could be given him with safety\n(they were always at hand, ready), and bending over him once more, was\nabout to caution him, when he said:\n\n'Don't tell me not to speak, for I must speak. If you knew the\nharassing anxiety that gnaws and wears me when I am wandering in those\nplaces--where are those endless places, Mortimer? They must be at an\nimmense distance!'\n\nHe saw in his friend's face that he was losing himself; for he added\nafter a moment: 'Don't be afraid--I am not gone yet. What was it?'\n\n'You wanted to tell me something, Eugene. My poor dear fellow, you\nwanted to say something to your old friend--to the friend who has always\nloved you, admired you, imitated you, founded himself upon you, been\nnothing without you, and who, God knows, would be here in your place if\nhe could!'\n\n'Tut, tut!' said Eugene with a tender glance as the other put his hand\nbefore his face. 'I am not worth it. I acknowledge that I like it,\ndear boy, but I am not worth it. This attack, my dear Mortimer; this\nmurder--'\n\nHis friend leaned over him with renewed attention, saying: 'You and I\nsuspect some one.'\n\n'More than suspect. But, Mortimer, while I lie here, and when I lie\nhere no longer, I trust to you that the perpetrator is never brought to\njustice.'\n\n'Eugene?'\n\n'Her innocent reputation would be ruined, my friend. She would be\npunished, not he. I have wronged her enough in fact; I have wronged her\nstill more in intention. You recollect what pavement is said to be made\nof good intentions. It is made of bad intentions too. Mortimer, I am\nlying on it, and I know!'\n\n'Be comforted, my dear Eugene.'\n\n'I will, when you have promised me. Dear Mortimer, the man must never be\npursued. If he should be accused, you must keep him silent and save\nhim. Don't think of avenging me; think only of hushing the story\nand protecting her. You can confuse the case, and turn aside the\ncircumstances. Listen to what I say to you. It was not the schoolmaster,\nBradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Twice; it was not the schoolmaster,\nBradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Three times; it was not the\nschoolmaster, Bradley Headstone.'\n\nHe stopped, exhausted. His speech had been whispered, broken, and\nindistinct; but by a great effort he had made it plain enough to be\nunmistakeable.\n\n'Dear fellow, I am wandering away. Stay me for another moment, if you\ncan.'\n\nLightwood lifted his head at the neck, and put a wine-glass to his lips.\nHe rallied.\n\n'I don't know how long ago it was done, whether weeks, days, or hours.\nNo matter. There is inquiry on foot, and pursuit. Say! Is there not?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Check it; divert it! Don't let her be brought in question. Shield\nher. The guilty man, brought to justice, would poison her name. Let the\nguilty man go unpunished. Lizzie and my reparation before all! Promise\nme!'\n\n'Eugene, I do. I promise you!'\n\nIn the act of turning his eyes gratefully towards his friend, he\nwandered away. His eyes stood still, and settled into that former intent\nunmeaning stare.\n\nHours and hours, days and nights, he remained in this same condition.\nThere were times when he would calmly speak to his friend after a long\nperiod of unconsciousness, and would say he was better, and would ask\nfor something. Before it could be given him, he would be gone again.\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker, all softened compassion now, watched him with an\nearnestness that never relaxed. She would regularly change the ice, or\nthe cooling spirit, on his head, and would keep her ear at the pillow\nbetweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell from him in his\nwanderings. It was amazing through how many hours at a time she would\nremain beside him, in a crouching attitude, attentive to his slightest\nmoan. As he could not move a hand, he could make no sign of distress;\nbut, through this close watching (if through no secret sympathy or\npower) the little creature attained an understanding of him that\nLightwood did not possess. Mortimer would often turn to her, as if she\nwere an interpreter between this sentient world and the insensible man;\nand she would change the dressing of a wound, or ease a ligature, or\nturn his face, or alter the pressure of the bedclothes on him, with an\nabsolute certainty of doing right. The natural lightness and delicacy of\ntouch which had become very refined by practice in her miniature work,\nno doubt was involved in this; but her perception was at least as fine.\n\nThe one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a certain phase\nof his distressful state, which was the worst to those who tended him,\nhe would roll his head upon the pillow, incessantly repeating the name\nin a hurried and impatient manner, with the misery of a disturbed mind,\nand the monotony of a machine. Equally, when he lay still and staring,\nhe would repeat it for hours without cessation, but then, always in a\ntone of subdued warning and horror. Her presence and her touch upon his\nbreast or face would often stop this, and then they learned to expect\nthat he would for some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and that\nhe would be conscious on opening them. But, the heavy disappointment of\ntheir hope--revived by the welcome silence of the room--was, that his\nspirit would glide away again and be lost, in the moment of their joy\nthat it was there.\n\nThis frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to sink again, was\ndreadful to the beholders. But, gradually the change stole upon him that\nit became dreadful to himself. His desire to impart something that was\non his mind, his unspeakable yearning to have speech with his friend\nand make a communication to him, so troubled him when he recovered\nconsciousness, that its term was thereby shortened. As the man rising\nfrom the deep would disappear the sooner for fighting with the water, so\nhe in his desperate struggle went down again.\n\nOne afternoon when he had been lying still, and Lizzie, unrecognized,\nhad just stolen out of the room to pursue her occupation, he uttered\nLightwood's name.\n\n'My dear Eugene, I am here.'\n\n'How long is this to last, Mortimer?'\n\nLightwood shook his head. 'Still, Eugene, you are no worse than you\nwere.'\n\n'But I know there's no hope. Yet I pray it may last long enough for you\nto do me one last service, and for me to do one last action. Keep me\nhere a few moments, Mortimer. Try, try!'\n\nHis friend gave him what aid he could, and encouraged him to believe\nthat he was more composed, though even then his eyes were losing the\nexpression they so rarely recovered.\n\n'Hold me here, dear fellow, if you can. Stop my wandering away. I am\ngoing!'\n\n'Not yet, not yet. Tell me, dear Eugene, what is it I shall do?'\n\n'Keep me here for only a single minute. I am going away again. Don't let\nme go. Hear me speak first. Stop me--stop me!'\n\n'My poor Eugene, try to be calm.'\n\n'I do try. I try so hard. If you only knew how hard! Don't let me wander\ntill I have spoken. Give me a little more wine.'\n\nLightwood complied. Eugene, with a most pathetic struggle against the\nunconsciousness that was coming over him, and with a look of appeal that\naffected his friend profoundly, said:\n\n'You can leave me with Jenny, while you speak to her and tell her what I\nbeseech of her. You can leave me with Jenny, while you are gone. There's\nnot much for you to do. You won't be long away.'\n\n'No, no, no. But tell me what it is that I shall do, Eugene!'\n\n'I am going! You can't hold me.'\n\n'Tell me in a word, Eugene!'\n\nHis eyes were fixed again, and the only word that came from his lips was\nthe word millions of times repeated. Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie.\n\nBut, the watchful little dressmaker had been vigilant as ever in her\nwatch, and she now came up and touched Lightwood's arm as he looked down\nat his friend, despairingly.\n\n'Hush!' she said, with her finger on her lips. 'His eyes are closing.\nHe'll be conscious when he next opens them. Shall I give you a leading\nword to say to him?'\n\n'O Jenny, if you could only give me the right word!'\n\n'I can. Stoop down.'\n\nHe stooped, and she whispered in his ear. She whispered in his ear one\nshort word of a single syllable. Lightwood started, and looked at her.\n\n'Try it,' said the little creature, with an excited and exultant face.\nShe then bent over the unconscious man, and, for the first time, kissed\nhim on the cheek, and kissed the poor maimed hand that was nearest to\nher. Then, she withdrew to the foot of the bed.\n\nSome two hours afterwards, Mortimer Lightwood saw his consciousness come\nback, and instantly, but very tranquilly, bent over him.\n\n'Don't speak, Eugene. Do no more than look at me, and listen to me. You\nfollow what I say.'\n\nHe moved his head in assent.\n\n'I am going on from the point where we broke off. Is the word we should\nsoon have come to--is it--Wife?'\n\n'O God bless you, Mortimer!'\n\n'Hush! Don't be agitated. Don't speak. Hear me, dear Eugene. Your mind\nwill be more at peace, lying here, if you make Lizzie your wife. You\nwish me to speak to her, and tell her so, and entreat her to be your\nwife. You ask her to kneel at this bedside and be married to you, that\nyour reparation may be complete. Is that so?'\n\n'Yes. God bless you! Yes.'\n\n'It shall be done, Eugene. Trust it to me. I shall have to go away\nfor some few hours, to give effect to your wishes. You see this is\nunavoidable?'\n\n'Dear friend, I said so.'\n\n'True. But I had not the clue then. How do you think I got it?'\n\nGlancing wistfully around, Eugene saw Miss Jenny at the foot of the bed,\nlooking at him with her elbows on the bed, and her head upon her hands.\nThere was a trace of his whimsical air upon him, as he tried to smile at\nher.\n\n'Yes indeed,' said Lightwood, 'the discovery was hers. Observe my dear\nEugene; while I am away you will know that I have discharged my trust\nwith Lizzie, by finding her here, in my present place at your bedside,\nto leave you no more. A final word before I go. This is the right course\nof a true man, Eugene. And I solemnly believe, with all my soul, that if\nProvidence should mercifully restore you to us, you will be blessed with\na noble wife in the preserver of your life, whom you will dearly love.'\n\n'Amen. I am sure of that. But I shall not come through it, Mortimer.'\n\n'You will not be the less hopeful or less strong, for this, Eugene.'\n\n'No. Touch my face with yours, in case I should not hold out till you\ncome back. I love you, Mortimer. Don't be uneasy for me while you are\ngone. If my dear brave girl will take me, I feel persuaded that I shall\nlive long enough to be married, dear fellow.'\n\nMiss Jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place between the\nfriends, and sitting with her back towards the bed in the bower made by\nher bright hair, wept heartily, though noiselessly. Mortimer Lightwood\nwas soon gone. As the evening light lengthened the heavy reflections of\nthe trees in the river, another figure came with a soft step into the\nsick room.\n\n'Is he conscious?' asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took its\nstation by the pillow. For, Jenny had given place to it immediately, and\ncould not see the sufferer's face, in the dark room, from her new and\nremoved position.\n\n'He is conscious, Jenny,' murmured Eugene for himself. 'He knows his\nwife.'\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\nEFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY\n\n\nMrs John Rokesmith sat at needlework in her neat little room, beside a\nbasket of neat little articles of clothing, which presented so much of\nthe appearance of being in the dolls' dressmaker's way of business, that\none might have supposed she was going to set up in opposition to Miss\nWren. Whether the Complete British Family Housewife had imparted sage\ncounsel anent them, did not appear, but probably not, as that cloudy\noracle was nowhere visible. For certain, however, Mrs John Rokesmith\nstitched at them with so dexterous a hand, that she must have taken\nlessons of somebody. Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher,\nand perhaps love (from a pictorial point of view, with nothing on but\na thimble), had been teaching this branch of needlework to Mrs John\nRokesmith.\n\nIt was near John's time for coming home, but as Mrs John was desirous to\nfinish a special triumph of her skill before dinner, she did not go out\nto meet him. Placidly, though rather consequentially smiling, she sat\nstitching away with a regular sound, like a sort of dimpled little\ncharming Dresden-china clock by the very best maker.\n\nA knock at the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John; or Bella would\nhave flown out to meet him. Then who, if not John? Bella was asking\nherself the question, when that fluttering little fool of a servant\nfluttered in, saying, 'Mr Lightwood!'\n\nOh good gracious!\n\nBella had but time to throw a handkerchief over the basket, when Mr\nLightwood made his bow. There was something amiss with Mr Lightwood, for\nhe was strangely grave and looked ill.\n\nWith a brief reference to the happy time when it had been his privilege\nto know Mrs Rokesmith as Miss Wilfer, Mr Lightwood explained what was\namiss with him and why he came. He came bearing Lizzie Hexam's earnest\nhope that Mrs John Rokesmith would see her married.\n\nBella was so fluttered by the request, and by the short narrative he had\nfeelingly given her, that there never was a more timely smelling-bottle\nthan John's knock. 'My husband,' said Bella; 'I'll bring him in.'\n\nBut, that turned out to be more easily said than done; for, the instant\nshe mentioned Mr Lightwood's name, John stopped, with his hand upon the\nlock of the room door.\n\n'Come up stairs, my darling.'\n\nBella was amazed by the flush in his face, and by his sudden turning\naway. 'What can it mean?' she thought, as she accompanied him up stairs.\n\n'Now, my life,' said John, taking her on his knee, 'tell me all about\nit.'\n\nAll very well to say, 'Tell me all about it;' but John was very much\nconfused. His attention evidently trailed off, now and then, even while\nBella told him all about it. Yet she knew that he took a great interest\nin Lizzie and her fortunes. What could it mean?\n\n'You will come to this marriage with me, John dear?'\n\n'N--no, my love; I can't do that.'\n\n'You can't do that, John?'\n\n'No, my dear, it's quite out of the question. Not to be thought of.'\n\n'Am I to go alone, John?'\n\n'No, my dear, you will go with Mr Lightwood.'\n\n'Don't you think it's time we went down to Mr Lightwood, John dear?'\nBella insinuated.\n\n'My darling, it's almost time you went, but I must ask you to excuse me\nto him altogether.'\n\n'You never mean, John dear, that you are not going to see him? Why, he\nknows you have come home. I told him so.'\n\n'That's a little unfortunate, but it can't be helped. Unfortunate or\nfortunate, I positively cannot see him, my love.'\n\nBella cast about in her mind what could be his reason for this\nunaccountable behaviour; as she sat on his knee looking at him in\nastonishment and pouting a little. A weak reason presented itself.\n\n'John dear, you never can be jealous of Mr Lightwood?'\n\n'Why, my precious child,' returned her husband, laughing outright: 'how\ncould I be jealous of him? Why should I be jealous of him?'\n\n'Because, you know, John,' pursued Bella, pouting a little more, 'though\nhe did rather admire me once, it was not my fault.'\n\n'It was your fault that I admired you,' returned her husband, with a\nlook of pride in her, 'and why not your fault that he admired you? But,\nI jealous on that account? Why, I must go distracted for life, if I\nturned jealous of every one who used to find my wife beautiful and\nwinning!'\n\n'I am half angry with you, John dear,' said Bella, laughing a little,\n'and half pleased with you; because you are such a stupid old fellow,\nand yet you say nice things, as if you meant them. Don't be mysterious,\nsir. What harm do you know of Mr Lightwood?'\n\n'None, my love.'\n\n'What has he ever done to you, John?'\n\n'He has never done anything to me, my dear. I know no more against\nhim than I know against Mr Wrayburn; he has never done anything to me;\nneither has Mr Wrayburn. And yet I have exactly the same objection to\nboth of them.'\n\n'Oh, John!' retorted Bella, as if she were giving him up for a bad job,\nas she used to give up herself. 'You are nothing better than a sphinx!\nAnd a married sphinx isn't a--isn't a nice confidential husband,' said\nBella, in a tone of injury.\n\n'Bella, my life,' said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, with a grave\nsmile, as she cast down her eyes and pouted again; 'look at me. I want\nto speak to you.'\n\n'In earnest, Blue Beard of the secret chamber?' asked Bella, clearing\nher pretty face.\n\n'In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don't you remember\nthat you asked me not to declare what I thought of your higher qualities\nuntil you had been tried?'\n\n'Yes, John dear. And I fully meant it, and I fully mean it.'\n\n'The time will come, my darling--I am no prophet, but I say so,--when\nyou WILL be tried. The time will come, I think, when you will undergo\na trial through which you will never pass quite triumphantly for me,\nunless you can put perfect faith in me.'\n\n'Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put perfect faith in\nyou, and I do, and I always, always will. Don't judge me by a little\nthing like this, John. In little things, I am a little thing myself--I\nalways was. But in great things, I hope not; I don't mean to boast, John\ndear, but I hope not!'\n\nHe was even better convinced of the truth of what she said than she was,\nas he felt her loving arms about him. If the Golden Dustman's riches had\nbeen his to stake, he would have staked them to the last farthing on the\nfidelity through good and evil of her affectionate and trusting heart.\n\n'Now, I'll go down to, and go away with, Mr Lightwood,' said Bella,\nspringing up. 'You are the most creasing and tumbling Clumsy-Boots of a\npacker, John, that ever was; but if you're quite good, and will promise\nnever to do so any more (though I don't know what you have done!) you\nmay pack me a little bag for a night, while I get my bonnet on.'\n\nHe gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and shook her head\ninto her bonnet, and pulled out the bows of her bonnet-strings, and\ngot her gloves on, finger by finger, and finally got them on her\nlittle plump hands, and bade him good-bye and went down. Mr Lightwood's\nimpatience was much relieved when he found her dressed for departure.\n\n'Mr Rokesmith goes with us?' he said, hesitating, with a look towards\nthe door.\n\n'Oh, I forgot!' replied Bella. 'His best compliments. His face is\nswollen to the size of two faces, and he is to go to bed directly, poor\nfellow, to wait for the doctor, who is coming to lance him.'\n\n'It is curious,' observed Lightwood, 'that I have never yet seen Mr\nRokesmith, though we have been engaged in the same affairs.'\n\n'Really?' said the unblushing Bella.\n\n'I begin to think,' observed Lightwood, 'that I never shall see him.'\n\n'These things happen so oddly sometimes,' said Bella with a steady\ncountenance, 'that there seems a kind of fatality in them. But I am\nquite ready, Mr Lightwood.'\n\nThey started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood had brought\nwith him from never-to-be-forgotten Greenwich; and from Greenwich they\nstarted directly for London; and in London they waited at a railway\nstation until such time as the Reverend Frank Milvey, and Margaretta\nhis wife, with whom Mortimer Lightwood had been already in conference,\nshould come and join them.\n\nThat worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old parishioner of the\nfemale gender, who was one of the plagues of their lives, and with whom\nthey bore with most exemplary sweetness and good-humour, notwithstanding\nher having an infection of absurdity about her, that communicated itself\nto everything with which, and everybody with whom, she came in contact.\nShe was a member of the Reverend Frank's congregation, and made a point\nof distinguishing herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping at\neverything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his public\nministration; also by applying to herself the various lamentations of\nDavid, and complaining in a personally injured manner (much in arrear of\nthe clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were digging\npit-falls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. Indeed, this\nold widow discharged herself of that portion of the Morning and Evening\nService as if she were lodging a complaint on oath and applying for\na warrant before a magistrate. But this was not her most inconvenient\ncharacteristic, for that took the form of an impression, usually\nrecurring in inclement weather and at about daybreak, that she had\nsomething on her mind and stood in immediate need of the Reverend Frank\nto come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, and\ngone out to Mrs Sprodgkin (such was the disciple's name), suppressing\na strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and\nperfectly knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However,\nbeyond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs Milvey seldom\nhinted that Mrs Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she gave; but\nboth made the best of her, as they did of all their troubles.\n\nThis very exacting member of the fold appeared to be endowed with a\nsixth sense, in regard of knowing when the Reverend Frank Milvey least\ndesired her company, and with promptitude appearing in his little hall.\nConsequently, when the Reverend Frank had willingly engaged that he and\nhis wife would accompany Lightwood back, he said, as a matter of course:\n'We must make haste to get out, Margaretta, my dear, or we shall be\ndescended on by Mrs Sprodgkin.' To which Mrs Milvey replied, in her\npleasantly emphatic way, 'Oh YES, for she IS such a marplot, Frank, and\nDOES worry so!' Words that were scarcely uttered when their theme\nwas announced as in faithful attendance below, desiring counsel on a\nspiritual matter. The points on which Mrs Sprodgkin sought elucidation\nbeing seldom of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, or some\ninformation concerning the Amorites), Mrs Milvey on this special\noccasion resorted to the device of buying her off with a present of tea\nand sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts Mrs Sprodgkin accepted,\nbut still insisted on dutifully remaining in the hall, to curtsey to the\nReverend Frank as he came forth. Who, incautiously saying in his genial\nmanner, 'Well, Sally, there you are!' involved himself in a discursive\naddress from Mrs Sprodgkin, revolving around the result that she\nregarded tea and sugar in the light of myrrh and frankincense, and\nconsidered bread and butter identical with locusts and wild honey.\nHaving communicated this edifying piece of information, Mrs Sprodgkin\nwas left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr and Mrs Milvey hurried in\na heated condition to the railway station. All of which is here recorded\nto the honour of that good Christian pair, representatives of hundreds\nof other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful, who merge\nthe smallness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger of\nlosing dignity when they adapt themselves to incomprehensible humbugs.\n\n'Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim upon me,' was the\nReverend Frank's apology to Lightwood, taking no thought of himself.\nTo which Mrs Milvey added, taking thought for him, like the championing\nlittle wife she was; 'Oh yes, detained at the last moment. But AS to\nthe claim, Frank, I MUST say that I DO think you are OVER-considerate\nsometimes, and allow THAT to be a LITTLE abused.'\n\nBella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, that her\nhusband's absence would give disagreeable occasion for surprise to the\nMilveys. Nor could she appear quite at her ease when Mrs Milvey asked:\n\n'HOW is Mr Rokesmith, and IS he gone before us, or DOES he follow us?'\n\nIt becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to bed again and hold him\nin waiting to be lanced again, Bella did it. But not half as well on\nthe second occasion as on the first; for, a twice-told white one seems\nalmost to become a black one, when you are not used to it.\n\n'Oh DEAR!' said Mrs Milvey, 'I am SO sorry! Mr Rokesmith took SUCH an\ninterest in Lizzie Hexam, when we were there before. And if we had ONLY\nknown of his face, we COULD have given him something that would have\nkept it down long enough for so SHORT a purpose.'\n\nBy way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipulate that\nhe was not in pain. Mrs Milvey was SO glad of it.\n\n'I don't know HOW it is,' said Mrs Milvey, 'and I am SURE you don't,\nFrank, but the clergy and their wives seem to CAUSE swelled faces.\nWhenever I take notice of a child in the school, it seems to me as if\nits face swelled INSTANTLY. Frank NEVER makes acquaintance with a new\nold woman, but she gets the face-ache. And another thing is, we DO make\nthe poor children sniff so. I don't know HOW we do it, and I should\nbe so glad not to; but the MORE we take notice of them, the MORE they\nsniff. Just as they do when the text is given out.--Frank, that's a\nschoolmaster. I have seen him somewhere.'\n\nThe reference was to a young man of reserved appearance, in a coat and\nwaistcoat of black, and pantaloons of pepper and salt. He had come\ninto the office of the station, from its interior, in an unsettled way,\nimmediately after Lightwood had gone out to the train; and he had been\nhurriedly reading the printed hills and notices on the wall. He had had\na wandering interest in what was said among the people waiting there\nand passing to and fro. He had drawn nearer, at about the time when\nMrs Milvey mentioned Lizzie Hexam, and had remained near, since: though\nalways glancing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. He\nstood with his back towards them, and his gloved hands clasped behind\nhim. There was now so evident a faltering upon him, expressive of\nindecision whether or no he should express his having heard himself\nreferred to, that Mr Milvey spoke to him.\n\n'I cannot recall your name,' he said, 'but I remember to have seen you\nin your school.'\n\n'My name is Bradley Headstone, sir,' he replied, backing into a more\nretired place.\n\n'I ought to have remembered it,' said Mr Milvey, giving him his hand. 'I\nhope you are well? A little overworked, I am afraid?'\n\n'Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir.'\n\n'Had no play in your last holiday time?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'All work and no play, Mr Headstone, will not make dulness, in your\ncase, I dare say; but it will make dyspepsia, if you don't take care.'\n\n'I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to speak to you,\noutside, a moment?'\n\n'By all means.'\n\nIt was evening, and the office was well lighted. The schoolmaster, who\nhad never remitted his watch on Lightwood's door, now moved by another\ndoor to a corner without, where there was more shadow than light; and\nsaid, plucking at his gloves:\n\n'One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a name that I am\nacquainted with; I may say, well acquainted with. The name of the sister\nof an old pupil of mine. He was my pupil for a long time, and has got on\nand gone upward rapidly. The name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie Hexam.'\nHe seemed to be a shy man, struggling against nervousness, and spoke in\na very constrained way. The break he set between his last two sentences\nwas quite embarrassing to his hearer.\n\n'Yes,' replied Mr Milvey. 'We are going down to see her.'\n\n'I gathered as much, sir. I hope there is nothing amiss with the sister\nof my old pupil? I hope no bereavement has befallen her. I hope she is\nin no affliction? Has lost no--relation?'\n\nMr Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, and a dark downward\nlook; but he answered in his usual open way.\n\n'I am glad to tell you, Mr Headstone, that the sister of your old pupil\nhas not sustained any such loss. You thought I might be going down to\nbury some one?'\n\n'That may have been the connexion of ideas, sir, with your clerical\ncharacter, but I was not conscious of it.--Then you are not, sir?'\n\nA man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking look that was\nquite oppressive.\n\n'No. In fact,' said Mr Milvey, 'since you are so interested in the\nsister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you that I am going down to\nmarry her.'\n\nThe schoolmaster started back.\n\n'Not to marry her, myself,' said Mr Milvey, with a smile, 'because I\nhave a wife already. To perform the marriage service at her wedding.'\n\nBradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. If Mr Milvey knew\nan ashy face when he saw it, he saw it then.\n\n'You are quite ill, Mr Headstone!'\n\n'It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am accustomed to be\nseized with giddiness. Don't let me detain you, sir; I stand in need\nof no assistance, I thank you. Much obliged by your sparing me these\nminutes of your time.'\n\nAs Mr Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made a suitable reply\nand turned back into the office, he observed the schoolmaster to\nlean against the pillar with his hat in his hand, and to pull at his\nneckcloth as if he were trying to tear it off. The Reverend Frank\naccordingly directed the notice of one of the attendants to him, by\nsaying: 'There is a person outside who seems to be really ill, and to\nrequire some help, though he says he does not.'\n\nLightwood had by this time secured their places, and the departure-bell\nwas about to be rung. They took their seats, and were beginning to\nmove out of the station, when the same attendant came running along the\nplatform, looking into all the carriages.\n\n'Oh! You are here, sir!' he said, springing on the step, and holding\nthe window-frame by his elbow, as the carriage moved. 'That person you\npointed out to me is in a fit.'\n\n'I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such attacks. He\nwill come to, in the air, in a little while.'\n\nHe was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and knocking about him\n(the man said) furiously. Would the gentleman give him his card, as he\nhad seen him first? The gentleman did so, with the explanation that\nhe knew no more of the man attacked than that he was a man of a very\nrespectable occupation, who had said he was out of health, as his\nappearance would of itself have indicated. The attendant received the\ncard, watched his opportunity for sliding down, slid down, and so it\nended.\n\nThen, the train rattled among the house-tops, and among the ragged sides\nof houses torn down to make way for it, and over the swarming streets,\nand under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river: bursting\nover the quiet surface like a bomb-shell, and gone again as if it had\nexploded in the rush of smoke and steam and glare. A little more, and\nagain it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery\nturnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight to\nits end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no matter what living\nwaters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses,\nproduce their little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there,\nare noisy or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course has one\nsure termination, though their sources and devices are many.\n\nThen, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing away\nby night, as all things steal away, by night and by day, so quietly\nyielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock of Eternity; and the\nnearer they drew to the chamber where Eugene lay, the more they feared\nthat they might find his wanderings done. At last they saw its dim light\nshining out, and it gave them hope: though Lightwood faltered as he\nthought: 'If he were gone, she would still be sitting by him.'\n\nBut he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, entering with\na raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie softly, but said not a word.\nNeither did any of them speak, but all sat down at the foot of the bed,\nsilently waiting. And now, in this night-watch, mingling with the flow\nof the river and with the rush of the train, came the questions into\nBella's mind again: What could be in the depths of that mystery of\nJohn's? Why was it that he had never been seen by Mr Lightwood, whom he\nstill avoided? When would that trial come, through which her faith\nin, and her duty to, her dear husband, was to carry her, rendering him\ntriumphant? For, that had been his term. Her passing through the trial\nwas to make the man she loved with all her heart, triumphant. Term not\nto sink out of sight in Bella's breast.\n\nFar on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was sensible, and said\nat once: 'How does the time go? Has our Mortimer come back?'\n\nLightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. 'Yes, Eugene,\nand all is ready.'\n\n'Dear boy!' returned Eugene with a smile, 'we both thank you heartily.\nLizzie, tell them how welcome they are, and that I would be eloquent if\nI could.'\n\n'There is no need,' said Mr Milvey. 'We know it. Are you better, Mr\nWrayburn?'\n\n'I am much happier,' said Eugene.\n\n'Much better too, I hope?'\n\nEugene turned his eyes towards Lizzie, as if to spare her, and answered\nnothing.\n\nThen, they all stood around the bed, and Mr Milvey, opening his book,\nbegan the service; so rarely associated with the shadow of death; so\ninseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety and hope and\nhealth and joy. Bella thought how different from her own sunny little\nwedding, and wept. Mrs Milvey overflowed with pity, and wept too. The\ndolls' dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in her golden\nbower. Reading in a low clear voice, and bending over Eugene, who kept\nhis eyes upon him, Mr Milvey did his office with suitable simplicity.\nAs the bridegroom could not move his hand, they touched his fingers with\nthe ring, and so put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth,\nshe laid her hand on his and kept it there. When the ceremony was done,\nand all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under his\nhead, and laid her own head down upon the pillow by his side.\n\n'Undraw the curtains, my dear girl,' said Eugene, after a while, 'and\nlet us see our wedding-day.'\n\nThe sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room, as she came\nback, and put her lips to his. 'I bless the day!' said Eugene. 'I bless\nthe day!' said Lizzie.\n\n'You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wife,' said Eugene. 'A\nshattered graceless fellow, stretched at his length here, and next to\nnothing for you when you are a young widow.'\n\n'I have made the marriage that I would have given all the world to dare\nto hope for,' she replied.\n\n'You have thrown yourself away,' said Eugene, shaking his head. 'But you\nhave followed the treasure of your heart. My justification is, that you\nhad thrown that away first, dear girl!'\n\n'No. I had given it to you.'\n\n'The same thing, my poor Lizzie!'\n\n'Hush! hush! A very different thing.'\n\nThere were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to close them. 'No,'\nsaid Eugene, again shaking his head; 'let me look at you, Lizzie, while\nI can. You brave devoted girl! You heroine!'\n\nHer own eyes filled under his praises. And when he mustered strength to\nmove his wounded head a very little way, and lay it on her bosom, the\ntears of both fell.\n\n'Lizzie,' said Eugene, after a silence: 'when you see me wandering away\nfrom this refuge that I have so ill deserved, speak to me by my name,\nand I think I shall come back.'\n\n'Yes, dear Eugene.'\n\n'There!' he exclaimed, smiling. 'I should have gone then, but for that!'\n\nA little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking into\ninsensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice: 'Eugene, my dear\nhusband!' He immediately answered: 'There again! You see how you can\nrecall me!' And afterwards, when he could not speak, he still answered\nby a slight movement of his head upon her bosom.\n\nThe sun was high in the sky, when she gently disengaged herself to give\nhim the stimulants and nourishment he required. The utter helplessness\nof the wreck of him that lay cast ashore there, now alarmed her, but he\nhimself appeared a little more hopeful.\n\n'Ah, my beloved Lizzie!' he said, faintly. 'How shall I ever pay all I\nowe you, if I recover!'\n\n'Don't be ashamed of me,' she replied, 'and you will have more than paid\nall.'\n\n'It would require a life, Lizzie, to pay all; more than a life.'\n\n'Live for that, then; live for me, Eugene; live to see how hard I will\ntry to improve myself, and never to discredit you.'\n\n'My darling girl,' he replied, rallying more of his old manner than\nhe had ever yet got together. 'On the contrary, I have been thinking\nwhether it is not the best thing I can do, to die.'\n\n'The best thing you can do, to leave me with a broken heart?'\n\n'I don't mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of that. What I was\nthinking of was this. Out of your compassion for me, in this maimed and\nbroken state, you make so much of me--you think so well of me--you love\nme so dearly.'\n\n'Heaven knows I love you dearly!'\n\n'And Heaven knows I prize it! Well. If I live, you'll find me out.'\n\n'I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose and energy, and\nwill turn it to the best account?'\n\n'I hope so, dearest Lizzie,' said Eugene, wistfully, and yet somewhat\nwhimsically. 'I hope so. But I can't summon the vanity to think so. How\ncan I think so, looking back on such a trifling wasted youth as mine! I\nhumbly hope it; but I daren't believe it. There is a sharp misgiving\nin my conscience that if I were to live, I should disappoint your good\nopinion and my own--and that I ought to die, my dear!'\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\nTHE PASSING SHADOW\n\n\nThe winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, the earth\nmoved round the sun a certain number of times, the ship upon the ocean\nmade her voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella home. Then who so blest\nand happy as Mrs John Rokesmith, saving and excepting Mr John Rokesmith!\n\n'Would you not like to be rich NOW, my darling?'\n\n'How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not rich?'\n\nThese were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she lay\nasleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelligence,\nevincing the strongest objection to her grandmother's society, and\nbeing invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when that\ndignified lady honoured her with any attention.\n\nIt was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding out\nher own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were looking in the\nglass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked\nto her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before,\nreminding him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk to it\nas she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produce\nanother baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung\nto it, as Bella said and sung to this baby; or who was dressed and\nundressed as often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and\nundressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop\nits father's way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a word, who\ndid half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of a\ngay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did.\n\nThe inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began to\nnotice a cloud upon her husband's brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering\nand deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More than\nonce, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered\nnothing worse than her own name, it was plain to her that his\nrestlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length\nput in her claim to divide this load, and hear her half of it.\n\n'You know, John dear,' she said, cheerily reverting to their former\nconversation, 'that I hope I may safely be trusted in great things. And\nit surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so much uneasiness.\nIt's very considerate of you to try to hide from me that you are\nuncomfortable about something, but it's quite impossible to be done,\nJohn love.'\n\n'I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own.'\n\n'Then please to tell me what about, sir.'\n\nBut no, he evaded that. 'Never mind!' thought Bella, resolutely.\n'John requires me to put perfect faith in him, and he shall not be\ndisappointed.'\n\nShe went up to London one day, to meet him, in order that they might\nmake some purchases. She found him waiting for her at her journey's\nend, and they walked away together through the streets. He was in gay\nspirits, though still harping on that notion of their being rich; and\nhe said, now let them make believe that yonder fine carriage was theirs,\nand that it was waiting to take them home to a fine house they had; what\nwould Bella, in that case, best like to find in the house? Well! Bella\ndidn't know: already having everything she wanted, she couldn't say.\nBut, by degrees she was led on to confess that she would like to have\nfor the inexhaustible baby such a nursery as never was seen. It was\nto be 'a very rainbow for colours', as she was quite sure baby noticed\ncolours; and the staircase was to be adorned with the most exquisite\nflowers, as she was absolutely certain baby noticed flowers; and there\nwas to be an aviary somewhere, of the loveliest little birds, as there\nwas not the smallest doubt in the world that baby noticed birds.\nWas there nothing else? No, John dear. The predilections of the\ninexhaustible baby being provided for, Bella could think of nothing\nelse.\n\nThey were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, 'No jewels\nfor your own wear, for instance?' and Bella had replied laughing. O! if\nhe came to that, yes, there might be a beautiful ivory case of jewels\non her dressing-table; when these pictures were in a moment darkened and\nblotted out.\n\nThey turned a corner, and met Mr Lightwood.\n\nHe stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella's husband, who\nin the same moment had changed colour.\n\n'Mr Lightwood and I have met before,' he said.\n\n'Met before, John?' Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. 'Mr Lightwood\ntold me he had never seen you.'\n\n'I did not then know that I had,' said Lightwood, discomposed on her\naccount. 'I believed that I had only heard of--Mr Rokesmith.' With an\nemphasis on the name.\n\n'When Mr Lightwood saw me, my love,' observed her husband, not avoiding\nhis eye, but looking at him, 'my name was Julius Handford.'\n\nJulius Handford! The name that Bella had so often seen in old\nnewspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr Boffin's house! Julius\nHandford, who had been publicly entreated to appear, and for\nintelligence of whom a reward had been publicly offered!\n\n'I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence,' said Lightwood to\nBella, delicately; 'but since your husband mentions it himself, I must\nconfirm his strange admission. I saw him as Mr Julius Handford, and I\nafterwards (unquestionably to his knowledge) took great pains to trace\nhim out.'\n\n'Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest,' said Rokesmith,\nquietly, 'to be traced out.'\n\nBella looked from the one to the other, in amazement.\n\n'Mr Lightwood,' pursued her husband, 'as chance has brought us face to\nface at last--which is not to be wondered at, for the wonder is, that,\nin spite of all my pains to the contrary, chance has not confronted\nus together sooner--I have only to remind you that you have been at my\nhouse, and to add that I have not changed my residence.'\n\n'Sir' returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards Bella, 'my\nposition is a truly painful one. I hope that no complicity in a very\ndark transaction may attach to you, but you cannot fail to know that\nyour own extraordinary conduct has laid you under suspicion.'\n\n'I know it has,' was all the reply.\n\n'My professional duty,' said Lightwood hesitating, with another glance\ntowards Bella, 'is greatly at variance with my personal inclination; but\nI doubt, Mr Handford, or Mr Rokesmith, whether I am justified in taking\nleave of you here, with your whole course unexplained.'\n\nBella caught her husband by the hand.\n\n'Don't be alarmed, my darling. Mr Lightwood will find that he is quite\njustified in taking leave of me here. At all events,' added Rokesmith,\n'he will find that I mean to take leave of him here.'\n\n'I think, sir,' said Lightwood, 'you can scarcely deny that when I came\nto your house on the occasion to which you have referred, you avoided me\nof a set purpose.'\n\n'Mr Lightwood, I assure you I have no disposition to deny it, or\nintention to deny it. I should have continued to avoid you, in pursuance\nof the same set purpose, for a short time longer, if we had not met now.\nI am going straight home, and shall remain at home to-morrow until noon.\nHereafter, I hope we may be better acquainted. Good-day.'\n\nLightwood stood irresolute, but Bella's husband passed him in the\nsteadiest manner, with Bella on his arm; and they went home without\nencountering any further remonstrance or molestation from any one.\n\nWhen they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith said to his wife, who\nhad preserved her cheerfulness: 'And you don't ask me, my dear, why I\nbore that name?'\n\n'No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course;' (which her\nanxious face confirmed;) 'but I wait until you can tell me of your own\nfree will. You asked me if I could have perfect faith in you, and I said\nyes, and I meant it.'\n\nIt did not escape Bella's notice that he began to look triumphant. She\nwanted no strengthening in her firmness; but if she had had need of any,\nshe would have derived it from his kindling face.\n\n'You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a discovery as that\nthis mysterious Mr Handford was identical with your husband?'\n\n'No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to prepare to be tried,\nand I prepared myself.'\n\nHe drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would soon be over,\nand the truth would soon appear. 'And now,' he went on, 'lay stress,\nmy dear, on these words that I am going to add. I stand in no kind of\nperil, and I can by possibility be hurt at no one's hand.'\n\n'You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?'\n\n'Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injured\nno man. Shall I swear it?'\n\n'No, John!' cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proud\nlook. 'Never to me!'\n\n'But circumstances,' he went on '--I can, and I will, disperse them in\na moment--have surrounded me with one of the strangest suspicions ever\nknown. You heard Mr Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?'\n\n'Yes, John.'\n\n'You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?'\n\n'Yes, John.'\n\n'My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted husband.'\n\nWith a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. 'You cannot\nbe suspected, John?'\n\n'Dear love, I can be--for I am!'\n\nThere was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, with the\ncolour quite gone from her own face and lips. 'How dare they!' she cried\nat length, in a burst of generous indignation. 'My beloved husband, how\ndare they!'\n\nHe caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to his heart.\n'Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella?'\n\n'I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could not trust you,\nI should fall dead at your feet.'\n\nThe kindling triumph in his face was bright indeed, as he looked up and\nrapturously exclaimed, what had he done to deserve the blessing of this\ndear confiding creature's heart! Again she put her hand upon his lips,\nsaying, 'Hush!' and then told him, in her own little natural pathetic\nway, that if all the world were against him, she would be for him; that\nif all the world repudiated him, she would believe him; that if he were\ninfamous in other eyes, he would be honoured in hers; and that, under\nthe worst unmerited suspicion, she could devote her life to consoling\nhim, and imparting her own faith in him to their little child.\n\nA twilight calm of happiness then succeeding to their radiant noon, they\nremained at peace, until a strange voice in the room startled them both.\nThe room being by that time dark, the voice said, 'Don't let the lady\nbe alarmed by my striking a light,' and immediately a match rattled, and\nglimmered in a hand. The hand and the match and the voice were then seen\nby John Rokesmith to belong to Mr Inspector, once meditatively active in\nthis chronicle.\n\n'I take the liberty,' said Mr Inspector, in a business-like manner, 'to\nbring myself to the recollection of Mr Julius Handford, who gave me his\nname and address down at our place a considerable time ago. Would the\nlady object to my lighting the pair of candles on the chimneypiece, to\nthrow a further light upon the subject? No? Thank you, ma'am. Now, we\nlook cheerful.'\n\nMr Inspector, in a dark-blue buttoned-up frock coat and pantaloons,\npresented a serviceable, half-pay, Royal Arms kind of appearance, as he\napplied his pocket handkerchief to his nose and bowed to the lady.\n\n'You favoured me, Mr Handford,' said Mr Inspector, 'by writing down your\nname and address, and I produce the piece of paper on which you wrote\nit. Comparing the same with the writing on the fly-leaf of this book on\nthe table--and a sweet pretty volume it is--I find the writing of the\nentry, \"Mrs John Rokesmith. From her husband on her birthday\"--and very\ngratifying to the feelings such memorials are--to correspond exactly.\nCan I have a word with you?'\n\n'Certainly. Here, if you please,' was the reply.\n\n'Why,' retorted Mr Inspector, again using his pocket handkerchief,\n'though there's nothing for the lady to be at all alarmed at, still,\nladies are apt to take alarm at matters of business--being of that\nfragile sex that they're not accustomed to them when not of a strictly\ndomestic character--and I do generally make it a rule to propose\nretirement from the presence of ladies, before entering upon business\ntopics. Or perhaps,' Mr Inspector hinted, 'if the lady was to step\nup-stairs, and take a look at baby now!'\n\n'Mrs Rokesmith,'--her husband was beginning; when Mr Inspector,\nregarding the words as an introduction, said, 'Happy I am sure, to have\nthe honour.' And bowed, with gallantry.\n\n'Mrs Rokesmith,' resumed her husband, 'is satisfied that she can have no\nreason for being alarmed, whatever the business is.'\n\n'Really? Is that so?' said Mr Inspector. 'But it's a sex to live and\nlearn from, and there's nothing a lady can't accomplish when she once\nfully gives her mind to it. It's the case with my own wife. Well, ma'am,\nthis good gentleman of yours has given rise to a rather large amount\nof trouble which might have been avoided if he had come forward and\nexplained himself. Well you see! He DIDN'T come forward and explain\nhimself. Consequently, now that we meet, him and me, you'll say--and say\nright--that there's nothing to be alarmed at, in my proposing to him\nTO come forward--or, putting the same meaning in another form, to come\nalong with me--and explain himself.'\n\nWhen Mr Inspector put it in that other form, 'to come along with me,'\nthere was a relishing roll in his voice, and his eye beamed with an\nofficial lustre.\n\n'Do you propose to take me into custody?' inquired John Rokesmith, very\ncoolly.\n\n'Why argue?' returned Mr Inspector in a comfortable sort of\nremonstrance; 'ain't it enough that I propose that you shall come along\nwith me?'\n\n'For what reason?'\n\n'Lord bless my soul and body!' returned Mr Inspector, 'I wonder at it in\na man of your education. Why argue?'\n\n'What do you charge against me?'\n\n'I wonder at you before a lady,' said Mr Inspector, shaking his head\nreproachfully: 'I wonder, brought up as you have been, you haven't a\nmore delicate mind! I charge you, then, with being some way concerned\nin the Harmon Murder. I don't say whether before, or in, or after, the\nfact. I don't say whether with having some knowledge of it that hasn't\ncome out.'\n\n'You don't surprise me. I foresaw your visit this afternoon.'\n\n'Don't!' said Mr Inspector. 'Why, why argue? It's my duty to inform you\nthat whatever you say, will be used against you.'\n\n'I don't think it will.'\n\n'But I tell you it will,' said Mr Inspector. 'Now, having received the\ncaution, do you still say that you foresaw my visit this afternoon?'\n\n'Yes. And I will say something more, if you will step with me into the\nnext room.'\n\nWith a reassuring kiss on the lips of the frightened Bella, her husband\n(to whom Mr Inspector obligingly offered his arm), took up a candle, and\nwithdrew with that gentleman. They were a full half-hour in conference.\nWhen they returned, Mr Inspector looked considerably astonished.\n\n'I have invited this worthy officer, my dear,' said John, 'to make a\nshort excursion with me in which you shall be a sharer. He will take\nsomething to eat and drink, I dare say, on your invitation, while you\nare getting your bonnet on.'\n\nMr Inspector declined eating, but assented to the proposal of a glass of\nbrandy and water. Mixing this cold, and pensively consuming it, he broke\nat intervals into such soliloquies as that he never did know such a\nmove, that he never had been so gravelled, and that what a game was\nthis to try the sort of stuff a man's opinion of himself was made\nof! Concurrently with these comments, he more than once burst out a\nlaughing, with the half-enjoying and half-piqued air of a man, who\nhad given up a good conundrum, after much guessing, and been told the\nanswer. Bella was so timid of him, that she noted these things in a\nhalf-shrinking, half-perceptive way, and similarly noted that there was\na great change in his manner towards John. That coming-along-with-him\ndeportment was now lost in long musing looks at John and at herself and\nsometimes in slow heavy rubs of his hand across his forehead, as if he\nwere ironing cut the creases which his deep pondering made there. He had\nhad some coughing and whistling satellites secretly gravitating towards\nhim about the premises, but they were now dismissed, and he eyed John as\nif he had meant to do him a public service, but had unfortunately been\nanticipated. Whether Bella might have noted anything more, if she\nhad been less afraid of him, she could not determine; but it was all\ninexplicable to her, and not the faintest flash of the real state of the\ncase broke in upon her mind. Mr Inspector's increased notice of herself\nand knowing way of raising his eyebrows when their eyes by any chance\nmet, as if he put the question 'Don't you see?' augmented her timidity,\nand, consequently, her perplexity. For all these reasons, when he\nand she and John, at towards nine o'clock of a winter evening went to\nLondon, and began driving from London Bridge, among low-lying water-side\nwharves and docks and strange places, Bella was in the state of a\ndreamer; perfectly unable to account for her being there, perfectly\nunable to forecast what would happen next, or whither she was going, or\nwhy; certain of nothing in the immediate present, but that she confided\nin John, and that John seemed somehow to be getting more triumphant. But\nwhat a certainty was that!\n\nThey alighted at last at the corner of a court, where there was a\nbuilding with a bright lamp and wicket gate. Its orderly appearance was\nvery unlike that of the surrounding neighbourhood, and was explained by\nthe inscription POLICE STATION.\n\n'We are not going in here, John?' said Bella, clinging to him.\n\n'Yes, my dear; but of our own accord. We shall come out again as easily,\nnever fear.'\n\nThe whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the methodical\nbook-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, and some distant howler\nwas banging against a cell door as of old. The sanctuary was not a\npermanent abiding-place, but a kind of criminal Pickford's. The lower\npassions and vices were regularly ticked off in the books, warehoused in\nthe cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left little mark\nupon it.\n\nMr Inspector placed two chairs for his visitors, before the fire, and\ncommuned in a low voice with a brother of his order (also of a half-pay,\nand Royal Arms aspect), who, judged only by his occupation at the\nmoment, might have been a writing-master, setting copies. Their\nconference done, Mr Inspector returned to the fireplace, and, having\nobserved that he would step round to the Fellowships and see how matters\nstood, went out. He soon came back again, saying, 'Nothing could be\nbetter, for they're at supper with Miss Abbey in the bar;' and then they\nall three went out together.\n\nStill, as in a dream, Bella found herself entering a snug old-fashioned\npublic-house, and found herself smuggled into a little three-cornered\nroom nearly opposite the bar of that establishment. Mr Inspector\nachieved the smuggling of herself and John into this queer room, called\nCosy in an inscription on the door, by entering in the narrow passage\nfirst in order, and suddenly turning round upon them with extended arms,\nas if they had been two sheep. The room was lighted for their reception.\n\n'Now,' said Mr Inspector to John, turning the gas lower; 'I'll mix with\n'em in a casual way, and when I say Identification, perhaps you'll show\nyourself.'\n\nJohn nodded, and Mr Inspector went alone to the half-door of the bar.\nFrom the dim doorway of Cosy, within which Bella and her husband stood,\nthey could see a comfortable little party of three persons sitting at\nsupper in the bar, and could hear everything that was said.\n\nThe three persons were Miss Abbey and two male guests. To whom\ncollectively, Mr Inspector remarked that the weather was getting sharp\nfor the time of year.\n\n'It need be sharp to suit your wits, sir,' said Miss Abbey. 'What have\nyou got in hand now?'\n\n'Thanking you for your compliment: not much, Miss Abbey,' was Mr\nInspector's rejoinder.\n\n'Who have you got in Cosy?' asked Miss Abbey.\n\n'Only a gentleman and his wife, Miss.'\n\n'And who are they? If one may ask it without detriment to your deep\nplans in the interests of the honest public?' said Miss Abbey, proud of\nMr Inspector as an administrative genius.\n\n'They are strangers in this part of the town, Miss Abbey. They are\nwaiting till I shall want the gentleman to show himself somewhere, for\nhalf a moment.'\n\n'While they're waiting,' said Miss Abbey, 'couldn't you join us?'\n\nMr Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat down at the side\nof the half-door, with his back towards the passage, and directly facing\nthe two guests. 'I don't take my supper till later in the night,' said\nhe, 'and therefore I won't disturb the compactness of the table. But\nI'll take a glass of flip, if that's flip in the jug in the fender.'\n\n'That's flip,' replied Miss Abbey, 'and it's my making, and if even you\ncan find out better, I shall be glad to know where.' Filling him, with\nhospitable hands, a steaming tumbler, Miss Abbey replaced the jug by\nthe fire; the company not having yet arrived at the flip-stage of their\nsupper, but being as yet skirmishing with strong ale.\n\n'Ah--h!' cried Mr Inspector. 'That's the smack! There's not a Detective\nin the Force, Miss Abbey, that could find out better stuff than that.'\n\n'Glad to hear you say so,' rejoined Miss Abbey. 'You ought to know, if\nanybody does.'\n\n'Mr Job Potterson,' Mr Inspector continued, 'I drink your health. Mr\nJacob Kibble, I drink yours. Hope you have made a prosperous voyage\nhome, gentlemen both.'\n\nMr Kibble, an unctuous broad man of few words and many mouthfuls, said,\nmore briefly than pointedly, raising his ale to his lips: 'Same to you.'\nMr Job Potterson, a semi-seafaring man of obliging demeanour, said,\n'Thank you, sir.'\n\n'Lord bless my soul and body!' cried Mr Inspector. 'Talk of trades, Miss\nAbbey, and the way they set their marks on men' (a subject which nobody\nhad approached); 'who wouldn't know your brother to be a Steward!\nThere's a bright and ready twinkle in his eye, there's a neatness in his\naction, there's a smartness in his figure, there's an air of reliability\nabout him in case you wanted a basin, which points out the steward! And\nMr Kibble; ain't he Passenger, all over? While there's that mercantile\ncut upon him which would make you happy to give him credit for five\nhundred pound, don't you see the salt sea shining on him too?'\n\n'YOU do, I dare say,' returned Miss Abbey, 'but I don't. And as for\nstewarding, I think it's time my brother gave that up, and took his\nHouse in hand on his sister's retiring. The House will go to pieces if\nhe don't. I wouldn't sell it for any money that could be told out, to a\nperson that I couldn't depend upon to be a Law to the Porters, as I have\nbeen.'\n\n'There you're right, Miss,' said Mr Inspector. 'A better kept house is\nnot known to our men. What do I say? Half so well a kept house is not\nknown to our men. Show the Force the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters,\nand the Force--to a constable--will show you a piece of perfection, Mr\nKibble.'\n\nThat gentleman, with a very serious shake of his head, subscribed the\narticle.\n\n'And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal at rustic\nsports with its tail soaped,' said Mr Inspector (again, a subject which\nnobody had approached); 'why, well you may. Well you may. How has it\nslipped by us, since the time when Mr Job Potterson here present, Mr\nJacob Kibble here present, and an Officer of the Force here present,\nfirst came together on a matter of Identification!'\n\nBella's husband stepped softly to the half-door of the bar, and stood\nthere.\n\n'How has Time slipped by us,' Mr Inspector went on slowly, with his eyes\nnarrowly observant of the two guests, 'since we three very men, at an\nInquest in this very house--Mr Kibble? Taken ill, sir?'\n\nMr Kibble had staggered up, with his lower jaw dropped, catching\nPotterson by the shoulder, and pointing to the half-door. He now cried\nout: 'Potterson! Look! Look there!' Potterson started up, started back,\nand exclaimed: 'Heaven defend us, what's that!' Bella's husband stepped\nback to Bella, took her in his arms (for she was terrified by the\nunintelligible terror of the two men), and shut the door of the little\nroom. A hurry of voices succeeded, in which Mr Inspector's voice was\nbusiest; it gradually slackened and sank; and Mr Inspector reappeared.\n'Sharp's the word, sir!' he said, looking in with a knowing wink. 'We'll\nget your lady out at once.' Immediately, Bella and her husband were\nunder the stars, making their way back, alone, to the vehicle they had\nkept in waiting.\n\nAll this was most extraordinary, and Bella could make nothing of it but\nthat John was in the right. How in the right, and how suspected of being\nin the wrong, she could not divine. Some vague idea that he had never\nreally assumed the name of Handford, and that there was a remarkable\nlikeness between him and that mysterious person, was her nearest\napproach to any definite explanation. But John was triumphant; that much\nwas made apparent; and she could wait for the rest.\n\nWhen John came home to dinner next day, he said, sitting down on the\nsofa by Bella and baby-Bella: 'My dear, I have a piece of news to tell\nyou. I have left the China House.'\n\nAs he seemed to like having left it, Bella took it for granted that\nthere was no misfortune in the case.\n\n'In a word, my love,' said John, 'the China House is broken up and\nabolished. There is no such thing any more.'\n\n'Then, are you already in another House, John?'\n\n'Yes, my darling. I am in another way of business. And I am rather\nbetter off.'\n\nThe inexhaustible baby was instantly made to congratulate him, and\nto say, with appropriate action on the part of a very limp arm and a\nspeckled fist: 'Three cheers, ladies and gemplemorums. Hoo--ray!'\n\n'I am afraid, my life,' said John, 'that you have become very much\nattached to this cottage?'\n\n'Afraid I have, John? Of course I have.'\n\n'The reason why I said afraid,' returned John, 'is, because we must\nmove.'\n\n'O John!'\n\n'Yes, my dear, we must move. We must have our head-quarters in London\nnow. In short, there's a dwelling-house rent-free, attached to my new\nposition, and we must occupy it.'\n\n'That's a gain, John.'\n\n'Yes, my dear, it is undoubtedly a gain.'\n\nHe gave her a very blithe look, and a very sly look. Which occasioned\nthe inexhaustible baby to square at him with the speckled fists, and\ndemand in a threatening manner what he meant?\n\n'My love, you said it was a gain, and I said it was a gain. A very\ninnocent remark, surely.'\n\n'I won't,' said the inexhaustible baby,\n'--allow--you--to--make--game--of--my--venerable--Ma.' At each division\nadministering a soft facer with one of the speckled fists.\n\nJohn having stooped down to receive these punishing visitations, Bella\nasked him, would it be necessary to move soon? Why yes, indeed (said\nJohn), he did propose that they should move very soon. Taking the\nfurniture with them, of course? (said Bella). Why, no (said John), the\nfact was, that the house was--in a sort of a kind of a way--furnished\nalready.\n\nThe inexhaustible baby, hearing this, resumed the offensive, and said:\n'But there's no nursery for me, sir. What do you mean, marble-hearted\nparent?' To which the marble-hearted parent rejoined that there was\na--sort of a kind of a--nursery, and it might be 'made to do'. 'Made to\ndo?' returned the Inexhaustible, administering more punishment, 'what do\nyou take me for?' And was then turned over on its back in Bella's lap,\nand smothered with kisses.\n\n'But really, John dear,' said Bella, flushed in quite a lovely manner\nby these exercises, 'will the new house, just as it stands, do for baby?\nThat's the question.'\n\n'I felt that to be the question,' he returned, 'and therefore I arranged\nthat you should come with me and look at it, to-morrow morning.'\nAppointment made, accordingly, for Bella to go up with him to-morrow\nmorning; John kissed; and Bella delighted.\n\nWhen they reached London in pursuance of their little plan, they took\ncoach and drove westward. Not only drove westward, but drove into that\nparticular westward division, which Bella had seen last when she turned\nher face from Mr Boffin's door. Not only drove into that particular\ndivision, but drove at last into that very street. Not only drove into\nthat very street, but stopped at last at that very house.\n\n'John dear!' cried Bella, looking out of window in a flutter. 'Do you\nsee where we are?'\n\n'Yes, my love. The coachman's quite right.'\n\nThe house-door was opened without any knocking or ringing, and John\npromptly helped her out. The servant who stood holding the door, asked\nno question of John, neither did he go before them or follow them as\nthey went straight up-stairs. It was only her husband's encircling arm,\nurging her on, that prevented Bella from stopping at the foot of the\nstaircase. As they ascended, it was seen to be tastefully ornamented\nwith most beautiful flowers.\n\n'O John!' said Bella, faintly. 'What does this mean?'\n\n'Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on.'\n\nGoing on a little higher, they came to a charming aviary, in which a\nnumber of tropical birds, more gorgeous in colour than the flowers,\nwere flying about; and among those birds were gold and silver fish, and\nmosses, and water-lilies, and a fountain, and all manner of wonders.\n\n'O my dear John!' said Bella. 'What does this mean?'\n\n'Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on.'\n\nThey went on, until they came to a door. As John put out his hand to\nopen it, Bella caught his hand.\n\n'I don't know what it means, but it's too much for me. Hold me, John,\nlove.'\n\nJohn caught her up in his arm, and lightly dashed into the room with\nher.\n\nBehold Mr and Mrs Boffin, beaming! Behold Mrs Boffin clapping her hands\nin an ecstacy, running to Bella with tears of joy pouring down her\ncomely face, and folding her to her breast, with the words: 'My deary\ndeary, deary girl, that Noddy and me saw married and couldn't wish joy\nto, or so much as speak to! My deary, deary, deary, wife of John and\nmother of his little child! My loving loving, bright bright, Pretty\nPretty! Welcome to your house and home, my deary!'\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\nSHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST\n\n\nIn all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most bewilderingly\nwonderful thing to Bella was the shining countenance of Mr Boffin. That\nhis wife should be joyous, open-hearted, and genial, or that her face\nshould express every quality that was large and trusting, and no quality\nthat was little or mean, was accordant with Bella's experience. But,\nthat he, with a perfectly beneficent air and a plump rosy face, should\nbe standing there, looking at her and John, like some jovial good\nspirit, was marvellous. For, how had he looked when she last saw him in\nthat very room (it was the room in which she had given him that piece of\nher mind at parting), and what had become of all those crooked lines of\nsuspicion, avarice, and distrust, that twisted his visage then?\n\nMrs Boffin seated Bella on the large ottoman, and seated herself beside\nher, and John her husband seated himself on the other side of her, and\nMr Boffin stood beaming at every one and everything he could see, with\nsurpassing jollity and enjoyment. Mrs Boffin was then taken with a\nlaughing fit of clapping her hands, and clapping her knees, and rocking\nherself to and fro, and then with another laughing fit of embracing\nBella, and rocking her to and fro--both fits, of considerable duration.\n\n'Old lady, old lady,' said Mr Boffin, at length; 'if you don't begin\nsomebody else must.'\n\n'I'm a going to begin, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Only it\nisn't easy for a person to know where to begin, when a person is in this\nstate of delight and happiness. Bella, my dear. Tell me, who's this?'\n\n'Who is this?' repeated Bella. 'My husband.'\n\n'Ah! But tell me his name, deary!' cried Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Rokesmith.'\n\n'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, and shaking her\nhead. 'Not a bit of it.'\n\n'Handford then,' suggested Bella.\n\n'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, again clapping her hands and shaking\nher head. 'Not a bit of it.'\n\n'At least, his name is John, I suppose?' said Bella.\n\n'Ah! I should think so, deary!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'I should hope so!\nMany and many is the time I have called him by his name of John. But\nwhat's his other name, his true other name? Give a guess, my pretty!'\n\n'I can't guess,' said Bella, turning her pale face from one to another.\n\n'I could,' cried Mrs Boffin, 'and what's more, I did! I found him out,\nall in a flash as I may say, one night. Didn't I, Noddy?'\n\n'Ay! That the old lady did!' said Mr Boffin, with stout pride in the\ncircumstance.\n\n'Harkee to me, deary,' pursued Mrs Boffin, taking Bella's hands between\nher own, and gently beating on them from time to time. 'It was after a\nparticular night when John had been disappointed--as he thought--in\nhis affections. It was after a night when John had made an offer to a\ncertain young lady, and the certain young lady had refused it. It was\nafter a particular night, when he felt himself cast-away-like, and had\nmade up his mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. My\nNoddy wanted a paper out of his Secretary's room, and I says to Noddy,\n\"I am going by the door, and I'll ask him for it.\" I tapped at his door,\nand he didn't hear me. I looked in, and saw him a sitting lonely by his\nfire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with a pleased kind of\nsmile in my company when he saw me, and then in a single moment every\ngrain of the gunpowder that had been lying sprinkled thick about him\never since I first set eyes upon him as a man at the Bower, took fire!\nToo many a time had I seen him sitting lonely, when he was a poor child,\nto be pitied, heart and hand! Too many a time had I seen him in need of\nbeing brightened up with a comforting word! Too many and too many a time\nto be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No, no! I just\nmakes out to cry, \"I know you now! You're John!\" And he catches me as\nI drops.--So what,' says Mrs Boffin, breaking off in the rush of her\nspeech to smile most radiantly, 'might you think by this time that your\nhusband's name was, dear?'\n\n'Not,' returned Bella, with quivering lips; 'not Harmon? That's not\npossible?'\n\n'Don't tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things are\npossible?' demanded Mrs Boffin, in a soothing tone.\n\n'He was killed,' gasped Bella.\n\n'Thought to be,' said Mrs Boffin. 'But if ever John Harmon drew the\nbreath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon's arm round your\nwaist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wife\nis certainly you. If ever John Harmon and his wife had a child on earth,\nthat child is certainly this.'\n\nBy a master-stroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby here\nappeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. Mrs\nBoffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella's lap, where both Mrs and Mr\nBoffin (as the saying is) 'took it out of' the Inexhaustible in a shower\nof caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from\nswooning. This, and her husband's earnestness in explaining further to\nher how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and\nhad even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a pious\nfraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its\ndisclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance for\nthe object with which it had originated, and in which it had fully\ndeveloped.\n\n'But bless ye, my beauty!' cried Mrs Boffin, taking him up short at this\npoint, with another hearty clap of her hands. 'It wasn't John only that\nwas in it. We was all of us in it.'\n\n'I don't,' said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, 'yet\nunderstand--'\n\n'Of course you don't, my deary,' exclaimed Mrs Boffin. 'How can you till\nyou're told! So now I am a going to tell you. So you put your two hands\nbetween my two hands again,' cried the comfortable creature, embracing\nher, 'with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shall\nbe told all the story. Now, I'm a going to tell the story. Once, twice,\nthree times, and the horses is off. Here they go! When I cries out that\nnight, \"I know you now, you're John! \"--which was my exact words; wasn't\nthey, John?'\n\n'Your exact words,' said John, laying his hand on hers.\n\n'That's a very good arrangement,' cried Mrs Boffin. 'Keep it there,\nJohn. And as we was all of us in it, Noddy you come and lay yours a top\nof his, and we won't break the pile till the story's done.'\n\nMr Boffin hitched up a chair, and added his broad brown right hand to\nthe heap.\n\n'That's capital!' said Mrs Boffin, giving it a kiss. 'Seems quite a\nfamily building; don't it? But the horses is off. Well! When I cries\nout that night, \"I know you now! you're John!\" John catches of me, it\nis true; but I ain't a light weight, bless ye, and he's forced to let me\ndown. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon as I anyways\ncomes to myself I calls to him, \"Noddy, well I might say as I did say,\nthat night at the Bower, for the Lord be thankful this is John!\" On\nwhich he gives a heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head under\nthe writing-table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings him\nround comfortable, and then John and him and me we all fall a crying for\njoy.'\n\n'Yes! They cry for joy, my darling,' her husband struck in. 'You\nunderstand? These two, whom I come to life to disappoint and dispossess,\ncry for joy!'\n\nBella looked at him confusedly, and looked again at Mrs Boffin's radiant\nface.\n\n'That's right, my dear, don't you mind him,' said Mrs Boffin, 'stick\nto me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, and holds a\nconfabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind on\naccounts of a certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn't found him\nout, he was going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fully\nmeant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongful\ninheritance for ever and a day. At which you never see a man so\nfrightened as my Noddy was. For to think that he should have come into\nthe property wrongful, however innocent, and--more than that--might have\ngone on keeping it to his dying day, turned him whiter than chalk.'\n\n'And you too,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Don't you mind him, neither, my deary,' resumed Mrs Boffin; 'stick\nto me. This brings up a confabulation regarding the certain fair young\nperson; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a deary\ncreetur. \"She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat'rally spoilt,\" he says,\n\"by circumstances, but that's only the surface, and I lay my life,\" he\nsays, \"that she's the true golden gold at heart.\"\n\n'So did you,' said Mr Boffin.\n\n'Don't you mind him a single morsel, my dear,' proceeded Mrs Boffin,\n'but stick to me. Then says John, O, if he could but prove so! Then we\nboth of us ups and says, that minute, \"Prove so!\"'\n\nWith a start, Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr Boffin. But,\nhe was sitting thoughtfully smiling at that broad brown hand of his, and\neither didn't see it, or would take no notice of it.\n\n'\"Prove it, John!\" we says,' repeated Mrs Boffin. '\"Prove it and\novercome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the first time in\nyour life, and for the rest of your life.\" This puts John in a state,\nto be sure. Then we says, \"What will content you? If she was to stand up\nfor you when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generous\nmind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you was\npoorest and friendliest, and all this against her own seeming interest,\nhow would that do?\" \"Do?\" says John, \"it would raise me to the skies.\"\n\"Then,\" says my Noddy, \"make your preparations for the ascent, John, it\nbeing my firm belief that up you go!\"'\n\nBella caught Mr Boffin's twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got\nit away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand.\n\n'From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy's,' said\nMrs Boffin, shaking her head. 'O you were! And if I had been inclined\nto be jealous, I don't know what I mightn't have done to you. But as I\nwasn't--why, my beauty,' with a hearty laugh and an embrace, 'I made you\na special favourite of my own too. But the horses is coming round the\ncorner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to\nmake 'em ache again: \"Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John,\nfor if ever a man had a hard master, you shall find me from this present\ntime to be such to you.\" And then he began!' cried Mrs Boffin, in an\necstacy of admiration. 'Lord bless you, then he began! And how he DID\nbegin; didn't he!'\n\nBella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed.\n\n'But, bless you,' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'if you could have seen him of a\nnight, at that time of it! The way he'd sit and chuckle over himself!\nThe way he'd say \"I've been a regular brown bear to-day,\" and take\nhimself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had\npretended. But every night he says to me: \"Better and better, old lady.\nWhat did we say of her? She'll come through it, the true golden gold.\nThis'll be the happiest piece of work we ever done.\" And then he'd say,\n\"I'll be a grislier old growler to-morrow!\" and laugh, he would, till\nJohn and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his\nwindpipes with a little water.'\n\nMr Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound,\nbut rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastly\nenjoying himself.\n\n'And so, my good and pretty,' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'you was married, and\nthere was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; for\nhe wouldn't let us out with it then, as was first meant. \"No,\" he says,\n\"she's so unselfish and contented, that I can't afford to be rich yet. I\nmust wait a little longer.\" Then, when baby was expected, he says, \"She\nis such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can't afford to be rich\nyet. I must wait a little longer.\" Then when baby was born, he says,\n\"She is so much better than she ever was, that I can't afford to be rich\nyet. I must wait a little longer.\" And so he goes on and on, till I says\noutright, \"Now, John, if you don't fix a time for setting her up in her\nown house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I'll turn Informer.\"\nThen he says he'll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thought\npossible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; and\nhe says, \"She shall see me under suspicion of having murdered myself,\nand YOU shall see how trusting and how true she'll be.\" Well! Noddy and\nme agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is\nin, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless us\nall!'\n\nThe pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs Boffin took a good long\nhug of one another: to the apparent peril of the inexhaustible baby,\nlying staring in Bella's lap.\n\n'But IS the story done?' said Bella, pondering. 'Is there no more of\nit?'\n\n'What more of it should there be, deary?' returned Mrs Boffin, full of\nglee.\n\n'Are you sure you have left nothing out of it?' asked Bella.\n\n'I don't think I have,' said Mrs Boffin, archly.\n\n'John dear,' said Bella, 'you're a good nurse; will you please hold\nbaby?' Having deposited the Inexhaustible in his arms with those words,\nBella looked hard at Mr Boffin, who had moved to a table where he was\nleaning his head upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietly\nsettling herself on her knees at his side, and drawing one arm over his\nshoulder, said: 'Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake of\na word when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (not\nworse) than Hopkins, better (not worse) than Dancer, better (not worse)\nthan Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Please\nsomething more!' cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as she\nstruggled with him and forced him to turn his delighted face to hers.\n'Please I have found out something not yet mentioned. Please I don't\nbelieve you are a hard-hearted miser at all, and please I don't believe\nyou ever for one single minute were!'\n\nAt this, Mrs Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating her\nfeet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself backwards\nand forwards, like a demented member of some Mandarin's family.\n\n'O, I understand you now, sir!' cried Bella. 'I want neither you nor any\none else to tell me the rest of the story. I can tell it to YOU, now, if\nyou would like to hear it.'\n\n'Can you, my dear?' said Mr Boffin. 'Tell it then.'\n\n'What?' cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat with both hands.\n'When you saw what a greedy little wretch you were the patron of, you\ndetermined to show her how much misused and misprized riches could\ndo, and often had done, to spoil people; did you? Not caring what she\nthought of you (and Goodness knows THAT was of no consequence!) you\nshowed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of wealth, saying in\nyour own mind, \"This shallow creature would never work the truth out of\nher own weak soul, if she had a hundred years to do it in; but a glaring\ninstance kept before her may open even her eyes and set her thinking.\"\nThat was what you said to yourself, was it, sir?'\n\n'I never said anything of the sort,' Mr Boffin declared in a state of\nthe highest enjoyment.\n\n'Then you ought to have said it, sir,' returned Bella, giving him two\npulls and one kiss, 'for you must have thought and meant it. You saw\nthat good fortune was turning my stupid head and hardening my silly\nheart--was making me grasping, calculating, insolent, insufferable--and\nyou took the pains to be the dearest and kindest fingerpost that ever\nwas set up anywhere, pointing out the road that I was taking and the end\nit led to. Confess instantly!'\n\n'John,' said Mr Boffin, one broad piece of sunshine from head to foot,\n'I wish you'd help me out of this.'\n\n'You can't be heard by counsel, sir,' returned Bella. 'You must speak\nfor yourself. Confess instantly!'\n\n'Well, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'the truth is, that when we did go in\nfor the little scheme that my old lady has pinted out, I did put it to\nJohn, what did he think of going in for some such general scheme as YOU\nhave pinted out? But I didn't in any way so word it, because I didn't in\nany way so mean it. I only said to John, wouldn't it be more consistent,\nme going in for being a reg'lar brown bear respecting him, to go in as a\nreg'lar brown bear all round?'\n\n'Confess this minute, sir,' said Bella, 'that you did it to correct and\namend me!'\n\n'Certainly, my dear child,' said Mr Boffin, 'I didn't do it to harm you;\nyou may be sure of that. And I did hope it might just hint a caution.\nStill, it ought to be mentioned that no sooner had my old lady found out\nJohn, than John made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon a\nthankless person by the name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the punishment of\nwhich Wegg, by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhanded\ngame that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so many\nof together (and, by-the-by, my dear, he wasn't Blackberry Jones, but\nBlewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name of Silas Wegg\naforesaid.'\n\nBella, who was still on her knees at Mr Boffin's feet, gradually sank\ndown into a sitting posture on the ground, as she meditated more and\nmore thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face.\n\n'Still,' said Bella, after this meditative pause, 'there remain two\nthings that I cannot understand. Mrs Boffin never supposed any part of\nthe change in Mr Boffin to be real; did she?--You never did; did you?'\nasked Bella, turning to her.\n\n'No!' returned Mrs Boffin, with a most rotund and glowing negative.\n\n'And yet you took it very much to heart,' said Bella. 'I remember its\nmaking you very uneasy, indeed.'\n\n'Ecod, you see Mrs John has a sharp eye, John!' cried Mr Boffin, shaking\nhis head with an admiring air. 'You're right, my dear. The old lady\nnearly blowed us into shivers and smithers, many times.'\n\n'Why?' asked Bella. 'How did that happen, when she was in your secret?'\n\n'Why, it was a weakness in the old lady,' said Mr Boffin; 'and yet, to\ntell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm rather proud of\nit. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me that she couldn't abear\nto see and hear me coming out as a reg'lar brown one. Couldn't abear\nto make-believe as I meant it! In consequence of which, we was\neverlastingly in danger with her.'\n\nMrs Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain glistening in her\nhonest eyes revealed that she was by no means cured of that dangerous\npropensity.\n\n'I assure you, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'that on the celebrated\nday when I made what has since been agreed upon to be my grandest\ndemonstration--I allude to Mew says the cat, Quack quack says the\nduck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog--I assure you, my dear, that on that\ncelebrated day, them flinty and unbelieving words hit my old lady so hard\non my account, that I had to hold her, to prevent her running out after\nyou, and defending me by saying I was playing a part.'\n\nMrs Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened again, and\nit then appeared, not only that in that burst of sarcastic eloquence\nMr Boffin was considered by his two fellow-conspirators to have outdone\nhimself, but that in his own opinion it was a remarkable achievement.\n'Never thought of it afore the moment, my dear!' he observed to Bella.\n'When John said, if he had been so happy as to win your affections and\npossess your heart, it come into my head to turn round upon him with\n\"Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack quack\nsays the duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog.\" I couldn't tell you how\nit come into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of a\nrasper that I own to you it astonished myself. I was awful nigh bursting\nout a laughing though, when it made John stare!'\n\n'You said, my pretty,' Mrs Boffin reminded Bella, 'that there was one\nother thing you couldn't understand.'\n\n'O yes!' cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; 'but that I\nnever shall be able to understand as long as I live. It is, how John\ncould love me so when I so little deserved it, and how you, Mr and Mrs\nBoffin, could be so forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains and\ntrouble, to make me a little better, and after all to help him to so\nunworthy a wife. But I am very very grateful.'\n\nIt was John Harmon's turn then--John Harmon now for good, and John\nRokesmith for nevermore--to plead with her (quite unnecessarily) in\nbehalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and over again, that it\nhad been prolonged by her own winning graces in her supposed station of\nlife. This led on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoyment\non all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed\nstaring, in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin's breast, was\npronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the whole transaction,\nand was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of\nthe speckled fist (with difficulty detached from an exceedingly short\nwaist), 'I have already informed my venerable Ma that I know all about\nit!'\n\nThen, said John Harmon, would Mrs John Harmon come and see her house?\nAnd a dainty house it was, and a tastefully beautiful; and they went\nthrough it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin's bosom (still\nstaring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the\nrear. And on Bella's exquisite toilette table was an ivory casket, and\nin the casket were jewels the like of which she had never dreamed of,\nand aloft on an upper floor was a nursery garnished as with rainbows;\n'though we were hard put to it,' said John Harmon, 'to get it done in so\nshort a time.'\n\nThe house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who was\nshortly afterwards heard screaming among the rainbows; whereupon Bella\nwithdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of gemplemorums, and\nthe screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associated herself with that\nyoung olive branch.\n\n'Come and look in, Noddy!' said Mrs Boffin to Mr Boffin.\n\nMr Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, looked in\nwith immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to see but Bella\nin a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon the\nhearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes\nshading her eyes from the fire.\n\n'It looks as if the old man's spirit had found rest at last; don't it?'\nsaid Mrs Boffin.\n\n'Yes, old lady.'\n\n'And as if his money had turned bright again, after a long long rust in\nthe dark, and was at last a beginning to sparkle in the sunlight?'\n\n'Yes, old lady.'\n\n'And it makes a pretty and a promising picter; don't it?'\n\n'Yes, old lady.'\n\nBut, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr Boffin\nquenched that observation in this--delivered in the grisliest growling\nof the regular brown bear. 'A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew,\nQuack quack, Bow-wow!' And then trotted silently downstairs, with his\nshoulders in a state of the liveliest commotion.\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\nCHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE\n\n\nMr and Mrs John Harmon had so timed their taking possession of their\nrightful name and their London house, that the event befel on the very\nday when the last waggon-load of the last Mound was driven out at the\ngates of Boffin's Bower. As it jolted away, Mr Wegg felt that the\nlast load was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed the\nauspicious season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closely\nsheared.\n\nOver the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had kept\nwatch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had watched the\ngrowth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust\nof which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there\nbe any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every\nwaif and stray into money, long before?\n\nThough disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensibly\nrelieved by the close of the labour, to grumble to any great extent.\nA foreman-representative of the dust contractors, purchasers of the\nMounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the\nproceedings, asserting his employers' rights to cart off by daylight,\nnightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of\nSilas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep\nhimself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat\nand velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and\nuntimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day's work\nin fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing,\nwhen a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an\napproaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall to\nwork again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out of his soundest\nsleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his post\neight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him not\nto trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg\nthat indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and\nthat attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was\nhis rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered\nto keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked\npiteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed.\nSo gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden leg showed\ndisproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrast\nwith the rest of his plagued body, which might almost have been termed\nchubby.\n\nHowever, Wegg's comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over,\nand that he was immediately coming into his property. Of late, the\ngrindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own nose\nrather than Boffin's, but Boffin's nose was now to be sharpened fine.\nThus far, Mr Wegg had let his dusty friend off lightly, having been\nbaulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by the\nmachinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to depute\nMr Venus to keep their dusty friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he\nhimself turned lank and lean at the Bower.\n\nTo Mr Venus's museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Mounds\nwere down and gone. It being evening, he found that gentleman, as he\nexpected, seated over his fire; but did not find him, as he expected,\nfloating his powerful mind in tea.\n\n'Why, you smell rather comfortable here!' said Wegg, seeming to take it\nill, and stopping and sniffing as he entered.\n\n'I AM rather comfortable, sir,' said Venus.\n\n'You don't use lemon in your business, do you?' asked Wegg, sniffing\nagain.\n\n'No, Mr Wegg,' said Venus. 'When I use it at all, I mostly use it in\ncobblers' punch.'\n\n'What do you call cobblers' punch?' demanded Wegg, in a worse humour\nthan before.\n\n'It's difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir,' returned Venus,\n'because, however particular you may be in allotting your materials,\nso much will still depend upon the individual gifts, and there being a\nfeeling thrown into it. But the groundwork is gin.'\n\n'In a Dutch bottle?' said Wegg gloomily, as he sat himself down.\n\n'Very good, sir, very good!' cried Venus. 'Will you partake, sir?'\n\n'Will I partake?' returned Wegg very surlily. 'Why, of course I will!\nWILL a man partake, as has been tormented out of his five senses by\nan everlasting dustman with his head tied up! WILL he, too! As if he\nwouldn't!'\n\n'Don't let it put you out, Mr Wegg. You don't seem in your usual\nspirits.'\n\n'If you come to that, you don't seem in your usual spirits,' growled\nWegg. 'You seem to be setting up for lively.'\n\nThis circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give Mr Wegg\nuncommon offence.\n\n'And you've been having your hair cut!' said Wegg, missing the usual\ndusty shock.\n\n'Yes, Mr Wegg. But don't let that put you out, either.'\n\n'And I am blest if you ain't getting fat!' said Wegg, with culminating\ndiscontent. 'What are you going to do next?'\n\n'Well, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, 'I suspect\nyou could hardly guess what I am going to do next.'\n\n'I don't want to guess,' retorted Wegg. 'All I've got to say is, that\nit's well for you that the diwision of labour has been what it has been.\nIt's well for you to have had so light a part in this business, when\nmine has been so heavy. You haven't had YOUR rest broke, I'll be bound.'\n\n'Not at all, sir,' said Venus. 'Never rested so well in all my life, I\nthank you.'\n\n'Ah!' grumbled Wegg, 'you should have been me. If you had been me, and\nhad been fretted out of your bed, and your sleep, and your meals, and\nyour mind, for a stretch of months together, you'd have been out of\ncondition and out of sorts.'\n\n'Certainly, it has trained you down, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, contemplating\nhis figure with an artist's eye. 'Trained you down very low, it has! So\nweazen and yellow is the kivering upon your bones, that one might almost\nfancy you had come to give a look-in upon the French gentleman in the\ncorner, instead of me.'\n\nMr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman's\ncorner, seemed to notice something new there, which induced him to\nglance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stare\nat all the nooks and corners of the dim shop in succession.\n\n'Why, you've been having the place cleaned up!' he exclaimed.\n\n'Yes, Mr Wegg. By the hand of adorable woman.'\n\n'Then what you're going to do next, I suppose, is to get married?'\n\n'That's it, sir.'\n\nSilas took off his glasses again--finding himself too intensely\ndisgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to bear\na magnified view of him and made the inquiry:\n\n'To the old party?'\n\n'Mr Wegg!' said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. 'The lady in\nquestion is not a old party.'\n\n'I meant,' exclaimed Wegg, testily, 'to the party as formerly objected?'\n\n'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'in a case of so much delicacy, I must trouble\nyou to say what you mean. There are strings that must not be played\nupon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tuneful\nmanner. Of such melodious strings is Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed.'\n\n'Then it IS the lady as formerly objected?' said Wegg.\n\n'Sir,' returned Venus with dignity, 'I accept the altered phrase. It is\nthe lady as formerly objected.'\n\n'When is it to come off?' asked Silas.\n\n'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, with another flush. 'I cannot permit it to be\nput in the form of a Fight. I must temperately but firmly call upon you,\nsir, to amend that question.'\n\n'When is the lady,' Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining his ill\ntemper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, 'a\ngoing to give her 'and where she has already given her 'art?'\n\n'Sir,' returned Venus, 'I again accept the altered phrase, and with\npleasure. The lady is a going to give her 'and where she has already\ngiven her 'art, next Monday.'\n\n'Then the lady's objection has been met?' said Silas.\n\n'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'as I did name to you, I think, on a former\noccasion, if not on former occasions--'\n\n'On former occasions,' interrupted Wegg.\n\n'--What,' pursued Venus, 'what the nature of the lady's objection was, I\nmay impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprung\nup between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind\ninterference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted\nwith the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two\nfriends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to\ntry if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear--the\npint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage,\nI confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower\nanimals, it might not relieve the lady's mind of her feeling respecting\nbeing as a lady--regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, sir,\nand it took root.'\n\n'It would seem, Mr Venus,' observed Wegg, with a touch of distrust,\n'that you are flush of friends?'\n\n'Pretty well, sir,' that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid\nmystery. 'So-so, sir. Pretty well.'\n\n'However,' said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of distrust,\n'I wish you joy. One man spends his fortune in one way, and another in\nanother. You are going to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling.'\n\n'Indeed, Mr Wegg?'\n\n'Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope may bring me\nround after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with his\nhead tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended and\nthe Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten\nto-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin's nose\nto the grindstone?'\n\nTen to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr Venus for that excellent\npurpose.\n\n'You have had him well under inspection, I hope?' said Silas.\n\nMr Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day.\n\n'Suppose you was just to step round to-night then, and give him orders\nfrom me--I say from me, because he knows I won't be played with--to be\nready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in the\nmorning?' said Wegg. 'And as a matter of form, which will be agreeable\nto your own feelings, before we go out (for I'll walk with you part of\nthe way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let's have a look\nat the stock in trade.'\n\nMr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertook\nto produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg on\nBoffin's doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of the\nroad between Clerkenwell and Boffin's house (Mr Wegg expressly insisted\nthat there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman's name) the\npartners separated for the night.\n\nIt was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning. The\nstreets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable, in the morning,\nthat Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, as\nit were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well\nafford that trifling expense.\n\nVenus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conduct\nthe conference. Door knocked at. Door opened.\n\n'Boffin at home?'\n\nThe servant replied that MR Boffin was at home.\n\n'He'll do,' said Wegg, 'though it ain't what I call him.'\n\nThe servant inquired if they had any appointment?\n\n'Now, I tell you what, young fellow,' said Wegg, 'I won't have it. This\nwon't do for me. I don't want menials. I want Boffin.'\n\nThey were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful Wegg wore\nhis hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up a clock that\nstood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike. In a few minutes\nthey were shown upstairs into what used to be Boffin's room; which,\nbesides the door of entrance, had folding-doors in it, to make it one\nof a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here, Boffin was seated at a\nlibrary-table, and here Mr Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servant\nto withdraw, drew up a chair and seated himself, in his hat, close\nbeside him. Here, also, Mr Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable\nexperience of having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of a\nwindow, which was opened and shut for the purpose.\n\n'Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman's\npresence,' said the owner of the hand which had done this, 'or I will\nthrow you after it.'\n\nWegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the\nSecretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, and\nwho had come in quietly by the folding-doors.\n\n'Oh!' said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power of speech.\n'Very good! I gave directions for YOU to be dismissed. And you ain't\ngone, ain't you? Oh! We'll look into this presently. Very good!'\n\n'No, nor I ain't gone,' said another voice.\n\nSomebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turning his\nhead, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred\nwith fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his\ntied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was\nSloppy's.\n\n'Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!' roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with\nimmeasureable relish. 'He never thought as I could sleep standing, and\noften done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used\nto give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead\nhim a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID!'\nHere, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and\nthrowing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons.\n\n'Oh!' said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: 'one and one\nis two not dismissed, is it? Bof--fin! Just let me ask a question. Who\nset this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed\nthis fellow?'\n\n'I say!' remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. 'No fellows, or\nI'll throw you out of winder!'\n\nMr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: 'I employed\nhim, Wegg.'\n\n'Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms,\nand we can't do better than proceed to business. Bof--fin! I want the\nroom cleared of these two scum.'\n\n'That's not going to be done, Wegg,' replied Mr Boffin, sitting\ncomposedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat\ncomposedly on it at the other.\n\n'Bof--fin! Not going to be done?' repeated Wegg. 'Not at your peril?'\n\n'No, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. 'Not at my\nperil, and not on any other terms.'\n\nWegg reflected a moment, and then said: 'Mr Venus, will you be so good\nas hand me over that same dockyment?'\n\n'Certainly, sir,' replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness.\n'There it is. Having now, sir, parted with it, I wish to make a small\nobservation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expresses\nany new doctrine or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind.\nSilas Wegg, you are a precious old rascal.'\n\nMr Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beating\ntime with the paper to the other's politeness until this unexpected\nconclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly.\n\n'Silas Wegg,' said Venus, 'know that I took the liberty of taking Mr\nBoffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very early period of\nour firm's existence.'\n\n'Quite true,' added Mr Boffin; 'and I tested Venus by making him a\npretended proposal or two; and I found him on the whole a very honest\nman, Wegg.'\n\n'So Mr Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say,' Venus remarked:\n'though in the beginning of this dirt, my hands were not, for a few\nhours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and full\namends.'\n\n'Venus, you did,' said Mr Boffin. 'Certainly, certainly, certainly.'\n\nVenus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. 'Thank you, sir.\nI am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For your good opinion now, for\nyour way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself in\ncommunication with you, and for the influence since so kindly brought\nto bear upon a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr John Harmon.' To\nwhom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed.\n\nWegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes,\nand a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his bullying air,\nwhen his attention was re-claimed by Venus.\n\n'Everything else between you and me, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'now explains\nitself, and you can now make out, sir, without further words from me.\nBut totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise on\nwhat I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the close\nof our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon to\nrepeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringing\nunder your notice. You are a precious old rascal!'\n\n'You are a fool,' said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, 'and I'd have\ngot rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any way of doing\nit. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. You\nleave the more for me. Because, you know,' said Wegg, dividing his next\nobservation between Mr Boffin and Mr Harmon, 'I am worth my price, and\nI mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and it\ntells with such an anatomical Pump as this one,' pointing out Mr Venus,\n'but it won't do with a Man. I am here to be bought off, and I have\nnamed my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me.'\n\n'I'll leave you, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, laughing, 'as far as I am\nconcerned.'\n\n'Bof--fin!' replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, 'I\nunderstand YOUR new-born boldness. I see the brass underneath YOUR\nsilver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you've\nnothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why,\nyou're just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! But Mr Harmon\nis in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair\nof shoes. Now, I've heerd something lately about this being Mr\nHarmon--I make out now, some hints that I've met on that subject in\nthe newspaper--and I drop you, Bof--fin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr\nHarmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this present paper?'\n\n'It is a will of my late father's, of more recent date than the will\nproved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed him\nalready, and I'll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property\nto the Crown,' said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was\ncompatible with extreme sternness.\n\n'Bight you are!' cried Wegg. 'Then,' screwing the weight of his body\nupon his wooden leg, and screwing his wooden head very much on one side,\nand screwing up one eye: 'then, I put the question to you, what's this\npaper worth?'\n\n'Nothing,' said John Harmon.\n\nWegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some\nsarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himself\ngripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered; shoved back,\nstaggering, into a corner of the room; and pinned there.\n\n'You scoundrel!' said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that of\na vice.\n\n'You're knocking my head against the wall,' urged Silas faintly.\n\n'I mean to knock your head against the wall,' returned John Harmon,\nsuiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good will; 'and I'd\ngive a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you\nscoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle.'\n\nSloppy held it up, for his edification.\n\n'That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the many\nwills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. That will gives\neverything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin,\nexcluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a broken\nheart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and\nyours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottle\ndistressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were\nboth no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had\ndone nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle,\ntherefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay\nwhile you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking--often very\nnear it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the\nlight; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document,\neven with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. After\nthe discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on the\nsubject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for such a hound as\nyou to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him the\nnecessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced and\nestablished. The first thing you saw him do, and the second thing has\nbeen done without your knowledge. Consequently, the paper now rattling\nin your hand as I shake you--and I should like to shake the life out\nof you--is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do you\nunderstand?'\n\nJudging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head wagged\nbackwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable manner, he did\nunderstand.\n\n'Now, scoundrel,' said John Harmon, taking another sailor-like turn on\nhis cravat and holding him in his corner at arms' length, 'I shall make\ntwo more short speeches to you, because I hope they will torment you.\nYour discovery was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody had\nthought of looking into that place. Neither did we know you had made it,\nuntil Venus spoke to Mr Boffin, though I kept you under good observation\nfrom my first appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made it\nthe chief occupation and delight of his life, to attend you like your\nshadow. I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you to\npersuade Mr Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded, to the last possible\nmoment, in order that your disappointment might be the heaviest possible\ndisappointment. That's the first short speech, do you understand?'\n\nHere, John Harmon assisted his comprehension with another shake.\n\n'Now, scoundrel,' he pursued, 'I am going to finish. You supposed me\njust now, to be the possessor of my father's property.--So I am. But\nthrough any act of my father's, or by any right I have? No. Through the\nmunificence of Mr Boffin. The conditions that he made with me, before\nparting with the secret of the Dutch bottle, were, that I should take\nthe fortune, and that he should take his Mound and no more. I owe\neverything I possess, solely to the disinterestedness, uprightness,\ntenderness, goodness (there are no words to satisfy me) of Mr and Mrs\nBoffin. And when, knowing what I knew, I saw such a mud-worm as you\npresume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder is,'\nadded John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a very ugly turn\nindeed on Wegg's cravat, 'that I didn't try to twist your head off,\nand fling THAT out of window! So. That's the last short speech, do you\nunderstand?'\n\nSilas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and looked as\nif he had a rather large fishbone in that region. Simultaneously with\nthis action on his part in his corner, a singular, and on the surface\nan incomprehensible, movement was made by Mr Sloppy: who began backing\ntowards Mr Wegg along the wall, in the manner of a porter or heaver who\nis about to lift a sack of flour or coals.\n\n'I am sorry, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, in his clemency, 'that my old lady\nand I can't have a better opinion of you than the bad one we are forced\nto entertain. But I shouldn't like to leave you, after all said and\ndone, worse off in life than I found you. Therefore say in a word,\nbefore we part, what it'll cost to set you up in another stall.'\n\n'And in another place,' John Harmon struck in. 'You don't come outside\nthese windows.'\n\n'Mr Boffin,' returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation: 'when I first had\nthe honour of making your acquaintance, I had got together a collection\nof ballads which was, I may say, above price.'\n\n'Then they can't be paid for,' said John Harmon, 'and you had better not\ntry, my dear sir.'\n\n'Pardon me, Mr Boffin,' resumed Wegg, with a malignant glance in the\nlast speaker's direction, 'I was putting the case to you, who, if my\nsenses did not deceive me, put the case to me. I had a very choice\ncollection of ballads, and there was a new stock of gingerbread in the\ntin box. I say no more, but would rather leave it to you.'\n\n'But it's difficult to name what's right,' said Mr Boffin uneasily, with\nhis hand in his pocket, 'and I don't want to go beyond what's right,\nbecause you really have turned out such a very bad fellow. So artful,\nand so ungrateful you have been, Wegg; for when did I ever injure you?'\n\n'There was also,' Mr Wegg went on, in a meditative manner, 'a errand\nconnection, in which I was much respected. But I would not wish to be\ndeemed covetous, and I would rather leave it to you, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Upon my word, I don't know what to put it at,' the Golden Dustman\nmuttered.\n\n'There was likewise,' resumed Wegg, 'a pair of trestles, for which alone\na Irish person, who was deemed a judge of trestles, offered five and\nsix--a sum I would not hear of, for I should have lost by it--and there\nwas a stool, a umbrella, a clothes-horse, and a tray. But I leave it to\nyou, Mr Boffin.'\n\nThe Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in some abstruse calculation,\nMr Wegg assisted him with the following additional items.\n\n'There was, further, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle\nParker. Ah! When a man thinks of the loss of such patronage as that;\nwhen a man finds so fair a garden rooted up by pigs; he finds it hard\nindeed, without going high, to work it into money. But I leave it wholly\nto you, sir.'\n\nMr Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface his\nincomprehensible, movement.\n\n'Leading on has been mentioned,' said Wegg with a melancholy air, 'and\nit's not easy to say how far the tone of my mind may have been lowered\nby unwholesome reading on the subject of Misers, when you was leading me\nand others on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, that\nI felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time. And how can a man put a\nprice upon his mind! There was likewise a hat just now. But I leave the\nole to you, Mr Boffin.'\n\n'Come!' said Mr Boffin. 'Here's a couple of pound.'\n\n'In justice to myself, I couldn't take it, sir.'\n\nThe words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon lifted his finger,\nand Sloppy, who was now close to Wegg, backed to Wegg's back, stooped,\ngrasped his coat collar behind with both hands, and deftly swung him\nup like the sack of flour or coals before mentioned. A countenance of\nspecial discontent and amazement Mr Wegg exhibited in this position,\nwith his buttons almost as prominently on view as Sloppy's own, and\nwith his wooden leg in a highly unaccommodating state. But, not for many\nseconds was his countenance visible in the room; for, Sloppy lightly\ntrotted out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr Venus attending\nto open the street door. Mr Sloppy's instructions had been to deposit\nhis burden in the road; but, a scavenger's cart happening to stand\nunattended at the corner, with its little ladder planted against the\nwheel, Mr S. found it impossible to resist the temptation of shooting Mr\nSilas Wegg into the cart's contents. A somewhat difficult feat, achieved\nwith great dexterity, and with a prodigious splash.\n\n\n\nChapter 15\n\nWHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET\n\n\nHow Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in his mind since the\nquiet evening when by the river-side he had risen, as it were, out of\nthe ashes of the Bargeman, none but he could have told. Not even he\ncould have told, for such misery can only be felt.\n\nFirst, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge of what he\nhad done, of that haunting reproach that he might have done it so much\nbetter, and of the dread of discovery. This was load enough to crush\nhim, and he laboured under it day and night. It was as heavy on him in\nhis scanty sleep, as in his red-eyed waking hours. It bore him down with\na dread unchanging monotony, in which there was not a moment's variety.\nThe overweighted beast of burden, or the overweighted slave, can for\ncertain instants shift the physical load, and find some slight respite\neven in enforcing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or such\na limb. Not even that poor mockery of relief could the wretched man\nobtain, under the steady pressure of the infernal atmosphere into which\nhe had entered.\n\nTime went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him; time went by, and\nin such public accounts of the attack as were renewed at intervals,\nhe began to see Mr Lightwood (who acted as lawyer for the injured man)\nstraying further from the fact, going wider of the issue, and evidently\nslackening in his zeal. By degrees, a glimmering of the cause of this\nbegan to break on Bradley's sight. Then came the chance meeting with Mr\nMilvey at the railway station (where he often lingered in his leisure\nhours, as a place where any fresh news of his deed would be circulated,\nor any placard referring to it would be posted), and then he saw in the\nlight what he had brought about.\n\nFor, then he saw that through his desperate attempt to separate those\ntwo for ever, he had been made the means of uniting them. That he had\ndipped his hands in blood, to mark himself a miserable fool and tool.\nThat Eugene Wrayburn, for his wife's sake, set him aside and left him to\ncrawl along his blasted course. He thought of Fate, or Providence, or\nbe the directing Power what it might, as having put a fraud upon\nhim--overreached him--and in his impotent mad rage bit, and tore, and\nhad his fit.\n\nNew assurance of the truth came upon him in the next few following days,\nwhen it was put forth how the wounded man had been married on his bed,\nand to whom, and how, though always in a dangerous condition, he was a\nshade better. Bradley would far rather have been seized for his murder,\nthan he would have read that passage, knowing himself spared, and\nknowing why.\n\nBut, not to be still further defrauded and overreached--which he would\nbe, if implicated by Riderhood, and punished by the law for his abject\nfailure, as though it had been a success--he kept close in his school\nduring the day, ventured out warily at night, and went no more to the\nrailway station. He examined the advertisements in the newspapers for\nany sign that Riderhood acted on his hinted threat of so summoning him\nto renew their acquaintance, but found none. Having paid him handsomely\nfor the support and accommodation he had had at the Lock House, and\nknowing him to be a very ignorant man who could not write, he began to\ndoubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether they need ever meet\nagain.\n\nAll this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his raging sense of\nhaving been made to fling himself across the chasm which divided those\ntwo, and bridge it over for their coming together, never cooled down.\nThis horrible condition brought on other fits. He could not have said\nhow many, or when; but he saw in the faces of his pupils that they had\nseen him in that state, and that they were possessed by a dread of his\nrelapsing.\n\nOne winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering the sills and\nframes of the schoolroom windows, he stood at his black board, crayon in\nhand, about to commence with a class; when, reading in the countenances\nof those boys that there was something wrong, and that they seemed in\nalarm for him, he turned his eyes to the door towards which they faced.\nHe then saw a slouching man of forbidding appearance standing in the\nmidst of the school, with a bundle under his arm; and saw that it was\nRiderhood.\n\nHe sat down on a stool which one of his boys put for him, and he had a\npassing knowledge that he was in danger of falling, and that his face\nwas becoming distorted. But, the fit went off for that time, and he\nwiped his mouth, and stood up again.\n\n'Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave!' said Riderhood, knuckling\nhis forehead, with a chuckle and a leer. 'What place may this be?'\n\n'This is a school.'\n\n'Where young folks learns wot's right?' said Riderhood, gravely nodding.\n'Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave! But who teaches this school?'\n\n'I do.'\n\n'You're the master, are you, learned governor?'\n\n'Yes. I am the master.'\n\n'And a lovely thing it must be,' said Riderhood, 'fur to learn young\nfolks wot's right, and fur to know wot THEY know wot you do it. Beg your\npardon, learned governor! By your leave!--That there black board; wot's\nit for?'\n\n'It is for drawing on, or writing on.'\n\n'Is it though!' said Riderhood. 'Who'd have thought it, from the\nlooks on it! WOULD you be so kind as write your name upon it, learned\ngovernor?' (In a wheedling tone.)\n\nBradley hesitated for a moment; but placed his usual signature,\nenlarged, upon the board.\n\n'I ain't a learned character myself,' said Riderhood, surveying the\nclass, 'but I do admire learning in others. I should dearly like to hear\nthese here young folks read that there name off, from the writing.'\n\nThe arms of the class went up. At the miserable master's nod, the shrill\nchorus arose: 'Bradley Headstone!'\n\n'No?' cried Riderhood. 'You don't mean it? Headstone! Why, that's in a\nchurchyard. Hooroar for another turn!'\n\nAnother tossing of arms, another nod, and another shrill chorus:\n\n'Bradley Headstone!'\n\n'I've got it now!' said Riderhood, after attentively listening, and\ninternally repeating: 'Bradley. I see. Chris'en name, Bradley sim'lar to\nRoger which is my own. Eh? Fam'ly name, Headstone, sim'lar to Riderhood\nwhich is my own. Eh?'\n\nShrill chorus. 'Yes!'\n\n'Might you be acquainted, learned governor,' said Riderhood, 'with a\nperson of about your own heighth and breadth, and wot 'ud pull down in\na scale about your own weight, answering to a name sounding summat like\nTotherest?'\n\nWith a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, though his jaw\nwas heavily squared; with his eyes upon Riderhood; and with traces of\nquickened breathing in his nostrils; the schoolmaster replied, in a\nsuppressed voice, after a pause: 'I think I know the man you mean.'\n\n'I thought you knowed the man I mean, learned governor. I want the man.'\n\nWith a half glance around him at his pupils, Bradley returned:\n\n'Do you suppose he is here?'\n\n'Begging your pardon, learned governor, and by your leave,' said\nRiderhood, with a laugh, 'how could I suppose he's here, when there's\nnobody here but you, and me, and these young lambs wot you're a learning\non? But he is most excellent company, that man, and I want him to come\nand see me at my Lock, up the river.'\n\n'I'll tell him so.'\n\n'D'ye think he'll come?' asked Riderhood.\n\n'I am sure he will.'\n\n'Having got your word for him,' said Riderhood, 'I shall count upon him.\nP'raps you'd so fur obleege me, learned governor, as tell him that if he\ndon't come precious soon, I'll look him up.'\n\n'He shall know it.'\n\n'Thankee. As I says a while ago,' pursued Riderhood, changing his hoarse\ntone and leering round upon the class again, 'though not a learned\ncharacter my own self, I do admire learning in others, to be sure! Being\nhere and having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore I\ngo, ask a question of these here young lambs of yourn?'\n\n'If it is in the way of school,' said Bradley, always sustaining his\ndark look at the other, and speaking in his suppressed voice, 'you may.'\n\n'Oh! It's in the way of school!' cried Riderhood. 'I'll pound it,\nMaster, to be in the way of school. Wot's the diwisions of water, my\nlambs? Wot sorts of water is there on the land?'\n\nShrill chorus: 'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.'\n\n'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds,' said Riderhood. 'They've got all the\nlot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn't have left out lakes, never having\nclapped eyes upon one, to my knowledge. Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.\nWot is it, lambs, as they ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds?'\n\nShrill chorus (with some contempt for the ease of the question):\n\n'Fish!'\n\n'Good a-gin!' said Riderhood. 'But wot else is it, my lambs, as they\nsometimes ketches in rivers?'\n\nChorus at a loss. One shrill voice: 'Weed!'\n\n'Good agin!' cried Riderhood. 'But it ain't weed neither. You'll never\nguess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish, as they sometimes ketches in\nrivers? Well! I'll tell you. It's suits o' clothes.'\n\nBradley's face changed.\n\n'Leastways, lambs,' said Riderhood, observing him out of the corners\nof his eyes, 'that's wot I my own self sometimes ketches in rivers. For\nstrike me blind, my lambs, if I didn't ketch in a river the wery bundle\nunder my arm!'\n\nThe class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregular\nentrapment of this mode of examination. The master looked at the\nexaminer, as if he would have torn him to pieces.\n\n'I ask your pardon, learned governor,' said Riderhood, smearing his\nsleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a relish, 'tain't fair to the\nlambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawed\nthis here bundle out of a river! It's a Bargeman's suit of clothes. You\nsee, it had been sunk there by the man as wore it, and I got it up.'\n\n'How do you know it was sunk by the man who wore it?' asked Bradley.\n\n'Cause I see him do it,' said Riderhood.\n\nThey looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing his eyes, turned\nhis face to the black board and slowly wiped his name out.\n\n'A heap of thanks, Master,' said Riderhood, 'for bestowing so much of\nyour time, and of the lambses' time, upon a man as hasn't got no other\nrecommendation to you than being a honest man. Wishing to see at my Lock\nup the river, the person as we've spoke of, and as you've answered for,\nI takes my leave of the lambs and of their learned governor both.'\n\nWith those words, he slouched out of the school, leaving the master\nto get through his weary work as he might, and leaving the whispering\npupils to observe the master's face until he fell into the fit which had\nbeen long impending.\n\nThe next day but one was Saturday, and a holiday. Bradley rose early,\nand set out on foot for Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. He rose so early that\nit was not yet light when he began his journey. Before extinguishing the\ncandle by which he had dressed himself, he made a little parcel of his\ndecent silver watch and its decent guard, and wrote inside the paper:\n'Kindly take care of these for me.' He then addressed the parcel to Miss\nPeecher, and left it on the most protected corner of the little seat in\nher little porch.\n\nIt was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gate\nand turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered his schoolroom\nwindows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was falling\nwhite, while the wind blew black. The tardy day did not appear until he\nhad been on foot two hours, and had traversed a greater part of London\nfrom east to west. Such breakfast as he had, he took at the comfortless\npublic-house where he had parted from Riderhood on the occasion of\ntheir night-walk. He took it, standing at the littered bar, and looked\nloweringly at a man who stood where Riderhood had stood that early\nmorning.\n\nHe outwalked the short day, and was on the towing-path by the river,\nsomewhat footsore, when the night closed in. Still two or three miles\nshort of the Lock, he slackened his pace then, but went steadily on. The\nground was now covered with snow, though thinly, and there were floating\nlumps of ice in the more exposed parts of the river, and broken sheets\nof ice under the shelter of the banks. He took heed of nothing but the\nice, the snow, and the distance, until he saw a light ahead, which he\nknew gleamed from the Lock House window. It arrested his steps, and he\nlooked all around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, had\nabsolute possession of the dreary scene. In the distance before him, lay\nthe place where he had struck the worse than useless blows that mocked\nhim with Lizzie's presence there as Eugene's wife. In the distance\nbehind him, lay the place where the children with pointing arms had\nseemed to devote him to the demons in crying out his name. Within there,\nwhere the light was, was the man who as to both distances could give him\nup to ruin. To these limits had his world shrunk.\n\nHe mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with a strange\nintensity, as if he were taking aim at it. When he approached it so\nnearly as that it parted into rays, they seemed to fasten themselves\nto him and draw him on. When he struck the door with his hand, his foot\nfollowed so quickly on his hand, that he was in the room before he was\nbidden to enter.\n\nThe light was the joint product of a fire and a candle. Between the two,\nwith his feet on the iron fender, sat Riderhood, pipe in mouth.\n\nHe looked up with a surly nod when his visitor came in. His visitor\nlooked down with a surly nod. His outer clothing removed, the visitor\nthen took a seat on the opposite side of the fire.\n\n'Not a smoker, I think?' said Riderhood, pushing a bottle to him across\nthe table.\n\n'No.'\n\nThey both lapsed into silence, with their eyes upon the fire.\n\n'You don't need to be told I am here,' said Bradley at length. 'Who is\nto begin?'\n\n'I'll begin,' said Riderhood, 'when I've smoked this here pipe out.'\n\nHe finished it with great deliberation, knocked out the ashes on the\nhob, and put it by.\n\n'I'll begin,' he then repeated, 'Bradley Headstone, Master, if you wish\nit.'\n\n'Wish it? I wish to know what you want with me.'\n\n'And so you shall.' Riderhood had looked hard at his hands and his\npockets, apparently as a precautionary measure lest he should have any\nweapon about him. But, he now leaned forward, turning the collar of\nhis waistcoat with an inquisitive finger, and asked, 'Why, where's your\nwatch?'\n\n'I have left it behind.'\n\n'I want it. But it can be fetched. I've took a fancy to it.'\n\nBradley answered with a contemptuous laugh.\n\n'I want it,' repeated Riderhood, in a louder voice, 'and I mean to have\nit.'\n\n'That is what you want of me, is it?'\n\n'No,' said Riderhood, still louder; 'it's on'y part of what I want of\nyou. I want money of you.'\n\n'Anything else?'\n\n'Everythink else!' roared Riderhood, in a very loud and furious way.\n'Answer me like that, and I won't talk to you at all.'\n\nBradley looked at him.\n\n'Don't so much as look at me like that, or I won't talk to you at all,'\nvociferated Riderhood. 'But, instead of talking, I'll bring my hand\ndown upon you with all its weight,' heavily smiting the table with great\nforce, 'and smash you!'\n\n'Go on,' said Bradley, after moistening his lips.\n\n'O! I'm a going on. Don't you fear but I'll go on full-fast enough for\nyou, and fur enough for you, without your telling. Look here, Bradley\nHeadstone, Master. You might have split the T'other governor to chips\nand wedges, without my caring, except that I might have come upon you\nfor a glass or so now and then. Else why have to do with you at all? But\nwhen you copied my clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, and\nwhen you shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wot\nI'll be paid for and paid heavy for. If it come to be throw'd upon you,\nyou was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you? Where else but\nin Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a man dressed according as\ndescribed? Where else but in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a\nman as had had words with him coming through in his boat? Look at the\nLock-keeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answering clothes\nand with that same answering red neckhankercher, and see whether his\nclothes happens to be bloody or not. Yes, they do happen to be bloody.\nAh, you sly devil!'\n\nBradley, very white, sat looking at him in silence.\n\n'But two could play at your game,' said Riderhood, snapping his fingers\nat him half a dozen times, 'and I played it long ago; long afore you\ntried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you hadn't begun croaking\nyour lecters or what not in your school. I know to a figure how you\ndone it. Where you stole away, I could steal away arter you, and do it\nknowinger than you. I know how you come away from London in your own\nclothes, and where you changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see\nyou with my own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-place\namong them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account for\nyour dressing yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise up\nBradley Headstone, Master, where you sat down Bargeman. I see you pitch\nyour Bargeman's bundle into the river. I hooked your Bargeman's bundle\nout of the river. I've got your Bargeman's clothes, tore this way and\nthat way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and spattered\nall over with what bust from the blows. I've got them, and I've got you.\nI don't care a curse for the T'other governor, alive or dead, but I care\na many curses for my own self. And as you laid your plots agin me and\nwas a sly devil agin me, I'll be paid for it--I'll be paid for it--I'll\nbe paid for it--till I've drained you dry!'\n\nBradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a\nwhile. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure of\nvoice and feature:\n\n'You can't get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.'\n\n'I can get money out of a schoolmaster though.'\n\n'You can't get out of me what is not in me. You can't wrest from me what\nI have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than two\nguineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing\nfor a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?'\n\n'I don't know, nor I don't care. Yours is a 'spectable calling. To\nsave your 'spectability, it's worth your while to pawn every article of\nclothes you've got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow\nevery penny you can get trusted with. When you've done that and handed\nover, I'll leave you. Not afore.'\n\n'How do you mean, you'll leave me?'\n\n'I mean as I'll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away from\nhere. Let the Lock take care of itself. I'll take care of you, once I've\ngot you.'\n\nBradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up\nhis pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned his\nelbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire\nwith a most intent abstraction.\n\n'Riderhood,' he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long\nsilence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. 'Say\nI part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have\nmy watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you a\ncertain portion of it.'\n\n'Say nothink of the sort,' retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as he\nsmoked. 'You've got away once, and I won't run the chance agin. I've had\ntrouble enough to find you, and shouldn't have found you, if I hadn't\nseen you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till you\nwas safe housed. I'll have one settlement with you for good and all.'\n\n'Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I have no resources\nbeyond myself. I have absolutely no friends.'\n\n'That's a lie,' said Riderhood. 'You've got one friend as I knows of;\none as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I'm a blue monkey!'\n\nBradley's face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse and\ndrew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go on to\nsay.\n\n'I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday,' said Riderhood.\n'Found myself among the young ladies, by George! Over the young ladies,\nI see a Missis. That Missis is sweet enough upon you, Master, to sell\nherself up, slap, to get you out of trouble. Make her do it then.'\n\nBradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite knowing\nhow to take it, affected to be occupied with the encircling smoke from\nhis pipe; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing it off.\n\n'You spoke to the mistress, did you?' inquired Bradley, with that\nformer composure of voice and feature that seemed inconsistent, and with\naverted eyes.\n\n'Poof! Yes,' said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention from the smoke.\n'I spoke to her. I didn't say much to her. She was put in a fluster by\nmy dropping in among the young ladies (I never did set up for a lady's\nman), and she took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothink\nwrong. I tells her, \"O no, nothink wrong. The master's my wery good\nfriend.\" But I see how the land laid, and that she was comfortable off.'\n\nBradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist with his\nright hand, and sat rigidly contemplating the fire.\n\n'She couldn't live more handy to you than she does,' said Riderhood,\n'and when I goes home with you (as of course I am a going), I recommend\nyou to clean her out without loss of time. You can marry her, arter you\nand me have come to a settlement. She's nice-looking, and I know\nyou can't be keeping company with no one else, having been so lately\ndisapinted in another quarter.'\n\nNot one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once did he\nchange his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his wrist. Rigid before the\nfire, as if it were a charmed flame that was turning him old, he sat,\nwith the dark lines deepening in his face, its stare becoming more and\nmore haggard, its surface turning whiter and whiter as if it were being\noverspread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his hair\ndegenerating.\n\nNot until the late daylight made the window transparent, did this\ndecaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and sat in the window\nlooking out.\n\nRiderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of the night\nhe had muttered twice or thrice that it was bitter cold; or that the\nfire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it; but, as he could elicit from\nhis companion neither sound nor movement, he had afterwards held his\npeace. He was making some disorderly preparations for coffee, when\nBradley came from the window and put on his outer coat and hat.\n\n'Hadn't us better have a bit o' breakfast afore we start?' said\nRiderhood. 'It ain't good to freeze a empty stomach, Master.'\n\nWithout a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of the Lock\nHouse. Catching up from the table a piece of bread, and taking his\nBargeman's bundle under his arm, Riderhood immediately followed him.\nBradley turned towards London. Riderhood caught him up, and walked at\nhis side.\n\nThe two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles.\nSuddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. Instantly, Riderhood\nturned likewise, and they went back side by side.\n\nBradley re-entered the Lock House. So did Riderhood. Bradley sat down in\nthe window. Riderhood warmed himself at the fire. After an hour or more,\nBradley abruptly got up again, and again went out, but this time turned\nthe other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up in a few\npaces, and walked at his side.\n\nThis time, as before, when he found his attendant not to be shaken off,\nBradley suddenly turned back. This time, as before, Riderhood turned\nback along with him. But, not this time, as before, did they go into the\nLock House, for Bradley came to a stand on the snow-covered turf by the\nLock, looking up the river and down the river. Navigation was impeded by\nthe frost, and the scene was a mere white and yellow desert.\n\n'Come, come, Master,' urged Riderhood, at his side. 'This is a dry game.\nAnd where's the good of it? You can't get rid of me, except by coming to\na settlement. I am a going along with you wherever you go.'\n\nWithout a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over the wooden\nbridge on the lock gates. 'Why, there's even less sense in this move\nthan t'other,' said Riderhood, following. 'The Weir's there, and you'll\nhave to come back, you know.'\n\nWithout taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body against a post,\nin a resting attitude, and there rested with his eyes cast down. 'Being\nbrought here,' said Riderhood, gruffly, 'I'll turn it to some use by\nchanging my gates.' With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swung-to\nthe lock gates that were standing open, before opening the others. So,\nboth sets of gates were, for the moment, closed.\n\n'You'd better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, Master,' said\nRiderhood, passing him, 'or I'll drain you all the dryer for it, when we\ndo settle.--Ah! Would you!'\n\nBradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be girdled with an\niron ring. They were on the brink of the Lock, about midway between the\ntwo sets of gates.\n\n'Let go!' said Riderhood, 'or I'll get my knife out and slash you\nwherever I can cut you. Let go!'\n\nBradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing away from\nit. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradley\ngot him round, with his back to the Lock, and still worked him backward.\n\n'Let go!' said Riderhood. 'Stop! What are you trying at? You can't drown\nMe. Ain't I told you that the man as has come through drowning can never\nbe drowned? I can't be drowned.'\n\n'I can be!' returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. 'I am\nresolved to be. I'll hold you living, and I'll hold you dead. Come\ndown!'\n\nRiderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstone\nupon him. When the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum behind\none of the rotting gates, Riderhood's hold had relaxed, probably in\nfalling, and his eyes were staring upward. But, he was girdled still\nwith Bradley's iron ring, and the rivets of the iron ring held tight.\n\n\n\nChapter 16\n\nPERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL\n\n\nMr and Mrs John Harmon's first delightful occupation was, to set all\nmatters right that had strayed in any way wrong, or that might, could,\nwould, or should, have strayed in any way wrong, while their name was in\nabeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John's fictitious death was\nto be considered in any way responsible, they used a very broad and free\nconstruction; regarding, for instance, the dolls' dressmaker as having\na claim on their protection, because of her association with Mrs Eugene\nWrayburn, and because of Mrs Eugene's old association, in her turn, with\nthe dark side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as a\ngood and serviceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even\nMr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on a\nfalse scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer,\nthat a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that\nhe had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow flip in\nthe bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he 'didn't stand to\nlose a farthing' through Mr Harmon's coming to life, but was quite as\nwell satisfied as if that gentleman had been barbarously murdered, and\nhe (Mr Inspector) had pocketed the government reward.\n\nIn all their arrangements of such nature, Mr and Mrs John Harmon derived\nmuch assistance from their eminent solicitor, Mr Mortimer Lightwood; who\nlaid about him professionally with such unwonted despatch and intention,\nthat a piece of work was vigorously pursued as soon as cut out; whereby\nYoung Blight was acted on as by that transatlantic dram which is\npoetically named An Eye-Opener, and found himself staring at real\nclients instead of out of window. The accessibility of Riah proving\nvery useful as to a few hints towards the disentanglement of Eugene's\naffairs, Lightwood applied himself with infinite zest to attacking and\nharassing Mr Fledgeby: who, discovering himself in danger of being blown\ninto the air by certain explosive transactions in which he had been\nengaged, and having been sufficiently flayed under his beating, came\nto a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow profited by\nthe conditions entered into, though he little thought it. Mr Riah\nunaccountably melted; waited in person on him over the stable yard in\nDuke Street, St James's, no longer ravening but mild, to inform him\nthat payment of interest as heretofore, but henceforth at Mr Lightwood's\noffices, would appease his Jewish rancour; and departed with the secret\nthat Mr John Harmon had advanced the money and become the creditor.\nThus, was the sublime Snigsworth's wrath averted, and thus did he snort\nno larger amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column in the\nprint over the fireplace, than was normally in his (and the British)\nconstitution.\n\n\nMrs Wilfer's first visit to the Mendicant's bride at the new abode of\nMendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had been sent for into the City,\non the very day of taking possession, and had been stunned with\nastonishment, and brought-to, and led about the house by one ear, to\nbehold its various treasures, and had been enraptured and enchanted. Pa\nhad also been appointed Secretary, and had been enjoined to give instant\nnotice of resignation to Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, for ever and\never. But Ma came later, and came, as was her due, in state.\n\nThe carriage was sent for Ma, who entered it with a bearing worthy of\nthe occasion, accompanied, rather than supported, by Miss Lavinia, who\naltogether declined to recognize the maternal majesty. Mr George Sampson\nmeekly followed. He was received in the vehicle, by Mrs Wilfer, as if\nadmitted to the honour of assisting at a funeral in the family, and she\nthen issued the order, 'Onward!' to the Mendicant's menial.\n\n'I wish to goodness, Ma,' said Lavvy, throwing herself back among the\ncushions, with her arms crossed, 'that you'd loll a little.'\n\n'How!' repeated Mrs Wilfer. 'Loll!'\n\n'Yes, Ma.'\n\n'I hope,' said the impressive lady, 'I am incapable of it.'\n\n'I am sure you look so, Ma. But why one should go out to dine with one's\nown daughter or sister, as if one's under-petticoat was a blackboard, I\ndo NOT understand.'\n\n'Neither do I understand,' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with deep scorn, 'how\na young lady can mention the garment in the name of which you have\nindulged. I blush for you.'\n\n'Thank you, Ma,' said Lavvy, yawning, 'but I can do it for myself, I am\nobliged to you, when there's any occasion.'\n\nHere, Mr Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, which he never\nunder any circumstances succeeded in doing, said with an agreeable\nsmile: 'After all, you know, ma'am, we know it's there.' And immediately\nfelt that he had committed himself.\n\n'We know it's there!' said Mrs Wilfer, glaring.\n\n'Really, George,' remonstrated Miss Lavinia, 'I must say that I don't\nunderstand your allusions, and that I think you might be more delicate\nand less personal.'\n\n'Go it!' cried Mr Sampson, becoming, on the shortest notice, a prey to\ndespair. 'Oh yes! Go it, Miss Lavinia Wilfer!'\n\n'What you may mean, George Sampson, by your omnibus-driving expressions,\nI cannot pretend to imagine. Neither,' said Miss Lavinia, 'Mr George\nSampson, do I wish to imagine. It is enough for me to know in my own\nheart that I am not going to--' having imprudently got into a sentence\nwithout providing a way out of it, Miss Lavinia was constrained to\nclose with 'going to it'. A weak conclusion which, however, derived some\nappearance of strength from disdain.\n\n'Oh yes!' cried Mr Sampson, with bitterness. 'Thus it ever is. I\nnever--'\n\n'If you mean to say,' Miss Lavvy cut him short, that you never brought\nup a young gazelle, you may save yourself the trouble, because nobody\nin this carriage supposes that you ever did. We know you better.' (As if\nthis were a home-thrust.)\n\n'Lavinia,' returned Mr Sampson, in a dismal vein, 'I did not mean to\nsay so. What I did mean to say, was, that I never expected to retain my\nfavoured place in this family, after Fortune shed her beams upon it. Why\ndo you take me,' said Mr Sampson, 'to the glittering halls with which\nI can never compete, and then taunt me with my moderate salary? Is it\ngenerous? Is it kind?'\n\nThe stately lady, Mrs Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity of delivering a\nfew remarks from the throne, here took up the altercation.\n\n'Mr Sampson,' she began, 'I cannot permit you to misrepresent the\nintentions of a child of mine.'\n\n'Let him alone, Ma,' Miss Lavvy interposed with haughtiness. 'It is\nindifferent to me what he says or does.'\n\n'Nay, Lavinia,' quoth Mrs Wilfer, 'this touches the blood of the family.\nIf Mr George Sampson attributes, even to my youngest daughter--'\n\n('I don't see why you should use the word \"even\", Ma,' Miss Lavvy\ninterposed, 'because I am quite as important as any of the others.')\n\n'Peace!' said Mrs Wilfer, solemnly. 'I repeat, if Mr George Sampson\nattributes, to my youngest daughter, grovelling motives, he attributes\nthem equally to the mother of my youngest daughter. That mother\nrepudiates them, and demands of Mr George Sampson, as a youth of honour,\nwhat he WOULD have? I may be mistaken--nothing is more likely--but Mr\nGeorge Sampson,' proceeded Mrs Wilfer, majestically waving her gloves,\n'appears to me to be seated in a first-class equipage. Mr George Sampson\nappears to me to be on his way, by his own admission, to a residence\nthat may be termed Palatial. Mr George Sampson appears to me to be\ninvited to participate in the--shall I say the--Elevation which has\ndescended on the family with which he is ambitious, shall I say to\nMingle? Whence, then, this tone on Mr Sampson's part?'\n\n'It is only, ma'am,' Mr Sampson explained, in exceedingly low spirits,\n'because, in a pecuniary sense, I am painfully conscious of my\nunworthiness. Lavinia is now highly connected. Can I hope that she will\nstill remain the same Lavinia as of old? And is it not pardonable if\nI feel sensitive, when I see a disposition on her part to take me up\nshort?'\n\n'If you are not satisfied with your position, sir,' observed Miss\nLavinia, with much politeness, 'we can set you down at any turning you\nmay please to indicate to my sister's coachman.'\n\n'Dearest Lavinia,' urged Mr Sampson, pathetically, 'I adore you.'\n\n'Then if you can't do it in a more agreeable manner,' returned the young\nlady, 'I wish you wouldn't.'\n\n'I also,' pursued Mr Sampson, 'respect you, ma'am, to an extent which\nmust ever be below your merits, I am well aware, but still up to an\nuncommon mark. Bear with a wretch, Lavinia, bear with a wretch, ma'am,\nwho feels the noble sacrifices you make for him, but is goaded almost to\nmadness,' Mr Sampson slapped his forehead, 'when he thinks of competing\nwith the rich and influential.'\n\n'When you have to compete with the rich and influential, it will\nprobably be mentioned to you,' said Miss Lavvy, 'in good time. At least,\nit will if the case is MY case.'\n\nMr Sampson immediately expressed his fervent Opinion that this was 'more\nthan human', and was brought upon his knees at Miss Lavinia's feet.\n\nIt was the crowning addition indispensable to the full enjoyment of both\nmother and daughter, to bear Mr Sampson, a grateful captive, into the\nglittering halls he had mentioned, and to parade him through the same,\nat once a living witness of their glory, and a bright instance of their\ncondescension. Ascending the staircase, Miss Lavinia permitted him to\nwalk at her side, with the air of saying: 'Notwithstanding all these\nsurroundings, I am yours as yet, George. How long it may last is another\nquestion, but I am yours as yet.' She also benignantly intimated to him,\naloud, the nature of the objects upon which he looked, and to which he\nwas unaccustomed: as, 'Exotics, George,' 'An aviary, George,' 'An\normolu clock, George,' and the like. While, through the whole of the\ndecorations, Mrs Wilfer led the way with the bearing of a Savage Chief,\nwho would feel himself compromised by manifesting the slightest token of\nsurprise or admiration.\n\nIndeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout the day, was a\npattern to all impressive women under similar circumstances. She renewed\nthe acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Boffin, as if Mr and Mrs Boffin had said\nof her what she had said of them, and as if Time alone could quite wear\nher injury out. She regarded every servant who approached her, as her\nsworn enemy, expressly intending to offer her affronts with the dishes,\nand to pour forth outrages on her moral feelings from the decanters.\nShe sat erect at table, on the right hand of her son-in-law, as half\nsuspecting poison in the viands, and as bearing up with native force of\ncharacter against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella was\nas a carriage towards a young lady of good position, whom she had met in\nsociety a few years ago. Even when, slightly thawing under the influence\nof sparkling champagne, she related to her son-in-law some passages of\ndomestic interest concerning her papa, she infused into the narrative\nsuch Arctic suggestions of her having been an unappreciated blessing to\nmankind, since her papa's days, and also of that gentleman's having\nbeen a frosty impersonation of a frosty race, as struck cold to the\nvery soles of the feet of the hearers. The Inexhaustible being produced,\nstaring, and evidently intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no\nsooner beheld her, than it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. When\nshe took her leave at last, it would have been hard to say whether it\nwas with the air of going to the scaffold herself, or of leaving the\ninmates of the house for immediate execution. Yet, John Harmon enjoyed\nit all merrily, and told his wife, when he and she were alone, that her\nnatural ways had never seemed so dearly natural as beside this foil,\nand that although he did not dispute her being her father's daughter,\nhe should ever remain stedfast in the faith that she could not be her\nmother's.\n\n\nThis visit was, as has been said, a grand event. Another event, not\ngrand but deemed in the house a special one, occurred at about the same\nperiod; and this was, the first interview between Mr Sloppy and Miss\nWren.\n\nThe dolls' dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible upon a\nfull-dressed doll some two sizes larger than that young person, Mr\nSloppy undertook to call for it, and did so.\n\n'Come in, sir,' said Miss Wren, who was working at her bench. 'And who\nmay you be?'\n\nMr Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons.\n\n'Oh indeed!' cried Jenny. 'Ah! I have been looking forward to knowing\nyou. I heard of your distinguishing yourself.'\n\n'Did you, Miss?' grinned Sloppy. 'I am sure I am glad to hear it, but I\ndon't know how.'\n\n'Pitching somebody into a mud-cart,' said Miss Wren.\n\n'Oh! That way!' cried Sloppy. 'Yes, Miss.' And threw back his head and\nlaughed.\n\n'Bless us!' exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. 'Don't open your mouth\nas wide as that, young man, or it'll catch so, and not shut again some\nday.'\n\nMr Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open until his\nlaugh was out.\n\n'Why, you're like the giant,' said Miss Wren, 'when he came home in the\nland of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for supper.'\n\n'Was he good-looking, Miss?' asked Sloppy.\n\n'No,' said Miss Wren. 'Ugly.'\n\nHer visitor glanced round the room--which had many comforts in it now,\nthat had not been in it before--and said: 'This is a pretty place,\nMiss.'\n\n'Glad you think so, sir,' returned Miss Wren. 'And what do you think of\nMe?'\n\nThe honesty of Mr Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he\ntwisted a button, grinned, and faltered.\n\n'Out with it!' said Miss Wren, with an arch look. 'Don't you think me\na queer little comicality?' In shaking her head at him after asking the\nquestion, she shook her hair down.\n\n'Oh!' cried Sloppy, in a burst of admiration. 'What a lot, and what a\ncolour!'\n\nMiss Wren, with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. But,\nleft her hair as it was; not displeased by the effect it had made.\n\n'You don't live here alone; do you, Miss?' asked Sloppy.\n\n'No,' said Miss Wren, with a chop. 'Live here with my fairy godmother.'\n\n'With;' Mr Sloppy couldn't make it out; 'with who did you say, Miss?'\n\n'Well!' replied Miss Wren, more seriously. 'With my second father. Or\nwith my first, for that matter.' And she shook her head, and drew a\nsigh. 'If you had known a poor child I used to have here,' she added,\n'you'd have understood me. But you didn't, and you can't. All the\nbetter!'\n\n'You must have been taught a long time,' said Sloppy, glancing at the\narray of dolls in hand, 'before you came to work so neatly, Miss, and\nwith such a pretty taste.'\n\n'Never was taught a stitch, young man!' returned the dress-maker,\ntossing her head. 'Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do\nit. Badly enough at first, but better now.'\n\n'And here have I,' said Sloppy, in something of a self-reproachful tone,\n'been a learning and a learning, and here has Mr Boffin been a paying\nand a paying, ever so long!'\n\n'I have heard what your trade is,' observed Miss Wren; 'it's\ncabinet-making.'\n\nMr Sloppy nodded. 'Now that the Mounds is done with, it is. I'll tell\nyou what, Miss. I should like to make you something.'\n\n'Much obliged. But what?'\n\n'I could make you,' said Sloppy, surveying the room, 'I could make you\na handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or I could make you a handy\nlittle set of drawers, to keep your silks and threads and scraps in. Or\nI could turn you a rare handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs to\nhim you call your father.'\n\n'It belongs to me,' returned the little creature, with a quick flush of\nher face and neck. 'I am lame.'\n\nPoor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind\nhis buttons, and his own hand had struck it. He said, perhaps, the best\nthing in the way of amends that could be said. 'I am very glad it's\nyours, because I'd rather ornament it for you than for any one else.\nPlease may I look at it?'\n\nMiss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her bench, when she\npaused. 'But you had better see me use it,' she said, sharply. 'This is\nthe way. Hoppetty, Kicketty, Pep-peg-peg. Not pretty; is it?'\n\n'It seems to me that you hardly want it at all,' said Sloppy.\n\nThe little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying,\nwith that better look upon her, and with a smile: 'Thank you!'\n\n'And as concerning the nests and the drawers,' said Sloppy, after\nmeasuring the handle on his sleeve, and softly standing the stick aside\nagainst the wall, 'why, it would be a real pleasure to me. I've heerd\ntell that you can sing most beautiful; and I should be better paid with\na song than with any money, for I always loved the likes of that, and\noften giv' Mrs Higden and Johnny a comic song myself, with \"Spoken\" in\nit. Though that's not your sort, I'll wager.'\n\n'You are a very kind young man,' returned the dressmaker; 'a really kind\nyoung man. I accept your offer.--I suppose He won't mind,' she added as\nan afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; 'and if he does, he may!'\n\n'Meaning him that you call your father, Miss,' asked Sloppy.\n\n'No, no,' replied Miss Wren. 'Him, Him, Him!'\n\n'Him, him, him?' repeated Sloppy; staring about, as if for Him.\n\n'Him who is coming to court and marry me,' returned Miss Wren. 'Dear me,\nhow slow you are!'\n\n'Oh! HIM!' said Sloppy. And seemed to turn thoughtful and a little\ntroubled. 'I never thought of him. When is he coming, Miss?'\n\n'What a question!' cried Miss Wren. 'How should I know!'\n\n'Where is he coming from, Miss?'\n\n'Why, good gracious, how can I tell! He is coming from somewhere or\nother, I suppose, and he is coming some day or other, I suppose. I don't\nknow any more about him, at present.'\n\nThis tickled Mr Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threw\nback his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. At the sight of\nhim laughing in that absurd way, the dolls' dressmaker laughed very\nheartily indeed. So they both laughed, till they were tired.\n\n'There, there, there!' said Miss Wren. 'For goodness' sake, stop, Giant,\nor I shall be swallowed up alive, before I know it. And to this minute\nyou haven't said what you've come for.'\n\n'I have come for little Miss Harmonses doll,' said Sloppy.\n\n'I thought as much,' remarked Miss Wren, 'and here is little Miss\nHarmonses doll waiting for you. She's folded up in silver paper, you\nsee, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new Bank notes. Take\ncare of her, and there's my hand, and thank you again.'\n\n'I'll take more care of her than if she was a gold image,' said Sloppy,\n'and there's both MY hands, Miss, and I'll soon come back again.'\n\n\nBut, the greatest event of all, in the new life of Mr and Mrs John\nHarmon, was a visit from Mr and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn. Sadly wan and worn\nwas the once gallant Eugene, and walked resting on his wife's arm, and\nleaning heavily upon a stick. But, he was daily growing stronger and\nbetter, and it was declared by the medical attendants that he might not\nbe much disfigured by-and-by. It was a grand event, indeed, when Mr\nand Mrs Eugene Wrayburn came to stay at Mr and Mrs John Harmon's house:\nwhere, by the way, Mr and Mrs Boffin (exquisitely happy, and daily\ncruising about, to look at shops,) were likewise staying indefinitely.\n\nTo Mr Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs John Harmon impart what\nshe had known of the state of his wife's affections, in his reckless\ntime. And to Mrs John Harmon, in confidence, did Mr Eugene Wrayburn\nimpart that, please God, she should see how his wife had changed him!\n\n'I make no protestations,' said Eugene; '--who does, who means them!--I\nhave made a resolution.'\n\n'But would you believe, Bella,' interposed his wife, coming to resume\nher nurse's place at his side, for he never got on well without her:\n'that on our wedding day he told me he almost thought the best thing he\ncould do, was to die?'\n\n'As I didn't do it, Lizzie,' said Eugene, 'I'll do that better thing you\nsuggested--for your sake.'\n\nThat same afternoon, Eugene lying on his couch in his own room upstairs,\nLightwood came to chat with him, while Bella took his wife out for a\nride. 'Nothing short of force will make her go,' Eugene had said; so,\nBella had playfully forced her.\n\n'Dear old fellow,' Eugene began with Lightwood, reaching up his hand,\n'you couldn't have come at a better time, for my mind is full, and I\nwant to empty it. First, of my present, before I touch upon my future.\nM. R. F., who is a much younger cavalier than I, and a professed admirer\nof beauty, was so affable as to remark the other day (he paid us a visit\nof two days up the river there, and much objected to the accommodation\nof the hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which,\ncoming from M. R. F., may be considered equivalent to a melodramatic\nblessing.'\n\n'You are getting well,' said Mortimer, with a smile.\n\n'Really,' said Eugene, 'I mean it. When M. R. F. said that, and followed\nit up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and I paid), in his\nmouth, and saying, \"My dear son, why do you drink this trash?\" it was\ntantamount in him--to a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied\nwith a gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. is not to be measured by\nordinary standards.'\n\n'True enough,' said Lightwood.\n\n'That's all,' pursued Eugene, 'that I shall ever hear from M. R. F. on\nthe subject, and he will continue to saunter through the world with\nhis hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly recognized at the\nfamily altar, I have no further trouble on that score. Next, you really\nhave done wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing my money-perplexities, and\nwith such a guardian and steward beside me, as the preserver of my life\n(I am hardly strong yet, you see, for I am not man enough to refer\nto her without a trembling voice--she is so inexpressibly dear to me,\nMortimer!), the little that I can call my own will be more than it ever\nhas been. It need be more, for you know what it always has been in my\nhands. Nothing.'\n\n'Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income (I devoutly\nwish that my grandfather had left it to the Ocean rather than to me!)\nhas been an effective Something, in the way of preventing me from\nturning to at Anything. And I think yours has been much the same.'\n\n'There spake the voice of wisdom,' said Eugene. 'We are shepherds both.\nIn turning to at last, we turn to in earnest. Let us say no more of\nthat, for a few years to come. Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, of\ntaking myself and my wife to one of the colonies, and working at my\nvocation there.'\n\n'I should be lost without you, Eugene; but you may be right.'\n\n'No,' said Eugene, emphatically. 'Not right. Wrong!'\n\nHe said it with such a lively--almost angry--flash, that Mortimer showed\nhimself greatly surprised.\n\n'You think this thumped head of mine is excited?' Eugene went on, with a\nhigh look; 'not so, believe me. I can say to you of the healthful music\nof my pulse what Hamlet said of his. My blood is up, but wholesomely up,\nwhen I think of it. Tell me! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and sneak\naway with her, as if I were ashamed of her! Where would your friend's\npart in this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and on\nimmeasurably better occasion?'\n\n'Honourable and stanch,' said Lightwood. 'And yet, Eugene--'\n\n'And yet what, Mortimer?'\n\n'And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I say for\nher sake) any slight coldness towards her on the part of--Society?'\n\n'O! You and I may well stumble at the word,' returned Eugene, laughing.\n'Do we mean our Tippins?'\n\n'Perhaps we do,' said Mortimer, laughing also.\n\n'Faith, we DO!' returned Eugene, with great animation. 'We may hide\nbehind the bush and beat about it, but we DO! Now, my wife is something\nnearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and I owe her a little\nmore than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever\nwas of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, with\nher and for her, here, in the open field. When I hide her, or strike\nfor her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love next\nbest upon earth, tell me what I shall most righteously deserve to be\ntold:--that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot that\nnight when I lay bleeding to death, and spat in my dastard face.'\n\nThe glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradiated his\nfeatures that he looked, for the time, as though he had never been\nmutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond,\nand they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resuming\nher place at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, she\nsaid:\n\n'Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed with you.\nYou are more flushed than you have been for many days. What have you\nbeen doing?'\n\n'Nothing,' replied Eugene, 'but looking forward to your coming back.'\n\n'And talking to Mr Lightwood,' said Lizzie, turning to him with a smile.\n'But it cannot have been Society that disturbed you.'\n\n'Faith, my dear love!' retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, as he\nlaughed and kissed her, 'I rather think it WAS Society though!'\n\nThe word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood's thoughts as he went home to\nthe Temple that night, that he resolved to take a look at Society, which\nhe had not seen for a considerable period.\n\n\n\nChapter 17\n\nTHE VOICE OF SOCIETY\n\n\nBehoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner card from Mr\nand Mrs Veneering requesting the honour, and to signify that Mr Mortimer\nLightwood will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings have\nbeen, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, and\nwhoever desires to take a hand had best be quick about it, for it is\nwritten in the Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make a\nresounding smash next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that great\nmystery how people can contrive to live beyond their means, and having\nover-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by the\npure electors of Pocket-Breaches, it shall come to pass next week that\nVeneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the legal gentleman in\nBritannia's confidence will again accept the Pocket-Breaches Thousands,\nand that the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs\nVeneering's diamonds (in which Mr Veneering, as a good husband, has from\ntime to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to Neptune and\nothers, how that, before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House\nof Commons was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-seven\ndearest and oldest friends he had in the world. It shall likewise come\nto pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society will\ndiscover that it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering,\nand that when it went to Veneering's to dinner it always had\nmisgivings--though very secretly at the time, it would seem, and in a\nperfectly private and confidential manner.\n\nThe next week's books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being not yet\nopened, there is the usual rush to the Veneerings, of the people who go\nto their house to dine with one another and not with them. There is Lady\nTippins. There are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs Podsnap. There is Twemlow.\nThere are Buffer, Boots, and Brewer. There is the Contractor, who\nis Providence to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman,\ntravelling three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant genius\nwho turned the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundred\nand seventy five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence.\n\nTo whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them with a\nreassumption of his old languid air, founded on Eugene, and belonging to\nthe days when he told the story of the man from Somewhere.\n\nThat fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her false\nswain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan; but the deserter,\npredetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. Podsnap always\ntalks Britain, and talks as if he were a sort of Private Watchman\nemployed, in the British interests, against the rest of the world. 'We\nknow what Russia means, sir,' says Podsnap; 'we know what France wants;\nwe see what America is up to; but we know what England is. That's enough\nfor us.'\n\nHowever, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops into his old place\nover against Lady Tippins, she can be fended off no longer. 'Long\nbanished Robinson Crusoe,' says the charmer, exchanging salutations,\n'how did you leave the Island?'\n\n'Thank you,' says Lightwood. 'It made no complaint of being in pain\nanywhere.'\n\n'Say, how did you leave the savages?' asks Lady Tippins.\n\n'They were becoming civilized when I left Juan Fernandez,' says\nLightwood. 'At least they were eating one another, which looked like\nit.'\n\n'Tormentor!' returns the dear young creature. 'You know what I mean, and\nyou trifle with my impatience. Tell me something, immediately, about the\nmarried pair. You were at the wedding.'\n\n'Was I, by-the-by?' Mortimer pretends, at great leisure, to consider.\n'So I was!'\n\n'How was the bride dressed? In rowing costume?'\n\nMortimer looks gloomy, and declines to answer.\n\n'I hope she steered herself, skiffed herself, paddled herself,\nlarboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the technical term may\nbe, to the ceremony?' proceeds the playful Tippins.\n\n'However she got to it, she graced it,' says Mortimer.\n\nLady Tippins with a skittish little scream, attracts the general\nattention. 'Graced it! Take care of me if I faint, Veneering. He means\nto tell us, that a horrid female waterman is graceful!'\n\n'Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing, Lady Tippins,' replies\nLightwood. And keeps his word by eating his dinner with a show of the\nutmost indifference.\n\n'You shall not escape me in this way, you morose backwoodsman,' retorts\nLady Tippins. 'You shall not evade the question, to screen your friend\nEugene, who has made this exhibition of himself. The knowledge shall be\nbrought home to you that such a ridiculous affair is condemned by the\nvoice of Society. My dear Mrs Veneering, do let us resolve ourselves\ninto a Committee of the whole House on the subject.'\n\nMrs Veneering, always charmed by this rattling sylph, cries. 'Oh yes!\nDo let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the whole House!\nSo delicious!' Veneering says, 'As many as are of that opinion, say\nAye,--contrary, No--the Ayes have it.' But nobody takes the slightest\nnotice of his joke.\n\n'Now, I am Chairwoman of Committees!' cries Lady Tippins.\n\n('What spirits she has!' exclaims Mrs Veneering; to whom likewise nobody\nattends.)\n\n'And this,' pursues the sprightly one, 'is a Committee of the whole\nHouse to what-you-may-call-it--elicit, I suppose--the voice of Society.\nThe question before the Committee is, whether a young man of very fair\nfamily, good appearance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man of\nhimself in marrying a female waterman, turned factory girl.'\n\n'Hardly so, I think,' the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. 'I take the\nquestion to be, whether such a man as you describe, Lady Tippins, does\nright or wrong in marrying a brave woman (I say nothing of her beauty),\nwho has saved his life, with a wonderful energy and address; whom he\nknows to be virtuous, and possessed of remarkable qualities; whom he has\nlong admired, and who is deeply attached to him.'\n\n'But, excuse me,' says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirt-collar\nabout equally rumpled; 'was this young woman ever a female waterman?'\n\n'Never. But she sometimes rowed in a boat with her father, I believe.'\n\nGeneral sensation against the young woman. Brewer shakes his head. Boots\nshakes his head. Buffer shakes his head.\n\n'And now, Mr Lightwood, was she ever,' pursues Podsnap, with his\nindignation rising high into those hair-brushes of his, 'a factory\ngirl?'\n\n'Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I believe.'\n\nGeneral sensation repeated. Brewer says, 'Oh dear!' Boots says, 'Oh\ndear!' Buffer says, 'Oh dear!' All, in a rumbling tone of protest.\n\n'Then all I have to say is,' returns Podsnap, putting the thing away\nwith his right arm, 'that my gorge rises against such a marriage--that\nit offends and disgusts me--that it makes me sick--and that I desire to\nknow no more about it.'\n\n('Now I wonder,' thinks Mortimer, amused, 'whether YOU are the Voice of\nSociety!')\n\n'Hear, hear, hear!' cries Lady Tippins. 'Your opinion of this\nMESALLIANCE, honourable colleagues of the honourable member who has just\nsat down?'\n\nMrs Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters there should be an\nequality of station and fortune, and that a man accustomed to Society\nshould look out for a woman accustomed to Society and capable of bearing\nher part in it with--an ease and elegance of carriage--that.' Mrs\nPodsnap stops there, delicately intimating that every such man should\nlook out for a fine woman as nearly resembling herself as he may hope to\ndiscover.\n\n('Now I wonder,' thinks Mortimer, 'whether you are the Voice!')\n\nLady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hundred thousand\npower. It appears to this potentate, that what the man in question\nshould have done, would have been, to buy the young woman a boat and a\nsmall annuity, and set her up for herself. These things are a question\nof beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young woman a boat. Very good. You\nbuy her, at the same time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity in\npounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and\nso many pints of porter. On the one hand, the young woman has the boat.\nOn the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beefsteaks and so many\npints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that porter are the fuel to that\nyoung woman's engine. She derives therefrom a certain amount of power to\nrow the boat; that power will produce so much money; you add that to the\nsmall annuity; and thus you get at the young woman's income. That (it\nseems to the Contractor) is the way of looking at it.\n\nThe fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps during the\nlast exposition, nobody likes to wake her. Fortunately, she comes\nawake of herself, and puts the question to the Wandering Chairman. The\nWanderer can only speak of the case as if it were his own. If such a\nyoung woman as the young woman described, had saved his own life, he\nwould have been very much obliged to her, wouldn't have married her, and\nwould have got her a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where young\nwomen answer very well.\n\nWhat does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy-five thousand\npounds, no shillings, and nopence, think? He can't say what he thinks,\nwithout asking: Had the young woman any money?\n\n'No,' says Lightwood, in an uncompromising voice; 'no money.'\n\n'Madness and moonshine,' is then the compressed verdict of the Genius.\n'A man may do anything lawful, for money. But for no money!--Bosh!'\n\nWhat does Boots say?\n\nBoots says he wouldn't have done it under twenty thousand pound.\n\nWhat does Brewer say?\n\nBrewer says what Boots says.\n\nWhat does Buffer say?\n\nBuffer says he knows a man who married a bathing-woman, and bolted.\n\nLady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the whole\nCommittee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings for their opinion),\nwhen, looking round the table through her eyeglass, she perceives Mr\nTwemlow with his hand to his forehead.\n\nGood gracious! My Twemlow forgotten! My dearest! My own! What is his\nvote?\n\nTwemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand from his\nforehead and replies.\n\n'I am disposed to think,' says he, 'that this is a question of the\nfeelings of a gentleman.'\n\n'A gentleman can have no feelings who contracts such a marriage,'\nflushes Podsnap.\n\n'Pardon me, sir,' says Twemlow, rather less mildly than usual, 'I don't\nagree with you. If this gentleman's feelings of gratitude, of respect,\nof admiration, and affection, induced him (as I presume they did) to\nmarry this lady--'\n\n'This lady!' echoes Podsnap.\n\n'Sir,' returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a little, 'YOU\nrepeat the word; I repeat the word. This lady. What else would you call\nher, if the gentleman were present?'\n\nThis being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, he merely\nwaves it away with a speechless wave.\n\n'I say,' resumes Twemlow, 'if such feelings on the part of this\ngentleman, induced this gentleman to marry this lady, I think he is the\ngreater gentleman for the action, and makes her the greater lady. I beg\nto say, that when I use the word, gentleman, I use it in the sense in\nwhich the degree may be attained by any man. The feelings of a gentleman\nI hold sacred, and I confess I am not comfortable when they are made the\nsubject of sport or general discussion.'\n\n'I should like to know,' sneers Podsnap, 'whether your noble relation\nwould be of your opinion.'\n\n'Mr Podsnap,' retorts Twemlow, 'permit me. He might be, or he might not\nbe. I cannot say. But, I could not allow even him to dictate to me on a\npoint of great delicacy, on which I feel very strongly.'\n\nSomehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon the company, and\nLady Tippins was never known to turn so very greedy or so very cross.\nMortimer Lightwood alone brightens. He has been asking himself, as to\nevery other member of the Committee in turn, 'I wonder whether you are\nthe Voice!' But he does not ask himself the question after Twemlow has\nspoken, and he glances in Twemlow's direction as if he were grateful.\nWhen the company disperse--by which time Mr and Mrs Veneering have had\nquite as much as they want of the honour, and the guests have had quite\nas much as THEY want of the other honour--Mortimer sees Twemlow home,\nshakes hands with him cordially at parting, and fares to the Temple,\ngaily.\n\n\n\nPOSTSCRIPT\n\nIN LIEU OF PREFACE\n\n\nWhen I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class of\nreaders and commentators would suppose that I was at great pains to\nconceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: namely, that Mr\nJohn Harmon was not slain, and that Mr John Rokesmith was he. Pleasing\nmyself with the idea that the supposition might in part arise out\nof some ingenuity in the story, and thinking it worth while, in the\ninterests of art, to hint to an audience that an artist (of whatever\ndenomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he is about in his\nvocation, if they will concede him a little patience, I was not alarmed\nby the anticipation.\n\nTo keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself out,\nanother purpose originating in that leading incident, and turning it to\na pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the most interesting\nand the most difficult part of my design. Its difficulty was much\nenhanced by the mode of publication; for, it would be very unreasonable\nto expect that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from month\nto month through nineteen months, will, until they have it before them\ncomplete, perceive the relations of its finer threads to the whole\npattern which is always before the eyes of the story-weaver at his loom.\nYet, that I hold the advantages of the mode of publication to outweigh\nits disadvantages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in the\nPickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since.\n\nThere is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute as\nimprobable in fiction, what are the commonest experiences in fact.\nTherefore, I note here, though it may not be at all necessary, that\nthere are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), far more\nremarkable than that fancied in this book; and that the stores of the\nPrerogative Office teem with instances of testators who have made,\nchanged, contradicted, hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, and left\nuncancelled, each many more wills than were ever made by the elder Mr\nHarmon of Harmony Jail.\n\nIn my social experiences since Mrs Betty Higden came upon the scene and\nleft it, I have found Circumlocutional champions disposed to be\nwarm with me on the subject of my view of the Poor Law. Mr friend Mr\nBounderby could never see any difference between leaving the Coketown\n'hands' exactly as they were, and requiring them to be fed with turtle\nsoup and venison out of gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a parallel\nnature have been freely offered for my acceptance, and I have been\ncalled upon to admit that I would give Poor Law relief to anybody,\nanywhere, anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a\nsuspicious tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; the\none, contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer death by\nslow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies of some Relieving\nOfficers and some Union Houses; the other, admitting that there are such\nPoor, but denying that they have any cause or reason for what they do.\nThe records in our newspapers, the late exposure by THE LANCET, and the\ncommon sense and senses of common people, furnish too abundant evidence\nagainst both defences. But, that my view of the Poor Law may not be\nmistaken or misrepresented, I will state it. I believe there has been\nin England, since the days of the STUARTS, no law so often infamously\nadministered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so\nill-supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease and\ndeath from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the country,\nthe illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity--and known language\ncould say no more of their lawlessness.\n\nOn Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in\ntheir manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast)\nwere on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive\naccident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back\ninto my carriage--nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon\nthe turn--to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but\notherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on\nher wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone's red\nneckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I\ncan never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than\nI was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words\nwith which I have this day closed this book:--THE END.\n\nSeptember 2nd, 1865."