OUR MUTUAL FRIEND

Charles Dickens

CONTENTS

 Book the First

 THE CUP AND THE LIP

 1. ON THE LOOK OUT 2. THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE 3. ANOTHER MAN 4. THE R. WILFER FAMILY 5. BOFFIN'S BOWER 6. CUT ADRIFT 7. MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF 8. MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 9. MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION 10. A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 11. PODSNAPPERY 12. THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW 13. TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY 14. THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN 15. TWO NEW SERVANTS 16. MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS 17. A DISMAL SWAMP

 Book the Second

 BIRDS OF A FEATHER

 1. OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER 2. STILL EDUCATIONAL 3. A PIECE OF WORK 4. CUPID PROMPTED 5. MERCURY PROMPTING 6. A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER 7. IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED 8. IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS 9. IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL 10. A SUCCESSOR 11. SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART 12. MORE BIRDS OF PREY 13. A SOLO AND A DUETT 14. STRONG OF PURPOSE 15. THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR 16. AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION

 Book the Third

 A LONG LANE

 1. LODGERS IN QUEER STREET 2. A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT 3. THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE 4. A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY 5. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY 6. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY 7. THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION 8. THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY 9. SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION 10. SCOUTS OUT 11. IN THE DARK 12. MEANING MISCHIEF 13. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM 14. MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN'S NOSE 15. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST 16. THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS 17. A SOCIAL CHORUS

 Book the Fourth

 A TURNING

 1. SETTING TRAPS 2. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE 3. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN 4. A RUNAWAY MATCH 5. CONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE 6. A CRY FOR HELP 7. BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN 8. A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER 9. TWO PLACES VACATED 10. THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD 11. EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY 12. THE PASSING SHADOW 13. SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST 14. CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE 15. WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET 16. PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL 17. THE VOICE OF SOCIETY

 POSTSCRIPT, IN LIEU OF PREFACE

BOOK THE FIRST -- THE CUP AND THE LIP

Chapter 1

ON THE LOOK OUT

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is noneed to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, withtwo figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge whichis of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn eveningwas closing in. 

The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzledhair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girlrowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with therudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he couldnot be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, noinscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too smallto take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman orriver-carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he lookedfor something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, whichhad turned an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watchedevery little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slighthead-way against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as hedirected his daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his faceas earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her lookthere was a touch of dread or horror. 

Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason ofthe slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, thisboat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that theyoften did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as theman showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown armsbare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of alooser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beardand whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of themud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business-like usage in hissteady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn ofher wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; theywere things of usage. 

'Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her well afore thesweep of it. '

Trusting to the girl's skill and making no use of the rudder, he eyedthe coming tide with an absorbed attention. So the girl eyed him. But, it happened now, that a slant of light from the setting sun glanced intothe bottom of the boat, and, touching a rotten stain there which boresome resemblance to the outline of a muffled human form, coloured it asthough with diluted blood. This caught the girl's eye, and she shivered. 

'What ails you?' said the man, immediately aware of it, though so intenton the advancing waters; 'I see nothing afloat. '

The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his gaze, which hadcome back to the boat for a moment, travelled away again. Wheresoeverthe strong tide met with an impediment, his gaze paused for an instant. At every mooring-chain and rope, at every stationery boat or barge thatsplit the current into a broad-arrowhead, at the offsets from the piersof Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they beatthe filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lyingoff certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After adarkening hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold, and he steered hard towards the Surrey shore. 

Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the action inher sculling; presently the boat swung round, quivered as from a suddenjerk, and the upper half of the man was stretched out over the stern. 

The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over herface, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this hood wereturned down the river, kept the boat in that direction going before thetide. Until now, the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered aboutone spot; but now, the banks changed swiftly, and the deepening shadowsand the kindling lights of London Bridge were passed, and the tiers ofshipping lay on either hand. 

It was not until now that the upper half of the man came back into theboat. His arms were wet and dirty, and he washed them over the side. Inhis right hand he held something, and he washed that in the river too. It was money. He chinked it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spatupon it once, --'for luck, ' he hoarsely said--before he put it in hispocket. 

'Lizzie!'

The girl turned her face towards him with a start, and rowed in silence. Her face was very pale. He was a hook-nosed man, and with that and hisbright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a certain likeness to a rousedbird of prey. 

'Take that thing off your face. '

She put it back. 

'Here! and give me hold of the sculls. I'll take the rest of the spell. '

'No, no, father! No! I can't indeed. Father!--I cannot sit so near it!'

He was moving towards her to change places, but her terrifiedexpostulation stopped him and he resumed his seat. 

'What hurt can it do you?'

'None, none. But I cannot bear it. '

'It's my belief you hate the sight of the very river. '

'I--I do not like it, father. '

'As if it wasn't your living! As if it wasn't meat and drink to you!'

At these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a moment pausedin her rowing, seeming to turn deadly faint. It escaped his attention, for he was glancing over the stern at something the boat had in tow. 

'How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie? The veryfire that warmed you when you were a babby, was picked out of the riveralongside the coal barges. The very basket that you slept in, the tidewashed ashore. The very rockers that I put it upon to make a cradleof it, I cut out of a piece of wood that drifted from some ship oranother. '

Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and touched herlips with it, and for a moment held it out lovingly towards him: then, without speaking, she resumed her rowing, as another boat of similarappearance, though in rather better trim, came out from a dark place anddropped softly alongside. 

'In luck again, Gaffer?' said a man with a squinting leer, who sculledher and who was alone, 'I know'd you was in luck again, by your wake asyou come down. '

'Ah!' replied the other, drily. 'So you're out, are you?'

'Yes, pardner. '

There was now a tender yellow moonlight on the river, and the new comer, keeping half his boat's length astern of the other boat looked hard atits track. 

'I says to myself, ' he went on, 'directly you hove in view, yonder'sGaffer, and in luck again, by George if he ain't! Scull it is, pardner--don't fret yourself--I didn't touch him. ' This was in answerto a quick impatient movement on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at thesame time unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his hand on thegunwale of Gaffer's boat and holding to it. 

'He's had touches enough not to want no more, as well as I make himout, Gaffer! Been a knocking about with a pretty many tides, ain't hepardner? Such is my out-of-luck ways, you see! He must have passed mewhen he went up last time, for I was on the lookout below bridge here. Ia'most think you're like the wulturs, pardner, and scent 'em out. '

He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one glance at Lizzie whohad pulled on her hood again. Both men then looked with a weird unholyinterest in the wake of Gaffer's boat. 

'Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him aboard, pardner?'

'No, ' said the other. In so surly a tone that the man, after a blankstare, acknowledged it with the retort:

'--Arn't been eating nothing as has disagreed with you, have you, pardner?'

'Why, yes, I have, ' said Gaffer. 'I have been swallowing too much ofthat word, Pardner. I am no pardner of yours. '

'Since when was you no pardner of mine, Gaffer Hexam Esquire?'

'Since you was accused of robbing a man. Accused of robbing a live man!'said Gaffer, with great indignation. 

'And what if I had been accused of robbing a dead man, Gaffer?'

'You COULDN'T do it. '

'Couldn't you, Gaffer?'

'No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible for a dead man tohave money? What world does a dead man belong to? 'Tother world. Whatworld does money belong to? This world. How can money be a corpse's? Cana corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don't try to goconfounding the rights and wrongs of things in that way. But it's worthyof the sneaking spirit that robs a live man. '

'I'll tell you what it is--. '

'No you won't. I'll tell you what it is. You got off with a short timeof it for putting you're hand in the pocket of a sailor, a live sailor. Make the most of it and think yourself lucky, but don't think afterthat to come over ME with your pardners. We have worked together in timepast, but we work together no more in time present nor yet future. Letgo. Cast off!'

'Gaffer! If you think to get rid of me this way--. '

'If I don't get rid of you this way, I'll try another, and chop you overthe fingers with the stretcher, or take a pick at your head with theboat-hook. Cast off! Pull you, Lizzie. Pull home, since you won't letyour father pull. '

Lizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. Lizzie's father, composing himself into the easy attitude of one who had asserted thehigh moralities and taken an unassailable position, slowly lighted apipe, and smoked, and took a survey of what he had in tow. What he hadin tow, lunged itself at him sometimes in an awful manner when the boatwas checked, and sometimes seemed to try to wrench itself away, thoughfor the most part it followed submissively. A neophyte might havefancied that the ripples passing over it were dreadfully like faintchanges of expression on a sightless face; but Gaffer was no neophyteand had no fancies. 

Chapter 2

THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE

Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in abran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spickand span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage wasnew, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictureswere new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as waslawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they hadset up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from thePantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crownof his head. 

For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the newcoat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairsagain to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnishand polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable inthe Veneerings--the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop andwas a trifle sticky. 

There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easycastors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, SaintJames's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blindconfusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousinto Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many housesmight be said to represent the dining-table in its normal state. Mr andMrs Veneering, for example, arranging a dinner, habitually started withTwemlow, and then put leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes, the table consisted of Twemlow and half a dozen leaves; sometimes, ofTwemlow and a dozen leaves; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled out to hisutmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr and Mrs Veneering on occasions ofceremony faced each other in the centre of the board, and thus theparallel still held; for, it always happened that the more Twemlow waspulled out, the further he found himself from the center, and nearerto the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window-curtains at theother. 

But, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow inconfusion. This he was used to, and could take soundings of. The abyssto which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth theengrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, was the insolublequestion whether he was Veneering's oldest friend, or newest friend. To the excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had devotedmany anxious hours, both in his lodgings over the livery stable-yard, and in the cold gloom, favourable to meditation, of Saint James'sSquare. Thus. Twemlow had first known Veneering at his club, whereVeneering then knew nobody but the man who made them known to oneanother, who seemed to be the most intimate friend he had in the world, and whom he had known two days--the bond of union between their souls, the nefarious conduct of the committee respecting the cookery ofa fillet of veal, having been accidentally cemented at that date. Immediately upon this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine withVeneering, and dined: the man being of the party. Immediately uponthat, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the man, and dined:Veneering being of the party. At the man's were a Member, an Engineer, aPayer-off of the National Debt, a Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, anda Public Office, who all seem to be utter strangers to Veneering. Andyet immediately after that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine atVeneerings, expressly to meet the Member, the Engineer, the Payer-offof the National Debt, the Poem on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and thePublic Office, and, dining, discovered that all of them were the mostintimate friends Veneering had in the world, and that the wives of allof them (who were all there) were the objects of Mrs Veneering's mostdevoted affection and tender confidence. 

Thus it had come about, that Mr Twemlow had said to himself in hislodgings, with his hand to his forehead: 'I must not think of this. Thisis enough to soften any man's brain, '--and yet was always thinking ofit, and could never form a conclusion. 

This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in theTwemlow; fourteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breasted retainers inplain clothes stand in line in the hall. A fifth retainer, proceeding upthe staircase with a mournful air--as who should say, 'Here is anotherwretched creature come to dinner; such is life!'--announces, 'Mis-terTwemlow!'

Mrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomeshis dear Twemlow. Mrs Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can innature care much for such insipid things as babies, but so old a friendmust please to look at baby. 'Ah! You will know the friend of yourfamily better, Tootleums, ' says Mr Veneering, nodding emotionally atthat new article, 'when you begin to take notice. ' He then begs to makehis dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewer--andclearly has no distinct idea which is which. 

But now a fearful circumstance occurs. 

'Mis-ter and Mis-sus Podsnap!'

'My dear, ' says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of muchfriendly interest, while the door stands open, 'the Podsnaps. '

A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearingwith his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts at Twemlow with:

'How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. Ihope we are not late. So glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back inhis neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings of a bygonefashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him; but the largeman closed with him and proved too strong. 

'Let me, ' says the large man, trying to attract the attention of hiswife in the distance, 'have the pleasure of presenting Mrs Podsnapto her host. She will be, ' in his fatal freshness he seems to findperpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, 'she will be so gladof the opportunity, I am sure!'

In the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her ownaccount, because Mrs Veneering is the only other lady there, does herbest in the way of handsomely supporting her husband's, by lookingtowards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to MrsVeneering in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears he has beenrather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already verylike him. 

It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken forany other man; but, Mr Veneering having this very evening set up theshirt-front of the young Antinous in new worked cambric just come home, is not at all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dryand weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs Veneering equally resentsthe imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he isso sensible of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that heconsiders the large man an offensive ass. 

In this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man withextended hand and, smilingly assures that incorrigible personage that heis delighted to see him: who in his fatal freshness instantly replies:

'Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recallwhere we met, but I am so glad of this opportunity, I am sure!'

Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, heis haling him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when thearrival of more guests unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shakenhands with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands with Twemlow asTwemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect satisfaction by sayingto the last-named, 'Ridiculous opportunity--but so glad of it, I amsure!'

Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having likewisenoted the fusion of Boots in Brewer and Brewer in Boots, and havingfurther observed that of the remaining seven guests four discretecharacters enter with wandering eyes and wholly declined to committhemselves as to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in hisgrasp;--Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his brainwholesomely hardening as he approaches the conclusion that he really isVeneering's oldest friend, when his brain softens again and all islost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and the large man linkedtogether as twin brothers in the back drawing-room near the conservatorydoor, and through his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs Veneeringthat the same large man is to be baby's godfather. 

'Dinner is on the table!'

Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, 'Come down and bepoisoned, ye unhappy children of men!'

Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the rear, withhis hand to his forehead. Boots and Brewer, thinking him indisposed, whisper, 'Man faint. Had no lunch. ' But he is only stunned by theunvanquishable difficulty of his existence. 

Revived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court Circular withBoots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at the fish stage of the banquet, byVeneering, on the disputed question whether his cousin Lord Snigsworthis in or out of town? Gives it that his cousin is out of town. 'AtSnigsworthy Park?' Veneering inquires. 'At Snigsworthy, ' Twemlowrejoins. Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be cultivated; andVeneering is clear that he is a remunerative article. Meantime theretainer goes round, like a gloomy Analytical Chemist: always seemingto say, after 'Chablis, sir?'--'You wouldn't if you knew what it's madeof. '

The great looking-glass above the sideboard, reflects the table and thecompany. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Heralds' College foundout a Crusading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield(or might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camelstake charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down beloaded with the salt. Reflects Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy--a kind of sufficientlywell-looking veiled-prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs Veneering;fair, aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she mighthave, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory, conscious that a corner of her husband's veil is over herself. ReflectsPodsnap; prosperously feeding, two little light-coloured wiry wings, oneon either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes ashis hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowanceof crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs Podsnap; fine womanfor Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like arocking-horse, hard features, majestic head-dress in which Podsnap hashung golden offerings. Reflects Twemlow; grey, dry, polite, susceptibleto east wind, First-Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawnin as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some yearsago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Reflects matureyoung lady; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when wellpowdered--as it is--carrying on considerably in the captivation ofmature young gentleman; with too much nose in his face, too much gingerin his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle inhis studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflectscharming old Lady Tippins on Veneering's right; with an immense obtusedrab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed Long Walk upthe top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch offalse hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs Veneering opposite, whois pleased to be patronized. Reflects a certain 'Mortimer', anotherof Veneering's oldest friends; who never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come again, who sits disconsolate on MrsVeneering's left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend ofhis boyhood) to come to these people's and talk, and who won't talk. Reflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the back of hischair, behind a shoulder--with a powder-epaulette on it--of the matureyoung lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice wheneverproffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass reflectsBoots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between therest of the company and possible accidents. 

The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners--or new people wouldn'tcome--and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has made a series ofexperiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated anddaring, that if they could be published with their results it mightbenefit the human race. Having taken in provisions from all parts of theworld, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when, as the ice-plates are being removed, the following words fall from her:

'I assure you, my dear Veneering--'

(Poor Twemlow's hand approaches his forehead, for it would seem now, that Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest friend. )

'I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair! Likethe advertising people, I don't ask you to trust me, without offeringa respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, and knows allabout it. '

Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his mouth. Buta faint smile, expressive of 'What's the use!' passes over his face, andhe drops his eyelids and shuts his mouth. 

'Now, Mortimer, ' says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her closedgreen fan upon the knuckles of her left hand--which is particularly richin knuckles, 'I insist upon your telling all that is to be told aboutthe man from Jamaica. '

'Give you my honour I never heard of any man from Jamaica, except theman who was a brother, ' replies Mortimer. 

'Tobago, then. '

'Nor yet from Tobago. '

'Except, ' Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the mature young lady, who has forgotten all about him, with a start takes the epaulette outof his way: 'except our friend who long lived on rice-pudding andisinglass, till at length to his something or other, his physician saidsomething else, and a leg of mutton somehow ended in daygo. '

A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. Anunfulfilled impression, for he goes in again. 

'Now, my dear Mrs Veneering, ' quoth Lady Tippins, I appeal to youwhether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this world? I carrymy lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are veryobedient and devoted; and here is my oldest lover-in-chief, the head ofall my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company! And here isanother of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present certainly, but of whomI had most hopeful expectations as to his turning out well in course oftime, pretending that he can't remember his nursery rhymes! On purposeto annoy me, for he knows how I doat upon them!'

A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins's point. She is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little listof her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out anold lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover toher blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book. Mrs Veneering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps itis enhanced by a certain yellow play in Lady Tippins's throat, like thelegs of scratching poultry. 

'I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out ofmy Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear, ) this very night. But I amresolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere, and I beg youto elicit it for me, my love, ' to Mrs Veneering, 'as I have lost my owninfluence. Oh, you perjured man!' This to Mortimer, with a rattle of herfan. 

'We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere, ' Veneeringobserves. 

Then the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at once, say:

'Deeply interested!'

'Quite excited!'

'Dramatic!'

'Man from Nowhere, perhaps!'

And then Mrs Veneering--for the Lady Tippins's winning wiles arecontagious--folds her hands in the manner of a supplicating child, turnsto her left neighbour, and says, 'Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere!' Atwhich the four Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once, explain, 'You can't resist!'

'Upon my life, ' says Mortimer languidly, 'I find it immenselyembarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and myonly consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins inyour secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man fromSomewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a localhabitation, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes me, but will suggest itself to everybody else here, where they make thewine. '

Eugene suggests 'Day and Martin's. '

'No, not that place, ' returns the unmoved Mortimer, 'that's where theymake the Port. My man comes from the country where they make the CapeWine. But look here, old fellow; its not at all statistical and it'srather odd. '

It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no mantroubles himself much about the Veneerings themselves, and that anyone who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody else inpreference. 

'The man, ' Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, 'whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust. '

'Red velveteens and a bell?' the gloomy Eugene inquires. 

'And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or by others, hegrew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow in a hilly countryentirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling oldvagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and itsgeological formation was Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust, --all manner of Dust. '

A passing remembrance of Mrs Veneering, here induces Mortimer to addresshis next half-dozen words to her; after which he wanders away again, tries Twemlow and finds he doesn't answer, ultimately takes up with theBuffers who receive him enthusiastically. 

'The moral being--I believe that's the right expression--of thisexemplary person, derived its highest gratification from anathematizinghis nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (aswas natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom, he next found himself at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on theclaims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his ownsatisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle uponher, as her marriage portion, I don't know how much Dust, but somethingimmense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfullyintimated that she was secretly engaged to that popular character whomthe novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriagewould make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life--in short, wouldset her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father's business. Immediately, the venerable parent--on a cold winter's night, it issaid--anathematized and turned her out. '

Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very lowopinion of Mortimer's story) concedes a little claret to the Buffers;who, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw it slowly intothemselves with a peculiar twist of enjoyment, as they cry in chorus, 'Pray go on. '

'The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a verylimited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an expression whenI say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady, andthey lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamentedwith honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. I must referyou to the Registrar of the District in which the humble dwelling wassituated, for the certified cause of death; but early sorrow and anxietymay have had to do with it, though they may not appear in the ruledpages and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another, for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlivedher a year it was as much as he did. '

There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if goodsociety might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one ofgood society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he hererelates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomyEugene too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when that appallingLady Tippins declares that if Another had survived, he should have gonedown at the head of her list of lovers--and also when the mature younglady shrugs her epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidentialcomment from the mature young gentleman--his gloom deepens to thatdegree that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife. 

Mortimer proceeds. 

'We must now return, as novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn't, to the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of fourteen, cheaply educatedat Brussels when his sister's expulsion befell, it was some little timebefore he heard of it--probably from herself, for the mother was dead;but that I don't know. Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. Hemust have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stoppedallowance of five sous a week; but he did it somehow, and he burst inon his father, and pleaded his sister's cause. Venerable parent promptlyresorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrifiedboy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimatelyturns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small proprietor, farmer, grower--whatever you like to call it. '

At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is heardat the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to the door, confersangrily with unseen tapper, appears to become mollified by descryingreason in the tapping, and goes out. 

'So he was discovered, only the other day, after having been expatriatedabout fourteen years. '

A Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detaching himself, andasserting individuality, inquires: 'How discovered, and why?'

'Ah! To be sure. Thank you for reminding me. Venerable parent dies. '

Same Buffer, emboldened by success, says: 'When?'

'The other day. Ten or twelve months ago. '

Same Buffer inquires with smartness, 'What of?' But herein perishes amelancholy example; being regarded by the three other Buffers with astony stare, and attracting no further attention from any mortal. 

'Venerable parent, ' Mortimer repeats with a passing remembrance thatthere is a Veneering at table, and for the first time addressinghim--'dies. '

The gratified Veneering repeats, gravely, 'dies'; and folds his arms, and composes his brow to hear it out in a judicial manner, when he findshimself again deserted in the bleak world. 

'His will is found, ' said Mortimer, catching Mrs Podsnap'srocking-horse's eye. 'It is dated very soon after the son's flight. Itleaves the lowest of the range of dust-mountains, with some sort of adwelling-house at its foot, to an old servant who is sole executor, andall the rest of the property--which is very considerable--to the son. He directs himself to be buried with certain eccentric ceremonies andprecautions against his coming to life, with which I need not bore you, and that's all--except--' and this ends the story. 

The Analytical Chemist returning, everybody looks at him. Not becauseanybody wants to see him, but because of that subtle influence in naturewhich impels humanity to embrace the slightest opportunity of looking atanything, rather than the person who addresses it. 

'--Except that the son's inheriting is made conditional on his marryinga girl, who at the date of the will, was a child of four or five yearsold, and who is now a marriageable young woman. Advertisement andinquiry discovered the son in the man from Somewhere, and at the presentmoment, he is on his way home from there--no doubt, in a state of greatastonishment--to succeed to a very large fortune, and to take a wife. '

Mrs Podsnap inquires whether the young person is a young person ofpersonal charms? Mortimer is unable to report. 

Mr Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large fortune, in theevent of the marriage condition not being fulfilled? Mortimer replies, that by special testamentary clause it would then go to the old servantabove mentioned, passing over and excluding the son; also, that ifthe son had not been living, the same old servant would have been soleresiduary legatee. 

Mrs Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady Tippins from a snore, bydexterously shunting a train of plates and dishes at her knuckles acrossthe table; when everybody but Mortimer himself becomes aware that theAnalytical Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded paper. Curiosity detains Mrs Veneering a few moments. 

Mortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly refresheshimself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of the Documentwhich engrosses the general attention, until Lady Tippins (who has ahabit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, andrecovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: 'Falser man thanDon Juan; why don't you take the note from the commendatore?' Uponwhich, the chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looksround at him, and says:

'What's this?'

Analytical Chemist bends and whispers. 

'WHO?' Says Mortimer. 

Analytical Chemist again bends and whispers. 

Mortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, reads it twice, turns it over to look at the blank outside, reads it a third time. 

'This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner, ' says Mortimerthen, looking with an altered face round the table: 'this is theconclusion of the story of the identical man. '

'Already married?' one guesses. 

'Declines to marry?' another guesses. 

'Codicil among the dust?' another guesses. 

'Why, no, ' says Mortimer; 'remarkable thing, you are all wrong. Thestory is completer and rather more exciting than I supposed. Man'sdrowned!'

Chapter 3

ANOTHER MAN

As the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneeringstaircase, Mortimer, following them forth from the dining-room, turnedinto a library of bran-new books, in bran-new bindings liberally gilded, and requested to see the messenger who had brought the paper. He was aboy of about fifteen. Mortimer looked at the boy, and the boy lookedat the bran-new pilgrims on the wall, going to Canterbury in more goldframe than procession, and more carving than country. 

'Whose writing is this?'

'Mine, sir. '

'Who told you to write it?'

'My father, Jesse Hexam. '

'Is it he who found the body?'

'Yes, sir. '

'What is your father?'

The boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as if they hadinvolved him in a little difficulty, then said, folding a plait in theright leg of his trousers, 'He gets his living along-shore. '

'Is it far?'

'Is which far?' asked the boy, upon his guard, and again upon the roadto Canterbury. 

'To your father's?'

'It's a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the cab's waitingto be paid. We could go back in it before you paid it, if you liked. I went first to your office, according to the direction of the papersfound in the pockets, and there I see nobody but a chap of about my agewho sent me on here. '

There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, anduncompleted civilization. His voice was hoarse and coarse, and his facewas coarse, and his stunted figure was coarse; but he was cleaner thanother boys of his type; and his writing, though large and round, was good; and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakenedcuriosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looksat a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. 

'Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain if it was possibleto restore life?' Mortimer inquired, as he sought for his hat. 

'You wouldn't ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharaoh's multitude thatwere drowned in the Red Sea, ain't more beyond restoring to life. IfLazarus was only half as far gone, that was the greatest of all themiracles. '

'Halloa!' cried Mortimer, turning round with his hat upon his head, 'youseem to be at home in the Red Sea, my young friend?'

'Read of it with teacher at the school, ' said the boy. 

'And Lazarus?'

'Yes, and him too. But don't you tell my father! We should have no peacein our place, if that got touched upon. It's my sister's contriving. '

'You seem to have a good sister. '

'She ain't half bad, ' said the boy; 'but if she knows her letters it'sthe most she does--and them I learned her. '

The gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had strolled in andassisted at the latter part of the dialogue; when the boy spoke thesewords slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly enough by the chin, and turned up his face to look at it. 

'Well, I'm sure, sir!' said the boy, resisting; 'I hope you'll know meagain. '

Eugene vouchsafed no answer; but made the proposal to Mortimer, 'I'llgo with you, if you like?' So, they all three went away together in thevehicle that had brought the boy; the two friends (once boys together ata public school) inside, smoking cigars; the messenger on the box besidethe driver. 

'Let me see, ' said Mortimer, as they went along; 'I have been, Eugene, upon the honourable roll of solicitors of the High Court of Chancery, and attorneys at Common Law, five years; and--except gratuitously takinginstructions, on an average once a fortnight, for the will of LadyTippins who has nothing to leave--I have had no scrap of business butthis romantic business. '

'And I, ' said Eugene, 'have been "called" seven years, and have had nobusiness at all, and never shall have any. And if I had, I shouldn'tknow how to do it. '

'I am far from being clear as to the last particular, ' returnedMortimer, with great composure, 'that I have much advantage over you. '

'I hate, ' said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite seat, 'I hatemy profession. '

'Shall I incommode you, if I put mine up too?' returned Mortimer. 'Thankyou. I hate mine. '

'It was forced upon me, ' said the gloomy Eugene, 'because it wasunderstood that we wanted a barrister in the family. We have got aprecious one. '

'It was forced upon me, ' said Mortimer, 'because it was understood thatwe wanted a solicitor in the family. And we have got a precious one. '

'There are four of us, with our names painted on a door-post in right ofone black hole called a set of chambers, ' said Eugene; 'and each of ushas the fourth of a clerk--Cassim Baba, in the robber's cave--and Cassimis the only respectable member of the party. '

'I am one by myself, one, ' said Mortimer, 'high up an awful staircasecommanding a burial-ground, and I have a whole clerk to myself, and hehas nothing to do but look at the burial-ground, and what he will turnout when arrived at maturity, I cannot conceive. Whether, in that shabbyrook's nest, he is always plotting wisdom, or plotting murder; whetherhe will grow up, after so much solitary brooding, to enlighten hisfellow-creatures, or to poison them; is the only speck of interest thatpresents itself to my professional view. Will you give me a light? Thankyou. '

'Then idiots talk, ' said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smokingwith his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, 'of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z thatI abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, suchparrot gabble! What the deuce! Am I to rush out into the street, collarthe first man of a wealthy appearance that I meet, shake him, and say, "Go to law upon the spot, you dog, and retain me, or I'll be the deathof you"? Yet that would be energy. '

'Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good opportunity, show me something really worth being energetic about, and I'll show youenergy. '

'And so will I, ' said Eugene. 

And it is likely enough that ten thousand other young men, within thelimits of the London Post-office town delivery, made the same hopefulremark in the course of the same evening. 

The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe; down by whereaccumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher grounds, like so much moral sewage, and to be pausing until its own weight forcedit over the bank and sunk it in the river. In and out among vesselsthat seemed to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to have gotafloat--among bow-splits staring into windows, and windows staringinto ships--the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner, river-washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy alighted andopened the door. 

'You must walk the rest, sir; it's not many yards. ' He spoke in thesingular number, to the express exclusion of Eugene. 

'This is a confoundedly out-of-the-way place, ' said Mortimer, slippingover the stones and refuse on the shore, as the boy turned the cornersharp. 

'Here's my father's, sir; where the light is. '

The low building had the look of having once been a mill. There was arotten wart of wood upon its forehead that seemed to indicate wherethe sails had been, but the whole was very indistinctly seen in theobscurity of the night. The boy lifted the latch of the door, and theypassed at once into a low circular room, where a man stood before a redfire, looking down into it, and a girl sat engaged in needlework. Thefire was in a rusty brazier, not fitted to the hearth; and a commonlamp, shaped like a hyacinth-root, smoked and flared in the neck of astone bottle on the table. There was a wooden bunk or berth in a corner, and in another corner a wooden stair leading above--so clumsy and steepthat it was little better than a ladder. Two or three old sculls andoars stood against the wall, and against another part of the wall was asmall dresser, making a spare show of the commonest articles of crockeryand cooking-vessels. The roof of the room was not plastered, but wasformed of the flooring of the room above. This, being very old, knotted, seamed, and beamed, gave a lowering aspect to the chamber; and roof, andwalls, and floor, alike abounding in old smears of flour, red-lead (orsome such stain which it had probably acquired in warehousing), anddamp, alike had a look of decomposition. 

'The gentleman, father. '

The figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, and lookedlike a bird of prey. 

'You're Mortimer Lightwood Esquire; are you, sir?'

'Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found, ' said Mortimer, glancingrather shrinkingly towards the bunk; 'is it here?'

''Tain't not to say here, but it's close by. I do everything reg'lar. I've giv' notice of the circumstarnce to the police, and the police havetook possession of it. No time ain't been lost, on any hand. The policehave put into print already, and here's what the print says of it. '

Taking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near a paper onthe wall, with the police heading, BODY FOUND. The two friends read thehandbill as it stuck against the wall, and Gaffer read them as he heldthe light. 

'Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see, ' said Lightwood, glancingfrom the description of what was found, to the finder. 

'Only papers. '

Here the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went out at the door. 

'No money, ' pursued Mortimer; 'but threepence in one of theskirt-pockets. '

'Three. Penny. Pieces, ' said Gaffer Hexam, in as many sentences. 

'The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out. '

Gaffer Hexam nodded. 'But that's common. Whether it's the wash of thetide or no, I can't say. Now, here, ' moving the light to another similarplacard, 'HIS pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here, 'moving the light to another, 'HER pocket was found empty, and turnedinside out. And so was this one's. And so was that one's. I can't read, nor I don't want to it, for I know 'em by their places on the wall. Thisone was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. On his arm. Look and see if he warn't. '

'Quite right. '

'This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen marked with across. Look and see if she warn't. '

'Quite right. '

'This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two youngsisters what tied themselves together with a handkecher. This thedrunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot hadoffered--it afterwards come out--to make a hole in the water for aquartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first andlast time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; but Iknow 'em all. I'm scholar enough!'

He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of hisscholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and stoodbehind it looking intently at his visitors. He had the specialpeculiarity of some birds of prey, that when he knitted his brow, hisruffled crest stood highest. 

'You did not find all these yourself; did you?' asked Eugene. 

To which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, 'And what might YOUR name be, now?'

'This is my friend, ' Mortimer Lightwood interposed; 'Mr EugeneWrayburn. '

'Mr Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr Eugene Wrayburn have askedof me?'

'I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself?'

'I answer you, simply, most on 'em. '

'Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, beforehand, among these cases?'

'I don't suppose at all about it, ' returned Gaffer. 'I ain't one of thesupposing sort. If you'd got your living to haul out of the river everyday of your life, you mightn't be much given to supposing. Am I to showthe way?'

As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, anextremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway--the face of aman much agitated. 

'A body missing?' asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short; 'or a body found?Which?'

'I am lost!' replied the man, in a hurried and an eager manner. 

'Lost?'

'I--I--am a stranger, and don't know the way. I--I--want to find theplace where I can see what is described here. It is possible I may knowit. ' He was panting, and could hardly speak; but, he showed a copy ofthe newly-printed bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps itsnewness, or perhaps the accuracy of his observation of its general look, guided Gaffer to a ready conclusion. 

'This gentleman, Mr Lightwood, is on that business. '

'Mr Lightwood?'

During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each other. Neitherknew the other. 

'I think, sir, ' said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with hisairy self-possession, 'that you did me the honour to mention my name?'

'I repeated it, after this man. '

'You said you were a stranger in London?'

'An utter stranger. '

'Are you seeking a Mr Harmon?'

'No. '

'Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless errand, andwill not find what you fear to find. Will you come with us?'

A little winding through some muddy alleys that might have beendeposited by the last ill-savoured tide, brought them to thewicket-gate and bright lamp of a Police Station; where they found theNight-Inspector, with a pen and ink, and ruler, posting up his books ina whitewashed office, as studiously as if he were in a monastery ontop of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were bangingherself against a cell-door in the back-yard at his elbow. With thesame air of a recluse much given to study, he desisted from his books tobestow a distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, 'Ah! we know all about YOU, and you'll overdo it some day;' and toinform Mr Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend themimmediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he had in hand (it mighthave been illuminating a missal, he was so calm), in a very neat andmethodical manner, showing not the slightest consciousness of the womanwho was banging herself with increased violence, and shrieking mostterrifically for some other woman's liver. 

'A bull's-eye, ' said the Night-Inspector, taking up his keys. Which adeferential satellite produced. 'Now, gentlemen. '

With one of his keys, he opened a cool grot at the end of the yard, and they all went in. They quickly came out again, no one speaking butEugene: who remarked to Mortimer, in a whisper, 'Not MUCH worse thanLady Tippins. '

So, back to the whitewashed library of the monastery--with that liverstill in shrieking requisition, as it had been loudly, while they lookedat the silent sight they came to see--and there through the merits ofthe case as summed up by the Abbot. No clue to how body came into river. Very often was no clue. Too late to know for certain, whether injuriesreceived before or after death; one excellent surgical opinion said, before; other excellent surgical opinion said, after. Steward of ship inwhich gentleman came home passenger, had been round to view, and couldswear to identity. Likewise could swear to clothes. And then, yousee, you had the papers, too. How was it he had totally disappeared onleaving ship, 'till found in river? Well! Probably had been upon somelittle game. Probably thought it a harmless game, wasn't up to things, and it turned out a fatal game. Inquest to-morrow, and no doubt openverdict. 

'It appears to have knocked your friend over--knocked him completely offhis legs, ' Mr Inspector remarked, when he had finished his summing up. 'It has given him a bad turn to be sure!' This was said in a very lowvoice, and with a searching look (not the first he had cast) at thestranger. 

Mr Lightwood explained that it was no friend of his. 

'Indeed?' said Mr Inspector, with an attentive ear; 'where did you pickhim up?'

Mr Lightwood explained further. 

Mr Inspector had delivered his summing up, and had added these words, with his elbows leaning on his desk, and the fingers and thumb of hisright hand, fitting themselves to the fingers and thumb of his left. Mr Inspector moved nothing but his eyes, as he now added, raising hisvoice:

'Turned you faint, sir! Seems you're not accustomed to this kind ofwork?'

The stranger, who was leaning against the chimneypiece with droopinghead, looked round and answered, 'No. It's a horrible sight!'

'You expected to identify, I am told, sir?'

'Yes. '

'HAVE you identified?'

'No. It's a horrible sight. O! a horrible, horrible sight!'

'Who did you think it might have been?' asked Mr Inspector. 'Give us adescription, sir. Perhaps we can help you. '

'No, no, ' said the stranger; 'it would be quite useless. Good-night. '

Mr Inspector had not moved, and had given no order; but, the satelliteslipped his back against the wicket, and laid his left arm along the topof it, and with his right hand turned the bull's-eye he had taken fromhis chief--in quite a casual manner--towards the stranger. 

'You missed a friend, you know; or you missed a foe, you know; or youwouldn't have come here, you know. Well, then; ain't it reasonable toask, who was it?' Thus, Mr Inspector. 

'You must excuse my telling you. No class of man can understand betterthan you, that families may not choose to publish their disagreementsand misfortunes, except on the last necessity. I do not dispute that youdischarge your duty in asking me the question; you will not dispute myright to withhold the answer. Good-night. '

Again he turned towards the wicket, where the satellite, with his eyeupon his chief, remained a dumb statue. 

'At least, ' said Mr Inspector, 'you will not object to leave me yourcard, sir?'

'I should not object, if I had one; but I have not. ' He reddened and wasmuch confused as he gave the answer. 

'At least, ' said Mr Inspector, with no change of voice or manner, 'youwill not object to write down your name and address?'

'Not at all. '

Mr Inspector dipped a pen in his inkstand, and deftly laid it on apiece of paper close beside him; then resumed his former attitude. The stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremuloushand--Mr Inspector taking sidelong note of every hair of his head whenit was bent down for the purpose--'Mr Julius Handford, Exchequer CoffeeHouse, Palace Yard, Westminster. '

'Staying there, I presume, sir?'

'Staying there. '

'Consequently, from the country?'

'Eh? Yes--from the country. '

'Good-night, sir. '

The satellite removed his arm and opened the wicket, and Mr JuliusHandford went out. 

'Reserve!' said Mr Inspector. 'Take care of this piece of paper, keephim in view without giving offence, ascertain that he IS staying there, and find out anything you can about him. '

The satellite was gone; and Mr Inspector, becoming once again the quietAbbot of that Monastery, dipped his pen in his ink and resumedhis books. The two friends who had watched him, more amused by theprofessional manner than suspicious of Mr Julius Handford, inquiredbefore taking their departure too whether he believed there was anythingthat really looked bad here?

The Abbot replied with reticence, couldn't say. If a murder, anybodymight have done it. Burglary or pocket-picking wanted 'prenticeship. Notso, murder. We were all of us up to that. Had seen scores of people cometo identify, and never saw one person struck in that particular way. Might, however, have been Stomach and not Mind. If so, rum stomach. But to be sure there were rum everythings. Pity there was not a wordof truth in that superstition about bodies bleeding when touched by thehand of the right person; you never got a sign out of bodies. You gotrow enough out of such as her--she was good for all night now (referringhere to the banging demands for the liver), 'but you got nothing out ofbodies if it was ever so. '

There being nothing more to be done until the Inquest was held next day, the friends went away together, and Gaffer Hexam and his son went theirseparate way. But, arriving at the last corner, Gaffer bade his boy gohome while he turned into a red-curtained tavern, that stood dropsicallybulging over the causeway, 'for a half-a-pint. '

The boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found his sisteragain seated before the fire at her work. Who raised her head upon hiscoming in and asking:

'Where did you go, Liz?'

'I went out in the dark. '

'There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough. '

'One of the gentlemen, the one who didn't speak while I was there, looked hard at me. And I was afraid he might know what my face meant. But there! Don't mind me, Charley! I was all in a tremble of anothersort when you owned to father you could write a little. '

'Ah! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it was odds if any onecould read it. And when I wrote slowest and smeared but with my fingermost, father was best pleased, as he stood looking over me. '

The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his seat bythe fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder. 

'You'll make the most of your time, Charley; won't you?'

'Won't I? Come! I like that. Don't I?'

'Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. And I worka little, Charley, and plan and contrive a little (wake out of mysleep contriving sometimes), how to get together a shilling now, and ashilling then, that shall make father believe you are beginning to earna stray living along shore. '

'You are father's favourite, and can make him believe anything. '

'I wish I could, Charley! For if I could make him believe that learningwas a good thing, and that we might lead better lives, I should bea'most content to die. '

'Don't talk stuff about dying, Liz. '

She placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and laying herrich brown cheek against them as she looked down at the fire, went onthoughtfully:

'Of an evening, Charley, when you are at the school, and father's--'

'At the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, ' the boy struck in, with abackward nod of his head towards the public-house. 

'Yes. Then as I sit a-looking at the fire, I seem to see in the burningcoal--like where that glow is now--'

'That's gas, that is, ' said the boy, 'coming out of a bit of a forestthat's been under the mud that was under the water in the days of Noah'sArk. Look here! When I take the poker--so--and give it a dig--'

'Don't disturb it, Charley, or it'll be all in a blaze. It's that dullglow near it, coming and going, that I mean. When I look at it of anevening, it comes like pictures to me, Charley. '

'Show us a picture, ' said the boy. 'Tell us where to look. '

'Ah! It wants my eyes, Charley. '

'Cut away then, and tell us what your eyes make of it. '

'Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite a baby thatnever knew a mother--'

'Don't go saying I never knew a mother, ' interposed the boy, 'for I knewa little sister that was sister and mother both. '

The girl laughed delightedly, and here eyes filled with pleasant tears, as he put both his arms round her waist and so held her. 

'There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work and lockedus out, for fear we should set ourselves afire or fall out of window, sitting on the door-sill, sitting on other door-steps, sitting on thebank of the river, wandering about to get through the time. Youare rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I am often obliged to rest. Sometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, sometimeswe are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, but what isoftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, Charley?'

'I remember, ' said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, 'that Isnuggled under a little shawl, and it was warm there. '

'Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of that:sometimes it's dark, and we get among the gaslights, sitting watchingthe people as they go along the streets. At last, up comes father andtakes us home. And home seems such a shelter after out of doors! Andfather pulls my shoes off, and dries my feet at the fire, and has meto sit by him while he smokes his pipe long after you are abed, andI notice that father's is a large hand but never a heavy one when ittouches me, and that father's is a rough voice but never an angry onewhen it speaks to me. So, I grow up, and little by little father trustsme, and makes me his companion, and, let him be put out as he may, neveronce strikes me. '

The listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say 'But he strikesME though!'

'Those are some of the pictures of what is past, Charley. '

'Cut away again, ' said the boy, 'and give us a fortune-telling one; afuture one. '

'Well! There am I, continuing with father and holding to father, becausefather loves me and I love father. I can't so much as read a book, because, if I had learned, father would have thought I was desertinghim, and I should have lost my influence. I have not the influence Iwant to have, I cannot stop some dreadful things I try to stop, but Igo on in the hope and trust that the time will come. In the meanwhileI know that I am in some things a stay to father, and that if I wasnot faithful to him he would--in revenge-like, or in disappointment, orboth--go wild and bad. '

'Give us a touch of the fortune-telling pictures about me. '

'I was passing on to them, Charley, ' said the girl, who had not changedher attitude since she began, and who now mournfully shook her head;'the others were all leading up. There are you--'

'Where am I, Liz?'

'Still in the hollow down by the flare. '

'There seems to be the deuce-and-all in the hollow down by the flare, 'said the boy, glancing from her eyes to the brazier, which had a grislyskeleton look on its long thin legs. 

'There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from father, atthe school; and you get prizes; and you go on better and better; and youcome to be a--what was it you called it when you told me about that?'

'Ha, ha! Fortune-telling not know the name!' cried the boy, seeming tobe rather relieved by this default on the part of the hollow down by theflare. 'Pupil-teacher. '

'You come to be a pupil-teacher, and you still go on better and better, and you rise to be a master full of learning and respect. But the secrethas come to father's knowledge long before, and it has divided you fromfather, and from me. '

'No it hasn't!'

'Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that your way isnot ours, and that even if father could be got to forgive your takingit (which he never could be), that way of yours would be darkened by ourway. But I see too, Charley--'

'Still as plain as plain can be, Liz?' asked the boy playfully. 

'Ah! Still. That it is a great work to have cut you away from father'slife, and to have made a new and good beginning. So there am I, Charley, left alone with father, keeping him as straight as I can, watchingfor more influence than I have, and hoping that through some fortunatechance, or when he is ill, or when--I don't know what--I may turn him towish to do better things. '

'You said you couldn't read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is thehollow down by the flare, I think. '

'I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my want oflearning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much more, if I didn'tknow it to be a tie between me and father. --Hark! Father's tread!'

It being now past midnight, the bird of prey went straight to roost. Atmid-day following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, inthe character, not new to him, of a witness before a Coroner's Jury. 

Mr Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character of one of thewitnesses, doubled the part with that of the eminent solicitor whowatched the proceedings on behalf of the representatives of thedeceased, as was duly recorded in the newspapers. Mr Inspector watchedthe proceedings too, and kept his watching closely to himself. Mr JuliusHandford having given his right address, and being reported in solventcircumstances as to his bill, though nothing more was known of him athis hotel except that his way of life was very retired, had no summonsto appear, and was merely present in the shades of Mr Inspector's mind. 

The case was made interesting to the public, by Mr Mortimer Lightwood'sevidence touching the circumstances under which the deceased, Mr JohnHarmon, had returned to England; exclusive private proprietorship inwhich circumstances was set up at dinner-tables for several days, byVeneering, Twemlow, Podsnap, and all the Buffers: who all related themirreconcilably with one another, and contradicted themselves. It wasalso made interesting by the testimony of Job Potterson, the ship'ssteward, and one Mr Jacob Kibble, a fellow-passenger, that the deceasedMr John Harmon did bring over, in a hand-valise with which he diddisembark, the sum realized by the forced sale of his little landedproperty, and that the sum exceeded, in ready money, seven hundredpounds. It was further made interesting, by the remarkable experiencesof Jesse Hexam in having rescued from the Thames so many dead bodies, and for whose behoof a rapturous admirer subscribing himself 'A friendto Burial' (perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage stamps, andfive 'Now Sir's to the editor of the Times. 

Upon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found, That the bodyof Mr John Harmon had been discovered floating in the Thames, in anadvanced state of decay, and much injured; and that the said Mr JohnHarmon had come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances, though by whose act or in what precise manner there was no evidencebefore this Jury to show. And they appended to their verdict, arecommendation to the Home Office (which Mr Inspector appeared to thinkhighly sensible), to offer a reward for the solution of the mystery. Within eight-and-forty hours, a reward of One Hundred Pounds wasproclaimed, together with a free pardon to any person or persons not theactual perpetrator or perpetrators, and so forth in due form. 

This Proclamation rendered Mr Inspector additionally studious, andcaused him to stand meditating on river-stairs and causeways, and to golurking about in boats, putting this and that together. But, accordingto the success with which you put this and that together, you get awoman and a fish apart, or a Mermaid in combination. And Mr Inspectorcould turn out nothing better than a Mermaid, which no Judge and Jurywould believe in. 

Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the knowledge of men, the Harmon Murder--as it came to be popularly called--went up and down, and ebbed and flowed, now in the town, now in the country, now amongpalaces, now among hovels, now among lords and ladies and gentlefolks, now among labourers and hammerers and ballast-heavers, until at last, after a long interval of slack water it got out to sea and drifted away. 

Chapter 4

THE R. WILFER FAMILY

Reginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound, suggesting onfirst acquaintance brasses in country churches, scrolls in stained-glasswindows, and generally the De Wilfers who came over with the Conqueror. For, it is a remarkable fact in genealogy that no De Any ones ever cameover with Anybody else. 

But, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such commonplace extraction andpursuits that their forefathers had for generations modestly subsistedon the Docks, the Excise Office, and the Custom House, and the existingR. Wilfer was a poor clerk. So poor a clerk, though having a limitedsalary and an unlimited family, that he had never yet attained themodest object of his ambition: which was, to wear a complete new suitof clothes, hat and boots included, at one time. His black hat was brownbefore he could afford a coat, his pantaloons were white at the seamsand knees before he could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn outbefore he could treat himself to new pantaloons, and, by the time heworked round to the hat again, that shining modern article roofed-in anancient ruin of various periods. 

If the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be clothed, he mightbe photographed as a portrait of Wilfer. His chubby, smooth, innocentappearance was a reason for his being always treated with condescensionwhen he was not put down. A stranger entering his own poor house atabout ten o'clock P. M. Might have been surprised to find him sitting upto supper. So boyish was he in his curves and proportions, that hisold schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might have been unable towithstand the temptation of caning him on the spot. In short, he wasthe conventional cherub, after the supposititious shoot just mentioned, rather grey, with signs of care on his expression, and in decidedlyinsolvent circumstances. 

He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as being tooaspiring and self-assertive a name. In his signature he used only theinitial R. , and imparted what it really stood for, to none but chosenfriends, under the seal of confidence. Out of this, the facetious habithad arisen in the neighbourhood surrounding Mincing Lane of makingchristian names for him of adjectives and participles beginning with R. Some of these were more or less appropriate: as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative; others, derived their point fromtheir want of application: as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But, his popular name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspiration had beenbestowed upon him by a gentleman of convivial habits connected with thedrug-markets, as the beginning of a social chorus, his leading part inthe execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, andof which the whole expressive burden ran:

 'Rumty iddity, row dow dow, Sing toodlely, teedlely, bow wow wow. '

Thus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on business, as'Dear Rumty'; in answer to which, he sedately signed himself, 'Yourstruly, R. Wilfer. '

He was clerk in the drug-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles. Chicksey and Stobbles, his former masters, had both become absorbed inVeneering, once their traveller or commission agent: who had signalizedhis accession to supreme power by bringing into the business a quantityof plate-glass window and French-polished mahogany partition, and agleaming and enormous doorplate. 

R. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and, putting his bunch of keysin his pocket much as if it were his peg-top, made for home. His homewas in the Holloway region north of London, and then divided from it byfields and trees. Between Battle Bridge and that part of the Hollowaydistrict in which he dwelt, was a tract of suburban Sahara, where tilesand bricks were burnt, bones were boiled, carpets were beat, rubbish wasshot, dogs were fought, and dust was heaped by contractors. Skirtingthe border of this desert, by the way he took, when the light of itskiln-fires made lurid smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed and shook hishead. 

'Ah me!' said he, 'what might have been is not what is!'

With which commentary on human life, indicating an experience of itnot exclusively his own, he made the best of his way to the end of hisjourney. 

Mrs Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angular. Her lord beingcherubic, she was necessarily majestic, according to the principle whichmatrimonially unites contrasts. She was much given to tying up her headin a pocket-handkerchief, knotted under the chin. This head-gear, inconjunction with a pair of gloves worn within doors, she seemed toconsider as at once a kind of armour against misfortune (invariablyassuming it when in low spirits or difficulties), and as a species offull dress. It was therefore with some sinking of the spirit that herhusband beheld her thus heroically attired, putting down her candle inthe little hall, and coming down the doorsteps through the little frontcourt to open the gate for him. 

Something had gone wrong with the house-door, for R. Wilfer stopped onthe steps, staring at it, and cried:

'Hal-loa?'

'Yes, ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'the man came himself with a pair of pincers, and took it off, and took it away. He said that as he had no expectationof ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for another LADIES'SCHOOL door-plate, it was better (burnished up) for the interests of allparties. '

'Perhaps it was, my dear; what do you think?'

'You are master here, R. W. , ' returned his wife. 'It is as you think;not as I do. Perhaps it might have been better if the man had taken thedoor too?'

'My dear, we couldn't have done without the door. '

'Couldn't we?'

'Why, my dear! Could we?'

'It is as you think, R. W. ; not as I do. ' With those submissive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a little basementfront room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient andpetulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which inher sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playingdraughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House ofWilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detailand casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that therest were what is called 'out in the world, ' in various ways, and thatthey were Many. So many, that when one of his dutiful children called into see him, R. Wilfer generally seemed to say to himself, after a littlemental arithmetic, 'Oh! here's another of 'em!' before adding aloud, 'How de do, John, ' or Susan, as the case might be. 

'Well Piggywiggies, ' said R. W. , 'how de do to-night? What I wasthinking of, my dear, ' to Mrs Wilfer already seated in a corner withfolded gloves, 'was, that as we have let our first floor so well, and aswe have now no place in which you could teach pupils even if pupils--'

'The milkman said he knew of two young ladies of the highestrespectability who were in search of a suitable establishment, and hetook a card, ' interposed Mrs Wilfer, with severe monotony, as if shewere reading an Act of Parliament aloud. 'Tell your father whether itwas last Monday, Bella. '

'But we never heard any more of it, ma, ' said Bella, the elder girl. 

'In addition to which, my dear, ' her husband urged, 'if you have noplace to put two young persons into--'

'Pardon me, ' Mrs Wilfer again interposed; 'they were not young persons. Two young ladies of the highest respectability. Tell your father, Bella, whether the milkman said so. '

'My dear, it is the same thing. '

'No it is not, ' said Mrs Wilfer, with the same impressive monotony. 'Pardon me!'

'I mean, my dear, it is the same thing as to space. As to space. If youhave no space in which to put two youthful fellow-creatures, howevereminently respectable, which I do not doubt, where are those youthfulfellow-creatures to be accommodated? I carry it no further than that. And solely looking at it, ' said her husband, making the stipulation atonce in a conciliatory, complimentary, and argumentative tone--'as I amsure you will agree, my love--from a fellow-creature point of view, mydear. '

'I have nothing more to say, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, with a meekrenunciatory action of her gloves. 'It is as you think, R. W. ; not as Ido. '

Here, the huffing of Miss Bella and the loss of three of her men at aswoop, aggravated by the coronation of an opponent, led to that younglady's jerking the draught-board and pieces off the table: which hersister went down on her knees to pick up. 

'Poor Bella!' said Mrs Wilfer. 

'And poor Lavinia, perhaps, my dear?' suggested R. W. 

'Pardon me, ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'no!'

It was one of the worthy woman's specialities that she had an amazingpower of gratifying her splenetic or worldly-minded humours by extollingher own family: which she thus proceeded, in the present case, to do. 

'No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella has known. Thetrial that your daughter Bella has undergone, is, perhaps, withouta parallel, and has been borne, I will say, Nobly. When you see yourdaughter Bella in her black dress, which she alone of all the familywears, and when you remember the circumstances which have led toher wearing it, and when you know how those circumstances have beensustained, then, R. W. , lay your head upon your pillow and say, "PoorLavinia!"'

Here, Miss Lavinia, from her kneeling situation under the table, put inthat she didn't want to be 'poored by pa', or anybody else. 

'I am sure you do not, my dear, ' returned her mother, 'for you have afine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia has a fine brave spiritof another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, a beau-ti-ful spirit! Theself-sacrifice of Cecilia reveals a pure and womanly character, veryseldom equalled, never surpassed. I have now in my pocket a letter fromyour sister Cecilia, received this morning--received three months afterher marriage, poor child!--in which she tells me that her husband mustunexpectedly shelter under their roof his reduced aunt. "But I will betrue to him, mamma, " she touchingly writes, "I will not leave him, Imust not forget that he is my husband. Let his aunt come!" If this isnot pathetic, if this is not woman's devotion--!' The good lady wavedher gloves in a sense of the impossibility of saying more, and tied thepocket-handkerchief over her head in a tighter knot under her chin. 

Bella, who was now seated on the rug to warm herself, with her browneyes on the fire and a handful of her brown curls in her mouth, laughedat this, and then pouted and half cried. 

'I am sure, ' said she, 'though you have no feeling for me, pa, I am oneof the most unfortunate girls that ever lived. You know how poor we are'(it is probable he did, having some reason to know it!), 'and what aglimpse of wealth I had, and how it melted away, and how I am here inthis ridiculous mourning--which I hate!--a kind of a widow who never wasmarried. And yet you don't feel for me. --Yes you do, yes you do. '

This abrupt change was occasioned by her father's face. She stoppedto pull him down from his chair in an attitude highly favourable tostrangulation, and to give him a kiss and a pat or two on the cheek. 

'But you ought to feel for me, you know, pa. '

'My dear, I do. '

'Yes, and I say you ought to. If they had only left me alone and toldme nothing about it, it would have mattered much less. But that nasty MrLightwood feels it his duty, as he says, to write and tell me what is inreserve for me, and then I am obliged to get rid of George Sampson. '

Here, Lavinia, rising to the surface with the last draughtman rescued, interposed, 'You never cared for George Sampson, Bella. '

'And did I say I did, miss?' Then, pouting again, with the curls in hermouth; 'George Sampson was very fond of me, and admired me very much, and put up with everything I did to him. '

'You were rude enough to him, ' Lavinia again interposed. 

'And did I say I wasn't, miss? I am not setting up to be sentimentalabout George Sampson. I only say George Sampson was better thannothing. '

'You didn't show him that you thought even that, ' Lavinia againinterposed. 

'You are a chit and a little idiot, ' returned Bella, 'or you wouldn'tmake such a dolly speech. What did you expect me to do? Wait till youare a woman, and don't talk about what you don't understand. You onlyshow your ignorance!' Then, whimpering again, and at intervals bitingthe curls, and stopping to look how much was bitten off, 'It's a shame!There never was such a hard case! I shouldn't care so much if it wasn'tso ridiculous. It was ridiculous enough to have a stranger coming overto marry me, whether he liked it or not. It was ridiculous enough toknow what an embarrassing meeting it would be, and how we nevercould pretend to have an inclination of our own, either of us. It wasridiculous enough to know I shouldn't like him--how COULD I like him, left to him in a will, like a dozen of spoons, with everything cut anddried beforehand, like orange chips. Talk of orange flowers indeed!I declare again it's a shame! Those ridiculous points would have beensmoothed away by the money, for I love money, and want money--want itdreadfully. I hate to be poor, and we are degradingly poor, offensivelypoor, miserably poor, beastly poor. But here I am, left with all theridiculous parts of the situation remaining, and, added to them all, this ridiculous dress! And if the truth was known, when the Harmonmurder was all over the town, and people were speculating on its beingsuicide, I dare say those impudent wretches at the clubs and places madejokes about the miserable creature's having preferred a watery grave tome. It's likely enough they took such liberties; I shouldn't wonder! Ideclare it's a very hard case indeed, and I am a most unfortunate girl. The idea of being a kind of a widow, and never having been married!And the idea of being as poor as ever after all, and going into black, besides, for a man I never saw, and should have hated--as far as HE wasconcerned--if I had seen!'

The young lady's lamentations were checked at this point by a knuckle, knocking at the half-open door of the room. The knuckle had knocked twoor three times already, but had not been heard. 

'Who is it?' said Mrs Wilfer, in her Act-of-Parliament manner. 'Enter!'

A gentleman coming in, Miss Bella, with a short and sharp exclamation, scrambled off the hearth-rug and massed the bitten curls together intheir right place on her neck. 

'The servant girl had her key in the door as I came up, and directed meto this room, telling me I was expected. I am afraid I should have askedher to announce me. '

'Pardon me, ' returned Mrs Wilfer. 'Not at all. Two of my daughters. R. W. , this is the gentleman who has taken your first-floor. He was so goodas to make an appointment for to-night, when you would be at home. '

A dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, one might sayhandsome, face. A very bad manner. In the last degree constrained, reserved, diffident, troubled. His eyes were on Miss Bella for aninstant, and then looked at the ground as he addressed the master of thehouse. 

'Seeing that I am quite satisfied, Mr Wilfer, with the rooms, and withtheir situation, and with their price, I suppose a memorandum between usof two or three lines, and a payment down, will bind the bargain? I wishto send in furniture without delay. '

Two or three times during this short address, the cherub addressed hadmade chubby motions towards a chair. The gentleman now took it, layinga hesitating hand on a corner of the table, and with another hesitatinghand lifting the crown of his hat to his lips, and drawing it before hismouth. 

'The gentleman, R. W. , ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'proposes to take yourapartments by the quarter. A quarter's notice on either side. '

'Shall I mention, sir, ' insinuated the landlord, expecting it to bereceived as a matter of course, 'the form of a reference?'

'I think, ' returned the gentleman, after a pause, 'that a reference isnot necessary; neither, to say the truth, is it convenient, for I ama stranger in London. I require no reference from you, and perhaps, therefore, you will require none from me. That will be fair on bothsides. Indeed, I show the greater confidence of the two, for I will payin advance whatever you please, and I am going to trust my furniturehere. Whereas, if you were in embarrassed circumstances--this is merelysupposititious--'

Conscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs Wilfer, from a corner (shealways got into stately corners) came to the rescue with a deep-toned'Per-fectly. '

'--Why then I--might lose it. '

'Well!' observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, 'money and goods are certainlythe best of references. '

'Do you think they ARE the best, pa?' asked Miss Bella, in a low voice, and without looking over her shoulder as she warmed her foot on thefender. 

'Among the best, my dear. '

'I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the usual kind ofone, ' said Bella, with a toss of her curls. 

The gentleman listened to her, with a face of marked attention, thoughhe neither looked up nor changed his attitude. He sat, still and silent, until his future landlord accepted his proposals, and brought writingmaterials to complete the business. He sat, still and silent, while thelandlord wrote. 

When the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord having workedat it like some cherubic scribe, in what is conventionally called adoubtful, which means a not at all doubtful, Old Master), it was signedby the contracting parties, Bella looking on as scornful witness. Thecontracting parties were R. Wilfer, and John Rokesmith Esquire. 

When it came to Bella's turn to sign her name, Mr Rokesmith, who wasstanding, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the table, lookedat her stealthily, but narrowly. He looked at the pretty figure bendingdown over the paper and saying, 'Where am I to go, pa? Here, in thiscorner?' He looked at the beautiful brown hair, shading the coquettishface; he looked at the free dash of the signature, which was a bold onefor a woman's; and then they looked at one another. 

'Much obliged to you, Miss Wilfer. '

'Obliged?'

'I have given you so much trouble. '

'Signing my name? Yes, certainly. But I am your landlord's daughter, sir. '

As there was nothing more to do but pay eight sovereigns in earnest ofthe bargain, pocket the agreement, appoint a time for the arrival of hisfurniture and himself, and go, Mr Rokesmith did that as awkwardly as itmight be done, and was escorted by his landlord to the outer air. WhenR. Wilfer returned, candlestick in hand, to the bosom of his family, hefound the bosom agitated. 

'Pa, ' said Bella, 'we have got a Murderer for a tenant. '

'Pa, ' said Lavinia, 'we have got a Robber. '

'To see him unable for his life to look anybody in the face!' saidBella. 'There never was such an exhibition. '

'My dears, ' said their father, 'he is a diffident gentleman, and Ishould say particularly so in the society of girls of your age. '

'Nonsense, our age!' cried Bella, impatiently. 'What's that got to dowith him?'

'Besides, we are not of the same age:--which age?' demanded Lavinia. 

'Never YOU mind, Lavvy, ' retorted Bella; 'you wait till you are of anage to ask such questions. Pa, mark my words! Between Mr Rokesmith andme, there is a natural antipathy and a deep distrust; and something willcome of it!'

'My dear, and girls, ' said the cherub-patriarch, 'between Mr Rokesmithand me, there is a matter of eight sovereigns, and something for suppershall come of it, if you'll agree upon the article. '

This was a neat and happy turn to give the subject, treats being rare inthe Wilfer household, where a monotonous appearance of Dutch-cheese atten o'clock in the evening had been rather frequently commented on bythe dimpled shoulders of Miss Bella. Indeed, the modest Dutchman himselfseemed conscious of his want of variety, and generally came before thefamily in a state of apologetic perspiration. After some discussion onthe relative merits of veal-cutlet, sweetbread, and lobster, a decisionwas pronounced in favour of veal-cutlet. Mrs Wilfer then solemnlydivested herself of her handkerchief and gloves, as a preliminarysacrifice to preparing the frying-pan, and R. W. Himself went outto purchase the viand. He soon returned, bearing the same in a freshcabbage-leaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious soundswere not long in rising from the frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming, as the firelight danced in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottleson the table, to play appropriate dance-music. 

The cloth was laid by Lavvy. Bella, as the acknowledged ornament of thefamily, employed both her hands in giving her hair an additionalwave while sitting in the easiest chair, and occasionally threw in adirection touching the supper: as, 'Very brown, ma;' or, to her sister, 'Put the saltcellar straight, miss, and don't be a dowdy little puss. '

Meantime her father, chinking Mr Rokesmith's gold as he sat expectantbetween his knife and fork, remarked that six of those sovereigns camejust in time for their landlord, and stood them in a little pile on thewhite tablecloth to look at. 

'I hate our landlord!' said Bella. 

But, observing a fall in her father's face, she went and sat down by himat the table, and began touching up his hair with the handle of a fork. It was one of the girl's spoilt ways to be always arranging the family'shair--perhaps because her own was so pretty, and occupied so much of herattention. 

'You deserve to have a house of your own; don't you, poor pa?'

'I don't deserve it better than another, my dear. '

'At any rate I, for one, want it more than another, ' said Bella, holdinghim by the chin, as she stuck his flaxen hair on end, 'and I grudgethis money going to the Monster that swallows up so much, when we allwant--Everything. And if you say (as you want to say; I know you wantto say so, pa) "that's neither reasonable nor honest, Bella, " then Ianswer, "Maybe not, pa--very likely--but it's one of the consequencesof being poor, and of thoroughly hating and detesting to be poor, andthat's my case. " Now, you look lovely, pa; why don't you always wearyour hair like that? And here's the cutlet! If it isn't very brown, ma, I can't eat it, and must have a bit put back to be done expressly. '

However, as it was brown, even to Bella's taste, the young ladygraciously partook of it without reconsignment to the frying-pan, andalso, in due course, of the contents of the two bottles: whereofone held Scotch ale and the other rum. The latter perfume, withthe fostering aid of boiling water and lemon-peel, diffused itselfthroughout the room, and became so highly concentrated around the warmfireside, that the wind passing over the house roof must have rushed offcharged with a delicious whiff of it, after buzzing like a great bee atthat particular chimneypot. 

'Pa, ' said Bella, sipping the fragrant mixture and warming her favouriteankle; 'when old Mr Harmon made such a fool of me (not to mentionhimself, as he is dead), what do you suppose he did it for?'

'Impossible to say, my dear. As I have told you time out of number sincehis will was brought to light, I doubt if I ever exchanged a hundredwords with the old gentleman. If it was his whim to surprise us, hiswhim succeeded. For he certainly did it. '

'And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he first took notice ofme; was I?' said Bella, contemplating the ankle before mentioned. 

'You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and screaming with yourlittle voice, and laying into me with your little bonnet, which youhad snatched off for the purpose, ' returned her father, as if theremembrance gave a relish to the rum; 'you were doing this one Sundaymorning when I took you out, because I didn't go the exact way youwanted, when the old gentleman, sitting on a seat near, said, "That's anice girl; that's a VERY nice girl; a promising girl!" And so you were, my dear. '

'And then he asked my name, did he, pa?'

'Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine; and on other Sundaymornings, when we walked his way, we saw him again, and--and reallythat's all. '

As that was all the rum and water too, or, in other words, as R. W. Delicately signified that his glass was empty, by throwing back his headand standing the glass upside down on his nose and upper lip, it mighthave been charitable in Mrs Wilfer to suggest replenishment. But thatheroine briefly suggesting 'Bedtime' instead, the bottles were put away, and the family retired; she cherubically escorted, like some severesaint in a painting, or merely human matron allegorically treated. 

'And by this time to-morrow, ' said Lavinia when the two girls were alonein their room, 'we shall have Mr Rokesmith here, and shall be expectingto have our throats cut. '

'You needn't stand between me and the candle for all that, ' retortedBella. 'This is another of the consequences of being poor! The idea of agirl with a really fine head of hair, having to do it by one flat candleand a few inches of looking-glass!'

'You caught George Sampson with it, Bella, bad as your means of dressingit are. '

'You low little thing. Caught George Sampson with it! Don't talk aboutcatching people, miss, till your own time for catching--as you callit--comes. '

'Perhaps it has come, ' muttered Lavvy, with a toss of her head. 

'What did you say?' asked Bella, very sharply. 'What did you say, miss?'

Lavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella gradually lapsedover her hair-dressing into a soliloquy on the miseries of being poor, as exemplified in having nothing to put on, nothing to go out in, nothing to dress by, only a nasty box to dress at instead of acommodious dressing-table, and being obliged to take in suspiciouslodgers. On the last grievance as her climax, she laid great stress--andmight have laid greater, had she known that if Mr Julius Handford had atwin brother upon earth, Mr John Rokesmith was the man. 

Chapter 5

BOFFIN'S BOWER

Over against a London house, a corner house not far from CavendishSquare, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with hisremaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living onthis wise:--Every morning at eight o'clock, he stumped to the corner, carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, abasket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, theboard and trestles became a counter, the basket supplied the few smalllots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and became afoot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a choice collection ofhalfpenny ballads and became a screen, and the stool planted within itbecame his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the man at thepost. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived aback to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When theweather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade, notover himself; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, tied it round with a piece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under thetrestles: where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that hadlost in colour and crispness what it had gained in size. 

He had established his right to the corner, by imperceptibleprescription. He had never varied his ground an inch, but had in thebeginning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the housegave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summertime, an undesirable corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragmentsof straw and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main streetwas at peace; and the water-cart, as if it were drunk or short-sighted, came blundering and jolting round it, making it muddy when all else wasclean. 

On the front of his sale-board hung a little placard, like akettle-holder, bearing the inscription in his own small text:

 Errands gone On with fi Delity By Ladies and Gentlemen I remain Your humble Servt: Silas Wegg

He had not only settled it with himself in course of time, that hewas errand-goer by appointment to the house at the corner (though hereceived such commissions not half a dozen times in a year, and thenonly as some servant's deputy), but also that he was one of the house'sretainers and owed vassalage to it and was bound to leal and loyalinterest in it. For this reason, he always spoke of it as 'Our House, 'and, though his knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative andall wrong, claimed to be in its confidence. On similar grounds he neverbeheld an inmate at any one of its windows but he touched his hat. Yet, he knew so little about the inmates that he gave them names of his owninvention: as 'Miss Elizabeth', 'Master George', 'Aunt Jane', 'UncleParker '--having no authority whatever for any such designations, butparticularly the last--to which, as a natural consequence, he stuck withgreat obstinacy. 

Over the house itself, he exercised the same imaginary power as over itsinhabitants and their affairs. He had never been in it, the length ofa piece of fat black water-pipe which trailed itself over the area-doorinto a damp stone passage, and had rather the air of a leech on thehouse that had 'taken' wonderfully; but this was no impediment to hisarranging it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy housewith a quantity of dim side window and blank back premises, and itcost his mind a world of trouble so to lay it out as to account foreverything in its external appearance. But, this once done, was quitesatisfactory, and he rested persuaded, that he knew his way about thehouse blindfold: from the barred garrets in the high roof, to the twoiron extinguishers before the main door--which seemed to request alllively visitors to have the kindness to put themselves out, beforeentering. 

Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was the hardest little stall ofall the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-acheto look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, thetooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the latter commodity he had alwaysa grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which hadno discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn'orthappointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no--it wasan easterly corner--the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all asdry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with aface carved out of very hard material, that had just as much playof expression as a watchman's rattle. When he laughed, certain jerksoccurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so woodena man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rathersuggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected--if hisdevelopment received no untimely check--to be completely set up with apair of wooden legs in about six months. 

Mr Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, 'took apowerful sight of notice'. He saluted all his regular passers-by everyday, as he sat on his stool backed up by the lamp-post; and on theadaptable character of these salutes he greatly plumed himself. Thus, to the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of lay deference, anda slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation at church; to thedoctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman whose acquaintance withhis inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge; before the Quality hedelighted to abase himself; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army(at least, so he had settled it), he put his open hand to the sideof his hat, in a military manner which that angry-eyed buttoned-upinflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate. 

The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, wasgingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant having purchased thedamp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of condition), and the adhesivebird-cage, which had been exposed for the day's sale, he had taken a tinbox from under his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens, and was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, pausing:'Oh! Here you are again!'

The words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow inmourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a peaover-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thickleather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both as to his dressand to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with foldsin his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and hisears; but with bright, eager, childishly-inquiring, grey eyes, under hisragged eyebrows, and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellowaltogether. 

'Here you are again, ' repeated Mr Wegg, musing. 'And what are you now?Are you in the Funns, or where are you? Have you lately come to settlein this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are youin independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow onyou? Come! I'll speculate! I'll invest a bow in you. '

Which Mr Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, as he roseto bait his gingerbread-trap for some other devoted infant. The salutewas acknowledged with:

'Morning, sir! Morning! Morning!'

('Calls me Sir!' said Mr Wegg, to himself; 'HE won't answer. A bowgone!')

'Morning, morning, morning!'

'Appears to be rather a 'arty old cock, too, ' said Mr Wegg, as before;'Good morning to YOU, sir. '

'Do you remember me, then?' asked his new acquaintance, stopping inhis amble, one-sided, before the stall, and speaking in a pounding way, though with great good-humour. 

'I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the courseof the last week or so. '

'Our house, ' repeated the other. 'Meaning--?'

'Yes, ' said Mr Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy forefingerof his right glove at the corner house. 

'Oh! Now, what, ' pursued the old fellow, in an inquisitive manner, carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it were a baby, 'whatdo they allow you now?'

'It's job work that I do for our house, ' returned Silas, drily, and withreticence; 'it's not yet brought to an exact allowance. '

'Oh! It's not yet brought to an exact allowance? No! It's not yetbrought to an exact allowance. Oh!--Morning, morning, morning!'

'Appears to be rather a cracked old cock, ' thought Silas, qualifying hisformer good opinion, as the other ambled off. But, in a moment he wasback again with the question:

'How did you get your wooden leg?'

Mr Wegg replied, (tartly to this personal inquiry), 'In an accident. '

'Do you like it?'

'Well! I haven't got to keep it warm, ' Mr Wegg made answer, in a sort ofdesperation occasioned by the singularity of the question. 

'He hasn't, ' repeated the other to his knotted stick, as he gave it ahug; 'he hasn't got--ha!--ha!--to keep it warm! Did you ever hear of thename of Boffin?'

'No, ' said Mr Wegg, who was growing restive under this examination. 'Inever did hear of the name of Boffin. '

'Do you like it?'

'Why, no, ' retorted Mr Wegg, again approaching desperation; 'I can't sayI do. '

'Why don't you like it?'

'I don't know why I don't, ' retorted Mr Wegg, approaching frenzy, 'but Idon't at all. '

'Now, I'll tell you something that'll make you sorry for that, ' said thestranger, smiling. 'My name's Boffin. '

'I can't help it!' returned Mr Wegg. Implying in his manner theoffensive addition, 'and if I could, I wouldn't. '

'But there's another chance for you, ' said Mr Boffin, smiling still, 'Doyou like the name of Nicodemus? Think it over. Nick, or Noddy. '

'It is not, sir, ' Mr Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, with anair of gentle resignation, combined with melancholy candour; it is nota name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call MEby; but there may be persons that would not view it with the sameobjections. --I don't know why, ' Mr Wegg added, anticipating anotherquestion. 

'Noddy Boffin, ' said that gentleman. 'Noddy. That's my name. Noddy--orNick--Boffin. What's your name?'

'Silas Wegg. --I don't, ' said Mr Wegg, bestirring himself to take thesame precaution as before, 'I don't know why Silas, and I don't know whyWegg. '

'Now, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin, hugging his stick closer, 'I want to make asort of offer to you. Do you remember when you first see me?'

The wooden Wegg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also with asoftened air as descrying possibility of profit. 'Let me think. I ain'tquite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too. Was it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-boy had been to our housefor orders, and bought a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted withthe tune, I run it over to him?'

'Right, Wegg, right! But he bought more than one. '

'Yes, to be sure, sir; he bought several; and wishing to lay out hismoney to the best, he took my opinion to guide his choice, and we wentover the collection together. To be sure we did. Here was him as itmight be, and here was myself as it might be, and there was you, MrBoffin, as you identically are, with your self-same stick under yourvery same arm, and your very same back towards us. To--be--sure!' addedMr Wegg, looking a little round Mr Boffin, to take him in the rear, and identify this last extraordinary coincidence, 'your wery self-sameback!'

'What do you think I was doing, Wegg?'

'I should judge, sir, that you might be glancing your eye down thestreet. '

'No, Wegg. I was a listening. '

'Was you, indeed?' said Mr Wegg, dubiously. 

'Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you was singing to thebutcher; and you wouldn't sing secrets to a butcher in the street, youknow. '

'It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my remembrance, 'said Mr Wegg, cautiously. 'But I might do it. A man can't say what hemight wish to do some day or another. ' (This, not to release any littleadvantage he might derive from Mr Boffin's avowal. )

'Well, ' repeated Boffin, 'I was a listening to you and to him. And whatdo you--you haven't got another stool, have you? I'm rather thick in mybreath. '

'I haven't got another, but you're welcome to this, ' said Wegg, resigning it. 'It's a treat to me to stand. '

'Lard!' exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he settledhimself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, 'it's a pleasantplace, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with these ballads, like so many book-leaf blinkers! Why, its delightful!'

'If I am not mistaken, sir, ' Mr Wegg delicately hinted, resting a handon his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin, 'you alluded tosome offer or another that was in your mind?'

'I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say thatwhen I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting tohaw. I thought to myself, "Here's a man with a wooden leg--a literaryman with--"'

'N--not exactly so, sir, ' said Mr Wegg. 

'Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if youwant to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've only to whipon your spectacles and do it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'I see you at it!'

'Well, sir, ' returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head;'we'll say literary, then. '

'"A literary man--WITH a wooden leg--and all Print is open to him!"That's what I thought to myself, that morning, ' pursued Mr Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large anarc as his right arm could make; '"all Print is open to him!" And it is, ain't it?'

'Why, truly, sir, ' Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; 'I believe youcouldn't show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn't be equal tocollaring and throwing. '

'On the spot?' said Mr Boffin. 

'On the spot. '

'I know'd it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man without a wooden leg, and yet all print is shut to me. '

'Indeed, sir?' Mr Wegg returned with increasing self-complacency. 'Education neglected?'

'Neg--lected!' repeated Boffin, with emphasis. 'That ain't no word forit. I don't mean to say but what if you showed me a B, I could so fargive you change for it, as to answer Boffin. '

'Come, come, sir, ' said Mr Wegg, throwing in a little encouragement, 'that's something, too. '

'It's something, ' answered Mr Boffin, 'but I'll take my oath it ain'tmuch. '

'Perhaps it's not as much as could be wished by an inquiring mind, sir, 'Mr Wegg admitted. 

'Now, look here. I'm retired from business. Me and MrsBoffin--Henerietty Boffin--which her father's name was Henery, and hermother's name was Hetty, and so you get it--we live on a compittance, under the will of a diseased governor. '

'Gentleman dead, sir?'

'Man alive, don't I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it's too latefor me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books. I'm getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I wantsome reading--some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorgingLord-Mayor's-Show of wollumes' (probably meaning gorgeous, but misledby association of ideas); 'as'll reach right down your pint of view, andtake time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By, ' tappinghim on the breast with the head of his thick stick, 'paying a man trulyqualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it. '

'Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure, ' said Wegg, beginning to regard himselfin quite a new light. 'Hew! This is the offer you mentioned, sir?'

'Yes. Do you like it?'

'I am considering of it, Mr Boffin. '

'I don't, ' said Boffin, in a free-handed manner, 'want to tie a literaryman--WITH a wooden leg--down too tight. A halfpenny an hour shan't partus. The hours are your own to choose, after you've done for the daywith your house here. I live over Maiden-Lane way--out Hollowaydirection--and you've only got to go East-and-by-North when you'vefinished here, and you're there. Twopence halfpenny an hour, ' saidBoffin, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket and getting off thestool to work the sum on the top of it in his own way; 'two long'uns anda short'un--twopence halfpenny; two short'uns is a long'un and two twolong'uns is four long'uns--making five long'uns; six nights a week atfive long'uns a night, ' scoring them all down separately, 'and you mountup to thirty long'uns. A round'un! Half a crown!'

Pointing to this result as a large and satisfactory one, Mr Boffinsmeared it out with his moistened glove, and sat down on the remains. 

'Half a crown, ' said Wegg, meditating. 'Yes. (It ain't much, sir. ) Halfa crown. '

'Per week, you know. '

'Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the intellect now. Wasyou thinking at all of poetry?' Mr Wegg inquired, musing. 

'Would it come dearer?' Mr Boffin asked. 

'It would come dearer, ' Mr Wegg returned. 'For when a person comes togrind off poetry night after night, it is but right he should expect tobe paid for its weakening effect on his mind. '

'To tell you the truth Wegg, ' said Boffin, 'I wasn't thinking of poetry, except in so fur as this:--If you was to happen now and then to feelyourself in the mind to tip me and Mrs Boffin one of your ballads, whythen we should drop into poetry. '

'I follow you, sir, ' said Wegg. 'But not being a regular musicalprofessional, I should be loath to engage myself for that; and thereforewhen I dropped into poetry, I should ask to be considered so fur, in thelight of a friend. '

At this, Mr Boffin's eyes sparkled, and he shook Silas earnestly by thehand: protesting that it was more than he could have asked, and that hetook it very kindly indeed. 

'What do you think of the terms, Wegg?' Mr Boffin then demanded, withunconcealed anxiety. 

Silas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his hard reserve of manner, and who had begun to understand his man very well, replied with an air;as if he were saying something extraordinarily generous and great:

'Mr Boffin, I never bargain. '

'So I should have thought of you!' said Mr Boffin, admiringly. 'No, sir. I never did 'aggle and I never will 'aggle. Consequently I meet you atonce, free and fair, with--Done, for double the money!'

Mr Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented, with the remark, 'You know better what it ought to be than I do, Wegg, 'and again shook hands with him upon it. 

'Could you begin to night, Wegg?' he then demanded. 

'Yes, sir, ' said Mr Wegg, careful to leave all the eagerness to him. 'I see no difficulty if you wish it. You are provided with the needfulimplement--a book, sir?'

'Bought him at a sale, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Eight wollumes. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place where you leave off. Do you know him?'

'The book's name, sir?' inquired Silas. 

'I thought you might have know'd him without it, ' said MrBoffin slightly disappointed. 'His name isDecline-And-Fall-Off-The-Rooshan-Empire. ' (Mr Boffin went over thesestones slowly and with much caution. )

'Ay indeed!' said Mr Wegg, nodding his head with an air of friendlyrecognition. 

'You know him, Wegg?'

'I haven't been not to say right slap through him, very lately, ' Mr Weggmade answer, 'having been otherways employed, Mr Boffin. But know him?Old familiar declining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Eversince I was not so high as your stick. Ever since my eldest brother leftour cottage to enlist into the army. On which occasion, as the balladthat was made about it describes:

 'Beside that cottage door, Mr Boffin, A girl was on her knees; She held aloft a snowy scarf, Sir, Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the breeze. She breathed a prayer for him, Mr Boffin; A prayer he coold not hear. And my eldest brother lean'd upon his sword, Mr Boffin, And wiped away a tear. '

Much impressed by this family circumstance, and also by the friendlydisposition of Mr Wegg, as exemplified in his so soon dropping intopoetry, Mr Boffin again shook hands with that ligneous sharper, andbesought him to name his hour. Mr Wegg named eight. 

'Where I live, ' said Mr Boffin, 'is called The Bower. Boffin's Bower isthe name Mrs Boffin christened it when we come into it as a property. If you should meet with anybody that don't know it by that name (whichhardly anybody does), when you've got nigh upon about a odd mile, orsay and a quarter if you like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask forHarmony Jail, and you'll be put right. I shall expect you, Wegg, ' saidMr Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder with the greatest enthusiasm, 'most joyfully. I shall have no peace or patience till you come. Printis now opening ahead of me. This night, a literary man--WITH a woodenleg--' he bestowed an admiring look upon that decoration, as if itgreatly enhanced the relish of Mr Wegg's attainments--'will begin tolead me a new life! My fist again, Wegg. Morning, morning, morning!'

Left alone at his stall as the other ambled off, Mr Wegg subsidedinto his screen, produced a small pocket-handkerchief of apenitentially-scrubbing character, and took himself by the nose witha thoughtful aspect. Also, while he still grasped that feature, hedirected several thoughtful looks down the street, after the retiringfigure of Mr Boffin. But, profound gravity sat enthroned on Wegg'scountenance. For, while he considered within himself that this wasan old fellow of rare simplicity, that this was an opportunity tobe improved, and that here might be money to be got beyond presentcalculation, still he compromised himself by no admission that his newengagement was at all out of his way, or involved the least element ofthe ridiculous. Mr Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel withany one who should have challenged his deep acquaintance with thoseaforesaid eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual, portentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt ofhimself but because he perceived it necessary to forestall any doubt ofhimself in others. And herein he ranged with that very numerous classof impostors, who are quite as determined to keep up appearances tothemselves, as to their neighbours. 

A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr Wegg; acondescending sense of being in request as an official expounder ofmysteries. It did not move him to commercial greatness, but rather tolittleness, insomuch that if it had been within the possibilities ofthings for the wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than usual, it wouldhave done so that day. But, when night came, and with her veiled eyesbeheld him stumping towards Boffin's Bower, he was elated too. 

The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond's without the clue. Mr Wegg, having reached the quarter indicated, inquired for the Bowerhalf a dozen times without the least success, until he remembered toask for Harmony Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits of ahoarse gentleman and a donkey, whom he had much perplexed. 

'Why, yer mean Old Harmon's, do yer?' said the hoarse gentleman, who wasdriving his donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a whip. 'Why didn't yerniver say so? Eddard and me is a goin' by HIM! Jump in. '

Mr Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his attention to thethird person in company, thus;

'Now, you look at Eddard's ears. What was it as you named, agin?Whisper. '

Mr Wegg whispered, 'Boffin's Bower. '

'Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Boffin's Bower!'

Edward, with his ears lying back, remained immoveable. 

'Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Old Harmon's. ' Edwardinstantly pricked up his ears to their utmost, and rattled off at sucha pace that Mr Wegg's conversation was jolted out of him in a mostdislocated state. 

'Was-it-Ev-verajail?' asked Mr Wegg, holding on. 

'Not a proper jail, wot you and me would get committed to, ' returnedhis escort; 'they giv' it the name, on accounts of Old Harmon livingsolitary there. '

'And-why-did-they-callitharm-Ony?' asked Wegg. 

'On accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like a speeches ofchaff. Harmon's Jail; Harmony Jail. Working it round like. '

'Doyouknow-Mist-Erboff-in?' asked Wegg. 

'I should think so! Everybody do about here. Eddard knows him. (Keep yerhi on his ears. ) Noddy Boffin, Eddard!'

The effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect of causing atemporary disappearance of Edward's head, casting his hind hoofs in theair, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing the jolting, that MrWegg was fain to devote his attention exclusively to holding on, and torelinquish his desire of ascertaining whether this homage to Boffin wasto be considered complimentary or the reverse. 

Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg discreetly lost no timein slipping out at the back of the truck. The moment he was landed, hislate driver with a wave of the carrot, said 'Supper, Eddard!' and he, the hind hoofs, the truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into the airtogether, in a kind of apotheosis. 

Pushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg looked into an enclosed spacewhere certain tall dark mounds rose high against the sky, and where thepathway to the Bower was indicated, as the moonlight showed, between twolines of broken crockery set in ashes. A white figure advancing alongthis path, proved to be nothing more ghostly than Mr Boffin, easilyattired for the pursuit of knowledge, in an undress garment of shortwhite smock-frock. Having received his literary friend with greatcordiality, he conducted him to the interior of the Bower and therepresented him to Mrs Boffin:--a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerfulaspect, dressed (to Mr Wegg's consternation) in a low evening-dress ofsable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers. 

'Mrs Boffin, Wegg, ' said Boffin, 'is a highflyer at Fashion. And hermake is such, that she does it credit. As to myself I ain't yet asFash'nable as I may come to be. Henerietty, old lady, this is thegentleman that's a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire. '

'And I am sure I hope it'll do you both good, ' said Mrs Boffin. 

It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a luxuriousamateur tap-room than anything else within the ken of Silas Wegg. Therewere two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, witha corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eightvolumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on theother, certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to standon tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblersand a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin. They were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles ofdrawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settlesand the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a flowerycarpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, itsglowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin's footstool, and gaveplace to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg also noticed, withadmiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollowornamentation as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass-shades, there were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, compensatoryshelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of a coldjoint were plainly discernible among other solids. The room itself waslarge, though low; and the heavy frames of its old-fashioned windows, and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, seemed to indicate that ithad once been a house of some mark standing alone in the country. 

'Do you like it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, in his pouncing manner. 

'I admire it greatly, sir, ' said Wegg. 'Peculiar comfort at thisfireside, sir. '

'Do you understand it, Wegg?'

'Why, in a general way, sir, ' Mr Wegg was beginning slowly andknowingly, with his head stuck on one side, as evasive people do begin, when the other cut him short:

'You DON'T understand it, Wegg, and I'll explain it. These arrangementsis made by mutual consent between Mrs Boffin and me. Mrs Boffin, as I'vementioned, is a highflyer at Fashion; at present I'm not. I don't gohigher than comfort, and comfort of the sort that I'm equal to theenjoyment of. Well then. Where would be the good of Mrs Boffin and mequarrelling over it? We never did quarrel, before we come into Boffin'sBower as a property; why quarrel when we HAVE come into Boffin's Boweras a property? So Mrs Boffin, she keeps up her part of the room, in herway; I keep up my part of the room in mine. In consequence of whichwe have at once, Sociability (I should go melancholy mad without MrsBoffin), Fashion, and Comfort. If I get by degrees to be a higher-flyerat Fashion, then Mrs Boffin will by degrees come for'arder. If MrsBoffin should ever be less of a dab at Fashion than she is at thepresent time, then Mrs Boffin's carpet would go back'arder. If we shouldboth continny as we are, why then HERE we are, and give us a kiss, oldlady. '

Mrs Boffin who, perpetually smiling, had approached and drawn her plumparm through her lord's, most willingly complied. Fashion, in the formof her black velvet hat and feathers, tried to prevent it; but gotdeservedly crushed in the endeavour. 

'So now, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin, wiping his mouth with an air of muchrefreshment, 'you begin to know us as we are. This is a charming spot, is the Bower, but you must get to apprechiate it by degrees. It's a spotto find out the merits of; little by little, and a new'un every day. There's a serpentining walk up each of the mounds, that gives you theyard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When you get to the top, there's a view of the neighbouring premises, not to be surpassed. Thepremises of Mrs Boffin's late father (Canine Provision Trade), you lookdown into, as if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound iscrowned with a lattice-work Arbour, in which, if you don't read out loudmany a book in the summer, ay, and as a friend, drop many a time intopoetry too, it shan't be my fault. Now, what'll you read on?'

'Thank you, sir, ' returned Wegg, as if there were nothing new in hisreading at all. 'I generally do it on gin and water. '

'Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, with innocenteagerness. 

'N-no, sir, ' replied Wegg, coolly, 'I should hardly describe it so, sir. I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should employ, MrBoffin. '

His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delightedexpectation of his victim. The visions rising before his mercenary mind, of the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account, never obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man, that he must not make himself too cheap. 

Mrs Boffin's Fashion, as a less inexorable deity than the idol usuallyworshipped under that name, did not forbid her mixing for her literaryguest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. On his returninga gracious answer and taking his place at the literary settle, Mr Boffinbegan to compose himself as a listener, at the opposite settle, withexultant eyes. 

'Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg, ' he said, filling his own, 'butyou can't do both together. Oh! and another thing I forgot to name! Whenyou come in here of an evening, and look round you, and notice anythingon a shelf that happens to catch your fancy, mention it. '

Wegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, immediately laid themdown, with the sprightly observation:

'You read my thoughts, sir. DO my eyes deceive me, or is that object upthere a--a pie? It can't be a pie. '

'Yes, it's a pie, Wegg, ' replied Mr Boffin, with a glance of some littlediscomfiture at the Decline and Fall. 

'HAVE I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?' askedWegg. 

'It's a veal and ham pie, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that isa better pie than a weal and hammer, ' said Mr Wegg, nodding his heademotionally. 

'Have some, Wegg?'

'Thank you, Mr Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I wouldn'tat any other party's, at the present juncture; but at yours, sir!--Andmeaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case wherethere's ham, is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ. 'Mr Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality. 

So, the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr Boffin exercised hispatience until Wegg, in the exercise of his knife and fork, had finishedthe dish: only profiting by the opportunity to inform Wegg that althoughit was not strictly Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thusexposed to view, he (Mr Boffin) considered it hospitable; for thereason, that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, toa visitor, 'There are such and such edibles down stairs; will you haveanything up?' you took the bold practical course of saying, 'Cast youreye along the shelves, and, if you see anything you like there, have itdown. '

And now, Mr Wegg at length pushed away his plate and put on hisspectacles, and Mr Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with beamingeyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs Boffin reclined in afashionable manner on her sofa: as one who would be part of the audienceif she found she could, and would go to sleep if she found she couldn't. 

'Hem!' began Wegg, 'This, Mr Boffin and Lady, is the first chapter ofthe first wollume of the Decline and Fall off--' here he looked hard atthe book, and stopped. 

'What's the matter, Wegg?'

'Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir, ' said Wegg with an airof insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard at the book), 'that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to setyou right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you saidRooshan Empire, sir?'

'It is Rooshan; ain't it, Wegg?'

'No, sir. Roman. Roman. '

'What's the difference, Wegg?'

'The difference, sir?' Mr Wegg was faltering and in danger of breakingdown, when a bright thought flashed upon him. 'The difference, sir?There you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe, that the difference is best postponed to some other occasion when MrsBoffin does not honour us with her company. In Mrs Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it. '

Mr Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chivalrous air, and not only that, but by dint of repeating with a manly delicacy, 'In Mrs Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it!' turned thedisadvantage on Boffin, who felt that he had committed himself in a verypainful manner. 

Then, Mr Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task; goingstraight across country at everything that came before him; taking allthe hard words, biographical and geographical; getting rather shaken byHadrian, Trajan, and the Antonines; stumbling at Polybius (pronouncedPolly Beeious, and supposed by Mr Boffin to be a Roman virgin, and byMrs Boffin to be responsible for that necessity of dropping it); heavilyunseated by Titus Antoninus Pius; up again and galloping smoothly withAugustus; finally, getting over the ground well with Commodus: who, under the appellation of Commodious, was held by Mr Boffin to have beenquite unworthy of his English origin, and 'not to have acted up to hisname' in his government of the Roman people. With the death of thispersonage, Mr Wegg terminated his first reading; long before whichconsummation several total eclipses of Mrs Boffin's candle behindher black velvet disc, would have been very alarming, but for beingregularly accompanied by a potent smell of burnt pens when her featherstook fire, which acted as a restorative and woke her. Mr Wegg, havingread on by rote and attached as few ideas as possible to the text, cameout of the encounter fresh; but, Mr Boffin, who had soon laid down hisunfinished pipe, and had ever since sat intently staring with his eyesand mind at the confounding enormities of the Romans, was so severelypunished that he could hardly wish his literary friend Good-night, andarticulate 'Tomorrow. '

'Commodious, ' gasped Mr Boffin, staring at the moon, after lettingWegg out at the gate and fastening it: 'Commodious fights in thatwild-beast-show, seven hundred and thirty-five times, in one characteronly! As if that wasn't stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned intothe same wild-beast-show all at once! As if that wasn't stunning enough, Commodious, in another character, kills 'em all off in a hundred goes!As if that wasn't stunning enough, Vittle-us (and well named too) eatssix millions' worth, English money, in seven months! Wegg takes it easy, but upon-my-soul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And evennow that Commodious is strangled, I don't see a way to our betteringourselves. ' Mr Boffin added as he turned his pensive steps towards theBower and shook his head, 'I didn't think this morning there was half somany Scarers in Print. But I'm in for it now!'

Chapter 6

CUT ADRIFT

The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, already mentioned as a tavern ofa dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of haleinfirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, andhardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yetoutlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. Externally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windowsheaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the wholehouse, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impendedover the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of afaint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he willnever go in at all. 

This description applies to the river-frontage of the Six JollyFellowship Porters. The back of the establishment, though the chiefentrance was there, so contracted that it merely represented in itsconnexion with the front, the handle of a flat iron set upright on itsbroadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of a wilderness of courtand alley: which wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the Six JollyFellowship Porters as to leave the hostelry not an inch of ground beyondits door. For this reason, in combination with the fact that the housewas all but afloat at high water, when the Porters had a family wash thelinen subjected to that operation might usually be seen drying on linesstretched across the reception-rooms and bed-chambers. 

The wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions, floors anddoors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, seemed in its old agefraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places it hadbecome gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knotsstarted out of it; and here and there it seemed to twist itself intosome likeness of boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had anair of being in its own way garrulous about its early life. Not withoutreason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the Porters, that when the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, andparticularly upon an old corner cupboard of walnut-wood in the bar, youmight trace little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree, in full umbrageous leaf. 

The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a bar to soften thehuman breast. The available space in it was not much larger than ahackney-coach; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, that spacewas so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial-bottlesradiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, andby biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made lowbows when customers were served with beer, and by the cheese in a snugcorner, and by the landlady's own small table in a snugger corner nearthe fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. This haven was divided fromthe rough world by a glass partition and a half-door, with a leadensill upon it for the convenience of resting your liquor; but, over thishalf-door the bar's snugness so gushed forth that, albeit customersdrank there standing, in a dark and draughty passage where they wereshouldered by other customers passing in and out, they always appearedto drink under an enchanting delusion that they were in the bar itself. 

For the rest, both the tap and parlour of the Six Jolly FellowshipPorters gave upon the river, and had red curtains matching the noses ofthe regular customers, and were provided with comfortable fireside tinutensils, like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in that shape that theymight, with their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooksin the depths of the red coals, when they mulled your ale, or heated foryou those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog's Nose. The first ofthese humming compounds was a speciality of the Porters, which, throughan inscription on its door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as, 'The Early Purl House'. For, it would seem that Purl must always betaken early; though whether for any more distinctly stomachic reasonthan that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catchesthe customer, cannot here be resolved. It only remains to add that inthe handle of the flat iron, and opposite the bar, was a very littleroom like a three-cornered hat, into which no direct ray of sun, moon, or star, ever penetrated, but which was superstitiously regarded as asanctuary replete with comfort and retirement by gaslight, and on thedoor of which was therefore painted its alluring name: Cosy. 

Miss Potterson, sole proprietor and manager of the Fellowship Porters, reigned supreme on her throne, the Bar, and a man must have drunkhimself mad drunk indeed if he thought he could contest a point withher. Being known on her own authority as Miss Abbey Potterson, somewater-side heads, which (like the water) were none of the clearest, harboured muddled notions that, because of her dignity and firmness, shewas named after, or in some sort related to, the Abbey at Westminster. But, Abbey was only short for Abigail, by which name Miss Potterson hadbeen christened at Limehouse Church, some sixty and odd years before. 

'Now, you mind, you Riderhood, ' said Miss Abbey Potterson, with emphaticforefinger over the half-door, 'the Fellowship don't want you at all, and would rather by far have your room than your company; but if youwere as welcome here as you are not, you shouldn't even then haveanother drop of drink here this night, after this present pint of beer. So make the most of it. '

'But you know, Miss Potterson, ' this was suggested very meekly though, 'if I behave myself, you can't help serving me, miss. '

'CAN'T I!' said Abbey, with infinite expression. 

'No, Miss Potterson; because, you see, the law--'

'I am the law here, my man, ' returned Miss Abbey, 'and I'll soonconvince you of that, if you doubt it at all. '

'I never said I did doubt it at all, Miss Abbey. '

'So much the better for you. '

Abbey the supreme threw the customer's halfpence into the till, and, seating herself in her fireside-chair, resumed the newspaper she hadbeen reading. She was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, thoughsevere of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress thanmistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The man on the other sideof the half-door, was a waterside-man with a squinting leer, and he eyedher as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace. 

'You're cruel hard upon me, Miss Potterson. '

Miss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, and took nonotice until he whispered:

'Miss Potterson! Ma'am! Might I have half a word with you?'

Deigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the suppliant, MissPotterson beheld him knuckling his low forehead, and ducking at her withhis head, as if he were asking leave to fling himself head foremost overthe half-door and alight on his feet in the bar. 

'Well?' said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as she herself waslong, 'say your half word. Bring it out. '

'Miss Potterson! Ma'am! Would you 'sxcuse me taking the liberty ofasking, is it my character that you take objections to?'

'Certainly, ' said Miss Potterson. 

'Is it that you're afraid of--'

'I am not afraid OF YOU, ' interposed Miss Potterson, 'if you mean that. '

'But I humbly don't mean that, Miss Abbey. '

'Then what do you mean?'

'You really are so cruel hard upon me! What I was going to makeinquiries was no more than, might you have any apprehensions--leastwaysbeliefs or suppositions--that the company's property mightn't bealtogether to be considered safe, if I used the house too regular?'

'What do you want to know for?'

'Well, Miss Abbey, respectfully meaning no offence to you, it wouldbe some satisfaction to a man's mind, to understand why the FellowshipPorters is not to be free to such as me, and is to be free to such asGaffer. '

The face of the hostess darkened with some shadow of perplexity, as shereplied: 'Gaffer has never been where you have been. '

'Signifying in Quod, Miss? Perhaps not. But he may have merited it. Hemay be suspected of far worse than ever I was. '

'Who suspects him?'

'Many, perhaps. One, beyond all doubts. I do. '

'YOU are not much, ' said Miss Abbey Potterson, knitting her brows againwith disdain. 

'But I was his pardner. Mind you, Miss Abbey, I was his pardner. Assuch I know more of the ins and outs of him than any person living does. Notice this! I am the man that was his pardner, and I am the man thatsuspects him. '

'Then, ' suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of perplexitythan before, 'you criminate yourself. '

'No I don't, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand? It stands this way. WhenI was his pardner, I couldn't never give him satisfaction. Why couldn'tI never give him satisfaction? Because my luck was bad; because Icouldn't find many enough of 'em. How was his luck? Always good. Noticethis! Always good! Ah! There's a many games, Miss Abbey, in whichthere's chance, but there's a many others in which there's skill too, mixed along with it. '

'That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, man?'asked Miss Abbey. 

'A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps, ' said Riderhood, shakinghis evil head. 

Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. 'Ifyou're out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and if you want tofind a man or woman in the river, you'll greatly help your luck, MissAbbey, by knocking a man or woman on the head aforehand and pitching 'emin. '

'Gracious Lud!' was the involuntary exclamation of Miss Potterson. 

'Mind you!' returned the other, stretching forward over the half doorto throw his words into the bar; for his voice was as if the head of hisboat's mop were down his throat; 'I say so, Miss Abbey! And mind you!I'll follow him up, Miss Abbey! And mind you! I'll bring him to hook atlast, if it's twenty year hence, I will! Who's he, to be favoured alongof his daughter? Ain't I got a daughter of my own!'

With that flourish, and seeming to have talked himself rather more drunkand much more ferocious than he had begun by being, Mr Riderhood took uphis pint pot and swaggered off to the taproom. 

Gaffer was not there, but a pretty strong muster of Miss Abbey's pupilswere, who exhibited, when occasion required, the greatest docility. Onthe clock's striking ten, and Miss Abbey's appearing at the door, andaddressing a certain person in a faded scarlet jacket, with 'GeorgeJones, your time's up! I told your wife you should be punctual, 'Jones submissively rose, gave the company good-night, and retired. Athalf-past ten, on Miss Abbey's looking in again, and saying, 'WilliamWilliams, Bob Glamour, and Jonathan, you are all due, ' Williams, Bob, and Jonathan with similar meekness took their leave and evaporated. Greater wonder than these, when a bottle-nosed person in a glazed hathad after some considerable hesitation ordered another glass of gin andwater of the attendant potboy, and when Miss Abbey, instead of sendingit, appeared in person, saying, 'Captain Joey, you have had as much aswill do you good, ' not only did the captain feebly rub his knees andcontemplate the fire without offering a word of protest, but the restof the company murmured, 'Ay, ay, Captain! Miss Abbey's right; yoube guided by Miss Abbey, Captain. ' Nor, was Miss Abbey's vigilance inanywise abated by this submission, but rather sharpened; for, lookinground on the deferential faces of her school, and descrying two otheryoung persons in need of admonition, she thus bestowed it: 'Tom Tootle, it's time for a young fellow who's going to be married next month, tobe at home and asleep. And you needn't nudge him, Mr Jack Mullins, forI know your work begins early tomorrow, and I say the same to you. So come! Good-night, like good lads!' Upon which, the blushing Tootlelooked to Mullins, and the blushing Mullins looked to Tootle, on thequestion who should rise first, and finally both rose together and wentout on the broad grin, followed by Miss Abbey; in whose presence thecompany did not take the liberty of grinning likewise. 

In such an establishment, the white-aproned pot-boy with hisshirt-sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, was a merehint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a matter ofstate and form. Exactly at the closing hour, all the guests who wereleft, filed out in the best order: Miss Abbey standing at the half doorof the bar, to hold a ceremony of review and dismissal. All wishedMiss Abbey good-night and Miss Abbey wished good-night to all, exceptRiderhood. The sapient pot-boy, looking on officially, then had theconviction borne in upon his soul, that the man was evermore outcast andexcommunicate from the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. 

'You Bob Gliddery, ' said Miss Abbey to this pot-boy, 'run round toHexam's and tell his daughter Lizzie that I want to speak to her. '

With exemplary swiftness Bob Gliddery departed, and returned. Lizzie, following him, arrived as one of the two female domestics of theFellowship Porters arranged on the snug little table by the bar fire, Miss Potterson's supper of hot sausages and mashed potatoes. 

'Come in and sit ye down, girl, ' said Miss Abbey. 'Can you eat a bit?'

'No thank you, Miss. I have had my supper. '

'I have had mine too, I think, ' said Miss Abbey, pushing away theuntasted dish, 'and more than enough of it. I am put out, Lizzie. '

'I am very sorry for it, Miss. '

'Then why, in the name of Goodness, ' quoth Miss Abbey, sharply, 'do youdo it?'

'I do it, Miss!'

'There, there. Don't look astonished. I ought to have begun with a wordof explanation, but it's my way to make short cuts at things. I alwayswas a pepperer. You Bob Gliddery there, put the chain upon the door andget ye down to your supper. '

With an alacrity that seemed no less referable to the pepperer factthan to the supper fact, Bob obeyed, and his boots were heard descendingtowards the bed of the river. 

'Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam, ' then began Miss Potterson, 'how often haveI held out to you the opportunity of getting clear of your father, anddoing well?'

'Very often, Miss. '

'Very often? Yes! And I might as well have spoken to the iron funnel ofthe strongest sea-going steamer that passes the Fellowship Porters. '

'No, Miss, ' Lizzie pleaded; 'because that would not be thankful, and Iam. '

'I vow and declare I am half ashamed of myself for taking such aninterest in you, ' said Miss Abbey, pettishly, 'for I don't believe Ishould do it if you were not good-looking. Why ain't you ugly?'

Lizzie merely answered this difficult question with an apologeticglance. 

'However, you ain't, ' resumed Miss Potterson, 'so it's no use going intothat. I must take you as I find you. Which indeed is what I've done. Andyou mean to say you are still obstinate?'

'Not obstinate, Miss, I hope. '

'Firm (I suppose you call it) then?'

'Yes, Miss. Fixed like. '

'Never was an obstinate person yet, who would own to the word!' remarkedMiss Potterson, rubbing her vexed nose; 'I'm sure I would, if I wasobstinate; but I am a pepperer, which is different. Lizzie Hexam, LizzieHexam, think again. Do you know the worst of your father?'

'Do I know the worst of father!' she repeated, opening her eyes. 'Do youknow the suspicions to which your father makes himself liable? Do youknow the suspicions that are actually about, against him?'

The consciousness of what he habitually did, oppressed the girl heavily, and she slowly cast down her eyes. 

'Say, Lizzie. Do you know?' urged Miss Abbey. 

'Please to tell me what the suspicions are, Miss, ' she asked after asilence, with her eyes upon the ground. 

'It's not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. It isthought by some, then, that your father helps to their death a few ofthose that he finds dead. '

The relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false suspicion, in placeof the expected real and true one, so lightened Lizzie's breast for themoment, that Miss Abbey was amazed at her demeanour. She raised her eyesquickly, shook her head, and, in a kind of triumph, almost laughed. 

'They little know father who talk like that!'

('She takes it, ' thought Miss Abbey, 'very quietly. She takes it withextraordinary quietness!')

'And perhaps, ' said Lizzie, as a recollection flashed upon her, 'it issome one who has a grudge against father; some one who has threatenedfather! Is it Riderhood, Miss?'

'Well; yes it is. '

'Yes! He was father's partner, and father broke with him, and now herevenges himself. Father broke with him when I was by, and he was veryangry at it. And besides, Miss Abbey!--Will you never, without strongreason, let pass your lips what I am going to say?'

She bent forward to say it in a whisper. 

'I promise, ' said Miss Abbey. 

'It was on the night when the Harmon murder was found out, throughfather, just above bridge. And just below bridge, as we were scullinghome, Riderhood crept out of the dark in his boat. And many and manytimes afterwards, when such great pains were taken to come to the bottomof the crime, and it never could be come near, I thought in my ownthoughts, could Riderhood himself have done the murder, and did hepurposely let father find the body? It seemed a'most wicked and cruelto so much as think such a thing; but now that he tries to throw it uponfather, I go back to it as if it was a truth. Can it be a truth? Thatwas put into my mind by the dead?'

She asked this question, rather of the fire than of the hostess of theFellowship Porters, and looked round the little bar with troubled eyes. 

But, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed to bring herpupils to book, set the matter in a light that was essentially of thisworld. 

'You poor deluded girl, ' she said, 'don't you see that you can't openyour mind to particular suspicions of one of the two, without openingyour mind to general suspicions of the other? They had worked together. Their goings-on had been going on for some time. Even granting that itwas as you have had in your thoughts, what the two had done togetherwould come familiar to the mind of one. '

'You don't know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed, you don't know father. '

'Lizzie, Lizzie, ' said Miss Potterson. 'Leave him. You needn't breakwith him altogether, but leave him. Do well away from him; not becauseof what I have told you to-night--we'll pass no judgment upon that, and we'll hope it may not be--but because of what I have urged on youbefore. No matter whether it's owing to your good looks or not, I likeyou and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don'tfling yourself away, my girl, but be persuaded into being respectableand happy. '

In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty, Miss Abbeyhad softened into a soothing tone, and had even drawn her arm round thegirl's waist. But, she only replied, 'Thank you, thank you! I can't. Iwon't. I must not think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the morehe needs me to lean on. '

And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do soften, felt that there was considerable compensation owing to her, underwentreaction and became frigid. 

'I have done what I can, ' she said, 'and you must go your way. You makeyour bed, and you must lie on it. But tell your father one thing: hemust not come here any more. 

'Oh, Miss, will you forbid him the house where I know he's safe?'

'The Fellowships, ' returned Miss Abbey, 'has itself to look to, as wellas others. It has been hard work to establish order here, and make theFellowships what it is, and it is daily and nightly hard work to keep itso. The Fellowships must not have a taint upon it that may give it a badname. I forbid the house to Riderhood, and I forbid the house to Gaffer. I forbid both, equally. I find from Riderhood and you together, thatthere are suspicions against both men, and I'm not going to take uponmyself to decide betwixt them. They are both tarred with a dirty brush, and I can't have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush. That's allI know. '

'Good-night, Miss!' said Lizzie Hexam, sorrowfully. 

'Hah!--Good-night!' returned Miss Abbey with a shake of her head. 

'Believe me, Miss Abbey, I am truly grateful all the same. '

'I can believe a good deal, ' returned the stately Abbey, 'so I'll try tobelieve that too, Lizzie. '

No supper did Miss Potterson take that night, and only half her usualtumbler of hot Port Negus. And the female domestics--two robust sisters, with staring black eyes, shining flat red faces, blunt noses, and strongblack curls, like dolls--interchanged the sentiment that Missis had hadher hair combed the wrong way by somebody. And the pot-boy afterwardsremarked, that he hadn't been 'so rattled to bed', since his late motherhad systematically accelerated his retirement to rest with a poker. 

The chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, disenchantedLizzie Hexam of that first relief she had felt. The night was black andshrill, the river-side wilderness was melancholy, and there was a soundof casting-out, in the rattling of the iron-links, and the grating ofthe bolts and staples under Miss Abbey's hand. As she came beneaththe lowering sky, a sense of being involved in a murky shade of Murderdropped upon her; and, as the tidal swell of the river broke at her feetwithout her seeing how it gathered, so, her thoughts startled her byrushing out of an unseen void and striking at her heart. 

Of her father's being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure. And yet, repeat the word inwardly as often as she would, the attempt toreason out and prove that she was sure, always came after it and failed. Riderhood had done the deed, and entrapped her father. Riderhood hadnot done the deed, but had resolved in his malice to turn against herfather, the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort. Equallyand swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed the frightfulpossibility that her father, being innocent, yet might come to bebelieved guilty. She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshedof which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill-fated personswere not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood. Thenat the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against, and avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very night. And asthe great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to her viewin the gloom, so, she stood on the river's brink unable to see into thevast blank misery of a life suspected, and fallen away from by good andbad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching away tothe great ocean, Death. 

One thing only, was clear to the girl's mind. Accustomed from her verybabyhood promptly to do the thing that could be done--whether to keepout weather, to ward off cold, to postpone hunger, or what not--shestarted out of her meditation, and ran home. 

The room was quiet, and the lamp burnt on the table. In the bunk in thecorner, her brother lay asleep. She bent over him softly, kissed him, and came to the table. 

'By the time of Miss Abbey's closing, and by the run of the tide, itmust be one. Tide's running up. Father at Chiswick, wouldn't think ofcoming down, till after the turn, and that's at half after four. I'llcall Charley at six. I shall hear the church-clocks strike, as I sithere. '

Very quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and sat down init, drawing her shawl about her. 

'Charley's hollow down by the flare is not there now. Poor Charley!'

The clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the clock struckfour, and she remained there, with a woman's patience and her ownpurpose. When the morning was well on between four and five, she slippedoff her shoes (that her going about, might not wake Charley), trimmedthe fire sparingly, put water on to boil, and set the table forbreakfast. Then she went up the ladder, lamp in hand, and came downagain, and glided about and about, making a little bundle. Lastly, fromher pocket, and from the chimney-piece, and from an inverted basinon the highest shelf she brought halfpence, a few sixpences, fewershillings, and fell to laboriously and noiselessly counting them, andsetting aside one little heap. She was still so engaged, when she wasstartled by:

'Hal-loa!' From her brother, sitting up in bed. 

'You made me jump, Charley. '

'Jump! Didn't you make ME jump, when I opened my eyes a moment ago, andsaw you sitting there, like the ghost of a girl miser, in the dead ofthe night. '

'It's not the dead of the night, Charley. It's nigh six in the morning. '

'Is it though? But what are you up to, Liz?'

'Still telling your fortune, Charley. '

'It seems to be a precious small one, if that's it, ' said the boy. 'Whatare you putting that little pile of money by itself for?'

'For you, Charley. '

'What do you mean?'

'Get out of bed, Charley, and get washed and dressed, and then I'll tellyou. '

Her composed manner, and her low distinct voice, always had an influenceover him. His head was soon in a basin of water, and out of it again, and staring at her through a storm of towelling. 

'I never, ' towelling at himself as if he were his bitterest enemy, 'sawsuch a girl as you are. What IS the move, Liz?'

'Are you almost ready for breakfast, Charley?'

'You can pour it out. Hal-loa! I say? And a bundle?'

'And a bundle, Charley. '

'You don't mean it's for me, too?'

'Yes, Charley; I do; indeed. '

More serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had been, theboy completed his dressing, and came and sat down at the littlebreakfast-table, with his eyes amazedly directed to her face. 

'You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that this is the righttime for your going away from us. Over and above all the blessed changeof by-and-bye, you'll be much happier, and do much better, even so soonas next month. Even so soon as next week. '

'How do you know I shall?'

'I don't quite know how, Charley, but I do. ' In spite of her unchangedmanner of speaking, and her unchanged appearance of composure, shescarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept her eyes employed onthe cutting and buttering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea, and other such little preparations. 'You must leave father to me, Charley--I will do what I can with him--but you must go. '

'You don't stand upon ceremony, I think, ' grumbled the boy, throwing hisbread and butter about, in an ill-humour. 

She made him no answer. 

'I tell you what, ' said the boy, then, bursting out into an angrywhimpering, 'you're a selfish jade, and you think there's not enough forthree of us, and you want to get rid of me. '

'If you believe so, Charley, --yes, then I believe too, that I am aselfish jade, and that I think there's not enough for three of us, andthat I want to get rid of you. '

It was only when the boy rushed at her, and threw his arms round herneck, that she lost her self-restraint. But she lost it then, and weptover him. 

'Don't cry, don't cry! I am satisfied to go, Liz; I am satisfied to go. I know you send me away for my good. '

'O, Charley, Charley, Heaven above us knows I do!'

'Yes yes. Don't mind what I said. Don't remember it. Kiss me. '

After a silence, she loosed him, to dry her eyes and regain her strongquiet influence. 

'Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be done, and I aloneknow there is good reason for its being done at once. Go straight to theschool, and say that you and I agreed upon it--that we can't overcomefather's opposition--that father will never trouble them, but will nevertake you back. You are a credit to the school, and you will be a greatercredit to it yet, and they will help you to get a living. Show whatclothes you have brought, and what money, and say that I will send somemore money. If I can get some in no other way, I will ask a little helpof those two gentlemen who came here that night. '

'I say!' cried her brother, quickly. 'Don't you have it of that chapthat took hold of me by the chin! Don't you have it of that Wrayburnone!'

Perhaps a slight additional tinge of red flushed up into her face andbrow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon his lips to keep him silentlyattentive. 

'And above all things mind this, Charley! Be sure you always speak wellof father. Be sure you always give father his full due. You can't denythat because father has no learning himself he is set against it inyou; but favour nothing else against him, and be sure you say--as youknow--that your sister is devoted to him. And if you should ever happento hear anything said against father that is new to you, it will not betrue. Remember, Charley! It will not be true. '

The boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but she went onagain without heeding it. 

'Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have nothing more tosay, Charley dear, except, be good, and get learning, and only think ofsome things in the old life here, as if you had dreamed them in a dreamlast night. Good-bye, my Darling!'

Though so young, she infused in these parting words a love that was farmore like a mother's than a sister's, and before which the boy was quitebowed down. After holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, hetook up his bundle and darted out at the door, with an arm across hiseyes. 

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in afrosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to blacksubstances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind darkmasts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set onfire. Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon thecauseway that he might see her. 

He had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. A knot of thoseamphibious human-creatures who appear to have some mysterious powerof extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, weregathered together about the causeway. As her father's boat grounded, they became contemplative of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She sawthat the mute avoidance had begun. 

Gaffer saw it, too, in so far as that he was moved when he set foot onshore, to stare around him. But, he promptly set to work to haul up hisboat, and make her fast, and take the sculls and rudder and rope out ofher. Carrying these with Lizzie's aid, he passed up to his dwelling. 

'Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your breakfast. It's all ready for cooking, and only been waiting for you. You must befrozen. '

'Well, Lizzie, I ain't of a glow; that's certain. And my hands seemnailed through to the sculls. See how dead they are!' Somethingsuggestive in their colour, and perhaps in her face, struck him as heheld them up; he turned his shoulder and held them down to the fire. 

'You were not out in the perishing night, I hope, father?'

'No, my dear. Lay aboard a barge, by a blazing coal-fire. --Where's thatboy?'

'There's a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you'll put it inwhile I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to get frozen, therewould be a deal of distress; wouldn't there, father?'

'Ah! there's always enough of that, ' said Gaffer, dropping the liquorinto his cup from a squat black bottle, and dropping it slowly that itmight seem more; 'distress is for ever a going about, like sut in theair--Ain't that boy up yet?'

'The meat's ready now, father. Eat it while it's hot and comfortable. After you have finished, we'll turn round to the fire and talk. '

But, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown a hasty angryglance towards the bunk, plucked at a corner of her apron and asked:

'What's gone with that boy?'

'Father, if you'll begin your breakfast, I'll sit by and tell you. ' Helooked at her, stirred his tea and took two or three gulps, then cut athis piece of hot steak with his case-knife, and said, eating:

'Now then. What's gone with that boy?'

'Don't be angry, dear. It seems, father, that he has quite a gift oflearning. '

'Unnat'ral young beggar!' said the parent, shaking his knife in the air. 

'And that having this gift, and not being equally good at other things, he has made shift to get some schooling. '

'Unnat'ral young beggar!' said the parent again, with his former action. 

'--And that knowing you have nothing to spare, father, and not wishingto be a burden on you, he gradually made up his mind to go seek hisfortune out of learning. He went away this morning, father, and he criedvery much at going, and he hoped you would forgive him. '

'Let him never come a nigh me to ask me my forgiveness, ' said thefather, again emphasizing his words with the knife. 'Let him never comewithin sight of my eyes, nor yet within reach of my arm. His own fatherain't good enough for him. He's disowned his own father. His own fathertherefore, disowns him for ever and ever, as a unnat'ral young beggar. '

He had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of a strong roughman in anger, to do something forcible, he now clutched his knifeoverhand, and struck downward with it at the end of every succeedingsentence. As he would have struck with his own clenched fist if therehad chanced to be nothing in it. 

'He's welcome to go. He's more welcome to go than to stay. But let himnever come back. Let him never put his head inside that door. And letyou never speak a word more in his favour, or you'll disown your ownfather, likewise, and what your father says of him he'll have to come tosay of you. Now I see why them men yonder held aloof from me. They saysto one another, "Here comes the man as ain't good enough for his ownson!" Lizzie--!'

But, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw her, with a facequite strange to him, shrinking back against the wall, with her handsbefore her eyes. 

'Father, don't! I can't bear to see you striking with it. Put it down!'

He looked at the knife; but in his astonishment still held it. 

'Father, it's too horrible. O put it down, put it down!'

Confounded by her appearance and exclamation, he tossed it away, andstood up with his open hands held out before him. 

'What's come to you, Liz? Can you think I would strike at you with aknife?'

'No, father, no; you would never hurt me. '

'What should I hurt?'

'Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in my heart and soulI am certain, nothing! But it was too dreadful to bear; for it looked--'her hands covering her face again, 'O it looked--'

'What did it look like?'

The recollection of his murderous figure, combining with her trial oflast night, and her trial of the morning, caused her to drop at hisfeet, without having answered. 

He had never seen her so before. He raised her with the utmosttenderness, calling her the best of daughters, and 'my poor prettycreetur', and laid her head upon his knee, and tried to restore her. Butfailing, he laid her head gently down again, got a pillow and placed itunder her dark hair, and sought on the table for a spoonful of brandy. There being none left, he hurriedly caught up the empty bottle, and ranout at the door. 

He returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle still empty. He kneeled down by her, took her head on his arm, and moistened her lipswith a little water into which he dipped his fingers: saying, fiercely, as he looked around, now over this shoulder, now over that:

'Have we got a pest in the house? Is there summ'at deadly sticking to myclothes? What's let loose upon us? Who loosed it?'

Chapter 7

MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF

Silas Wegg, being on his road to the Roman Empire, approaches it by wayof Clerkenwell. The time is early in the evening; the weather moist andraw. Mr Wegg finds leisure to make a little circuit, by reason that hefolds his screen early, now that he combines another source of incomewith it, and also that he feels it due to himself to be anxiouslyexpected at the Bower. 'Boffin will get all the eagerer for waiting abit, ' says Silas, screwing up, as he stumps along, first his right eye, and then his left. Which is something superfluous in him, for Nature hasalready screwed both pretty tight. 

'If I get on with him as I expect to get on, ' Silas pursues, stumpingand meditating, 'it wouldn't become me to leave it here. It wouldn't herespectable. ' Animated by this reflection, he stumps faster, and looksa long way before him, as a man with an ambitious project in abeyanceoften will do. 

Aware of a working-jeweller population taking sanctuary about the churchin Clerkenwell, Mr Wegg is conscious of an interest in, and a respectfor, the neighbourhood. But, his sensations in this regard halt as totheir strict morality, as he halts in his gait; for, they suggest thedelights of a coat of invisibility in which to walk off safely with theprecious stones and watch-cases, but stop short of any compunction forthe people who would lose the same. 

Not, however, towards the 'shops' where cunning artificers work inpearls and diamonds and gold and silver, making their hands so rich, that the enriched water in which they wash them is bought for therefiners;--not towards these does Mr Wegg stump, but towards the poorershops of small retail traders in commodities to eat and drink and keepfolks warm, and of Italian frame-makers, and of barbers, and of brokers, and of dealers in dogs and singing-birds. From these, in a narrow anda dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr Wegg selects one darkshop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by amuddle of objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, savethe candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogsfighting a small-sword duel. Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes in atthe dark greasy entry, pushes a little greasy dark reluctant side-door, and follows the door into the little dark greasy shop. It is so darkthat nothing can be made out in it, over a little counter, but anothertallow candle in another old tin candlestick, close to the face of a manstooping low in a chair. 

Mr Wegg nods to the face, 'Good evening. '

The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by atangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with the more ease. For the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over hisyellow linen. His eyes are like the over-tried eyes of an engraver, buthe is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker, but he is not that. 

'Good evening, Mr Venus. Don't you remember?'

With slowly dawning remembrance, Mr Venus rises, and holds his candleover the little counter, and holds it down towards the legs, natural andartificial, of Mr Wegg. 

'To be SURE!' he says, then. 'How do you do?'

'Wegg, you know, ' that gentleman explains. 

'Yes, yes, ' says the other. 'Hospital amputation?'

'Just so, ' says Mr Wegg. 

'Yes, yes, ' quoth Venus. 'How do you do? Sit down by the fire, and warmyour--your other one. '

'The little counter being so short a counter that it leaves thefireplace, which would have been behind it if it had been longer, accessible, Mr Wegg sits down on a box in front of the fire, and inhalesa warm and comfortable smell which is not the smell of the shop. 'Forthat, ' Mr Wegg inwardly decides, as he takes a corrective sniff or two, 'is musty, leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, gummy, and, ' with anothersniff, 'as it might be, strong of old pairs of bellows. '

'My tea is drawing, and my muffin is on the hob, Mr Wegg; will youpartake?'

It being one of Mr Wegg's guiding rules in life always to partake, hesays he will. But, the little shop is so excessively dark, is stuck sofull of black shelves and brackets and nooks and corners, that he seesMr Venus's cup and saucer only because it is close under the candle, anddoes not see from what mysterious recess Mr Venus produces anotherfor himself until it is under his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives apretty little dead bird lying on the counter, with its head droopingon one side against the rim of Mr Venus's saucer, and a long stiff wirepiercing its breast. As if it were Cock Robin, the hero of the ballad, and Mr Venus were the sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr Wegg werethe fly with his little eye. 

Mr Venus dives, and produces another muffin, yet untoasted; taking thearrow out of the breast of Cock Robin, he proceeds to toast it on theend of that cruel instrument. When it is brown, he dives again andproduces butter, with which he completes his work. 

Mr Wegg, as an artful man who is sure of his supper by-and-bye, pressesmuffin on his host to soothe him into a compliant state of mind, or, asone might say, to grease his works. As the muffins disappear, little bylittle, the black shelves and nooks and corners begin to appear, and MrWegg gradually acquires an imperfect notion that over against him on thechimney-piece is a Hindoo baby in a bottle, curved up with his bighead tucked under him, as he would instantly throw a summersault if thebottle were large enough. 

When he deems Mr Venus's wheels sufficiently lubricated, Mr Weggapproaches his object by asking, as he lightly taps his hands together, to express an undesigning frame of mind:

'And how have I been going on, this long time, Mr Venus?'

'Very bad, ' says Mr Venus, uncompromisingly. 

'What? Am I still at home?' asks Wegg, with an air of surprise. 

'Always at home. '

This would seem to be secretly agreeable to Wegg, but he veils hisfeelings, and observes, 'Strange. To what do you attribute it?'

'I don't know, ' replies Venus, who is a haggard melancholy man, speakingin a weak voice of querulous complaint, 'to what to attribute it, MrWegg. I can't work you into a miscellaneous one, no how. Do what I will, you can't be got to fit. Anybody with a passable knowledge would pickyou out at a look, and say, --"No go! Don't match!"'

'Well, but hang it, Mr Venus, ' Wegg expostulates with some littleirritation, 'that can't be personal and peculiar in ME. It must oftenhappen with miscellaneous ones. '

'With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I prepare amiscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I can't keep to nature, andbe miscellaneous with ribs, because every man has his own ribs, and noother man's will go with them; but elseways I can be miscellaneous. Ihave just sent home a Beauty--a perfect Beauty--to a school of art. Oneleg Belgian, one leg English, and the pickings of eight other people init. Talk of not being qualified to be miscellaneous! By rights you OUGHTto be, Mr Wegg. '

Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and aftera pause sulkily opines 'that it must be the fault of the other people. Or how do you mean to say it comes about?' he demands impatiently. 

'I don't know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light. 'Mr Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These hecompares with Mr Wegg's leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he werebeing measured for a riding-boot. 'No, I don't know how it is, but so itis. You have got a twist in that bone, to the best of my belief. I neversaw the likes of you. '

Mr Wegg having looked distrustfully at his own limb, and suspiciously atthe pattern with which it has been compared, makes the point:

'I'll bet a pound that ain't an English one!'

'An easy wager, when we run so much into foreign! No, it belongs to thatFrench gentleman. '

As he nods towards a point of darkness behind Mr Wegg, the latter, witha slight start, looks round for 'that French gentleman, ' whom he atlength descries to be represented (in a very workmanlike manner) by hisribs only, standing on a shelf in another corner, like a piece of armouror a pair of stays. 

'Oh!' says Mr Wegg, with a sort of sense of being introduced; 'Idare say you were all right enough in your own country, but I hope noobjections will be taken to my saying that the Frenchman was never yetborn as I should wish to match. '

At this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, and a boyfollows it, who says, after having let it slam:

'Come for the stuffed canary. '

'It's three and ninepence, ' returns Venus; 'have you got the money?'

The boy produces four shillings. Mr Venus, always in exceedingly lowspirits and making whimpering sounds, peers about for the stuffedcanary. On his taking the candle to assist his search, Mr Wegg observesthat he has a convenient little shelf near his knees, exclusivelyappropriated to skeleton hands, which have very much the appearance ofwanting to lay hold of him. From these Mr Venus rescues the canary in aglass case, and shows it to the boy. 

'There!' he whimpers. 'There's animation! On a twig, making up his mindto hop! Take care of him; he's a lovely specimen. --And three is four. '

The boy gathers up his change and has pulled the door open by a leatherstrap nailed to it for the purpose, when Venus cries out:

'Stop him! Come back, you young villain! You've got a tooth among themhalfpence. '

'How was I to know I'd got it? You giv it me. I don't want none of yourteeth; I've got enough of my own. ' So the boy pipes, as he selects itfrom his change, and throws it on the counter. 

'Don't sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your youth, ' Mr Venus retortspathetically. ' Don't hit ME because you see I'm down. I'm low enoughwithout that. It dropped into the till, I suppose. They drop intoeverything. There was two in the coffee-pot at breakfast time. Molars. '

'Very well, then, ' argues the boy, 'what do you call names for?'

To which Mr Venus only replies, shaking his shock of dusty hair, andwinking his weak eyes, 'Don't sauce ME, in the wicious pride of youryouth; don't hit ME, because you see I'm down. You've no idea how smallyou'd come out, if I had the articulating of you. '

This consideration seems to have its effect on the boy, for he goes outgrumbling. 

'Oh dear me, dear me!' sighs Mr Venus, heavily, snuffing the candle, 'the world that appeared so flowery has ceased to blow! You're castingyour eye round the shop, Mr Wegg. Let me show you a light. My workingbench. My young man's bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation. The mouldy ones a-top. What's in those hampers over them again, I don'tquite remember. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated English baby. Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. Dried cuticle, warious. Oh, dear me! That's the general panoramic view. '

Having so held and waved the candle as that all these heterogeneousobjects seemed to come forward obediently when they were named, andthen retire again, Mr Venus despondently repeats, 'Oh dear me, dearme!' resumes his seat, and with drooping despondency upon him, falls topouring himself out more tea. 

'Where am I?' asks Mr Wegg. 

'You're somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; and speakingquite candidly, I wish I'd never bought you of the Hospital Porter. '

'Now, look here, what did you give for me?'

'Well, ' replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face peering outof the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the oldoriginal rise in his family: 'you were one of a warious lot, and I don'tknow. '

Silas puts his point in the improved form of 'What will you take forme?'

'Well, ' replies Venus, still blowing his tea, 'I'm not prepared, at amoment's notice, to tell you, Mr Wegg. '

'Come! According to your own account I'm not worth much, ' Wegg reasonspersuasively. 

'Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr Wegg; but you mightturn out valuable yet, as a--' here Mr Venus takes a gulp of tea, sohot that it makes him choke, and sets his weak eyes watering; 'as aMonstrosity, if you'll excuse me. '

Repressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a dispositionto excuse him, Silas pursues his point. 

'I think you know me, Mr Venus, and I think you know I never bargain. '

Mr Venus takes gulps of hot tea, shutting his eyes at every gulp, andopening them again in a spasmodic manner; but does not commit himself toassent. 

'I have a prospect of getting on in life and elevating myself by my ownindependent exertions, ' says Wegg, feelingly, 'and I shouldn't like--Itell you openly I should NOT like--under such circumstances, to be whatI may call dispersed, a part of me here, and a part of me there, butshould wish to collect myself like a genteel person. '

'It's a prospect at present, is it, Mr Wegg? Then you haven't got themoney for a deal about you? Then I'll tell you what I'll do with you;I'll hold you over. I am a man of my word, and you needn't be afraid ofmy disposing of you. I'll hold you over. That's a promise. Oh dear me, dear me!'

Fain to accept his promise, and wishing to propitiate him, Mr Wegg lookson as he sighs and pours himself out more tea, and then says, trying toget a sympathetic tone into his voice:

'You seem very low, Mr Venus. Is business bad?'

'Never was so good. '

'Is your hand out at all?'

'Never was so well in. Mr Wegg, I'm not only first in the trade, but I'mTHE trade. You may go and buy a skeleton at the West End if you like, and pay the West End price, but it'll be my putting together. I've asmuch to do as I can possibly do, with the assistance of my young man, and I take a pride and a pleasure in it. '

Mr Venus thus delivers himself, his right hand extended, his smokingsaucer in his left hand, protesting as though he were going to burstinto a flood of tears. 

'That ain't a state of things to make you low, Mr Venus. '

'Mr Wegg, I know it ain't. Mr Wegg, not to name myself as a workmanwithout an equal, I've gone on improving myself in my knowledge ofAnatomy, till both by sight and by name I'm perfect. Mr Wegg, if you wasbrought here loose in a bag to be articulated, I'd name your smallestbones blindfold equally with your largest, as fast as I could pick 'emout, and I'd sort 'em all, and sort your wertebrae, in a manner thatwould equally surprise and charm you. '

'Well, ' remarks Silas (though not quite so readily as last time), 'THATain't a state of things to be low about. --Not for YOU to be low about, leastways. '

'Mr Wegg, I know it ain't; Mr Wegg, I know it ain't. But it's the heartthat lowers me, it is the heart! Be so good as take and read that cardout loud. '

Silas receives one from his hand, which Venus takes from a wonderfullitter in a drawer, and putting on his spectacles, reads:

'"Mr Venus, "'

'Yes. Go on. '

'"Preserver of Animals and Birds, "'

'Yes. Go on. '

'"Articulator of human bones. "'

'That's it, ' with a groan. 'That's it! Mr Wegg, I'm thirty-two, and abachelor. Mr Wegg, I love her. Mr Wegg, she is worthy of being loved bya Potentate!' Here Silas is rather alarmed by Mr Venus's springing tohis feet in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him withhis hand on his coat collar; but Mr Venus, begging pardon, sits downagain, saying, with the calmness of despair, 'She objects to thebusiness. '

'Does she know the profits of it?'

'She knows the profits of it, but she don't appreciate the art ofit, and she objects to it. "I do not wish, " she writes in her ownhandwriting, "to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boneylight". '

Mr Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in an attitude ofthe deepest desolation. 

'And so a man climbs to the top of the tree, Mr Wegg, only to see thatthere's no look-out when he's up there! I sit here of a night surroundedby the lovely trophies of my art, and what have they done for me? Ruinedme. Brought me to the pass of being informed that "she does not wish toregard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney light"!' Havingrepeated the fatal expressions, Mr Venus drinks more tea by gulps, andoffers an explanation of his doing so. 

'It lowers me. When I'm equally lowered all over, lethargy sets in. Bysticking to it till one or two in the morning, I get oblivion. Don't letme detain you, Mr Wegg. I'm not company for any one. '

'It is not on that account, ' says Silas, rising, 'but because I've gotan appointment. It's time I was at Harmon's. '

'Eh?' said Mr Venus. 'Harmon's, up Battle Bridge way?'

Mr Wegg admits that he is bound for that port. 

'You ought to be in a good thing, if you've worked yourself in there. There's lots of money going, there. '

'To think, ' says Silas, 'that you should catch it up so quick, and knowabout it. Wonderful!'

'Not at all, Mr Wegg. The old gentleman wanted to know the nature andworth of everything that was found in the dust; and many's the bone, andfeather, and what not, that he's brought to me. '

'Really, now!'

'Yes. (Oh dear me, dear me!) And he's buried quite in thisneighbourhood, you know. Over yonder. '

Mr Wegg does not know, but he makes as if he did, by responsivelynodding his head. He also follows with his eyes, the toss of Venus'shead: as if to seek a direction to over yonder. 

'I took an interest in that discovery in the river, ' says Venus. (She hadn't written her cutting refusal at that time. ) I've got upthere--never mind, though. '

He had raised the candle at arm's length towards one of the darkshelves, and Mr Wegg had turned to look, when he broke off. 

'The old gentleman was well known all round here. There used to bestories about his having hidden all kinds of property in those dustmounds. I suppose there was nothing in 'em. Probably you know, Mr Wegg?'

'Nothing in 'em, ' says Wegg, who has never heard a word of this before. 

'Don't let me detain you. Good night!'

The unfortunate Mr Venus gives him a shake of the hand with a shake ofhis own head, and drooping down in his chair, proceeds to pour himselfout more tea. Mr Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls thedoor open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazyshop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that thebabies--Hindoo, African, and British--the 'human warious', the Frenchgentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and allthe rest of the collection, show for an instant as if paralyticallyanimated; while even poor little Cock Robin at Mr Venus's elbow turnsover on his innocent side. Next moment, Mr Wegg is stumping under thegaslights and through the mud. 

Chapter 8

MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION

Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date ofthis history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until hestumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windowscommanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of themall he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grandcomprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinementand department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called inthe newspapers eminent solicitor. 

Mr Boffin having been several times in communication with this clerklyessence, both on its own ground and at the Bower, had no difficulty inidentifying it when he saw it up in its dusty eyrie. To the second flooron which the window was situated, he ascended, much pre-occupied in mindby the uncertainties besetting the Roman Empire, and much regretting thedeath of the amiable Pertinax: who only last night had left the Imperialaffairs in a state of great confusion, by falling a victim to the furyof the praetorian guards. 

'Morning, morning, morning!' said Mr Boffin, with a wave of his hand, asthe office door was opened by the dismal boy, whose appropriate name wasBlight. 'Governor in?'

'Mr Lightwood gave you an appointment, sir, I think?'

'I don't want him to give it, you know, ' returned Mr Boffin; 'I'll paymy way, my boy. '

'No doubt, sir. Would you walk in? Mr Lightwood ain't in at the presentmoment, but I expect him back very shortly. Would you take a seat in MrLightwood's room, sir, while I look over our Appointment Book?'Young Blight made a great show of fetching from his desk a long thinmanuscript volume with a brown paper cover, and running his finger downthe day's appointments, murmuring, 'Mr Aggs, Mr Baggs, Mr Caggs, MrDaggs, Mr Faggs, Mr Gaggs, Mr Boffin. Yes, sir; quite right. You are alittle before your time, sir. Mr Lightwood will be in directly. '

'I'm not in a hurry, ' said Mr Boffin

'Thank you, sir. I'll take the opportunity, if you please, of enteringyour name in our Callers' Book for the day. ' Young Blight made anothergreat show of changing the volume, taking up a pen, sucking it, dippingit, and running over previous entries before he wrote. As, 'Mr Alley, Mr Balley, Mr Calley, Mr Dalley, Mr Falley, Mr Galley, Mr Halley, MrLalley, Mr Malley. And Mr Boffin. '

'Strict system here; eh, my lad?' said Mr Boffin, as he was booked. 

'Yes, sir, ' returned the boy. 'I couldn't get on without it. '

By which he probably meant that his mind would have been shattered topieces without this fiction of an occupation. Wearing in his solitaryconfinement no fetters that he could polish, and being provided with nodrinking-cup that he could carve, he had fallen on the device of ringingalphabetical changes into the two volumes in question, or of enteringvast numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting businesswith Mr Lightwood. It was the more necessary for his spirits, because, being of a sensitive temperament, he was apt to consider it personallydisgraceful to himself that his master had no clients. 

'How long have you been in the law, now?' asked Mr Boffin, with apounce, in his usual inquisitive way. 

'I've been in the law, now, sir, about three years. '

'Must have been as good as born in it!' said Mr Boffin, with admiration. 'Do you like it?'

'I don't mind it much, ' returned Young Blight, heaving a sigh, as if itsbitterness were past. 

'What wages do you get?'

'Half what I could wish, ' replied young Blight. 

'What's the whole that you could wish?'

'Fifteen shillings a week, ' said the boy. 

'About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to bea Judge?' asked Mr Boffin, after surveying his small stature in silence. 

The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that littlecalculation. 

'I suppose there's nothing to prevent your going in for it?' said MrBoffin. 

The boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a Briton whonever never never, there was nothing to prevent his going in for it. Yethe seemed inclined to suspect that there might be something to preventhis coming out with it. 

'Would a couple of pound help you up at all?' asked Mr Boffin. 

On this head, young Blight had no doubt whatever, so Mr Boffin made hima present of that sum of money, and thanked him for his attention to his(Mr Boffin's) affairs; which, he added, were now, he believed, as goodas settled. 

Then Mr Boffin, with his stick at his ear, like a Familiar Spiritexplaining the office to him, sat staring at a little bookcase of LawPractice and Law Reports, and at a window, and at an empty blue bag, andat a stick of sealing-wax, and a pen, and a box of wafers, and an apple, and a writing-pad--all very dusty--and at a number of inky smearsand blots, and at an imperfectly-disguised gun-case pretending to besomething legal, and at an iron box labelled HARMON ESTATE, until MrLightwood appeared. 

Mr Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor's, with whom he hadbeen engaged in transacting Mr Boffin's affairs. 

'And they seem to have taken a deal out of you!' said Mr Boffin, withcommiseration. 

Mr Lightwood, without explaining that his weariness was chronic, proceeded with his exposition that, all forms of law having been atlength complied with, will of Harmon deceased having been proved, deathof Harmon next inheriting having been proved, &c. , and so forth, Courtof Chancery having been moved, &c. And so forth, he, Mr Lightwood, hadnow the gratification, honour, and happiness, again &c. And so forth, ofcongratulating Mr Boffin on coming into possession as residuary legatee, of upwards of one hundred thousand pounds, standing in the books of theGovernor and Company of the Bank of England, again &c. And so forth. 

'And what is particularly eligible in the property Mr Boffin, is, thatit involves no trouble. There are no estates to manage, no rents toreturn so much per cent upon in bad times (which is an extremely dearway of getting your name into the newspapers), no voters to becomeparboiled in hot water with, no agents to take the cream off themilk before it comes to table. You could put the whole in a cash-boxto-morrow morning, and take it with you to--say, to the Rocky Mountains. Inasmuch as every man, ' concluded Mr Lightwood, with an indolent smile, 'appears to be under a fatal spell which obliges him, sooner or later, to mention the Rocky Mountains in a tone of extreme familiarity to someother man, I hope you'll excuse my pressing you into the service of thatgigantic range of geographical bores. '

Without following this last remark very closely, Mr Boffin cast hisperplexed gaze first at the ceiling, and then at the carpet. 

'Well, ' he remarked, 'I don't know what to say about it, I am sure. Iwas a'most as well as I was. It's a great lot to take care of. '

'My dear Mr Boffin, then DON'T take care of it!'

'Eh?' said that gentleman. 

'Speaking now, ' returned Mortimer, 'with the irresponsible imbecilityof a private individual, and not with the profundity of a professionaladviser, I should say that if the circumstance of its being too much, weighs upon your mind, you have the haven of consolation open to youthat you can easily make it less. And if you should be apprehensive ofthe trouble of doing so, there is the further haven of consolation thatany number of people will take the trouble off your hands. '

'Well! I don't quite see it, ' retorted Mr Boffin, still perplexed. 'That's not satisfactory, you know, what you're a-saying. '

'Is Anything satisfactory, Mr Boffin?' asked Mortimer, raising hiseyebrows. 

'I used to find it so, ' answered Mr Boffin, with a wistful look. 'WhileI was foreman at the Bower--afore it WAS the Bower--I considered thebusiness very satisfactory. The old man was a awful Tartar (sayingit, I'm sure, without disrespect to his memory) but the business wasa pleasant one to look after, from before daylight to past dark. It'sa'most a pity, ' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear, 'that he ever went andmade so much money. It would have been better for him if he hadn't sogiven himself up to it. You may depend upon it, ' making the discoveryall of a sudden, 'that HE found it a great lot to take care of!'

Mr Lightwood coughed, not convinced. 

'And speaking of satisfactory, ' pursued Mr Boffin, 'why, Lord saveus! when we come to take it to pieces, bit by bit, where's thesatisfactoriness of the money as yet? When the old man does right thepoor boy after all, the poor boy gets no good of it. He gets made awaywith, at the moment when he's lifting (as one may say) the cup andsarser to his lips. Mr Lightwood, I will now name to you, that on behalfof the poor dear boy, me and Mrs Boffin have stood out against the oldman times out of number, till he has called us every name he could layhis tongue to. I have seen him, after Mrs Boffin has given him her mindrespecting the claims of the nat'ral affections, catch off Mrs Boffin'sbonnet (she wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter ofconvenience on the top of her head), and send it spinning acrossthe yard. I have indeed. And once, when he did this in a manner thatamounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself, ifMrs Boffin hadn't thrown herself betwixt us, and received flush on thetemple. Which dropped her, Mr Lightwood. Dropped her. '

Mr Lightwood murmured 'Equal honour--Mrs Boffin's head and heart. '

'You understand; I name this, ' pursued Mr Boffin, 'to show you, now theaffairs are wound up, that me and Mrs Boffin have ever stood as we werein Christian honour bound, the children's friend. Me and Mrs Boffinstood the poor girl's friend; me and Mrs Boffin stood the poor boy'sfriend; me and Mrs Boffin up and faced the old man when we momentlyexpected to be turned out for our pains. As to Mrs Boffin, ' said MrBoffin lowering his voice, 'she mightn't wish it mentioned now she'sFashionable, but she went so far as to tell him, in my presence, he wasa flinty-hearted rascal. '

Mr Lightwood murmured 'Vigorous Saxon spirit--Mrs Boffin'sancestors--bowmen--Agincourt and Cressy. '

'The last time me and Mrs Boffin saw the poor boy, ' said Mr Boffin, warming (as fat usually does) with a tendency to melt, 'he was a childof seven year old. For when he came back to make intercession for hissister, me and Mrs Boffin were away overlooking a country contract whichwas to be sifted before carted, and he was come and gone in a singlehour. I say he was a child of seven year old. He was going away, allalone and forlorn, to that foreign school, and he come into our place, situate up the yard of the present Bower, to have a warm at our fire. There was his little scanty travelling clothes upon him. There was hislittle scanty box outside in the shivering wind, which I was going tocarry for him down to the steamboat, as the old man wouldn't hear ofallowing a sixpence coach-money. Mrs Boffin, then quite a young womanand pictur of a full-blown rose, stands him by her, kneels down at thefire, warms her two open hands, and falls to rubbing his cheeks; butseeing the tears come into the child's eyes, the tears come fast intoher own, and she holds him round the neck, like as if she was protectinghim, and cries to me, "I'd give the wide wide world, I would, to runaway with him!" I don't say but what it cut me, and but what it at thesame time heightened my feelings of admiration for Mrs Boffin. The poorchild clings to her for awhile, as she clings to him, and then, whenthe old man calls, he says "I must go! God bless you!" and for a momentrests his heart against her bosom, and looks up at both of us, as if itwas in pain--in agony. Such a look! I went aboard with him (I gave himfirst what little treat I thought he'd like), and I left him when he hadfallen asleep in his berth, and I came back to Mrs Boffin. But tellher what I would of how I had left him, it all went for nothing, for, according to her thoughts, he never changed that look that he had lookedup at us two. But it did one piece of good. Mrs Boffin and me had nochild of our own, and had sometimes wished that how we had one. But notnow. "We might both of us die, " says Mrs Boffin, "and other eyes mightsee that lonely look in our child. " So of a night, when it was verycold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she wouldwake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, "Don't you see the poor child'sface? O shelter the poor child!"--till in course of years it gently woreout, as many things do. '

'My dear Mr Boffin, everything wears to rags, ' said Mortimer, with alight laugh. 

'I won't go so far as to say everything, ' returned Mr Boffin, on whomhis manner seemed to grate, 'because there's some things that I neverfound among the dust. Well, sir. So Mrs Boffin and me grow older andolder in the old man's service, living and working pretty hard in it, till the old man is discovered dead in his bed. Then Mrs Boffin and meseal up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his bed, and having frequently heerd tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyer'sdust is contracted for, I come down here in search of a lawyer toadvise, and I see your young man up at this present elevation, choppingat the flies on the window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy!not then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by thatmeans come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentleman in theuncomfortable neck-cloth under the little archway in Saint Paul'sChurchyard--'

'Doctors' Commons, ' observed Lightwood. 

'I understood it was another name, ' said Mr Boffin, pausing, 'but youknow best. Then you and Doctor Scommons, you go to work, and you do thething that's proper, and you and Doctor S. Take steps for finding outthe poor boy, and at last you do find out the poor boy, and me and MrsBoffin often exchange the observation, "We shall see him again, under happy circumstances. " But it was never to be; and the want ofsatisfactoriness is, that after all the money never gets to him. '

'But it gets, ' remarked Lightwood, with a languid inclination of thehead, 'into excellent hands. '

'It gets into the hands of me and Mrs Boffin only this very day andhour, and that's what I am working round to, having waited for this dayand hour a' purpose. Mr Lightwood, here has been a wicked cruelmurder. By that murder me and Mrs Boffin mysteriously profit. For theapprehension and conviction of the murderer, we offer a reward of onetithe of the property--a reward of Ten Thousand Pound. '

'Mr Boffin, it's too much. '

'Mr Lightwood, me and Mrs Boffin have fixed the sum together, and westand to it. '

'But let me represent to you, ' returned Lightwood, 'speaking now withprofessional profundity, and not with individual imbecility, that theoffer of such an immense reward is a temptation to forced suspicion, forced construction of circumstances, strained accusation, a wholetool-box of edged tools. '

'Well, ' said Mr Boffin, a little staggered, 'that's the sum we put o'one side for the purpose. Whether it shall be openly declared in the newnotices that must now be put about in our names--'

'In your name, Mr Boffin; in your name. '

'Very well; in my name, which is the same as Mrs Boffin's, and meansboth of us, is to be considered in drawing 'em up. But this is the firstinstruction that I, as the owner of the property, give to my lawyer oncoming into it. '

'Your lawyer, Mr Boffin, ' returned Lightwood, making a very shortnote of it with a very rusty pen, 'has the gratification of taking theinstruction. There is another?'

'There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact a little willas can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole of the propertyto "my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix". Make it asshort as you can, using those words; but make it tight. '

At some loss to fathom Mr Boffin's notions of a tight will, Lightwoodfelt his way. 

'I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. When yousay tight--'

'I mean tight, ' Mr Boffin explained. 

'Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the tightness tobind Mrs Boffin to any and what conditions?'

'Bind Mrs Boffin?' interposed her husband. 'No! What are you thinkingof! What I want is, to make it all hers so tight as that her hold of itcan't be loosed. '

'Hers freely, to do what she likes with? Hers absolutely?'

'Absolutely?' repeated Mr Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. 'Hah! Ishould think so! It would be handsome in me to begin to bind Mrs Boffinat this time of day!'

So that instruction, too, was taken by Mr Lightwood; and Mr Lightwood, having taken it, was in the act of showing Mr Boffin out, when Mr EugeneWrayburn almost jostled him in the door-way. Consequently Mr Lightwoodsaid, in his cool manner, 'Let me make you two known to one another, 'and further signified that Mr Wrayburn was counsel learned in thelaw, and that, partly in the way of business and partly in the way ofpleasure, he had imparted to Mr Wrayburn some of the interesting factsof Mr Boffin's biography. 

'Delighted, ' said Eugene--though he didn't look so--'to know Mr Boffin. '

'Thankee, sir, thankee, ' returned that gentleman. 'And how do YOU likethe law?'

'A--not particularly, ' returned Eugene. 

'Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of stickingto, before you master it. But there's nothing like work. Look at thebees. '

'I beg your pardon, ' returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, 'but willyou excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred tothe bees?'

'Do you!' said Mr Boffin. 

'I object on principle, ' said Eugene, 'as a biped--'

'As a what?' asked Mr Boffin. 

'As a two-footed creature;--I object on principle, as a two-footedcreature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footedcreatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings accordingto the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperateperson; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and Ihave only one. Besides, I am not fitted up with a convenient cool cellarto keep my drink in. '

'But I said, you know, ' urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer, 'the bee. '

'Exactly. And may I represent to you that it's injudicious to say thebee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that there isany analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (whichI deny), and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee(which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn?To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves tothat highly fluttered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectlydistracted touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men tolearn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of theCourt Circular? I am not clear, Mr Boffin, but that the hive may besatirical. '

'At all events, they work, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Ye-es, ' returned Eugene, disparagingly, 'they work; but don't you thinkthey overdo it? They work so much more than they need--they make so muchmore than they can eat--they are so incessantly boring and buzzing attheir one idea till Death comes upon them--that don't you think theyoverdo it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of thebees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don't? MrBoffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the lightof my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against thetyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect foryou. '

'Thankee, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Morning, morning!'

But, the worthy Mr Boffin jogged away with a comfortless impression hecould have dispensed with, that there was a deal of unsatisfactorinessin the world, besides what he had recalled as appertaining to the Harmonproperty. And he was still jogging along Fleet Street in this conditionof mind, when he became aware that he was closely tracked and observedby a man of genteel appearance. 

'Now then?' said Mr Boffin, stopping short, with his meditations broughtto an abrupt check, 'what's the next article?'

'I beg your pardon, Mr Boffin. '

'My name too, eh? How did you come by it? I don't know you. '

'No, sir, you don't know me. '

Mr Boffin looked full at the man, and the man looked full at him. 

'No, ' said Mr Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as if it were madeof faces and he were trying to match the man's, 'I DON'T know you. '

'I am nobody, ' said the stranger, 'and not likely to be known; but MrBoffin's wealth--'

'Oh! that's got about already, has it?' muttered Mr Boffin. 

'--And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him conspicuous. Youwere pointed out to me the other day. '

'Well, ' said Mr Boffin, 'I should say I was a disappintment to you whenI WAS pinted out, if your politeness would allow you to confess it, forI am well aware I am not much to look at. What might you want with me?Not in the law, are you?'

'No, sir. '

'No information to give, for a reward?'

'No, sir. '

There may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the man as hemade the last answer, but it passed directly. 

'If I don't mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer's and triedto fix my attention. Say out! Have you? Or haven't you?' demanded MrBoffin, rather angry. 

'Yes. '

'Why have you?'

'If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr Boffin, I will tell you. Would you object to turn aside into this place--I think it is calledClifford's Inn--where we can hear one another better than in the roaringstreet?'

('Now, ' thought Mr Boffin, 'if he proposes a game at skittles, or meetsa country gentleman just come into property, or produces any articleof jewellery he has found, I'll knock him down!' With this discreetreflection, and carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carrieshis, Mr Boffin turned into Clifford's Inn aforesaid. )

'Mr Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning, when I sawyou going along before me. I took the liberty of following you, tryingto make up my mind to speak to you, till you went into your lawyer's. Then I waited outside till you came out. '

('Don't quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentleman, nor yetjewellery, ' thought Mr Boffin, 'but there's no knowing. ')

'I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has little of theusual practical world about it, but I venture it. If you ask me, or ifyou ask yourself--which is more likely--what emboldens me, I answer, Ihave been strongly assured, that you are a man of rectitude and plaindealing, with the soundest of sound hearts, and that you are blessed ina wife distinguished by the same qualities. '

'Your information is true of Mrs Boffin, anyhow, ' was Mr Boffin'sanswer, as he surveyed his new friend again. There was somethingrepressed in the strange man's manner, and he walked with his eyeson the ground--though conscious, for all that, of Mr Boffin'sobservation--and he spoke in a subdued voice. But his words came easily, and his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit constrained. 

'When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says ofyou--that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not uplifted--I trustyou will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatteryou, but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these beingmy only excuses for my present intrusion. '

('How much?' thought Mr Boffin. 'It must be coming to money. How much?')

'You will probably change your manner of living, Mr Boffin, in yourchanged circumstances. You will probably keep a larger house, have manymatters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If youwould try me as your Secretary--'

'As WHAT?' cried Mr Boffin, with his eyes wide open. 

'Your Secretary. '

'Well, ' said Mr Boffin, under his breath, 'that's a queer thing!'

'Or, ' pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr Boffin's wonder, 'if youwould try me as your man of business under any name, I know you wouldfind me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. Youmay naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, forI would willingly serve you a year--two years--any term you mightappoint--before that should begin to be a consideration between us. '

'Where do you come from?' asked Mr Boffin. 

'I come, ' returned the other, meeting his eye, 'from many countries. '

Boffin's acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign landsbeing limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped hisnext question on an elastic model. 

'From--any particular place?'

'I have been in many places. '

'What have you been?' asked Mr Boffin. 

Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, 'I have been astudent and a traveller. '

'But if it ain't a liberty to plump it out, ' said Mr Boffin, 'what doyou do for your living?'

'I have mentioned, ' returned the other, with another look at him, anda smile, 'what I aspire to do. I have been superseded as to some slightintentions I had, and I may say that I have now to begin life. '

Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling themore embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacyin which the worthy Mr Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, thatgentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat-preserve, ofClifford's Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrowswere there, cats were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it wasnot otherwise a suggestive spot. 

'All this time, ' said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book andtaking out a card, 'I have not mentioned my name. My name is Rokesmith. I lodge at one Mr Wilfer's, at Holloway. '

Mr Boffin stared again. 

'Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?' said he. 

'My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt. '

Now, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin's thoughts all themorning, and for days before; therefore he said:

'That's singular, too!' unconsciously staring again, past all bounds ofgood manners, with the card in his hand. 'Though, by-the-bye, I supposeit was one of that family that pinted me out?'

'No. I have never been in the streets with one of them. '

'Heard me talked of among 'em, though?'

'No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any communicationwith them. '

'Odder and odder!' said Mr Boffin. 'Well, sir, to tell you the truth, Idon't know what to say to you. '

'Say nothing, ' returned Mr Rokesmith; 'allow me to call on you in a fewdays. I am not so unconscionable as to think it likely that you wouldaccept me on trust at first sight, and take me out of the very street. Let me come to you for your further opinion, at your leisure. '

'That's fair, and I don't object, ' said Mr Boffin; 'but it must be oncondition that it's fully understood that I no more know that I shallever be in want of any gentleman as Secretary--it WAS Secretary yousaid; wasn't it?'

'Yes. '

Again Mr Boffin's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant fromhead to foot, repeating 'Queer!--You're sure it was Secretary? Are you?'

'I am sure I said so. '

--'As Secretary, ' repeated Mr Boffin, meditating upon the word; 'I nomore know that I may ever want a Secretary, or what not, than I do thatI shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. Me and Mrs Boffin havenot even settled that we shall make any change in our way of life. MrsBoffin's inclinations certainly do tend towards Fashion; but, beingalready set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, she may not makefurther alterations. However, sir, as you don't press yourself, I wishto meet you so far as saying, by all means call at the Bower if youlike. Call in the course of a week or two. At the same time, I considerthat I ought to name, in addition to what I have already named, that Ihave in my employment a literary man--WITH a wooden leg--as I have nothoughts of parting from. '

'I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated, ' Mr Rokesmith answered, evidently having heard it with surprise; 'but perhaps other duties mightarise?'

'You see, ' returned Mr Boffin, with a confidential sense of dignity, 'asto my literary man's duties, they're clear. Professionally he declinesand he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry. '

Without observing that these duties seemed by no means clear to MrRokesmith's astonished comprehension, Mr Boffin went on:

'And now, sir, I'll wish you good-day. You can call at the Bower anytime in a week or two. It's not above a mile or so from you, and yourlandlord can direct you to it. But as he may not know it by its newname of Boffin's Bower, say, when you inquire of him, it's Harmon's;will you?'

'Harmoon's, ' repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the soundimperfectly, 'Harmarn's. How do you spell it?'

'Why, as to the spelling of it, ' returned Mr Boffin, with great presenceof mind, 'that's YOUR look out. Harmon's is all you've got to say toHIM. Morning, morning, morning!' And so departed, without looking back. 

Chapter 9

MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION

Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr Boffin, without further let orhindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave Mrs Boffin (in a walking dressof black velvet and feathers, like a mourning coach-horse) an account ofall he had said and done since breakfast. 

'This brings us round, my dear, ' he then pursued, 'to the questionwe left unfinished: namely, whether there's to be any new go-in forFashion. '

'Now, I'll tell you what I want, Noddy, ' said Mrs Boffin, smoothing herdress with an air of immense enjoyment, 'I want Society. '

'Fashionable Society, my dear?'

'Yes!' cried Mrs Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. 'Yes! It'sno good my being kept here like Wax-Work; is it now?'

'People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear, ' returned her husband, 'whereas (though you'd be cheap at the same money) the neighbours iswelcome to see YOU for nothing. '

'But it don't answer, ' said the cheerful Mrs Boffin. 'When we workedlike the neighbours, we suited one another. Now we have left work off;we have left off suiting one another. '

'What, do you think of beginning work again?' Mr Boffin hinted. 

'Out of the question! We have come into a great fortune, and we must dowhat's right by our fortune; we must act up to it. '

Mr Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife's intuitive wisdom, replied, though rather pensively: 'I suppose we must. '

'It's never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good has come ofit, ' said Mrs Boffin. 

'True, to the present time, ' Mr Boffin assented, with his formerpensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. 'I hope good may becoming of it in the future time. Towards which, what's your views, oldlady?'

Mrs Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of nature, with her hands folded in her lap, and with buxom creases in her throat, proceeded to expound her views. 

'I say, a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about us, good living, and good society. I say, live like our means, withoutextravagance, and be happy. '

'Yes. I say be happy, too, ' assented the still pensive Mr Boffin. 'Lor-a-mussy!' exclaimed Mrs Boffin, laughing and clapping her hands, and gaily rocking herself to and fro, 'when I think of me in a lightyellow chariot and pair, with silver boxes to the wheels--'

'Oh! you was thinking of that, was you, my dear?'

'Yes!' cried the delighted creature. 'And with a footman up behind, witha bar across, to keep his legs from being poled! And with a coachmanup in front, sinking down into a seat big enough for three of him, allcovered with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay horsestossing their heads and stepping higher than they trot long-ways! Andwith you and me leaning back inside, as grand as ninepence! Oh-h-h-h My!Ha ha ha ha ha!'

Mrs Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, beat her feetupon the floor, and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. 

'And what, my old lady, ' inquired Mr Boffin, when he also hadsympathetically laughed: 'what's your views on the subject of theBower?'

'Shut it up. Don't part with it, but put somebody in it, to keep it. '

'Any other views?'

'Noddy, ' said Mrs Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his sideon the plain settle, and hooking her comfortable arm through his, 'Next I think--and I really have been thinking early and late--of thedisappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, bothof her husband and his riches. Don't you think we might do something forher? Have her to live with us? Or something of that sort?'

'Ne-ver once thought of the way of doing it!' cried Mr Boffin, smitingthe table in his admiration. 'What a thinking steam-ingein this old ladyis. And she don't know how she does it. Neither does the ingein!'

Mrs Boffin pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of this piece ofphilosophy, and then said, gradually toning down to a motherly strain:'Last, and not least, I have taken a fancy. You remember dear littleJohn Harmon, before he went to school? Over yonder across the yard, atour fire? Now that he is past all benefit of the money, and it's come tous, I should like to find some orphan child, and take the boy and adopthim and give him John's name, and provide for him. Somehow, it wouldmake me easier, I fancy. Say it's only a whim--'

'But I don't say so, ' interposed her husband. 

'No, but deary, if you did--'

'I should be a Beast if I did, ' her husband interposed again. 

'That's as much as to say you agree? Good and kind of you, and like you, deary! And don't you begin to find it pleasant now, ' said Mrs Boffin, once more radiant in her comely way from head to foot, and once moresmoothing her dress with immense enjoyment, 'don't you begin to findit pleasant already, to think that a child will be made brighter, andbetter, and happier, because of that poor sad child that day? And isn'tit pleasant to know that the good will be done with the poor sad child'sown money?'

'Yes; and it's pleasant to know that you are Mrs Boffin, ' said herhusband, 'and it's been a pleasant thing to know this many and many ayear!' It was ruin to Mrs Boffin's aspirations, but, having so spoken, they sat side by side, a hopelessly Unfashionable pair. 

These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so far onin their journey of life, by a religious sense of duty and desire to doright. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been detectedin the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, inthe breast of the woman. But the hard wrathful and sordid nature thathad wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days, for as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had neverbeen so warped but that it knew their moral straightness and respectedit. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, ithad done so. And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short atitself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never. 

Through his most inveterate purposes, the dead Jailer of Harmony Jailhad known these two faithful servants to be honest and true. While heraged at them and reviled them for opposing him with the speech of thehonest and true, it had scratched his stony heart, and he had perceivedthe powerlessness of all his wealth to buy them if he had addressedhimself to the attempt. So, even while he was their griping taskmasterand never gave them a good word, he had written their names down in hiswill. So, even while it was his daily declaration that he mistrusted allmankind--and sorely indeed he did mistrust all who bore any resemblanceto himself--he was as certain that these two people, surviving him, would be trustworthy in all things from the greatest to the least, as hewas that he must surely die. 

Mr and Mrs Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion withdrawn to animmeasurable distance, fell to discussing how they could best find theirorphan. Mrs Boffin suggested advertisement in the newspapers, requestingorphans answering annexed description to apply at the Bower on a certainday; but Mr Boffin wisely apprehending obstruction of the neighbouringthoroughfares by orphan swarms, this course was negatived. Mrs Boffinnext suggested application to their clergyman for a likely orphan. MrBoffin thinking better of this scheme, they resolved to call upon thereverend gentleman at once, and to take the same opportunity of makingacquaintance with Miss Bella Wilfer. In order that these visits might bevisits of state, Mrs Boffin's equipage was ordered out. 

This consisted of a long hammer-headed old horse, formerly used in thebusiness, attached to a four-wheeled chaise of the same period, whichhad long been exclusively used by the Harmony Jail poultry as thefavourite laying-place of several discreet hens. An unwonted applicationof corn to the horse, and of paint and varnish to the carriage, whenboth fell in as a part of the Boffin legacy, had made what Mr Boffinconsidered a neat turn-out of the whole; and a driver being added, inthe person of a long hammer-headed young man who was a very good matchfor the horse, left nothing to be desired. He, too, had been formerlyused in the business, but was now entombed by an honest jobbing tailorof the district in a perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters, sealed withponderous buttons. 

Behind this domestic, Mr and Mrs Boffin took their seats in the backcompartment of the vehicle: which was sufficiently commodious, but hadan undignified and alarming tendency, in getting over a rough crossing, to hiccup itself away from the front compartment. On their beingdescried emerging from the gates of the Bower, the neighbourhood turnedout at door and window to salute the Boffins. Among those who were everand again left behind, staring after the equipage, were many youthfulspirits, who hailed it in stentorian tones with such congratulations as'Nod-dy Bof-fin!' 'Bof-fin's mon-ey!' 'Down with the dust, Bof-fin!' andother similar compliments. These, the hammer-headed young man took insuch ill part that he often impaired the majesty of the progress bypulling up short, and making as though he would alight to exterminatethe offenders; a purpose from which he only allowed himself to bedissuaded after long and lively arguments with his employers. 

At length the Bower district was left behind, and the peaceful dwellingof the Reverend Frank Milvey was gained. The Reverend Frank Milvey'sabode was a very modest abode, because his income was a very modestincome. He was officially accessible to every blundering old woman whohad incoherence to bestow upon him, and readily received the Boffins. He was quite a young man, expensively educated and wretchedly paid, withquite a young wife and half a dozen quite young children. He was underthe necessity of teaching and translating from the classics, to eke outhis scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time to sparethan the idlest person in the parish, and more money than the richest. He accepted the needless inequalities and inconsistencies of his life, with a kind of conventional submission that was almost slavish; and anydaring layman who would have adjusted such burdens as his, more decentlyand graciously, would have had small help from him. 

With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent smile thatshowed a quick enough observation of Mrs Boffin's dress, Mr Milvey, inhis little book-room--charged with sounds and cries as though the sixchildren above were coming down through the ceiling, and the roastingleg of mutton below were coming up through the floor--listened to MrsBoffin's statement of her want of an orphan. 

'I think, ' said Mr Milvey, 'that you have never had a child of your own, Mr and Mrs Boffin?'

Never. 

'But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I suppose you havewished for one?'

In a general way, yes. 

Mr Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself 'Those kings andqueens were always wishing for children. ' It occurring to him, perhaps, that if they had been Curates, their wishes might have tended in theopposite direction. 

'I think, ' he pursued, 'we had better take Mrs Milvey into our Council. She is indispensable to me. If you please, I'll call her. '

So, Mr Milvey called, 'Margaretta, my dear!' and Mrs Milvey came down. A pretty, bright little woman, something worn by anxiety, who hadrepressed many pretty tastes and bright fancies, and substituted intheir stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals, and all the week-day caresand Sunday coughs of a large population, young and old. As gallantly hadMr Milvey repressed much in himself that naturally belonged to his oldstudies and old fellow-students, and taken up among the poor and theirchildren with the hard crumbs of life. 

'Mr and Mrs Boffin, my dear, whose good fortune you have heard of. '

Mrs Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, congratulatedthem, and was glad to see them. Yet her engaging face, being an open aswell as a perceptive one, was not without her husband's latent smile. 

'Mrs Boffin wishes to adopt a little boy, my dear. '

Mrs Milvey, looking rather alarmed, her husband added:

'An orphan, my dear. '

'Oh!' said Mrs Milvey, reassured for her own little boys. 

'And I was thinking, Margaretta, that perhaps old Mrs Goody's grandchildmight answer the purpose. 

'Oh my DEAR Frank! I DON'T think that would do!'

'No?'

'Oh NO!'

The smiling Mrs Boffin, feeling it incumbent on her to take part in theconversation, and being charmed with the emphatic little wife and herready interest, here offered her acknowledgments and inquired what therewas against him?

'I DON'T think, ' said Mrs Milvey, glancing at the Reverend Frank'--andI believe my husband will agree with me when he considers it again--thatyou could possibly keep that orphan clean from snuff. Because hisgrandmother takes so MANY ounces, and drops it over him. '

'But he would not be living with his grandmother then, Margaretta, ' saidMr Milvey. 

'No, Frank, but it would be impossible to keep her from Mrs Boffin'shouse; and the MORE there was to eat and drink there, the oftener shewould go. And she IS an inconvenient woman. I HOPE it's not uncharitableto remember that last Christmas Eve she drank eleven cups of tea, andgrumbled all the time. And she is NOT a grateful woman, Frank. Yourecollect her addressing a crowd outside this house, about her wrongs, when, one night after we had gone to bed, she brought back the petticoatof new flannel that had been given her, because it was too short. '

'That's true, ' said Mr Milvey. 'I don't think that would do. Wouldlittle Harrison--'

'Oh, FRANK!' remonstrated his emphatic wife. 

'He has no grandmother, my dear. '

'No, but I DON'T think Mrs Boffin would like an orphan who squints soMUCH. '

'That's true again, ' said Mr Milvey, becoming haggard with perplexity. 'If a little girl would do--'

'But, my DEAR Frank, Mrs Boffin wants a boy. '

'That's true again, ' said Mr Milvey. 'Tom Bocker is a nice boy'(thoughtfully). 

'But I DOUBT, Frank, ' Mrs Milvey hinted, after a little hesitation, 'ifMrs Boffin wants an orphan QUITE nineteen, who drives a cart and watersthe roads. '

Mr Milvey referred the point to Mrs Boffin in a look; on that smilinglady's shaking her black velvet bonnet and bows, he remarked, in lowerspirits, 'that's true again. '

'I am sure, ' said Mrs Boffin, concerned at giving so much trouble, 'thatif I had known you would have taken so much pains, sir--and you too, ma'am--I don't think I would have come. '

'PRAY don't say that!' urged Mrs Milvey. 

'No, don't say that, ' assented Mr Milvey, 'because we are so muchobliged to you for giving us the preference. ' Which Mrs Milveyconfirmed; and really the kind, conscientious couple spoke, as if theykept some profitable orphan warehouse and were personally patronized. 'But it is a responsible trust, ' added Mr Milvey, 'and difficult todischarge. At the same time, we are naturally very unwilling to lose thechance you so kindly give us, and if you could afford us a day or twoto look about us, --you know, Margaretta, we might carefully examine theworkhouse, and the Infant School, and your District. '

'To be SURE!' said the emphatic little wife. 

'We have orphans, I know, ' pursued Mr Milvey, quite with the air as ifhe might have added, 'in stock, ' and quite as anxiously as if there weregreat competition in the business and he were afraid of losing an order, 'over at the clay-pits; but they are employed by relations or friends, and I am afraid it would come at last to a transaction in the way ofbarter. And even if you exchanged blankets for the child--or booksand firing--it would be impossible to prevent their being turned intoliquor. '

Accordingly, it was resolved that Mr and Mrs Milvey should search foran orphan likely to suit, and as free as possible from the foregoingobjections, and should communicate again with Mrs Boffin. Then, MrBoffin took the liberty of mentioning to Mr Milvey that if Mr Milveywould do him the kindness to be perpetually his banker to the extentof 'a twenty-pound note or so, ' to be expended without any referenceto him, he would be heartily obliged. At this, both Mr Milvey and MrsMilvey were quite as much pleased as if they had no wants of their own, but only knew what poverty was, in the persons of other people; andso the interview terminated with satisfaction and good opinion on allsides. 

'Now, old lady, ' said Mr Boffin, as they resumed their seats behind thehammer-headed horse and man: 'having made a very agreeable visit there, we'll try Wilfer's. '

It appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that to tryWilfer's was a thing more easily projected than done, on account of theextreme difficulty of getting into that establishment; three pullsat the bell producing no external result; though each was attendedby audible sounds of scampering and rushing within. At the fourthtug--vindictively administered by the hammer-headed young man--MissLavinia appeared, emerging from the house in an accidental manner, witha bonnet and parasol, as designing to take a contemplative walk. Theyoung lady was astonished to find visitors at the gate, and expressedher feelings in appropriate action. 

'Here's Mr and Mrs Boffin!' growled the hammer-headed young man throughthe bars of the gate, and at the same time shaking it, as if he were onview in a Menagerie; 'they've been here half an hour. '

'Who did you say?' asked Miss Lavinia. 

'Mr and Mrs BOFFIN' returned the young man, rising into a roar. 

Miss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the house-door, tripped down thesteps with the key, tripped across the little garden, and opened thegate. 'Please to walk in, ' said Miss Lavinia, haughtily. 'Our servant isout. '

Mr and Mrs Boffin complying, and pausing in the little hall until MissLavinia came up to show them where to go next, perceived three pairs oflistening legs upon the stairs above. Mrs Wilfer's legs, Miss Bella'slegs, Mr George Sampson's legs. 

'Mr and Mrs Boffin, I think?' said Lavinia, in a warning voice. Strainedattention on the part of Mrs Wilfer's legs, of Miss Bella's legs, of MrGeorge Sampson's legs. 

'Yes, Miss. '

'If you'll step this way--down these stairs--I'll let Ma know. 'Excited flight of Mrs Wilfer's legs, of Miss Bella's legs, of Mr GeorgeSampson's legs. 

After waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family sitting-room, which presented traces of having been so hastily arranged after a meal, that one might have doubted whether it was made tidy for visitors, or cleared for blindman's buff, Mr and Mrs Boffin became aware of theentrance of Mrs Wilfer, majestically faint, and with a condescendingstitch in her side: which was her company manner. 

'Pardon me, ' said Mrs Wilfer, after the first salutations, and as soonas she had adjusted the handkerchief under her chin, and waved hergloved hands, 'to what am I indebted for this honour?'

'To make short of it, ma'am, ' returned Mr Boffin, 'perhaps you may beacquainted with the names of me and Mrs Boffin, as having come into acertain property. '

'I have heard, sir, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, with a dignified bend of herhead, 'of such being the case. '

'And I dare say, ma'am, ' pursued Mr Boffin, while Mrs Boffin addedconfirmatory nods and smiles, 'you are not very much inclined to takekindly to us?'

'Pardon me, ' said Mrs Wilfer. ''Twere unjust to visit upon Mr and MrsBoffin, a calamity which was doubtless a dispensation. ' These wordswere rendered the more effective by a serenely heroic expression ofsuffering. 

'That's fairly meant, I am sure, ' remarked the honest Mr Boffin; 'MrsBoffin and me, ma'am, are plain people, and we don't want to pretendto anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there'salways a straight way to everything. Consequently, we make this callto say, that we shall be glad to have the honour and pleasure of yourdaughter's acquaintance, and that we shall be rejoiced if your daughterwill come to consider our house in the light of her home equally withthis. In short, we want to cheer your daughter, and to give herthe opportunity of sharing such pleasures as we are a going to takeourselves. We want to brisk her up, and brisk her about, and give her achange. '

'That's it!' said the open-hearted Mrs Boffin. 'Lor! Let's becomfortable. '

Mrs Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady visitor, andwith majestic monotony replied to the gentleman:

'Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my daughters am I tounderstand is thus favoured by the kind intentions of Mr Boffin and hislady?'

'Don't you see?' the ever-smiling Mrs Boffin put in. 'Naturally, MissBella, you know. '

'Oh-h!' said Mrs Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. 'My daughterBella is accessible and shall speak for herself. ' Then opening the doora little way, simultaneously with a sound of scuttling outside it, the good lady made the proclamation, 'Send Miss Bella to me!' whichproclamation, though grandly formal, and one might almost say heraldic, to hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfullyglaring on that young lady in the flesh--and in so much of it that shewas retiring with difficulty into the small closet under the stairs, apprehensive of the emergence of Mr and Mrs Boffin. 

'The avocations of R. W. , my husband, ' Mrs Wilfer explained, on resumingher seat, 'keep him fully engaged in the City at this time of the day, or he would have had the honour of participating in your receptionbeneath our humble roof. '

'Very pleasant premises!' said Mr Boffin, cheerfully. 

'Pardon me, sir, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, correcting him, 'it is the abodeof conscious though independent Poverty. '

Finding it rather difficult to pursue the conversation down this road, Mr and Mrs Boffin sat staring at mid-air, and Mrs Wilfer sat silentlygiving them to understand that every breath she drew required to bedrawn with a self-denial rarely paralleled in history, until Miss Bellaappeared: whom Mrs Wilfer presented, and to whom she explained thepurpose of the visitors. 

'I am much obliged to you, I am sure, ' said Miss Bella, coldly shakingher curls, 'but I doubt if I have the inclination to go out at all. '

'Bella!' Mrs Wilfer admonished her; 'Bella, you must conquer this. '

'Yes, do what your Ma says, and conquer it, my dear, ' urged Mrs Boffin, 'because we shall be so glad to have you, and because you are much toopretty to keep yourself shut up. ' With that, the pleasant creature gaveher a kiss, and patted her on her dimpled shoulders; Mrs Wilfer sittingstiffly by, like a functionary presiding over an interview previous toan execution. 

'We are going to move into a nice house, ' said Mrs Boffin, who was womanenough to compromise Mr Boffin on that point, when he couldn't very wellcontest it; 'and we are going to set up a nice carriage, and we'll goeverywhere and see everything. And you mustn't, ' seating Bella besideher, and patting her hand, 'you mustn't feel a dislike to us to beginwith, because we couldn't help it, you know, my dear. '

With the natural tendency of youth to yield to candour and sweet temper, Miss Bella was so touched by the simplicity of this address that shefrankly returned Mrs Boffin's kiss. Not at all to the satisfactionof that good woman of the world, her mother, who sought to hold theadvantageous ground of obliging the Boffins instead of being obliged. 

'My youngest daughter, Lavinia, ' said Mrs Wilfer, glad to make adiversion, as that young lady reappeared. 'Mr George Sampson, a friendof the family. '

The friend of the family was in that stage of tender passion which boundhim to regard everybody else as the foe of the family. He put the roundhead of his cane in his mouth, like a stopper, when he sat down. As ifhe felt himself full to the throat with affronting sentiments. And heeyed the Boffins with implacable eyes. 

'If you like to bring your sister with you when you come to stay withus, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'of course we shall be glad. The better you pleaseyourself, Miss Bella, the better you'll please us. '

'Oh, my consent is of no consequence at all, I suppose?' cried MissLavinia. 

'Lavvy, ' said her sister, in a low voice, 'have the goodness to be seenand not heard. '

'No, I won't, ' replied the sharp Lavinia. 'I'm not a child, to be takennotice of by strangers. '

'You ARE a child. '

'I'm not a child, and I won't be taken notice of. "Bring your sister, "indeed!'

'Lavinia!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Hold! I will not allow you to utter in mypresence the absurd suspicion that any strangers--I care not what theirnames--can patronize my child. Do you dare to suppose, you ridiculousgirl, that Mr and Mrs Boffin would enter these doors upon a patronizingerrand; or, if they did, would remain within them, only for one singleinstant, while your mother had the strength yet remaining in her vitalframe to request them to depart? You little know your mother if youpresume to think so. '

'It's all very fine, ' Lavinia began to grumble, when Mrs Wilferrepeated:

'Hold! I will not allow this. Do you not know what is due to guests?Do you not comprehend that in presuming to hint that this lady andgentleman could have any idea of patronizing any member of yourfamily--I care not which--you accuse them of an impertinence little lessthan insane?'

'Never mind me and Mrs Boffin, ma'am, ' said Mr Boffin, smilingly: 'wedon't care. '

'Pardon me, but I do, ' returned Mrs Wilfer. 

Miss Lavinia laughed a short laugh as she muttered, 'Yes, to be sure. '

'And I require my audacious child, ' proceeded Mrs Wilfer, with awithering look at her youngest, on whom it had not the slightest effect, 'to please to be just to her sister Bella; to remember that her sisterBella is much sought after; and that when her sister Bella accepts anattention, she considers herself to be conferring qui-i-ite as muchhonour, '--this with an indignant shiver, --'as she receives. '

But, here Miss Bella repudiated, and said quietly, 'I can speak formyself; you know, ma. You needn't bring ME in, please. '

'And it's all very well aiming at others through convenient me, ' saidthe irrepressible Lavinia, spitefully; 'but I should like to ask GeorgeSampson what he says to it. '

'Mr Sampson, ' proclaimed Mrs Wilfer, seeing that young gentleman takehis stopper out, and so darkly fixing him with her eyes as that he putit in again: 'Mr Sampson, as a friend of this family and a frequenter ofthis house, is, I am persuaded, far too well-bred to interpose on suchan invitation. '

This exaltation of the young gentleman moved the conscientious MrsBoffin to repentance for having done him an injustice in her mind, andconsequently to saying that she and Mr Boffin would at any time be gladto see him; an attention which he handsomely acknowledged by replying, with his stopper unremoved, 'Much obliged to you, but I'm alwaysengaged, day and night. '

However, Bella compensating for all drawbacks by responding to theadvances of the Boffins in an engaging way, that easy pair were on thewhole well satisfied, and proposed to the said Bella that as soon asthey should be in a condition to receive her in a manner suitable totheir desires, Mrs Boffin should return with notice of the fact. Thisarrangement Mrs Wilfer sanctioned with a stately inclination of herhead and wave of her gloves, as who should say, 'Your demerits shall beoverlooked, and you shall be mercifully gratified, poor people. '

'By-the-bye, ma'am, ' said Mr Boffin, turning back as he was going, 'youhave a lodger?'

'A gentleman, ' Mrs Wilfer answered, qualifying the low expression, 'undoubtedly occupies our first floor. '

'I may call him Our Mutual Friend, ' said Mr Boffin. 'What sort of afellow IS Our Mutual Friend, now? Do you like him?'

'Mr Rokesmith is very punctual, very quiet, a very eligible inmate. '

'Because, ' Mr Boffin explained, 'you must know that I'm not particularlywell acquainted with Our Mutual Friend, for I have only seen him once. You give a good account of him. Is he at home?'

'Mr Rokesmith is at home, ' said Mrs Wilfer; 'indeed, ' pointing throughthe window, 'there he stands at the garden gate. Waiting for you, perhaps?'

'Perhaps so, ' replied Mr Boffin. 'Saw me come in, maybe. '

Bella had closely attended to this short dialogue. Accompanying MrsBoffin to the gate, she as closely watched what followed. 

'How are you, sir, how are you?' said Mr Boffin. 'This is Mrs Boffin. MrRokesmith, that I told you of; my dear. '

She gave him good day, and he bestirred himself and helped her to herseat, and the like, with a ready hand. 

'Good-bye for the present, Miss Bella, ' said Mrs Boffin, calling out ahearty parting. 'We shall meet again soon! And then I hope I shall havemy little John Harmon to show you. '

Mr Rokesmith, who was at the wheel adjusting the skirts of her dress, suddenly looked behind him, and around him, and then looked up at her, with a face so pale that Mrs Boffin cried:

'Gracious!' And after a moment, 'What's the matter, sir?'

'How can you show her the Dead?' returned Mr Rokesmith. 

'It's only an adopted child. One I have told her of. One I'm going togive the name to!'

'You took me by surprise, ' said Mr Rokesmith, 'and it sounded like anomen, that you should speak of showing the Dead to one so young andblooming. '

Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr Rokesmith admired her. Whetherthe knowledge (for it was rather that than suspicion) caused her toincline to him a little more, or a little less, than she had done atfirst; whether it rendered her eager to find out more about him, becauseshe sought to establish reason for her distrust, or because she soughtto free him from it; was as yet dark to her own heart. But at mosttimes he occupied a great amount of her attention, and she had set herattention closely on this incident. 

That he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, when they wereleft together standing on the path by the garden gate. 

'Those are worthy people, Miss Wilfer. '

'Do you know them well?' asked Bella. 

He smiled, reproaching her, and she coloured, reproaching herself--both, with the knowledge that she had meant to entrap him into an answer nottrue--when he said 'I know OF them. '

'Truly, he told us he had seen you but once. '

'Truly, I supposed he did. '

Bella was nervous now, and would have been glad to recall her question. 

'You thought it strange that, feeling much interested in you, I shouldstart at what sounded like a proposal to bring you into contact with themurdered man who lies in his grave. I might have known--of course in amoment should have known--that it could not have that meaning. But myinterest remains. '

Re-entering the family-room in a meditative state, Miss Bella wasreceived by the irrepressible Lavinia with:

'There, Bella! At last I hope you have got your wishes realized--by yourBoffins. You'll be rich enough now--with your Boffins. You can have asmuch flirting as you like--at your Boffins. But you won't take ME toyour Boffins, I can tell you--you and your Boffins too!'

'If, ' quoth Mr George Sampson, moodily pulling his stopper out, 'MissBella's Mr Boffin comes any more of his nonsense to ME, I only wish himto understand, as betwixt man and man, that he does it at his per--' andwas going to say peril; but Miss Lavinia, having no confidence in hismental powers, and feeling his oration to have no definite applicationto any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, with a sharpness thatmade his eyes water. 

And now the worthy Mrs Wilfer, having used her youngest daughter as alay-figure for the edification of these Boffins, became bland to her, and proceeded to develop her last instance of force of character, which was still in reserve. This was, to illuminate the family with herremarkable powers as a physiognomist; powers that terrified R. W. Whenever let loose, as being always fraught with gloom and evil which noinferior prescience was aware of. And this Mrs Wilfer now did, be itobserved, in jealousy of these Boffins, in the very same moments whenshe was already reflecting how she would flourish these very sameBoffins and the state they kept, over the heads of her Boffinlessfriends. 

'Of their manners, ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'I say nothing. Of theirappearance, I say nothing. Of the disinterestedness of their intentionstowards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, the secrecy, the darkdeep underhanded plotting, written in Mrs Boffin's countenance, make meshudder. '

As an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes were allthere, Mrs Wilfer shuddered on the spot. 

Chapter 10

A MARRIAGE CONTRACT

There is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The mature young lady isgoing to be married (powder and all) to the mature young gentleman, andshe is to be married from the Veneering house, and the Veneerings are togive the breakfast. The Analytical, who objects as a matter of principleto everything that occurs on the premises, necessarily objects to thematch; but his consent has been dispensed with, and a spring-van isdelivering its load of greenhouse plants at the door, in order thatto-morrow's feast may be crowned with flowers. 

The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentlemanis a gentleman of property. He invests his property. He goes, ina condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings ofDirectors, and has to do with traffic in Shares. As is well known to thewise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have todo with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, nocultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough tobe on Boards of Direction in capital letters, oscillate on mysteriousbusiness between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he comefrom? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. Has he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into Parliament?Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, neveroriginated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all;Shares. O mighty Shares! To set those blaring images so high, and tocause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, tocry out, night and day, 'Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buyus and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the powersof the earth, and fatten on us'!

While the Loves and Graces have been preparing this torch for Hymen, which is to be kindled to-morrow, Mr Twemlow has suffered much in hismind. It would seem that both the mature young lady and the mature younggentleman must indubitably be Veneering's oldest friends. Wards of his, perhaps? Yet that can scarcely be, for they are older than himself. Veneering has been in their confidence throughout, and has done much tolure them to the altar. He has mentioned to Twemlow how he said toMrs Veneering, 'Anastatia, this must be a match. ' He has mentioned toTwemlow how he regards Sophronia Akershem (the mature young lady) in thelight of a sister, and Alfred Lammle (the mature young gentleman) in thelight of a brother. Twemlow has asked him whether he went to school asa junior with Alfred? He has answered, 'Not exactly. ' Whether Sophroniawas adopted by his mother? He has answered, 'Not precisely so. 'Twemlow's hand has gone to his forehead with a lost air. 

But, two or three weeks ago, Twemlow, sitting over his newspaper, and over his dry-toast and weak tea, and over the stable-yard in DukeStreet, St James's, received a highly-perfumed cocked-hat and monogramfrom Mrs Veneering, entreating her dearest Mr T. , if not particularlyengaged that day, to come like a charming soul and make a fourth atdinner with dear Mr Podsnap, for the discussion of an interesting familytopic; the last three words doubly underlined and pointed with a noteof admiration. And Twemlow replying, 'Not engaged, and more thandelighted, ' goes, and this takes place:

'My dear Twemlow, ' says Veneering, 'your ready response to Anastatia'sunceremonious invitation is truly kind, and like an old, old friend. Youknow our dear friend Podsnap?'

Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered him with somuch confusion, and he says he does know him, and Podsnap reciprocates. Apparently, Podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time, as tobelieve that he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years. In the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home with hisback to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes. Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneeringguests become infected with the Veneering fiction. Not, however, that hehas the least notion of its being his own case. 

'Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia, ' pursues Veneering the veiledprophet: 'our friends Alfred and Sophronia, you will be glad to hear, mydear fellows, are going to be married. As my wife and I make it a familyaffair the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves, of courseour first step is to communicate the fact to our family friends. '

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, 'then there are onlytwo of us, and he's the other. ')

'I did hope, ' Veneering goes on, 'to have had Lady Tippins to meet you;but she is always in request, and is unfortunately engaged. '

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, 'then there are three ofus, and SHE'S the other. ')

'Mortimer Lightwood, ' resumes Veneering, 'whom you both know, is out oftown; but he writes, in his whimsical manner, that as we ask him to bebridegroom's best man when the ceremony takes place, he will not refuse, though he doesn't see what he has to do with it. '

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, 'then there are four ofus, and HE'S the other. ')

'Boots and Brewer, ' observes Veneering, 'whom you also know, I have notasked to-day; but I reserve them for the occasion. '

('Then, ' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, 'there are si--' But herecollapses and does not completely recover until dinner is over and theAnalytical has been requested to withdraw. )

'We now come, ' says Veneering, 'to the point, the real point, of ourlittle family consultation. Sophronia, having lost both father andmother, has no one to give her away. '

'Give her away yourself, ' says Podsnap. 

'My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn'ttake so much upon myself when I have respected family friends toremember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I lookthe part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on thesubject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is oldenough to be married. '

'What would happen if he did?' Podsnap inquires of Mrs Veneering. 

'My dear Mr Podsnap, it's very foolish I know, but I have an instinctivepresentiment that if Hamilton gave away anybody else first, he wouldnever give away baby. ' Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressedtogether, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very likeher one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem necessaryfor distinction's sake. 

'But, my dear Podsnap, ' quoth Veneering, 'there IS a tried friend ofour family who, I think and hope you will agree with me, Podsnap, isthe friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves. Thatfriend, ' saying the words as if the company were about a hundred andfifty in number, 'is now among us. That friend is Twemlow. '

'Certainly!' From Podsnap. 

'That friend, ' Veneering repeats with greater firmness, 'is our deargood Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently express to you, my dear Podsnap, the pleasure I feel in having this opinion of mine and Anastatia's soreadily confirmed by you, that other equally familiar and tried friendwho stands in the proud position--I mean who proudly stands in theposition--or I ought rather to say, who places Anastatia and myself inthe proud position of himself standing in the simple position--of baby'sgodfather. ' And, indeed, Veneering is much relieved in mind to find thatPodsnap betrays no jealousy of Twemlow's elevation. 

So, it has come to pass that the spring-van is strewing flowers onthe rosy hours and on the staircase, and that Twemlow is surveying theground on which he is to play his distinguished part to-morrow. He hasalready been to the church, and taken note of the various impediments inthe aisle, under the auspices of an extremely dreary widow who opens thepews, and whose left hand appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism, but is in fact voluntarily doubled up to act as a money-box. 

And now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein he is accustomed, when contemplative, to give his mind to the carving and gilding ofthe Pilgrims going to Canterbury, in order to show Twemlow the littleflourish he has prepared for the trumpets of fashion, describing howthat on the seventeenth instant, at St James's Church, the ReverendBlank Blank, assisted by the Reverend Dash Dash, united in the bonds ofmatrimony, Alfred Lammle Esquire, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, to Sophronia, only daughter of the late Horatio Akershem, Esquire, of Yorkshire. Also how the fair bride was married from the house ofHamilton Veneering, Esquire, of Stucconia, and was given away by MelvinTwemlow, Esquire, of Duke Street, St James's, second cousin to LordSnigsworth, of Snigsworthy Park. While perusing which composition, Twemlow makes some opaque approach to perceiving that if the ReverendBlank Blank and the Reverend Dash Dash fail, after this introduction, tobecome enrolled in the list of Veneering's dearest and oldest friends, they will have none but themselves to thank for it. 

After which, appears Sophronia (whom Twemlow has seen twice in hislifetime), to thank Twemlow for counterfeiting the late Horatio AkershemEsquire, broadly of Yorkshire. And after her, appears Alfred (whomTwemlow has seen once in his lifetime), to do the same and to make apasty sort of glitter, as if he were constructed for candle-light only, and had been let out into daylight by some grand mistake. And afterthat, comes Mrs Veneering, in a pervadingly aquiline state of figure, and with transparent little knobs on her temper, like the littletransparent knob on the bridge of her nose, 'Worn out by worry andexcitement, ' as she tells her dear Mr Twemlow, and reluctantly revivedwith curacoa by the Analytical. And after that, the bridesmaids beginto come by rail-road from various parts of the country, and to come likeadorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present; for, on arrivingat the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack of strangers. 

So, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St James's, to take a plate ofmutton broth with a chop in it, and a look at the marriage-service, inorder that he may cut in at the right place to-morrow; and he is low, and feels it dull over the livery stable-yard, and is distinctly awareof a dint in his heart, made by the most adorable of the adorablebridesmaids. For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy, like the rest of us, and she didn't answer (as she often does not), and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as she was then(which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married someone else for money, but had married him for love, he and she wouldhave been happy (which they wouldn't have been), and that she has atenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). Broodingover the fire, with his dried little head in his dried little hands, and his dried little elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow ismelancholy. 'No Adorable to bear me company here!' thinks he. 'NoAdorable at the club! A waste, a waste, a waste, my Twemlow!' And sodrops asleep, and has galvanic starts all over him. 

Betimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins (relict of the lateSir Thomas Tippins, knighted in mistake for somebody else by HisMajesty King George the Third, who, while performing the ceremony, wasgraciously pleased to observe, 'What, what, what? Who, who, who?Why, why, why?') begins to be dyed and varnished for the interestingoccasion. She has a reputation for giving smart accounts of things, andshe must be at these people's early, my dear, to lose nothing of thefun. Whereabout in the bonnet and drapery announced by her name, anyfragment of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to hermaid; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street; oryou might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape her, and make two LadyTippinses out of her, and yet not penetrate to the genuine article. Shehas a large gold eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to survey the proceedingswith. If she had one in each eye, it might keep that other droopinglid up, and look more uniform. But perennial youth is in her artificialflowers, and her list of lovers is full. 

'Mortimer, you wretch, ' says Lady Tippins, turning the eyeglass aboutand about, 'where is your charge, the bridegroom?'

'Give you my honour, ' returns Mortimer, 'I don't know, and I don'tcare. '

'Miserable! Is that the way you do your duty?'

'Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be secondedat some point of the solemnities, like a principal at a prizefight, Iassure you I have no notion what my duty is, ' returns Mortimer. 

Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of havingpresupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, and of being disappointed. Thescene is the Vestry-room of St James's Church, with a number of leatheryold registers on shelves, that might be bound in Lady Tippinses. 

But, hark! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer's man arrives, lookingrather like a spurious Mephistopheles and an unacknowledged memberof that gentleman's family. Whom Lady Tippins, surveying through hereye-glass, considers a fine man, and quite a catch; and of whom Mortimerremarks, in the lowest spirits, as he approaches, 'I believe this is myfellow, confound him!' More carriages at the gate, and lo the rest ofthe characters. Whom Lady Tippins, standing on a cushion, surveyingthrough the eye-glass, thus checks off. 'Bride; five-and-forty if aday, thirty shillings a yard, veil fifteen pound, pocket-handkerchiefa present. Bridesmaids; kept down for fear of outshining bride, consequently not girls, twelve and sixpence a yard, Veneering's flowers, snub-nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of her stockings, bonnetsthree pound ten. Twemlow; blessed release for the dear man if she reallywas his daughter, nervous even under the pretence that she is, well hemay be. Mrs Veneering; never saw such velvet, say two thousand poundsas she stands, absolute jeweller's window, father must have been apawnbroker, or how could these people do it? Attendant unknowns; pokey. '

Ceremony performed, register signed, Lady Tippins escorted out of sacrededifice by Veneering, carriages rolling back to Stucconia, servantswith favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, drawing-rooms mostmagnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, withhis hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, MrsPodsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, andthe two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, hishair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly. Here, too, the bride's aunt and next relation; a widowed female ofa Medusa sort, in a stoney cap, glaring petrifaction at herfellow-creatures. Here, too, the bride's trustee; an oilcake-fed styleof business-gentleman with mooney spectacles, and an object of muchinterest. Veneering launching himself upon this trustee as his oldestfriend (which makes seven, Twemlow thought), and confidentially retiringwith him into the conservatory, it is understood that Veneering is hisco-trustee, and that they are arranging about the fortune. Buffers areeven overheard to whisper Thir-ty Thou-sand Pou-nds! with a smack and arelish suggestive of the very finest oysters. Pokey unknowns, amazedto find how intimately they know Veneering, pluck up spirit, foldtheir arms, and begin to contradict him before breakfast. What time MrsVeneering, carrying baby dressed as a bridesmaid, flits about amongthe company, emitting flashes of many-coloured lightning from diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. 

The Analytical, in course of time achieving what he feels to be due tohimself in bringing to a dignified conclusion several quarrels he has onhand with the pastrycook's men, announces breakfast. Dining-room no lessmagnificent than drawing-room; tables superb; all the camels out, andall laden. Splendid cake, covered with Cupids, silver, and true-lovers'knots. Splendid bracelet, produced by Veneering before going down, andclasped upon the arm of bride. Yet nobody seems to think much more ofthe Veneerings than if they were a tolerable landlord and landladydoing the thing in the way of business at so much a head. The bride andbridegroom talk and laugh apart, as has always been their manner;and the Buffers work their way through the dishes with systematicperseverance, as has always been THEIR manner; and the pokey unknownsare exceedingly benevolent to one another in invitations to takeglasses of champagne; but Mrs Podsnap, arching her mane and rocking hergrandest, has a far more deferential audience than Mrs Veneering; andPodsnap all but does the honours. 

Another dismal circumstance is, that Veneering, having the captivatingTippins on one side of him and the bride's aunt on the other, findsit immensely difficult to keep the peace. For, Medusa, besidesunmistakingly glaring petrifaction at the fascinating Tippins, followsevery lively remark made by that dear creature, with an audible snort:which may be referable to a chronic cold in the head, but may also bereferable to indignation and contempt. And this snort being regular inits reproduction, at length comes to be expected by the company, whomake embarrassing pauses when it is falling due, and by waiting for it, render it more emphatic when it comes. The stoney aunt has likewise aninjurious way of rejecting all dishes whereof Lady Tippins partakes:saying aloud when they are proffered to her, 'No, no, no, not for me. Take it away!' As with a set purpose of implying a misgiving that ifnourished upon similar meats, she might come to be like that charmer, which would be a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy, Lady Tippinstries a youthful sally or two, and tries the eye-glass; but, from theimpenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stoney aunt all weaponsrebound powerless. 

Another objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey unknowns supporteach other in being unimpressible. They persist in not being frightenedby the gold and silver camels, and they are banded together to defythe elaborately chased ice-pails. They even seem to unite in some vagueutterance of the sentiment that the landlord and landlady will make apretty good profit out of this, and they almost carry themselveslike customers. Nor is there compensating influence in the adorablebridesmaids; for, having very little interest in the bride, and noneat all in one another, those lovely beings become, each one of her ownaccount, depreciatingly contemplative of the millinery present; whilethe bridegroom's man, exhausted, in the back of his chair, appears to beimproving the occasion by penitentially contemplating all the wrong hehas ever done; the difference between him and his friend Eugene, being, that the latter, in the back of HIS chair, appears to be contemplatingall the wrong he would like to do--particularly to the present company. 

In which state of affairs, the usual ceremonies rather droop and flag, and the splendid cake when cut by the fair hand of the bride has butan indigestible appearance. However, all the things indispensable tobe said are said, and all the things indispensable to be done aredone (including Lady Tippins's yawning, falling asleep, and wakinginsensible), and there is hurried preparation for the nuptial journeyto the Isle of Wight, and the outer air teems with brass bands andspectators. In full sight of whom, the malignant star of the Analyticalhas pre-ordained that pain and ridicule shall befall him. For he, standing on the doorsteps to grace the departure, is suddenly caught amost prodigious thump on the side of his head with a heavy shoe, whicha Buffer in the hall, champagne-flushed and wild of aim, has borrowed onthe spur of the moment from the pastrycook's porter, to cast after thedeparting pair as an auspicious omen. 

So they all go up again into the gorgeous drawing-rooms--all of themflushed with breakfast, as having taken scarlatina sociably--and therethe combined unknowns do malignant things with their legs to ottomans, and take as much as possible out of the splendid furniture. And so, LadyTippins, quite undetermined whether today is the day before yesterday, or the day after to-morrow, or the week after next, fades away; andMortimer Lightwood and Eugene fade away, and Twemlow fades away, andthe stoney aunt goes away--she declines to fade, proving rock to thelast--and even the unknowns are slowly strained off, and it is all over. 

All over, that is to say, for the time being. But, there is another timeto come, and it comes in about a fortnight, and it comes to Mr and MrsLammle on the sands at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. 

Mr and Mrs Lammle have walked for some time on the Shanklin sands, andone may see by their footprints that they have not walked arm in arm, and that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they havewalked in a moody humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirtingholes in the damp sand before her with her parasol, and the gentlemanhas trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistophelesfamily indeed, and had walked with a drooping tail. 

'Do you mean to tell me, then, Sophronia--'

Thus he begins after a long silence, when Sophronia flashes fiercely, and turns upon him. 

'Don't put it upon ME, sir. I ask you, do YOU mean to tell me?'

Mr Lammle falls silent again, and they walk as before. Mrs Lammle opensher nostrils and bites her under-lip; Mr Lammle takes his gingerouswhiskers in his left hand, and, bringing them together, frowns furtivelyat his beloved, out of a thick gingerous bush. 

'Do I mean to say!' Mrs Lammle after a time repeats, with indignation. 'Putting it on me! The unmanly disingenuousness!'

Mr Lammle stops, releases his whiskers, and looks at her. 'The what?'

Mrs Lammle haughtily replies, without stopping, and without lookingback. 'The meanness. '

He is at her side again in a pace or two, and he retorts, 'That is notwhat you said. You said disingenuousness. '

'What if I did?'

'There is no "if" in the case. You did. '

'I did, then. And what of it?'

'What of it?' says Mr Lammle. 'Have you the face to utter the word tome?'

'The face, too!' replied Mrs Lammle, staring at him with cold scorn. 'Pray, how dare you, sir, utter the word to me?'

'I never did. '

As this happens to be true, Mrs Lammle is thrown on the feminineresource of saying, 'I don't care what you uttered or did not utter. '

After a little more walking and a little more silence, Mr Lammle breaksthe latter. 

'You shall proceed in your own way. You claim a right to ask me do Imean to tell you. Do I mean to tell you what?'

'That you are a man of property?'

'No. '

'Then you married me on false pretences?'

'So be it. Next comes what you mean to say. Do you mean to say you are awoman of property?'

'No. '

'Then you married me on false pretences. '

'If you were so dull a fortune-hunter that you deceived yourself, orif you were so greedy and grasping that you were over-willing to bedeceived by appearances, is it my fault, you adventurer?' the ladydemands, with great asperity. 

'I asked Veneering, and he told me you were rich. '

'Veneering!' with great contempt. ' And what does Veneering know aboutme!'

'Was he not your trustee?'

'No. I have no trustee, but the one you saw on the day when youfraudulently married me. And his trust is not a very difficult one, forit is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds. I think there aresome odd shillings or pence, if you are very particular. '

Mr Lammle bestows a by no means loving look upon the partner of his joysand sorrows, and he mutters something; but checks himself. 

'Question for question. It is my turn again, Mrs Lammle. What made yousuppose me a man of property?'

'You made me suppose you so. Perhaps you will deny that you alwayspresented yourself to me in that character?'

'But you asked somebody, too. Come, Mrs Lammle, admission for admission. You asked somebody?'

'I asked Veneering. '

'And Veneering knew as much of me as he knew of you, or as anybody knowsof him. '

After more silent walking, the bride stops short, to say in a passionatemanner:

'I never will forgive the Veneerings for this!'

'Neither will I, ' returns the bridegroom. 

With that, they walk again; she, making those angry spirts in the sand;he, dragging that dejected tail. The tide is low, and seems to havethrown them together high on the bare shore. A gull comes sweeping bytheir heads and flouts them. There was a golden surface on the browncliffs but now, and behold they are only damp earth. A taunting roarcomes from the sea, and the far-out rollers mount upon one another, to look at the entrapped impostors, and to join in impish and exultantgambols. 

'Do you pretend to believe, ' Mrs Lammle resumes, sternly, 'when you talkof my marrying you for worldly advantages, that it was within the boundsof reasonable probability that I would have married you for yourself?'

'Again there are two sides to the question, Mrs Lammle. What do youpretend to believe?'

'So you first deceive me and then insult me!' cries the lady, with aheaving bosom. 

'Not at all. I have originated nothing. The double-edged question wasyours. '

'Was mine!' the bride repeats, and her parasol breaks in her angry hand. 

His colour has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have come tolight about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself had, within the last few moments, touched it here and there. But he hasrepressive power, and she has none. 

'Throw it away, ' he coolly recommends as to the parasol; 'you have madeit useless; you look ridiculous with it. '

Whereupon she calls him in her rage, 'A deliberate villain, ' and socasts the broken thing from her as that it strikes him in falling. Thefinger-marks are something whiter for the instant, but he walks on ather side. 

She bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the mostdeceived, the worst-used, of women. Then she says that if she hadthe courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him vileimpostor. Then she asks him, why, in the disappointment of his basespeculation, he does not take her life with his own hand, under thepresent favourable circumstances. Then she cries again. Then she isenraged again, and makes some mention of swindlers. Finally, she sitsdown crying on a block of stone, and is in all the known and unknownhumours of her sex at once. Pending her changes, those aforesaid marksin his face have come and gone, now here now there, like white stepsof a pipe on which the diabolical performer has played a tune. Also hislivid lips are parted at last, as if he were breathless with running. Yet he is not. 

'Now, get up, Mrs Lammle, and let us speak reasonably. '

She sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him. 

'Get up, I tell you. '

Raising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, and repeats, 'You tell me! Tell me, forsooth!'

She affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she droopsher head again; but her whole figure reveals that she knows it uneasily. 

'Enough of this. Come! Do you hear? Get up. '

Yielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again; but this time withtheir faces turned towards their place of residence. 

'Mrs Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have both beendeceived. We have both been biting, and we have both been bitten. In anut-shell, there's the state of the case. '

'You sought me out--'

'Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Whyshould you and I talk about it, when you and I can't disguise it? Toproceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure. '

'Am I no one?'

'Some one--and I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You, too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure. '

'An injured figure!'

'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injuredwithout my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word isnot to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been sucha fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust. '

'And when I look back--' the bride cries, interrupting. 

'And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been--you'll excusethe word?'

'Most certainly, with so much reason. 

'--Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But thefolly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you; you cannotget rid of me. What follows?'

'Shame and misery, ' the bride bitterly replies. 

'I don't know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think it may carryus through. Here I split my discourse (give me your arm, Sophronia), into three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. Firstly, it's enoughto have been done, without the mortification of being known to have beendone. So we agree to keep the fact to ourselves. You agree?'

'If it is possible, I do. '

'Possible! We have pretended well enough to one another. Can't we, united, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, we owe the Veneeringsa grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to betaken in, as we ourselves have been taken in. Agreed?'

'Yes. Agreed. '

'We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer, Sophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary English, so I am. So areyou, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our own secret, andto work together in furtherance of our own schemes. '

'What schemes?'

'Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, I mean ourjoint interest. Agreed?'

She answers, after a little hesitation, 'I suppose so. Agreed. '

'Carried at once, you see! Now, Sophronia, only half a dozen words more. We know one another perfectly. Don't be tempted into twitting me withthe past knowledge that you have of me, because it is identical withthe past knowledge that I have of you, and in twitting me, youtwit yourself, and I don't want to hear you do it. With this goodunderstanding established between us, it is better never done. To windup all:--You have shown temper today, Sophronia. Don't be betrayed intodoing so again, because I have a Devil of a temper myself. '

So, the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed, sealed, and delivered, repair homeward. If, when those infernalfinger-marks were on the white and breathless countenance of AlfredLammle, Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduinghis dear wife Mrs Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting her of anylingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose would seemto have been presently executed. The mature young lady has mighty littleneed of powder, now, for her downcast face, as he escorts her in thelight of the setting sun to their abode of bliss. 

Chapter 11

PODSNAPPERY

Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap's opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good inheritance, and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and wasquite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quitesatisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social examplein being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above allother things, with himself. 

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr Podsnapsettled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. Therewas a dignified conclusiveness--not to add a grand convenience--inthis way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towardsestablishing Mr Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr Podsnap's satisfaction. 'I don't want to know about it; I don't choose to discuss it; I don'tadmit it!' Mr Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of hisright arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult problems, bysweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those wordsand a flushed face. For they affronted him. 

Mr Podsnap's world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor evengeographically: seeing that although his business was sustained uponcommerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with thatimportant reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs wouldconclusively observe, 'Not English!' when, PRESTO! with a flourish ofthe arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewhere, theworld got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted atnine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dinedat seven. Mr Podsnap's notions of the Arts in their integrity might havebeen stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive ofgetting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfastingat nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraitsrepresenting Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at aquarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, cominghome at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music; a respectableperformance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments, sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarterpast, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home athalf-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted tothose same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing elseTo Be--anywhere!

As a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its beingrequired of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently healways knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectablemen might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it. And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) thatwhat Providence meant, was invariably what Mr Podsnap meant. 

These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and schoolwhich the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after itsrepresentative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds, as Mr Podsnap's own head was confined by his shirt-collar; and theywere enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of MrPodsnap's own boots. 

There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was being trainedin her mother's art of prancing in a stately manner without ever gettingon. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, andin truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, lowspirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed totake occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and toshrink back again, overcome by her mother's head-dress and her fatherfrom head to foot--crushed by the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery. 

A certain institution in Mr Podsnap's mind which he called 'the youngperson' may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, hisdaughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiringeverything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. Thequestion about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek ofthe young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that, according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst intoblushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line ofdemarcation between the young person's excessive innocence, and anotherperson's guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap's word for it, and thesoberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red tothis troublesome Bull of a young person. 

The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman Square. They werea kind of people certain to dwell in the shade, wherever they dwelt. Miss Podsnap's life had been, from her first appearance on this planet, altogether of a shady order; for, Mr Podsnap's young person was likelyto get little good out of association with other young persons, and hadtherefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial olderpersons, and with massive furniture. Miss Podsnap's early views of lifebeing principally derived from the reflections of it in her father'sboots, and in the walnut and rosewood tables of the dim drawing-rooms, and in their swarthy giants of looking-glasses, were of a sombre cast;and it was not wonderful that now, when she was on most days solemnlytooled through the Park by the side of her mother in a great tallcustard-coloured phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehiclelike a dejected young person sitting up in bed to take a startled lookat things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head underthe counterpane again. 

Said Mr Podsnap to Mrs Podsnap, 'Georgiana is almost eighteen. '

Said Mrs Podsnap to Mr Podsnap, assenting, 'Almost eighteen. '

Said Mr Podsnap then to Mrs Podsnap, 'Really I think we should have somepeople on Georgiana's birthday. '

Said Mrs Podsnap then to Mr Podsnap, 'Which will enable us to clear offall those people who are due. '

So it came to pass that Mr and Mrs Podsnap requested the honour of thecompany of seventeen friends of their souls at dinner; and that theysubstituted other friends of their souls for such of the seventeenoriginal friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a priorengagement prevented their having the honour of dining with Mr and MrsPodsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs Podsnapsaid of all these inconsolable personages, as she checked them off witha pencil in her list, 'Asked, at any rate, and got rid of;' and thatthey successfully disposed of a good many friends of their souls in thisway, and felt their consciences much lightened. 

There were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled tobe asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited to come and take ahaunch of mutton vapour-bath at half-past nine. For the clearing offof these worthies, Mrs Podsnap added a small and early evening to thedinner, and looked in at the music-shop to bespeak a well-conductedautomaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance. 

Mr and Mrs Veneering, and Mr and Mrs Veneering's bran-new bride andbridegroom, were of the dinner company; but the Podsnap establishmenthad nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr Podsnap couldtolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sortof thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was thecharacteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look asheavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everythingsaid boastfully, 'Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if Iwere only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so muchan ounce;--wouldn't you like to melt me down?' A corpulent straddlingepergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption ratherthan been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silverplatform in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, eachfurnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a bigsilver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down thetable, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All thebig silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the company expresslyfor the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with everymorsel they ate. 

The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included severalheavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was a foreign gentlemanamong them: whom Mr Podsnap had invited after much debate withhimself--believing the whole European continent to be in mortal allianceagainst the young person--and there was a droll disposition, not only onthe part of Mr Podsnap but of everybody else, to treat him as if he werea child who was hard of hearing. 

As a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born foreigner, MrPodsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife as 'Madame Podsnap;'also his daughter as 'Mademoiselle Podsnap, ' with some inclination toadd 'ma fille, ' in which bold venture, however, he checked himself. TheVeneerings being at that time the only other arrivals, he had added (ina condescendingly explanatory manner), 'Monsieur Vey-nair-reeng, ' andhad then subsided into English. 

'How Do You Like London?' Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station ofhost, as if he were administering something in the nature of a powder orpotion to the deaf child; 'London, Londres, London?'

The foreign gentleman admired it. 

'You find it Very Large?' said Mr Podsnap, spaciously. 

The foreign gentleman found it very large. 

'And Very Rich?'

The foreign gentleman found it, without doubt, enormement riche. 

'Enormously Rich, We say, ' returned Mr Podsnap, in a condescendingmanner. 'Our English adverbs do Not terminate in Mong, and We Pronouncethe "ch" as if there were a "t" before it. We say Ritch. '

'Reetch, ' remarked the foreign gentleman. 

'And Do You Find, Sir, ' pursued Mr Podsnap, with dignity, 'ManyEvidences that Strike You, of our British Constitution in the Streets OfThe World's Metropolis, London, Londres, London?'

The foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did not altogetherunderstand. 

'The Constitution Britannique, ' Mr Podsnap explained, as if he wereteaching in an infant school. ' We Say British, But You Say Britannique, You Know' (forgivingly, as if that were not his fault). 'TheConstitution, Sir. '

The foreign gentleman said, 'Mais, yees; I know eem. '

A youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a lumpy forehead, seated in a supplementary chair at a corner of the table, here causeda profound sensation by saying, in a raised voice, 'ESKER, ' and thenstopping dead. 

'Mais oui, ' said the foreign gentleman, turning towards him. 'Est-ceque? Quoi donc?'

But the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for the time deliveredhimself of all that he found behind his lumps, spake for the time nomore. 

'I Was Inquiring, ' said Mr Podsnap, resuming the thread of hisdiscourse, 'Whether You Have Observed in our Streets as We should say, Upon our Pavvy as You would say, any Tokens--'

The foreign gentleman, with patient courtesy entreated pardon; 'But whatwas tokenz?'

'Marks, ' said Mr Podsnap; 'Signs, you know, Appearances--Traces. '

'Ah! Of a Orse?' inquired the foreign gentleman. 

'We call it Horse, ' said Mr Podsnap, with forbearance. 'In England, Angleterre, England, We Aspirate the "H, " and We Say "Horse. " Only ourLower Classes Say "Orse!"'

'Pardon, ' said the foreign gentleman; 'I am alwiz wrong!'

'Our Language, ' said Mr Podsnap, with a gracious consciousness of beingalways right, 'is Difficult. Ours is a Copious Language, and Trying toStrangers. I will not Pursue my Question. '

But the lumpy gentleman, unwilling to give it up, again madly said, 'ESKER, ' and again spake no more. 

'It merely referred, ' Mr Podsnap explained, with a sense of meritoriousproprietorship, 'to Our Constitution, Sir. We Englishmen are Very Proudof our Constitution, Sir. It Was Bestowed Upon Us By Providence. NoOther Country is so Favoured as This Country. '

'And ozer countries?--' the foreign gentleman was beginning, when MrPodsnap put him right again. 

'We do not say Ozer; we say Other: the letters are "T" and "H;" You sayTay and Aish, You Know; (still with clemency). The sound is "th"--"th!"'

'And OTHER countries, ' said the foreign gentleman. 'They do how?'

'They do, Sir, ' returned Mr Podsnap, gravely shaking his head; 'theydo--I am sorry to be obliged to say it--AS they do. '

'It was a little particular of Providence, ' said the foreign gentleman, laughing; 'for the frontier is not large. '

'Undoubtedly, ' assented Mr Podsnap; 'But So it is. It was the Charterof the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion ofsuch Other Countries as--as there may happen to be. And if we were allEnglishmen present, I would say, ' added Mr Podsnap, looking round uponhis compatriots, and sounding solemnly with his theme, 'that there is inthe Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everythingcalculated to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which onewould seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth. '

Having delivered this little summary, Mr Podsnap's face flushed, as hethought of the remote possibility of its being at all qualified byany prejudiced citizen of any other country; and, with his favouriteright-arm flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of Asia, Africa, and America nowhere. 

The audience were much edified by this passage of words; and Mr Podsnap, feeling that he was in rather remarkable force to-day, became smilingand conversational. 

'Has anything more been heard, Veneering, ' he inquired, 'of the luckylegatee?'

'Nothing more, ' returned Veneering, 'than that he has come intopossession of the property. I am told people now call him The GoldenDustman. I mentioned to you some time ago, I think, that the young ladywhose intended husband was murdered is daughter to a clerk of mine?'

'Yes, you told me that, ' said Podsnap; 'and by-the-bye, I wish you wouldtell it again here, for it's a curious coincidence--curious that thefirst news of the discovery should have been brought straight to yourtable (when I was there), and curious that one of your people shouldhave been so nearly interested in it. Just relate that, will you?'

Veneering was more than ready to do it, for he had prospered exceedinglyupon the Harmon Murder, and had turned the social distinction itconferred upon him to the account of making several dozen of bran-newbosom-friends. Indeed, such another lucky hit would almost have set himup in that way to his satisfaction. So, addressing himself to the mostdesirable of his neighbours, while Mrs Veneering secured the next mostdesirable, he plunged into the case, and emerged from it twenty minutesafterwards with a Bank Director in his arms. In the mean time, MrsVeneering had dived into the same waters for a wealthy Ship-Broker, andhad brought him up, safe and sound, by the hair. Then Mrs Veneering hadto relate, to a larger circle, how she had been to see the girl, and howshe was really pretty, and (considering her station) presentable. And this she did with such a successful display of her eight aquilinefingers and their encircling jewels, that she happily laid hold of adrifting General Officer, his wife and daughter, and not only restoredtheir animation which had become suspended, but made them lively friendswithin an hour. 

Although Mr Podsnap would in a general way have highly disapproved ofBodies in rivers as ineligible topics with reference to the cheek of theyoung person, he had, as one may say, a share in this affair which madehim a part proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the wayof restraining the company from speechless contemplation of thewine-coolers, it paid, and he was satisfied. 

And now the haunch of mutton vapour-bath having received a gameyinfusion, and a few last touches of sweets and coffee, was quite ready, and the bathers came; but not before the discreet automaton had gotbehind the bars of the piano music-desk, and there presented theappearance of a captive languishing in a rose-wood jail. And who nowso pleasant or so well assorted as Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, he allsparkle, she all gracious contentment, both at occasional intervalsexchanging looks like partners at cards who played a game against AllEngland. 

There was not much youth among the bathers, but there was no youth(the young person always excepted) in the articles of Podsnappery. Baldbathers folded their arms and talked to Mr Podsnap on the hearthrug;sleek-whiskered bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs Podsnapand retreated; prowling bathers, went about looking into ornamentalboxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of larceny on the part of thePodsnaps, and expected to find something they had lost at the bottom;bathers of the gentler sex sat silently comparing ivory shoulders. Allthis time and always, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts (ifshe had made any) were swallowed up in the magnificence of her mother'srocking, kept herself as much out of sight and mind as she could, and appeared to be counting on many dismal returns of the day. It wassomehow understood, as a secret article in the state proprieties ofPodsnappery that nothing must be said about the day. Consequently thisyoung damsel's nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if it wereagreed on all hands that it would have been better that she had neverbeen born. 

The Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that they could not forsome time detach themselves from those excellent friends; but at length, either a very open smile on Mr Lammle's part, or a very secret elevationof one of his gingerous eyebrows--certainly the one or the other--seemedto say to Mrs Lammle, 'Why don't you play?' And so, looking about her, she saw Miss Podsnap, and seeming to say responsively, 'That card?' andto be answered, 'Yes, ' went and sat beside Miss Podsnap. 

Mrs Lammle was overjoyed to escape into a corner for a little quiettalk. 

It promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in aflutter, 'Oh! Indeed, it's very kind of you, but I am afraid I DON'Ttalk. '

'Let us make a beginning, ' said the insinuating Mrs Lammle, with herbest smile. 

'Oh! I am afraid you'll find me very dull. But Ma talks!'

That was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then at her usualcanter, with arched head and mane, opened eyes and nostrils. 

'Fond of reading perhaps?'

'Yes. At least I--don't mind that so much, ' returned Miss Podsnap. 

'M-m-m-m-music. So insinuating was Mrs Lammle that she got half a dozenms into the word before she got it out. 

'I haven't nerve to play even if I could. Ma plays. '

(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing appearanceof doing something, Ma did, in fact, occasionally take a rock upon theinstrument. )

'Of course you like dancing?'

'Oh no, I don't, ' said Miss Podsnap. 

'No? With your youth and attractions? Truly, my dear, you surprise me!'

'I can't say, ' observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating considerably, andstealing several timid looks at Mrs Lammle's carefully arranged face, 'how I might have liked it if I had been a--you won't mention it, WILLyou?'

'My dear! Never!'

'No, I am sure you won't. I can't say then how I should have liked it, if I had been a chimney-sweep on May-day. '

'Gracious!' was the exclamation which amazement elicited from MrsLammle. 

'There! I knew you'd wonder. But you won't mention it, will you?'

'Upon my word, my love, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'you make me ten times moredesirous, now I talk to you, to know you well than I was when I sat overyonder looking at you. How I wish we could be real friends! Try me as areal friend. Come! Don't fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear;I was married but the other day, you know; I am dressed as a bride now, you see. About the chimney-sweeps?'

'Hush! Ma'll hear. '

'She can't hear from where she sits. '

'Don't you be too sure of that, ' said Miss Podsnap, in a lower voice. 'Well, what I mean is, that they seem to enjoy it. '

'And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had been one ofthem?'

Miss Podsnap nodded significantly. 

'Then you don't enjoy it now?'

'How is it possible?' said Miss Podsnap. 'Oh it is such a dreadfulthing! If I was wicked enough--and strong enough--to kill anybody, itshould be my partner. '

This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art associally practised, that Mrs Lammle looked at her young friend in someastonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers ina pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But thislatter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the greatinoffensive aim of her existence. 

'It sounds horrid, don't it?' said Miss Podsnap, with a penitentialface. 

Mrs Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved herself intoa look of smiling encouragement. 

'But it is, and it always has been, ' pursued Miss Podsnap, 'such a trialto me! I so dread being awful. And it is so awful! No one knows whatI suffered at Madame Sauteuse's, where I learnt to dance and makepresentation-curtseys, and other dreadful things--or at least where theytried to teach me. Ma can do it. '

'At any rate, my love, ' said Mrs Lammle, soothingly, 'that's over. '

'Yes, it's over, ' returned Miss Podsnap, 'but there's nothing gained bythat. It's worse here, than at Madame Sauteuse's. Ma was there, and Ma'shere; but Pa wasn't there, and company wasn't there, and there were notreal partners there. Oh there's Ma speaking to the man at the piano! Ohthere's Ma going up to somebody! Oh I know she's going to bring himto me! Oh please don't, please don't, please don't! Oh keep away, keepaway, keep away!' These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with hereyes closed, and her head leaning back against the wall. 

But the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and Ma said, 'Georgiana, Mr Grompus, ' and the Ogre clutched his victim and bore her off to hiscastle in the top couple. Then the discreet automaton who had surveyedhis ground, played a blossomless tuneless 'set, ' and sixteen disciplesof Podsnappery went through the figures of - 1, Getting up at eight andshaving close at a quarter past - 2, Breakfasting at nine - 3, Going tothe City at ten - 4, Coming home at half-past five - 5, Dining at seven, and the grand chain. 

While these solemnities were in progress, Mr Alfred Lammle (most lovingof husbands) approached the chair of Mrs Alfred Lammle (most loving ofwives), and bending over the back of it, trifled for some few secondswith Mrs Lammle's bracelet. Slightly in contrast with this brief airytoying, one might have noticed a certain dark attention in Mrs Lammle'sface as she said some words with her eyes on Mr Lammle's waistcoat, andseemed in return to receive some lesson. But it was all done as a breathpasses from a mirror. 

And now, the grand chain riveted to the last link, the discreetautomaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two, took a walk amongthe furniture. And herein the unconsciousness of the Ogre Grompus waspleasantly conspicuous; for, that complacent monster, believing thathe was giving Miss Podsnap a treat, prolonged to the utmost stretchof possibility a peripatetic account of an archery meeting; while hisvictim, heading the procession of sixteen as it slowly circled about, like a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except once to steal aglance at Mrs Lammle, expressive of intense despair. 

At length the procession was dissolved by the violent arrival of anutmeg, before which the drawing-room door bounced open as if it were acannon-ball; and while that fragrant article, dispersed through severalglasses of coloured warm water, was going the round of society, MissPodsnap returned to her seat by her new friend. 

'Oh my goodness, ' said Miss Podsnap. 'THAT'S over! I hope you didn'tlook at me. '

'My dear, why not?'

'Oh I know all about myself, ' said Miss Podsnap. 

'I'll tell you something I know about you, my dear, ' returned Mrs Lammlein her winning way, 'and that is, you are most unnecessarily shy. '

'Ma ain't, ' said Miss Podsnap. '--I detest you! Go along!' This shotwas levelled under her breath at the gallant Grompus for bestowing aninsinuating smile upon her in passing. 

'Pardon me if I scarcely see, my dear Miss Podsnap, ' Mrs Lammle wasbeginning when the young lady interposed. 

'If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, for you arethe only person who ever proposed it) don't let us be awful. It's awfulenough to BE Miss Podsnap, without being called so. Call me Georgiana. '

'Dearest Georgiana, ' Mrs Lammle began again. 

'Thank you, ' said Miss Podsnap. 

'Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, why yourmamma's not being shy, is a reason why you should be. '

'Don't you really see that?' asked Miss Podsnap, plucking at her fingersin a troubled manner, and furtively casting her eyes now on Mrs Lammle, now on the ground. 'Then perhaps it isn't?'

'My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my poor opinion. Indeed it is not even an opinion, darling, for it is only a confessionof my dullness. '

'Oh YOU are not dull, ' returned Miss Podsnap. 'I am dull, but youcouldn't have made me talk if you were. '

Some little touch of conscience answering this perception of her havinggained a purpose, called bloom enough into Mrs Lammle's face to make itlook brighter as she sat smiling her best smile on her dear Georgiana, and shaking her head with an affectionate playfulness. Not that it meantanything, but that Georgiana seemed to like it. 

'What I mean is, ' pursued Georgiana, 'that Ma being so endowed withawfulness, and Pa being so endowed with awfulness, and there beingso much awfulness everywhere--I mean, at least, everywhere where Iam--perhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightenedat it--I say it very badly--I don't know whether you can understand whatI mean?'

'Perfectly, dearest Georgiana!' Mrs Lammle was proceeding with everyreassuring wile, when the head of that young lady suddenly went backagainst the wall again and her eyes closed. 

'Oh there's Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in his eye! Oh Iknow she's going to bring him here! Oh don't bring him, don't bring him!Oh he'll be my partner with his glass in his eye! Oh what shall I do!'This time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps of her feetupon the floor, and was altogether in quite a desperate condition. But, there was no escape from the majestic Mrs Podsnap's production of anambling stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the otherframed and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, as if hedescried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular shaft, broughther to the surface, and ambled off with her. And then the captive at thepiano played another 'set, ' expressive of his mournful aspirations afterfreedom, and other sixteen went through the former melancholy motions, and the ambler took Miss Podsnap for a furniture walk, as if he hadstruck out an entirely original conception. 

In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wanderedto the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes assembled there inconference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush andflourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to thecircumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not adaptedto the cheek of the young person. It was not in good taste. 

'I don't believe it, ' said Mr Podsnap, putting it behind him. 

The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there werethe Inquests and the Registrar's returns. 

'Then it was their own fault, ' said Mr Podsnap. 

Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of it. Atonce a short cut and a broad road. 

The man of meek demeanour intimated that truly it would seem fromthe facts, as if starvation had been forced upon the culprits inquestion--as if, in their wretched manner, they had made their weakprotests against it--as if they would have taken the liberty of stavingit off if they could--as if they would rather not have been starved uponthe whole, if perfectly agreeable to all parties. 

'There is not, ' said Mr Podsnap, flushing angrily, 'there is not acountry in the world, sir, where so noble a provision is made for thepoor as in this country. '

The meek man was quite willing to concede that, but perhaps itrendered the matter even worse, as showing that there must be somethingappallingly wrong somewhere. 

'Where?' said Mr Podsnap. 

The meek man hinted Wouldn't it be well to try, very seriously, to findout where?

'Ah!' said Mr Podsnap. 'Easy to say somewhere; not so easy to saywhere! But I see what you are driving at. I knew it from the first. Centralization. No. Never with my consent. Not English. '

An approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes; as saying, 'Thereyou have him! Hold him!'

He was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) that he was drivingat any ization. He had no favourite ization that he knew of. But hecertainly was more staggered by these terrible occurrences than he wasby names, of howsoever so many syllables. Might he ask, was dying ofdestitution and neglect necessarily English?

'You know what the population of London is, I suppose, ' said Mr Podsnap. 

The meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had absolutely nothingto do with it, if its laws were well administered. 

'And you know; at least I hope you know;' said Mr Podsnap, withseverity, 'that Providence has declared that you shall have the pooralways with you?'

The meek man also hoped he knew that. 

'I am glad to hear it, ' said Mr Podsnap with a portentous air. 'I amglad to hear it. It will render you cautious how you fly in the face ofProvidence. '

In reference to that absurd and irreverent conventional phrase, the meekman said, for which Mr Podsnap was not responsible, he the meek man hadno fear of doing anything so impossible; but--

But Mr Podsnap felt that the time had come for flushing and flourishingthis meek man down for good. So he said:

'I must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is not pleasant tomy feelings; it is repugnant to my feelings. I have said that I do notadmit these things. I have also said that if they do occur (not that Iadmit it), the fault lies with the sufferers themselves. It is not forME'--Mr Podsnap pointed 'me' forcibly, as adding by implication thoughit may be all very well for YOU--'it is not for me to impugn theworkings of Providence. I know better than that, I trust, and I havementioned what the intentions of Providence are. Besides, ' saidMr Podsnap, flushing high up among his hair-brushes, with a strongconsciousness of personal affront, 'the subject is a very disagreeableone. I will go so far as to say it is an odious one. It is not one to beintroduced among our wives and young persons, and I--' He finished withthat flourish of his arm which added more expressively than any words, And I remove it from the face of the earth. 

Simultaneously with this quenching of the meek man's ineffectual fire;Georgiana having left the ambler up a lane of sofa, in a No Thoroughfareof back drawing-room, to find his own way out, came back to Mrs Lammle. And who should be with Mrs Lammle, but Mr Lammle. So fond of her!

'Alfred, my love, here is my friend. Georgiana, dearest girl, you mustlike my husband next to me. 

Mr Lammle was proud to be so soon distinguished by this specialcommendation to Miss Podsnap's favour. But if Mr Lammle were prone to bejealous of his dear Sophronia's friendships, he would be jealous of herfeeling towards Miss Podsnap. 

'Say Georgiana, darling, ' interposed his wife. 

'Towards--shall I?--Georgiana. ' Mr Lammle uttered the name, with adelicate curve of his right hand, from his lips outward. 'For never haveI known Sophronia (who is not apt to take sudden likings) so attractedand so captivated as she is by--shall I once more?--Georgiana. '

The object of this homage sat uneasily enough in receipt of it, and thensaid, turning to Mrs Lammle, much embarrassed:

'I wonder what you like me for! I am sure I can't think. '

'Dearest Georgiana, for yourself. For your difference from all aroundyou. '

'Well! That may be. For I think I like you for your difference from allaround me, ' said Georgiana with a smile of relief. 

'We must be going with the rest, ' observed Mrs Lammle, rising with ashow of unwillingness, amidst a general dispersal. 'We are real friends, Georgiana dear?'

'Real. '

'Good night, dear girl!'

She had established an attraction over the shrinking nature upon whichher smiling eyes were fixed, for Georgiana held her hand while sheanswered in a secret and half-frightened tone:

'Don't forget me when you are gone away. And come again soon. Goodnight!'

Charming to see Mr and Mrs Lammle taking leave so gracefully, and goingdown the stairs so lovingly and sweetly. Not quite so charming to seetheir smiling faces fall and brood as they dropped moodily into separatecorners of their little carriage. But to be sure that was a sight behindthe scenes, which nobody saw, and which nobody was meant to see. 

Certain big, heavy vehicles, built on the model of the Podsnap plate, took away the heavy articles of guests weighing ever so much; and theless valuable articles got away after their various manners; and thePodsnap plate was put to bed. As Mr Podsnap stood with his back to thedrawing-room fire, pulling up his shirtcollar, like a veritable cockof the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of his possessions, nothing would have astonished him more than an intimation that MissPodsnap, or any other young person properly born and bred, could not beexactly put away like the plate, brought out like the plate, polishedlike the plate, counted, weighed, and valued like the plate. That sucha young person could possibly have a morbid vacancy in the heart foranything younger than the plate, or less monotonous than the plate;or that such a young person's thoughts could try to scale the regionbounded on the north, south, east, and west, by the plate; was amonstrous imagination which he would on the spot have flourished intospace. This perhaps in some sort arose from Mr Podsnap's blushing youngperson being, so to speak, all cheek; whereas there is a possibilitythat there may be young persons of a rather more complex organization. 

If Mr Podsnap, pulling up his shirt-collar, could only have heardhimself called 'that fellow' in a certain short dialogue, which passedbetween Mr and Mrs Lammle in their opposite corners of their littlecarriage, rolling home!

'Sophronia, are you awake?'

'Am I likely to be asleep, sir?'

'Very likely, I should think, after that fellow's company. Attend towhat I am going to say. '

'I have attended to what you have already said, have I not? What elsehave I been doing all to-night. '

'Attend, I tell you, ' (in a raised voice) 'to what I am going to say. Keep close to that idiot girl. Keep her under your thumb. You have herfast, and you are not to let her go. Do you hear?'

'I hear you. '

'I foresee there is money to be made out of this, besides taking thatfellow down a peg. We owe each other money, you know. '

Mrs Lammle winced a little at the reminder, but only enough to shake herscents and essences anew into the atmosphere of the little carriage, asshe settled herself afresh in her own dark corner. 

Chapter 12

THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW

Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn took a coffee-house dinnertogether in Mr Lightwood's office. They had newly agreed to set up ajoint establishment together. They had taken a bachelor cottage nearHampton, on the brink of the Thames, with a lawn, and a boat-house; andall things fitting, and were to float with the stream through the summerand the Long Vacation. 

It was not summer yet, but spring; and it was not gentle springethereally mild, as in Thomson's Seasons, but nipping spring with aneasterly wind, as in Johnson's, Jackson's, Dickson's, Smith's, andJones's Seasons. The grating wind sawed rather than blew; and as itsawed, the sawdust whirled about the sawpit. Every street was a sawpit, and there were no top-sawyers; every passenger was an under-sawyer, withthe sawdust blinding him and choking him. 

That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when thewind blows, gyrated here and there and everywhere. Whence can it come, whither can it go? It hangs on every bush, flutters in every tree, iscaught flying by the electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks atevery pump, cowers at every grating, shudders upon every plot of grass, seeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails. In Paris, wherenothing is wasted, costly and luxurious city though it be, but wherewonderful human ants creep out of holes and pick up every scrap, thereis no such thing. There, it blows nothing but dust. There, sharp eyesand sharp stomachs reap even the east wind, and get something out of it. 

The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung their manyhands, bemoaning that they had been over-persuaded by the sun to bud;the young leaves pined; the sparrows repented of their early marriages, like men and women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, notin floral spring, but in the faces of the people whom it nibbled andpinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. 

When the spring evenings are too long and light to shut out, and suchweather is rife, the city which Mr Podsnap so explanatorily calledLondon, Londres, London, is at its worst. Such a black shrill city, combining the qualities of a smoky house and a scolding wife; such agritty city; such a hopeless city, with no rent in the leaden canopy ofits sky; such a beleaguered city, invested by the great Marsh Forces ofEssex and Kent. So the two old schoolfellows felt it to be, as, theirdinner done, they turned towards the fire to smoke. Young Blight wasgone, the coffee-house waiter was gone, the plates and dishes were gone, the wine was going--but not in the same direction. 

'The wind sounds up here, ' quoth Eugene, stirring the fire, 'as if wewere keeping a lighthouse. I wish we were. '

'Don't you think it would bore us?' Lightwood asked. 

'Not more than any other place. And there would be no Circuit to go. Butthat's a selfish consideration, personal to me. '

'And no clients to come, ' added Lightwood. 'Not that that's a selfishconsideration at all personal to ME. '

'If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea, ' said Eugene, smokingwith his eyes on the fire, 'Lady Tippins couldn't put off to visit us, or, better still, might put off and get swamped. People couldn't ask oneto wedding breakfasts. There would be no Precedents to hammer at, except the plain-sailing Precedent of keeping the light up. It would beexciting to look out for wrecks. '

'But otherwise, ' suggested Lightwood, 'there might be a degree ofsameness in the life. '

'I have thought of that also, ' said Eugene, as if he really had beenconsidering the subject in its various bearings with an eye to thebusiness; 'but it would be a defined and limited monotony. It wouldnot extend beyond two people. Now, it's a question with me, Mortimer, whether a monotony defined with that precision and limited to thatextent, might not be more endurable than the unlimited monotony of one'sfellow-creatures. '

As Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, 'We shall have anopportunity, in our boating summer, of trying the question. '

'An imperfect one, ' Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, 'but so we shall. Ihope we may not prove too much for one another. '

'Now, regarding your respected father, ' said Lightwood, bringing himto a subject they had expressly appointed to discuss: always the mostslippery eel of eels of subjects to lay hold of. 

'Yes, regarding my respected father, ' assented Eugene, settling himselfin his arm-chair. 'I would rather have approached my respected father bycandlelight, as a theme requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but wewill take him by twilight, enlivened with a glow of Wallsend. '

He stirred the fire again as he spoke, and having made it blaze, resumed. 

'My respected father has found, down in the parental neighbourhood, awife for his not-generally-respected son. '

'With some money, of course?'

'With some money, of course, or he would not have found her. Myrespected father--let me shorten the dutiful tautology by substitutingin future M. R. F. , which sounds military, and rather like the Duke ofWellington. '

'What an absurd fellow you are, Eugene!'

'Not at all, I assure you. M. R. F. Having always in the clearest mannerprovided (as he calls it) for his children by pre-arranging from thehour of the birth of each, and sometimes from an earlier period, whatthe devoted little victim's calling and course in life should be, M. R. F. Pre-arranged for myself that I was to be the barrister I am (withthe slight addition of an enormous practice, which has not accrued), andalso the married man I am not. '

'The first you have often told me. '

'The first I have often told you. Considering myself sufficientlyincongruous on my legal eminence, I have until now suppressed mydomestic destiny. You know M. R. F. , but not as well as I do. If youknew him as well as I do, he would amuse you. '

'Filially spoken, Eugene!'

'Perfectly so, believe me; and with every sentiment of affectionatedeference towards M. R. F. But if he amuses me, I can't help it. When myeldest brother was born, of course the rest of us knew (I mean the restof us would have known, if we had been in existence) that he was heirto the Family Embarrassments--we call it before the company the FamilyEstate. But when my second brother was going to be born by-and-by, "this, " says M. R. F. , "is a little pillar of the church. " WAS born, and became a pillar of the church; a very shaky one. My third brotherappeared, considerably in advance of his engagement to my mother; butM. R. F. , not at all put out by surprise, instantly declared hima Circumnavigator. Was pitch-forked into the Navy, but has notcircumnavigated. I announced myself and was disposed of with the highlysatisfactory results embodied before you. When my younger brother washalf an hour old, it was settled by M. R. F. That he should have amechanical genius. And so on. Therefore I say that M. R. F. Amuses me. '

'Touching the lady, Eugene. '

'There M. R. F. Ceases to be amusing, because my intentions are opposedto touching the lady. '

'Do you know her?'

'Not in the least. '

'Hadn't you better see her?'

'My dear Mortimer, you have studied my character. Could I possibly godown there, labelled "ELIGIBLE. ON VIEW, " and meet the lady, similarlylabelled? Anything to carry out M. R. F. 's arrangements, I am sure, withthe greatest pleasure--except matrimony. Could I possibly support it? I, so soon bored, so constantly, so fatally?'

'But you are not a consistent fellow, Eugene. '

'In susceptibility to boredom, ' returned that worthy, 'I assure you I amthe most consistent of mankind. '

'Why, it was but now that you were dwelling in the advantages of amonotony of two. '

'In a lighthouse. Do me the justice to remember the condition. In alighthouse. '

Mortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too for the firsttime, as if he found himself on reflection rather entertaining, relapsedinto his usual gloom, and drowsily said, as he enjoyed his cigar, 'No, there is no help for it; one of the prophetic deliveries of M. R. F. Must for ever remain unfulfilled. With every disposition to oblige him, he must submit to a failure. '

It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and thesawdust was whirling outside paler windows. The underlying churchyardwas already settling into deep dim shade, and the shade was creeping upto the housetops among which they sat. 'As if, ' said Eugene, 'as if thechurchyard ghosts were rising. '

He had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, to exalt itsflavour by comparing the fireside with the outside, when he stoppedmidway on his return to his arm-chair, and said:

'Apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in to bedirected. Look at this phantom!'

Lightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his head, and there, in the darkness of the entry, stood a something in the likeness of aman: to whom he addressed the not irrelevant inquiry, 'Who the devil areyou?'

'I ask your pardons, Governors, ' replied the ghost, in a hoarsedouble-barrelled whisper, 'but might either on you be Lawyer Lightwood?'

'What do you mean by not knocking at the door?' demanded Mortimer. 

'I ask your pardons, Governors, ' replied the ghost, as before, 'butprobable you was not aware your door stood open. '

'What do you want?'

Hereunto the ghost again hoarsely replied, in its double-barrelledmanner, 'I ask your pardons, Governors, but might one on you be LawyerLightwood?'

'One of us is, ' said the owner of that name. 

'All right, Governors Both, ' returned the ghost, carefully closing theroom door; ''tickler business. '

Mortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to be anill-looking visitor with a squinting leer, who, as he spoke, fumbledat an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that looked like a furryanimal, dog or cat, puppy or kitten, drowned and decaying. 

'Now, ' said Mortimer, 'what is it?'

'Governors Both, ' returned the man, in what he meant to be a wheedlingtone, 'which on you might be Lawyer Lightwood?'

'I am. '

'Lawyer Lightwood, ' ducking at him with a servile air, 'I am a man asgets my living, and as seeks to get my living, by the sweat of my brow. Not to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, by any chances, Ishould wish afore going further to be swore in. '

'I am not a swearer in of people, man. '

The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedlymuttered 'Alfred David. '

'Is that your name?' asked Lightwood. 

'My name?' returned the man. 'No; I want to take a Alfred David. '

(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as meaningAffidavit. )

'I tell you, my good fellow, ' said Lightwood, with his indolent laugh, 'that I have nothing to do with swearing. '

'He can swear AT you, ' Eugene explained; 'and so can I. But we can't domore for you. '

Much discomfited by this information, the visitor turned the drowneddog or cat, puppy or kitten, about and about, and looked from one ofthe Governors Both to the other of the Governors Both, while he deeplyconsidered within himself. At length he decided:

'Then I must be took down. '

'Where?' asked Lightwood. 

'Here, ' said the man. 'In pen and ink. '

'First, let us know what your business is about. '

'It's about, ' said the man, taking a step forward, dropping his hoarsevoice, and shading it with his hand, 'it's about from five to tenthousand pound reward. That's what it's about. It's about Murder. That'swhat it's about. '

'Come nearer the table. Sit down. Will you have a glass of wine?'

'Yes, I will, ' said the man; 'and I don't deceive you, Governors. '

It was given him. Making a stiff arm to the elbow, he poured the wineinto his mouth, tilted it into his right cheek, as saying, 'What do youthink of it?' tilted it into his left cheek, as saying, 'What do YOUthink of it?' jerked it into his stomach, as saying, 'What do YOU thinkof it?' To conclude, smacked his lips, as if all three replied, 'Wethink well of it. '

'Will you have another?'

'Yes, I will, ' he repeated, 'and I don't deceive you, Governors. ' Andalso repeated the other proceedings. 

'Now, ' began Lightwood, 'what's your name?'

'Why, there you're rather fast, Lawyer Lightwood, ' he replied, in aremonstrant manner. 'Don't you see, Lawyer Lightwood? There you're alittle bit fast. I'm going to earn from five to ten thousand pound bythe sweat of my brow; and as a poor man doing justice to the sweat of mybrow, is it likely I can afford to part with so much as my name withoutits being took down?'

Deferring to the man's sense of the binding powers of pen and ink andpaper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene's nodded proposal to takethose spells in hand. Eugene, bringing them to the table, sat down asclerk or notary. 

'Now, ' said Lightwood, 'what's your name?'

But further precaution was still due to the sweat of this honestfellow's brow. 

'I should wish, Lawyer Lightwood, ' he stipulated, 'to have that T'otherGovernor as my witness that what I said I said. Consequent, will theT'other Governor be so good as chuck me his name and where he lives?'

Eugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his card. Afterspelling it out slowly, the man made it into a little roll, and tied itup in an end of his neckerchief still more slowly. 

'Now, ' said Lightwood, for the third time, 'if you have quite completedyour various preparations, my friend, and have fully ascertained thatyour spirits are cool and not in any way hurried, what's your name?'

'Roger Riderhood. '

'Dwelling-place?'

'Lime'us Hole. '

'Calling or occupation?'

Not quite so glib with this answer as with the previous two, MrRiderhood gave in the definition, 'Waterside character. '

'Anything against you?' Eugene quietly put in, as he wrote. 

Rather baulked, Mr Riderhood evasively remarked, with an innocent air, that he believed the T'other Governor had asked him summa't. 

'Ever in trouble?' said Eugene. 

'Once. ' (Might happen to any man, Mr Riderhood added incidentally. )

'On suspicion of--'

'Of seaman's pocket, ' said Mr Riderhood. 'Whereby I was in reality theman's best friend, and tried to take care of him. '

'With the sweat of your brow?' asked Eugene. 

'Till it poured down like rain, ' said Roger Riderhood. 

Eugene leaned back in his chair, and smoked with his eyes negligentlyturned on the informer, and his pen ready to reduce him to more writing. Lightwood also smoked, with his eyes negligently turned on the informer. 

'Now let me be took down again, ' said Riderhood, when he had turned thedrowned cap over and under, and had brushed it the wrong way (if it hada right way) with his sleeve. 'I give information that the man that donethe Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, the man that found the body. The handof Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer on the river and along shore, isthe hand that done that deed. His hand and no other. '

The two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces than theyhad shown yet. 

'Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation, ' said MortimerLightwood. 

'On the grounds, ' answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his sleeve, 'that I was Gaffer's pardner, and suspected of him many a long day andmany a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his ways. On the groundsthat I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which I warn youhis daughter may tell you another story about that, for anythink I cansay, but you know what it'll be worth, for she'd tell you lies, theworld round and the heavens broad, to save her father. On the groundsthat it's well understood along the cause'ays and the stairs that hedone it. On the grounds that he's fell off from, because he done it. Onthe grounds that I will swear he done it. On the grounds that you maytake me where you will, and get me sworn to it. I don't want to back outof the consequences. I have made up MY mind. Take me anywheres. '

'All this is nothing, ' said Lightwood. 

'Nothing?' repeated Riderhood, indignantly and amazedly. 

'Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this man ofthe crime. You may do so with some reason, or you may do so with noreason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion. '

'Haven't I said--I appeal to the T'other Governor as my witness--haven'tI said from the first minute that I opened my mouth in this hereworld-without-end-everlasting chair' (he evidently used that form ofwords as next in force to an affidavit), 'that I was willing to swearthat he done it? Haven't I said, Take me and get me sworn to it? Don't Isay so now? You won't deny it, Lawyer Lightwood?'

'Surely not; but you only offer to swear to your suspicion, and I tellyou it is not enough to swear to your suspicion. '

'Not enough, ain't it, Lawyer Lightwood?' he cautiously demanded. 

'Positively not. '

'And did I say it WAS enough? Now, I appeal to the T'other Governor. Now, fair! Did I say so?'

'He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell, ' Eugene observedin a low voice without looking at him, 'whatever he seemed to imply. '

'Hah!' cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that the remark wasgenerally in his favour, though apparently not closely understanding it. 'Fort'nate for me I had a witness!'

'Go on, then, ' said Lightwood. 'Say out what you have to say. Noafter-thought. '

'Let me be took down then!' cried the informer, eagerly and anxiously. 'Let me be took down, for by George and the Draggin I'm a coming to itnow! Don't do nothing to keep back from a honest man the fruits of thesweat of his brow! I give information, then, that he told me that hedone it. Is THAT enough?'

'Take care what you say, my friend, ' returned Mortimer. 

'Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I judge you'll beanswerable for follering it up!' Then, slowly and emphatically beatingit all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left; 'I, Roger Riderhood, Lime'us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, LawyerLightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam, commonly called upon the river andalong-shore Gaffer, told me that he done the deed. What's more, he toldme with his own lips that he done the deed. What's more, he said that hedone the deed. And I'll swear it!'

'Where did he tell you so?'

'Outside, ' replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his headdeterminedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing theirattention between his two auditors, 'outside the door of the Six JollyFellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o'clock at midnight--but Iwill not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter asfive minutes--on the night when he picked up the body. The Six JollyFellowships won't run away. If it turns out that he warn't at the SixJolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I'm a liar. '

'What did he say?'

'I'll tell you (take me down, T'other Governor, I ask no better). Hecome out first; I come out last. I might be a minute arter him; I mightbe half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute; I cannot swear tothat, and therefore I won't. That's knowing the obligations of a AlfredDavid, ain't it?'

'Go on. '

'I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, "RogueRiderhood"--for that's the name I'm mostly called by--not for anymeaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being similarto Roger. '

'Never mind that. '

''Scuse ME, Lawyer Lightwood, it's a part of the truth, and as such Ido mind it, and I must mind it and I will mind it. "Rogue Riderhood, "he says, "words passed betwixt us on the river tonight. " Which they had;ask his daughter! "I threatened you, " he says, "to chop you over thefingers with my boat's stretcher, or take a aim at your brains with myboathook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard at what I had intow, as if you was suspicious, and on accounts of your holding on to thegunwale of my boat. " I says to him, "Gaffer, I know it. " He says to me, "Rogue Riderhood, you are a man in a dozen"--I think he said in a score, but of that I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for preciousbe the obligations of a Alfred David. "And, " he says, "when yourfellow-men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp isever the word with you. Had you suspicions?" I says, "Gaffer, I had;and what's more, I have. " He falls a shaking, and he says, "Of what?" Isays, "Of foul play. " He falls a shaking worse, and he says, "There WASfoul play then. I done it for his money. Don't betray me!" Those werethe words as ever he used. '

There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate. An opportunity which the informer improved by smearing himself allover the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, and not at allimproving his own appearance. 

'What more?' asked Lightwood. 

'Of him, d'ye mean, Lawyer Lightwood?'

'Of anything to the purpose. '

'Now, I'm blest if I understand you, Governors Both, ' said the informer, in a creeping manner: propitiating both, though only one had spoken. 'What? Ain't THAT enough?'

'Did you ask him how he did it, where he did it, when he did it?'

'Far be it from me, Lawyer Lightwood! I was so troubled in my mind, thatI wouldn't have knowed more, no, not for the sum as I expect to earnfrom you by the sweat of my brow, twice told! I had put an end to thepardnership. I had cut the connexion. I couldn't undo what was done; andwhen he begs and prays, "Old pardner, on my knees, don't split upon me!"I only makes answer "Never speak another word to Roger Riderhood, norlook him in the face!" and I shuns that man. '

Having given these words a swing to make them mount the higher and gothe further, Rogue Riderhood poured himself out another glass of wineunbidden, and seemed to chew it, as, with the half-emptied glass in hishand, he stared at the candles. 

Mortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering at his paper, and would give him no responsive glance. Mortimer again turned to theinformer, to whom he said:

'You have been troubled in your mind a long time, man?'

Giving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the informer answeredin a single word:

'Hages!'

'When all that stir was made, when the Government reward was offered, when the police were on the alert, when the whole country rang with thecrime!' said Mortimer, impatiently. 

'Hah!' Mr Riderhood very slowly and hoarsely chimed in, with severalretrospective nods of his head. 'Warn't I troubled in my mind then!'

'When conjecture ran wild, when the most extravagant suspicions wereafloat, when half a dozen innocent people might have been laid by theheels any hour in the day!' said Mortimer, almost warming. 

'Hah!' Mr Riderhood chimed in, as before. 'Warn't I troubled in my mindthrough it all!'

'But he hadn't, ' said Eugene, drawing a lady's head upon hiswriting-paper, and touching it at intervals, 'the opportunity then ofearning so much money, you see. '

'The T'other Governor hits the nail, Lawyer Lightwood! It was that asturned me. I had many times and again struggled to relieve myself of thetrouble on my mind, but I couldn't get it off. I had once very nighgot it off to Miss Abbey Potterson which keeps the Six JollyFellowships--there is the 'ouse, it won't run away, --there lives thelady, she ain't likely to be struck dead afore you get there--askher!--but I couldn't do it. At last, out comes the new bill with yourown lawful name, Lawyer Lightwood, printed to it, and then I asks thequestion of my own intellects, Am I to have this trouble on my mind forever? Am I never to throw it off? Am I always to think more of Gafferthan of my own self? If he's got a daughter, ain't I got a daughter?'

'And echo answered--?' Eugene suggested. 

'"You have, "' said Mr Riderhood, in a firm tone. 

'Incidentally mentioning, at the same time, her age?' inquired Eugene. 

'Yes, governor. Two-and-twenty last October. And then I put it tomyself, "Regarding the money. It is a pot of money. " For it IS a pot, 'said Mr Riderhood, with candour, 'and why deny it?'

'Hear!' from Eugene as he touched his drawing. 

'"It is a pot of money; but is it a sin for a labouring man thatmoistens every crust of bread he earns, with his tears--or if not withthem, with the colds he catches in his head--is it a sin for that man toearn it? Say there is anything again earning it. " This I put to myselfstrong, as in duty bound; "how can it be said without blaming LawyerLightwood for offering it to be earned?" And was it for ME to blameLawyer Lightwood? No. '

'No, ' said Eugene. 

'Certainly not, Governor, ' Mr Riderhood acquiesced. 'So I made up mymind to get my trouble off my mind, and to earn by the sweat of my browwhat was held out to me. And what's more, he added, suddenly turningbloodthirsty, 'I mean to have it! And now I tell you, once and away, Lawyer Lightwood, that Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer, his hand andno other, done the deed, on his own confession to me. And I give him upto you, and I want him took. This night!'

After another silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in thegrate, which attracted the informer's attention as if it were thechinking of money, Mortimer Lightwood leaned over his friend, and saidin a whisper:

'I suppose I must go with this fellow to our imperturbable friend at thepolice-station. '

'I suppose, ' said Eugene, 'there is no help for it. '

'Do you believe him?'

'I believe him to be a thorough rascal. But he may tell the truth, forhis own purpose, and for this occasion only. '

'It doesn't look like it. '

'HE doesn't, ' said Eugene. 'But neither is his late partner, whom hedenounces, a prepossessing person. The firm are cut-throat Shepherdsboth, in appearance. I should like to ask him one thing. '

The subject of this conference sat leering at the ashes, trying withall his might to overhear what was said, but feigning abstraction as the'Governors Both' glanced at him. 

'You mentioned (twice, I think) a daughter of this Hexam's, ' saidEugene, aloud. 'You don't mean to imply that she had any guiltyknowledge of the crime?'

The honest man, after considering--perhaps considering how his answermight affect the fruits of the sweat of his brow--replied, unreservedly, 'No, I don't. '

'And you implicate no other person?'

'It ain't what I implicate, it's what Gaffer implicated, ' was the doggedand determined answer. 'I don't pretend to know more than that his wordsto me was, "I done it. " Those was his words. '

'I must see this out, Mortimer, ' whispered Eugene, rising. 'How shall wego?'

'Let us walk, ' whispered Lightwood, 'and give this fellow time to thinkof it. '

Having exchanged the question and answer, they prepared themselvesfor going out, and Mr Riderhood rose. While extinguishing the candles, Lightwood, quite as a matter of course took up the glass from which thathonest gentleman had drunk, and coolly tossed it under the grate, whereit fell shivering into fragments. 

'Now, if you will take the lead, ' said Lightwood, 'Mr Wrayburn and Iwill follow. You know where to go, I suppose?'

'I suppose I do, Lawyer Lightwood. '

'Take the lead, then. '

The waterside character pulled his drowned cap over his ears with bothhands, and making himself more round-shouldered than nature had madehim, by the sullen and persistent slouch with which he went, wentdown the stairs, round by the Temple Church, across the Temple intoWhitefriars, and so on by the waterside streets. 

'Look at his hang-dog air, ' said Lightwood, following. 

'It strikes me rather as a hang-MAN air, ' returned Eugene. 'He hasundeniable intentions that way. '

They said little else as they followed. He went on before them as anugly Fate might have done, and they kept him in view, and would havebeen glad enough to lose sight of him. But on he went before them, always at the same distance, and the same rate. Aslant against the hardimplacable weather and the rough wind, he was no more to be driven backthan hurried forward, but held on like an advancing Destiny. There came, when they were about midway on their journey, a heavy rush of hail, which in a few minutes pelted the streets clear, and whitened them. Itmade no difference to him. A man's life being to be taken and the priceof it got, the hailstones to arrest the purpose must lie larger anddeeper than those. He crashed through them, leaving marks in thefast-melting slush that were mere shapeless holes; one might havefancied, following, that the very fashion of humanity had departed fromhis feet. 

The blast went by, and the moon contended with the fast-flying clouds, and the wild disorder reigning up there made the pitiful little tumultsin the streets of no account. It was not that the wind swept allthe brawlers into places of shelter, as it had swept the hail stilllingering in heaps wherever there was refuge for it; but that it seemedas if the streets were absorbed by the sky, and the night were all inthe air. 

'If he has had time to think of it, ' said Eugene, he has not had time tothink better of it--or differently of it, if that's better. There is nosign of drawing back in him; and as I recollect this place, we must beclose upon the corner where we alighted that night. '

In fact, a few abrupt turns brought them to the river side, where theyhad slipped about among the stones, and where they now slipped more; thewind coming against them in slants and flaws, across the tide and thewindings of the river, in a furious way. With that habit of gettingunder the lee of any shelter which waterside characters acquire, thewaterside character at present in question led the way to the leeside ofthe Six Jolly Fellowship Porters before he spoke. 

'Look round here, Lawyer Lightwood, at them red curtains. It's theFellowships, the 'ouse as I told you wouldn't run away. And has it runaway?'

Not showing himself much impressed by this remarkable confirmation ofthe informer's evidence, Lightwood inquired what other business they hadthere?

'I wished you to see the Fellowships for yourself, Lawyer Lightwood, that you might judge whether I'm a liar; and now I'll see Gaffer'swindow for myself, that we may know whether he's at home. '

With that, he crept away. 

'He'll come back, I suppose?' murmured Lightwood. 

'Ay! and go through with it, ' murmured Eugene. 

He came back after a very short interval indeed. 

'Gaffer's out, and his boat's out. His daughter's at home, sittinga-looking at the fire. But there's some supper getting ready, soGaffer's expected. I can find what move he's upon, easy enough, presently. '

Then he beckoned and led the way again, and they came to thepolice-station, still as clean and cool and steady as before, savingthat the flame of its lamp--being but a lamp-flame, and only attached tothe Force as an outsider--flickered in the wind. 

Also, within doors, Mr Inspector was at his studies as of yore. He recognized the friends the instant they reappeared, but theirreappearance had no effect on his composure. Not even the circumstancethat Riderhood was their conductor moved him, otherwise than that as hetook a dip of ink he seemed, by a settlement of his chin in his stock, to propound to that personage, without looking at him, the question, 'What have YOU been up to, last?'

Mortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as look at thosenotes? Handing him Eugene's. 

Having read the first few lines, Mr Inspector mounted to that (for him)extraordinary pitch of emotion that he said, 'Does either of you twogentlemen happen to have a pinch of snuff about him?' Finding thatneither had, he did quite as well without it, and read on. 

'Have you heard these read?' he then demanded of the honest man. 

'No, ' said Riderhood. 

'Then you had better hear them. ' And so read them aloud, in an officialmanner. 

'Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring here andthe evidence you mean to give?' he asked, when he had finished reading. 

'They are. They are as correct, ' returned Mr Riderhood, 'as I am. Ican't say more than that for 'em. '

'I'll take this man myself, sir, ' said Mr Inspector to Lightwood. Thento Riderhood, 'Is he at home? Where is he? What's he doing? You havemade it your business to know all about him, no doubt. '

Riderhood said what he did know, and promised to find out in a fewminutes what he didn't know. 

'Stop, ' said Mr Inspector; 'not till I tell you: We mustn't look likebusiness. Would you two gentlemen object to making a pretence of takinga glass of something in my company at the Fellowships? Well-conductedhouse, and highly respectable landlady. '

They replied that they would be happy to substitute a reality for thepretence, which, in the main, appeared to be as one with Mr Inspector'smeaning. 

'Very good, ' said he, taking his hat from its peg, and putting a pair ofhandcuffs in his pocket as if they were his gloves. 'Reserve!' Reservesaluted. 'You know where to find me?' Reserve again saluted. 'Riderhood, when you have found out concerning his coming home, come round to thewindow of Cosy, tap twice at it, and wait for me. Now, gentlemen. '

As the three went out together, and Riderhood slouched off from underthe trembling lamp his separate way, Lightwood asked the officer what hethought of this?

Mr Inspector replied, with due generality and reticence, that it wasalways more likely that a man had done a bad thing than that he hadn't. That he himself had several times 'reckoned up' Gaffer, but had neverbeen able to bring him to a satisfactory criminal total. That if thisstory was true, it was only in part true. That the two men, very shycharacters, would have been jointly and pretty equally 'in it;' but thatthis man had 'spotted' the other, to save himself and get the money. 

'And I think, ' added Mr Inspector, in conclusion, 'that if all goeswell with him, he's in a tolerable way of getting it. But as this is theFellowships, gentlemen, where the lights are, I recommend droppingthe subject. You can't do better than be interested in some lime worksanywhere down about Northfleet, and doubtful whether some of your limedon't get into bad company as it comes up in barges. '

'You hear Eugene?' said Lightwood, over his shoulder. 'You are deeplyinterested in lime. '

'Without lime, ' returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, 'my existencewould be unilluminated by a ray of hope. '

Chapter 13

TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY

The two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the dominions ofMiss Abbey Potterson, to whom their escort (presenting them and theirpretended business over the half-door of the bar, in a confidentialway) preferred his figurative request that 'a mouthful of fire' mightbe lighted in Cosy. Always well disposed to assist the constitutedauthorities, Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen tothat retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. Of thiscommission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way with a flaming wisp ofpaper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy seemed to leap out of adark sleep and embrace them warmly, the moment they passed the lintelsof its hospitable door. 

'They burn sherry very well here, ' said Mr Inspector, as a piece oflocal intelligence. 'Perhaps you gentlemen might like a bottle?'

The answer being By all means, Bob Gliddery received his instructionsfrom Mr Inspector, and departed in a becoming state of alacrityengendered by reverence for the majesty of the law. 

'It's a certain fact, ' said Mr Inspector, 'that this man we havereceived our information from, ' indicating Riderhood with his thumb overhis shoulder, 'has for some time past given the other man a bad namearising out of your lime barges, and that the other man has been avoidedin consequence. I don't say what it means or proves, but it's a certainfact. I had it first from one of the opposite sex of my acquaintance, 'vaguely indicating Miss Abbey with his thumb over his shoulder, 'downaway at a distance, over yonder. '

Then probably Mr Inspector was not quite unprepared for their visit thatevening? Lightwood hinted. 

'Well you see, ' said Mr Inspector, 'it was a question of making a move. It's of no use moving if you don't know what your move is. You hadbetter by far keep still. In the matter of this lime, I certainly hadan idea that it might lie betwixt the two men; I always had that idea. Still I was forced to wait for a start, and I wasn't so lucky as to geta start. This man that we have received our information from, has gota start, and if he don't meet with a check he may make the running andcome in first. There may turn out to be something considerable for himthat comes in second, and I don't mention who may or who may not tryfor that place. There's duty to do, and I shall do it, under anycircumstances; to the best of my judgment and ability. '

'Speaking as a shipper of lime--' began Eugene. 

'Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, you know, ' said MrInspector. 

'I hope not, ' said Eugene; 'my father having been a shipper of limebefore me, and my grandfather before him--in fact we having been afamily immersed to the crowns of our heads in lime during severalgenerations--I beg to observe that if this missing lime could be gothold of without any young female relative of any distinguished gentlemanengaged in the lime trade (which I cherish next to my life) beingpresent, I think it might be a more agreeable proceeding to theassisting bystanders, that is to say, lime-burners. '

'I also, ' said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with a laugh, 'shouldmuch prefer that. '

'It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conveniently, ' saidMr Inspector, with coolness. 'There is no wish on my part to cause anydistress in that quarter. Indeed, I am sorry for that quarter. '

'There was a boy in that quarter, ' remarked Eugene. 'He is still there?'

'No, ' said Mr Inspector. ' He has quitted those works. He is otherwisedisposed of. '

'Will she be left alone then?' asked Eugene. 

'She will be left, ' said Mr Inspector, 'alone. '

Bob's reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the conversation. Butalthough the jug steamed forth a delicious perfume, its contents had notreceived that last happy touch which the surpassing finish of the SixJolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Bobcarried in his left hand one of those iron models of sugar-loaf hats, before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the pointed end ofwhich he thrust deep down into the fire, so leaving it for a few momentswhile he disappeared and reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses. Placing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriouslysensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths ofsteam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the ironvessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth onegentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over thesteam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession;finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited theapplause of his fellow-creatures. 

It was bestowed (Mr Inspector having proposed as an appropriatesentiment 'The lime trade!') and Bob withdrew to report thecommendations of the guests to Miss Abbey in the bar. It may be herein confidence admitted that, the room being close shut in his absence, there had not appeared to be the slightest reason for the elaboratemaintenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been regarded by MrInspector as so uncommonly satisfactory, and so fraught with mysteriousvirtues, that neither of his clients had presumed to question it. 

Two taps were now heard on the outside of the window. Mr Inspector, hastily fortifying himself with another glass, strolled out with anoiseless foot and an unoccupied countenance. As one might go to surveythe weather and the general aspect of the heavenly bodies. 

'This is becoming grim, Mortimer, ' said Eugene, in a low voice. 'I don'tlike this. '

'Nor I' said Lightwood. 'Shall we go?'

'Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and I won't leaveyou. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark hair runs in my head. Itwas little more than a glimpse we had of her that last time, and yetI almost see her waiting by the fire to-night. Do you feel like a darkcombination of traitor and pickpocket when you think of that girl?'

'Rather, ' returned Lightwood. 'Do you?'

'Very much so. '

Their escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested of its variouslime-lights and shadows, his report went to the effect that Gaffer wasaway in his boat, supposed to be on his old look-out; that he had beenexpected last high-water; that having missed it for some reason orother, he was not, according to his usual habits at night, to be countedon before next high-water, or it might be an hour or so later; that hisdaughter, surveyed through the window, would seem to be so expectinghim, for the supper was not cooking, but set out ready to be cooked;that it would be high-water at about one, and that it was now barelyten; that there was nothing to be done but watch and wait; that theinformer was keeping watch at the instant of that present reporting, butthat two heads were better than one (especially when the second wasMr Inspector's); and that the reporter meant to share the watch. Andforasmuch as crouching under the lee of a hauled-up boat on a night whenit blew cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts ofhail at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed withthe recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain, for a while atany rate, in their present quarters, which were weather-tight and warm. 

They were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they wantedto know where they could join the watchers when so disposed. Rather thantrust to a verbal description of the place, which might mislead, Eugene(with a less weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usuallyhad) would go out with Mr Inspector, note the spot, and come back. 

On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of acauseway--not the special causeway of the Six Jolly Fellowships, whichhad a landing-place of its own, but another, a little removed, andvery near to the old windmill which was the denounced man'sdwelling-place--were a few boats; some, moored and already beginning tofloat; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of theselatter, Eugene's companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed itsposition with reference to the other boats, and had made sure that hecould not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he hadbeen told, the lonely girl with the dark hair sat by the fire. 

He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhapsit drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with the expressintention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, therewas no difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: itwas but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard mud some three orfour feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to thewindow by that means. 

She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lampstood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, withher face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker onher face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on asecond look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, as shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire. 

It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was notcurtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It showedhim the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned peoplestarting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them, though he looked long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of colour, with the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair, though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the falling of thefire. 

She started up. He had been so very still that he felt sure it was nothe who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew from the window and stoodnear it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the door, and said in analarmed tone, 'Father, was that you calling me?' And again, 'Father!'And once again, after listening, 'Father! I thought I heard you call metwice before!'

No response. As she re-entered at the door, he dropped over the bank andmade his way back, among the ooze and near the hiding-place, to MortimerLightwood: to whom he told what he had seen of the girl, and how thiswas becoming very grim indeed. 

'If the real man feels as guilty as I do, ' said Eugene, 'he isremarkably uncomfortable. '

'Influence of secrecy, ' suggested Lightwood. 

'I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the vault anda Sneak in the area both at once, ' said Eugene. 'Give me some more ofthat stuff. '

Lightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it had beencooling, and didn't answer now. 

'Pooh, ' said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. 'Tastes like thewash of the river. '

'Are you so familiar with the flavour of the wash of the river?'

'I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, andswallowing a gallon of it. '

'Influence of locality, ' suggested Lightwood. 

'You are mighty learned to-night, you and your influences, ' returnedEugene. 'How long shall we stay here?'

'How long do you think?'

'If I could choose, I should say a minute, ' replied Eugene, 'for theJolly Fellowship Porters are not the jolliest dogs I have known. ButI suppose we are best here until they turn us out with the othersuspicious characters, at midnight. '

Thereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of it. It struckeleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. But graduallyhe took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then inone arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then inhis back, and then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then inhis nose; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, andgroaned; and then he started up. 

'Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I amtickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglaryunder the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at myheels. '

'I am quite as bad, ' said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with atumbled head; after going through some wonderful evolutions, in whichhis head had been the lowest part of him. 'This restlessness began withme, long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with theLilliputians firing upon him. '

'It won't do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we must join our dearfriend and brother, Riderhood. And let us tranquillize ourselves bymaking a compact. Next time (with a view to our peace of mind) we'llcommit the crime, instead of taking the criminal. You swear it?'

'Certainly. '

'Sworn! Let Tippins look to it. Her life's in danger. '

Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to transactthat business with him: whom Eugene, in his careless extravagance, askedif he would like a situation in the lime-trade?

'Thankee sir, no sir, ' said Bob. 'I've a good sitiwation here, sir. '

'If you change your mind at any time, ' returned Eugene, 'come to me atmy works, and you'll always find an opening in the lime-kiln. '

'Thankee sir, ' said Bob. 

'This is my partner, ' said Eugene, 'who keeps the books and attends tothe wages. A fair day's wages for a fair day's work is ever my partner'smotto. '

'And a very good 'un it is, gentlemen, ' said Bob, receiving his fee, anddrawing a bow out of his head with his right hand, very much as he wouldhave drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine. 

'Eugene, ' Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when theywere alone again, 'how CAN you be so ridiculous?'

'I am in a ridiculous humour, ' quoth Eugene; 'I am a ridiculous fellow. Everything is ridiculous. Come along!'

It passed into Mortimer Lightwood's mind that a change of some sort, best expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wildest andmost negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the lasthalf-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found somethingnew and strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This passedinto his mind, and passed out again; but he remembered it afterwards. 

'There's where she sits, you see, ' said Eugene, when they were standingunder the bank, roared and riven at by the wind. 'There's the light ofher fire. '

'I'll take a peep through the window, ' said Mortimer. 

'No, don't!' Eugene caught him by the arm. 'Best, not make a show ofher. Come to our honest friend. '

He led him to the post of watch, and they both dropped down and creptunder the lee of the boat; a better shelter than it had seemed before, being directly contrasted with the blowing wind and the bare night. 

'Mr Inspector at home?' whispered Eugene. 

'Here I am, sir. '

'And our friend of the perspiring brow is at the far corner there? Good. Anything happened?'

'His daughter has been out, thinking she heard him calling, unless itwas a sign to him to keep out of the way. It might have been. '

'It might have been Rule Britannia, ' muttered Eugene, 'but it wasn't. Mortimer!'

'Here!' (On the other side of Mr Inspector. )

'Two burglaries now, and a forgery!'

With this indication of his depressed state of mind, Eugene fell silent. 

They were all silent for a long while. As it got to be flood-tide, andthe water came nearer to them, noises on the river became more frequent, and they listened more. To the turning of steam-paddles, to the clinkingof iron chain, to the creaking of blocks, to the measured workingof oars, to the occasional violent barking of some passing dog onshipboard, who seemed to scent them lying in their hiding-place. Thenight was not so dark but that, besides the lights at bows and mastheadsgliding to and fro, they could discern some shadowy bulk attached; andnow and then a ghostly lighter with a large dark sail, like a warningarm, would start up very near them, pass on, and vanish. At this timeof their watch, the water close to them would be often agitated by someimpulsion given it from a distance. Often they believed this beat andplash to be the boat they lay in wait for, running in ashore; and againand again they would have started up, but for the immobility with whichthe informer, well used to the river, kept quiet in his place. 

The wind carried away the striking of the great multitude of citychurch clocks, for those lay to leeward of them; but there were bells towindward that told them of its being One--Two--Three. Without that aidthey would have known how the night wore, by the falling of the tide, recorded in the appearance of an ever-widening black wet strip of shore, and the emergence of the paved causeway from the river, foot by foot. 

As the time so passed, this slinking business became a more and moreprecarious one. It would seem as if the man had had some intimation ofwhat was in hand against him, or had taken fright? His movements mighthave been planned to gain for him, in getting beyond their reach, twelvehours' advantage? The honest man who had expended the sweat of his browbecame uneasy, and began to complain with bitterness of the proneness ofmankind to cheat him--him invested with the dignity of Labour!

Their retreat was so chosen that while they could watch the river, theycould watch the house. No one had passed in or out, since the daughterthought she heard the father calling. No one could pass in or outwithout being seen. 

'But it will be light at five, ' said Mr Inspector, 'and then WE shall beseen. '

'Look here, ' said Riderhood, 'what do you say to this? He may havebeen lurking in and out, and just holding his own betwixt two or threebridges, for hours back. '

'What do you make of that?' said Mr Inspector. Stoical, butcontradictory. 

'He may be doing so at this present time. '

'What do you make of that?' said Mr Inspector. 

'My boat's among them boats here at the cause'ay. '

'And what do you make of your boat?' said Mr Inspector. 

'What if I put off in her and take a look round? I know his ways, andthe likely nooks he favours. I know where he'd be at such a time of thetide, and where he'd be at such another time. Ain't I been his pardner?None of you need show. None of you need stir. I can shove her offwithout help; and as to me being seen, I'm about at all times. '

'You might have given a worse opinion, ' said Mr Inspector, after briefconsideration. 'Try it. '

'Stop a bit. Let's work it out. If I want you, I'll drop round under theFellowships and tip you a whistle. '

'If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my honourable andgallant friend, whose knowledge of naval matters far be it from me toimpeach, ' Eugene struck in with great deliberation, 'it would be, thatto tip a whistle is to advertise mystery and invite speculation. My honourable and gallant friend will, I trust, excuse me, as anindependent member, for throwing out a remark which I feel to be due tothis house and the country. '

'Was that the T'other Governor, or Lawyer Lightwood?' asked Riderhood. For, they spoke as they crouched or lay, without seeing one another'sfaces. 

'In reply to the question put by my honourable and gallant friend, 'said Eugene, who was lying on his back with his hat on his face, as anattitude highly expressive of watchfulness, 'I can have no hesitation inreplying (it not being inconsistent with the public service) that thoseaccents were the accents of the T'other Governor. '

'You've tolerable good eyes, ain't you, Governor? You've all tolerablegood eyes, ain't you?' demanded the informer. 

All. 

'Then if I row up under the Fellowship and lay there, no need towhistle. You'll make out that there's a speck of something or anotherthere, and you'll know it's me, and you'll come down that cause'ay tome. Understood all?'

Understood all. 

'Off she goes then!'

In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he wasstaggering down to his boat; in a few moments he was clear, and creepingup the river under their own shore. 

Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the darkness afterhim. 'I wish the boat of my honourable and gallant friend, ' he murmured, lying down again and speaking into his hat, 'may be endowedwith philanthropy enough to turn bottom-upward and extinguishhim!--Mortimer. '

'My honourable friend. '

'Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination. ' Yetin spite of having those weights on his conscience, Eugene was somewhatenlivened by the late slight change in the circumstances of affairs. Sowere his two companions. Its being a change was everything. The suspenseseemed to have taken a new lease, and to have begun afresh from a recentdate. There was something additional to look for. They were all threemore sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influencesof the place and time. 

More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when one of thethree--each said it was he, and he had NOT dozed--made out Riderhoodin his boat at the spot agreed on. They sprang up, came out from theirshelter, and went down to him. When he saw them coming, he droppedalongside the causeway; so that they, standing on the causeway, couldspeak with him in whispers, under the shadowy mass of the Six JollyFellowship Porters fast asleep. 

'Blest if I can make it out!' said he, staring at them. 

'Make what out? Have you seen him?'

'No. '

'What HAVE you seen?' asked Lightwood. For, he was staring at them inthe strangest way. 

'I've seen his boat. '

'Not empty?'

'Yes, empty. And what's more, --adrift. And what's more, --with one scullgone. And what's more, --with t'other scull jammed in the thowels andbroke short off. And what's more, --the boat's drove tight by the tide'atwixt two tiers of barges. And what's more, --he's in luck again, byGeorge if he ain't!'

Chapter 14

THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN

Cold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in thefour-and-twenty hours when the vital force of all the noblest andprettiest things that live is at its lowest, the three watchers lookedeach at the blank faces of the other two, and all at the blank face ofRiderhood in his boat. 

'Gaffer's boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer!' So spakeRiderhood, staring disconsolate. 

As if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards the light ofthe fire shining through the window. It was fainter and duller. Perhapsfire, like the higher animal and vegetable life it helps to sustain, hasits greatest tendency towards death, when the night is dying and the dayis not yet born. 

'If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand, ' growledRiderhood with a threatening shake of his head, 'blest if I wouldn't layhold of HER, at any rate!'

'Ay, but it is not you, ' said Eugene. With something so suddenly fiercein him that the informer returned submissively; 'Well, well, well, t'other governor, I didn't say it was. A man may speak. '

'And vermin may be silent, ' said Eugene. 'Hold your tongue, youwater-rat!'

Astonished by his friend's unusual heat, Lightwood stared too, and thensaid: 'What can have become of this man?'

'Can't imagine. Unless he dived overboard. ' The informer wiped hisbrow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his boat and always staringdisconsolate. 

'Did you make his boat fast?'

'She's fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn't make her fasterthan she is. Come aboard of mine, and see for your own-selves. '

There was a little backwardness in complying, for the freight looked toomuch for the boat; but on Riderhood's protesting 'that he had had half adozen, dead and alive, in her afore now, and she was nothing deep in thewater nor down in the stern even then, to speak of;' they carefully tooktheir places, and trimmed the crazy thing. While they were doing so, Riderhood still sat staring disconsolate. 

'All right. Give way!' said Lightwood. 

'Give way, by George!' repeated Riderhood, before shoving off. 'If he'sgone and made off any how Lawyer Lightwood, it's enough to make me giveway in a different manner. But he always WAS a cheat, con-found him!He always was a infernal cheat, was Gaffer. Nothing straightfor'ard, nothing on the square. So mean, so underhanded. Never going through witha thing, nor carrying it out like a man!'

'Hallo! Steady!' cried Eugene (he had recovered immediately onembarking), as they bumped heavily against a pile; and then in a lowervoice reversed his late apostrophe by remarking ('I wish the boat of myhonourable and gallant friend may be endowed with philanthropy enoughnot to turn bottom-upward and extinguish us!) Steady, steady! Sit close, Mortimer. Here's the hail again. See how it flies, like a troop of wildcats, at Mr Riderhood's eyes!'

Indeed he had the full benefit of it, and it so mauled him, though hebent his head low and tried to present nothing but the mangy cap to it, that he dropped under the lee of a tier of shipping, and they lay thereuntil it was over. The squall had come up, like a spiteful messengerbefore the morning; there followed in its wake a ragged tear of lightwhich ripped the dark clouds until they showed a great grey hole of day. 

They were all shivering, and everything about them seemed to beshivering; the river itself; craft, rigging, sails, such early smoke asthere yet was on the shore. Black with wet, and altered to the eye bywhite patches of hail and sleet, the huddled buildings looked lowerthan usual, as if they were cowering, and had shrunk with the cold. Verylittle life was to be seen on either bank, windows and doors were shut, and the staring black and white letters upon wharves and warehouses'looked, ' said Eugene to Mortimer, 'like inscriptions over the graves ofdead businesses. '

As they glided slowly on, keeping under the shore and sneaking in andout among the shipping by back-alleys of water, in a pilfering waythat seemed to be their boatman's normal manner of progression, allthe objects among which they crept were so huge in contrast with theirwretched boat, as to threaten to crush it. Not a ship's hull, with itsrusty iron links of cable run out of hawse-holes long discoloured withthe iron's rusty tears, but seemed to be there with a fell intention. Not a figure-head but had the menacing look of bursting forward to runthem down. Not a sluice gate, or a painted scale upon a post or wall, showing the depth of water, but seemed to hint, like the dreadfullyfacetious Wolf in bed in Grandmamma's cottage, 'That's to drown YOU in, my dears!' Not a lumbering black barge, with its cracked and blisteredside impending over them, but seemed to suck at the river with athirst for sucking them under. And everything so vaunted the spoilinginfluences of water--discoloured copper, rotten wood, honey-combedstone, green dank deposit--that the after-consequences of being crushed, sucked under, and drawn down, looked as ugly to the imagination as themain event. 

Some half-hour of this work, and Riderhood unshipped his sculls, stoodholding on to a barge, and hand over hand long-wise along the barge'sside gradually worked his boat under her head into a secret littlenook of scummy water. And driven into that nook, and wedged as he haddescribed, was Gaffer's boat; that boat with the stain still in it, bearing some resemblance to a muffled human form. 

'Now tell me I'm a liar!' said the honest man. 

('With a morbid expectation, ' murmured Eugene to Lightwood, 'thatsomebody is always going to tell him the truth. ')

'This is Hexam's boat, ' said Mr Inspector. 'I know her well. '

'Look at the broken scull. Look at the t'other scull gone. NOW tell me Iam a liar!' said the honest man. 

Mr Inspector stepped into the boat. Eugene and Mortimer looked on. 

'And see now!' added Riderhood, creeping aft, and showing a stretchedrope made fast there and towing overboard. 'Didn't I tell you he was inluck again?'

'Haul in, ' said Mr Inspector. 

'Easy to say haul in, ' answered Riderhood. 'Not so easy done. His luck'sgot fouled under the keels of the barges. I tried to haul in last time, but I couldn't. See how taut the line is!'

'I must have it up, ' said Mr Inspector. 'I am going to take this boatashore, and his luck along with it. Try easy now. '

He tried easy now; but the luck resisted; wouldn't come. 

'I mean to have it, and the boat too, ' said Mr Inspector, playing theline. 

But still the luck resisted; wouldn't come. 

'Take care, ' said Riderhood. 'You'll disfigure. Or pull asunderperhaps. '

'I am not going to do either, not even to your Grandmother, ' said MrInspector; 'but I mean to have it. Come!' he added, at once persuasivelyand with authority to the hidden object in the water, as he played theline again; 'it's no good this sort of game, you know. You MUST come up. I mean to have you. '

There was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly meaning tohave it, that it yielded a little, even while the line was played. 

'I told you so, ' quoth Mr Inspector, pulling off his outer coat, andleaning well over the stern with a will. 'Come!'

It was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted MrInspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a summer evening bysome soothing weir high up the peaceful river. After certain minutes, and a few directions to the rest to 'ease her a little for'ard, ' and'now ease her a trifle aft, ' and the like, he said composedly, 'Allclear!' and the line and the boat came free together. 

Accepting Lightwood's proffered hand to help him up, he then put on hiscoat, and said to Riderhood, 'Hand me over those spare sculls of yours, and I'll pull this in to the nearest stairs. Go ahead you, and keep outin pretty open water, that I mayn't get fouled again. '

His directions were obeyed, and they pulled ashore directly; two in oneboat, two in the other. 

'Now, ' said Mr Inspector, again to Riderhood, when they were all on theslushy stones; 'you have had more practice in this than I have had, andought to be a better workman at it. Undo the tow-rope, and we'll helpyou haul in. '

Riderhood got into the boat accordingly. It appeared as if he hadscarcely had a moment's time to touch the rope or look over the stern, when he came scrambling back, as pale as the morning, and gasped out:

'By the Lord, he's done me!'

'What do you mean?' they all demanded. 

He pointed behind him at the boat, and gasped to that degree that hedropped upon the stones to get his breath. 

'Gaffer's done me. It's Gaffer!'

They ran to the rope, leaving him gasping there. Soon, the form of thebird of prey, dead some hours, lay stretched upon the shore, with a newblast storming at it and clotting the wet hair with hail-stones. 

Father, was that you calling me? Father! I thought I heard you call metwice before! Words never to be answered, those, upon the earth-sideof the grave. The wind sweeps jeeringly over Father, whips him with thefrayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair, tries to turn him where helies stark on his back, and force his face towards the rising sun, thathe may be shamed the more. A lull, and the wind is secret and pryingwith him; lifts and lets falls a rag; hides palpitating under anotherrag; runs nimbly through his hair and beard. Then, in a rush, it cruellytaunts him. Father, was that you calling me? Was it you, the voicelessand the dead? Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Wasit you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying impurities now flungupon your face? Why not speak, Father? Soaking into this filthy groundas you lie here, is your own shape. Did you never see such a shapesoaked into your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the winds, the onlylisteners left you!

'Now see, ' said Mr Inspector, after mature deliberation: kneeling on oneknee beside the body, when they had stood looking down on the drownedman, as he had many a time looked down on many another man: 'the way ofit was this. Of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that hewas towing by the neck and arms. '

They had helped to release the rope, and of course not. 

'And you will have observed before, and you will observe now, that thisknot, which was drawn chock-tight round his neck by the strain of hisown arms, is a slip-knot': holding it up for demonstration. 

Plain enough. 

'Likewise you will have observed how he had run the other end of thisrope to his boat. '

It had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had been twinedand bound. 

'Now see, ' said Mr Inspector, 'see how it works round upon him. It's awild tempestuous evening when this man that was, ' stooping to wipesome hailstones out of his hair with an end of his own drowned jacket, '--there! Now he's more like himself; though he's badly bruised, --whenthis man that was, rows out upon the river on his usual lay. He carrieswith him this coil of rope. He always carries with him this coil ofrope. It's as well known to me as he was himself. Sometimes it lay inthe bottom of his boat. Sometimes he hung it loose round his neck. He was a light-dresser was this man;--you see?' lifting the looseneckerchief over his breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping thedead lips with it--'and when it was wet, or freezing, or blew cold, hewould hang this coil of line round his neck. Last evening he does this. Worse for him! He dodges about in his boat, does this man, till he getschilled. His hands, ' taking up one of them, which dropped like a leadenweight, 'get numbed. He sees some object that's in his way of business, floating. He makes ready to secure that object. He unwinds the end ofhis coil that he wants to take some turns on in his boat, and he takesturns enough on it to secure that it shan't run out. He makes it toosecure, as it happens. He is a little longer about this than usual, hishands being numbed. His object drifts up, before he is quite ready forit. He catches at it, thinks he'll make sure of the contents of thepockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends right overthe stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the cross-swell oftwo steamers, or in not being quite prepared, or through all or most orsome, gets a lurch, overbalances and goes head-foremost overboard. Nowsee! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he strikes out. But insuch striking-out he tangles his arms, pulls strong on the slip-knot, and it runs home. The object he had expected to take in tow, floats by, and his own boat tows him dead, to where we found him, all entangledin his own line. You'll ask me how I make out about the pockets? First, I'll tell you more; there was silver in 'em. How do I make that out?Simple and satisfactory. Because he's got it here. ' The lecturer held upthe tightly clenched right hand. 

'What is to be done with the remains?' asked Lightwood. 

'If you wouldn't object to standing by him half a minute, sir, ' wasthe reply, 'I'll find the nearest of our men to come and take charge ofhim;--I still call it HIM, you see, ' said Mr Inspector, looking back ashe went, with a philosophical smile upon the force of habit. 

'Eugene, ' said Lightwood and was about to add 'we may wait at a littledistance, ' when turning his head he found that no Eugene was there. 

He raised his voice and called 'Eugene! Holloa!' But no Eugene replied. 

It was broad daylight now, and he looked about. But no Eugene was in allthe view. 

Mr Inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs, with a policeconstable, Lightwood asked him if he had seen his friend leave them? MrInspector could not exactly say that he had seen him go, but had noticedthat he was restless. 

'Singular and entertaining combination, sir, your friend. '

'I wish it had not been a part of his singular entertaining combinationto give me the slip under these dreary circumstances at this time of themorning, ' said Lightwood. 'Can we get anything hot to drink?'

We could, and we did. In a public-house kitchen with a large fire. Wegot hot brandy and water, and it revived us wonderfully. Mr Inspectorhaving to Mr Riderhood announced his official intention of 'keepinghis eye upon him', stood him in a corner of the fireplace, like a wetumbrella, and took no further outward and visible notice of that honestman, except ordering a separate service of brandy and water for him:apparently out of the public funds. 

As Mortimer Lightwood sat before the blazing fire, conscious of drinkingbrandy and water then and there in his sleep, and yet at one and thesame time drinking burnt sherry at the Six Jolly Fellowships, andlying under the boat on the river shore, and sitting in the boat thatRiderhood rowed, and listening to the lecture recently concluded, andhaving to dine in the Temple with an unknown man, who described himselfas M. H. F. Eugene Gaffer Harmon, and said he lived at Hailstorm, --ashe passed through these curious vicissitudes of fatigue and slumber, arranged upon the scale of a dozen hours to the second, he became awareof answering aloud a communication of pressing importance that hadnever been made to him, and then turned it into a cough on beholdingMr Inspector. For, he felt, with some natural indignation, that thatfunctionary might otherwise suspect him of having closed his eyes, orwandered in his attention. 

'Here just before us, you see, ' said Mr Inspector. 

'I see, ' said Lightwood, with dignity. 

'And had hot brandy and water too, you see, ' said Mr Inspector, 'andthen cut off at a great rate. '

'Who?' said Lightwood. 

'Your friend, you know. '

'I know, ' he replied, again with dignity. 

After hearing, in a mist through which Mr Inspector loomed vague andlarge, that the officer took upon himself to prepare the dead man'sdaughter for what had befallen in the night, and generally that he tookeverything upon himself, Mortimer Lightwood stumbled in his sleep toa cab-stand, called a cab, and had entered the army and committed acapital military offence and been tried by court martial and foundguilty and had arranged his affairs and been marched out to be shot, before the door banged. 

Hard work rowing the cab through the City to the Temple, for a cup offrom five to ten thousand pounds value, given by Mr Boffin; and hardwork holding forth at that immeasurable length to Eugene (when he hadbeen rescued with a rope from the running pavement) for making off inthat extraordinary manner! But he offered such ample apologies, and wasso very penitent, that when Lightwood got out of the cab, he gavethe driver a particular charge to be careful of him. Which the driver(knowing there was no other fare left inside) stared at prodigiously. 

In short, the night's work had so exhausted and worn out this actor init, that he had become a mere somnambulist. He was too tired to rest inhis sleep, until he was even tired out of being too tired, and droppedinto oblivion. Late in the afternoon he awoke, and in some anxiety sentround to Eugene's lodging hard by, to inquire if he were up yet?

Oh yes, he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He had just comehome. And here he was, close following on the heels of the message. 

'Why what bloodshot, draggled, dishevelled spectacle is this!' criedMortimer. 

'Are my feathers so very much rumpled?' said Eugene, coolly going up tothe looking-glass. They ARE rather out of sorts. But consider. Such anight for plumage!'

'Such a night?' repeated Mortimer. 'What became of you in the morning?'

'My dear fellow, ' said Eugene, sitting on his bed, 'I felt that wehad bored one another so long, that an unbroken continuance of thoserelations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points ofthe earth. I also felt that I had committed every crime in the NewgateCalendar. So, for mingled considerations of friendship and felony, Itook a walk. '

Chapter 15

TWO NEW SERVANTS

Mr and Mrs Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey toprosperity. Mr Boffin's face denoted Care and Complication. Manydisordered papers were before him, and he looked at them about ashopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whomhe was required at five minutes' notice to manoeuvre and review. He hadbeen engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; but beingtroubled (as men of his stamp often are) with an exceedingly distrustfuland corrective thumb, that busy member had so often interposed tosmear his notes, that they were little more legible than the variousimpressions of itself; which blurred his nose and forehead. It iscurious to consider, in such a case as Mr Boffin's, what a cheap articleink is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scenta drawer for many years, and still lose nothing appreciable of itsoriginal weight, so a halfpenny-worth of ink would blot Mr Boffin to theroots of his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a lineon the paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand. 

Mr Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes wereprominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, to thegreat relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, theyard bell rang. 

'Who's that, I wonder!' said Mrs Boffin. 

Mr Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked at his notesas doubting whether he had the pleasure of their acquaintance, andappeared, on a second perusal of their countenances, to be confirmedin his impression that he had not, when there was announced by thehammer-headed young man:

'Mr Rokesmith. '

'Oh!' said Mr Boffin. 'Oh indeed! Our and the Wilfers' Mutual Friend, mydear. Yes. Ask him to come in. '

Mr Rokesmith appeared. 

'Sit down, sir, ' said Mr Boffin, shaking hands with him. 'Mrs Boffinyou're already acquainted with. Well, sir, I am rather unprepared to seeyou, for, to tell you the truth, I've been so busy with one thing andanother, that I've not had time to turn your offer over. '

'That's apology for both of us: for Mr Boffin, and for me as well, ' saidthe smiling Mrs Boffin. 'But Lor! we can talk it over now; can't us?'

Mr Rokesmith bowed, thanked her, and said he hoped so. 

'Let me see then, ' resumed Mr Boffin, with his hand to his chin. 'It wasSecretary that you named; wasn't it?'

'I said Secretary, ' assented Mr Rokesmith. 

'It rather puzzled me at the time, ' said Mr Boffin, 'and it ratherpuzzled me and Mrs Boffin when we spoke of it afterwards, because (notto make a mystery of our belief) we have always believed a Secretary tobe a piece of furniture, mostly of mahogany, lined with green baize orleather, with a lot of little drawers in it. Now, you won't think I takea liberty when I mention that you certainly ain't THAT. '

Certainly not, said Mr Rokesmith. But he had used the word in the senseof Steward. 

'Why, as to Steward, you see, ' returned Mr Boffin, with his hand stillto his chin, 'the odds are that Mrs Boffin and me may never go upon thewater. Being both bad sailors, we should want a Steward if we did; butthere's generally one provided. '

Mr Rokesmith again explained; defining the duties he sought toundertake, as those of general superintendent, or manager, oroverlooker, or man of business. 

'Now, for instance--come!' said Mr Boffin, in his pouncing way. 'If youentered my employment, what would you do?'

'I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanctioned, Mr Boffin. I would write your letters, under your direction. I wouldtransact your business with people in your pay or employment. I would, 'with a glance and a half-smile at the table, 'arrange your papers--'

Mr Boffin rubbed his inky ear, and looked at his wife. 

'--And so arrange them as to have them always in order for immediatereference, with a note of the contents of each outside it. '

'I tell you what, ' said Mr Boffin, slowly crumpling his own blotted notein his hand; 'if you'll turn to at these present papers, and see whatyou can make of 'em, I shall know better what I can make of you. '

No sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and gloves, Mr Rokesmithsat down quietly at the table, arranged the open papers into an orderlyheap, cast his eyes over each in succession, folded it, docketed it onthe outside, laid it in a second heap, and, when that second heap wascomplete and the first gone, took from his pocket a piece of string andtied it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running curve anda loop. 

'Good!' said Mr Boffin. 'Very good! Now let us hear what they're allabout; will you be so good?'

John Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all about the newhouse. Decorator's estimate, so much. Furniture estimate, so much. Estimate for furniture of offices, so much. Coach-maker's estimate, somuch. Horse-dealer's estimate, so much. Harness-maker's estimate, somuch. Goldsmith's estimate, so much. Total, so very much. Then camecorrespondence. Acceptance of Mr Boffin's offer of such a date, and tosuch an effect. Rejection of Mr Boffin's proposal of such a date and tosuch an effect. Concerning Mr Boffin's scheme of such another date tosuch another effect. All compact and methodical. 

'Apple-pie order!' said Mr Boffin, after checking off each inscriptionwith his hand, like a man beating time. 'And whatever you do with yourink, I can't think, for you're as clean as a whistle after it. Now, asto a letter. Let's, ' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his hands in his pleasantlychildish admiration, 'let's try a letter next. '

'To whom shall it be addressed, Mr Boffin?'

'Anyone. Yourself. '

Mr Rokesmith quickly wrote, and then read aloud:

'"Mr Boffin presents his compliments to Mr John Rokesmith, and begsto say that he has decided on giving Mr John Rokesmith a trial in thecapacity he desires to fill. Mr Boffin takes Mr John Rokesmith at hisword, in postponing to some indefinite period, the consideration ofsalary. It is quite understood that Mr Boffin is in no way committedon that point. Mr Boffin has merely to add, that he relies on Mr JohnRokesmith's assurance that he will be faithful and serviceable. Mr JohnRokesmith will please enter on his duties immediately. "'

'Well! Now, Noddy!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, 'That IS agood one!'

Mr Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he regardedboth the composition itself and the device that had given birth to it, as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity. 

'And I tell you, my deary, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'that if you don't closewith Mr Rokesmith now at once, and if you ever go a muddling yourselfagain with things never meant nor made for you, you'll have anapoplexy--besides iron-moulding your linen--and you'll break my heart. '

Mr Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, and then, congratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achievements, gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did Mrs Boffin. 

'Now, ' said Mr Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did notbecome him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes, withoutreposing some confidence in him, 'you must be let a little more into ouraffairs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance, or I might better say when you made mine, that Mrs Boffin's inclinationswas setting in the way of Fashion, but that I didn't know howfashionable we might or might not grow. Well! Mrs Boffin has carried theday, and we're going in neck and crop for Fashion. '

'I rather inferred that, sir, ' replied John Rokesmith, 'from the scaleon which your new establishment is to be maintained. '

'Yes, ' said Mr Boffin, 'it's to be a Spanker. The fact is, myliterary man named to me that a house with which he is, as I may say, connected--in which he has an interest--'

'As property?' inquired John Rokesmith. 

'Why no, ' said Mr Boffin, 'not exactly that; a sort of a family tie. '

'Association?' the Secretary suggested. 

'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me that the househad a board up, "This Eminently Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold. "Me and Mrs Boffin went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubtEminently Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull, which after allmay be part of the same thing) took it. My literary man was so friendlyas to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion, in which hecomplimented Mrs Boffin on coming into possession of--how did it go, mydear?'

Mrs Boffin replied:

 '"The gay, the gay and festive scene, The halls, the halls of dazzling light. "'

'That's it! And it was made neater by there really being two hallsin the house, a front 'un and a back 'un, besides the servants'. He likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure, respecting the extent to which he would be willing to put himself outof the way to bring Mrs Boffin round, in case she should ever get lowin her spirits in the house. Mrs Boffin has a wonderful memory. Will yourepeat it, my dear?'

Mrs Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this obliging offerhad been made, exactly as she had received them. 

 '"I'll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs Boffin, When her true love was slain ma'am, And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs Boffin, And never woke again ma'am. I'll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr Boffin) how the steed drew nigh, And left his lord afar; And if my tale (which I hope Mr Boffin might excuse) should make you sigh, I'll strike the light guitar. "'

'Correct to the letter!' said Mr Boffin. 'And I consider that the poetrybrings us both in, in a beautiful manner. '

The effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to astonishhim, Mr Boffin was confirmed in his high opinion of it, and was greatlypleased. 

'Now, you see, Rokesmith, ' he went on, 'a literary man--WITH a woodenleg--is liable to jealousy. I shall therefore cast about for comfortableways and means of not calling up Wegg's jealousy, but of keeping you inyour department, and keeping him in his. '

'Lor!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'What I say is, the world's wide enough for allof us!'

'So it is, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin, 'when not literary. But when so, not so. And I am bound to bear in mind that I took Wegg on, at a timewhen I had no thought of being fashionable or of leaving the Bower. Tolet him feel himself anyways slighted now, would be to be guilty ofa meanness, and to act like having one's head turned by the halls ofdazzling light. Which Lord forbid! Rokesmith, what shall we say aboutyour living in the house?'

'In this house?'

'No, no. I have got other plans for this house. In the new house?'

'That will be as you please, Mr Boffin. I hold myself quite at yourdisposal. You know where I live at present. '

'Well!' said Mr Boffin, after considering the point; 'suppose you keepas you are for the present, and we'll decide by-and-by. You'll begin totake charge at once, of all that's going on in the new house, will you?'

'Most willingly. I will begin this very day. Will you give me theaddress?'

Mr Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in hispocket-book. Mrs Boffin took the opportunity of his being so engaged, to get a better observation of his face than she had yet taken. Itimpressed her in his favour, for she nodded aside to Mr Boffin, 'I likehim. '

'I will see directly that everything is in train, Mr Boffin. '

'Thank'ee. Being here, would you care at all to look round the Bower?'

'I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its story. '

'Come!' said Mr Boffin. And he and Mrs Boffin led the way. 

A gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of having been, through its long existence as Harmony Jail, in miserly holding. Bare ofpaint, bare of paper on the walls, bare of furniture, bare of experienceof human life. Whatever is built by man for man's occupation, must, like natural creations, fulfil the intention of its existence, or soonperish. This old house had wasted--more from desuetude than it wouldhave wasted from use, twenty years for one. 

A certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued with life(as if they were nourished upon it), which was very noticeable here. The staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a spare look--an air of beingdenuded to the bone--which the panels of the walls and the jambs of thedoors and windows also bore. The scanty moveables partook of it; savefor the cleanliness of the place, the dust--into which they were allresolving would have lain thick on the floors; and those, both in colourand in grain, were worn like old faces that had kept much alone. 

The bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his grip on life, wasleft as he had left it. There was the old grisly four-post bedstead, without hangings, and with a jail-like upper rim of iron and spikes; andthere was the old patch-work counterpane. There was the tight-clenchedold bureau, receding atop like a bad and secret forehead; there was thecumbersome old table with twisted legs, at the bed-side; and therewas the box upon it, in which the will had lain. A few old chairs withpatch-work covers, under which the more precious stuff to be preservedhad slowly lost its quality of colour without imparting pleasure to anyeye, stood against the wall. A hard family likeness was on all thesethings. 

'The room was kept like this, Rokesmith, ' said Mr Boffin, 'against theson's return. In short, everything in the house was kept exactly as itcame to us, for him to see and approve. Even now, nothing is changedbut our own room below-stairs that you have just left. When the son camehome for the last time in his life, and for the last time in his lifesaw his father, it was most likely in this room that they met. '

As the Secretary looked all round it, his eyes rested on a side door ina corner. 

'Another staircase, ' said Mr Boffin, unlocking the door, 'leading downinto the yard. We'll go down this way, as you may like to see the yard, and it's all in the road. When the son was a little child, it was upand down these stairs that he mostly came and went to his father. He wasvery timid of his father. I've seen him sit on these stairs, in hisshy way, poor child, many a time. Mr and Mrs Boffin have comforted him, sitting with his little book on these stairs, often. '

'Ah! And his poor sister too, ' said Mrs Boffin. 'And here's the sunnyplace on the white wall where they one day measured one another. Theirown little hands wrote up their names here, only with a pencil; but thenames are here still, and the poor dears gone for ever. '

'We must take care of the names, old lady, ' said Mr Boffin. 'We musttake care of the names. They shan't be rubbed out in our time, nor yet, if we can help it, in the time after us. Poor little children!'

'Ah, poor little children!' said Mrs Boffin. 

They had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on theyard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking at the scrawl of the twounsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. There wassomething in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, and in thetenderness of Mrs Boffin, that touched the Secretary. 

Mr Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and his ownparticular Mound which had been left him as his legacy under the willbefore he acquired the whole estate. 

'It would have been enough for us, ' said Mr Boffin, 'in case it hadpleased God to spare the last of those two young lives and sorrowfuldeaths. We didn't want the rest. '

At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and atthe detached building which Mr Boffin pointed out as the residenceof himself and his wife during the many years of their service, theSecretary looked with interest. It was not until Mr Boffin had shownhim every wonder of the Bower twice over, that he remembered his havingduties to discharge elsewhere. 

'You have no instructions to give me, Mr Boffin, in reference to thisplace?'

'Not any, Rokesmith. No. '

'Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have anyintention of selling it?'

'Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old master'schildren, and our old service, me and Mrs Boffin mean to keep it up asit stands. '

The Secretary's eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at the Mounds, that Mr Boffin said, as if in answer to a remark:

'Ay, ay, that's another thing. I may sell THEM, though I should be sorryto see the neighbourhood deprived of 'em too. It'll look but a poor deadflat without the Mounds. Still I don't say that I'm going to keep 'emalways there, for the sake of the beauty of the landscape. There's nohurry about it; that's all I say at present. I ain't a scholar in much, Rokesmith, but I'm a pretty fair scholar in dust. I can price the Moundsto a fraction, and I know how they can be best disposed of; and likewisethat they take no harm by standing where they do. You'll look into-morrow, will you be so kind?'

'Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new house, complete, the better you will be pleased, sir?'

'Well, it ain't that I'm in a mortal hurry, ' said Mr Boffin; 'only whenyou DO pay people for looking alive, it's as well to know that they ARElooking alive. Ain't that your opinion?'

'Quite!' replied the Secretary; and so withdrew. 

'Now, ' said Mr Boffin to himself; subsiding into his regular series ofturns in the yard, 'if I can make it comfortable with Wegg, my affairswill be going smooth. '

The man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery over the manof high simplicity. The mean man had, of course, got the better of thegenerous man. How long such conquests last, is another matter; that theyare achieved, is every-day experience, not even to be flourished away byPodsnappery itself. The undesigning Boffin had become so far immeshedby the wily Wegg that his mind misgave him he was a very designing manindeed in purposing to do more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilfulwas Wegg) that he was plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do thevery thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. And thus, while hewas mentally turning the kindest of kind faces on Wegg this morning, hewas not absolutely sure but that he might somehow deserve the charge ofturning his back on him. 

For these reasons Mr Boffin passed but anxious hours until evening came, and with it Mr Wegg, stumping leisurely to the Roman Empire. At aboutthis period Mr Boffin had become profoundly interested in the fortunesof a great military leader known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhapsbetter known to fame and easier of identification by the classicalstudent, under the less Britannic name of Belisarius. Even thisgeneral's career paled in interest for Mr Boffin before the clearing ofhis conscience with Wegg; and hence, when that literary gentleman hadaccording to custom eaten and drunk until he was all a-glow, and whenhe took up his book with the usual chirping introduction, 'And now, MrBoffin, sir, we'll decline and we'll fall!' Mr Boffin stopped him. 

'You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I wanted to make a sortof offer to you?'

'Let me get on my considering cap, sir, ' replied that gentleman, turningthe open book face downward. 'When you first told me that you wantedto make a sort of offer to me? Now let me think. ' (as if there were theleast necessity) 'Yes, to be sure I do, Mr Boffin. It was at my corner. To be sure it was! You had first asked me whether I liked your name, and Candour had compelled a reply in the negative case. I little thoughtthen, sir, how familiar that name would come to be!'

'I hope it will be more familiar still, Wegg. '

'Do you, Mr Boffin? Much obliged to you, I'm sure. Is it your pleasure, sir, that we decline and we fall?' with a feint of taking up the book. 

'Not just yet awhile, Wegg. In fact, I have got another offer to makeyou. '

Mr Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for several nights) tookoff his spectacles with an air of bland surprise. 

'And I hope you'll like it, Wegg. '

'Thank you, sir, ' returned that reticent individual. 'I hope it mayprove so. On all accounts, I am sure. ' (This, as a philanthropicaspiration. )

'What do you think, ' said Mr Boffin, 'of not keeping a stall, Wegg?'

'I think, sir, ' replied Wegg, 'that I should like to be shown thegentleman prepared to make it worth my while!'

'Here he is, ' said Mr Boffin. 

Mr Wegg was going to say, My Benefactor, and had said My Bene, when agrandiloquent change came over him. 

'No, Mr Boffin, not you sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, Mr Boffin, that I shall contaminate the premises which your gold has bought, withMY lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it would not become me to carryon my little traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have alreadythought of that, and taken my measures. No need to be bought out, sir. Would Stepney Fields be considered intrusive? If not remote enough, Ican go remoter. In the words of the poet's song, which I do not quiteremember:

 Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam, Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, A stranger to something and what's his name joy, Behold little Edmund the poor Peasant boy. 

--And equally, ' said Mr Wegg, repairing the want of direct applicationin the last line, 'behold myself on a similar footing!'

'Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg, ' remonstrated the excellent Boffin. 'You are toosensitive. '

'I know I am, sir, ' returned Wegg, with obstinate magnanimity. 'I amacquainted with my faults. I always was, from a child, too sensitive. '

'But listen, ' pursued the Golden Dustman; 'hear me out, Wegg. You havetaken it into your head that I mean to pension you off. '

'True, sir, ' returned Wegg, still with an obstinate magnanimity. 'I amacquainted with my faults. Far be it from me to deny them. I HAVE takenit into my head. '

'But I DON'T mean it. '

The assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr Wegg, as Mr Boffinintended it to be. Indeed, an appreciable elongation of his visage mighthave been observed as he replied:

'Don't you, indeed, sir?'

'No, ' pursued Mr Boffin; 'because that would express, as I understandit, that you were not going to do anything to deserve your money. Butyou are; you are. '

'That, sir, ' replied Mr Wegg, cheering up bravely, 'is quite anotherpair of shoes. Now, my independence as a man is again elevated. Now, Ino longer

 Weep for the hour, When to Boffinses bower, The Lord of the valley with offers came; Neither does the moon hide her light From the heavens to-night, And weep behind her clouds o'er any individual in the present Company's shame. 

--Please to proceed, Mr Boffin. '

'Thank'ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for your frequentdropping into poetry; both of which is friendly. Well, then; my idea is, that you should give up your stall, and that I should put you into theBower here, to keep it for us. It's a pleasant spot; and a man withcoals and candles and a pound a week might be in clover here. '

'Hem! Would that man, sir--we will say that man, for the purposes ofargueyment;' Mr Wegg made a smiling demonstration of great perspicuityhere; 'would that man, sir, be expected to throw any other capacity in, or would any other capacity be considered extra? Now let us (for thepurposes of argueyment) suppose that man to be engaged as a reader: say(for the purposes of argueyment) in the evening. Would that man's pay asa reader in the evening, be added to the other amount, which, adoptingyour language, we will call clover; or would it merge into that amount, or clover?'

'Well, ' said Mr Boffin, 'I suppose it would be added. '

'I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly my own views, Mr Boffin. ' Here Wegg rose, and balancing himself on his wooden leg, fluttered over his prey with extended hand. 'Mr Boffin, consider itdone. Say no more, sir, not a word more. My stall and I are for everparted. The collection of ballads will in future be reserved for privatestudy, with the object of making poetry tributary'--Wegg was so proudof having found this word, that he said it again, with a capitalletter--'Tributary, to friendship. Mr Boffin, don't allow yourself tobe made uncomfortable by the pang it gives me to part from my stock andstall. Similar emotion was undergone by my own father when promotedfor his merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation underGovernment. His Christian name was Thomas. His words at the time (I wasthen an infant, but so deep was their impression on me, that I committedthem to memory) were:

 Then farewell my trim-built wherry, Oars and coat and badge farewell! Never more at Chelsea Ferry, Shall your Thomas take a spell!

--My father got over it, Mr Boffin, and so shall I. '

While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg continuallydisappointed Mr Boffin of his hand by flourishing it in the air. He nowdarted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his mind relieved of agreat weight: observing that as they had arranged their joint affairsso satisfactorily, he would now be glad to look into those of BullySawyers. Which, indeed, had been left over-night in a very unpromisingposture, and for whose impending expedition against the Persians theweather had been by no means favourable all day. 

Mr Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was not to be ofthe party that night; for, before Wegg had found his place, Mrs Boffin'stread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually heavy and hurried, that MrBoffin would have started up at the sound, anticipating some occurrencemuch out of the common course, even though she had not also called tohim in an agitated tone. 

Mr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, panting, with a lighted candle in her hand. 

'What's the matter, my dear?'

'I don't know; I don't know; but I wish you'd come up-stairs. '

Much surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs Boffin intotheir own room: a second large room on the same floor as the room inwhich the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin looked all round him, and saw nothing more unusual than various articles of folded linen on alarge chest, which Mrs Boffin had been sorting. 

'What is it, my dear? Why, you're frightened! YOU frightened?'

'I am not one of that sort certainly, ' said Mrs Boffin, as she sat downin a chair to recover herself, and took her husband's arm; 'but it'svery strange!'

'What is, my dear?'

'Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all over thehouse to-night. '

'My dear?' exclaimed Mr Boffin. But not without a certain uncomfortablesensation gliding down his back. 

'I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so. '

'Where did you think you saw them?'

'I don't know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt them. '

'Touched them?'

'No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on the chest, andnot thinking of the old man or the children, but singing to myself, whenall in a moment I felt there was a face growing out of the dark. '

'What face?' asked her husband, looking about him. 

'For a moment it was the old man's, and then it got younger. For amoment it was both the children's, and then it got older. For a momentit was a strange face, and then it was all the faces. '

'And then it was gone?'

'Yes; and then it was gone. '

'Where were you then, old lady?'

'Here, at the chest. Well; I got the better of it, and went on sorting, and went on singing to myself. "Lor!" I says, "I'll think of somethingelse--something comfortable--and put it out of my head. " So I thoughtof the new house and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great ratewith that sheet there in my hand, when all of a sudden, the faces seemedto be hidden in among the folds of it and I let it drop. '

As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr Boffin picked it upand laid it on the chest. 

'And then you ran down stairs?'

'No. I thought I'd try another room, and shake it off. I says to myself, "I'll go and walk slowly up and down the old man's room three times, from end to end, and then I shall have conquered it. " I went in with thecandle in my hand; but the moment I came near the bed, the air got thickwith them. '

'With the faces?'

'Yes, and I even felt that they were in the dark behind the side-door, and on the little staircase, floating away into the yard. Then, I calledyou. '

Mr Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs Boffin. Mrs Boffin, lost inher own fluttered inability to make this out, looked at Mr Boffin. 

'I think, my dear, ' said the Golden Dustman, 'I'll at once get rid ofWegg for the night, because he's coming to inhabit the Bower, and itmight be put into his head or somebody else's, if he heard this and itgot about that the house is haunted. Whereas we know better. Don't we?'

'I never had the feeling in the house before, ' said Mrs Boffin; 'and Ihave been about it alone at all hours of the night. I have been in thehouse when Death was in it, and I have been in the house when Murder wasa new part of its adventures, and I never had a fright in it yet. '

'And won't again, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Depend upon it, it comes ofthinking and dwelling on that dark spot. '

'Yes; but why didn't it come before?' asked Mrs Boffin. 

This draft on Mr Boffin's philosophy could only be met by that gentlemanwith the remark that everything that is at all, must begin at some time. Then, tucking his wife's arm under his own, that she might not be leftby herself to be troubled again, he descended to release Wegg. Who, being something drowsy after his plentiful repast, and constitutionallyof a shirking temperament, was well enough pleased to stump away, without doing what he had come to do, and was paid for doing. 

Mr Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs Boffin her shawl; and the pair, further provided with a bunch of keys and a lighted lantern, wentall over the dismal house--dismal everywhere, but in their own tworooms--from cellar to cock-loft. Not resting satisfied with giving thatmuch chace to Mrs Boffin's fancies, they pursued them into the yard andoutbuildings, and under the Mounds. And setting the lantern, when allwas done, at the foot of one of the Mounds, they comfortably trotted toand fro for an evening walk, to the end that the murky cobwebs in MrsBoffin's brain might be blown away. 

There, my dear!' said Mr Boffin when they came in to supper. 'That wasthe treatment, you see. Completely worked round, haven't you?'

'Yes, deary, ' said Mrs Boffin, laying aside her shawl. 'I'm not nervousany more. I'm not a bit troubled now. I'd go anywhere about the housethe same as ever. But--'

'Eh!' said Mr Boffin. 

'But I've only to shut my eyes. '

'And what then?'

'Why then, ' said Mrs Boffin, speaking with her eyes closed, and herleft hand thoughtfully touching her brow, 'then, there they are! The oldman's face, and it gets younger. The two children's faces, and they getolder. A face that I don't know. And then all the faces!'

Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the table, she leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat down tosupper, declaring it to be the best face in the world. 

Chapter 16

MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS

The Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his vigilanceand method soon set their mark on the Golden Dustman's affairs. Hisearnestness in determining to understand the length and breadth anddepth of every piece of work submitted to him by his employer, was asspecial as his despatch in transacting it. He accepted no informationor explanation at second hand, but made himself the master of everythingconfided to him. 

One part of the Secretary's conduct, underlying all the rest, might havebeen mistrusted by a man with a better knowledge of men than theGolden Dustman had. The Secretary was as far from being inquisitiveor intrusive as Secretary could be, but nothing less than a completeunderstanding of the whole of the affairs would content him. It soonbecame apparent (from the knowledge with which he set out) that he musthave been to the office where the Harmon will was registered, and musthave read the will. He anticipated Mr Boffin's consideration whether heshould be advised with on this or that topic, by showing that healready knew of it and understood it. He did this with no attempt atconcealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his duty tohave prepared himself at all attainable points for its utmost discharge. 

This might--let it be repeated--have awakened some little vague mistrustin a man more worldly-wise than the Golden Dustman. On the other hand, the Secretary was discerning, discreet, and silent, though as zealous asif the affairs had been his own. He showed no love of patronage or thecommand of money, but distinctly preferred resigning both to MrBoffin. If, in his limited sphere, he sought power, it was the powerof knowledge; the power derivable from a perfect comprehension of hisbusiness. 

As on the Secretary's face there was a nameless cloud, so on hismanner there was a shadow equally indefinable. It was not that he wasembarrassed, as on that first night with the Wilfer family; he washabitually unembarrassed now, and yet the something remained. It was notthat his manner was bad, as on that occasion; it was now very good, asbeing modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left it. Ithas been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or whohave passed through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation havekilled a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has neverfaded from their countenances until they died. Was there any such recordhere?

He established a temporary office for himself in the new house, and allwent well under his hand, with one singular exception. He manifestlyobjected to communicate with Mr Boffin's solicitor. Two or three times, when there was some slight occasion for his doing so, he transferredthe task to Mr Boffin; and his evasion of it soon became so curiouslyapparent, that Mr Boffin spoke to him on the subject of his reluctance. 

'It is so, ' the Secretary admitted. 'I would rather not. '

Had he any personal objection to Mr Lightwood?

'I don't know him. '

Had he suffered from law-suits?

'Not more than other men, ' was his short answer. 

Was he prejudiced against the race of lawyers?

'No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would rather be excusedfrom going between the lawyer and the client. Of course if you press it, Mr Boffin, I am ready to comply. But I should take it as a great favourif you would not press it without urgent occasion. '

Now, it could not be said that there WAS urgent occasion, for Lightwoodretained no other affairs in his hands than such as still lingered andlanguished about the undiscovered criminal, and such as arose out of thepurchase of the house. Many other matters that might have travelled tohim, now stopped short at the Secretary, under whose administration theywere far more expeditiously and satisfactorily disposed of than theywould have been if they had got into Young Blight's domain. This theGolden Dustman quite understood. Even the matter immediately in handwas of very little moment as requiring personal appearance on theSecretary's part, for it amounted to no more than this:--The death ofHexam rendering the sweat of the honest man's brow unprofitable, thehonest man had shufflingly declined to moisten his brow for nothing, with that severe exertion which is known in legal circles as swearingyour way through a stone wall. Consequently, that new light had gonesputtering out. But, the airing of the old facts had led some oneconcerned to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsignedto their gloomy shelf--now probably for ever--to induce or compel thatMr Julius Handford to reappear and be questioned. And all traces of MrJulius Handford being lost, Lightwood now referred to his client forauthority to seek him through public advertisement. 

'Does your objection go to writing to Lightwood, Rokesmith?'

'Not in the least, sir. '

'Then perhaps you'll write him a line, and say he is free to do what helikes. I don't think it promises. '

'I don't think it promises, ' said the Secretary. 

'Still, he may do what he likes. '

'I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so consideratelyyielding to my disinclination. It may seem less unreasonable, if I avowto you that although I don't know Mr Lightwood, I have a disagreeableassociation connected with him. It is not his fault; he is not at all toblame for it, and does not even know my name. '

Mr Boffin dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The letter waswritten, and next day Mr Julius Handford was advertised for. He wasrequested to place himself in communication with Mr Mortimer Lightwood, as a possible means of furthering the ends of justice, and a reward wasoffered to any one acquainted with his whereabout who would communicatethe same to the said Mr Mortimer Lightwood at his office in the Temple. Every day for six weeks this advertisement appeared at the head of allthe newspapers, and every day for six weeks the Secretary, when hesaw it, said to himself; in the tone in which he had said to hisemployer, --'I don't think it promises!'

Among his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan wanted byMrs Boffin held a conspicuous place. From the earliest moment of hisengagement he showed a particular desire to please her, and, knowing herto have this object at heart, he followed it up with unwearying alacrityand interest. 

Mr and Mrs Milvey had found their search a difficult one. Either aneligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost always happened)or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too muchaccustomed to the streets, or too likely to run away; or, it was foundimpossible to complete the philanthropic transaction without buying theorphan. For, the instant it became known that anybody wanted the orphan, up started some affectionate relative of the orphan who put a price uponthe orphan's head. The suddenness of an orphan's rise in the market wasnot to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. Hewould be at five thousand per cent discount out at nurse making a mudpie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would go up tofive thousand per cent premium before noon. The market was 'rigged' invarious artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parentsboldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans withthem. Genuine orphan-stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from themarket. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, thatMr and Mrs Milvey were coming down the court, orphan scrip would beinstantly concealed, and production refused, save on a condition usuallystated by the brokers as 'a gallon of beer'. Likewise, fluctuations ofa wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan-holders keepingback, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, theuniform principle at the root of all these various operations wasbargain and sale; and that principle could not be recognized by Mr andMrs Milvey. 

At length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charmingorphan to be found at Brentford. One of the deceased parents (late hisparishioners) had a poor widowed grandmother in that agreeable town, andshe, Mrs Betty Higden, had carried off the orphan with maternal care, but could not afford to keep him. 

The Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down himself andtake a preliminary survey of this orphan, or to drive her down, thatshe might at once form her own opinion. Mrs Boffin preferring the lattercourse, they set off one morning in a hired phaeton, conveying thehammer-headed young man behind them. 

The abode of Mrs Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in suchcomplicated back settlements of muddy Brentford that they left theirequipage at the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in search of it onfoot. After many inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to themin a lane, a very small cottage residence, with a board across the opendoorway, hooked on to which board by the armpits was a young gentlemanof tender years, angling for mud with a headless wooden horse and line. In this young sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn headand a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan. 

It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that the orphan, lost to considerations of personal safety in the ardour of the moment, overbalanced himself and toppled into the street. Being an orphan of achubby conformation, he then took to rolling, and had rolled into thegutter before they could come up. From the gutter he was rescued by JohnRokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs Higden was inaugurated bythe awkward circumstance of their being in possession--one would say atfirst sight unlawful possession--of the orphan, upside down and purplein the countenance. The board across the doorway too, acting as a trapequally for the feet of Mrs Higden coming out, and the feet of MrsBoffin and John Rokesmith going in, greatly increased the difficulty ofthe situation: to which the cries of the orphan imparted a lugubriousand inhuman character. 

At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan's'holding his breath': a most terrific proceeding, super-inducing in theorphan lead-colour rigidity and a deadly silence, compared with whichhis cries were music yielding the height of enjoyment. But as hegradually recovered, Mrs Boffin gradually introduced herself; andsmiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs Betty Higden's home. 

It was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle in it, atthe handle of which machine stood a very long boy, with a very littlehead, and an open mouth of disproportionate capacity that seemed toassist his eyes in staring at the visitors. In a corner below themangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little children: a boy and agirl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turnat the mangle, it was alarming to see how it lunged itself at those twoinnocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlesslyretiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean andneat. It had a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flouncehanging below the chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to topoutside the window on which scarlet-beans were to grow in the comingseason if the Fates were propitious. However propitious they might havebeen in the seasons that were gone, to Betty Higden in the matter ofbeans, they had not been very favourable in the matter of coins; for itwas easy to see that she was poor. 

She was one of those old women, was Mrs Betty Higden, who by dint ofan indomitable purpose and a strong constitution fight out many years, though each year has come with its new knock-down blows fresh to thefight against her, wearied by it; an active old woman, with a brightdark eye and a resolute face, yet quite a tender creature too; not alogically-reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count inHeaven as high as heads. 

'Yes sure!' said she, when the business was opened, 'Mrs Milvey had thekindness to write to me, ma'am, and I got Sloppy to read it. It was apretty letter. But she's an affable lady. '

The visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indicate by abroader stare of his mouth and eyes that in him Sloppy stood confessed. 

'For I aint, you must know, ' said Betty, 'much of a hand at readingwriting-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love anewspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of anewspaper. He do the Police in different voices. '

The visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look atSloppy, who, looking at them, suddenly threw back his head, extended hismouth to its utmost width, and laughed loud and long. At this the twoinnocents, with their brains in that apparent danger, laughed, and MrsHigden laughed, and the orphan laughed, and then the visitors laughed. Which was more cheerful than intelligible. 

Then Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious mania or fury, turned to at the mangle, and impelled it at the heads of the innocentswith such a creaking and rumbling, that Mrs Higden stopped him. 

'The gentlefolks can't hear themselves speak, Sloppy. Bide a bit, bide abit!'

'Is that the dear child in your lap?' said Mrs Boffin. 

'Yes, ma'am, this is Johnny. '

'Johnny, too!' cried Mrs Boffin, turning to the Secretary; 'alreadyJohnny! Only one of the two names left to give him! He's a pretty boy. '

With his chin tucked down in his shy childish manner, he was lookingfurtively at Mrs Boffin out of his blue eyes, and reaching his fatdimpled hand up to the lips of the old woman, who was kissing it bytimes. 

'Yes, ma'am, he's a pretty boy, he's a dear darling boy, he's the childof my own last left daughter's daughter. But she's gone the way of allthe rest. '

'Those are not his brother and sister?' said Mrs Boffin. 'Oh, dear no, ma'am. Those are Minders. '

'Minders?' the Secretary repeated. 

'Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can take only three, on account of the Mangle. But I love children, and Four-pence a week isFour-pence. Come here, Toddles and Poddles. '

Toddles was the pet-name of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At theirlittle unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, as ifthey were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks, and, when they had had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, madelunges at the orphan, dramatically representing an attempt to bear him, crowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children enjoyed thisto a delightful extent, and the sympathetic Sloppy again laughed longand loud. When it was discreet to stop the play, Betty Higden said'Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles, ' and they returned hand-in-handacross country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by late rains. 

'And Master--or Mister--Sloppy?' said the Secretary, in doubt whether hewas man, boy, or what. 

'A love-child, ' returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; 'parentsnever known; found in the street. He was brought up in the--' with ashiver of repugnance, '--the House. '

'The Poor-house?' said the Secretary. 

Mrs Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly nodded yes. 

'You dislike the mention of it. '

'Dislike the mention of it?' answered the old woman. 'Kill me soonerthan take me there. Throw this pretty child under cart-horses feet anda loaded waggon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us alla-dying, and set a light to us all where we lie and let us all blazeaway with the house into a heap of cinders sooner than move a corpse ofus there!'

A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hardworking, and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and HonourableBoards! What is it that we call it in our grandiose speeches? Britishindependence, rather perverted? Is that, or something like it, the ringof the cant?

'Do I never read in the newspapers, ' said the dame, fondling thechild--'God help me and the like of me!--how the worn-out people thatdo come down to that, get driven from post to pillar and pillar to post, a-purpose to tire them out! Do I never read how they are put off, putoff, put off--how they are grudged, grudged, grudged, the shelter, orthe doctor, or the drop of physic, or the bit of bread? Do I neverread how they grow heartsick of it and give it up, after having letthemselves drop so low, and how they after all die out for want of help?Then I say, I hope I can die as well as another, and I'll die withoutthat disgrace. '

Absolutely impossible my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, byany stretch of legislative wisdom to set these perverse people right intheir logic?

'Johnny, my pretty, ' continued old Betty, caressing the child, andrather mourning over it than speaking to it, 'your old Granny Betty isnigher fourscore year than threescore and ten. She never begged nor hada penny of the Union money in all her life. She paid scot and shepaid lot when she had money to pay; she worked when she could, andshe starved when she must. You pray that your Granny may have strengthenough left her at the last (she's strong for an old one, Johnny), toget up from her bed and run and hide herself and swown to death in ahole, sooner than fall into the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read ofthat dodge and drive, and worry and weary, and scorn and shame, thedecent poor. '

A brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards tohave brought it to this in the minds of the best of the poor! Undersubmission, might it be worth thinking of at any odd time?

The fright and abhorrence that Mrs Betty Higden smoothed out of herstrong face as she ended this diversion, showed how seriously she hadmeant it. 

'And does he work for you?' asked the Secretary, gently bringing thediscourse back to Master or Mister Sloppy. 

'Yes, ' said Betty with a good-humoured smile and nod of the head. 'Andwell too. '

'Does he live here?'

'He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought to be no better than aNatural, and first come to me as a Minder. I made interest with Mr Bloggthe Beadle to have him as a Minder, seeing him by chance up at church, and thinking I might do something with him. For he was a weak rickettycreetur then. '

'Is he called by his right name?'

'Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right name. I alwaysunderstood he took his name from being found on a Sloppy night. '

'He seems an amiable fellow. '

'Bless you, sir, there's not a bit of him, ' returned Betty, 'that's notamiable. So you may judge how amiable he is, by running your eye alonghis heighth. '

Of an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too much of him longwise, too little ofhim broadwise, and too many sharp angles of him angle-wise. One of thoseshambling male human creatures, born to be indiscreetly candid in therevelation of buttons; every button he had about him glaring at thepublic to a quite preternatural extent. A considerable capital of kneeand elbow and wrist and ankle, had Sloppy, and he didn't know how todispose of it to the best advantage, but was always investing it inwrong securities, and so getting himself into embarrassed circumstances. Full-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file oflife, was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true tothe Colours. 

'And now, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'concerning Johnny. '

As Johnny, with his chin tucked in and lips pouting, reclined in Betty'slap, concentrating his blue eyes on the visitors and shading them fromobservation with a dimpled arm, old Betty took one of his fresh fathands in her withered right, and fell to gently beating it on herwithered left. 

'Yes, ma'am. Concerning Johnny. '

'If you trust the dear child to me, ' said Mrs Boffin, with a faceinviting trust, 'he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, thebest of education, the best of friends. Please God I will be a true goodmother to him!'

'I am thankful to you, ma'am, and the dear child would be thankful ifhe was old enough to understand. ' Still lightly beating the little handupon her own. 'I wouldn't stand in the dear child's light, not if I hadall my life before me instead of a very little of it. But I hope youwon't take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell, for he's the last living thing left me. '

'Take it ill, my dear soul? Is it likely? And you so tender of him as tobring him home here!'

'I have seen, ' said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hardrough hand, 'so many of them on my lap. And they are all gone but thisone! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don't really mean it. It'llbe the making of his fortune, and he'll be a gentleman when I am dead. I--I--don't know what comes over me. I--try against it. Don't noticeme!' The light beat stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the finestrong old face broke up into weakness and tears. 

Now, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional Sloppy nosooner beheld his patroness in this condition, than, throwing back hishead and throwing open his mouth, he lifted up his voice and bellowed. This alarming note of something wrong instantly terrified Toddles andPoddles, who were no sooner heard to roar surprisingly, than Johnny, curving himself the wrong way and striking out at Mrs Boffin with a pairof indifferent shoes, became a prey to despair. The absurdity of thesituation put its pathos to the rout. Mrs Betty Higden was herself ina moment, and brought them all to order with that speed, that Sloppy, stopping short in a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy tothe mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before he could bestopped. 

'There, there, there!' said Mrs Boffin, almost regarding her kind selfas the most ruthless of women. 'Nothing is going to be done. Nobody needbe frightened. We're all comfortable; ain't we, Mrs Higden?'

'Sure and certain we are, ' returned Betty. 

'And there really is no hurry, you know, ' said Mrs Boffin in a lowervoice. 'Take time to think of it, my good creature!'

'Don't you fear ME no more, ma'am, ' said Betty; 'I thought of it forgood yesterday. I don't know what come over me just now, but it'll nevercome again. '

'Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it, ' returned MrsBoffin; 'the pretty child shall have time to get used to it. And you'llget him more used to it, if you think well of it; won't you?'

Betty undertook that, cheerfully and readily. 

'Lor, ' cried Mrs Boffin, looking radiantly about her, 'we want to makeeverybody happy, not dismal!--And perhaps you wouldn't mind letting meknow how used to it you begin to get, and how it all goes on?'

'I'll send Sloppy, ' said Mrs Higden. 

'And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his trouble, 'said Mrs Boffin. 'And Mr Sloppy, whenever you come to my house, besure you never go away without having had a good dinner of meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding. '

This still further brightened the face of affairs; for, the highlysympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and grinning, and then roaringwith laughter, Toddles and Poddles followed suit, and Johnny trumpedthe trick. T and P considering these favourable circumstances forthe resumption of that dramatic descent upon Johnny, again cameacross-country hand-in-hand upon a buccaneering expedition; and thishaving been fought out in the chimney corner behind Mrs Higden's chair, with great valour on both sides, those desperate pirates returnedhand-in-hand to their stools, across the dry bed of a mountain torrent. 

'You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend, ' said MrsBoffin confidentially, 'if not to-day, next time. '

'Thank you all the same, ma'am, but I want nothing for myself. I canwork. I'm strong. I can walk twenty mile if I'm put to it. ' Old Bettywas proud, and said it with a sparkle in her bright eyes. 

'Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn't be the worsefor, ' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Bless ye, I wasn't born a lady any more thanyou. '

'It seems to me, ' said Betty, smiling, 'that you were born a lady, anda true one, or there never was a lady born. But I couldn't take anythingfrom you, my dear. I never did take anything from any one. It ain't thatI'm not grateful, but I love to earn it better. '

'Well, well!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'I only spoke of little things, or Iwouldn't have taken the liberty. '

Betty put her visitor's hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of thedelicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and wonderfullyself-reliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, she explainedherself further. 

'If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread that's alwaysupon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I could never haveparted with him, even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love him! Ilove my husband long dead and gone, in him; I love my children dead andgone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. Icouldn't sell that love, and look you in your bright kind face. It's afree gift. I am in want of nothing. When my strength fails me, if Ican but die out quick and quiet, I shall be quite content. I have stoodbetween my dead and that shame I have spoken of; and it has been keptoff from every one of them. Sewed into my gown, ' with her hand uponher breast, 'is just enough to lay me in the grave. Only see that it'srightly spent, so as I may rest free to the last from that cruelty anddisgrace, and you'll have done much more than a little thing for me, andall that in this present world my heart is set upon. '

Mrs Betty Higden's visitor pressed her hand. There was no more breakingup of the strong old face into weakness. My Lords and Gentlemen andHonourable Boards, it really was as composed as our own faces, andalmost as dignified. 

And now, Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a temporaryposition on Mrs Boffin's lap. It was not until he had been piqued intocompetition with the two diminutive Minders, by seeing them successivelyraised to that post and retire from it without injury, that he could beby any means induced to leave Mrs Betty Higden's skirts; towards whichhe exhibited, even when in Mrs Boffin's embrace, strong yearnings, spiritual and bodily; the former expressed in a very gloomy visage, the latter in extended arms. However, a general description of thetoy-wonders lurking in Mr Boffin's house, so far conciliated thisworldly-minded orphan as to induce him to stare at her frowningly, with a fist in his mouth, and even at length to chuckle when arichly-caparisoned horse on wheels, with a miraculous gift of canteringto cake-shops, was mentioned. This sound being taken up by the Minders, swelled into a rapturous trio which gave general satisfaction. 

So, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs Boffin waspleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all, Sloppy, who undertookto conduct the visitors back by the best way to the Three Magpies, andwhom the hammer-headed young man much despised. 

This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove Mrs Boffinback to the Bower, and found employment for himself at the new houseuntil evening. Whether, when evening came, he took a way to his lodgingsthat led through fields, with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilferin those fields, is not so certain as that she regularly walked there atthat hour. 

And, moreover, it is certain that there she was. 

No longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty colours asshe could muster. There is no denying that she was as pretty as they, and that she and the colours went very prettily together. She wasreading as she walked, and of course it is to be inferred, from hershowing no knowledge of Mr Rokesmith's approach, that she did not knowhe was approaching. 

'Eh?' said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when he stoppedbefore her. 'Oh! It's you. '

'Only I. A fine evening!'

'Is it?' said Bella, looking coldly round. 'I suppose it is, now youmention it. I have not been thinking of the evening. '

'So intent upon your book?'

'Ye-e-es, ' replied Bella, with a drawl of indifference. 

'A love story, Miss Wilfer?'

'Oh dear no, or I shouldn't be reading it. It's more about money thananything else. '

'And does it say that money is better than anything?'

'Upon my word, ' returned Bella, 'I forget what it says, but you can findout for yourself if you like, Mr Rokesmith. I don't want it any more. '

The Secretary took the book--she had fluttered the leaves as if it werea fan--and walked beside her. 

'I am charged with a message for you, Miss Wilfer. '

'Impossible, I think!' said Bella, with another drawl. 

'From Mrs Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the pleasure she hasin finding that she will be ready to receive you in another week or twoat furthest. '

Bella turned her head towards him, with her prettily-insolent eyebrowsraised, and her eyelids drooping. As much as to say, 'How did YOU comeby the message, pray?'

'I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you that I am MrBoffin's Secretary. '

'I am as wise as ever, ' said Miss Bella, loftily, 'for I don't know whata Secretary is. Not that it signifies. '

'Not at all. '

A covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, showed him thatshe had not expected his ready assent to that proposition. 

'Then are you going to be always there, Mr Rokesmith?' she inquired, asif that would be a drawback. 

'Always? No. Very much there? Yes. '

'Dear me!' drawled Bella, in a tone of mortification. 

'But my position there as Secretary, will be very different from yoursas guest. You will know little or nothing about me. I shall transactthe business: you will transact the pleasure. I shall have my salary toearn; you will have nothing to do but to enjoy and attract. '

'Attract, sir?' said Bella, again with her eyebrows raised, and hereyelids drooping. 'I don't understand you. '

Without replying on this point, Mr Rokesmith went on. 

'Excuse me; when I first saw you in your black dress--'

('There!' was Miss Bella's mental exclamation. 'What did I say to themat home? Everybody noticed that ridiculous mourning. ')

'When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a loss to accountfor that distinction between yourself and your family. I hope it was notimpertinent to speculate upon it?'

'I hope not, I am sure, ' said Miss Bella, haughtily. 'But you ought toknow best how you speculated upon it. '

Mr Rokesmith inclined his head in a deprecatory manner, and went on. 

'Since I have been entrusted with Mr Boffin's affairs, I havenecessarily come to understand the little mystery. I venture to remarkthat I feel persuaded that much of your loss may be repaired. Ispeak, of course, merely of wealth, Miss Wilfer. The loss of a perfectstranger, whose worth, or worthlessness, I cannot estimate--nor youeither--is beside the question. But this excellent gentleman and ladyare so full of simplicity, so full of generosity, so inclined towardsyou, and so desirous to--how shall I express it?--to make amends fortheir good fortune, that you have only to respond. '

As he watched her with another covert look, he saw a certain ambitioustriumph in her face which no assumed coldness could conceal. 

'As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental combination ofcircumstances, which oddly extends itself to the new relations beforeus, I have taken the liberty of saying these few words. You don'tconsider them intrusive I hope?' said the Secretary with deference. 

'Really, Mr Rokesmith, I can't say what I consider them, ' returned theyoung lady. 'They are perfectly new to me, and may be founded altogetheron your own imagination. '

'You will see. '

These same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The discreetMrs Wilfer now looking out of window and beholding her daughter inconference with her lodger, instantly tied up her head and came out fora casual walk. 

'I have been telling Miss Wilfer, ' said John Rokesmith, as the majesticlady came stalking up, 'that I have become, by a curious chance, MrBoffin's Secretary or man of business. '

'I have not, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, waving her gloves in her chronicstate of dignity, and vague ill-usage, 'the honour of any intimateacquaintance with Mr Boffin, and it is not for me to congratulate thatgentleman on the acquisition he has made. '

'A poor one enough, ' said Rokesmith. 

'Pardon me, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, 'the merits of Mr Boffin may be highlydistinguished--may be more distinguished than the countenance of MrsBoffin would imply--but it were the insanity of humility to deem himworthy of a better assistant. '

'You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer that she isexpected very shortly at the new residence in town. '

'Having tacitly consented, ' said Mrs Wilfer, with a grand shrug of hershoulders, and another wave of her gloves, 'to my child's acceptance ofthe proffered attentions of Mrs Boffin, I interpose no objection. '

Here Miss Bella offered the remonstrance: 'Don't talk nonsense, ma, please. '

'Peace!' said Mrs Wilfer. 

'No, ma, I am not going to be made so absurd. Interposing objections!'

'I say, ' repeated Mrs Wilfer, with a vast access of grandeur, 'that I amNOT going to interpose objections. If Mrs Boffin (to whose countenanceno disciple of Lavater could possibly for a single moment subscribe), 'with a shiver, 'seeks to illuminate her new residence in town with theattractions of a child of mine, I am content that she should be favouredby the company of a child of mine. '

'You use the word, ma'am, I have myself used, ' said Rokesmith, with aglance at Bella, 'when you speak of Miss Wilfer's attractions there. '

'Pardon me, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, 'but I hadnot finished. '

'Pray excuse me. '

'I was about to say, ' pursued Mrs Wilfer, who clearly had not hadthe faintest idea of saying anything more: 'that when I use the termattractions, I do so with the qualification that I do not mean it in anyway whatever. '

The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her viewswith an air of greatly obliging her hearers, and greatly distinguishingherself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed a scornful little laugh and said:

'Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the goodness, MrRokesmith, to give my love to Mrs Boffin--'

'Pardon me!' cried Mrs Wilfer. 'Compliments. '

'Love!' repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot. 

'No!' said Mrs Wilfer, monotonously. 'Compliments. '

('Say Miss Wilfer's love, and Mrs Wilfer's compliments, ' the Secretaryproposed, as a compromise. )

'And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner, the better. '

'One last word, Bella, ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'before descending to thefamily apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will ever besensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating with Mrand Mrs Boffin upon equal terms, to remember that the Secretary, MrRokesmith, as your father's lodger, has a claim on your good word. '

The condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation ofpatronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodgerhad lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired downstairs; but his face fell, as the daughter followed. 

'So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, sohard to touch, so hard to turn!' he said, bitterly. 

And added as he went upstairs. 'And yet so pretty, so pretty!'

And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. 'And if sheknew!'

She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; andshe declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn'tget rid of a haunting Secretary, stump--stump--stumping overhead in thedark, like a Ghost. 

Chapter 17

A DISMAL SWAMP

And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffinestablished in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, and beholdall manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures, attracted by the gold dust of the Golden Dustman!

Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic doorbefore it is quite painted, are the Veneerings: out of breath, onemight imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the eminentlyaristocratic steps. One copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plateMr Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate Mr and Mrs Veneering, requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin's company at dinner withthe utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves acard. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-coloured phaeton tooling upin a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps, aMrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughterleave cards. Sometimes the world's wife has so many daughters, that hercard reads rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction; comprising MrsTapkins, Miss Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, Miss Malvina Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time, the same lady leaves the card of Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle, NEETapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, PortlandPlace. 

Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of theeminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs Boffin bears Miss Bella away toher Milliner's and Dressmaker's, and she gets beautifully dressed. TheVeneerings find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite MissBella Wilfer. One Mrs Veneering and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requestingthat additional honour, instantly do penance in white cardboard onthe hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise discovers her omission, andwith promptitude repairs it; for herself; for Miss Tapkins, for MissFrederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins, and for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry George AlfredSwoshle NEE Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place. 

Tradesmen's books hunger, and tradesmen's mouths water, for the golddust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, oras Mr Boffin walks out at his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls offhis hat with an air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleansetheir fingers on their woollen aprons before presuming to touch theirforeheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The gaping salmon and the golden mulletlying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes sideways, as they wouldturn up their hands if they had any, in worshipping admiration. Thebutcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn't know what to dowith himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered bythe passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton grove. Presents are madeto the Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business-cardsmeeting said servants in the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As, 'Supposing I was to be favoured with an order from Mr Boffin, my dearfriend, it would be worth my while'--to do a certain thing that I hopemight not prove wholly disagreeable to your feelings. 

But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads theletters, what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for thegold dust of the Golden Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected withhalf-crowns, forty-two parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings, seven-and-twenty organs to be built with halfpence, twelve hundredchildren to be brought up on postage stamps. Not that a half-crown, shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be particularly acceptablefrom Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to make up thedeficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly indifficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of printand paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet. 'Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My Dear Sir, --Having consented to presideat the forthcoming Annual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feelingdeeply impressed with the immense usefulness of that noble Institutionand the great importance of its being supported by a List of Stewardsthat shall prove to the public the interest taken in it by popular anddistinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a Steward onthat occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply before the 14th instant, I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, LINSEED. P. S. The Steward'sfee is limited to three Guineas. ' Friendly this, on the part of the Dukeof Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed bythe hundred and presenting but a pale individuality of an address toNicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two nobleEarls and a Viscount, combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West ofEngland has offered to present a purse containing twenty pounds, tothe Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming Members of the MiddleClasses, if twenty individuals will previously present purses of onehundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly point outthat if Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or morepurses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimablelady in the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with thename of some member of his honoured and respected family. 

These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individualbeggars; and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has tocope with THEM! And they must be coped with to some extent, because theyall enclose documents (they call their scraps documents; but they are, as to papers deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), thenon-return of which would be their ruin. That is say, they are utterlyruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among thesecorrespondents are several daughters of general officers, longaccustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who littlethought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula, that they would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in itsinscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from among whomthey select the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effortin this wise, understanding that he has such a heart as never was. TheSecretary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would seemto obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are thewives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without theknowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it; while, on the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take up their pensto ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devotedwives, who would instantly go out of their senses if they had the leastsuspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, too. These were sitting, only yesterday evening, musing over a fragment ofcandle which must soon go out and leave them in the dark for the restof their nights, when surely some Angel whispered the name of NicodemusBoffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, nayconfidence, to which they had long been strangers! Akin to these are thesuggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold potatoand water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, intheir lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landladythreatening expulsion 'like a dog' into the streets), when a giftedfriend happening to look in, said, 'Write immediately to NicodemusBoffin, Esquire, ' and would take no denial. There are the noblyindependent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, everregarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impedimentin the way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross fromNicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride, paltry pride if you will, but they wouldn't take it if you offered it;a loan, sir--for fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at therate of five per cent per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitableinstitution you may name--is all they want of you, and if you have themeanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits. There are the beggars of punctual business-habits too. These willmake an end of themselves at a quarter to one P. M. On Tuesday, if noPost-office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; arriving after a quarter to one P. M. On Tuesday, it need notbe sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of theheartless circumstances) be 'cold in death. ' There are the beggars onhorseback too, in another sense from the sense of the proverb. Theseare mounted and ready to start on the highway to affluence. The goal isbefore them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs are on, the steed is willing, but, at the last moment, for want of some specialthing--a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifyingmachine--they must dismount for ever, unless they receive its equivalentin money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are thebeggars who make sporting ventures. These, usually to be addressedin reply under initials at a country post-office, inquire in femininehands, Dare one who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed, solicitthe immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected richesexercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a common humanity?

In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it doesthe Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the peoplealive who have made inventions that won't act, and all the jobbers whojob in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as theAlligators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always lying by to drag theGolden Dustman under. 

But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustmanthere? There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower waters? Perhapsnot. Still, Wegg is established there, and would seem, judged by hissecret proceedings, to cherish a notion of making a discovery. For, when a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his stomach to peep underbedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey thetops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which heis always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the probability is thathe expects to find something. 

BOOK THE SECOND -- BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Chapter 1

OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER

The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from abook--the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great PreparatoryEstablishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learnedwithout and before book--was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Itsatmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state ofwaking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition bymaintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, outof time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animatedsolely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentablejumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours. 

It was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter were keptapart, and the former were partitioned off into square assortments. But, all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that everypupil was childish and innocent. This pretence, much favoured by thelady-visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. Young women old inthe vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to professthemselves enthralled by the good child's book, the Adventures ofLittle Margery, who resided in the village cottage by the mill; severelyreproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he wasfifty; divided her porridge with singing birds; denied herself a newnankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeenbonnets, neither did the sheep who ate them; who plaited straw anddelivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at all sorts ofunseasonable times. So, unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarkswere referred to the experiences of Thomas Twopence, who, havingresolved not to rob (under circumstances of uncommon atrocity) hisparticular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came intosupernatural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining lightever afterwards. (Note, that the benefactor came to no good. ) Severalswaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain;it always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons, that you were to do good, not because it WAS good, but because you wereto make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taughtto read (if they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint ofstumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on theparticular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutelyignorant of the sublime history, as if they had never seen or heard ofit. An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a school, in fact, where black spirits and grey, red spirits and white, jumbledjumbled jumbled jumbled, jumbled every night. And particularly everySunday night. For then, an inclined plane of unfortunate infants wouldbe handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with goodintentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand onthe floor before them as chief executioner, would be attended by aconventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where itfirst became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infantin a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or whenand where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system inoperation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth theirwretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing themfor a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion ofblinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this department for amortal hour; the exponent drawling on to My Dearert Childerrenerr, letus say, for example, about the beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; andrepeating the word Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundredtimes, and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boysmoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the wholehot-bed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, whooping-cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembledin High Market for the purpose. 

Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boyexceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, havinglearned it, could impart it much better than the teachers; as beingmore knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stoodtowards the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that CharleyHexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been receivedfrom the jumble into a better school. 

'So you want to go and see your sister, Hexam?'

'If you please, Mr Headstone. '

'I have half a mind to go with you. Where does your sister live?'

'Why, she is not settled yet, Mr Headstone. I'd rather you didn't seeher till she is settled, if it was all the same to you. '

'Look here, Hexam. ' Mr Bradley Headstone, highly certificatedstipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right forefinger through one of thebuttonholes of the boy's coat, and looked at it attentively. 'I hopeyour sister may be good company for you?'

'Why do you doubt it, Mr Headstone?'

'I did not say I doubted it. '

'No, sir; you didn't say so. '

Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of thebuttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it and looked at itagain. 

'You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you are sure topass a creditable examination and become one of us. Then the questionis--'

The boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster lookedat a new side of his finger, and bit it, and looked at it again, that atlength the boy repeated:

'The question is, sir--?'

'Whether you had not better leave well alone. '

'Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr Headstone?'

'I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. I ask you tothink of it. I want you to consider. You know how well you are doinghere. '

'After all, she got me here, ' said the boy, with a struggle. 

'Perceiving the necessity of it, ' acquiesced the schoolmaster, 'andmaking up her mind fully to the separation. Yes. '

The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle or whateverit was, seemed to debate with himself. At length he said, raising hiseyes to the master's face:

'I wish you'd come with me and see her, Mr Headstone, though she is notsettled. I wish you'd come with me, and take her in the rough, and judgeher for yourself. '

'You are sure you would not like, ' asked the schoolmaster, 'to prepareher?'

'My sister Lizzie, ' said the boy, proudly, 'wants no preparing, MrHeadstone. What she is, she is, and shows herself to be. There's nopretending about my sister. '

His confidence in her, sat more easily upon him than the indecision withwhich he had twice contended. It was his better nature to be true toher, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet thebetter nature had the stronger hold. 

'Well, I can spare the evening, ' said the schoolmaster. 'I am ready towalk with you. '

'Thank you, Mr Headstone. And I am ready to go. '

Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decentwhite shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent pantaloons ofpepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and itsdecent hair-guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young manof six-and-twenty. He was never seen in any other dress, and yet therewas a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there werea want of adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics intheir holiday clothes. He had acquired mechanically a great store ofteacher's knowledge. He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, singat sight mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, evenplay the great church organ mechanically. From his early childhood up, his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement ofhis wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet thedemands of retail dealers history here, geography there, astronomy tothe right, political economy to the left--natural history, the physicalsciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, and what not, all intheir several places--this care had imparted to his countenance a lookof care; while the habit of questioning and being questioned had givenhim a suspicious manner, or a manner that would be better described asone of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled trouble in the face. It was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellectthat had toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it nowthat it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything shouldbe missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assurehimself. 

Suppression of so much to make room for so much, had given him aconstrained manner, over and above. Yet there was enough of what wasanimal, and of what was fiery (though smouldering), still visible inhim, to suggest that if young Bradley Headstone, when a pauper lad, hadchanced to be told off for the sea, he would not have been the last manin a ship's crew. Regarding that origin of his, he was proud, moody, andsullen, desiring it to be forgotten. And few people knew of it. 

In some visits to the Jumble his attention had been attracted to thisboy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a pupil-teacher; an undeniable boyto do credit to the master who should bring him on. Combined with thisconsideration, there may have been some thought of the pauper lad nownever to be mentioned. Be that how it might, he had with pains graduallyworked the boy into his own school, and procured him some offices todischarge there, which were repaid with food and lodging. Such were thecircumstances that had brought together, Bradley Headstone and youngCharley Hexam that autumn evening. Autumn, because full half a year hadcome and gone since the bird of prey lay dead upon the river-shore. 

The schools--for they were twofold, as the sexes--were down in thatdistrict of the flat country tending to the Thames, where Kent andSurrey meet, and where the railways still bestride the market-gardensthat will soon die under them. The schools were newly built, and therewere so many like them all over the country, that one might have thoughtthe whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift ofAladdin's palace. They were in a neighbourhood which looked like a toyneighbourhood taken in blocks out of a box by a child of particularlyincoherent mind, and set up anyhow; here, one side of a new street;there, a large solitary public-house facing nowhere; here, anotherunfinished street already in ruins; there, a church; here, an immensenew warehouse; there, a dilapidated old country villa; then, a medleyof black ditch, sparkling cucumber-frame, rank field, richly cultivatedkitchen-garden, brick viaduct, arch-spanned canal, and disorder offrowziness and fog. As if the child had given the table a kick, and goneto sleep. 

But, even among school-buildings, school-teachers, and school-pupils, all according to pattern and all engendered in the light of the latestGospel according to Monotony, the older pattern into which so manyfortunes have been shaped for good and evil, comes out. It came out inMiss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering her flowers, as Mr BradleyHeadstone walked forth. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering the flowers in the little dusty bit of garden attached to hersmall official residence, with little windows like the eyes in needles, and little doors like the covers of school-books. 

Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher;cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pincushion, a littlehousewife, a little book, a little workbox, a little set of tables andweights and measures, and a little woman, all in one. She could writea little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at theleft-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of theother, and the essay should be strictly according to rule. If Mr BradleyHeadstone had addressed a written proposal of marriage to her, she wouldprobably have replied in a complete little essay on the theme exactly aslate long, but would certainly have replied Yes. For she loved him. Thedecent hair-guard that went round his neck and took care of his decentsilver watch was an object of envy to her. So would Miss Peecher havegone round his neck and taken care of him. Of him, insensible. Becausehe did not love Miss Peecher. 

Miss Peecher's favourite pupil, who assisted her in her littlehousehold, was in attendance with a can of water to replenish her littlewatering-pot, and sufficiently divined the state of Miss Peecher'saffections to feel it necessary that she herself should love youngCharley Hexam. So, there was a double palpitation among the doublestocks and double wall-flowers, when the master and the boy looked overthe little gate. 

'A fine evening, Miss Peecher, ' said the Master. 

'A very fine evening, Mr Headstone, ' said Miss Peecher. 'Are you takinga walk?'

'Hexam and I are going to take a long walk. '

'Charming weather, ' remarked Miss Peecher, FOR a long walk. '

'Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure, ' said the Master. MissPeecher inverting her watering-pot, and very carefully shaking out thefew last drops over a flower, as if there were some special virtue inthem which would make it a Jack's beanstalk before morning, called forreplenishment to her pupil, who had been speaking to the boy. 

'Good-night, Miss Peecher, ' said the Master. 

'Good-night, Mr Headstone, ' said the Mistress. 

The pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued with theclass-custom of stretching out an arm, as if to hail a cab or omnibus, whenever she found she had an observation on hand to offer to MissPeecher, that she often did it in their domestic relations; and she didit now. 

'Well, Mary Anne?' said Miss Peecher. 

'If you please, ma'am, Hexam said they were going to see his sister. '

'But that can't be, I think, ' returned Miss Peecher: 'because MrHeadstone can have no business with HER. '

Mary Anne again hailed. 

'Well, Mary Anne?'

'If you please, ma'am, perhaps it's Hexam's business?'

'That may be, ' said Miss Peecher. 'I didn't think of that. Not that itmatters at all. '

Mary Anne again hailed. 

'Well, Mary Anne?'

'They say she's very handsome. '

'Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne!' returned Miss Peecher, slightly colouringand shaking her head, a little out of humour; 'how often have I told younot to use that vague expression, not to speak in that general way? Whenyou say THEY say, what do you mean? Part of speech They?'

Mary Anne hooked her right arm behind her in her left hand, as beingunder examination, and replied:

'Personal pronoun. '

'Person, They?'

'Third person. '

'Number, They?'

'Plural number. '

'Then how many do you mean, Mary Anne? Two? Or more?'

'I beg your pardon, ma'am, ' said Mary Anne, disconcerted now she cameto think of it; 'but I don't know that I mean more than her brotherhimself. ' As she said it, she unhooked her arm. 

'I felt convinced of it, ' returned Miss Peecher, smiling again. 'Nowpray, Mary Anne, be careful another time. He says is very different fromthey say, remember. Difference between he says and they say? Give itme. '

Mary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her in her lefthand--an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation--and replied:'One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verbactive to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third personplural, verb active to say. '

'Why verb active, Mary Anne?'

'Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, MissPeecher. '

'Very good indeed, ' remarked Miss Peecher, with encouragement. 'In fact, could not be better. Don't forget to apply it, another time, Mary Anne. 'This said, Miss Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, andwent into her little official residence, and took a refresher of theprincipal rivers and mountains of the world, their breadths, depths, andheights, before settling the measurements of the body of a dress for herown personal occupation. 

Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side ofWestminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along the Middlesexshore towards Millbank. In this region are a certain little streetcalled Church Street, and a certain little blind square, called SmithSquare, in the centre of which last retreat is a very hideous churchwith four towers at the four corners, generally resembling somepetrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legsin the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and a blacksmith'sforge, and a timber yard, and a dealer's in old iron. What a rustyportion of a boiler and a great iron wheel or so meant by lyinghalf-buried in the dealer's fore-court, nobody seemed to know or to wantto know. Like the Miller of questionable jollity in the song, They caredfor Nobody, no not they, and Nobody cared for them. 

After making the round of this place, and noting that there was a deadlykind of repose on it, more as though it had taken laudanum than falleninto a natural rest, they stopped at the point where the street and thesquare joined, and where there were some little quiet houses in a row. To these Charley Hexam finally led the way, and at one of these stopped. 

'This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she came for atemporary lodging, soon after father's death. '

'How often have you seen her since?'

'Why, only twice, sir, ' returned the boy, with his former reluctance;'but that's as much her doing as mine. '

'How does she support herself?'

'She was always a fair needlewoman, and she keeps the stockroom of aseaman's outfitter. '

'Does she ever work at her own lodging here?'

'Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation are at theirplace of business, I believe, sir. This is the number. '

The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with a springand a click. A parlour door within a small entry stood open, anddisclosed a child--a dwarf--a girl--a something--sitting on a little lowold-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working bench beforeit. 

'I can't get up, ' said the child, 'because my back's bad, and my legsare queer. But I'm the person of the house. '

'Who else is at home?' asked Charley Hexam, staring. 

'Nobody's at home at present, ' returned the child, with a glib assertionof her dignity, 'except the person of the house. What did you want, young man?'

'I wanted to see my sister. '

'Many young men have sisters, ' returned the child. 'Give me your name, young man?'

The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, withits bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the mannerseemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, it must besharp. 

'Hexam is my name. '

'Ah, indeed?' said the person of the house. 'I thought it might be. Yoursister will be in, in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of yoursister. She's my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman'sname?'

'Mr Headstone, my schoolmaster. '

'Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? Ican't very well do it myself; because my back's so bad, and my legs areso queer. '

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work ofgumming or gluing together with a camel's-hair brush certain piecesof cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. Thescissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cutthem; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewnupon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too wasthere), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimblefingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accuratelytogether by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitorsout of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened allher other sharpness. 

'You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound, ' she said, aftertaking several of these observations. 

'You make pincushions, ' said Charley. 

'What else do I make?'

'Pen-wipers, ' said Bradley Headstone. 

'Ha! ha! What else do I make? You're a schoolmaster, but you can't tellme. '

'You do something, ' he returned, pointing to a corner of the littlebench, 'with straw; but I don't know what. '

'Well done you!' cried the person of the house. 'I only make pincushionsand pen-wipers, to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong tomy business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?'

'Dinner-mats?'

'A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I'll give you a clue to my trade, in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she's Beautiful;I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign ofthe Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name's Bouncer, andshe lives in Bedlam. --Now, what do I make with my straw?'

'Ladies' bonnets?'

'Fine ladies', ' said the person of the house, nodding assent. 'Dolls'. I'm a Doll's Dressmaker. '

'I hope it's a good business?'

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. 'No. Poorly paid. And I'm often so pressed for time! I had a doll married, last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it's not good for me, on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer. '

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish, and the schoolmaster said: 'I am sorry your fine ladies are soinconsiderate. '

'It's the way with them, ' said the person of the house, shrugging hershoulders again. 'And they take no care of their clothes, and theynever keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with threedaughters. Bless you, she's enough to ruin her husband!' The person ofthe house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look outof the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable ofgreat expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chinup. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires. 

'Are you always as busy as you are now?'

'Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the daybefore yesterday. Doll I work for, lost a canary-bird. ' The person ofthe house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head severaltimes, as who should moralize, 'Oh this world, this world!'

'Are you alone all day?' asked Bradley Headstone. 'Don't any of theneighbouring children--?'

'Ah, lud!' cried the person of the house, with a little scream, asif the word had pricked her. 'Don't talk of children. I can't bearchildren. I know their tricks and their manners. ' She said this with anangry little shake of her tight fist close before her eyes. 

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit, to perceive that thedoll's dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference betweenherself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so. 

'Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it for theirgames! Oh! I know their tricks and their manners!' Shaking the littlefist as before. 'And that's not all. Ever so often calling names inthrough a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh!I know their tricks and their manners. And I'll tell you what I'd do, topunish 'em. There's doors under the church in the Square--black doors, leading into black vaults. Well! I'd open one of those doors, and I'dcram 'em all in, and then I'd lock the door and through the keyhole I'dblow in pepper. '

'What would be the good of blowing in pepper?' asked Charley Hexam. 

'To set 'em sneezing, ' said the person of the house, 'and make theireyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I'd mock 'emthrough the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person's keyhole!'

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes, seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she addedwith recovered composure, 'No, no, no. No children for me. Give megrown-ups. '

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poorfigure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and soold. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark. 

'I always did like grown-ups, ' she went on, 'and always kept companywith them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don't go prancing and caperingabout! And I mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till I marry. I suppose I must make up my mind to marry, one of these days. '

She listened to a step outside that caught her ear, and there was a softknock at the door. Pulling at a handle within her reach, she said, with a pleased laugh: 'Now here, for instance, is a grown-up that's myparticular friend!' and Lizzie Hexam in a black dress entered the room. 

'Charley! You!'

Taking him to her arms in the old way--of which he seemed a littleashamed--she saw no one else. 

'There, there, there, Liz, all right my dear. See! Here's Mr Headstonecome with me. '

Her eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently expectedto see a very different sort of person, and a murmured word or twoof salutation passed between them. She was a little flurried by theunexpected visit, and the schoolmaster was not at his ease. But he neverwas, quite. 

'I told Mr Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but he was so kind as totake an interest in coming, and so I brought him. How well you look!'

Bradley seemed to think so. 

'Ah! Don't she, don't she?' cried the person of the house, resuming heroccupation, though the twilight was falling fast. 'I believe you shedoes! But go on with your chat, one and all:

 You one two three, My com-pa-nie, And don't mind me. '

--pointing this impromptu rhyme with three points of her thinfore-finger. 

'I didn't expect a visit from you, Charley, ' said his sister. 'Isupposed that if you wanted to see me you would have sent to me, appointing me to come somewhere near the school, as I did last time. I saw my brother near the school, sir, ' to Bradley Headstone, 'becauseit's easier for me to go there, than for him to come here. I work aboutmidway between the two places. '

'You don't see much of one another, ' said Bradley, not improving inrespect of ease. 

'No. ' With a rather sad shake of her head. 'Charley always does well, MrHeadstone?'

'He could not do better. I regard his course as quite plain before him. '

'I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley dear! It isbetter for me not to come (except when he wants me) between him and hisprospects. You think so, Mr Headstone?'

Conscious that his pupil-teacher was looking for his answer, that hehimself had suggested the boy's keeping aloof from this sister, now seenfor the first time face to face, Bradley Headstone stammered:

'Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He has to work hard. Onecannot but say that the less his attention is diverted from his work, the better for his future. When he shall have established himself, whythen--it will be another thing then. '

Lizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet smile: 'I alwaysadvised him as you advise him. Did I not, Charley?'

'Well, never mind that now, ' said the boy. 'How are you getting on?'

'Very well, Charley. I want for nothing. '

'You have your own room here?'

'Oh yes. Upstairs. And it's quiet, and pleasant, and airy. '

'And she always has the use of this room for visitors, ' said theperson of the house, screwing up one of her little bony fists, like anopera-glass, and looking through it, with her eyes and her chin in thatquaint accordance. 'Always this room for visitors; haven't you, Lizziedear?'

It happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight action ofLizzie Hexam's hand, as though it checked the doll's dressmaker. And ithappened that the latter noticed him in the same instant; for she madea double eyeglass of her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried, with a waggish shake of her head: 'Aha! Caught you spying, did I?'

It might have fallen out so, any way; but Bradley Headstone also noticedthat immediately after this, Lizzie, who had not taken off her bonnet, rather hurriedly proposed that as the room was getting dark they shouldgo out into the air. They went out; the visitors saying good-night tothe doll's dressmaker, whom they left, leaning back in her chair withher arms crossed, singing to herself in a sweet thoughtful little voice. 

'I'll saunter on by the river, ' said Bradley. 'You will be glad to talktogether. '

As his uneasy figure went on before them among the evening shadows, theboy said to his sister, petulantly:

'When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian sort of place, Liz? I thought you were going to do it before now. '

'I am very well where I am, Charley. '

'Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought Mr Headstone withme. How came you to get into such company as that little witch's?'

'By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it must havebeen by something more than chance, for that child--You remember thebills upon the walls at home?'

'Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to forget the billsupon the walls at home, and it would be better for you to do the same, 'grumbled the boy. 'Well; what of them?'

'This child is the grandchild of the old man. '

'What old man?'

'The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and the night-cap. '

The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed vexationat hearing so much, and half curiosity to hear more: 'How came you tomake that out? What a girl you are!'

'The child's father is employed by the house that employs me; that's howI came to know it, Charley. The father is like his own father, a weakwretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, never sober. But a goodworkman too, at the work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailinglittle creature has come to be what she is, surrounded by drunken peoplefrom her cradle--if she ever had one, Charley. '

'I don't see what you have to do with her, for all that, ' said the boy. 

'Don't you, Charley?'

The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at Millbank, andthe river rolled on their left. His sister gently touched him on theshoulder, and pointed to it. 

'Any compensation--restitution--never mind the word, you know mymeaning. Father's grave. '

But he did not respond with any tenderness. After a moody silence hebroke out in an ill-used tone:

'It'll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my best to get upin the world, you pull me back. '

'I, Charley?'

'Yes, you, Liz. Why can't you let bygones be bygones? Why can't you, asMr Headstone said to me this very evening about another matter, leavewell alone? What we have got to do, is, to turn our faces full in ournew direction, and keep straight on. '

'And never look back? Not even to try to make some amends?'

'You are such a dreamer, ' said the boy, with his former petulance. 'Itwas all very well when we sat before the fire--when we looked into thehollow down by the flare--but we are looking into the real world, now. '

'Ah, we were looking into the real world then, Charley!'

'I understand what you mean by that, but you are not justified in it. Idon't want, as I raise myself to shake you off, Liz. I want to carry youup with me. That's what I want to do, and mean to do. I know what I oweyou. I said to Mr Headstone this very evening, "After all, my sister gotme here. " Well, then. Don't pull me back, and hold me down. That's all Iask, and surely that's not unconscionable. '

She had kept a steadfast look upon him, and she answered with composure:

'I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself I could not be toofar from that river. '

'Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get quit of itequally. Why should you linger about it any more than I? I give it awide berth. '

'I can't get away from it, I think, ' said Lizzie, passing her handacross her forehead. 'It's no purpose of mine that I live by it still. '

'There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your ownaccord in a house with a drunken--tailor, I suppose--or something of thesort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or whateverit is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, dobe more practical. '

She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and strivingfor him; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder--notreproachfully--and tapped it twice or thrice. She had been used todo so, to soothe him when she carried him about, a child as heavy asherself. Tears started to his eyes. 

'Upon my word, Liz, ' drawing the back of his hand across them, 'I meanto be a good brother to you, and to prove that I know what I owe you. All I say is, that I hope you'll control your fancies a little, on myaccount. I'll get a school, and then you must come and live with me, and you'll have to control your fancies then, so why not now? Now, say Ihaven't vexed you. '

'You haven't, Charley, you haven't. '

'And say I haven't hurt you. '

'You haven't, Charley. ' But this answer was less ready. 

'Say you are sure I didn't mean to. Come! There's Mr Headstone stoppingand looking over the wall at the tide, to hint that it's time to go. Kiss me, and tell me that you know I didn't mean to hurt you. '

She told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and came up with theschoolmaster. 

'But we go your sister's way, ' he remarked, when the boy told him he wasready. And with his cumbrous and uneasy action he stiffly offered herhis arm. Her hand was just within it, when she drew it back. He lookedround with a start, as if he thought she had detected something thatrepelled her, in the momentary touch. 

'I will not go in just yet, ' said Lizzie. 'And you have a distancebefore you, and will walk faster without me. '

Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, inconsequence, to take that way over the Thames, and they left her;Bradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, and she thanking himfor his care of her brother. 

The master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. They hadnearly crossed the bridge, when a gentleman came coolly saunteringtowards them, with a cigar in his mouth, his coat thrown back, and hishands behind him. Something in the careless manner of this person, and in a certain lazily arrogant air with which he approached, holdingpossession of twice as much pavement as another would have claimed, instantly caught the boy's attention. As the gentleman passed the boylooked at him narrowly, and then stood still, looking after him. 

'Who is it that you stare after?' asked Bradley. 

'Why!' said the boy, with a confused and pondering frown upon his face, 'It IS that Wrayburn one!'

Bradley Headstone scrutinized the boy as closely as the boy hadscrutinized the gentleman. 

'I beg your pardon, Mr Headstone, but I couldn't help wondering what inthe world brought HIM here!'

Though he said it as if his wonder were past--at the same time resumingthe walk--it was not lost upon the master that he looked over hisshoulder after speaking, and that the same perplexed and pondering frownwas heavy on his face. 

'You don't appear to like your friend, Hexam?'

'I DON'T like him, ' said the boy. 

'Why not?'

'He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent way, the firsttime I ever saw him, ' said the boy. 

'Again, why?'

'For nothing. Or--it's much the same--because something I happened tosay about my sister didn't happen to please him. '

'Then he knows your sister?'

'He didn't at that time, ' said the boy, still moodily pondering. 

'Does now?'

The boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr Bradley Headstoneas they walked on side by side, without attempting to reply until thequestion had been repeated; then he nodded and answered, 'Yes, sir. '

'Going to see her, I dare say. '

'It can't be!' said the boy, quickly. 'He doesn't know her well enough. I should like to catch him at it!'

When they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than before, the mastersaid, clasping the pupil's arm between the elbow and the shoulder withhis hand:

'You were going to tell me something about that person. What did you sayhis name was?'

'Wrayburn. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they call a barrister, withnothing to do. The first time he came to our old place was when myfather was alive. He came on business; not that it was HIS business--HEnever had any business--he was brought by a friend of his. '

'And the other times?'

'There was only one other time that I know of. When my father was killedby accident, he chanced to be one of the finders. He was mooning about, I suppose, taking liberties with people's chins; but there he was, somehow. He brought the news home to my sister early in the morning, andbrought Miss Abbey Potterson, a neighbour, to help break it to her. He was mooning about the house when I was fetched home in theafternoon--they didn't know where to find me till my sister could bebrought round sufficiently to tell them--and then he mooned away. '

'And is that all?'

'That's all, sir. '

Bradley Headstone gradually released the boy's arm, as if he werethoughtful, and they walked on side by side as before. After a longsilence between them, Bradley resumed the talk. 

'I suppose--your sister--' with a curious break both before and afterthe words, 'has received hardly any teaching, Hexam?'

'Hardly any, sir. '

'Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father's objections. I remember them inyour case. Yet--your sister--scarcely looks or speaks like an ignorantperson. '

'Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr Headstone. Too much, perhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire at home, her books, for she was always full of fancies--sometimes quite wise fancies, considering--when she sat looking at it. '

'I don't like that, ' said Bradley Headstone. 

His pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so suddenand decided and emotional an objection, but took it as a proof of themaster's interest in himself. It emboldened him to say:

'I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, Mr Headstone, and you're my witness that I couldn't even make up my mind to take itfrom you before we came out to-night; but it's a painful thing to thinkthat if I get on as well as you hope, I shall be--I won't say disgraced, because I don't mean disgraced-but--rather put to the blush if it wasknown--by a sister who has been very good to me. '

'Yes, ' said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his mind scarcelyseemed to touch that point, so smoothly did it glide to another, 'andthere is this possibility to consider. Some man who had worked his waymight come to admire--your sister--and might even in time bring himselfto think of marrying--your sister--and it would be a sad drawback and aheavy penalty upon him, if; overcoming in his mind other inequalities ofcondition and other considerations against it, this inequality and thisconsideration remained in full force. '

'That's much my own meaning, sir. '

'Ay, ay, ' said Bradley Headstone, 'but you spoke of a mere brother. Now, the case I have supposed would be a much stronger case; because anadmirer, a husband, would form the connexion voluntarily, besides beingobliged to proclaim it: which a brother is not. After all, you know, itmust be said of you that you couldn't help yourself: while it would besaid of him, with equal reason, that he could. '

'That's true, sir. Sometimes since Lizzie was left free by father'sdeath, I have thought that such a young woman might soon acquire morethan enough to pass muster. And sometimes I have even thought thatperhaps Miss Peecher--'

'For the purpose, I would advise Not Miss Peecher, ' Bradley Headstonestruck in with a recurrence of his late decision of manner. 

'Would you be so kind as to think of it for me, Mr Headstone?'

'Yes, Hexam, yes. I'll think of it. I'll think maturely of it. I'llthink well of it. '

Their walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it ended at theschool-house. There, one of neat Miss Peecher's little windows, like theeyes in needles, was illuminated, and in a corner near it sat Mary Annewatching, while Miss Peecher at the table stitched at the neat littlebody she was making up by brown paper pattern for her own wearing. N. B. Miss Peecher and Miss Peecher's pupils were not much encouraged in theunscholastic art of needlework, by Government. 

Mary Anne with her face to the window, held her arm up. 

'Well, Mary Anne?'

'Mr Headstone coming home, ma'am. '

In about a minute, Mary Anne again hailed. 

'Yes, Mary Anne?'

'Gone in and locked his door, ma'am. '

Miss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work together for bed, and transfixed that part of her dress where her heart would have been ifshe had had the dress on, with a sharp, sharp needle. 

Chapter 2

STILL EDUCATIONAL

The person of the house, doll's dressmaker and manufacturer ofornamental pincushions and pen-wipers, sat in her quaint little lowarm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back. The personof the house had attained that dignity while yet of very tender yearsindeed, through being the only trustworthy person IN the house. 

'Well Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie, ' said she, breaking off in her song, 'what'sthe news out of doors?'

'What's the news in doors?' returned Lizzie, playfully smoothing thebright long fair hair which grew very luxuriant and beautiful on thehead of the doll's dressmaker. 

'Let me see, said the blind man. Why the last news is, that I don't meanto marry your brother. '

'No?'

'No-o, ' shaking her head and her chin. 'Don't like the boy. '

'What do you say to his master?'

'I say that I think he's bespoke. '

Lizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the misshapenshoulders, and then lighted a candle. It showed the little parlour tobe dingy, but orderly and clean. She stood it on the mantelshelf, remotefrom the dressmaker's eyes, and then put the room door open, and thehouse door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupanttowards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was afine-weather arrangement when the day's work was done. To completeit, she seated herself in a chair by the side of the little chair, andprotectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her. 

'This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time in the day andnight, ' said the person of the house. Her real name was Fanny Cleaver;but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation ofMiss Jenny Wren. 

'I have been thinking, ' Jenny went on, 'as I sat at work to-day, whata thing it would be, if I should be able to have your company till I ammarried, or at least courted. Because when I am courted, I shall makeHim do some of the things that you do for me. He couldn't brush my hairlike you do, or help me up and down stairs like you do, and he couldn'tdo anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he couldcall for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. I'LL trot himabout, I can tell him!'

Jenny Wren had her personal vanities--happily for her--and no intentionswere stronger in her breast than the various trials and torments thatwere, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon 'him. '

'Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happento be, ' said Miss Wren, 'I know his tricks and his manners, and I givehim warning to look out. '

'Don't you think you are rather hard upon him?' asked her friend, smiling, and smoothing her hair. 

'Not a bit, ' replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast experience. 'My dear, they don't care for you, those fellows, if you're NOT hardupon 'em. But I was saying If I should be able to have your company. Ah!What a large If! Ain't it?'

'I have no intention of parting company, Jenny. '

'Don't say that, or you'll go directly. '

'Am I so little to be relied upon?'

'You're more to be relied upon than silver and gold. ' As she said it, Miss Wren suddenly broke off, screwed up her eyes and her chin, andlooked prodigiously knowing. 'Aha!

 Who comes here? A Grenadier. What does he want? A pot of beer. 

And nothing else in the world, my dear!'

A man's figure paused on the pavement at the outer door. 'Mr EugeneWrayburn, ain't it?' said Miss Wren. 

'So I am told, ' was the answer. 

'You may come in, if you're good. '

'I am not good, ' said Eugene, 'but I'll come in. '

He gave his hand to Jenny Wren, and he gave his hand to Lizzie, and hestood leaning by the door at Lizzie's side. He had been strolling withhis cigar, he said, (it was smoked out and gone by this time, ) and hehad strolled round to return in that direction that he might look in ashe passed. Had she not seen her brother to-night?

'Yes, ' said Lizzie, whose manner was a little troubled. 

Gracious condescension on our brother's part! Mr Eugene Wrayburn thoughthe had passed my young gentleman on the bridge yonder. Who was hisfriend with him?

'The schoolmaster. '

'To be sure. Looked like it. '

Lizzie sat so still, that one could not have said wherein the fact ofher manner being troubled was expressed; and yet one could not havedoubted it. Eugene was as easy as ever; but perhaps, as she sat withher eyes cast down, it might have been rather more perceptible thathis attention was concentrated upon her for certain moments, than itsconcentration upon any subject for any short time ever was, elsewhere. 

'I have nothing to report, Lizzie, ' said Eugene. 'But, having promisedyou that an eye should be always kept on Mr Riderhood through my friendLightwood, I like occasionally to renew my assurance that I keep mypromise, and keep my friend up to the mark. '

'I should not have doubted it, sir. '

'Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted, ' returned Eugene, coolly, 'for all that. '

'Why are you?' asked the sharp Miss Wren. 

'Because, my dear, ' said the airy Eugene, 'I am a bad idle dog. '

'Then why don't you reform and be a good dog?' inquired Miss Wren. 

'Because, my dear, ' returned Eugene, 'there's nobody who makes it worthmy while. Have you considered my suggestion, Lizzie?' This in a lowervoice, but only as if it were a graver matter; not at all to theexclusion of the person of the house. 

'I have thought of it, Mr Wrayburn, but I have not been able to make upmy mind to accept it. '

'False pride!' said Eugene. 

'I think not, Mr Wrayburn. I hope not. '

'False pride!' repeated Eugene. 'Why, what else is it? The thing isworth nothing in itself. The thing is worth nothing to me. What can itbe worth to me? You know the most I make of it. I propose to be of someuse to somebody--which I never was in this world, and never shall be onany other occasion--by paying some qualified person of your own sex andage, so many (or rather so few) contemptible shillings, to come here, certain nights in the week, and give you certain instruction which youwouldn't want if you hadn't been a self-denying daughter and sister. You know that it's good to have it, or you would never have so devotedyourself to your brother's having it. Then why not have it: especiallywhen our friend Miss Jenny here would profit by it too? If I proposed tobe the teacher, or to attend the lessons--obviously incongruous!--butas to that, I might as well be on the other side of the globe, or noton the globe at all. False pride, Lizzie. Because true pride wouldn'tshame, or be shamed by, your thankless brother. True pride wouldn't haveschoolmasters brought here, like doctors, to look at a bad case. Truepride would go to work and do it. You know that, well enough, for youknow that your own true pride would do it to-morrow, if you had the waysand means which false pride won't let me supply. Very well. I add nomore than this. Your false pride does wrong to yourself and does wrongto your dead father. '

'How to my father, Mr Wrayburn?' she asked, with an anxious face. 

'How to your father? Can you ask! By perpetuating the consequences ofhis ignorant and blind obstinacy. By resolving not to set right thewrong he did you. By determining that the deprivation to which hecondemned you, and which he forced upon you, shall always rest upon hishead. '

It chanced to be a subtle string to sound, in her who had so spoken toher brother within the hour. It sounded far more forcibly, because ofthe change in the speaker for the moment; the passing appearance ofearnestness, complete conviction, injured resentment of suspicion, generous and unselfish interest. All these qualities, in him usually solight and careless, she felt to be inseparable from some touch of theiropposites in her own breast. She thought, had she, so far below himand so different, rejected this disinterestedness, because of some vainmisgiving that he sought her out, or heeded any personal attractionsthat he might descry in her? The poor girl, pure of heart and purpose, could not bear to think it. Sinking before her own eyes, as shesuspected herself of it, she drooped her head as though she had done himsome wicked and grievous injury, and broke into silent tears. 

'Don't be distressed, ' said Eugene, very, very kindly. 'I hope it is notI who have distressed you. I meant no more than to put the matter in itstrue light before you; though I acknowledge I did it selfishly enough, for I am disappointed. '

Disappointed of doing her a service. How else COULD he be disappointed?

'It won't break my heart, ' laughed Eugene; 'it won't stay by meeight-and-forty hours; but I am genuinely disappointed. I had set myfancy on doing this little thing for you and for our friend Miss Jenny. The novelty of my doing anything in the least useful, had its charms. Isee, now, that I might have managed it better. I might have affected todo it wholly for our friend Miss J. I might have got myself up, morally, as Sir Eugene Bountiful. But upon my soul I can't make flourishes, and Iwould rather be disappointed than try. '

If he meant to follow home what was in Lizzie's thoughts, it wasskilfully done. If he followed it by mere fortuitous coincidence, it wasdone by an evil chance. 

'It opened out so naturally before me, ' said Eugene. 'The ball seemed sothrown into my hands by accident! I happen to be originally brought intocontact with you, Lizzie, on those two occasions that you know of. Ihappen to be able to promise you that a watch shall be kept upon thatfalse accuser, Riderhood. I happen to be able to give you some littleconsolation in the darkest hour of your distress, by assuring you that Idon't believe him. On the same occasion I tell you that I am the idlestand least of lawyers, but that I am better than none, in a case I havenoted down with my own hand, and that you may be always sure of my besthelp, and incidentally of Lightwood's too, in your efforts to clearyour father. So, it gradually takes my fancy that I may help you--soeasily!--to clear your father of that other blame which I mentioneda few minutes ago, and which is a just and real one. I hope I haveexplained myself; for I am heartily sorry to have distressed you. I hateto claim to mean well, but I really did mean honestly and simply well, and I want you to know it. '

'I have never doubted that, Mr Wrayburn, ' said Lizzie; the morerepentant, the less he claimed. 

'I am very glad to hear it. Though if you had quite understood my wholemeaning at first, I think you would not have refused. Do you think youwould?'

'I--don't know that I should, Mr Wrayburn. '

'Well! Then why refuse now you do understand it?'

'It's not easy for me to talk to you, ' returned Lizzie, in someconfusion, 'for you see all the consequences of what I say, as soon as Isay it. '

'Take all the consequences, ' laughed Eugene, 'and take away mydisappointment. Lizzie Hexam, as I truly respect you, and as I am yourfriend and a poor devil of a gentleman, I protest I don't even nowunderstand why you hesitate. '

There was an appearance of openness, trustfulness, unsuspectinggenerosity, in his words and manner, that won the poor girl over; andnot only won her over, but again caused her to feel as though she hadbeen influenced by the opposite qualities, with vanity at their head. 

'I will not hesitate any longer, Mr Wrayburn. I hope you will notthink the worse of me for having hesitated at all. For myself and forJenny--you let me answer for you, Jenny dear?'

The little creature had been leaning back, attentive, with her elbowsresting on the elbows of her chair, and her chin upon her hands. Withoutchanging her attitude, she answered, 'Yes!' so suddenly that it ratherseemed as if she had chopped the monosyllable than spoken it. 

'For myself and for Jenny, I thankfully accept your kind offer. '

'Agreed! Dismissed!' said Eugene, giving Lizzie his hand before lightlywaving it, as if he waved the whole subject away. 'I hope it may not beoften that so much is made of so little!'

Then he fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren. 'I think of settingup a doll, Miss Jenny, ' he said. 

'You had better not, ' replied the dressmaker. 

'Why not?'

'You are sure to break it. All you children do. '

'But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren, ' returned Eugene. 'Much as people's breaking promises and contracts and bargains of allsorts, makes good for MY trade. '

'I don't know about that, ' Miss Wren retorted; 'but you had better byhalf set up a pen-wiper, and turn industrious, and use it. '

'Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little Busy-Body, we shouldbegin to work as soon as we could crawl, and there would be a badthing!'

'Do you mean, ' returned the little creature, with a flush suffusing herface, 'bad for your backs and your legs?'

'No, no, no, ' said Eugene; shocked--to do him justice--at the thought oftrifling with her infirmity. 'Bad for business, bad for business. If weall set to work as soon as we could use our hands, it would be all overwith the dolls' dressmakers. '

'There's something in that, ' replied Miss Wren; 'you have a sort of anidea in your noddle sometimes. ' Then, in a changed tone; 'Talking ofideas, my Lizzie, ' they were sitting side by side as they had sat atfirst, 'I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all alone in the summer-time, I smell flowers. '

'As a commonplace individual, I should say, ' Eugene suggestedlanguidly--for he was growing weary of the person of the house--'thatyou smell flowers because you DO smell flowers. '

'No I don't, ' said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbowof her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantlybefore her; 'this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It's anything butthat. And yet as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses, till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on thefloor. I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand--so--and expect tomake them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, andall sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very fewflowers indeed, in my life. '

'Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!' said her friend: with a glancetowards Eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were giventhe child in compensation for her losses. 

'So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!'cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, 'howthey sing!'

There was something in the face and action for the moment, quiteinspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the handagain. 

'I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smellbetter than other flowers. For when I was a little child, ' in a tone asthough it were ages ago, 'the children that I used to see early in themorning were very different from any others that I ever saw. They werenot like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; theywere never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbours;they never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises, andthey never mocked me. Such numbers of them too! All in white dresses, and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that Ihave never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it sowell. They used to come down in long bright slanting rows, and say alltogether, "Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!" When I told themwho it was, they answered, "Come and play with us!" When I said "I neverplay! I can't play!" they swept about me and took me up, and made melight. Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid medown, and said, all together, "Have patience, and we will come again. "Whenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I sawthe long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, "Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!" And I used to cry out, "O myblessed children, it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make melight!"'

By degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, the late ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful. Havingso paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she looked round and recalled herself. 

'What poor fun you think me; don't you, Mr Wrayburn? You may well looktired of me. But it's Saturday night, and I won't detain you. '

'That is to say, Miss Wren, ' observed Eugene, quite ready to profit bythe hint, 'you wish me to go?'

'Well, it's Saturday night, ' she returned, and my child's cominghome. And my child is a troublesome bad child, and costs me a world ofscolding. I would rather you didn't see my child. '

'A doll?' said Eugene, not understanding, and looking for anexplanation. 

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, 'Her father, ' hedelayed no longer. He took his leave immediately. At the corner of thestreet he stopped to light another cigar, and possibly to ask himselfwhat he was doing otherwise. If so, the answer was indefinite and vague. Who knows what he is doing, who is careless what he does!

A man stumbled against him as he turned away, who mumbled some maudlinapology. Looking after this man, Eugene saw him go in at the door bywhich he himself had just come out. 

On the man's stumbling into the room, Lizzie rose to leave it. 

'Don't go away, Miss Hexam, ' he said in a submissive manner, speakingthickly and with difficulty. 'Don't fly from unfortunate man inshattered state of health. Give poor invalid honour of your company. Itain't--ain't catching. '

Lizzie murmured that she had something to do in her own room, and wentaway upstairs. 

'How's my Jenny?' said the man, timidly. 'How's my Jenny Wren, best ofchildren, object dearest affections broken-hearted invalid?'

To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in an attitudeof command, replied with irresponsive asperity: 'Go along with you! Goalong into your corner! Get into your corner directly!'

The wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered someremonstrance; but not venturing to resist the person of the house, thought better of it, and went and sat down on a particular chair ofdisgrace. 

'Oh-h-h!' cried the person of the house, pointing her little finger, 'You bad old boy! Oh-h-h you naughty, wicked creature! WHAT do you meanby it?'

The shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to foot, putout its two hands a little way, as making overtures of peace andreconciliation. Abject tears stood in its eyes, and stained the blotchedred of its cheeks. The swollen lead-coloured under lip trembled with ashameful whine. The whole indecorous threadbare ruin, from the brokenshoes to the prematurely-grey scanty hair, grovelled. Not with any senseworthy to be called a sense, of this dire reversal of the places ofparent and child, but in a pitiful expostulation to be let off from ascolding. 

'I know your tricks and your manners, ' cried Miss Wren. 'I know whereyou've been to!' (which indeed it did not require discernment todiscover). 'Oh, you disgraceful old chap!'

The very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it laboured andrattled in that operation, like a blundering clock. 

'Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night, ' pursued the person of thehouse, 'and all for this! WHAT do you mean by it?'

There was something in that emphasized 'What, ' which absurdly frightenedthe figure. As often as the person of the house worked her way round toit--even as soon as he saw that it was coming--he collapsed in an extradegree. 

'I wish you had been taken up, and locked up, ' said the person of thehouse. 'I wish you had been poked into cells and black holes, and runover by rats and spiders and beetles. I know their tricks and theirmanners, and they'd have tickled you nicely. Ain't you ashamed ofyourself?'

'Yes, my dear, ' stammered the father. 

'Then, ' said the person of the house, terrifying him by a grand musterof her spirits and forces before recurring to the emphatic word, 'WHATdo you mean by it?'

'Circumstances over which had no control, ' was the miserable creature'splea in extenuation. 

'I'LL circumstance you and control you too, ' retorted the person of thehouse, speaking with vehement sharpness, 'if you talk in that way. I'llgive you in charge to the police, and have you fined five shillings whenyou can't pay, and then I won't pay the money for you, and you'll betransported for life. How should you like to be transported for life?'

'Shouldn't like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble nobody long, ' criedthe wretched figure. 

'Come, come!' said the person of the house, tapping the table near herin a business-like manner, and shaking her head and her chin; 'you knowwhat you've got to do. Put down your money this instant. '

The obedient figure began to rummage in its pockets. 

'Spent a fortune out of your wages, I'll be bound!' said the person ofthe house. 'Put it here! All you've got left! Every farthing!'

Such a business as he made of collecting it from his dogs'-earedpockets; of expecting it in this pocket, and not finding it; of notexpecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; of finding no pocketwhere that other pocket ought to be!

'Is this all?' demanded the person of the house, when a confused heap ofpence and shillings lay on the table. 

'Got no more, ' was the rueful answer, with an accordant shake of thehead. 

'Let me make sure. You know what you've got to do. Turn all your pocketsinside out, and leave 'em so!' cried the person of the house. 

He obeyed. And if anything could have made him look more abject or moredismally ridiculous than before, it would have been his so displayinghimself. 

'Here's but seven and eightpence halfpenny!' exclaimed Miss Wren, afterreducing the heap to order. 'Oh, you prodigal old son! Now you shall bestarved. '

'No, don't starve me, ' he urged, whimpering. 

'If you were treated as you ought to be, ' said Miss Wren, 'you'd be fedupon the skewers of cats' meat;--only the skewers, after the cats hadhad the meat. As it is, go to bed. '

When he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again put out both hishands, and pleaded: 'Circumstances over which no control--'

'Get along with you to bed!' cried Miss Wren, snapping him up. 'Don'tspeak to me. I'm not going to forgive you. Go to bed this moment!'

Seeing another emphatic 'What' upon its way, he evaded it by complyingand was heard to shuffle heavily up stairs, and shut his door, and throwhimself on his bed. Within a little while afterwards, Lizzie came down. 

'Shall we have our supper, Jenny dear?'

'Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us going, 'returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her shoulders. 

Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the person ofthe house than an ordinary table), and put upon it such plain fare asthey were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool for herself. 

'Now for supper! What are you thinking of, Jenny darling?'

'I was thinking, ' she returned, coming out of a deep study, 'what Iwould do to Him, if he should turn out a drunkard. '

'Oh, but he won't, ' said Lizzie. 'You'll take care of that, beforehand. '

'I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might deceive me. Oh, my dear, all those fellows with their tricks and their manners dodeceive!' With the little fist in full action. 'And if so, I tell youwhat I think I'd do. When he was asleep, I'd make a spoon red hot, andI'd have some boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and I'd take itout hissing, and I'd open his mouth with the other hand--or perhaps he'dsleep with his mouth ready open--and I'd pour it down his throat, andblister it and choke him. '

'I am sure you would do no such horrible thing, ' said Lizzie. 

'Shouldn't I? Well; perhaps I shouldn't. But I should like to!'

'I am equally sure you would not. '

'Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven'talways lived among it as I have lived--and your back isn't bad and yourlegs are not queer. '

As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round tothat prettier and better state. But, the charm was broken. The personof the house was the person of a house full of sordid shames and cares, with an upper room in which that abased figure was infecting eveninnocent sleep with sensual brutality and degradation. The doll'sdressmaker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, worldly; ofthe earth, earthy. 

Poor doll's dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that shouldhave raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on theeternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little doll's dressmaker!

Chapter 3

A PIECE OF WORK

Britannia, sitting meditating one fine day (perhaps in the attitude inwhich she is presented on the copper coinage), discovers all of a suddenthat she wants Veneering in Parliament. It occurs to her that Veneeringis 'a representative man'--which cannot in these times be doubted--andthat Her Majesty's faithful Commons are incomplete without him. So, Britannia mentions to a legal gentleman of her acquaintance that ifVeneering will 'put down' five thousand pounds, he may write a coupleof initial letters after his name at the extremely cheap rate of twothousand five hundred per letter. It is clearly understood betweenBritannia and the legal gentleman that nobody is to take up the fivethousand pounds, but that being put down they will disappear by magicalconjuration and enchantment. 

The legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence going straight from thatlady to Veneering, thus commissioned, Veneering declares himself highlyflattered, but requires breathing time to ascertain 'whether his friendswill rally round him. ' Above all things, he says, it behoves him to beclear, at a crisis of this importance, 'whether his friends will rallyround him. ' The legal gentleman, in the interests of his client cannotallow much time for this purpose, as the lady rather thinks she knowssomebody prepared to put down six thousand pounds; but he says he willgive Veneering four hours. 

Veneering then says to Mrs Veneering, 'We must work, ' and throws himselfinto a Hansom cab. Mrs Veneering in the same moment relinquishes babyto Nurse; presses her aquiline hands upon her brow, to arrange thethrobbing intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats ina distracted and devoted manner, compounded of Ophelia and anyself-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, 'We must work. '

Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the Public in thestreets, like the Life-Guards at Waterloo, is driven furiously to DukeStreet, Saint James's. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodgings, freshfrom the hands of a secret artist who has been doing something to hishair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring that Twemlow shall, fortwo hours after the application, allow his hair to stick upright and drygradually, he is in an appropriate state for the receipt of startlingintelligence; looking equally like the Monument on Fish Street Hill, andKing Priam on a certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neatpoint from the classics. 

'My dear Twemlow, ' says Veneering, grasping both his hands, as thedearest and oldest of my friends--'

('Then there can be no more doubt about it in future, ' thinks Twemlow, 'and I AM!')

'--Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would give hisname as a Member of my Committee? I don't go so far as to ask for hislordship; I only ask for his name. Do you think he would give me hisname?'

In sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, 'I don't think he would. '

'My political opinions, ' says Veneering, not previously aware of havingany, 'are identical with those of Lord Snigsworth, and perhaps as amatter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigsworth wouldgive me his name. '

'It might be so, ' says Twemlow; 'but--' And perplexedly scratching hishead, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is the more discomfited by beingreminded how stickey he is. 

'Between such old and intimate friends as ourselves, ' pursues Veneering, 'there should in such a case be no reserve. Promise me that if I ask youto do anything for me which you don't like to do, or feel the slightestdifficulty in doing, you will freely tell me so. '

This, Twemlow is so kind as to promise, with every appearance of mostheartily intending to keep his word. 

'Would you have any objection to write down to Snigsworthy Park, and askthis favour of Lord Snigsworth? Of course if it were granted I shouldknow that I owed it solely to you; while at the same time you would putit to Lord Snigsworth entirely upon public grounds. Would you have anyobjection?'

Says Twemlow, with his hand to his forehead, 'You have exacted a promisefrom me. '

'I have, my dear Twemlow. '

'And you expect me to keep it honourably. '

'I do, my dear Twemlow. '

'ON the whole, then;--observe me, ' urges Twemlow with great nicety, asif; in the case of its having been off the whole, he would have done itdirectly--'ON the whole, I must beg you to excuse me from addressing anycommunication to Lord Snigsworth. '

'Bless you, bless you!' says Veneering; horribly disappointed, butgrasping him by both hands again, in a particularly fervent manner. 

It is not to be wondered at that poor Twemlow should decline to inflicta letter on his noble cousin (who has gout in the temper), inasmuchas his noble cousin, who allows him a small annuity on which he lives, takes it out of him, as the phrase goes, in extreme severity; puttinghim, when he visits at Snigsworthy Park, under a kind of martial law;ordaining that he shall hang his hat on a particular peg, sit on aparticular chair, talk on particular subjects to particular people, andperform particular exercises: such as sounding the praises of the FamilyVarnish (not to say Pictures), and abstaining from the choicest of theFamily Wines unless expressly invited to partake. 

'One thing, however, I CAN do for you, ' says Twemlow; 'and that is, workfor you. '

Veneering blesses him again. 

'I'll go, ' says Twemlow, in a rising hurry of spirits, 'to theclub;--let us see now; what o'clock is it?'

'Twenty minutes to eleven. '

'I'll be, ' says Twemlow, 'at the club by ten minutes to twelve, and I'llnever leave it all day. '

Veneering feels that his friends are rallying round him, and says, 'Thank you, thank you. I knew I could rely upon you. I said to Anastatiabefore leaving home just now to come to you--of course the first friendI have seen on a subject so momentous to me, my dear Twemlow--I said toAnastatia, "We must work. "'

'You were right, you were right, ' replies Twemlow. 'Tell me. Is SHEworking?'

'She is, ' says Veneering. 

'Good!' cries Twemlow, polite little gentleman that he is. 'A woman'stact is invaluable. To have the dear sex with us, is to have everythingwith us. '

'But you have not imparted to me, ' remarks Veneering, 'what you think ofmy entering the House of Commons?'

'I think, ' rejoins Twemlow, feelingly, 'that it is the best club inLondon. '

Veneering again blesses him, plunges down stairs, rushes into hisHansom, and directs the driver to be up and at the British Public, andto charge into the City. 

Meanwhile Twemlow, in an increasing hurry of spirits, gets his hair downas well as he can--which is not very well; for, after these glutinousapplications it is restive, and has a surface on it somewhat in thenature of pastry--and gets to the club by the appointed time. At theclub he promptly secures a large window, writing materials, and allthe newspapers, and establishes himself; immoveable, to be respectfullycontemplated by Pall Mall. Sometimes, when a man enters who nods tohim, Twemlow says, 'Do you know Veneering?' Man says, 'No; member ofthe club?' Twemlow says, 'Yes. Coming in for Pocket-Breaches. ' Man says, 'Ah! Hope he may find it worth the money!' yawns, and saunters out. Towards six o'clock of the afternoon, Twemlow begins to persuadehimself that he is positively jaded with work, and thinks it much to beregretted that he was not brought up as a Parliamentary agent. 

From Twemlow's, Veneering dashes at Podsnap's place of business. FindsPodsnap reading the paper, standing, and inclined to be oratoricalover the astonishing discovery he has made, that Italy is not England. Respectfully entreats Podsnap's pardon for stopping the flow of hiswords of wisdom, and informs him what is in the wind. Tells Podsnap thattheir political opinions are identical. Gives Podsnap to understand thathe, Veneering, formed his political opinions while sitting at the feetof him, Podsnap. Seeks earnestly to know whether Podsnap 'will rallyround him?'

Says Podsnap, something sternly, 'Now, first of all, Veneering, do youask my advice?'

Veneering falters that as so old and so dear a friend--

'Yes, yes, that's all very well, ' says Podsnap; 'but have you made upyour mind to take this borough of Pocket-Breaches on its own terms, ordo you ask my opinion whether you shall take it or leave it alone?'

Veneering repeats that his heart's desire and his soul's thirst are, that Podsnap shall rally round him. 

'Now, I'll be plain with you, Veneering, ' says Podsnap, knitting hisbrows. 'You will infer that I don't care about Parliament, from the factof my not being there?'

Why, of course Veneering knows that! Of course Veneering knows that ifPodsnap chose to go there, he would be there, in a space of time thatmight be stated by the light and thoughtless as a jiffy. 

'It is not worth my while, ' pursues Podsnap, becoming handsomelymollified, 'and it is the reverse of important to my position. But itis not my wish to set myself up as law for another man, differentlysituated. You think it IS worth YOUR while, and IS important to YOURposition. Is that so?'

Always with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round him, Veneeringthinks it is so. 

'Then you don't ask my advice, ' says Podsnap. 'Good. Then I won't giveit you. But you do ask my help. Good. Then I'll work for you. '

Veneering instantly blesses him, and apprises him that Twemlow isalready working. Podsnap does not quite approve that anybody shouldbe already working--regarding it rather in the light of a liberty--buttolerates Twemlow, and says he is a well-connected old female who willdo no harm. 

'I have nothing very particular to do to-day, ' adds Podsnap, 'and I'llmix with some influential people. I had engaged myself to dinner, butI'll send Mrs Podsnap and get off going myself; and I'll dine with youat eight. It's important we should report progress and compare notes. Now, let me see. You ought to have a couple of active energetic fellows, of gentlemanly manners, to go about. '

Veneering, after cogitation, thinks of Boots and Brewer. 

'Whom I have met at your house, ' says Podsnap. 'Yes. They'll do verywell. Let them each have a cab, and go about. '

Veneering immediately mentions what a blessing he feels it, to possessa friend capable of such grand administrative suggestions, and reallyis elated at this going about of Boots and Brewer, as an idea wearingan electioneering aspect and looking desperately like business. LeavingPodsnap, at a hand-gallop, he descends upon Boots and Brewer, whoenthusiastically rally round him by at once bolting off in cabs, takingopposite directions. Then Veneering repairs to the legal gentleman inBritannia's confidence, and with him transacts some delicate affairsof business, and issues an address to the independent electors ofPocket-Breaches, announcing that he is coming among them for theirsuffrages, as the mariner returns to the home of his early childhood: aphrase which is none the worse for his never having been near the placein his life, and not even now distinctly knowing where it is. 

Mrs Veneering, during the same eventful hours, is not idle. No soonerdoes the carriage turn out, all complete, than she turns into it, allcomplete, and gives the word 'To Lady Tippins's. ' That charmer dwellsover a staymaker's in the Belgravian Borders, with a life-size modelin the window on the ground floor of a distinguished beauty in a bluepetticoat, stay-lace in hand, looking over her shoulder at the town ininnocent surprise. As well she may, to find herself dressing under thecircumstances. 

Lady Tippins at home? Lady Tippins at home, with the room darkened, and her back (like the lady's at the ground-floor window, though for adifferent reason) cunningly turned towards the light. Lady Tippins isso surprised by seeing her dear Mrs Veneering so early--in the middle ofthe night, the pretty creature calls it--that her eyelids almost go up, under the influence of that emotion. 

To whom Mrs Veneering incoherently communicates, how that Veneeringhas been offered Pocket-Breaches; how that it is the time for rallyinground; how that Veneering has said 'We must work'; how that she is here, as a wife and mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that thecarriage is at Lady Tippins's disposal for purposes of work; how thatshe, proprietress of said bran new elegant equipage, will return home onfoot--on bleeding feet if need be--to work (not specifying how), untilshe drops by the side of baby's crib. 

'My love, ' says Lady Tippins, 'compose yourself; we'll bring him in. 'And Lady Tippins really does work, and work the Veneering horses too;for she clatters about town all day, calling upon everybody she knows, and showing her entertaining powers and green fan to immense advantage, by rattling on with, My dear soul, what do you think? What doyou suppose me to be? You'll never guess. I'm pretending to be anelectioneering agent. And for what place of all places? Pocket-Breaches. And why? Because the dearest friend I have in the world has bought it. And who is the dearest friend I have in the world? A man of the name ofVeneering. Not omitting his wife, who is the other dearest friend I havein the world; and I positively declare I forgot their baby, who is theother. And we are carrying on this little farce to keep up appearances, and isn't it refreshing! Then, my precious child, the fun of it is thatnobody knows who these Veneerings are, and that they know nobody, andthat they have a house out of the Tales of the Genii, and give dinnersout of the Arabian Nights. Curious to see 'em, my dear? Say you'll know'em. Come and dine with 'em. They shan't bore you. Say who shall meetyou. We'll make up a party of our own, and I'll engage that they shallnot interfere with you for one single moment. You really ought to seetheir gold and silver camels. I call their dinner-table, the Caravan. Do come and dine with my Veneerings, my own Veneerings, my exclusiveproperty, the dearest friends I have in the world! And above all, mydear, be sure you promise me your vote and interest and all sorts ofplumpers for Pocket-Breaches; for we couldn't think of spending sixpenceon it, my love, and can only consent to be brought in by the spontaneousthingummies of the incorruptible whatdoyoucallums. 

Now, the point of view seized by the bewitching Tippins, that this sameworking and rallying round is to keep up appearances, may have somethingin it, but not all the truth. More is done, or considered to bedone--which does as well--by taking cabs, and 'going about, ' than thefair Tippins knew of. Many vast vague reputations have been made, solely by taking cabs and going about. This particularly obtains in allParliamentary affairs. Whether the business in hand be to get a man in, or get a man out, or get a man over, or promote a railway, or jockeya railway, or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual asscouring nowhere in a violent hurry--in short, as taking cabs and goingabout. 

Probably because this reason is in the air, Twemlow, far from beingsingular in his persuasion that he works like a Trojan, is capped byPodsnap, who in his turn is capped by Boots and Brewer. At eight o'clockwhen all these hard workers assemble to dine at Veneering's, it isunderstood that the cabs of Boots and Brewer mustn't leave the door, butthat pails of water must be brought from the nearest baiting-place, and cast over the horses' legs on the very spot, lest Boots and Brewershould have instant occasion to mount and away. Those fleet messengersrequire the Analytical to see that their hats are deposited where theycan be laid hold of at an instant's notice; and they dine (remarkablywell though) with the air of firemen in charge of an engine, expectingintelligence of some tremendous conflagration. 

Mrs Veneering faintly remarks, as dinner opens, that many such dayswould be too much for her. 

'Many such days would be too much for all of us, ' says Podsnap; 'butwe'll bring him in!'

'We'll bring him in, ' says Lady Tippins, sportively waving her greenfan. 'Veneering for ever!'

'We'll bring him in!' says Twemlow. 

'We'll bring him in!' say Boots and Brewer. 

Strictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they should notbring him in, Pocket-Breaches having closed its little bargain, andthere being no opposition. However, it is agreed that they must 'work'to the last, and that if they did not work, something indefinite wouldhappen. It is likewise agreed that they are all so exhausted with thework behind them, and need to be so fortified for the work before them, as to require peculiar strengthening from Veneering's cellar. Therefore, the Analytical has orders to produce the cream of the cream of hisbinns, and therefore it falls out that rallying becomes rather a tryingword for the occasion; Lady Tippins being observed gamely to inculcatethe necessity of rearing round their dear Veneering; Podsnap advocatingroaring round him; Boots and Brewer declaring their intention of reelinground him; and Veneering thanking his devoted friends one and all, withgreat emotion, for rarullarulling round him. 

In these inspiring moments, Brewer strikes out an idea which is thegreat hit of the day. He consults his watch, and says (like Guy Fawkes), he'll now go down to the House of Commons and see how things look. 

'I'll keep about the lobby for an hour or so, ' says Brewer, with adeeply mysterious countenance, 'and if things look well, I won't comeback, but will order my cab for nine in the morning. '

'You couldn't do better, ' says Podsnap. 

Veneering expresses his inability ever to acknowledge this last service. Tears stand in Mrs Veneering's affectionate eyes. Boots shows envy, loses ground, and is regarded as possessing a second-rate mind. They allcrowd to the door, to see Brewer off. Brewer says to his driver, 'Now, is your horse pretty fresh?' eyeing the animal with critical scrutiny. Driver says he's as fresh as butter. 'Put him along then, ' says Brewer;'House of Commons. ' Driver darts up, Brewer leaps in, they cheer him ashe departs, and Mr Podsnap says, 'Mark my words, sir. That's a man ofresource; that's a man to make his way in life. '

When the time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and appropriatestammer to the men of Pocket-Breaches, only Podsnap and Twemlowaccompany him by railway to that sequestered spot. The legal gentlemanis at the Pocket-Breaches Branch Station, with an open carriage with aprinted bill 'Veneering for ever' stuck upon it, as if it were a wall;and they gloriously proceed, amidst the grins of the populace, to afeeble little town hall on crutches, with some onions and bootlacesunder it, which the legal gentleman says are a Market; and from thefront window of that edifice Veneering speaks to the listening earth. In the moment of his taking his hat off, Podsnap, as per agreement madewith Mrs Veneering, telegraphs to that wife and mother, 'He's up. '

Veneering loses his way in the usual No Thoroughfares of speech, andPodsnap and Twemlow say Hear hear! and sometimes, when he can't by anymeans back himself out of some very unlucky No Thoroughfare, 'He-a-a-rHe-a-a-r!' with an air of facetious conviction, as if the ingenuity ofthe thing gave them a sensation of exquisite pleasure. But Veneeringmakes two remarkably good points; so good, that they are supposedto have been suggested to him by the legal gentleman in Britannia'sconfidence, while briefly conferring on the stairs. 

Point the first is this. Veneering institutes an original comparisonbetween the country, and a ship; pointedly calling the ship, the Vesselof the State, and the Minister the Man at the Helm. Veneering's objectis to let Pocket-Breaches know that his friend on his right (Podsnap) isa man of wealth. Consequently says he, 'And, gentlemen, when the timbersof the Vessel of the State are unsound and the Man at the Helm isunskilful, would those great Marine Insurers, who rank among ourworld-famed merchant-princes--would they insure her, gentlemen? Wouldthey underwrite her? Would they incur a risk in her? Would they haveconfidence in her? Why, gentlemen, if I appealed to my honourable friendupon my right, himself among the greatest and most respected of thatgreat and much respected class, he would answer No!'

Point the second is this. The telling fact that Twemlow is related toLord Snigsworth, must be let off. Veneering supposes a state of publicaffairs that probably never could by any possibility exist (though thisis not quite certain, in consequence of his picture being unintelligibleto himself and everybody else), and thus proceeds. 'Why, gentlemen, ifI were to indicate such a programme to any class of society, I say itwould be received with derision, would be pointed at by the finger ofscorn. If I indicated such a programme to any worthy and intelligenttradesman of your town--nay, I will here be personal, and say Ourtown--what would he reply? He would reply, "Away with it!" That's whatHE would reply, gentlemen. In his honest indignation he would reply, "Away with it!" But suppose I mounted higher in the social scale. Suppose I drew my arm through the arm of my respected friend upon myleft, and, walking with him through the ancestral woods of his family, and under the spreading beeches of Snigsworthy Park, approached thenoble hall, crossed the courtyard, entered by the door, went up thestaircase, and, passing from room to room, found myself at last inthe august presence of my friend's near kinsman, Lord Snigsworth. Andsuppose I said to that venerable earl, "My Lord, I am here before yourlordship, presented by your lordship's near kinsman, my friend upon myleft, to indicate that programme;" what would his lordship answer? Why, he would answer, "Away with it!" That's what he would answer, gentlemen. "Away with it!" Unconsciously using, in his exalted sphere, the exactlanguage of the worthy and intelligent tradesman of our town, the nearand dear kinsman of my friend upon my left would answer in his wrath, "Away with it!"'

Veneering finishes with this last success, and Mr Podsnap telegraphs toMrs Veneering, 'He's down. '

Then, dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentleman, and thenthere are in due succession, nomination, and declaration. Finally MrPodsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, 'We have brought him in. '

Another gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to the Veneeringhalls, and Lady Tippins awaits them, and Boots and Brewer awaitthem. There is a modest assertion on everybody's part that everybodysingle-handed 'brought him in'; but in the main it is conceded by all, that that stroke of business on Brewer's part, in going down to thehouse that night to see how things looked, was the master-stroke. 

A touching little incident is related by Mrs Veneering, in the course ofthe evening. Mrs Veneering is habitually disposed to be tearful, andhas an extra disposition that way after her late excitement. Previousto withdrawing from the dinner-table with Lady Tippins, she says, in apathetic and physically weak manner:

'You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must mention it. AsI sat by Baby's crib, on the night before the election, Baby was veryuneasy in her sleep. '

The Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has diabolicalimpulses to suggest 'Wind' and throw up his situation; but repressesthem. 

'After an interval almost convulsive, Baby curled her little hands inone another and smiled. '

Mrs Veneering stopping here, Mr Podsnap deems it incumbent on him tosay: 'I wonder why!'

'Could it be, I asked myself, ' says Mrs Veneering, looking about her forher pocket-handkerchief, 'that the Fairies were telling Baby that herpapa would shortly be an M. P. ?'

So overcome by the sentiment is Mrs Veneering, that they all get upto make a clear stage for Veneering, who goes round the table to therescue, and bears her out backward, with her feet impressively scrapingthe carpet: after remarking that her work has been too much for herstrength. Whether the fairies made any mention of the five thousandpounds, and it disagreed with Baby, is not speculated upon. 

Poor little Twemlow, quite done up, is touched, and still continuestouched after he is safely housed over the livery-stable yard inDuke Street, Saint James's. But there, upon his sofa, a tremendousconsideration breaks in upon the mild gentleman, putting all softerconsiderations to the rout. 

'Gracious heavens! Now I have time to think of it, he never saw one ofhis constituents in all his days, until we saw them together!'

After having paced the room in distress of mind, with his hand to hisforehead, the innocent Twemlow returns to his sofa and moans:

'I shall either go distracted, or die, of this man. He comes upon me toolate in life. I am not strong enough to bear him!'

Chapter 4

CUPID PROMPTED

To use the cold language of the world, Mrs Alfred Lammle rapidlyimproved the acquaintance of Miss Podsnap. To use the warm language ofMrs Lammle, she and her sweet Georgiana soon became one: in heart, inmind, in sentiment, in soul. 

Whenever Georgiana could escape from the thraldom of Podsnappery; couldthrow off the bedclothes of the custard-coloured phaeton, and get up;could shrink out of the range of her mother's rocking, and (so to speak)rescue her poor little frosty toes from being rocked over; she repairedto her friend, Mrs Alfred Lammle. Mrs Podsnap by no means objected. Asa consciously 'splendid woman, ' accustomed to overhear herself sodenominated by elderly osteologists pursuing their studies in dinnersociety, Mrs Podsnap could dispense with her daughter. Mr Podsnap, forhis part, on being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronageof the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, shouldrespectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; that they, when they couldnot bask in the glory of him the sun, should take up with the palereflected light of the watery young moon his daughter; appeared quitenatural, becoming, and proper. It gave him a better opinion of thediscretion of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing thatthey appreciated the value of the connexion. So, Georgiana repairingto her friend, Mr Podsnap went out to dinner, and to dinner, and yet todinner, arm in arm with Mrs Podsnap: settling his obstinate head in hiscravat and shirt-collar, much as if he were performing on the Pandeanpipes, in his own honour, the triumphal march, See the conqueringPodsnap comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!

It was a trait in Mr Podsnap's character (and in one form or otherit will be generally seen to pervade the depths and shallows ofPodsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of disparagement of anyfriend or acquaintance of his. 'How dare you?' he would seem to say, insuch a case. 'What do you mean? I have licensed this person. This personhas taken out MY certificate. Through this person you strike at me, Podsnap the Great. And it is not that I particularly care for theperson's dignity, but that I do most particularly care for Podsnap's. 'Hence, if any one in his presence had presumed to doubt theresponsibility of the Lammles, he would have been mightily huffed. Notthat any one did, for Veneering, M. P. , was always the authority fortheir being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed he might, ifhe chose, for anything he knew of the matter. 

Mr and Mrs Lammle's house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, was buta temporary residence. It has done well enough, they informed theirfriends, for Mr Lammle when a bachelor, but it would not do now. So, they were always looking at palatial residences in the best situations, and always very nearly taking or buying one, but never quite concludingthe bargain. Hereby they made for themselves a shining little reputationapart. People said, on seeing a vacant palatial residence, 'The verything for the Lammles!' and wrote to the Lammles about it, and theLammles always went to look at it, but unfortunately it never exactlyanswered. In short, they suffered so many disappointments, that theybegan to think it would be necessary to build a palatial residence. And hereby they made another shining reputation; many persons of theiracquaintance becoming by anticipation dissatisfied with their ownhouses, and envious of the non-existent Lammle structure. 

The handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in Sackville Streetwere piled thick and high over the skeleton up-stairs, and if it everwhispered from under its load of upholstery, 'Here I am in the closet!'it was to very few ears, and certainly never to Miss Podsnap's. WhatMiss Podsnap was particularly charmed with, next to the graces ofher friend, was the happiness of her friend's married life. This wasfrequently their theme of conversation. 

'I am sure, ' said Miss Podsnap, 'Mr Lammle is like a lover. At leastI--I should think he was. '

'Georgiana, darling!' said Mrs Lammle, holding up a forefinger, 'Takecare!'

'Oh my goodness me!' exclaimed Miss Podsnap, reddening. 'What have Isaid now?'

'Alfred, you know, ' hinted Mrs Lammle, playfully shaking her head. 'Youwere never to say Mr Lammle any more, Georgiana. '

'Oh! Alfred, then. I am glad it's no worse. I was afraid I had saidsomething shocking. I am always saying something wrong to ma. '

'To me, Georgiana dearest?'

'No, not to you; you are not ma. I wish you were. '

Mrs Lammle bestowed a sweet and loving smile upon her friend, which MissPodsnap returned as she best could. They sat at lunch in Mrs Lammle'sown boudoir. 

'And so, dearest Georgiana, Alfred is like your notion of a lover?'

'I don't say that, Sophronia, ' Georgiana replied, beginning to concealher elbows. 'I haven't any notion of a lover. The dreadful wretches thatma brings up at places to torment me, are not lovers. I only mean thatMr--'

'Again, dearest Georgiana?'

'That Alfred--'

'Sounds much better, darling. '

'--Loves you so. He always treats you with such delicate gallantry andattention. Now, don't he?'

'Truly, my dear, ' said Mrs Lammle, with a rather singular expressioncrossing her face. 'I believe that he loves me, fully as much as I lovehim. '

'Oh, what happiness!' exclaimed Miss Podsnap. 

'But do you know, my Georgiana, ' Mrs Lammle resumed presently, 'thatthere is something suspicious in your enthusiastic sympathy withAlfred's tenderness?'

'Good gracious no, I hope not!'

'Doesn't it rather suggest, ' said Mrs Lammle archly, 'that myGeorgiana's little heart is--'

'Oh don't!' Miss Podsnap blushingly besought her. 'Please don't! Iassure you, Sophronia, that I only praise Alfred, because he is yourhusband and so fond of you. '

Sophronia's glance was as if a rather new light broke in upon her. Itshaded off into a cool smile, as she said, with her eyes upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised:

'You are quite wrong, my love, in your guess at my meaning. What Iinsinuated was, that my Georgiana's little heart was growing consciousof a vacancy. '

'No, no, no, ' said Georgiana. 'I wouldn't have anybody say anything tome in that way for I don't know how many thousand pounds. '

'In what way, my Georgiana?' inquired Mrs Lammle, still smiling coollywith her eyes upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised. 

'YOU know, ' returned poor little Miss Podsnap. 'I think I should go outof my mind, Sophronia, with vexation and shyness and detestation, ifanybody did. It's enough for me to see how loving you and your husbandare. That's a different thing. I couldn't bear to have anything of thatsort going on with myself. I should beg and pray to--to have the persontaken away and trampled upon. '

Ah! here was Alfred. Having stolen in unobserved, he playfully leaned onthe back of Sophronia's chair, and, as Miss Podsnap saw him, put oneof Sophronia's wandering locks to his lips, and waved a kiss from ittowards Miss Podsnap. 

'What is this about husbands and detestations?' inquired the captivatingAlfred. 

'Why, they say, ' returned his wife, 'that listeners never hear any goodof themselves; though you--but pray how long have you been here, sir?'

'This instant arrived, my own. '

'Then I may go on--though if you had been here but a moment or twosooner, you would have heard your praises sounded by Georgiana. '

'Only, if they were to be called praises at all which I really don'tthink they were, ' explained Miss Podsnap in a flutter, 'for being sodevoted to Sophronia. '

'Sophronia!' murmured Alfred. 'My life!' and kissed her hand. In returnfor which she kissed his watch-chain. 

'But it was not I who was to be taken away and trampled upon, I hope?'said Alfred, drawing a seat between them. 

'Ask Georgiana, my soul, ' replied his wife. 

Alfred touchingly appealed to Georgiana. 

'Oh, it was nobody, ' replied Miss Podsnap. 'It was nonsense. '

'But if you are determined to know, Mr Inquisitive Pet, as I suppose youare, ' said the happy and fond Sophronia, smiling, 'it was any one whoshould venture to aspire to Georgiana. '

'Sophronia, my love, ' remonstrated Mr Lammle, becoming graver, 'you arenot serious?'

'Alfred, my love, ' returned his wife, 'I dare say Georgiana was not, butI am. '

'Now this, ' said Mr Lammle, 'shows the accidental combinations thatthere are in things! Could you believe, my Ownest, that I came in herewith the name of an aspirant to our Georgiana on my lips?'

'Of course I could believe, Alfred, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'anything that YOUtold me. '

'You dear one! And I anything that YOU told me. '

How delightful those interchanges, and the looks accompanying them! Now, if the skeleton up-stairs had taken that opportunity, for instance, ofcalling out 'Here I am, suffocating in the closet!'

'I give you my honour, my dear Sophronia--'

'And I know what that is, love, ' said she. 

'You do, my darling--that I came into the room all but uttering youngFledgeby's name. Tell Georgiana, dearest, about young Fledgeby. '

'Oh no, don't! Please don't!' cried Miss Podsnap, putting her fingers inher ears. 'I'd rather not. '

Mrs Lammle laughed in her gayest manner, and, removing her Georgiana'sunresisting hands, and playfully holding them in her own at arms'length, sometimes near together and sometimes wide apart, went on:

'You must know, you dearly beloved little goose, that once upon atime there was a certain person called young Fledgeby. And this youngFledgeby, who was of an excellent family and rich, was known to twoother certain persons, dearly attached to one another and called Mr andMrs Alfred Lammle. So this young Fledgeby, being one night at the play, there sees with Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, a certain heroine called--'

'No, don't say Georgiana Podsnap!' pleaded that young lady almost intears. 'Please don't. Oh do do do say somebody else! Not GeorgianaPodsnap. Oh don't, don't, don't!'

'No other, ' said Mrs Lammle, laughing airily, and, full of affectionateblandishments, opening and closing Georgiana's arms like a pair ofcompasses, than my little Georgiana Podsnap. So this young Fledgeby goesto that Alfred Lammle and says--'

'Oh ple-e-e-ease don't!' Georgiana, as if the supplication were beingsqueezed out of her by powerful compression. 'I so hate him for sayingit!'

'For saying what, my dear?' laughed Mrs Lammle. 

'Oh, I don't know what he said, ' cried Georgiana wildly, 'but I hate himall the same for saying it. '

'My dear, ' said Mrs Lammle, always laughing in her most captivating way, 'the poor young fellow only says that he is stricken all of a heap. '

'Oh, what shall I ever do!' interposed Georgiana. 'Oh my goodness what aFool he must be!'

'--And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a fourth at the playanother time. And so he dines to-morrow and goes to the Opera withus. That's all. Except, my dear Georgiana--and what will you think ofthis!--that he is infinitely shyer than you, and far more afraid of youthan you ever were of any one in all your days!'

In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked at herhands a little, but could not help laughing at the notion of anybody'sbeing afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her andrallied her more successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flatteredher and rallied her, and promised that at any moment when she mightrequire that service at his hands, he would take young Fledgeby out andtrample on him. Thus it remained amicably understood that young Fledgebywas to come to admire, and that Georgiana was to come to be admired; andGeorgiana with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having thatprospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear Sophronia inpresent possession, preceded six feet one of discontented footman (anamount of the article that always came for her when she walked home) toher father's dwelling. 

The happy pair being left together, Mrs Lammle said to her husband:

'If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations haveproduced some effect upon her. I mention the conquest in good timebecause I apprehend your scheme to be more important to you than yourvanity. '

There was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes just caughthim smirking in it. She gave the reflected image a look of the deepestdisdain, and the image received it in the glass. Next moment theyquietly eyed each other, as if they, the principals, had had no part inthat expressive transaction. 

It may have been that Mrs Lammle tried in some manner to excuse herconduct to herself by depreciating the poor little victim of whom shespoke with acrimonious contempt. It may have been too that in this shedid not quite succeed, for it is very difficult to resist confidence, and she knew she had Georgiana's. 

Nothing more was said between the happy pair. Perhaps conspiratorswho have once established an understanding, may not be over-fond ofrepeating the terms and objects of their conspiracy. Next day came; cameGeorgiana; and came Fledgeby. 

Georgiana had by this time seen a good deal of the house and itsfrequenters. As there was a certain handsome room with a billiard tablein it--on the ground floor, eating out a backyard--which might havebeen Mr Lammle's office, or library, but was called by neither name, butsimply Mr Lammle's room, so it would have been hard for stronger femaleheads than Georgiana's to determine whether its frequenters were menof pleasure or men of business. Between the room and the men there werestrong points of general resemblance. Both were too gaudy, too slangey, too odorous of cigars, and too much given to horseflesh; the lattercharacteristic being exemplified in the room by its decorations, and inthe men by their conversation. High-stepping horses seemed necessary toall Mr Lammle's friends--as necessary as their transaction of businesstogether in a gipsy way at untimely hours of the morning and evening, and in rushes and snatches. There were friends who seemed to be alwayscoming and going across the Channel, on errands about the Bourse, andGreek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discountand three quarters and seven eighths. There were other friends whoseemed to be always lolling and lounging in and out of the City, onquestions of the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican andpar and premium and discount and three quarters and seven eighths. Theywere all feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose; and they all ate anddrank a great deal; and made bets in eating and drinking. They all spokeof sums of money, and only mentioned the sums and left the money tobe understood; as 'five and forty thousand Tom, ' or 'Two hundred andtwenty-two on every individual share in the lot Joe. ' They seemed todivide the world into two classes of people; people who were makingenormous fortunes, and people who were being enormously ruined. Theywere always in a hurry, and yet seemed to have nothing tangible to do;except a few of them (these, mostly asthmatic and thick-lipped) who werefor ever demonstrating to the rest, with gold pencil-cases which theycould hardly hold because of the big rings on their forefingers, howmoney was to be made. Lastly, they all swore at their grooms, and thegrooms were not quite as respectful or complete as other men's grooms;seeming somehow to fall short of the groom point as their masters fellshort of the gentleman point. 

Young Fledgeby was none of these. Young Fledgeby had a peachy cheek, or a cheek compounded of the peach and the red red red wall on whichit grows, and was an awkward, sandy-haired, small-eyed youth, exceedingslim (his enemies would have said lanky), and prone to self-examinationin the articles of whisker and moustache. While feeling for the whiskerthat he anxiously expected, Fledgeby underwent remarkable fluctuationsof spirits, ranging along the whole scale from confidence to despair. There were times when he started, as exclaiming 'By Jupiter here it isat last!' There were other times when, being equally depressed, he wouldbe seen to shake his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periodsleaning on a chimneypiece, like as on an urn containing the ashes of hisambition, with the cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on whichthat cheek had forced conviction, was a distressing sight. 

Not so was Fledgeby seen on this occasion. Arrayed in superb raiment, with his opera hat under his arm, he concluded his self-examinationhopefully, awaited the arrival of Miss Podsnap, and talked small-talkwith Mrs Lammle. In facetious homage to the smallness of his talk, andthe jerky nature of his manners, Fledgeby's familiars had agreed toconfer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of FascinationFledgeby. 

'Warm weather, Mrs Lammle, ' said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammlethought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. 'Perhaps not, 'said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but Iexpect it will be devilish warm to-morrow. '

He threw off another little scintillation. 'Been out to-day, MrsLammle?'

Mrs Lammle answered, for a short drive. 

'Some people, ' said Fascination Fledgeby, 'are accustomed to take longdrives; but it generally appears to me that if they make 'em too long, they overdo it. '

Being in such feather, he might have surpassed himself in his nextsally, had not Miss Podsnap been announced. Mrs Lammle flew to embraceher darling little Georgy, and when the first transports were over, presented Mr Fledgeby. Mr Lammle came on the scene last, for he wasalways late, and so were the frequenters always late; all hands beingbound to be made late, by private information about the Bourse, andGreek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discountand three quarters and seven eighths. 

A handsome little dinner was served immediately, and Mr Lammle satsparkling at his end of the table, with his servant behind his chair, and HIS ever-lingering doubts upon the subject of his wages behindhimself. Mr Lammle's utmost powers of sparkling were in requisitionto-day, for Fascination Fledgeby and Georgiana not only struck eachother speechless, but struck each other into astonishing attitudes;Georgiana, as she sat facing Fledgeby, making such efforts to concealher elbows as were totally incompatible with the use of a knife andfork; and Fledgeby, as he sat facing Georgiana, avoiding her countenanceby every possible device, and betraying the discomposure of his mind infeeling for his whiskers with his spoon, his wine glass, and his bread. 

So, Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle had to prompt, and this is how theyprompted. 

'Georgiana, ' said Mr Lammle, low and smiling, and sparkling all over, like a harlequin; 'you are not in your usual spirits. Why are you not inyour usual spirits, Georgiana?'

Georgiana faltered that she was much the same as she was in general; shewas not aware of being different. 

'Not aware of being different!' retorted Mr Alfred Lammle. 'You, my dearGeorgiana! Who are always so natural and unconstrained with us! Who aresuch a relief from the crowd that are all alike! Who are the embodimentof gentleness, simplicity, and reality!'

Miss Podsnap looked at the door, as if she entertained confused thoughtsof taking refuge from these compliments in flight. 

'Now, I will be judged, ' said Mr Lammle, raising his voice a little, 'bymy friend Fledgeby. '

'Oh DON'T!' Miss Podsnap faintly ejaculated: when Mrs Lammle took theprompt-book. 

'I beg your pardon, Alfred, my dear, but I cannot part with Mr Fledgebyquite yet; you must wait for him a moment. Mr Fledgeby and I are engagedin a personal discussion. '

Fledgeby must have conducted it on his side with immense art, for noappearance of uttering one syllable had escaped him. 

'A personal discussion, Sophronia, my love? What discussion? Fledgeby, Iam jealous. What discussion, Fledgeby?'

'Shall I tell him, Mr Fledgeby?' asked Mrs Lammle. 

Trying to look as if he knew anything about it, Fascination replied, 'Yes, tell him. '

'We were discussing then, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'if you MUST know, Alfred, whether Mr Fledgeby was in his usual flow of spirits. '

'Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana and I werediscussing as to herself! What did Fledgeby say?'

'Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you everything, and betold nothing! What did Georgiana say?'

'Georgiana said she was doing her usual justice to herself to-day, and Isaid she was not. '

'Precisely, ' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, 'what I said to Mr Fledgeby. ' Still, it wouldn't do. They would not look at one another. No, not evenwhen the sparkling host proposed that the quartette should take anappropriately sparkling glass of wine. Georgiana looked from her wineglass at Mr Lammle and at Mrs Lammle; but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, look at Mr Fledgeby. Fascination looked from his wine glassat Mrs Lammle and at Mr Lammle; but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, look at Georgiana. 

More prompting was necessary. Cupid must be brought up to the mark. Themanager had put him down in the bill for the part, and he must play it. 

'Sophronia, my dear, ' said Mr Lammle, 'I don't like the colour of yourdress. '

'I appeal, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'to Mr Fledgeby. '

'And I, ' said Mr Lammle, 'to Georgiana. '

'Georgy, my love, ' remarked Mrs Lammle aside to her dear girl, 'I relyupon you not to go over to the opposition. Now, Mr Fledgeby. '

Fascination wished to know if the colour were not called rose-colour?Yes, said Mr Lammle; actually he knew everything; it was reallyrose-colour. Fascination took rose-colour to mean the colour of roses. (In this he was very warmly supported by Mr and Mrs Lammle. ) Fascinationhad heard the term Queen of Flowers applied to the Rose. Similarly, itmight be said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. ('Very happy, Fledgeby!' from Mr Lammle. ) Notwithstanding, Fascination's opinionwas that we all had our eyes--or at least a large majority of us--andthat--and--and his farther opinion was several ands, with nothing beyondthem. 

'Oh, Mr Fledgeby, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'to desert me in that way! Oh, MrFledgeby, to abandon my poor dear injured rose and declare for blue!'

'Victory, victory!' cried Mr Lammle; 'your dress is condemned, my dear. '

'But what, ' said Mrs Lammle, stealing her affectionate hand towards herdear girl's, 'what does Georgy say?'

'She says, ' replied Mr Lammle, interpreting for her, 'that in her eyesyou look well in any colour, Sophronia, and that if she had expected tobe embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has received, she wouldhave worn another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that itwould not have saved her, for whatever colour she had worn would havebeen Fledgeby's colour. But what does Fledgeby say?'

'He says, ' replied Mrs Lammle, interpreting for him, and patting theback of her dear girl's hand, as if it were Fledgeby who was patting it, 'that it was no compliment, but a little natural act of homage thathe couldn't resist. And, ' expressing more feeling as if it were morefeeling on the part of Fledgeby, 'he is right, he is right!'

Still, no not even now, would they look at one another. Seeming to gnashhis sparkling teeth, studs, eyes, and buttons, all at once, Mr Lammlesecretly bent a dark frown on the two, expressive of an intense desireto bring them together by knocking their heads together. 

'Have you heard this opera of to-night, Fledgeby?' he asked, stoppingvery short, to prevent himself from running on into 'confound you. '

'Why no, not exactly, ' said Fledgeby. 'In fact I don't know a note ofit. '

'Neither do you know it, Georgy?' said Mrs Lammle. 'N-no, ' repliedGeorgiana, faintly, under the sympathetic coincidence. 

'Why, then, ' said Mrs Lammle, charmed by the discovery which flowed fromthe premises, 'you neither of you know it! How charming!'

Even the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come when he muststrike a blow. He struck it by saying, partly to Mrs Lammle and partlyto the circumambient air, 'I consider myself very fortunate in beingreserved by--'

As he stopped dead, Mr Lammle, making that gingerous bush of hiswhiskers to look out of, offered him the word 'Destiny. '

'No, I wasn't going to say that, ' said Fledgeby. 'I was going to sayFate. I consider it very fortunate that Fate has written in the bookof--in the book which is its own property--that I should go to thatopera for the first time under the memorable circumstances of going withMiss Podsnap. '

To which Georgiana replied, hooking her two little fingers in oneanother, and addressing the tablecloth, 'Thank you, but I generally gowith no one but you, Sophronia, and I like that very much. '

Content perforce with this success for the time, Mr Lammle let MissPodsnap out of the room, as if he were opening her cage door, and MrsLammle followed. Coffee being presently served up stairs, he kept awatch on Fledgeby until Miss Podsnap's cup was empty, and then directedhim with his finger (as if that young gentleman were a slow Retriever)to go and fetch it. This feat he performed, not only without failure, but even with the original embellishment of informing Miss Podsnap thatgreen tea was considered bad for the nerves. Though there Miss Podsnapunintentionally threw him out by faltering, 'Oh, is it indeed? How doesit act?' Which he was not prepared to elucidate. 

The carriage announced, Mrs Lammle said; 'Don't mind me, Mr Fledgeby, myskirts and cloak occupy both my hands, take Miss Podsnap. ' And hetook her, and Mrs Lammle went next, and Mr Lammle went last, savagelyfollowing his little flock, like a drover. 

But he was all sparkle and glitter in the box at the Opera, and there heand his dear wife made a conversation between Fledgeby and Georgiana inthe following ingenious and skilful manner. They sat in this order:Mrs Lammle, Fascination Fledgeby, Georgiana, Mr Lammle. Mrs Lammle madeleading remarks to Fledgeby, only requiring monosyllabic replies. MrLammle did the like with Georgiana. At times Mrs Lammle would leanforward to address Mr Lammle to this purpose. 

'Alfred, my dear, Mr Fledgeby very justly says, apropos of the lastscene, that true constancy would not require any such stimulant as thestage deems necessary. ' To which Mr Lammle would reply, 'Ay, Sophronia, my love, but as Georgiana has observed to me, the lady had no sufficientreason to know the state of the gentleman's affections. ' To which MrsLammle would rejoin, 'Very true, Alfred; but Mr Fledgeby pointsout, ' this. To which Alfred would demur: 'Undoubtedly, Sophronia, butGeorgiana acutely remarks, ' that. Through this device the two youngpeople conversed at great length and committed themselves to a varietyof delicate sentiments, without having once opened their lips, save tosay yes or no, and even that not to one another. 

Fledgeby took his leave of Miss Podsnap at the carriage door, and theLammles dropped her at her own home, and on the way Mrs Lammle archlyrallied her, in her fond and protecting manner, by saying at intervals, 'Oh little Georgiana, little Georgiana!' Which was not much; but thetone added, 'You have enslaved your Fledgeby. '

And thus the Lammles got home at last, and the lady sat down moody andweary, looking at her dark lord engaged in a deed of violence with abottle of soda-water as though he were wringing the neck of some unluckycreature and pouring its blood down his throat. As he wiped his drippingwhiskers in an ogreish way, he met her eyes, and pausing, said, with novery gentle voice:

'Well?'

'Was such an absolute Booby necessary to the purpose?'

'I know what I am doing. He is no such dolt as you suppose. '

'A genius, perhaps?'

'You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon yourself perhaps!But I tell you this:--when that young fellow's interest is concerned, he holds as tight as a horse-leech. When money is in question with thatyoung fellow, he is a match for the Devil. '

'Is he a match for you?'

'He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. He has noquality of youth in him, but such as you have seen to-day. Touch himupon money, and you touch no booby then. He really is a dolt, I suppose, in other things; but it answers his one purpose very well. '

'Has she money in her own right in any case?'

'Ay! she has money in her own right in any case. You have done so wellto-day, Sophronia, that I answer the question, though you know I objectto any such questions. You have done so well to-day, Sophronia, that youmust be tired. Get to bed. '

Chapter 5

MERCURY PROMPTING

Fledgeby deserved Mr Alfred Lammle's eulogium. He was the meanestcur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct (a word we allclearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always ontwo, meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness ontwo. 

The father of this young gentleman had been a money-lender, whohad transacted professional business with the mother of thisyoung gentleman, when he, the latter, was waiting in the vast darkante-chambers of the present world to be born. The lady, a widow, beingunable to pay the money-lender, married him; and in due course, Fledgebywas summoned out of the vast dark ante-chambers to come and be presentedto the Registrar-General. Rather a curious speculation how Fledgebywould otherwise have disposed of his leisure until Doomsday. 

Fledgeby's mother offended her family by marrying Fledgeby's father. Itis one of the easiest achievements in life to offend your family whenyour family want to get rid of you. Fledgeby's mother's family hadbeen very much offended with her for being poor, and broke with herfor becoming comparatively rich. Fledgeby's mother's family was theSnigsworth family. She had even the high honour to be cousin to LordSnigsworth--so many times removed that the noble Earl would have had nocompunction in removing her one time more and dropping her clean outsidethe cousinly pale; but cousin for all that. 

Among her pre-matrimonial transactions with Fledgeby's father, Fledgeby's mother had raised money of him at a great disadvantage on acertain reversionary interest. The reversion falling in soon after theywere married, Fledgeby's father laid hold of the cash for his separateuse and benefit. This led to subjective differences of opinion, not tosay objective interchanges of boot-jacks, backgammon boards, and othersuch domestic missiles, between Fledgeby's father and Fledgeby's mother, and those led to Fledgeby's mother spending as much money as shecould, and to Fledgeby's father doing all he couldn't to restrain her. Fledgeby's childhood had been, in consequence, a stormy one; but thewinds and the waves had gone down in the grave, and Fledgeby flourishedalone. 

He lived in chambers in the Albany, did Fledgeby, and maintained aspruce appearance. But his youthful fire was all composed of sparks fromthe grindstone; and as the sparks flew off, went out, and never warmedanything, be sure that Fledgeby had his tools at the grindstone, andturned it with a wary eye. 

Mr Alfred Lammle came round to the Albany to breakfast with Fledgeby. Present on the table, one scanty pot of tea, one scanty loaf, two scantypats of butter, two scanty rashers of bacon, two pitiful eggs, and anabundance of handsome china bought a secondhand bargain. 

'What did you think of Georgiana?' asked Mr Lammle. 

'Why, I'll tell you, ' said Fledgeby, very deliberately. 

'Do, my boy. '

'You misunderstand me, ' said Fledgeby. 'I don't mean I'll tell you that. I mean I'll tell you something else. '

'Tell me anything, old fellow!'

'Ah, but there you misunderstand me again, ' said Fledgeby. 'I mean I'lltell you nothing. '

Mr Lammle sparkled at him, but frowned at him too. 

'Look here, ' said Fledgeby. 'You're deep and you're ready. Whether I amdeep or not, never mind. I am not ready. But I can do one thing, Lammle, I can hold my tongue. And I intend always doing it. '

'You are a long-headed fellow, Fledgeby. '

'May be, or may not be. If I am a short-tongued fellow, it may amount tothe same thing. Now, Lammle, I am never going to answer questions. '

'My dear fellow, it was the simplest question in the world. '

'Never mind. It seemed so, but things are not always what they seem. Isaw a man examined as a witness in Westminster Hall. Questions put tohim seemed the simplest in the world, but turned out to be anythingrather than that, after he had answered 'em. Very well. Then he shouldhave held his tongue. If he had held his tongue he would have kept outof scrapes that he got into. '

'If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the subject of myquestion, ' remarked Lammle, darkening. 

'Now, Lammle, ' said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feeling for hiswhisker, 'it won't do. I won't be led on into a discussion. I can'tmanage a discussion. But I can manage to hold my tongue. '

'Can?' Mr Lammle fell back upon propitiation. 'I should think you could!Why, when these fellows of our acquaintance drink and you drink withthem, the more talkative they get, the more silent you get. The morethey let out, the more you keep in. '

'I don't object, Lammle, ' returned Fledgeby, with an internal chuckle, 'to being understood, though I object to being questioned. Thatcertainly IS the way I do it. '

'And when all the rest of us are discussing our ventures, none of usever know what a single venture of yours is!'

'And none of you ever will from me, Lammle, ' replied Fledgeby, withanother internal chuckle; 'that certainly IS the way I do it. '

'Why of course it is, I know!' rejoined Lammle, with a flourish offrankness, and a laugh, and stretching out his hands as if to showthe universe a remarkable man in Fledgeby. 'If I hadn't known it of myFledgeby, should I have proposed our little compact of advantage, to myFledgeby?'

'Ah!' remarked Fascination, shaking his head slyly. 'But I am not tobe got at in that way. I am not vain. That sort of vanity don't pay, Lammle. No, no, no. Compliments only make me hold my tongue the more. '

Alfred Lammle pushed his plate away (no great sacrifice under thecircumstances of there being so little in it), thrust his hands in hispockets, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated Fledgeby in silence. Then he slowly released his left hand from its pocket, and made thatbush of his whiskers, still contemplating him in silence. Then he slowlybroke silence, and slowly said: 'What--the--Dev-il is this fellow aboutthis morning?'

'Now, look here, Lammle, ' said Fascination Fledgeby, with the meanestof twinkles in his meanest of eyes: which were too near together, bythe way: 'look here, Lammle; I am very well aware that I didn't show toadvantage last night, and that you and your wife--who, I consider, isa very clever woman and an agreeable woman--did. I am not calculated toshow to advantage under that sort of circumstances. I know very well youtwo did show to advantage, and managed capitally. But don't you on thataccount come talking to me as if I was your doll and puppet, because Iam not. 

'And all this, ' cried Alfred, after studying with a look the meannessthat was fain to have the meanest help, and yet was so mean as to turnupon it: 'all this because of one simple natural question!'

'You should have waited till I thought proper to say something about itof myself. I don't like your coming over me with your Georgianas, as ifyou was her proprietor and mine too. '

'Well, when you are in the gracious mind to say anything about it ofyourself, ' retorted Lammle, 'pray do. '

'I have done it. I have said you managed capitally. You and your wifeboth. If you'll go on managing capitally, I'll go on doing my part. Onlydon't crow. '

'I crow!' exclaimed Lammle, shrugging his shoulders. 

'Or, ' pursued the other--'or take it in your head that people are yourpuppets because they don't come out to advantage at the particularmoments when you do, with the assistance of a very clever and agreeablewife. All the rest keep on doing, and let Mrs Lammle keep on doing. Now, I have held my tongue when I thought proper, and I have spoken when Ithought proper, and there's an end of that. And now the question is, 'proceeded Fledgeby, with the greatest reluctance, 'will you have anotheregg?'

'No, I won't, ' said Lammle, shortly. 

'Perhaps you're right and will find yourself better without it, ' repliedFascination, in greatly improved spirits. 'To ask you if you'll haveanother rasher would be unmeaning flattery, for it would make youthirsty all day. Will you have some more bread and butter?'

'No, I won't, ' repeated Lammle. 

'Then I will, ' said Fascination. And it was not a mere retort for thesound's sake, but was a cheerful cogent consequence of the refusal; forif Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it would have been soheavily visited, in Fledgeby's opinion, as to demand abstinence frombread, on his part, for the remainder of that meal at least, if not forthe whole of the next. 

Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) combinedwith the miserly vice of an old man, any of the open-handed vices ofa young one, was a moot point; so very honourably did he keep his owncounsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment, and liked to dress well; but he drove a bargain for every moveable abouthim, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfast-table;and every bargain by representing somebody's ruin or somebody's loss, acquired a peculiar charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take, within narrow bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harderbargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why moneyshould be so precious to an Ass too dull and mean to exchange it for anyother satisfaction, is strange; but there is no animal so sure to getladen with it, as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of theearth and sky but the three letters L. S. D. --not Luxury, Sensuality, Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters. Your concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to your concentrated Ass inmoney-breeding. 

Fascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman living on hismeans, but was known secretly to be a kind of outlaw in the bill-brokingline, and to put money out at high interest in various ways. His circleof familiar acquaintance, from Mr Lammle round, all had a touch of theoutlaw, as to their rovings in the merry greenwood of Jobbery Forest, lying on the outskirts of the Share-Market and the Stock Exchange. 

'I suppose you, Lammle, ' said Fledgeby, eating his bread and butter, 'always did go in for female society?'

'Always, ' replied Lammle, glooming considerably under his latetreatment. 

'Came natural to you, eh?' said Fledgeby. 

'The sex were pleased to like me, sir, ' said Lammle sulkily, but withthe air of a man who had not been able to help himself. 

'Made a pretty good thing of marrying, didn't you?' asked Fledgeby. 

The other smiled (an ugly smile), and tapped one tap upon his nose. 

'My late governor made a mess of it, ' said Fledgeby. 'But Geor--is theright name Georgina or Georgiana?'

'Georgiana. '

'I was thinking yesterday, I didn't know there was such a name. Ithought it must end in ina. 

'Why?'

'Why, you play--if you can--the Concertina, you know, ' repliedFledgeby, meditating very slowly. 'And you have--when you catch it--theScarlatina. And you can come down from a balloon in a parach--no youcan't though. Well, say Georgeute--I mean Georgiana. '

'You were going to remark of Georgiana--?' Lammle moodily hinted, afterwaiting in vain. 

'I was going to remark of Georgiana, sir, ' said Fledgeby, not at allpleased to be reminded of his having forgotten it, 'that she don't seemto be violent. Don't seem to be of the pitching-in order. '

'She has the gentleness of the dove, Mr Fledgeby. '

'Of course you'll say so, ' replied Fledgeby, sharpening, the moment hisinterest was touched by another. 'But you know, the real look-out isthis:--what I say, not what you say. I say having my late governorand my late mother in my eye--that Georgiana don't seem to be of thepitching-in order. '

The respected Mr Lammle was a bully, by nature and by usual practice. Perceiving, as Fledgeby's affronts cumulated, that conciliation by nomeans answered the purpose here, he now directed a scowling lookinto Fledgeby's small eyes for the effect of the opposite treatment. Satisfied by what he saw there, he burst into a violent passion andstruck his hand upon the table, making the china ring and dance. 

'You are a very offensive fellow, sir, ' cried Mr Lammle, rising. 'Youare a highly offensive scoundrel. What do you mean by this behaviour?'

'I say!' remonstrated Fledgeby. 'Don't break out. '

'You are a very offensive fellow sir, ' repeated Mr Lammle. 'You are ahighly offensive scoundrel!'

'I SAY, you know!' urged Fledgeby, quailing. 

'Why, you coarse and vulgar vagabond!' said Mr Lammle, looking fiercelyabout him, 'if your servant was here to give me sixpence of yourmoney to get my boots cleaned afterwards--for you are not worth theexpenditure--I'd kick you. '

'No you wouldn't, ' pleaded Fledgeby. 'I am sure you'd think better ofit. '

'I tell you what, Mr Fledgeby, ' said Lammle advancing on him. 'Sinceyou presume to contradict me, I'll assert myself a little. Give me yournose!'

Fledgeby covered it with his hand instead, and said, retreating, 'I begyou won't!'

'Give me your nose, sir, ' repeated Lammle. 

Still covering that feature and backing, Mr Fledgeby reiterated(apparently with a severe cold in his head), 'I beg, I beg, you won't. '

'And this fellow, ' exclaimed Lammle, stopping and making the most of hischest--'This fellow presumes on my having selected him out of all theyoung fellows I know, for an advantageous opportunity! This fellowpresumes on my having in my desk round the corner, his dirty note ofhand for a wretched sum payable on the occurrence of a certain event, which event can only be of my and my wife's bringing about! This fellow, Fledgeby, presumes to be impertinent to me, Lammle. Give me your nosesir!'

'No! Stop! I beg your pardon, ' said Fledgeby, with humility. 

'What do you say, sir?' demanded Mr Lammle, seeming too furious tounderstand. 

'I beg your pardon, ' repeated Fledgeby. 

'Repeat your words louder, sir. The just indignation of a gentleman hassent the blood boiling to my head. I don't hear you. '

'I say, ' repeated Fledgeby, with laborious explanatory politeness, 'Ibeg your pardon. '

Mr Lammle paused. 'As a man of honour, ' said he, throwing himself into achair, 'I am disarmed. '

Mr Fledgeby also took a chair, though less demonstratively, and byslow approaches removed his hand from his nose. Some natural diffidenceassailed him as to blowing it, so shortly after its having assumed apersonal and delicate, not to say public, character; but he overcamehis scruples by degrees, and modestly took that liberty under an impliedprotest. 

'Lammle, ' he said sneakingly, when that was done, 'I hope we are friendsagain?'

'Mr Fledgeby, ' returned Lammle, 'say no more. '

'I must have gone too far in making myself disagreeable, ' said Fledgeby, 'but I never intended it. '

'Say no more, say no more!' Mr Lammle repeated in a magnificent tone. 'Give me your'--Fledgeby started--'hand. '

They shook hands, and on Mr Lammle's part, in particular, there ensuedgreat geniality. For, he was quite as much of a dastard as the other, and had been in equal danger of falling into the second place for good, when he took heart just in time, to act upon the information conveyed tohim by Fledgeby's eye. 

The breakfast ended in a perfect understanding. Incessant machinationswere to be kept at work by Mr and Mrs Lammle; love was to be made forFledgeby, and conquest was to be insured to him; he on his partvery humbly admitting his defects as to the softer social arts, andentreating to be backed to the utmost by his two able coadjutors. 

Little recked Mr Podsnap of the traps and toils besetting his YoungPerson. He regarded her as safe within the Temple of Podsnappery, hidingthe fulness of time when she, Georgiana, should take him, Fitz-Podsnap, who with all his worldly goods should her endow. It would call a blushinto the cheek of his standard Young Person to have anything to do withsuch matters save to take as directed, and with worldly goods as persettlement to be endowed. Who giveth this woman to be married to thisman? I, Podsnap. Perish the daring thought that any smaller creationshould come between!

It was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his spirits or hisusual temperature of nose until the afternoon. Walking into the City inthe holiday afternoon, he walked against a living stream setting out ofit; and thus, when he turned into the precincts of St Mary Axe, he founda prevalent repose and quiet there. A yellow overhanging plaster-frontedhouse at which he stopped was quiet too. The blinds were all drawn down, and the inscription Pubsey and Co. Seemed to doze in the counting-housewindow on the ground-floor giving on the sleepy street. 

Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but noone came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow street and looked up at thehouse-windows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He got out of temper, crossed the narrow street again, and pulled the housebell as if it werethe house's nose, and he were taking a hint from his late experience. His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at last, to give him assurance thatsomething stirred within. His eye at the keyhole seemed to confirm hisear, for he angrily pulled the house's nose again, and pulled and pulledand continued to pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway. 

'Now you sir!' cried Fledgeby. 'These are nice games!'

He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt, andwide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at the top of hishead, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and minglingwith his beard. A man who with a graceful Eastern action of homage benthis head, and stretched out his hands with the palms downward, as if todeprecate the wrath of a superior. 

'What have you been up to?' said Fledgeby, storming at him. 

'Generous Christian master, ' urged the Jewish man, 'it being holiday, Ilooked for no one. '

'Holiday he blowed!' said Fledgeby, entering. 'What have YOU got to dowith holidays? Shut the door. '

With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung his rustylarge-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out of date as his coat; in thecorner near it stood his staff--no walking-stick but a veritable staff. Fledgeby turned into the counting-house, perched himself on a businessstool, and cocked his hat. There were light boxes on shelves in thecounting-house, and strings of mock beads hanging up. There were samplesof cheap clocks, and samples of cheap vases of flowers. Foreign toys, all. 

Perched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of his legsdangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to advantage with theage of the Jewish man as he stood with his bare head bowed, and his eyes(which he only raised in speaking) on the ground. His clothing was worndown to the rusty hue of the hat in the entry, but though he lookedshabby he did not look mean. Now, Fledgeby, though not shabby, did lookmean. 

'You have not told me what you were up to, you sir, ' said Fledgeby, scratching his head with the brim of his hat. 

'Sir, I was breathing the air. '

'In the cellar, that you didn't hear?'

'On the house-top. '

'Upon my soul! That's a way of doing business. '

'Sir, ' the old man represented with a grave and patient air, 'there mustbe two parties to the transaction of business, and the holiday has leftme alone. '

'Ah! Can't be buyer and seller too. That's what the Jews say; ain't it?'

'At least we say truly, if we say so, ' answered the old man with asmile. 

'Your people need speak the truth sometimes, for they lie enough, 'remarked Fascination Fledgeby. 

'Sir, there is, ' returned the old man with quiet emphasis, 'too muchuntruth among all denominations of men. '

Rather dashed, Fascination Fledgeby took another scratch at hisintellectual head with his hat, to gain time for rallying. 

'For instance, ' he resumed, as though it were he who had spoken last, 'who but you and I ever heard of a poor Jew?'

'The Jews, ' said the old man, raising his eyes from the ground with hisformer smile. 'They hear of poor Jews often, and are very good to them. '

'Bother that!' returned Fledgeby. 'You know what I mean. You'd persuademe if you could, that you are a poor Jew. I wish you'd confess how muchyou really did make out of my late governor. I should have a betteropinion of you. '

The old man only bent his head, and stretched out his hands as before. 

'Don't go on posturing like a Deaf and Dumb School, ' said the ingeniousFledgeby, 'but express yourself like a Christian--or as nearly as youcan. '

'I had had sickness and misfortunes, and was so poor, ' said the oldman, 'as hopelessly to owe the father, principal and interest. The soninheriting, was so merciful as to forgive me both, and place me here. '

He made a little gesture as though he kissed the hem of an imaginarygarment worn by the noble youth before him. It was humbly done, butpicturesquely, and was not abasing to the doer. 

'You won't say more, I see, ' said Fledgeby, looking at him as if hewould like to try the effect of extracting a double-tooth or two, 'andso it's of no use my putting it to you. But confess this, Riah; whobelieves you to be poor now?'

'No one, ' said the old man. 

'There you're right, ' assented Fledgeby. 

'No one, ' repeated the old man with a grave slow wave of his head. 'Allscout it as a fable. Were I to say "This little fancy business is notmine";' with a lithe sweep of his easily-turning hand around him, to comprehend the various objects on the shelves; '"it is the littlebusiness of a Christian young gentleman who places me, his servant, intrust and charge here, and to whom I am accountable for every singlebead, " they would laugh. When, in the larger money-business, I tell theborrowers--'

'I say, old chap!' interposed Fledgeby, 'I hope you mind what you DOtell 'em?'

'Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. When I tell them, "I cannot promise this, I cannot answer for the other, I must see myprincipal, I have not the money, I am a poor man and it does not restwith me, " they are so unbelieving and so impatient, that they sometimescurse me in Jehovah's name. '

'That's deuced good, that is!' said Fascination Fledgeby. 

'And at other times they say, "Can it never be done without thesetricks, Mr Riah? Come, come, Mr Riah, we know the arts of yourpeople"--my people!--"If the money is to be lent, fetch it, fetch it; ifit is not to be lent, keep it and say so. " They never believe me. '

'THAT'S all right, ' said Fascination Fledgeby. 

'They say, "We know, Mr Riah, we know. We have but to look at you, andwe know. "'

'Oh, a good 'un are you for the post, ' thought Fledgeby, 'and a good 'unwas I to mark you out for it! I may be slow, but I am precious sure. '

Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of MrFledgeby's breath, lest it should tend to put his servant's price up. But looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his head bowed and hiseyes cast down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of his baldness, an inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an inch of hishat-brim, an inch of his walking-staff, would be to relinquish hundredsof pounds. 

'Look here, Riah, ' said Fledgeby, mollified by these self-approvingconsiderations. 'I want to go a little more into buying-up queer bills. Look out in that direction. '

'Sir, it shall be done. '

'Casting my eye over the accounts, I find that branch of business payspretty fairly, and I am game for extending it. I like to know people'saffairs likewise. So look out. '

'Sir, I will, promptly. '

'Put it about in the right quarters, that you'll buy queer bills by thelump--by the pound weight if that's all--supposing you see your way to afair chance on looking over the parcel. And there's one thing more. Cometo me with the books for periodical inspection as usual, at eight onMonday morning. '

Riah drew some folding tablets from his breast and noted it down. 

'That's all I wanted to say at the present time, ' continued Fledgeby ina grudging vein, as he got off the stool, 'except that I wish you'd takethe air where you can hear the bell, or the knocker, either one of thetwo or both. By-the-by how DO you take the air at the top of the house?Do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?'

'Sir, there are leads there, and I have made a little garden there. '

'To bury your money in, you old dodger?'

'A thumbnail's space of garden would hold the treasure I bury, master, 'said Riah. 'Twelve shillings a week, even when they are an old man'swages, bury themselves. '

'I should like to know what you really are worth, ' returned Fledgeby, with whom his growing rich on that stipend and gratitude was a veryconvenient fiction. 'But come! Let's have a look at your garden on thetiles, before I go!'

The old man took a step back, and hesitated. 

'Truly, sir, I have company there. '

'Have you, by George!' said Fledgeby; 'I suppose you happen to knowwhose premises these are?'

'Sir, they are yours, and I am your servant in them. '

'Oh! I thought you might have overlooked that, ' retorted Fledgeby, withhis eyes on Riah's beard as he felt for his own; 'having company on mypremises, you know!'

'Come up and see the guests, sir. I hope for your admission that theycan do no harm. '

Passing him with a courteous reverence, specially unlike any action thatMr Fledgeby could for his life have imparted to his own head and hands, the old man began to ascend the stairs. As he toiled on before, with hispalm upon the stair-rail, and his long black skirt, a very gaberdine, overhanging each successive step, he might have been the leader in somepilgrimage of devotional ascent to a prophet's tomb. Not troubled by anysuch weak imagining, Fascination Fledgeby merely speculated on the timeof life at which his beard had begun, and thought once more what a good'un he was for the part. 

Some final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under a low penthouseroof, to the house-top. Riah stood still, and, turning to his master, pointed out his guests. 

Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some old instinct ofhis race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on it, againstno more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack over which somebumble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book; bothwith attentive faces; Jenny with the sharper; Lizzie with the moreperplexed. Another little book or two were lying near, and a commonbasket of common fruit, and another basket full of strings of beads andtinsel scraps. A few boxes of humble flowers and evergreens completedthe garden; and the encompassing wilderness of dowager old chimneystwirled their cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if they werebridling, and fanning themselves, and looking on in a state of airysurprise. 

Taking her eyes off the book, to test her memory of something in it, Lizzie was the first to see herself observed. As she rose, Miss Wrenlikewise became conscious, and said, irreverently addressing the greatchief of the premises: 'Whoever you are, I can't get up, because myback's bad and my legs are queer. '

'This is my master, ' said Riah, stepping forward. 

('Don't look like anybody's master, ' observed Miss Wren to herself, witha hitch of her chin and eyes. )

'This, sir, ' pursued the old man, 'is a little dressmaker for littlepeople. Explain to the master, Jenny. '

'Dolls; that's all, ' said Jenny, shortly. 'Very difficult to fit too, because their figures are so uncertain. You never know where to expecttheir waists. '

'Her friend, ' resumed the old man, motioning towards Lizzie; 'and asindustrious as virtuous. But that they both are. They are busy early andlate, sir, early and late; and in bye-times, as on this holiday, they goto book-learning. '

'Not much good to be got out of that, ' remarked Fledgeby. 

'Depends upon the person!' quoth Miss Wren, snapping him up. 

'I made acquaintance with my guests, sir, ' pursued the Jew, with anevident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, 'through their cominghere to buy of our damage and waste for Miss Jenny's millinery. Ourwaste goes into the best of company, sir, on her rosy-cheeked littlecustomers. They wear it in their hair, and on their ball-dresses, andeven (so she tells me) are presented at Court with it. '

'Ah!' said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this doll-fancy made ratherstrong demands; 'she's been buying that basketful to-day, I suppose?'

'I suppose she has, ' Miss Jenny interposed; 'and paying for it too, mostlikely!'

'Let's have a look at it, ' said the suspicious chief. Riah handed it tohim. 'How much for this now?'

'Two precious silver shillings, ' said Miss Wren. 

Riah confirmed her with two nods, as Fledgeby looked to him. A nod foreach shilling. 

'Well, ' said Fledgeby, poking into the contents of the basket with hisforefinger, 'the price is not so bad. You have got good measure, MissWhat-is-it. '

'Try Jenny, ' suggested that young lady with great calmness. 

'You have got good measure, Miss Jenny; but the price is not sobad. --And you, ' said Fledgeby, turning to the other visitor, 'do you buyanything here, miss?'

'No, sir. '

'Nor sell anything neither, miss?'

'No, sir. '

Looking askew at the questioner, Jenny stole her hand up to herfriend's, and drew her friend down, so that she bent beside her on herknee. 

'We are thankful to come here for rest, sir, ' said Jenny. 'You see, youdon't know what the rest of this place is to us; does he, Lizzie? It'sthe quiet, and the air. '

'The quiet!' repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his headtowards the City's roar. 'And the air!' with a 'Poof!' at the smoke. 

'Ah!' said Jenny. 'But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushingon above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the goldenarrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the wind comes, and you feel as if you were dead. '

The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight transparenthand. 

'How do you feel when you are dead?' asked Fledgeby, much perplexed. 

'Oh, so tranquil!' cried the little creature, smiling. 'Oh, so peacefuland so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying, andworking, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, andyou seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and sucha strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon you!'

Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly lookedon. 

'Why it was only just now, ' said the little creature, pointing at him, 'that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out atthat low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stoodupright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew uponhim, and his life down in the dark was over!--Till he was called backto life, ' she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look ofsharpness. 'Why did you call him back?'

'He was long enough coming, anyhow, ' grumbled Fledgeby. 

'But you are not dead, you know, ' said Jenny Wren. 'Get down to life!'

Mr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with a nodturned round. As Riah followed to attend him down the stairs, the littlecreature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, 'Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead!' And still as they went down they heard thelittle sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and halfsinging, 'Come back and be dead, Come back and be dead!'

When they got down into the entry, Fledgeby, pausing under the shadow ofthe broad old hat, and mechanically poising the staff, said to the oldman:

'That's a handsome girl, that one in her senses. '

'And as good as handsome, ' answered Riah. 

'At all events, ' observed Fledgeby, with a dry whistle, 'I hope sheain't bad enough to put any chap up to the fastenings, and get thepremises broken open. You look out. Keep your weather eye awake anddon't make any more acquaintances, however handsome. Of course youalways keep my name to yourself?'

'Sir, assuredly I do. '

'If they ask it, say it's Pubsey, or say it's Co, or say it's anythingyou like, but what it is. '

His grateful servant--in whose race gratitude is deep, strong, andenduring--bowed his head, and actually did now put the hem of his coatto his lips: though so lightly that the wearer knew nothing of it. 

Thus, Fascination Fledgeby went his way, exulting in the artfulcleverness with which he had turned his thumb down on a Jew, and the oldman went his different way up-stairs. As he mounted, the call or songbegan to sound in his ears again, and, looking above, he saw the faceof the little creature looking down out of a Glory of her long brightradiant hair, and musically repeating to him, like a vision:

'Come up and be dead! Come up and be dead!'

Chapter 6

A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER

Again Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn sat together in theTemple. This evening, however, they were not together in the place ofbusiness of the eminent solicitor, but in another dismal set ofchambers facing it on the same second-floor; on whose dungeon-like blackouter-door appeared the legend:

PRIVATE

MR EUGENE WRAYBURN

MR MORTIMER LIGHTWOOD

(Mr Lightwood's Offices opposite. )

Appearances indicated that this establishment was a very recentinstitution. The white letters of the inscription were extremely whiteand extremely strong to the sense of smell, the complexion of thetables and chairs was (like Lady Tippins's) a little too blooming tobe believed in, and the carpets and floorcloth seemed to rush at thebeholder's face in the unusual prominency of their patterns. But theTemple, accustomed to tone down both the still life and the human lifethat has much to do with it, would soon get the better of all that. 

'Well!' said Eugene, on one side of the fire, 'I feel tolerablycomfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the same. '

'Why shouldn't he?' asked Lightwood, from the other side of the fire. 

'To be sure, ' pursued Eugene, reflecting, 'he is not in the secret ofour pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be in an easy frame of mind. '

'We shall pay him, ' said Mortimer. 

'Shall we, really?' returned Eugene, indolently surprised. 'You don'tsay so!'

'I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part, ' said Mortimer, in a slightlyinjured tone. 

'Ah! I mean to pay him too, ' retorted Eugene. 'But then I mean so muchthat I--that I don't mean. '

'Don't mean?'

'So much that I only mean and shall always only mean and nothing more, my dear Mortimer. It's the same thing. '

His friend, lying back in his easy chair, watched him lying back in hiseasy chair, as he stretched out his legs on the hearth-rug, and said, with the amused look that Eugene Wrayburn could always awaken in himwithout seeming to try or care:

'Anyhow, your vagaries have increased the bill. '

'Calls the domestic virtues vagaries!' exclaimed Eugene, raising hiseyes to the ceiling. 

'This very complete little kitchen of ours, ' said Mortimer, 'in whichnothing will ever be cooked--'

'My dear, dear Mortimer, ' returned his friend, lazily lifting his heada little to look at him, 'how often have I pointed out to you that itsmoral influence is the important thing?'

'Its moral influence on this fellow!' exclaimed Lightwood, laughing. 

'Do me the favour, ' said Eugene, getting out of his chair with muchgravity, 'to come and inspect that feature of our establishment whichyou rashly disparage. ' With that, taking up a candle, he conductedhis chum into the fourth room of the set of chambers--a little narrowroom--which was very completely and neatly fitted as a kitchen. 'See!'said Eugene, 'miniature flour-barrel, rolling-pin, spice-box, shelf ofbrown jars, chopping-board, coffee-mill, dresser elegantly furnishedwith crockery, saucepans and pans, roasting jack, a charming kettle, anarmoury of dish-covers. The moral influence of these objects, in formingthe domestic virtues, may have an immense influence upon me; not uponyou, for you are a hopeless case, but upon me. In fact, I have an ideathat I feel the domestic virtues already forming. Do me the favour tostep into my bedroom. Secretaire, you see, and abstruse set of solidmahogany pigeon-holes, one for every letter of the alphabet. To what usedo I devote them? I receive a bill--say from Jones. I docket it neatlyat the secretaire, JONES, and I put it into pigeonhole J. It's the nextthing to a receipt and is quite as satisfactory to ME. And I very muchwish, Mortimer, ' sitting on his bed, with the air of a philosopherlecturing a disciple, 'that my example might induce YOU to cultivatehabits of punctuality and method; and, by means of the moral influenceswith which I have surrounded you, to encourage the formation of thedomestic virtues. '

Mortimer laughed again, with his usual commentaries of 'How CAN you beso ridiculous, Eugene!' and 'What an absurd fellow you are!' but whenhis laugh was out, there was something serious, if not anxious, in hisface. Despite that pernicious assumption of lassitude and indifference, which had become his second nature, he was strongly attached to hisfriend. He had founded himself upon Eugene when they were yet boys atschool; and at this hour imitated him no less, admired him no less, loved him no less, than in those departed days. 

'Eugene, ' said he, 'if I could find you in earnest for a minute, I wouldtry to say an earnest word to you. '

'An earnest word?' repeated Eugene. 'The moral influences are beginningto work. Say on. '

'Well, I will, ' returned the other, 'though you are not earnest yet. '

'In this desire for earnestness, ' murmured Eugene, with the air of onewho was meditating deeply, 'I trace the happy influences of the littleflour-barrel and the coffee-mill. Gratifying. '

'Eugene, ' resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light interruption, andlaying a hand upon Eugene's shoulder, as he, Mortimer, stood before himseated on his bed, 'you are withholding something from me. '

Eugene looked at him, but said nothing. 

'All this past summer, you have been withholding something from me. Before we entered on our boating vacation, you were as bent upon it as Ihave seen you upon anything since we first rowed together. But you caredvery little for it when it came, often found it a tie and a drag uponyou, and were constantly away. Now it was well enough half-a-dozentimes, a dozen times, twenty times, to say to me in your own odd manner, which I know so well and like so much, that your disappearances wereprecautions against our boring one another; but of course after a shortwhile I began to know that they covered something. I don't ask what itis, as you have not told me; but the fact is so. Say, is it not?'

'I give you my word of honour, Mortimer, ' returned Eugene, after aserious pause of a few moments, 'that I don't know. '

'Don't know, Eugene?'

'Upon my soul, don't know. I know less about myself than about mostpeople in the world, and I don't know. '

'You have some design in your mind?'

'Have I? I don't think I have. '

'At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which used not tobe there?'

'I really can't say, ' replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, afterpausing again to reconsider. 'At times I have thought yes; at othertimes I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue such asubject; now I have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired andembarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't say. Frankly and faithfully, I wouldif I could. '

So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend's shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, and said:

'You must take your friend as he is. You know what I am, my dearMortimer. You know how dreadfully susceptible I am to boredom. You knowthat when I became enough of a man to find myself an embodied conundrum, I bored myself to the last degree by trying to find out what I meant. You know that at length I gave it up, and declined to guess any more. Then how can I possibly give you the answer that I have not discovered?The old nursery form runs, "Riddle-me-riddle-me-ree, p'raps you can'ttell me what this may be?" My reply runs, "No. Upon my life, I can't. "'

So much of what was fantastically true to his own knowledge of thisutterly careless Eugene, mingled with the answer, that Mortimer couldnot receive it as a mere evasion. Besides, it was given with an engagingair of openness, and of special exemption of the one friend he valued, from his reckless indifference. 

'Come, dear boy!' said Eugene. 'Let us try the effect of smoking. If itenlightens me at all on this question, I will impart unreservedly. '

They returned to the room they had come from, and, finding it heated, opened a window. Having lighted their cigars, they leaned out of thiswindow, smoking, and looking down at the moonlight, as it shone into thecourt below. 

'No enlightenment, ' resumed Eugene, after certain minutes of silence. 'Ifeel sincerely apologetic, my dear Mortimer, but nothing comes. '

'If nothing comes, ' returned Mortimer, 'nothing can come from it. SoI shall hope that this may hold good throughout, and that there may benothing on foot. Nothing injurious to you, Eugene, or--'

Eugene stayed him for a moment with his hand on his arm, while he took apiece of earth from an old flowerpot on the window-sill and dexterouslyshot it at a little point of light opposite; having done which to hissatisfaction, he said, 'Or?'

'Or injurious to any one else. '

'How, ' said Eugene, taking another little piece of earth, and shootingit with great precision at the former mark, 'how injurious to any oneelse?'

'I don't know. '

'And, ' said Eugene, taking, as he said the word, another shot, 'to whomelse?'

'I don't know. '

Checking himself with another piece of earth in his hand, Eugene lookedat his friend inquiringly and a little suspiciously. There was noconcealed or half-expressed meaning in his face. 

'Two belated wanderers in the mazes of the law, ' said Eugene, attractedby the sound of footsteps, and glancing down as he spoke, 'stray intothe court. They examine the door-posts of number one, seeking the namethey want. Not finding it at number one, they come to number two. On thehat of wanderer number two, the shorter one, I drop this pellet. Hittinghim on the hat, I smoke serenely, and become absorbed in contemplationof the sky. '

Both the wanderers looked up towards the window; but, afterinterchanging a mutter or two, soon applied themselves to the door-postsbelow. There they seemed to discover what they wanted, for theydisappeared from view by entering at the doorway. 'When they emerge, 'said Eugene, 'you shall see me bring them both down'; and so preparedtwo pellets for the purpose. 

He had not reckoned on their seeking his name, or Lightwood's. Buteither the one or the other would seem to be in question, for now therecame a knock at the door. 'I am on duty to-night, ' said Mortimer, 'stayyou where you are, Eugene. ' Requiring no persuasion, he stayed there, smoking quietly, and not at all curious to know who knocked, untilMortimer spoke to him from within the room, and touched him. Then, drawing in his head, he found the visitors to be young Charley Hexamand the schoolmaster; both standing facing him, and both recognized at aglance. 

'You recollect this young fellow, Eugene?' said Mortimer. 

'Let me look at him, ' returned Wrayburn, coolly. 'Oh, yes, yes. Irecollect him!'

He had not been about to repeat that former action of taking him by thechin, but the boy had suspected him of it, and had thrown up his armwith an angry start. Laughingly, Wrayburn looked to Lightwood for anexplanation of this odd visit. 

'He says he has something to say. '

'Surely it must be to you, Mortimer. '

'So I thought, but he says no. He says it is to you. '

'Yes, I do say so, ' interposed the boy. 'And I mean to say what I wantto say, too, Mr Eugene Wrayburn!'

Passing him with his eyes as if there were nothing where he stood, Eugene looked on to Bradley Headstone. With consummate indolence, heturned to Mortimer, inquiring: 'And who may this other person be?'

'I am Charles Hexam's friend, ' said Bradley; 'I am Charles Hexam'sschoolmaster. '

'My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners, ' returnedEugene. 

Composedly smoking, he leaned an elbow on the chimneypiece, at the sideof the fire, and looked at the schoolmaster. It was a cruel look, in itscold disdain of him, as a creature of no worth. The schoolmaster lookedat him, and that, too, was a cruel look, though of the different kind, that it had a raging jealousy and fiery wrath in it. 

Very remarkably, neither Eugene Wrayburn nor Bradley Headstone looked atall at the boy. Through the ensuing dialogue, those two, no matterwho spoke, or whom was addressed, looked at each other. There was somesecret, sure perception between them, which set them against one anotherin all ways. 

'In some high respects, Mr Eugene Wrayburn, ' said Bradley, answeringhim with pale and quivering lips, 'the natural feelings of my pupils arestronger than my teaching. '

'In most respects, I dare say, ' replied Eugene, enjoying his cigar, 'though whether high or low is of no importance. You have my name verycorrectly. Pray what is yours?'

'It cannot concern you much to know, but--'

'True, ' interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him short at hismistake, 'it does not concern me at all to know. I can say Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable title. You are right, Schoolmaster. '

It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of BradleyHeadstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but theyquivered fast. 

'Mr Eugene Wrayburn, ' said the boy, 'I want a word with you. I havewanted it so much, that we have looked out your address in the book, andwe have been to your office, and we have come from your office here. '

'You have given yourself much trouble, Schoolmaster, ' observedEugene, blowing the feathery ash from his cigar. 'I hope it may proveremunerative. '

'And I am glad to speak, ' pursued the boy, 'in presence of Mr Lightwood, because it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever saw my sister. '

For a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from the schoolmasterto note the effect of the last word on Mortimer, who, standing on theopposite side of the fire, as soon as the word was spoken, turned hisface towards the fire and looked down into it. 

'Similarly, it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever saw her again, foryou were with him on the night when my father was found, and so I foundyou with her on the next day. Since then, you have seen my sister often. You have seen my sister oftener and oftener. And I want to know why?'

'Was this worth while, Schoolmaster?' murmured Eugene, with the air ofa disinterested adviser. 'So much trouble for nothing? You should knowbest, but I think not. '

'I don't know, Mr Wrayburn, ' answered Bradley, with his passion rising, 'why you address me--'

'Don't you? said Eugene. 'Then I won't. '

He said it so tauntingly in his perfect placidity, that the respectableright-hand clutching the respectable hair-guard of the respectable watchcould have wound it round his throat and strangled him with it. Notanother word did Eugene deem it worth while to utter, but stood leaninghis head upon his hand, smoking, and looking imperturbably at thechafing Bradley Headstone with his clutching right-hand, until Bradleywas wellnigh mad. 

'Mr Wrayburn, ' proceeded the boy, 'we not only know this that I havecharged upon you, but we know more. It has not yet come to my sister'sknowledge that we have found it out, but we have. We had a plan, MrHeadstone and I, for my sister's education, and for its being advisedand overlooked by Mr Headstone, who is a much more competent authority, whatever you may pretend to think, as you smoke, than you could produce, if you tried. Then, what do we find? What do we find, Mr Lightwood? Why, we find that my sister is already being taught, without our knowingit. We find that while my sister gives an unwilling and cold ear to ourschemes for her advantage--I, her brother, and Mr Headstone, the mostcompetent authority, as his certificates would easily prove, that couldbe produced--she is wilfully and willingly profiting by other schemes. Ay, and taking pains, too, for I know what such pains are. And so doesMr Headstone! Well! Somebody pays for this, is a thought that naturallyoccurs to us; who pays? We apply ourselves to find out, Mr Lightwood, and we find that your friend, this Mr Eugene Wrayburn, here, pays. ThenI ask him what right has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, andhow comes he to be taking such a liberty without my consent, when Iam raising myself in the scale of society by my own exertions and MrHeadstone's aid, and have no right to have any darkness cast upon myprospects, or any imputation upon my respectability, through my sister?'

The boyish weakness of this speech, combined with its great selfishness, made it a poor one indeed. And yet Bradley Headstone, used to the littleaudience of a school, and unused to the larger ways of men, showed akind of exultation in it. 

'Now I tell Mr Eugene Wrayburn, ' pursued the boy, forced into the useof the third person by the hopelessness of addressing him in the first, 'that I object to his having any acquaintance at all with my sister, andthat I request him to drop it altogether. He is not to take it into hishead that I am afraid of my sister's caring for HIM--'

(As the boy sneered, the Master sneered, and Eugene blew off thefeathery ash again. )

--'But I object to it, and that's enough. I am more important to mysister than he thinks. As I raise myself, I intend to raise her;she knows that, and she has to look to me for her prospects. Now Iunderstand all this very well, and so does Mr Headstone. My sister is anexcellent girl, but she has some romantic notions; not about such thingsas your Mr Eugene Wrayburns, but about the death of my father and othermatters of that sort. Mr Wrayburn encourages those notions to makehimself of importance, and so she thinks she ought to be grateful tohim, and perhaps even likes to be. Now I don't choose her to be gratefulto him, or to be grateful to anybody but me, except Mr Headstone. AndI tell Mr Wrayburn that if he don't take heed of what I say, it will beworse for her. Let him turn that over in his memory, and make sure ofit. Worse for her!'

A pause ensued, in which the schoolmaster looked very awkward. 

'May I suggest, Schoolmaster, ' said Eugene, removing his fast-waningcigar from his lips to glance at it, 'that you can now take your pupilaway. '

'And Mr Lightwood, ' added the boy, with a burning face, under theflaming aggravation of getting no sort of answer or attention, 'I hopeyou'll take notice of what I have said to your friend, and of whatyour friend has heard me say, word by word, whatever he pretends to thecontrary. You are bound to take notice of it, Mr Lightwood, for, as Ihave already mentioned, you first brought your friend into my sister'scompany, and but for you we never should have seen him. Lord knows noneof us ever wanted him, any more than any of us will ever miss him. NowMr Headstone, as Mr Eugene Wrayburn has been obliged to hear what I hadto say, and couldn't help himself, and as I have said it out to the lastword, we have done all we wanted to do, and may go. '

'Go down-stairs, and leave me a moment, Hexam, ' he returned. The boycomplying with an indignant look and as much noise as he could make, swung out of the room; and Lightwood went to the window, and leanedthere, looking out. 

'You think me of no more value than the dirt under your feet, ' saidBradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully weighed and measured tone, orhe could not have spoken at all. 

'I assure you, Schoolmaster, ' replied Eugene, 'I don't think about you. '

'That's not true, ' returned the other; 'you know better. '

'That's coarse, ' Eugene retorted; 'but you DON'T know better. '

'Mr Wrayburn, at least I know very well that it would be idle to setmyself against you in insolent words or overbearing manners. That ladwho has just gone out could put you to shame in half-a-dozen branches ofknowledge in half an hour, but you can throw him aside like an inferior. You can do as much by me, I have no doubt, beforehand. '

'Possibly, ' remarked Eugene. 

'But I am more than a lad, ' said Bradley, with his clutching hand, 'andI WILL be heard, sir. '

'As a schoolmaster, ' said Eugene, 'you are always being heard. Thatought to content you. '

'But it does not content me, ' replied the other, white with passion. 'Doyou suppose that a man, in forming himself for the duties I discharge, and in watching and repressing himself daily to discharge them well, dismisses a man's nature?'

'I suppose you, ' said Eugene, 'judging from what I see as I look at you, to be rather too passionate for a good schoolmaster. ' As he spoke, hetossed away the end of his cigar. 

'Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with you, sir, Irespect myself for being. But I have not Devils for my pupils. '

'For your Teachers, I should rather say, ' replied Eugene. 

'Mr Wrayburn. '

'Schoolmaster. '

'Sir, my name is Bradley Headstone. '

'As you justly said, my good sir, your name cannot concern me. Now, whatmore?'

'This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine, ' cried Bradley, breaking offto wipe the starting perspiration from his face as he shook from head tofoot, 'that I cannot so control myself as to appear a stronger creaturethan this, when a man who has not felt in all his life what I have feltin a day can so command himself!' He said it in a very agony, and evenfollowed it with an errant motion of his hands as if he could have tornhimself. 

Eugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him beginning to berather an entertaining study. 

'Mr Wrayburn, I desire to say something to you on my own part. '

'Come, come, Schoolmaster, ' returned Eugene, with a languid approach toimpatience as the other again struggled with himself; 'say what you haveto say. And let me remind you that the door is standing open, and youryoung friend waiting for you on the stairs. '

'When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so with the purpose ofadding, as a man whom you should not be permitted to put aside, in caseyou put him aside as a boy, that his instinct is correct and right. 'Thus Bradley Headstone, with great effort and difficulty. 

'Is that all?' asked Eugene. 

'No, sir, ' said the other, flushed and fierce. 'I strongly support himin his disapproval of your visits to his sister, and in his objection toyour officiousness--and worse--in what you have taken upon yourself todo for her. '

'Is THAT all?' asked Eugene. 

'No, sir. I determined to tell you that you are not justified in theseproceedings, and that they are injurious to his sister. '

'Are you her schoolmaster as well as her brother's?--Or perhaps youwould like to be?' said Eugene. 

It was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to BradleyHeadstone's face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt with a dagger. 'What do you mean by that?' was as much as he could utter. 

'A natural ambition enough, ' said Eugene, coolly. Far be it from meto say otherwise. The sister who is something too much upon your lips, perhaps--is so very different from all the associations to which she hadbeen used, and from all the low obscure people about her, that it is avery natural ambition. '

'Do you throw my obscurity in my teeth, Mr Wrayburn?'

'That can hardly be, for I know nothing concerning it, Schoolmaster, andseek to know nothing. '

'You reproach me with my origin, ' said Bradley Headstone; 'you castinsinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell you, sir, I have worked myway onward, out of both and in spite of both, and have a right to beconsidered a better man than you, with better reasons for being proud. '

'How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowledge, or howI can cast stones that were never in my hand, is a problem for theingenuity of a schoolmaster to prove, ' returned Eugene. 'Is THAT all?'

'No, sir. If you suppose that boy--'

'Who really will be tired of waiting, ' said Eugene, politely. 

'If you suppose that boy to be friendless, Mr Wrayburn, you deceiveyourself. I am his friend, and you shall find me so. '

'And you will find HIM on the stairs, ' remarked Eugene. 

'You may have promised yourself, sir, that you could do what youchose here, because you had to deal with a mere boy, inexperienced, friendless, and unassisted. But I give you warning that this meancalculation is wrong. You have to do with a man also. You have to dowith me. I will support him, and, if need be, require reparation forhim. My hand and heart are in this cause, and are open to him. '

'And--quite a coincidence--the door is open, ' remarked Eugene. 

'I scorn your shifty evasions, and I scorn you, ' said the schoolmaster. 'In the meanness of your nature you revile me with the meanness of mybirth. I hold you in contempt for it. But if you don't profit by thisvisit, and act accordingly, you will find me as bitterly in earnestagainst you as I could be if I deemed you worth a second thought on myown account. '

With a consciously bad grace and stiff manner, as Wrayburn looked soeasily and calmly on, he went out with these words, and the heavy doorclosed like a furnace-door upon his red and white heats of rage. 

'A curious monomaniac, ' said Eugene. 'The man seems to believe thateverybody was acquainted with his mother!'

Mortimer Lightwood being still at the window, to which he had indelicacy withdrawn, Eugene called to him, and he fell to slowly pacingthe room. 

'My dear fellow, ' said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, 'I fear myunexpected visitors have been troublesome. If as a set-off (excuse thelegal phrase from a barrister-at-law) you would like to ask Tippins totea, I pledge myself to make love to her. '

'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, ' replied Mortimer, still pacing the room, 'I amsorry for this. And to think that I have been so blind!'

'How blind, dear boy?' inquired his unmoved friend. 

'What were your words that night at the river-side public-house?' saidLightwood, stopping. 'What was it that you asked me? Did I feel like adark combination of traitor and pickpocket when I thought of that girl?'

'I seem to remember the expression, ' said Eugene. 

'How do YOU feel when you think of her just now?'

His friend made no direct reply, but observed, after a few whiffs of hiscigar, 'Don't mistake the situation. There is no better girl in all thisLondon than Lizzie Hexam. There is no better among my people at home; nobetter among your people. '

'Granted. What follows?'

'There, ' said Eugene, looking after him dubiously as he paced away tothe other end of the room, 'you put me again upon guessing the riddlethat I have given up. '

'Eugene, do you design to capture and desert this girl?'

'My dear fellow, no. '

'Do you design to marry her?'

'My dear fellow, no. '

'Do you design to pursue her?'

'My dear fellow, I don't design anything. I have no design whatever. I am incapable of designs. If I conceived a design, I should speedilyabandon it, exhausted by the operation. '

'Oh Eugene, Eugene!'

'My dear Mortimer, not that tone of melancholy reproach, I entreat. Whatcan I do more than tell you all I know, and acknowledge my ignoranceof all I don't know! How does that little old song go, which, underpretence of being cheerful, is by far the most lugubrious I ever heardin my life?

 "Away with melancholy, Nor doleful changes ring On life and human folly, But merrily merrily sing Fal la!"

Don't let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is comparativelyunmeaning), but let us sing that we give up guessing the riddlealtogether. '

'Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is what thesepeople say true?'

'I concede both admissions to my honourable and learned friend. '

'Then what is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are you going?'

'My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had left behind hima catechizing infection. You are ruffled by the want of another cigar. Take one of these, I entreat. Light it at mine, which is in perfectorder. So! Now do me the justice to observe that I am doing all I cantowards self-improvement, and that you have a light thrown on thosehousehold implements which, when you only saw them as in a glass darkly, you were hastily--I must say hastily--inclined to depreciate. Sensibleof my deficiencies, I have surrounded myself with moral influencesexpressly meant to promote the formation of the domestic virtues. To those influences, and to the improving society of my friend fromboyhood, commend me with your best wishes. '

'Ah, Eugene!' said Lightwood, affectionately, now standing near him, so that they both stood in one little cloud of smoke; 'I would that youanswered my three questions! What is to come of it? What are you doing?Where are you going?'

'And my dear Mortimer, ' returned Eugene, lightly fanning away the smokewith his hand for the better exposition of his frankness of face andmanner, 'believe me, I would answer them instantly if I could. Butto enable me to do so, I must first have found out the troublesomeconundrum long abandoned. Here it is. Eugene Wrayburn. ' Tapping hisforehead and breast. 'Riddle-me, riddle-me-ree, perhaps you can't tellme what this may be?--No, upon my life I can't. I give it up!'

Chapter 7

IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED

The arrangement between Mr Boffin and his literary man, Mr Silas Wegg, so far altered with the altered habits of Mr Boffin's life, as thatthe Roman Empire usually declined in the morning and in the eminentlyaristocratic family mansion, rather than in the evening, as of yore, and in Boffin's Bower. There were occasions, however, when Mr Boffin, seeking a brief refuge from the blandishments of fashion, would presenthimself at the Bower after dark, to anticipate the next sallyingforth of Wegg, and would there, on the old settle, pursue the downwardfortunes of those enervated and corrupted masters of the world who wereby this time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for hisoffice, or better qualified to discharge it, he would have consideredthese visits complimentary and agreeable; but, holding the position ofa handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented them. This was quiteaccording to rule, for the incompetent servant, by whomsoever employed, is always against his employer. Even those born governors, noble andright honourable creatures, who have been the most imbecile in highplaces, have uniformly shown themselves the most opposed (sometimes inbelying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to THEIR employer. Whatis in such wise true of the public master and servant, is equally trueof the private master and servant all the world over. 

When Mr Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to 'Our House', as hehad been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat shelterlessso long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as differentfrom his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things itwell could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching character, by way ofasserting himself and making out a case for compensation, affected tofall into a melancholy strain of musing over the mournful past; as ifthe house and he had had a fall in life together. 

'And this, sir, ' Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his headand musing, 'was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from which Ihave so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, MasterGeorge, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker'--whose very names were of his owninventing--'pass and repass! And has it come to this, indeed! Ah dearme, dear me!'

So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr Boffin was quitesorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the house hehad done him an irreparable injury. 

Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on MrWegg's part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to a fortuitouscombination of circumstances impelling him towards Clerkenwell, hadenabled him to complete his bargain with Mr Venus. 

'Bring me round to the Bower, ' said Silas, when the bargain was closed, 'next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old Jamaikey warmshould meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it. '

'You are aware of my being poor company, sir, ' replied Mr Venus, 'but beit so. '

It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr Venus come, and ringing at the Bower-gate. 

Mr Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper truncheon underMr Venus's arm, and remarks, in a dry tone: 'Oh! I thought perhaps youmight have come in a cab. '

'No, Mr Wegg, ' replies Venus. 'I am not above a parcel. '

'Above a parcel! No!' says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. But does notopenly growl, 'a certain sort of parcel might be above you. '

'Here is your purchase, Mr Wegg, ' says Venus, politely handing it over, 'and I am glad to restore it to the source from whence it--flowed. '

'Thankee, ' says Wegg. 'Now this affair is concluded, I may mention toyou in a friendly way that I've my doubts whether, if I had consulted alawyer, you could have kept this article back from me. I only throw itout as a legal point. '

'Do you think so, Mr Wegg? I bought you in open contract. '

'You can't buy human flesh and blood in this country, sir; not alive, you can't, ' says Wegg, shaking his head. 'Then query, bone?'

'As a legal point?' asks Venus. 

'As a legal point. '

'I am not competent to speak upon that, Mr Wegg, ' says Venus, reddeningand growing something louder; 'but upon a point of fact I think myselfcompetent to speak; and as a point of fact I would have seen you--willyou allow me to say, further?'

'I wouldn't say more than further, if I was you, ' Mr Wegg suggests, pacifically. 

--'Before I'd have given that packet into your hand without being paidmy price for it. I don't pretend to know how the point of law may stand, but I'm thoroughly confident upon the point of fact. '

As Mr Venus is irritable (no doubt owing to his disappointment in love), and as it is not the cue of Mr Wegg to have him out of temper, thelatter gentleman soothingly remarks, 'I only put it as a little case; Ionly put it ha'porthetically. '

'Then I'd rather, Mr Wegg, you put it another time, penn'orth-etically, 'is Mr Venus's retort, 'for I tell you candidly I don't like your littlecases. '

Arrived by this time in Mr Wegg's sitting-room, made bright on thechilly evening by gaslight and fire, Mr Venus softens and complimentshim on his abode; profiting by the occasion to remind Wegg that he(Venus) told him he had got into a good thing. 

'Tolerable, ' Wegg rejoins. 'But bear in mind, Mr Venus, that there'sno gold without its alloy. Mix for yourself and take a seat in thechimbley-corner. Will you perform upon a pipe, sir?'

'I am but an indifferent performer, sir, ' returns the other; 'but I'llaccompany you with a whiff or two at intervals. '

So, Mr Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr Venus lights and puffs, andWegg lights and puffs. 

'And there's alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr Wegg, you wasremarking?'

'Mystery, ' returns Wegg. 'I don't like it, Mr Venus. I don't like tohave the life knocked out of former inhabitants of this house, in thegloomy dark, and not know who did it. '

'Might you have any suspicions, Mr Wegg?'

'No, ' returns that gentleman. 'I know who profits by it. But I've nosuspicions. '

Having said which, Mr Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a mostdetermined expression of Charity; as if he had caught that cardinalvirtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him, and held her by main force. 

'Similarly, ' resumes Wegg, 'I have observations as I can offer uponcertain points and parties; but I make no objections, Mr Venus. Hereis an immense fortune drops from the clouds upon a person that shall benameless. Here is a weekly allowance, with a certain weight of coals, drops from the clouds upon me. Which of us is the better man? Not theperson that shall be nameless. That's an observation of mine, but Idon't make it an objection. I take my allowance and my certain weight ofcoals. He takes his fortune. That's the way it works. '

'It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in the calmlight you do, Mr Wegg. '

'Again look here, ' pursues Silas, with an oratorical flourish of hispipe and his wooden leg: the latter having an undignified tendencyto tilt him back in his chair; 'here's another observation, Mr Venus, unaccompanied with an objection. Him that shall be nameless is liable tobe talked over. He gets talked over. Him that shall be nameless, havingme at his right hand, naturally looking to be promoted higher, and youmay perhaps say meriting to be promoted higher--'

(Mr Venus murmurs that he does say so. )

'--Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances passes me by, and puts a talking-over stranger above my head. Which of us two is thebetter man? Which of us two can repeat most poetry? Which of us two has, in the service of him that shall be nameless, tackled the Romans, bothcivil and military, till he has got as husky as if he'd been weaned andever since brought up on sawdust? Not the talking-over stranger. Yet thehouse is as free to him as if it was his, and he has his room, and isput upon a footing, and draws about a thousand a year. I am banished tothe Bower, to be found in it like a piece of furniture whenever wanted. Merit, therefore, don't win. That's the way it works. I observe it, because I can't help observing it, being accustomed to take a powerfulsight of notice; but I don't object. Ever here before, Mr Venus?'

'Not inside the gate, Mr Wegg. '

'You've been as far as the gate then, Mr Venus?'

'Yes, Mr Wegg, and peeped in from curiosity. '

'Did you see anything?'

'Nothing but the dust-yard. '

Mr Wegg rolls his eyes all round the room, in that ever unsatisfiedquest of his, and then rolls his eyes all round Mr Venus; as ifsuspicious of his having something about him to be found out. 

'And yet, sir, ' he pursues, 'being acquainted with old Mr Harmon, onewould have thought it might have been polite in you, too, to give him acall. And you're naturally of a polite disposition, you are. ' This lastclause as a softening compliment to Mr Venus. 

'It is true, sir, ' replies Venus, winking his weak eyes, and runninghis fingers through his dusty shock of hair, 'that I was so, before acertain observation soured me. You understand to what I allude, Mr Wegg?To a certain written statement respecting not wishing to be regarded ina certain light. Since that, all is fled, save gall. '

'Not all, ' says Mr Wegg, in a tone of sentimental condolence. 

'Yes, sir, ' returns Venus, 'all! The world may deem it harsh, but I'dquite as soon pitch into my best friend as not. Indeed, I'd sooner!'

Involuntarily making a pass with his wooden leg to guard himself as MrVenus springs up in the emphasis of this unsociable declaration, Mr Weggtilts over on his back, chair and all, and is rescued by that harmlessmisanthrope, in a disjointed state and ruefully rubbing his head. 

'Why, you lost your balance, Mr Wegg, ' says Venus, handing him his pipe. 

'And about time to do it, ' grumbles Silas, 'when a man's visitors, without a word of notice, conduct themselves with the sudden wiciousnessof Jacks-in-boxes! Don't come flying out of your chair like that, MrVenus!'

'I ask your pardon, Mr Wegg. I am so soured. '

'Yes, but hang it, ' says Wegg argumentatively, 'a well-governed mind canbe soured sitting! And as to being regarded in lights, there's bumpeylights as well as bony. IN which, ' again rubbing his head, 'I object toregard myself. '

'I'll bear it in memory, sir. '

'If you'll be so good. ' Mr Wegg slowly subdues his ironical tone and hislingering irritation, and resumes his pipe. 'We were talking of old MrHarmon being a friend of yours. '

'Not a friend, Mr Wegg. Only known to speak to, and to have a littledeal with now and then. A very inquisitive character, Mr Wegg, regardingwhat was found in the dust. As inquisitive as secret. '

'Ah! You found him secret?' returns Wegg, with a greedy relish. 

'He had always the look of it, and the manner of it. '

'Ah!' with another roll of his eyes. 'As to what was found in the dustnow. Did you ever hear him mention how he found it, my dear friend?Living on the mysterious premises, one would like to know. For instance, where he found things? Or, for instance, how he set about it? Whetherhe began at the top of the mounds, or whether he began at the bottom. Whether he prodded'; Mr Wegg's pantomime is skilful and expressive here;'or whether he scooped? Should you say scooped, my dear Mr Venus; orshould you as a man--say prodded?'

'I should say neither, Mr Wegg. '

'As a fellow-man, Mr Venus--mix again--why neither?'

'Because I suppose, sir, that what was found, was found in the sortingand sifting. All the mounds are sorted and sifted?'

'You shall see 'em and pass your opinion. Mix again. '

On each occasion of his saying 'mix again', Mr Wegg, with a hop onhis wooden leg, hitches his chair a little nearer; more as if he wereproposing that himself and Mr Venus should mix again, than that theyshould replenish their glasses. 

'Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises, ' says Wegg whenthe other has acted on his hospitable entreaty, 'one likes to know. Would you be inclined to say now--as a brother--that he ever hid thingsin the dust, as well as found 'em?'

'Mr Wegg, on the whole I should say he might. '

Mr Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys Mr Venus fromhead to foot. 

'As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in mine for thefirst time this day, having unaccountably overlooked that act so full ofboundless confidence binding a fellow-creetur TO a fellow creetur, ' saysWegg, holding Mr Venus's palm out, flat and ready for smiting, and nowsmiting it; 'as such--and no other--for I scorn all lowlier ties betwixtmyself and the man walking with his face erect that alone I call myTwin--regarded and regarding in this trustful bond--what do you think hemight have hid?'

'It is but a supposition, Mr Wegg. '

'As a Being with his hand upon his heart, ' cries Wegg; and theapostrophe is not the less impressive for the Being's hand beingactually upon his rum and water; 'put your supposition into language, and bring it out, Mr Venus!'

'He was the species of old gentleman, sir, ' slowly returns thatpractical anatomist, after drinking, 'that I should judge likely totake such opportunities as this place offered, of stowing away money, valuables, maybe papers. '

'As one that was ever an ornament to human life, ' says Mr Wegg, againholding out Mr Venus's palm as if he were going to tell his fortune bychiromancy, and holding his own up ready for smiting it when the timeshould come; 'as one that the poet might have had his eye on, in writingthe national naval words:

 Helm a-weather, now lay her close, Yard arm and yard arm she lies; Again, cried I, Mr Venus, give her t'other dose, Man shrouds and grapple, sir, or she flies!

--that is to say, regarded in the light of true British Oak, for suchyou are explain, Mr Venus, the expression "papers"!'

'Seeing that the old gentleman was generally cutting off some nearrelation, or blocking out some natural affection, ' Mr Venus rejoins, 'hemost likely made a good many wills and codicils. '

The palm of Silas Wegg descends with a sounding smack upon the palmof Venus, and Wegg lavishly exclaims, 'Twin in opinion equally withfeeling! Mix a little more!'

Having now hitched his wooden leg and his chair close in front of MrVenus, Mr Wegg rapidly mixes for both, gives his visitor his glass, touches its rim with the rim of his own, puts his own to his lips, putsit down, and spreading his hands on his visitor's knees thus addresseshim:

'Mr Venus. It ain't that I object to being passed over for a stranger, though I regard the stranger as a more than doubtful customer. It ain'tfor the sake of making money, though money is ever welcome. It ain't formyself, though I am not so haughty as to be above doing myself a goodturn. It's for the cause of the right. '

Mr Venus, passively winking his weak eyes both at once, demands: 'Whatis, Mr Wegg?'

'The friendly move, sir, that I now propose. You see the move, sir?'

'Till you have pointed it out, Mr Wegg, I can't say whether I do ornot. '

'If there IS anything to be found on these premises, let us find ittogether. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to look for ittogether. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to share theprofits of it equally betwixt us. In the cause of the right. ' Thus Silasassuming a noble air. 

'Then, ' says Mr Venus, looking up, after meditating with his hair heldin his hands, as if he could only fix his attention by fixing his head;'if anything was to be unburied from under the dust, it would be kept asecret by you and me? Would that be it, Mr Wegg?'

'That would depend upon what it was, Mr Venus. Say it was money, orplate, or jewellery, it would be as much ours as anybody else's. '

Mr Venus rubs an eyebrow, interrogatively. 

'In the cause of the right it would. Because it would be unknowinglysold with the mounds else, and the buyer would get what he was nevermeant to have, and never bought. And what would that be, Mr Venus, butthe cause of the wrong?'

'Say it was papers, ' Mr Venus propounds. 

'According to what they contained we should offer to dispose of 'em tothe parties most interested, ' replies Wegg, promptly. 

'In the cause of the right, Mr Wegg?'

'Always so, Mr Venus. If the parties should use them in the cause of thewrong, that would be their act and deed. Mr Venus. I have an opinion ofyou, sir, to which it is not easy to give mouth. Since I called upon youthat evening when you were, as I may say, floating your powerful mind intea, I have felt that you required to be roused with an object. In thisfriendly move, sir, you will have a glorious object to rouse you. '

Mr Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout has been uppermostin his crafty mind:--the qualifications of Mr Venus for such a search. He expatiates on Mr Venus's patient habits and delicate manipulation; onhis skill in piecing little things together; on his knowledge of varioustissues and textures; on the likelihood of small indications leading himon to the discovery of great concealments. 'While as to myself, ' saysWegg, 'I am not good at it. Whether I gave myself up to prodding, or whether I gave myself up to scooping, I couldn't do it with thatdelicate touch so as not to show that I was disturbing the mounds. Quite different with YOU, going to work (as YOU would) in the light ofa fellow-man, holily pledged in a friendly move to his brother man. ' MrWegg next modestly remarks on the want of adaptation in a wooden legto ladders and such like airy perches, and also hints at an inherenttendency in that timber fiction, when called into action for thepurposes of a promenade on an ashey slope, to stick itself into theyielding foothold, and peg its owner to one spot. Then, leaving thispart of the subject, he remarks on the special phenomenon that beforehis installation in the Bower, it was from Mr Venus that he first heardof the legend of hidden wealth in the Mounds: 'which', he observes witha vaguely pious air, 'was surely never meant for nothing. ' Lastly, he returns to the cause of the right, gloomily foreshadowing thepossibility of something being unearthed to criminate Mr Boffin (of whomhe once more candidly admits it cannot be denied that he profits by amurder), and anticipating his denunciation by the friendly movers toavenging justice. And this, Mr Wegg expressly points out, not at all forthe sake of the reward--though it would be a want of principle not totake it. 

To all this, Mr Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked after themanner of a terrier's ears, attends profoundly. When Mr Wegg, havingfinished, opens his arms wide, as if to show Mr Venus how bare hisbreast is, and then folds them pending a reply, Mr Venus winks at himwith both eyes some little time before speaking. 

'I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr Wegg, ' he says when he doesspeak. 'You have found out the difficulties by experience. '

'No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it, ' replies Wegg, a littledashed by the hint. 'I have just skimmed it. Skimmed it. '

'And found nothing besides the difficulties?'

Wegg shakes his head. 

'I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr Wegg, ' observes Venus, afterruminating for a while. 

'Say yes, ' Wegg naturally urges. 

'If I wasn't soured, my answer would be no. But being soured, Mr Wegg, and driven to reckless madness and desperation, I suppose it's Yes. '

Wegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the ceremony ofclinking their rims, and inwardly drinks with great heartiness to thehealth and success in life of the young lady who has reduced Mr Venus tohis present convenient state of mind. 

The articles of the friendly move are then severally recited and agreedupon. They are but secrecy, fidelity, and perseverance. The Bower tobe always free of access to Mr Venus for his researches, and everyprecaution to be taken against their attracting observation in theneighbourhood. 

'There's a footstep!' exclaims Venus. 

'Where?' cries Wegg, starting. 

'Outside. St!'

They are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by shakinghands upon it. They softly break off, light their pipes which have goneout, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt, a footstep. It approachesthe window, and a hand taps at the glass. 'Come in!' calls Wegg; meaningcome round by the door. But the heavy old-fashioned sash is slowlyraised, and a head slowly looks in out of the dark background of night. 

'Pray is Mr Silas Wegg here? Oh! I see him!'

The friendly movers might not have been quite at their ease, eventhough the visitor had entered in the usual manner. But, leaning on thebreast-high window, and staring in out of the darkness, they find thevisitor extremely embarrassing. Especially Mr Venus: who removes hispipe, draws back his head, and stares at the starer, as if it were hisown Hindoo baby come to fetch him home. 

'Good evening, Mr Wegg. The yard gate-lock should be looked to, if youplease; it don't catch. '

'Is it Mr Rokesmith?' falters Wegg. 

'It is Mr Rokesmith. Don't let me disturb you. I am not coming in. Ihave only a message for you, which I undertook to deliver on my way hometo my lodgings. I was in two minds about coming beyond the gate withoutringing: not knowing but you might have a dog about. '

'I wish I had, ' mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he rose from hischair. St! Hush! The talking-over stranger, Mr Venus. '

'Is that any one I know?' inquires the staring Secretary. 

'No, Mr Rokesmith. Friend of mine. Passing the evening with me. '

'Oh! I beg his pardon. Mr Boffin wishes you to know that he does notexpect you to stay at home any evening, on the chance of his coming. Ithas occurred to him that he may, without intending it, have been a tieupon you. In future, if he should come without notice, he will take hischance of finding you, and it will be all the same to him if he doesnot. I undertook to tell you on my way. That's all. '

With that, and 'Good night, ' the Secretary lowers the window, anddisappears. They listen, and hear his footsteps go back to the gate, andhear the gate close after him. 

'And for that individual, Mr Venus, ' remarks Wegg, when he is fullygone, 'I have been passed over! Let me ask you what you think of him?'

Apparently, Mr Venus does not know what to think of him, for he makessundry efforts to reply, without delivering himself of any otherarticulate utterance than that he has 'a singular look'. 

'A double look, you mean, sir, ' rejoins Wegg, playing bitterly upon theword. 'That's HIS look. Any amount of singular look for me, but not adouble look! That's an under-handed mind, sir. '

'Do you say there's something against him?' Venus asks. 

'Something against him?' repeats Wegg. 'Something? What would the reliefbe to my feelings--as a fellow-man--if I wasn't the slave of truth, anddidn't feel myself compelled to answer, Everything!'

See into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plungetheir heads! It is such unspeakable moral compensation to Wegg, to beovercome by the consideration that Mr Rokesmith has an underhanded mind!

'On this starlight night, Mr Venus, ' he remarks, when he is showing thatfriendly mover out across the yard, and both are something the worsefor mixing again and again: 'on this starlight night to think thattalking-over strangers, and underhanded minds, can go walking home underthe sky, as if they was all square!'

'The spectacle of those orbs, ' says Mr Venus, gazing upward with his hattumbling off; 'brings heavy on me her crushing words that she did notwish to regard herself nor yet to be regarded in that--'

'I know! I know! You needn't repeat 'em, ' says Wegg, pressing his hand. 'But think how those stars steady me in the cause of the right againstsome that shall be nameless. It isn't that I bear malice. But see howthey glisten with old remembrances! Old remembrances of what, sir?'

Mr Venus begins drearily replying, 'Of her words, in her ownhandwriting, that she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet--' whenSilas cuts him short with dignity. 

'No, sir! Remembrances of Our House, of Master George, of Aunt Jane, ofUncle Parker, all laid waste! All offered up sacrifices to the minion offortune and the worm of the hour!'

Chapter 8

IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS

The minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less cuttinglanguage, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the Golden Dustman, had becomeas much at home in his eminently aristocratic family mansion as hewas likely ever to be. He could not but feel that, like an eminentlyaristocratic family cheese, it was much too large for his wants, andbred an infinite amount of parasites; but he was content to regard thisdrawback on his property as a sort of perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt themore resigned to it, forasmuch as Mrs Boffin enjoyed herself completely, and Miss Bella was delighted. 

That young lady was, no doubt, and acquisition to the Boffins. Shewas far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, and far too quick ofperception to be below the tone of her new career. Whether it improvedher heart might be a matter of taste that was open to question; but astouching another matter of taste, its improvement of her appearance andmanner, there could be no question whatever. 

And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set Mrs Boffinright; and even further, that Miss Bella began to feel ill at ease, andas it were responsible, when she saw Mrs Boffin going wrong. Not that sosweet a disposition and so sound a nature could ever go very wrong evenamong the great visiting authorities who agreed that the Boffins were'charmingly vulgar' (which for certain was not their own case in sayingso), but that when she made a slip on the social ice on which all thechildren of Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required toskate in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped MissBella up (so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience greatconfusion under the glances of the more skilful performers engaged inthose ice-exercises. 

At Miss Bella's time of life it was not to be expected that she shouldexamine herself very closely on the congruity or stability of herposition in Mr Boffin's house. And as she had never been sparing ofcomplaints of her old home when she had no other to compare it with, so there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain in her very muchpreferring her new one. 

'An invaluable man is Rokesmith, ' said Mr Boffin, after some two orthree months. 'But I can't quite make him out. '

Neither could Bella, so she found the subject rather interesting. 

'He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and night, ' said MrBoffin, 'than fifty other men put together either could or would; andyet he has ways of his own that are like tying a scaffolding-pole rightacross the road, and bringing me up short when I am almost a-walking armin arm with him. '

'May I ask how so, sir?' inquired Bella. 

'Well, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin, 'he won't meet any company here, butyou. When we have visitors, I should wish him to have his regular placeat the table like ourselves; but no, he won't take it. '

'If he considers himself above it, ' said Miss Bella, with an airy tossof her head, 'I should leave him alone. '

'It ain't that, my dear, ' replied Mr Boffin, thinking it over. 'He don'tconsider himself above it. '

'Perhaps he considers himself beneath it, ' suggested Bella. 'If so, heought to know best. '

'No, my dear; nor it ain't that, neither. No, ' repeated Mr Boffin, witha shake of his head, after again thinking it over; 'Rokesmith's a modestman, but he don't consider himself beneath it. '

'Then what does he consider, sir?' asked Bella. 

'Dashed if I know!' said Mr Boffin. 'It seemed that first as if itwas only Lightwood that he objected to meet. And now it seems to beeverybody, except you. '

Oho! thought Miss Bella. 'In--deed! That's it, is it!' For Mr MortimerLightwood had dined there two or three times, and she had met himelsewhere, and he had shown her some attention. 'Rather cool in aSecretary--and Pa's lodger--to make me the subject of his jealousy!'

That Pa's daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa's lodger was odd;but there were odder anomalies than that in the mind of the spoilt girl:spoilt first by poverty, and then by wealth. Be it this history's part, however, to leave them to unravel themselves. 

'A little too much, I think, ' Miss Bella reflected scornfully, 'tohave Pa's lodger laying claim to me, and keeping eligible people off!A little too much, indeed, to have the opportunities opened to me by Mrand Mrs Boffin, appropriated by a mere Secretary and Pa's lodger!'

Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by thediscovery that this same Secretary and lodger seem to like her. Ah! butthe eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs Boffin's dressmaker had notcome into play then. 

In spite of his seemingly retiring manners a very intrusive person, thisSecretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's opinion. Always a light in hisoffice-room when we came home from the play or Opera, and he always atthe carriage-door to hand us out. Always a provoking radiance too onMrs Boffin's face, and an abominably cheerful reception of him, as if itwere possible seriously to approve what the man had in his mind!

'You never charge me, Miss Wilfer, ' said the Secretary, encountering herby chance alone in the great drawing-room, 'with commissions for home. I shall always be happy to execute any commands you may have in thatdirection. '

'Pray what may you mean, Mr Rokesmith?' inquired Miss Bella, withlanguidly drooping eyelids. 

'By home? I mean your father's house at Holloway. '

She coloured under the retort--so skilfully thrust, that the wordsseemed to be merely a plain answer, given in plain good faith--and said, rather more emphatically and sharply:

'What commissions and commands are you speaking of?'

'Only little words of remembrance as I assume you sent somehow orother, ' replied the Secretary with his former air. 'It would be apleasure to me if you would make me the bearer of them. As you know, Icome and go between the two houses every day. '

'You needn't remind me of that, sir. '

She was too quick in this petulant sally against 'Pa's lodger'; and shefelt that she had been so when she met his quiet look. 

'They don't send many--what was your expression?--words of remembranceto me, ' said Bella, making haste to take refuge in ill-usage. 

'They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such slightintelligence as I can. '

'I hope it's truly given, ' exclaimed Bella. 

'I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much against you, ifyou could. '

'No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is very justindeed. I beg your pardon, Mr Rokesmith. '

'I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such admirableadvantage, ' he replied with earnestness. 'Forgive me; I could not helpsaying that. To return to what I have digressed from, let me add thatperhaps they think I report them to you, deliver little messages, andthe like. But I forbear to trouble you, as you never ask me. '

'I am going, sir, ' said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved her, 'to see them tomorrow. '

'Is that, ' he asked, hesitating, 'said to me, or to them?'

'To which you please. '

'To both? Shall I make it a message?'

'You can if you like, Mr Rokesmith. Message or no message, I am going tosee them tomorrow. '

'Then I will tell them so. '

He lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity ofprolonging the conversation if she wished. As she remained silent, heleft her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by Miss Bellaherself, when alone again, to be very curious. The first was, that heunquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, and a penitentfeeling in her heart. The second was, that she had not an intention ora thought of going home, until she had announced it to him as a settleddesign. 

'What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it?' was her mentalinquiry: 'He has no right to any power over me, and how do I come tomind him when I don't care for him?'

Mrs Boffin, insisting that Bella should make tomorrow's expeditionin the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. Mrs Wilfer and MissLavinia had speculated much on the probabilities and improbabilities ofher coming in this gorgeous state, and, on beholding the chariot fromthe window at which they were secreted to look out for it, agreedthat it must be detained at the door as long as possible, for themortification and confusion of the neighbours. Then they repaired tothe usual family room, to receive Miss Bella with a becoming show ofindifference. 

The family room looked very small and very mean, and the downwardstaircase by which it was attained looked very narrow and very crooked. The little house and all its arrangements were a poor contrast to theeminently aristocratic dwelling. 'I can hardly believe, thought Bella, that I ever did endure life in this place!'

Gloomy majesty on the part of Mrs Wilfer, and native pertness on thepart of Lavvy, did not mend the matter. Bella really stood in naturalneed of a little help, and she got none. 

'This, ' said Mrs Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, as sympatheticand responsive as the back of the bowl of a spoon, 'is quite an honour!You will probably find your sister Lavvy grown, Bella. '

'Ma, ' Miss Lavinia interposed, 'there can be no objection to your beingaggravating, because Bella richly deserves it; but I really must requestthat you will not drag in such ridiculous nonsense as my having grownwhen I am past the growing age. '

'I grew, myself, ' Mrs Wilfer sternly proclaimed, 'after I was married. '

'Very well, Ma, ' returned Lavvy, 'then I think you had much better haveleft it alone. '

The lofty glare with which the majestic woman received this answer, might have embarrassed a less pert opponent, but it had no effect uponLavinia: who, leaving her parent to the enjoyment of any amount ofglaring at she might deem desirable under the circumstances, accostedher sister, undismayed. 

'I suppose you won't consider yourself quite disgraced, Bella, if I giveyou a kiss? Well! And how do you do, Bella? And how are your Boffins?'

'Peace!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'Hold! I will not suffer this tone oflevity. '

'My goodness me! How are your Spoffins, then?' said Lavvy, 'since Ma sovery much objects to your Boffins. '

'Impertinent girl! Minx!' said Mrs Wilfer, with dread severity. 

'I don't care whether I am a Minx, or a Sphinx, ' returned Lavinia, coolly, tossing her head; 'it's exactly the same thing to me, and I'devery bit as soon be one as the other; but I know this--I'll not growafter I'm married!'

'You will not? YOU will not?' repeated Mrs Wilfer, solemnly. 

'No, Ma, I will not. Nothing shall induce me. '

Mrs Wilfer, having waved her gloves, became loftily pathetic. 

'But it was to be expected;' thus she spake. 'A child of mine deserts mefor the proud and prosperous, and another child of mine despises me. Itis quite fitting. '

'Ma, ' Bella struck in, 'Mr and Mrs Boffin are prosperous, no doubt; butyou have no right to say they are proud. You must know very well thatthey are not. '

'In short, Ma, ' said Lavvy, bouncing over to the enemy without a wordof notice, you must know very well--or if you don't, more shame foryou!--that Mr and Mrs Boffin are just absolute perfection. '

'Truly, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, courteously receiving the deserter, itwould seem that we are required to think so. And this, Lavinia, ismy reason for objecting to a tone of levity. Mrs Boffin (of whosephysiognomy I can never speak with the composure I would desire topreserve), and your mother, are not on terms of intimacy. It is notfor a moment to be supposed that she and her husband dare to presume tospeak of this family as the Wilfers. I cannot therefore condescend tospeak of them as the Boffins. No; for such a tone--call it familiarity, levity, equality, or what you will--would imply those socialinterchanges which do not exist. Do I render myself intelligible?'

Without taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit delivered in animposing and forensic manner, Lavinia reminded her sister, 'After all, you know, Bella, you haven't told us how your Whatshisnames are. '

'I don't want to speak of them here, ' replied Bella, suppressingindignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. 'They are much too kindand too good to be drawn into these discussions. '

'Why put it so?' demanded Mrs Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. 'Why adopt acircuitous form of speech? It is polite and it is obliging; but why doit? Why not openly say that they are much too kind and too good for US?We understand the allusion. Why disguise the phrase?'

'Ma, ' said Bella, with one beat of her foot, 'you are enough to drive asaint mad, and so is Lavvy. '

'Unfortunate Lavvy!' cried Mrs Wilfer, in a tone of commiseration. 'Shealways comes for it. My poor child!' But Lavvy, with the suddenness ofher former desertion, now bounced over to the other enemy: very sharplyremarking, 'Don't patronize ME, Ma, because I can take care of myself. '

'I only wonder, ' resumed Mrs Wilfer, directing her observations to herelder daughter, as safer on the whole than her utterly unmanageableyounger, 'that you found time and inclination to tear yourself fromMr and Mrs Boffin, and come to see us at all. I only wonder that ourclaims, contending against the superior claims of Mr and Mrs Boffin, had any weight. I feel I ought to be thankful for gaining so much, incompetition with Mr and Mrs Boffin. ' (The good lady bitterly emphasizedthe first letter of the word Boffin, as if it represented her chiefobjection to the owners of that name, and as if she could have bornDoffin, Moffin, or Poffin much better. )

'Ma, ' said Bella, angrily, 'you force me to say that I am truly sorry Idid come home, and that I never will come home again, except when poordear Pa is here. For, Pa is too magnanimous to feel envy and spitetowards my generous friends, and Pa is delicate enough and gentle enoughto remember the sort of little claim they thought I had upon them andthe unusually trying position in which, through no act of my own, I hadbeen placed. And I always did love poor dear Pa better than all the restof you put together, and I always do and I always shall!'

Here Bella, deriving no comfort from her charming bonnet and her elegantdress, burst into tears. 

'I think, R. W. , ' cried Mrs Wilfer, lifting up her eyes andapostrophising the air, 'that if you were present, it would be atrial to your feelings to hear your wife and the mother of your familydepreciated in your name. But Fate has spared you this, R. W. , whateverit may have thought proper to inflict upon her!'

Here Mrs Wilfer burst into tears. 

'I hate the Boffins!' protested Miss Lavinia. I don't care who objectsto their being called the Boffins. I WILL call 'em the Boffins. TheBoffins, the Boffins, the Boffins! And I say they are mischief-makingBoffins, and I say the Boffins have set Bella against me, and I tell theBoffins to their faces:' which was not strictly the fact, but theyoung lady was excited: 'that they are detestable Boffins, disreputableBoffins, odious Boffins, beastly Boffins. There!'

Here Miss Lavinia burst into tears. 

The front garden-gate clanked, and the Secretary was seen coming at abrisk pace up the steps. 'Leave Me to open the door to him, ' said MrsWilfer, rising with stately resignation as she shook her head and driedher eyes; 'we have at present no stipendiary girl to do so. We havenothing to conceal. If he sees these traces of emotion on our cheeks, let him construe them as he may. '

With those words she stalked out. In a few moments she stalked in again, proclaiming in her heraldic manner, 'Mr Rokesmith is the bearer of apacket for Miss Bella Wilfer. '

Mr Rokesmith followed close upon his name, and of course saw what wasamiss. But he discreetly affected to see nothing, and addressed MissBella. 

'Mr Boffin intended to have placed this in the carriage for youthis morning. He wished you to have it, as a little keepsake he hadprepared--it is only a purse, Miss Wilfer--but as he was disappointed inhis fancy, I volunteered to come after you with it. '

Bella took it in her hand, and thanked him. 

'We have been quarrelling here a little, Mr Rokesmith, but not more thanwe used; you know our agreeable ways among ourselves. You find me justgoing. Good-bye, mamma. Good-bye, Lavvy!' and with a kiss for each MissBella turned to the door. The Secretary would have attended her, butMrs Wilfer advancing and saying with dignity, 'Pardon me! Permit me toassert my natural right to escort my child to the equipage which isin waiting for her, ' he begged pardon and gave place. It was a verymagnificent spectacle indeed, too see Mrs Wilfer throw open thehouse-door, and loudly demand with extended gloves, 'The male domesticof Mrs Boffin!' To whom presenting himself, she delivered the brief butmajestic charge, 'Miss Wilfer. Coming out!' and so delivered her over, like a female Lieutenant of the Tower relinquishing a State Prisoner. The effect of this ceremonial was for some quarter of an hour afterwardsperfectly paralyzing on the neighbours, and was much enhanced by theworthy lady airing herself for that term in a kind of splendidly serenetrance on the top step. 

When Bella was seated in the carriage, she opened the little packet inher hand. It contained a pretty purse, and the purse contained a banknote for fifty pounds. 'This shall be a joyful surprise for poor dearPa, ' said Bella, 'and I'll take it myself into the City!'

As she was uninformed respecting the exact locality of the place ofbusiness of Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, but knew it to be nearMincing Lane, she directed herself to be driven to the corner of thatdarksome spot. Thence she despatched 'the male domestic of Mrs Boffin, 'in search of the counting-house of Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, witha message importing that if R. Wilfer could come out, there was a ladywaiting who would be glad to speak with him. The delivery of thesemysterious words from the mouth of a footman caused so great anexcitement in the counting-house, that a youthful scout was instantlyappointed to follow Rumty, observe the lady, and come in with hisreport. Nor was the agitation by any means diminished, when the scoutrushed back with the intelligence that the lady was 'a slap-up gal in abang-up chariot. '

Rumty himself, with his pen behind his ear under his rusty hat, arrivedat the carriage-door in a breathless condition, and had been fairlylugged into the vehicle by his cravat and embraced almost unto choking, before he recognized his daughter. 'My dear child!' he then panted, incoherently. 'Good gracious me! What a lovely woman you are! I thoughtyou had been unkind and forgotten your mother and sister. '

'I have just been to see them, Pa dear. '

'Oh! and how--how did you find your mother?' asked R. W. , dubiously. 

'Very disagreeable, Pa, and so was Lavvy. '

'They are sometimes a little liable to it, ' observed the patient cherub;'but I hope you made allowances, Bella, my dear?'

'No. I was disagreeable too, Pa; we were all of us disagreeabletogether. But I want you to come and dine with me somewhere, Pa. '

'Why, my dear, I have already partaken of a--if one might mention suchan article in this superb chariot--of a--Saveloy, ' replied R. Wilfer, modestly dropping his voice on the word, as he eyed the canary-colouredfittings. 

'Oh! That's nothing, Pa!'

'Truly, it ain't as much as one could sometimes wish it to be, mydear, ' he admitted, drawing his hand across his mouth. 'Still, whencircumstances over which you have no control, interpose obstaclesbetween yourself and Small Germans, you can't do better than bring acontented mind to hear on'--again dropping his voice in deference to thechariot--'Saveloys!'

'You poor good Pa! Pa, do, I beg and pray, get leave for the rest of theday, and come and pass it with me!'

'Well, my dear, I'll cut back and ask for leave. '

'But before you cut back, ' said Bella, who had already taken him by thechin, pulled his hat off, and begun to stick up his hair in her old way, 'do say that you are sure I am giddy and inconsiderate, but have neverreally slighted you, Pa. '

'My dear, I say it with all my heart. And might I likewise observe, ' herfather delicately hinted, with a glance out at window, 'that perhapsit might be calculated to attract attention, having one's hair publiclydone by a lovely woman in an elegant turn-out in Fenchurch Street?'

Bella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his boyish figurebobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful patience smote the tears outof her eyes. 'I hate that Secretary for thinking it of me, ' she said toherself, 'and yet it seems half true!'

Back came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his release fromschool. 'All right, my dear. Leave given at once. Really very handsomelydone!'

'Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in which I can wait for youwhile you go on an errand for me, if I send the carriage away?'

It demanded cogitation. 'You see, my dear, ' he explained, 'you reallyhave become such a very lovely woman, that it ought to be a very quietplace. ' At length he suggested, 'Near the garden up by the Trinity Houseon Tower Hill. ' So, they were driven there, and Bella dismissed thechariot; sending a pencilled note by it to Mrs Boffin, that she was withher father. 

'Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise and vow to beobedient. '

'I promise and vow, my dear. '

'You ask no questions. You take this purse; you go to the nearest placewhere they keep everything of the very very best, ready made; you buyand put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent leather, Pa, mind!)that are to be got for money; and you come back to me. '

'But, my dear Bella--'

'Take care, Pa!' pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. 'You havepromised and vowed. It's perjury, you know. '

There was water in the foolish little fellow's eyes, but she kissed themdry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed away again. After half anhour, he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that Bella was obligedto walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times, before she coulddraw her arm through his, and delightedly squeeze it. 

'Now, Pa, ' said Bella, hugging him close, 'take this lovely woman out todinner. '

'Where shall we go, my dear?'

'Greenwich!' said Bella, valiantly. 'And be sure you treat this lovelywoman with everything of the best. '

While they were going along to take boat, 'Don't you wish, my dear, 'said R. W. , timidly, 'that your mother was here?'

'No, I don't, Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to-day. I wasalways your little favourite at home, and you were always mine. We haverun away together often, before now; haven't we, Pa?'

'Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday when your mother was--was alittle liable to it, ' repeating his former delicate expression afterpausing to cough. 

'Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought to havebeen, Pa. I made you carry me, over and over again, when you shouldhave made me walk; and I often drove you in harness, when you would muchrather have sat down and read your news-paper: didn't I?'

'Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were! What a companionyou were!'

'Companion? That's just what I want to be to-day, Pa. '

'You are safe to succeed, my love. Your brothers and sisters have allin their turns been companions to me, to a certain extent, but only to acertain extent. Your mother has, throughout life, been a companion thatany man might--might look up to--and--and commit the sayings of, tomemory--and--form himself upon--if he--'

'If he liked the model?' suggested Bella. 

'We-ell, ye-es, ' he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfiedwith the phrase: 'or perhaps I might say, if it was in him. Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he would findyour mother an inestimable companion. But if he had any taste forwalking, or should wish at any time to break into a trot, he mightsometimes find it a little difficult to keep step with your mother. Or take it this way, Bella, ' he added, after a moment's reflection;'Supposing that a man had to go through life, we won't say with acompanion, but we'll say to a tune. Very good. Supposing that the tuneallotted to him was the Dead March in Saul. Well. It would be a verysuitable tune for particular occasions--none better--but it wouldbe difficult to keep time with in the ordinary run of domestictransactions. For instance, if he took his supper after a hard day, tothe Dead March in Saul, his food might be likely to sit heavy on him. Or, if he was at any time inclined to relieve his mind by singing acomic song or dancing a hornpipe, and was obliged to do it to the DeadMarch in Saul, he might find himself put out in the execution of hislively intentions. '

'Poor Pa!' thought Bella, as she hung upon his arm. 

'Now, what I will say for you, my dear, ' the cherub pursued mildly andwithout a notion of complaining, 'is, that you are so adaptable. Soadaptable. '

'Indeed I am afraid I have shown a wretched temper, Pa. I am afraidI have been very complaining, and very capricious. I seldom or neverthought of it before. But when I sat in the carriage just now and sawyou coming along the pavement, I reproached myself. '

'Not at all, my dear. Don't speak of such a thing. '

A happy and a chatty man was Pa in his new clothes that day. Take itfor all in all, it was perhaps the happiest day he had ever known in hislife; not even excepting that on which his heroic partner had approachedthe nuptial altar to the tune of the Dead March in Saul. 

The little expedition down the river was delightful, and the littleroom overlooking the river into which they were shown for dinner wasdelightful. Everything was delightful. The park was delightful, thepunch was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful, the winewas delightful. Bella was more delightful than any other item in thefestival; drawing Pa out in the gayest manner; making a point of alwaysmentioning herself as the lovely woman; stimulating Pa to order things, by declaring that the lovely woman insisted on being treated with them;and in short causing Pa to be quite enraptured with the considerationthat he WAS the Pa of such a charming daughter. 

And then, as they sat looking at the ships and steamboats making theirway to the sea with the tide that was running down, the lovely womanimagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa. Now, Pa, in thecharacter of owner of a lumbering square-sailed collier, was tackingaway to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds to make his fortune with;now, Pa was going to China in that handsome threemasted ship, to bringhome opium, with which he would for ever cut out Chicksey Veneeringand Stobbles, and to bring home silks and shawls without end for thedecoration of his charming daughter. Now, John Harmon's disastrous fatewas all a dream, and he had come home and found the lovely woman justthe article for him, and the lovely woman had found him just the articlefor her, and they were going away on a trip, in their gallant bark, to look after their vines, with streamers flying at all points, a bandplaying on deck and Pa established in the great cabin. Now, John Harmonwas consigned to his grave again, and a merchant of immense wealth(name unknown) had courted and married the lovely woman, and he wasso enormously rich that everything you saw upon the river sailing orsteaming belonged to him, and he kept a perfect fleet of yachts forpleasure, and that little impudent yacht which you saw over there, withthe great white sail, was called The Bella, in honour of his wife, andshe held her state aboard when it pleased her, like a modern Cleopatra. Anon, there would embark in that troop-ship when she got to Gravesend, amighty general, of large property (name also unknown), who wouldn'thear of going to victory without his wife, and whose wife was the lovelywoman, and she was destined to become the idol of all the red coats andblue jackets alow and aloft. And then again: you saw that ship beingtowed out by a steam-tug? Well! where did you suppose she was going to?She was going among the coral reefs and cocoa-nuts and all that sort ofthing, and she was chartered for a fortunate individual of the nameof Pa (himself on board, and much respected by all hands), and shewas going, for his sole profit and advantage, to fetch a cargo ofsweet-smelling woods, the most beautiful that ever were seen, and themost profitable that ever were heard of; and her cargo would be a greatfortune, as indeed it ought to be: the lovely woman who had purchasedher and fitted her expressly for this voyage, being married to an IndianPrince, who was a Something-or-Other, and who wore Cashmere shawls allover himself and diamonds and emeralds blazing in his turban, and wasbeautifully coffee-coloured and excessively devoted, though a little toojealous. Thus Bella ran on merrily, in a manner perfectly enchanting toPa, who was as willing to put his head into the Sultan's tub of water asthe beggar-boys below the window were to put THEIR heads in the mud. 

'I suppose, my dear, ' said Pa after dinner, 'we may come to theconclusion at home, that we have lost you for good?'

Bella shook her head. Didn't know. Couldn't say. All she was able toreport was, that she was most handsomely supplied with everything shecould possibly want, and that whenever she hinted at leaving Mr and MrsBoffin, they wouldn't hear of it. 

'And now, Pa, ' pursued Bella, 'I'll make a confession to you. I am themost mercenary little wretch that ever lived in the world. '

'I should hardly have thought it of you, my dear, ' returned her father, first glancing at himself; and then at the dessert. 

'I understand what you mean, Pa, but it's not that. It's not that I carefor money to keep as money, but I do care so much for what it will buy!'

'Really I think most of us do, ' returned R. W. 

'But not to the dreadful extent that I do, Pa. O-o!' cried Bella, screwing the exclamation out of herself with a twist of her dimpledchin. 'I AM so mercenary!'

With a wistful glance R. W. Said, in default of having anything betterto say: 'About when did you begin to feel it coming on, my dear?'

'That's it, Pa. That's the terrible part of it. When I was at home, andonly knew what it was to be poor, I grumbled but didn't so much mind. When I was at home expecting to be rich, I thought vaguely of all thegreat things I would do. But when I had been disappointed of my splendidfortune, and came to see it from day to day in other hands, and to havebefore my eyes what it could really do, then I became the mercenarylittle wretch I am. '

'It's your fancy, my dear. '

'I can assure you it's nothing of the sort, Pa!' said Bella, nodding athim, with her very pretty eyebrows raised as high as they would go, andlooking comically frightened. 'It's a fact. I am always avariciouslyscheming. '

'Lor! But how?'

'I'll tell you, Pa. I don't mind telling YOU, because we have alwaysbeen favourites of each other's, and because you are not like a Pa, butmore like a sort of a younger brother with a dear venerable chubbinesson him. And besides, ' added Bella, laughing as she pointed a rallyingfinger at his face, 'because I have got you in my power. This is asecret expedition. If ever you tell of me, I'll tell of you. I'll tellMa that you dined at Greenwich. '

'Well; seriously, my dear, ' observed R. W. , with some trepidation ofmanner, 'it might be as well not to mention it. '

'Aha!' laughed Bella. 'I knew you wouldn't like it, sir! So you keep myconfidence, and I'll keep yours. But betray the lovely woman, and youshall find her a serpent. Now, you may give me a kiss, Pa, and I shouldlike to give your hair a turn, because it has been dreadfully neglectedin my absence. '

R. W. Submitted his head to the operator, and the operator went ontalking; at the same time putting separate locks of his hair througha curious process of being smartly rolled over her two revolvingforefingers, which were then suddenly pulled out of it in oppositelateral directions. On each of these occasions the patient winced andwinked. 

'I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I can'tbeg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have resolved that I must marryit. '

R. W. Cast up his eyes towards her, as well as he could under theoperating circumstances, and said in a tone of remonstrance, 'My de-arBella!'

'Have resolved, I say, Pa, that to get money I must marry money. Inconsequence of which, I am always looking out for money to captivate. '

'My de-a-r Bella!'

'Yes, Pa, that is the state of the case. If ever there was a mercenaryplotter whose thoughts and designs were always in her mean occupation, Iam the amiable creature. But I don't care. I hate and detest beingpoor, and I won't be poor if I can marry money. Now you are deliciouslyfluffy, Pa, and in a state to astonish the waiter and pay the bill. '

'But, my dear Bella, this is quite alarming at your age. '

'I told you so, Pa, but you wouldn't believe it, ' returned Bella, with apleasant childish gravity. 'Isn't it shocking?'

'It would be quite so, if you fully knew what you said, my dear, ormeant it. '

'Well, Pa, I can only tell you that I mean nothing else. Talk to me oflove!' said Bella, contemptuously: though her face and figure certainlyrendered the subject no incongruous one. 'Talk to me of fiery dragons!But talk to me of poverty and wealth, and there indeed we touch uponrealities. '

'My De-ar, this is becoming Awful--' her father was emphaticallybeginning: when she stopped him. 

'Pa, tell me. Did you marry money?'

'You know I didn't, my dear. '

Bella hummed the Dead March in Saul, and said, after all it signifiedvery little! But seeing him look grave and downcast, she took him roundthe neck and kissed him back to cheerfulness again. 

'I didn't mean that last touch, Pa; it was only said in joke. Now mind!You are not to tell of me, and I'll not tell of you. And more than that;I promise to have no secrets from you, Pa, and you may make certainthat, whatever mercenary things go on, I shall always tell you all aboutthem in strict confidence. '

Fain to be satisfied with this concession from the lovely woman, R. W. Rang the bell, and paid the bill. 'Now, all the rest of this, Pa, ' saidBella, rolling up the purse when they were alone again, hammering itsmall with her little fist on the table, and cramming it into one of thepockets of his new waistcoat, 'is for you, to buy presents with for themat home, and to pay bills with, and to divide as you like, and spendexactly as you think proper. Last of all take notice, Pa, that it'snot the fruit of any avaricious scheme. Perhaps if it was, your littlemercenary wretch of a daughter wouldn't make so free with it!'

After which, she tugged at his coat with both hands, and pulled him allaskew in buttoning that garment over the precious waistcoat pocket, andthen tied her dimples into her bonnet-strings in a very knowing way, andtook him back to London. Arrived at Mr Boffin's door, she set him withhis back against it, tenderly took him by the ears as convenient handlesfor her purpose, and kissed him until he knocked muffled double knocksat the door with the back of his head. That done, she once more remindedhim of their compact and gaily parted from him. 

Not so gaily, however, but that tears filled her eyes as he went awaydown the dark street. Not so gaily, but that she several times said, 'Ah, poor little Pa! Ah, poor dear struggling shabby little Pa!'before she took heart to knock at the door. Not so gaily, but that thebrilliant furniture seemed to stare her out of countenance as if itinsisted on being compared with the dingy furniture at home. Not sogaily, but that she fell into very low spirits sitting late in her ownroom, and very heartily wept, as she wished, now that the deceased oldJohn Harmon had never made a will about her, now that the deceased youngJohn Harmon had lived to marry her. 'Contradictory things to wish, ' saidBella, 'but my life and fortunes are so contradictory altogether thatwhat can I expect myself to be!'

Chapter 9

IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL

The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morning, wasinformed that a youth waited in the hall who gave the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this intelligence made a decent pausebefore uttering the name, to express that it was forced on hisreluctance by the youth in question, and that if the youth had hadthe good sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would havespared the feelings of him the bearer. 

'Mrs Boffin will be very well pleased, ' said the Secretary in aperfectly composed way. 'Show him in. '

Mr Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door: revealingin various parts of his form many surprising, confounding, andincomprehensible buttons. 

'I am glad to see you, ' said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful tone ofwelcome. 'I have been expecting you. '

Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that the Orphan(of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) had been ailing, and he hadwaited to report him well. 

'Then he is well now?' said the Secretary. 

'No he ain't, ' said Sloppy. 

Mr Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable extent, proceededto remark that he thought Johnny 'must have took 'em from the Minders. 'Being asked what he meant, he answered, them that come out upon him andpartickler his chest. Being requested to explain himself, he stated thatthere was some of 'em wot you couldn't kiver with a sixpence. Pressed tofall back upon a nominative case, he opined that they wos about asred as ever red could be. 'But as long as they strikes out'ards, sir, 'continued Sloppy, 'they ain't so much. It's their striking in'ardsthat's to be kep off. '

John Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical attendance? Oh yes, saidSloppy, he had been took to the doctor's shop once. And what did thedoctor call it? Rokesmith asked him. After some perplexed reflection, Sloppy answered, brightening, 'He called it something as wos werylong for spots. ' Rokesmith suggested measles. 'No, ' said Sloppy withconfidence, 'ever so much longer than THEM, sir!' (Mr Sloppy waselevated by this fact, and seemed to consider that it reflected crediton the poor little patient. )

'Mrs Boffin will be sorry to hear this, ' said Rokesmith. 

'Mrs Higden said so, sir, when she kep it from her, hoping as Our Johnnywould work round. '

'But I hope he will?' said Rokesmith, with a quick turn upon themessenger. 

'I hope so, ' answered Sloppy. 'It all depends on their strikingin'ards. ' He then went on to say that whether Johnny had 'took 'em'from the Minders, or whether the Minders had 'took em from Johnny, the Minders had been sent home and had 'got em. Furthermore, that MrsHigden's days and nights being devoted to Our Johnny, who was never outof her lap, the whole of the mangling arrangements had devolved uponhimself, and he had had 'rayther a tight time'. The ungainly piece ofhonesty beamed and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with theremembrance of having been serviceable. 

'Last night, ' said Sloppy, 'when I was a-turning at the wheel prettylate, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny's breathing. It begunbeautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got unsteady, thenas it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like and lumbered abit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I scarce know'd whichwas mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know'deither, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, "Me choking, Granny!" and Mrs Higden holds him up in her lap and says to me "Bide abit, Sloppy, " and we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets hisbreathing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together. '

Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and avacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half-repressed gushof tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part ofhis sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, androundabout smear. 

'This is unfortunate, ' said Rokesmith. 'I must go and break it to MrsBoffin. Stay you here, Sloppy. '

Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall, until the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came back together. And with MrsBoffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worthstaring at, it occurred to Sloppy, than the best of wall-papering. 

'Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon!' exclaimed Mrs Boffin. 

'Yes mum, ' said the sympathetic Sloppy. 

'You don't think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?' asked thepleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality. 

Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with hisinclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous howl, rounded off with a sniff. 

'So bad as that!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'And Betty Higden not to tell me ofit sooner!'

'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum, ' answered Sloppy, hesitating. 

'Of what, for Heaven's sake?'

'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum, ' returned Sloppy withsubmission, 'of standing in Our Johnny's light. There's so much troublein illness, and so much expense, and she's seen such a lot of its beingobjected to. '

'But she never can have thought, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'that I would grudgethe dear child anything?'

'No mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its standingin Johnny's light, and might have tried to bring him through itunbeknownst. '

Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like alower animal; to creep out of sight and coil herself away and die; hadbecome this woman's instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child whowas dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off allministration but such as her own ignorant tenderness and patience couldsupply, had become this woman's idea of maternal love, fidelity, andduty. The shameful accounts we read, every week in the Christian year, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, the infamous records ofsmall official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass byus. And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, soastonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason in them--Godsave the Queen and Confound their politics--no, than smoke has in comingfrom fire!

'It's not a right place for the poor child to stay in, ' said Mrs Boffin. 'Tell us, dear Mr Rokesmith, what to do for the best. '

He had already thought what to do, and the consultation was very short. He could pave the way, he said, in half an hour, and then they would godown to Brentford. 'Pray take me, ' said Bella. Therefore a carriage wasordered, of capacity to take them all, and in the meantime Sloppywas regaled, feasting alone in the Secretary's room, with a completerealization of that fairy vision--meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding. In consequence of which his buttons became more importunate of publicnotice than before, with the exception of two or three about the regionof the waistband, which modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement. 

Punctual to the time, appeared the carriage and the Secretary. He saton the box, and Mr Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to the Three Magpies asbefore: where Mrs Boffin and Miss Bella were handed out, and whence theyall went on foot to Mrs Betty Higden's. 

But, on the way down, they had stopped at a toy-shop, and had boughtthat noble charger, a description of whose points and trappings had onthe last occasion conciliated the then worldly-minded orphan, and also aNoah's ark, and also a yellow bird with an artificial voice in him, and also a military doll so well dressed that if he had only been oflife-size his brother-officers in the Guards might never have found himout. Bearing these gifts, they raised the latch of Betty Higden's door, and saw her sitting in the dimmest and furthest corner with poor Johnnyin her lap. 

'And how's my boy, Betty?' asked Mrs Boffin, sitting down beside her. 

'He's bad! He's bad!' said Betty. 'I begin to be afeerd he'll not beyours any more than mine. All others belonging to him have gone tothe Power and the Glory, and I have a mind that they're drawing him tothem--leading him away. '

'No, no, no, ' said Mrs Boffin. 

'I don't know why else he clenches his little hand as if it had hold ofa finger that I can't see. Look at it, ' said Betty, opening the wrappersin which the flushed child lay, and showing his small right hand lyingclosed upon his breast. 'It's always so. It don't mind me. '

'Is he asleep?'

'No, I think not. You're not asleep, my Johnny?'

'No, ' said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself; and withoutopening his eyes. 

'Here's the lady, Johnny. And the horse. '

Johnny could bear the lady, with complete indifference, but not thehorse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly broke into a smile on beholdingthat splendid phenomenon, and wanted to take it in his arms. As it wasmuch too big, it was put upon a chair where he could hold it by the maneand contemplate it. Which he soon forgot to do. 

But, Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, and Mrs Boffinnot knowing what, old Betty bent her ear to listen and took pains tounderstand. Being asked by her to repeat what he had said, he did so twoor three times, and then it came out that he must have seen more thanthey supposed when he looked up to see the horse, for the murmur was, 'Who is the boofer lady?' Now, the boofer, or beautiful, lady was Bella;and whereas this notice from the poor baby would have touched her ofitself; it was rendered more pathetic by the late melting of her heartto her poor little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So, Bella's behaviour was very tender and very natural when she kneeled onthe brick floor to clasp the child, and when the child, with a child'sadmiration of what is young and pretty, fondled the boofer lady. 

'Now, my good dear Betty, ' said Mrs Boffin, hoping that she saw heropportunity, and laying her hand persuasively on her arm; 'we have cometo remove Johnny from this cottage to where he can be taken better careof. '

Instantly, and before another word could be spoken, the old womanstarted up with blazing eyes, and rushed at the door with the sickchild. 

'Stand away from me every one of ye!' she cried out wildly. 'I see whatye mean now. Let me go my way, all of ye. I'd sooner kill the Pretty, and kill myself!'

'Stay, stay!' said Rokesmith, soothing her. 'You don't understand. '

'I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. I've run fromit too many a year. No! Never for me, nor for the child, while there'swater enough in England to cover us!'

The terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repugnance, firing theworn face and perfectly maddening it, would have been a quite terriblesight, if embodied in one old fellow-creature alone. Yet it 'cropsup'--as our slang goes--my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, inother fellow-creatures, rather frequently!

'It's been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take me nor minealive!' cried old Betty. 'I've done with ye. I'd have fastened door andwindow and starved out, afore I'd ever have let ye in, if I had knownwhat ye came for!'

But, catching sight of Mrs Boffin's wholesome face, she relented, andcrouching down by the door and bending over her burden to hush it, saidhumbly: 'Maybe my fears has put me wrong. If they have so, tell me, andthe good Lord forgive me! I'm quick to take this fright, I know, and myhead is summ'at light with wearying and watching. '

'There, there, there!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Come, come! Say no more ofit, Betty. It was a mistake, a mistake. Any one of us might have made itin your place, and felt just as you do. '

'The Lord bless ye!' said the old woman, stretching out her hand. 

'Now, see, Betty, ' pursued the sweet compassionate soul, holding thehand kindly, 'what I really did mean, and what I should have begun bysaying out, if I had only been a little wiser and handier. We want tomove Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a place setup on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and nurses passtheir lives with children, talk to none but children, touch none butchildren, comfort and cure none but children. '

'Is there really such a place?' asked the old woman, with a gaze ofwonder. 

'Yes, Betty, on my word, and you shall see it. If my home was a betterplace for the dear boy, I'd take him to it; but indeed indeed it's not. '

'You shall take him, ' returned Betty, fervently kissing the comfortinghand, 'where you will, my deary. I am not so hard, but that I believeyour face and voice, and I will, as long as I can see and hear. '

This victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, for he sawhow woefully time had been lost. He despatched Sloppy to bring thecarriage to the door; caused the child to be carefully wrapped up; badeold Betty get her bonnet on; collected the toys, enabling the littlefellow to comprehend that his treasures were to be transported withhim; and had all things prepared so easily that they were ready forthe carriage as soon as it appeared, and in a minute afterwards wereon their way. Sloppy they left behind, relieving his overcharged breastwith a paroxysm of mangling. 

At the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark, yellowbird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome as theirchild-owner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, 'This should havebeen days ago. Too late!'

However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and thereJohnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon or whatever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little platform overhis breast, on which were already arranged, to give him heart and urgehim to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble steed, and the yellow bird;with the officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as muchto the satisfaction of his country as if he had been upon Parade. And atthe bed's head was a coloured picture beautiful to see, representing asit were another Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely who lovedlittle children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at: Johnny hadbecome one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except twoplaying dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the hearth):and on all the little beds were little platforms whereon were to beseen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not verydissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the yellowbird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea things, and the riches ofthe earth. 

As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the ministeringwomen at his bed's head asked him what he said. It seemed that he wantedto know whether all these were brothers and sisters of his? So they toldhim yes. It seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had broughtthem all together there? So they told him yes again. They made out then, that he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain? So theyanswered yes to that question likewise, and made him understand that thereply included himself. 

Johnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so veryimperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in sickness theywere little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be washed and tended, and remedies were applied, and though those offices were far, far moreskilfully and lightly done than ever anything had been done for him inhis little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and tired himbut for an amazing circumstance which laid hold of his attention. Thiswas no less than the appearance on his own little platform in pairs, of All Creation, on its way into his own particular ark: the elephantleading, and the fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politelybringing up the rear. A very little brother lying in the next bed with abroken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his delight exaltedits enthralling interest; and so came rest and sleep. 

'I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty, 'whispered Mrs Boffin. 

'No, ma'am. Most willingly, most thankfully, with all my heart andsoul. '

So, they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to come backearly in the morning, and nobody but Rokesmith knew for certain how thatthe doctor had said, 'This should have been days ago. Too late!'

But, Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in mind wouldbe acceptable thereafter to that good woman who had been the only lightin the childhood of desolate John Harmon dead and gone, resolved thatlate at night he would go back to the bedside of John Harmon's namesake, and see how it fared with him. 

The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, but wereall quiet. From bed to bed, a light womanly tread and a pleasant freshface passed in the silence of the night. A little head would lift itselfup into the softened light here and there, to be kissed as the face wentby--for these little patients are very loving--and would then submititself to be composed to rest again. The mite with the broken leg wasrestless, and moaned; but after a while turned his face towards Johnny'sbed, to fortify himself with a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Overmost of the beds, the toys were yet grouped as the children had leftthem when they last laid themselves down, and, in their innocentgrotesqueness and incongruity, they might have stood for the children'sdreams. 

The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he andRokesmith stood together, looking down with compassion on him. 

'What is it, Johnny?' Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an arm roundthe poor baby as he made a struggle. 

'Him!' said the little fellow. 'Those!'

The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, from Johnny's bed, softly placed them on that of his next neighbour, the mite with thebroken leg. 

With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if hestretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body onthe sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith's face with his lips, said:

'A kiss for the boofer lady. '

Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranged his affairsin this world, Johnny, thus speaking, left it. 

Chapter 10

A SUCCESSOR

Some of the Reverend Frank Milvey's brethren had found themselvesexceedingly uncomfortable in their minds, because they were required tobury the dead too hopefully. But, the Reverend Frank, inclining to thebelief that they were required to do one or two other things (say out ofnine-and-thirty) calculated to trouble their consciences rather more ifthey would think as much about them, held his peace. 

Indeed, the Reverend Frank Milvey was a forbearing man, who noticed manysad warps and blights in the vineyard wherein he worked, and did notprofess that they made him savagely wise. He only learned that the morehe himself knew, in his little limited human way, the better he coulddistantly imagine what Omniscience might know. 

Wherefore, if the Reverend Frank had had to read the words that troubledsome of his brethren, and profitably touched innumerable hearts, ina worse case than Johnny's, he would have done so out of the pity andhumility of his soul. Reading them over Johnny, he thought of his ownsix children, but not of his poverty, and read them with dimmed eyes. And very seriously did he and his bright little wife, who had beenlistening, look down into the small grave and walk home arm-in-arm. 

There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in theBower. Mr Wegg argued, if an orphan were wanted, was he not an orphanhimself; and could a better be desired? And why go beating aboutBrentford bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claimsupon you and made no sacrifices for you, when here was an orphan readyto your hand who had given up in your cause, Miss Elizabeth, MasterGeorge, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker?

Mr Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the tidings. Nay, it wasafterwards affirmed by a witness who shall at present be nameless, that in the seclusion of the Bower he poked out his wooden leg, in thestage-ballet manner, and executed a taunting or triumphant pirouette onthe genuine leg remaining to him. 

John Rokesmith's manner towards Mrs Boffin at this time, was more themanner of a young man towards a mother, than that of a Secretary towardshis employer's wife. It had always been marked by a subdued affectionatedeference that seemed to have sprung up on the very day of hisengagement; whatever was odd in her dress or her ways had seemed to haveno oddity for him; he had sometimes borne a quietly-amused face in hercompany, but still it had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temperand radiant nature yielded him, could have been quite as naturallyexpressed in a tear as in a smile. The completeness of his sympathy withher fancy for having a little John Harmon to protect and rear, hehad shown in every act and word, and now that the kind fancy wasdisappointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect forwhich she could hardly thank him enough. 

'But I do thank you, Mr Rokesmith, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'and I thank youmost kindly. You love children. '

'I hope everybody does. '

'They ought, ' said Mrs Boffin; 'but we don't all of us do what we ought, do us?'

John Rokesmith replied, 'Some among us supply the short-comings of therest. You have loved children well, Mr Boffin has told me. '

Not a bit better than he has, but that's his way; he puts all the goodupon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr Rokesmith. '

'Do I?'

'It sounds to me so. Were you one of many children?' He shook his head. 

'An only child?'

'No there was another. Dead long ago. '

'Father or mother alive?'

'Dead. '--

'And the rest of your relations?'

'Dead--if I ever had any living. I never heard of any. '

At this point of the dialogue Bella came in with a light step. Shepaused at the door a moment, hesitating whether to remain or retire;perplexed by finding that she was not observed. 

'Now, don't mind an old lady's talk, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'but tell me. Areyou quite sure, Mr Rokesmith, that you have never had a disappointmentin love?'

'Quite sure. Why do you ask me?'

'Why, for this reason. Sometimes you have a kind of kept-down mannerwith you, which is not like your age. You can't be thirty?'

'I am not yet thirty. '

Deeming it high time to make her presence known, Bella coughed here toattract attention, begged pardon, and said she would go, fearing thatshe interrupted some matter of business. 

'No, don't go, ' rejoined Mrs Boffin, 'because we are coming to business, instead of having begun it, and you belong to it as much now, my dearBella, as I do. But I want my Noddy to consult with us. Would somebodybe so good as find my Noddy for me?'

Rokesmith departed on that errand, and presently returned accompanied byMr Boffin at his jog-trot. Bella felt a little vague trepidation as tothe subject-matter of this same consultation, until Mrs Boffin announcedit. 

'Now, you come and sit by me, my dear, ' said that worthy soul, takingher comfortable place on a large ottoman in the centre of the room, and drawing her arm through Bella's; 'and Noddy, you sit here, and MrRokesmith you sit there. Now, you see, what I want to talk about, isthis. Mr and Mrs Milvey have sent me the kindest note possible (whichMr Rokesmith just now read to me out aloud, for I ain't good athandwritings), offering to find me another little child to name andeducate and bring up. Well. This has set me thinking. '

('And she is a steam-ingein at it, ' murmured Mr Boffin, in an admiringparenthesis, 'when she once begins. It mayn't be so easy to start her;but once started, she's a ingein. ')

'--This has set me thinking, I say, ' repeated Mrs Boffin, cordiallybeaming under the influence of her husband's compliment, 'and I havethought two things. First of all, that I have grown timid of revivingJohn Harmon's name. It's an unfortunate name, and I fancy I shouldreproach myself if I gave it to another dear child, and it proved againunlucky. '

'Now, whether, ' said Mr Boffin, gravely propounding a case for hisSecretary's opinion; 'whether one might call that a superstition?'

'It is a matter of feeling with Mrs Boffin, ' said Rokesmith, gently. 'The name has always been unfortunate. It has now this new unfortunateassociation connected with it. The name has died out. Why revive it?Might I ask Miss Wilfer what she thinks?'

'It has not been a fortunate name for me, ' said Bella, colouring--'orat least it was not, until it led to my being here--but that is not thepoint in my thoughts. As we had given the name to the poor child, and asthe poor child took so lovingly to me, I think I should feel jealous ofcalling another child by it. I think I should feel as if the name hadbecome endeared to me, and I had no right to use it so. '

'And that's your opinion?' remarked Mr Boffin, observant of theSecretary's face and again addressing him. 

'I say again, it is a matter of feeling, ' returned the Secretary. 'Ithink Miss Wilfer's feeling very womanly and pretty. '

'Now, give us your opinion, Noddy, ' said Mrs Boffin. 

'My opinion, old lady, ' returned the Golden Dustman, 'is your opinion. '

'Then, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's name, butto let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr Rokesmith says, a matter offeeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling! Well; and soI come to the second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that when I first named to my husband mythoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further named to my husband that it was comforting to think that howthe poor boy would be benefited by John's own money, and protected fromJohn's own forlornness. '

'Hear, hear!' cried Mr Boffin. 'So she did. Ancoar!'

'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear, ' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I amgoing to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as I much asI still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself thequestion, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite tomy liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and putmy tastes and likings by?'

'Perhaps, ' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some littlesensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers towardsthe murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not haveliked to give it to a less interesting child than the original. Heinterested you very much. '

'Well, my dear, ' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's kindof you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been so, andindeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am afraid not tothe whole extent. However, that don't come in question now, because wehave done with the name. '

'Laid it up as a remembrance, ' suggested Bella, musingly. 

'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well then; Ihave been thinking if I take any orphan to provide for, let it not bea pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for its ownsake. '

'Not pretty then?' said Bella. 

'No, ' returned Mrs Boffin, stoutly. 

'Nor prepossessing then?' said Bella. 

'No, ' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Not necessarily so. That's as it may happen. A well-disposed boy comes in my way who may be even a little wanting insuch advantages for getting on in life, but is honest and industriousand requires a helping hand and deserves it. If I am very much inearnest and quite determined to be unselfish, let me take care of HIM. '

Here the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the former occasion, appeared, and crossing to Rokesmith apologetically announced theobjectionable Sloppy. 

The four members of Council looked at one another, and paused. 'Shall hebe brought here, ma'am?' asked Rokesmith. 

'Yes, ' said Mrs Boffin. Whereupon the footman disappeared, reappearedpresenting Sloppy, and retired much disgusted. 

The consideration of Mrs Boffin had clothed Mr Sloppy in a suit ofblack, on which the tailor had received personal directions fromRokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art, with a view to theconcealment of the cohering and sustaining buttons. But, so muchmore powerful were the frailties of Sloppy's form than the strongestresources of tailoring science, that he now stood before the Council, a perfect Argus in the way of buttons: shining and winking and gleamingand twinkling out of a hundred of those eyes of bright metal, at thedazzled spectators. The artistic taste of some unknown hatter hadfurnished him with a hatband of wholesale capacity which was flutedbehind, from the crown of his hat to the brim, and terminated in a blackbunch, from which the imagination shrunk discomfited and the reasonrevolted. Some special powers with which his legs were endowed, hadalready hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles, and bagged them atthe knees; while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coat-sleevesfrom his wrists and accumulated them at his elbows. Thus set forth, withthe additional embellishments of a very little tail to his coat, and ayawning gulf at his waistband, Sloppy stood confessed. 

'And how is Betty, my good fellow?' Mrs Boffin asked him. 

'Thankee, mum, ' said Sloppy, 'she do pretty nicely, and sending herdooty and many thanks for the tea and all faviours and wishing to knowthe family's healths. '

'Have you just come, Sloppy?'

'Yes, mum. '

'Then you have not had your dinner yet?'

'No, mum. But I mean to it. For I ain't forgotten your handsome ordersthat I was never to go away without having had a good 'un off of meatand beer and pudding--no: there was four of 'em, for I reckoned 'emup when I had 'em; meat one, beer two, vegetables three, and which wasfour?--Why, pudding, HE was four!' Here Sloppy threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and laughed rapturously. 

'How are the two poor little Minders?' asked Mrs Boffin. 

'Striking right out, mum, and coming round beautiful. '

Mrs Boffin looked on the other three members of Council, and then said, beckoning with her finger:

'Sloppy. '

'Yes, mum. '

'Come forward, Sloppy. Should you like to dine here every day?'

'Off of all four on 'em, mum? O mum!' Sloppy's feelings obliged him tosqueeze his hat, and contract one leg at the knee. 

'Yes. And should you like to be always taken care of here, if you wereindustrious and deserving?'

'Oh, mum!--But there's Mrs Higden, ' said Sloppy, checking himself in hisraptures, drawing back, and shaking his head with very serious meaning. 'There's Mrs Higden. Mrs Higden goes before all. None can ever be betterfriends to me than Mrs Higden's been. And she must be turned for, mustMrs Higden. Where would Mrs Higden be if she warn't turned for!' At themere thought of Mrs Higden in this inconceivable affliction, Mr Sloppy'scountenance became pale, and manifested the most distressful emotions. 

'You are as right as right can be, Sloppy, ' said Mrs Boffin 'and far beit from me to tell you otherwise. It shall be seen to. If Betty Higdencan be turned for all the same, you shall come here and be taken care offor life, and be made able to keep her in other ways than the turning. '

'Even as to that, mum, ' answered the ecstatic Sloppy, 'the turning mightbe done in the night, don't you see? I could be here in the day, andturn in the night. I don't want no sleep, I don't. Or even if I any waysshould want a wink or two, ' added Sloppy, after a moment's apologeticreflection, 'I could take 'em turning. I've took 'em turning many atime, and enjoyed 'em wonderful!'

On the grateful impulse of the moment, Mr Sloppy kissed Mrs Boffin'shand, and then detaching himself from that good creature that he mighthave room enough for his feelings, threw back his head, opened his mouthwide, and uttered a dismal howl. It was creditable to his tenderness ofheart, but suggested that he might on occasion give some offence to theneighbours: the rather, as the footman looked in, and begged pardon, finding he was not wanted, but excused himself; on the ground 'that hethought it was Cats. '

Chapter 11

SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

Little Miss Peecher, from her little official dwelling-house, with itslittle windows like the eyes in needles, and its little doors like thecovers of school-books, was very observant indeed of the object of herquiet affections. Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, isa vigilant watchman, and Miss Peecher kept him on double duty over MrBradley Headstone. It was not that she was naturally given to playingthe spy--it was not that she was at all secret, plotting, or mean--itwas simply that she loved the irresponsive Bradley with all theprimitive and homely stock of love that had never been examined orcertificated out of her. If her faithful slate had had the latentqualities of sympathetic paper, and its pencil those of invisible ink, many a little treatise calculated to astonish the pupils would have comebursting through the dry sums in school-time under the warming influenceof Miss Peecher's bosom. For, oftentimes when school was not, and hercalm leisure and calm little house were her own, Miss Peecher wouldcommit to the confidential slate an imaginary description of how, upona balmy evening at dusk, two figures might have been observed in themarket-garden ground round the corner, of whom one, being a manly form, bent over the other, being a womanly form of short stature and somecompactness, and breathed in a low voice the words, 'Emma Peecher, wiltthou be my own?' after which the womanly form's head reposed upon themanly form's shoulder, and the nightingales tuned up. Though all unseen, and unsuspected by the pupils, Bradley Headstone even pervaded theschool exercises. Was Geography in question? He would come triumphantlyflying out of Vesuvius and Aetna ahead of the lava, and would boilunharmed in the hot springs of Iceland, and would float majesticallydown the Ganges and the Nile. Did History chronicle a king of men?Behold him in pepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his watch-guard roundhis neck. Were copies to be written? In capital B's and H's most of thegirls under Miss Peecher's tuition were half a year ahead of every otherletter in the alphabet. And Mental Arithmetic, administered by MissPeecher, often devoted itself to providing Bradley Headstone with awardrobe of fabulous extent: fourscore and four neck-ties at two andninepence-halfpenny, two gross of silver watches at four pounds fifteenand sixpence, seventy-four black hats at eighteen shillings; and manysimilar superfluities. 

The vigilant watchman, using his daily opportunities of turning his eyesin Bradley's direction, soon apprized Miss Peecher that Bradley was morepreoccupied than had been his wont, and more given to strolling aboutwith a downcast and reserved face, turning something difficult in hismind that was not in the scholastic syllabus. Putting this and thattogether--combining under the head 'this, ' present appearances and theintimacy with Charley Hexam, and ranging under the head 'that' thevisit to his sister, the watchman reported to Miss Peecher his strongsuspicions that the sister was at the bottom of it. 

'I wonder, ' said Miss Peecher, as she sat making up her weekly report ona half-holiday afternoon, 'what they call Hexam's sister?'

Mary Anne, at her needlework, attendant and attentive, held her arm up. 

'Well, Mary Anne?'

'She is named Lizzie, ma'am. '

'She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne, ' returned MissPeecher, in a tunefully instructive voice. 'Is Lizzie a Christian name, Mary Anne?'

Mary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind, as beingunder catechization, and replied: 'No, it is a corruption, MissPeecher. '

'Who gave her that name?' Miss Peecher was going on, from the mere forceof habit, when she checked herself; on Mary Anne's evincing theologicalimpatience to strike in with her godfathers and her godmothers, andsaid: 'I mean of what name is it a corruption?'

'Elizabeth, or Eliza, Miss Peecher. '

'Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in the early ChristianChurch must be considered very doubtful, very doubtful. ' Miss Peecherwas exceedingly sage here. 'Speaking correctly, we say, then, thatHexam's sister is called Lizzie; not that she is named so. Do we not, Mary Anne?'

'We do, Miss Peecher. '

'And where, ' pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her little transparentfiction of conducting the examination in a semiofficial manner for MaryAnne's benefit, not her own, 'where does this young woman, who is calledbut not named Lizzie, live? Think, now, before answering. '

'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ma'am. '

'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ' repeated Miss Peecher, as if possessed beforehand of the book in which it was written. Exactlyso. And what occupation does this young woman pursue, Mary Anne? Taketime. '

'She has a place of trust at an outfitter's in the City, ma'am. '

'Oh!' said Miss Peecher, pondering on it; but smoothly added, in aconfirmatory tone, 'At an outfitter's in the City. Ye-es?'

'And Charley--' Mary Anne was proceeding, when Miss Peecher stared. 

'I mean Hexam, Miss Peecher. '

'I should think you did, Mary Anne. I am glad to hear you do. AndHexam--'

'Says, ' Mary Anne went on, 'that he is not pleased with his sister, andthat his sister won't be guided by his advice, and persists in beingguided by somebody else's; and that--'

'Mr Headstone coming across the garden!' exclaimed Miss Peecher, with aflushed glance at the looking-glass. 'You have answered very well, MaryAnne. You are forming an excellent habit of arranging your thoughtsclearly. That will do. '

The discreet Mary Anne resumed her seat and her silence, and stitched, and stitched, and was stitching when the schoolmaster's shadow came inbefore him, announcing that he might be instantly expected. 

'Good evening, Miss Peecher, ' he said, pursuing the shadow, and takingits place. 

'Good evening, Mr Headstone. Mary Anne, a chair. '

'Thank you, ' said Bradley, seating himself in his constrained manner. 'This is but a flying visit. I have looked in, on my way, to ask akindness of you as a neighbour. '

'Did you say on your way, Mr Headstone?' asked Miss Peecher. 

'On my way to--where I am going. '

'Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ' repeated Miss Peecher, inher own thoughts. 

'Charley Hexam has gone to get a book or two he wants, and will probablybe back before me. As we leave my house empty, I took the liberty oftelling him I would leave the key here. Would you kindly allow me to doso?'

'Certainly, Mr Headstone. Going for an evening walk, sir?'

'Partly for a walk, and partly for--on business. '

'Business in Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ' repeated MissPeecher to herself. 

'Having said which, ' pursued Bradley, laying his door-key on the table, 'I must be already going. There is nothing I can do for you, MissPeecher?'

'Thank you, Mr Headstone. In which direction?'

'In the direction of Westminster. '

'Mill Bank, ' Miss Peecher repeated in her own thoughts once again. 'No, thank you, Mr Headstone; I'll not trouble you. '

'You couldn't trouble me, ' said the schoolmaster. 

'Ah!' returned Miss Peecher, though not aloud; 'but you can troubleME!' And for all her quiet manner, and her quiet smile, she was full oftrouble as he went his way. 

She was right touching his destination. He held as straight a coursefor the house of the dolls' dressmaker as the wisdom of his ancestors, exemplified in the construction of the intervening streets, would lethim, and walked with a bent head hammering at one fixed idea. It hadbeen an immoveable idea since he first set eyes upon her. It seemed tohim as if all that he could suppress in himself he had suppressed, asif all that he could restrain in himself he had restrained, and the timehad come--in a rush, in a moment--when the power of self-command haddeparted from him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quitesufficiently discussed; enough that in certain smouldering natures likethis man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as firedoes in a rage of wind, when other passions, but for its mastery, couldbe held in chains. As a multitude of weak, imitative natures arealways lying by, ready to go mad upon the next wrong idea that may bebroached--in these times, generally some form of tribute to Somebodyfor something that never was done, or, if ever done, that was done bySomebody Else--so these less ordinary natures may lie by for years, ready on the touch of an instant to burst into flame. 

The schoolmaster went his way, brooding and brooding, and a sense ofbeing vanquished in a struggle might have been pieced out of his worriedface. Truly, in his breast there lingered a resentful shame to findhimself defeated by this passion for Charley Hexam's sister, though inthe very self-same moments he was concentrating himself upon the objectof bringing the passion to a successful issue. 

He appeared before the dolls' dressmaker, sitting alone at her work. 'Oho!' thought that sharp young personage, 'it's you, is it? I know yourtricks and your manners, my friend!'

'Hexam's sister, ' said Bradley Headstone, 'is not come home yet?'

'You are quite a conjuror, ' returned Miss Wren. 

'I will wait, if you please, for I want to speak to her. '

'Do you?' returned Miss Wren. 'Sit down. I hope it's mutual. ' Bradleyglanced distrustfully at the shrewd face again bending over the work, and said, trying to conquer doubt and hesitation:

'I hope you don't imply that my visit will be unacceptable to Hexam'ssister?'

'There! Don't call her that. I can't bear you to call her that, 'returned Miss Wren, snapping her fingers in a volley of impatient snaps, 'for I don't like Hexam. '

'Indeed?'

'No. ' Miss Wren wrinkled her nose, to express dislike. 'Selfish. Thinksonly of himself. The way with all of you. '

'The way with all of us? Then you don't like ME?'

'So-so, ' replied Miss Wren, with a shrug and a laugh. 'Don't know muchabout you. '

'But I was not aware it was the way with all of us, ' said Bradley, returning to the accusation, a little injured. 'Won't you say, some ofus?'

'Meaning, ' returned the little creature, 'every one of you, but you. Hah! Now look this lady in the face. This is Mrs Truth. The Honourable. Full-dressed. '

Bradley glanced at the doll she held up for his observation--which hadbeen lying on its face on her bench, while with a needle and thread shefastened the dress on at the back--and looked from it to her. 

'I stand the Honourable Mrs T. On my bench in this corner against thewall, where her blue eyes can shine upon you, ' pursued Miss Wren, doingso, and making two little dabs at him in the air with her needle, asif she pricked him with it in his own eyes; 'and I defy you to tell me, with Mrs T. For a witness, what you have come here for. '

'To see Hexam's sister. '

'You don't say so!' retorted Miss Wren, hitching her chin. 'But on whoseaccount?'

'Her own. '

'O Mrs T. !' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'You hear him!'

'To reason with her, ' pursued Bradley, half humouring what was present, and half angry with what was not present; 'for her own sake. '

'Oh Mrs T. !' exclaimed the dressmaker. 

'For her own sake, ' repeated Bradley, warming, 'and for her brother's, and as a perfectly disinterested person. '

'Really, Mrs T. , ' remarked the dressmaker, 'since it comes to this, wemust positively turn you with your face to the wall. ' She had hardlydone so, when Lizzie Hexam arrived, and showed some surprise on seeingBradley Headstone there, and Jenny shaking her little fist at him closebefore her eyes, and the Honourable Mrs T. With her face to the wall. 

'Here's a perfectly disinterested person, Lizzie dear, ' said the knowingMiss Wren, 'come to talk with you, for your own sake and your brother's. Think of that. I am sure there ought to be no third party present atanything so very kind and so very serious; and so, if you'll remove thethird party upstairs, my dear, the third party will retire. '

Lizzie took the hand which the dolls' dressmaker held out to her forthe purpose of being supported away, but only looked at her with aninquiring smile, and made no other movement. 

'The third party hobbles awfully, you know, when she's left to herself;'said Miss Wren, 'her back being so bad, and her legs so queer; so shecan't retire gracefully unless you help her, Lizzie. '

'She can do no better than stay where she is, ' returned Lizzie, releasing the hand, and laying her own lightly on Miss Jenny's curls. And then to Bradley: 'From Charley, sir?'

In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley rose toplace a chair for her, and then returned to his own. 

'Strictly speaking, ' said he, 'I come from Charley, because I left himonly a little while ago; but I am not commissioned by Charley. I come ofmy own spontaneous act. '

With her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her hands, Miss JennyWren sat looking at him with a watchful sidelong look. Lizzie, in herdifferent way, sat looking at him too. 

'The fact is, ' began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that he had somedifficulty in articulating his words: the consciousness of whichrendered his manner still more ungainly and undecided; 'the truth is, that Charley, having no secrets from me (to the best of my belief), hasconfided the whole of this matter to me. '

He came to a stop, and Lizzie asked: 'what matter, sir?'

'I thought, ' returned the schoolmaster, stealing another look at her, and seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for the look dropped as itlighted on her eyes, 'that it might be so superfluous as to be almostimpertinent, to enter upon a definition of it. My allusion was to thismatter of your having put aside your brother's plans for you, andgiven the preference to those of Mr--I believe the name is Mr EugeneWrayburn. '

He made this point of not being certain of the name, with another uneasylook at her, which dropped like the last. 

Nothing being said on the other side, he had to begin again, and beganwith new embarrassment. 

'Your brother's plans were communicated to me when he first had them inhis thoughts. In point of fact he spoke to me about them when I waslast here--when we were walking back together, and when I--when theimpression was fresh upon me of having seen his sister. '

There might have been no meaning in it, but the little dressmaker hereremoved one of her supporting hands from her chin, and musingly turnedthe Honourable Mrs T. With her face to the company. That done, she fellinto her former attitude. 

'I approved of his idea, ' said Bradley, with his uneasy look wanderingto the doll, and unconsciously resting there longer than it hadrested on Lizzie, 'both because your brother ought naturally to be theoriginator of any such scheme, and because I hoped to be able to promoteit. I should have had inexpressible pleasure, I should have takeninexpressible interest, in promoting it. Therefore I must acknowledgethat when your brother was disappointed, I too was disappointed. I wishto avoid reservation or concealment, and I fully acknowledge that. '

He appeared to have encouraged himself by having got so far. At allevents he went on with much greater firmness and force of emphasis:though with a curious disposition to set his teeth, and with a curioustight-screwing movement of his right hand in the clenching palm of hisleft, like the action of one who was being physically hurt, and wasunwilling to cry out. 

'I am a man of strong feelings, and I have strongly felt thisdisappointment. I do strongly feel it. I don't show what I feel; someof us are obliged habitually to keep it down. To keep it down. But toreturn to your brother. He has taken the matter so much to heart thathe has remonstrated (in my presence he remonstrated) with Mr EugeneWrayburn, if that be the name. He did so, quite ineffectually. As anyone not blinded to the real character of Mr--Mr Eugene Wrayburn--wouldreadily suppose. '

He looked at Lizzie again, and held the look. And his face turned fromburning red to white, and from white back to burning red, and so for thetime to lasting deadly white. 

'Finally, I resolved to come here alone, and appeal to you. I resolvedto come here alone, and entreat you to retract the course you havechosen, and instead of confiding in a mere stranger--a person of mostinsolent behaviour to your brother and others--to prefer your brotherand your brother's friend. '

Lizzie Hexam had changed colour when those changes came over him, andher face now expressed some anger, more dislike, and even a touch offear. But she answered him very steadily. 

'I cannot doubt, Mr Headstone, that your visit is well meant. You havebeen so good a friend to Charley that I have no right to doubt it. Ihave nothing to tell Charley, but that I accepted the help to which heso much objects before he made any plans for me; or certainly before Iknew of any. It was considerately and delicately offered, and there werereasons that had weight with me which should be as dear to Charley as tome. I have no more to say to Charley on this subject. '

His lips trembled and stood apart, as he followed this repudiation ofhimself; and limitation of her words to her brother. 

'I should have told Charley, if he had come to me, ' she resumed, asthough it were an after-thought, 'that Jenny and I find our teacher veryable and very patient, and that she takes great pains with us. So muchso, that we have said to her we hope in a very little while to be ableto go on by ourselves. Charley knows about teachers, and I should alsohave told him, for his satisfaction, that ours comes from an institutionwhere teachers are regularly brought up. '

'I should like to ask you, ' said Bradley Headstone, grinding his wordsslowly out, as though they came from a rusty mill; 'I should like toask you, if I may without offence, whether you would have objected--no;rather, I should like to say, if I may without offence, that I wish Ihad had the opportunity of coming here with your brother and devoting mypoor abilities and experience to your service. '

'Thank you, Mr Headstone. '

'But I fear, ' he pursued, after a pause, furtively wrenching at the seatof his chair with one hand, as if he would have wrenched the chair topieces, and gloomily observing her while her eyes were cast down, 'thatmy humble services would not have found much favour with you?'

She made no reply, and the poor stricken wretch sat contending withhimself in a heat of passion and torment. After a while he took out hishandkerchief and wiped his forehead and hands. 

'There is only one thing more I had to say, but it is the mostimportant. There is a reason against this matter, there is a personalrelation concerned in this matter, not yet explained to you. It might--Idon't say it would--it might--induce you to think differently. Toproceed under the present circumstances is out of the question. Will youplease come to the understanding that there shall be another interviewon the subject?'

'With Charley, Mr Headstone?'

'With--well, ' he answered, breaking off, 'yes! Say with him too. Will you please come to the understanding that there must be anotherinterview under more favourable circumstances, before the whole case canbe submitted?'

'I don't, ' said Lizzie, shaking her head, 'understand your meaning, MrHeadstone. '

'Limit my meaning for the present, ' he interrupted, 'to the whole casebeing submitted to you in another interview. '

'What case, Mr Headstone? What is wanting to it?'

'You--you shall be informed in the other interview. ' Then he said, asif in a burst of irrepressible despair, 'I--I leave it all incomplete!There is a spell upon me, I think!' And then added, almost as if heasked for pity, 'Good-night!'

He held out his hand. As she, with manifest hesitation, not to sayreluctance, touched it, a strange tremble passed over him, and his face, so deadly white, was moved as by a stroke of pain. Then he was gone. 

The dolls' dressmaker sat with her attitude unchanged, eyeing the doorby which he had departed, until Lizzie pushed her bench aside and satdown near her. Then, eyeing Lizzie as she had previously eyed Bradleyand the door, Miss Wren chopped that very sudden and keen chop in whichher jaws sometimes indulged, leaned back in her chair with folded arms, and thus expressed herself:

'Humph! If he--I mean, of course, my dear, the party who is coming tocourt me when the time comes--should be THAT sort of man, he may sparehimself the trouble. HE wouldn't do to be trotted about and made useful. He'd take fire and blow up while he was about it. 

'And so you would be rid of him, ' said Lizzie, humouring her. 

'Not so easily, ' returned Miss Wren. 'He wouldn't blow up alone. He'dcarry me up with him. I know his tricks and his manners. '

'Would he want to hurt you, do you mean?' asked Lizzie. 

'Mightn't exactly want to do it, my dear, ' returned Miss Wren; 'but alot of gunpowder among lighted lucifer-matches in the next room mightalmost as well be here. '

'He is a very strange man, ' said Lizzie, thoughtfully. 

'I wish he was so very strange a man as to be a total stranger, 'answered the sharp little thing. 

It being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an eveningto brush out and smooth the long fair hair of the dolls' dressmaker, sheunfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was ather work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders thatwere much in need of such adorning rain. 'Not now, Lizzie, dear, ' saidJenny; 'let us have a talk by the fire. ' With those words, she in herturn loosened her friend's dark hair, and it dropped of its own weightover her bosom, in two rich masses. Pretending to compare the coloursand admire the contrast, Jenny so managed a mere touch or two of hernimble hands, as that she herself laying a cheek on one of the darkfolds, seemed blinded by her own clustering curls to all but the fire, while the fine handsome face and brow of Lizzie were revealed withoutobstruction in the sombre light. 

'Let us have a talk, ' said Jenny, 'about Mr Eugene Wrayburn. '

Something sparkled down among the fair hair resting on the dark hair;and if it were not a star--which it couldn't be--it was an eye; andif it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren's eye, bright and watchful as thebird's whose name she had taken. 

'Why about Mr Wrayburn?' Lizzie asked. 

'For no better reason than because I'm in the humour. I wonder whetherhe's rich!'

'No, not rich. '

'Poor?'

'I think so, for a gentleman. '

'Ah! To be sure! Yes, he's a gentleman. Not of our sort; is he?' A shakeof the head, a thoughtful shake of the head, and the answer, softlyspoken, 'Oh no, oh no!'

The dolls' dressmaker had an arm round her friend's waist. Adjusting thearm, she slyly took the opportunity of blowing at her own hair whereit fell over her face; then the eye down there, under lighter shadowssparkled more brightly and appeared more watchful. 

'When He turns up, he shan't be a gentleman; I'll very soon send himpacking, if he is. However, he's not Mr Wrayburn; I haven't captivatedHIM. I wonder whether anybody has, Lizzie!'

'It is very likely. '

'Is it very likely? I wonder who!'

'Is it not very likely that some lady has been taken by him, and that hemay love her dearly?'

'Perhaps. I don't know. What would you think of him, Lizzie, if you werea lady?'

'I a lady!' she repeated, laughing. 'Such a fancy!'

'Yes. But say: just as a fancy, and for instance. '

'I a lady! I, a poor girl who used to row poor father on the river. I, who had rowed poor father out and home on the very night when I saw himfor the first time. I, who was made so timid by his looking at me, thatI got up and went out!'

('He did look at you, even that night, though you were not a lady!'thought Miss Wren. )

'I a lady!' Lizzie went on in a low voice, with her eyes upon the fire. 'I, with poor father's grave not even cleared of undeserved stain andshame, and he trying to clear it for me! I a lady!'

'Only as a fancy, and for instance, ' urged Miss Wren. 

'Too much, Jenny, dear, too much! My fancy is not able to get that far. 'As the low fire gleamed upon her, it showed her smiling, mournfully andabstractedly. 

'But I am in the humour, and I must be humoured, Lizzie, because afterall I am a poor little thing, and have had a hard day with my bad child. Look in the fire, as I like to hear you tell how you used to do when youlived in that dreary old house that had once been a windmill. Look inthe--what was its name when you told fortunes with your brother that IDON'T like?'

'The hollow down by the flare?'

'Ah! That's the name! You can find a lady there, I know. '

'More easily than I can make one of such material as myself, Jenny. '

The sparkling eye looked steadfastly up, as the musing face lookedthoughtfully down. 'Well?' said the dolls' dressmaker, 'We have foundour lady?'

Lizzie nodded, and asked, 'Shall she be rich?'

'She had better be, as he's poor. '

'She is very rich. Shall she be handsome?'

'Even you can be that, Lizzie, so she ought to be. '

'She is very handsome. '

'What does she say about him?' asked Miss Jenny, in a low voice:watchful, through an intervening silence, of the face looking down atthe fire. 

'She is glad, glad, to be rich, that he may have the money. She is glad, glad, to be beautiful, that he may be proud of her. Her poor heart--'

'Eh? Her poor hear?' said Miss Wren. 

'Her heart--is given him, with all its love and truth. She wouldjoyfully die with him, or, better than that, die for him. She knows hehas failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being likeone cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, andthink well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that I cannever come near, "Only put me in that empty place, only try how littleI mind myself, only prove what a world of things I will do and bear foryou, and I hope that you might even come to be much better than you are, through me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of besideyou. "'

As the face looking at the fire had become exalted and forgetful in therapture of these words, the little creature, openly clearing awayher fair hair with her disengaged hand, had gazed at it with earnestattention and something like alarm. Now that the speaker ceased, thelittle creature laid down her head again, and moaned, 'O me, O me, Ome!'

'In pain, dear Jenny?' asked Lizzie, as if awakened. 

'Yes, but not the old pain. Lay me down, lay me down. Don't go out ofmy sight to-night. Lock the door and keep close to me. Then turning awayher face, she said in a whisper to herself, 'My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie!O my blessed children, come back in the long bright slanting rows, andcome for her, not me. She wants help more than I, my blessed children!'

She had stretched her hands up with that higher and better look, andnow she turned again, and folded them round Lizzie's neck, and rockedherself on Lizzie's breast. 

Chapter 12

MORE BIRDS OF PREY

Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, among theriggers, and the mast, oar and block makers, and the boat-builders, andthe sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored full of watersidecharacters, some no better than himself, some very much better, andnone much worse. The Hole, albeit in a general way not over nice inits choice of company, was rather shy in reference to the honour ofcultivating the Rogue's acquaintance; more frequently giving him thecold shoulder than the warm hand, and seldom or never drinking with himunless at his own expense. A part of the Hole, indeed, contained somuch public spirit and private virtue that not even this strong leveragecould move it to good fellowship with a tainted accuser. But, there mayhave been the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponentsheld a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly andaccursed character to a false one. 

Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr Riderhoodmight have found the Hole a mere grave as to any means it would yieldhim of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some littleposition and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of smallscales, she was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was popularlycalled a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on insignificantarticles of property deposited with her as security. In herfour-and-twentieth year of life, Pleasant was already in her fifth yearof this way of trade. Her deceased mother had established the business, and on that parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital offifteen shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence ofsuch capital in a pillow being the last intelligible confidentialcommunication made to her by the departed, before succumbing todropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally withcoherence and existence. 

Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might possibly havebeen at some time able to explain, and possibly not. Her daughter had noinformation on that point. Pleasant she found herself, and she couldn'thelp it. She had not been consulted on the question, any more than onthe question of her coming into these terrestrial parts, to want a name. Similarly, she found herself possessed of what is colloquially termeda swivel eye (derived from her father), which she might perhaps havedeclined if her sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was nototherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddycomplexion, and looking as old again as she really was. 

As some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry certaincreatures to a certain point, so--not to make the comparisondisrespectfully--Pleasant Riderhood had it in the blood, or had beentrained, to regard seamen, within certain limits, as her prey. Showher a man in a blue jacket, and, figuratively speaking, she pinned himinstantly. Yet, all things considered, she was not of an evil mind or anunkindly disposition. For, observe how many things were to be consideredaccording to her own unfortunate experience. Show Pleasant Riderhood aWedding in the street, and she only saw two people taking out a regularlicence to quarrel and fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw alittle heathen personage having a quite superfluous name bestowed uponit, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by some abusive epithet:which little personage was not in the least wanted by anybody, and wouldbe shoved and banged out of everybody's way, until it should growbig enough to shove and bang. Show her a Funeral, and she saw anunremunerative ceremony in the nature of a black masquerade, conferringa temporary gentility on the performers, at an immense expense, andrepresenting the only formal party ever given by the deceased. Show hera live father, and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who fromher infancy had been taken with fits and starts of discharging his dutyto her, which duty was always incorporated in the form of a fist or aleathern strap, and being discharged hurt her. All things considered, therefore, Pleasant Riderhood was not so very, very bad. There was evena touch of romance in her--of such romance as could creep into LimehouseHole--and maybe sometimes of a summer evening, when she stood withfolded arms at her shop-door, looking from the reeking street to thesky where the sun was setting, she may have had some vaporous visionsof far-off islands in the southern seas or elsewhere (not beinggeographically particular), where it would be good to roam with acongenial partner among groves of bread-fruit, waiting for ships to bewafted from the hollow ports of civilization. For, sailors to be got thebetter of, were essential to Miss Pleasant's Eden. 

Not on a summer evening did she come to her little shop-door, when acertain man standing over against the house on the opposite side ofthe street took notice of her. That was on a cold shrewd windy evening, after dark. Pleasant Riderhood shared with most of the lady inhabitantsof the Hole, the peculiarity that her hair was a ragged knot, constantlycoming down behind, and that she never could enter upon any undertakingwithout first twisting it into place. At that particular moment, beingnewly come to the threshold to take a look out of doors, she was windingherself up with both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent was thefashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other disturbance in theHole, the ladies would be seen flocking from all quarters universallytwisting their back-hair as they came along, and many of them, in thehurry of the moment, carrying their back-combs in their mouths. 

It was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man standing in itcould touch with his hand; little better than a cellar or cave, downthree steps. Yet in its ill-lighted window, among a flaring handkerchiefor two, an old peacoat or so, a few valueless watches and compasses, ajar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a bottle of walnut ketchup, andsome horrible sweets these creature discomforts serving as a blind tothe main business of the Leaving Shop--was displayed the inscriptionSEAMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE. 

Taking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man crossed soquickly that she was still winding herself up, when he stood closebefore her. 

'Is your father at home?' said he. 

'I think he is, ' returned Pleasant, dropping her arms; 'come in. '

It was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appearance. Herfather was not at home, and Pleasant knew it. 'Take a seat by the fire, 'were her hospitable words when she had got him in; 'men of your callingare always welcome here. '

'Thankee, ' said the man. 

His manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were the hands ofa sailor, except that they were smooth. Pleasant had an eye for sailors, and she noticed the unused colour and texture of the hands, sunburntthough they were, as sharply as she noticed their unmistakable loosenessand suppleness, as he sat himself down with his left arm carelesslythrown across his left leg a little above the knee, and the right armas carelessly thrown over the elbow of the wooden chair, with the handcurved, half open and half shut, as if it had just let go a rope. 

'Might you be looking for a Boarding-House?' Pleasant inquired, takingher observant stand on one side of the fire. 

'I don't rightly know my plans yet, ' returned the man. 

'You ain't looking for a Leaving Shop?'

'No, ' said the man. 

'No, ' assented Pleasant, 'you've got too much of an outfit on you forthat. But if you should want either, this is both. '

'Ay, ay!' said the man, glancing round the place. 'I know. I've beenhere before. '

'Did you Leave anything when you were here before?' asked Pleasant, witha view to principal and interest. 

'No. ' The man shook his head. 

'I am pretty sure you never boarded here?'

'No. ' The man again shook his head. 

'What DID you do here when you were here before?' asked Pleasant. 'For Idon't remember you. '

'It's not at all likely you should. I only stood at the door, onenight--on the lower step there--while a shipmate of mine looked in tospeak to your father. I remember the place well. ' Looking very curiouslyround it. 

'Might that have been long ago?'

'Ay, a goodish bit ago. When I came off my last voyage. '

'Then you have not been to sea lately?'

'No. Been in the sick bay since then, and been employed ashore. '

'Then, to be sure, that accounts for your hands. '

The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of manner, caughther up. 'You're a good observer. Yes. That accounts for my hands. '

Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned itsuspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, though very sudden, quite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed, had acertain suppressed confidence and sense of power in it that were halfthreatening. 

'Will your father be long?' he inquired. 

'I don't know. I can't say. '

'As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just goneout? How's that?'

'I supposed he had come home, ' Pleasant explained. 

'Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some time out?How's that?'

'I don't want to deceive you. Father's on the river in his boat. '

'At the old work?' asked the man. 

'I don't know what you mean, ' said Pleasant, shrinking a step back. 'What on earth d'ye want?'

'I don't want to hurt your father. I don't want to say I might, if Ichose. I want to speak to him. Not much in that, is there? There shallbe no secrets from you; you shall be by. And plainly, Miss Riderhood, there's nothing to be got out of me, or made of me. I am not good forthe Leaving Shop, I am not good for the Boarding-House, I am not goodfor anything in your way to the extent of sixpenn'orth of halfpence. Putthe idea aside, and we shall get on together. '

'But you're a seafaring man?' argued Pleasant, as if that were asufficient reason for his being good for something in her way. 

'Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am not for you. Won't you take my word for it?'

The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's hairin tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she twisted it up, looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In taking stock of hisfamiliarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she tookstock of a formidable knife in a sheath at his waist ready to his hand, and of a whistle hanging round his neck, and of a short jagged knottedclub with a loaded head that peeped out of a pocket of his looseouter jacket or frock. He sat quietly looking at her; but, with theseappendages partially revealing themselves, and with a quantityof bristling oakum-coloured head and whisker, he had a formidableappearance. 

'Won't you take my word for it?' he asked again. 

Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with another shortdumb nod. Then he got up and stood with his arms folded, in front ofthe fire, looking down into it occasionally, as she stood with her armsfolded, leaning against the side of the chimney-piece. 

'To wile away the time till your father comes, ' he said, --'pray is theremuch robbing and murdering of seamen about the water-side now?'

'No, ' said Pleasant. 

'Any?'

'Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Ratcliffe and Wappingand up that way. But who knows how many are true?'

'To be sure. And it don't seem necessary. '

'That's what I say, ' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it?Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what they have, without it. '

'You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, withoutviolence, ' said the man. 

'Of course it may, ' said Pleasant; 'and then they ship again and getmore. And the best thing for 'em, too, to ship again as soon as everthey can be brought to it. They're never so well off as when they'reafloat. '

'I'll tell you why I ask, ' pursued the visitor, looking up from thefire. 'I was once beset that way myself, and left for dead. '

'No?' said Pleasant. 'Where did it happen?'

'It happened, ' returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew hisright hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the pocket of hisrough outer coat, 'it happened somewhere about here as I reckon. I don'tthink it can have been a mile from here. '

'Were you drunk?' asked Pleasant. 

'I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not been drinking, youunderstand. A mouthful did it. '

Pleasant with a grave look shook her head; importing that she understoodthe process, but decidedly disapproved. 

'Fair trade is one thing, ' said she, 'but that's another. No one has aright to carry on with Jack in THAT way. '

'The sentiment does you credit, ' returned the man, with a grim smile;and added, in a mutter, 'the more so, as I believe it's not yourfather's. --Yes, I had a bad time of it, that time. I lost everything, and had a sharp struggle for my life, weak as I was. '

'Did you get the parties punished?' asked Pleasant. 

'A tremendous punishment followed, ' said the man, more seriously; 'butit was not of my bringing about. '

'Of whose, then?' asked Pleasant. 

The man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly recovering thathand, settled his chin in it again as he looked at the fire. Bringingher inherited eye to bear upon him, Pleasant Riderhood felt moreand more uncomfortable, his manner was so mysterious, so stern, soself-possessed. 

'Anyways, ' said the damsel, 'I am glad punishment followed, and I sayso. Fair trade with seafaring men gets a bad name through deeds ofviolence. I am as much against deeds of violence being done to seafaringmen, as seafaring men can be themselves. I am of the same opinion as mymother was, when she was living. Fair trade, my mother used to say, butno robbery and no blows. ' In the way of trade Miss Pleasant would havetaken--and indeed did take when she could--as much as thirty shillingsa week for board that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted theLeaving business upon correspondingly equitable principles; yet she hadthat tenderness of conscience and those feelings of humanity, that themoment her ideas of trade were overstepped, she became the seaman'schampion, even against her father whom she seldom otherwise resisted. 

But, she was here interrupted by her father's voice exclaiming angrily, 'Now, Poll Parrot!' and by her father's hat being heavily flung from hishand and striking her face. Accustomed to such occasional manifestationsof his sense of parental duty, Pleasant merely wiped her face on herhair (which of course had tumbled down) before she twisted it up. Thiswas another common procedure on the part of the ladies of the Hole, whenheated by verbal or fistic altercation. 

'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned tospeak!' growled Mr Riderhood, stooping to pick up his hat, and makinga feint at her with his head and right elbow; for he took the delicatesubject of robbing seamen in extraordinary dudgeon, and was out ofhumour too. 'What are you Poll Parroting at now? Ain't you got nothingto do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting all night?'

'Let her alone, ' urged the man. 'She was only speaking to me. '

'Let her alone too!' retorted Mr Riderhood, eyeing him all over. 'Do youknow she's my daughter?'

'Yes. '

'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the part ofmy daughter? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll Parroting from noman? And who may YOU be, and what may YOU want?'

'How can I tell you until you are silent?' returned the other fiercely. 

'Well, ' said Mr Riderhood, quailing a little, 'I am willing to be silentfor the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll Parrot me. '

'Are you thirsty, you?' the man asked, in the same fierce short way, after returning his look. 

'Why nat'rally, ' said Mr Riderhood, 'ain't I always thirsty!' (Indignantat the absurdity of the question. )

'What will you drink?' demanded the man. 

'Sherry wine, ' returned Mr Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 'if you'recapable of it. '

The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, andbegged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would fetch a bottle. 'Withthe cork undrawn, ' he added, emphatically, looking at her father. 

'I'll take my Alfred David, ' muttered Mr Riderhood, slowly relaxing intoa dark smile, 'that you know a move. Do I know YOU? N--n--no, I don'tknow you. '

The man replied, 'No, you don't know me. ' And so they stood looking atone another surlily enough, until Pleasant came back. 

'There's small glasses on the shelf, ' said Riderhood to his daughter. 'Give me the one without a foot. I gets my living by the sweat of mybrow, and it's good enough for ME. ' This had a modest self-denyingappearance; but it soon turned out that as, by reason of theimpossibility of standing the glass upright while there was anything init, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr Riderhood managed todrink in the proportion of three to one. 

With his Fortunatus's goblet ready in his hand, Mr Riderhood sat down onone side of the table before the fire, and the strange man on the other:Pleasant occupying a stool between the latter and the fireside. Thebackground, composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and otherold articles 'On Leaving, ' had a general dim resemblance to humanlisteners; especially where a shiny black sou'wester suit and hat hung, looking very like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company, whowas so curious to overhear, that he paused for the purpose with hiscoat half pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompletedaction. 

The visitor first held the bottle against the light of the candle, and next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied that it had not beentampered with, he slowly took from his breastpocket a rusty clasp-knife, and, with a corkscrew in the handle, opened the wine. That done, he looked at the cork, unscrewed it from the corkscrew, laid eachseparately on the table, and, with the end of the sailor's knot of hisneckerchief, dusted the inside of the neck of the bottle. All this withgreat deliberation. 

At first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at arm'slength for filling, while the very deliberate stranger seemed absorbedin his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted home to him, andhis glass was lowered and lowered until he rested it upside down uponthe table. By the same degrees his attention became concentrated onthe knife. And now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round, Riderhood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the knife, and stared from it to him. 

'What's the matter?' asked the man. 

'Why, I know that knife!' said Riderhood. 

'Yes, I dare say you do. '

He motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. Riderhoodemptied it to the last drop and began again. 

'That there knife--'

'Stop, ' said the man, composedly. 'I was going to drink to yourdaughter. Your health, Miss Riderhood. '

'That knife was the knife of a seaman named George Radfoot. '

'It was. '

'That seaman was well beknown to me. '

'He was. '

'What's come to him?'

'Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly shape. He looked, 'said the man, 'very horrible after it. '

'Arter what?' said Riderhood, with a frowning stare. 

'After he was killed. '

'Killed? Who killed him?'

Only answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless glass, andRiderhood emptied it: looking amazedly from his daughter to his visitor. 

'You don't mean to tell a honest man--' he was recommencing withhis empty glass in his hand, when his eye became fascinated by thestranger's outer coat. He leaned across the table to see it nearer, touched the sleeve, turned the cuff to look at the sleeve-lining (theman, in his perfect composure, offering not the least objection), andexclaimed, 'It's my belief as this here coat was George Radfoot's too!'

'You are right. He wore it the last time you ever saw him, and the lasttime you ever will see him--in this world. '

'It's my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed him!'exclaimed Riderhood; but, nevertheless, allowing his glass to be filledagain. 

The man only answered with another shrug, and showed no symptom ofconfusion. 

'Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this chap!' saidRiderhood, after staring at him, and tossing his last glassful down histhroat. 'Let's know what to make of you. Say something plain. '

'I will, ' returned the other, leaning forward across the table, andspeaking in a low impressive voice. 'What a liar you are!'

The honest witness rose, and made as though he would fling his glass inthe man's face. The man not wincing, and merely shaking his forefingerhalf knowingly, half menacingly, the piece of honesty thought better ofit and sat down again, putting the glass down too. 

'And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple with thatinvented story, ' said the stranger, in an exasperatingly comfortablesort of confidence, 'you might have had your strong suspicions of afriend of your own, you know. I think you had, you know. '

'Me my suspicions? Of what friend?'

'Tell me again whose knife was this?' demanded the man. 

'It was possessed by, and was the property of--him as I have mademention on, ' said Riderhood, stupidly evading the actual mention of thename. 

'Tell me again whose coat was this?'

'That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and was woreby--him as I have made mention on, ' was again the dull Old Baileyevasion. 

'I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and of keepingcleverly out of the way. But there was small cleverness in HIS keepingout of the way. The cleverness would have been, to have got back for onesingle instant to the light of the sun. '

'Things is come to a pretty pass, ' growled Mr Riderhood, rising to hisfeet, goaded to stand at bay, 'when bullyers as is wearing dead men'sclothes, and bullyers as is armed with dead men's knives, is to comeinto the houses of honest live men, getting their livings by the sweatsof their brows, and is to make these here sort of charges with no rhymeand no reason, neither the one nor yet the other! Why should I have hadmy suspicions of him?'

'Because you knew him, ' replied the man; 'because you had been one withhim, and knew his real character under a fair outside; because on thenight which you had afterwards reason to believe to be the very night ofthe murder, he came in here, within an hour of his having left his shipin the docks, and asked you in what lodgings he could find room. Wasthere no stranger with him?'

'I'll take my world-without-end everlasting Alfred David that you warn'twith him, ' answered Riderhood. 'You talk big, you do, but things lookpretty black against yourself, to my thinking. You charge again' me thatGeorge Radfoot got lost sight of, and was no more thought of. What'sthat for a sailor? Why there's fifty such, out of sight and out ofmind, ten times as long as him--through entering in different names, re-shipping when the out'ard voyage is made, and what not--a turningup to light every day about here, and no matter made of it. Ask mydaughter. You could go on Poll Parroting enough with her, when I warn'tcome in: Poll Parrot a little with her on this pint. You and yoursuspicions of my suspicions of him! What are my suspicions of you? Youtell me George Radfoot got killed. I ask you who done it and how youknow it. You carry his knife and you wear his coat. I ask you how youcome by 'em? Hand over that there bottle!' Here Mr Riderhood appearedto labour under a virtuous delusion that it was his own property. 'Andyou, ' he added, turning to his daughter, as he filled the footlessglass, 'if it warn't wasting good sherry wine on you, I'd chuck this atyou, for Poll Parroting with this man. It's along of Poll Parrotingthat such like as him gets their suspicions, whereas I gets mine byargueyment, and being nat'rally a honest man, and sweating away at thebrow as a honest man ought. ' Here he filled the footless goblet again, and stood chewing one half of its contents and looking down into theother as he slowly rolled the wine about in the glass; while Pleasant, whose sympathetic hair had come down on her being apostrophised, rearranged it, much in the style of the tail of a horse when proceedingto market to be sold. 

'Well? Have you finished?' asked the strange man. 

'No, ' said Riderhood, 'I ain't. Far from it. Now then! I want to knowhow George Radfoot come by his death, and how you come by his kit?'

'If you ever do know, you won't know now. '

'And next I want to know, ' proceeded Riderhood 'whether you mean tocharge that what-you-may-call-it-murder--'

'Harmon murder, father, ' suggested Pleasant. 

'No Poll Parroting!' he vociferated, in return. 'Keep your mouthshut!--I want to know, you sir, whether you charge that there crime onGeorge Radfoot?'

'If you ever do know, you won't know now. '

'Perhaps you done it yourself?' said Riderhood, with a threateningaction. 

'I alone know, ' returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 'themysteries of that crime. I alone know that your trumped-up story cannotpossibly be true. I alone know that it must be altogether false, andthat you must know it to be altogether false. I come here to-night totell you so much of what I know, and no more. '

Mr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated for somemoments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the contents down histhroat in three tips. 

'Shut the shop-door!' he then said to his daughter, putting the glasssuddenly down. 'And turn the key and stand by it! If you know all this, you sir, ' getting, as he spoke, between the visitor and the door, 'whyhan't you gone to Lawyer Lightwood?'

'That, also, is alone known to myself, ' was the cool answer. 

'Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say you couldtell is worth from five to ten thousand pound?' asked Riderhood. 

'I know it very well, and when I claim the money you shall share it. '

The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, and alittle further from the door. 

'I know it, ' repeated the man, quietly, 'as well as I know that you andGeorge Radfoot were one together in more than one dark business; and aswell as I know that you, Roger Riderhood, conspired against an innocentman for blood-money; and as well as I know that I can--and that I swearI will!--give you up on both scores, and be the proof against you in myown person, if you defy me!'

'Father!' cried Pleasant, from the door. 'Don't defy him! Give way tohim! Don't get into more trouble, father!'

'Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you?' cried Mr Riderhood, half beside himself between the two. Then, propitiatingly andcrawlingly: 'You sir! You han't said what you want of me. Is it fair, isit worthy of yourself, to talk of my defying you afore ever you say whatyou want of me?'

'I don't want much, ' said the man. 'This accusation of yours must not beleft half made and half unmade. What was done for the blood-money mustbe thoroughly undone. '

'Well; but Shipmate--'

'Don't call me Shipmate, ' said the man. 

'Captain, then, ' urged Mr Riderhood; 'there! You won't object toCaptain. It's a honourable title, and you fully look it. Captain! Ain'tthe man dead? Now I ask you fair. Ain't Gaffer dead?'

'Well, ' returned the other, with impatience, 'yes, he is dead. Whatthen?'

'Can words hurt a dead man, Captain? I only ask you fair. '

'They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can hurt his livingchildren. How many children had this man?'

'Meaning Gaffer, Captain?'

'Of whom else are we speaking?' returned the other, with a movement ofhis foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to sneak before him inthe body as well as the spirit, and he spurned him off. 'I have heardof a daughter, and a son. I ask for information; I ask YOUR daughter; Iprefer to speak to her. What children did Hexam leave?'

Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that honest manexclaimed with great bitterness:

'Why the devil don't you answer the Captain? You can Poll Parrot enoughwhen you ain't wanted to Poll Parrot, you perwerse jade!'

Thus encouraged, Pleasant explained that there were only Lizzie, thedaughter in question, and the youth. Both very respectable, she added. 

'It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them, ' said thevisitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy that he rose, andpaced to and fro, muttering, 'Dreadful! Unforeseen? How could it beforeseen!' Then he stopped, and asked aloud: 'Where do they live?'

Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided with thefather at the time of his accidental death, and that she had immediatelyafterwards quitted the neighbourhood. 

'I know that, ' said the man, 'for I have been to the place they dweltin, at the time of the inquest. Could you quietly find out for me whereshe lives now?'

Pleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what time, did shethink? Within a day. The visitor said that was well, and he would returnfor the information, relying on its being obtained. To this dialogueRiderhood had attended in silence, and he now obsequiously bespake theCaptain. 

'Captain! Mentioning them unfort'net words of mine respecting Gaffer, it is contrairily to be bore in mind that Gaffer always were a preciousrascal, and that his line were a thieving line. Likeways when I went tothem two Governors, Lawyer Lightwood and the t'other Governor, withmy information, I may have been a little over-eager for the cause ofjustice, or (to put it another way) a little over-stimilated by themfeelings which rouses a man up, when a pot of money is going about, to get his hand into that pot of money for his family's sake. Besideswhich, I think the wine of them two Governors was--I will not saya hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind. Andthere's another thing to be remembered, Captain. Did I stick to themwords when Gaffer was no more, and did I say bold to them two Governors, "Governors both, wot I informed I still inform; wot was took down I holdto"? No. I says, frank and open--no shuffling, mind you, Captain!--"Imay have been mistook, I've been a thinking of it, it mayn't have beentook down correct on this and that, and I won't swear to thick and thin, I'd rayther forfeit your good opinions than do it. " And so far asI know, ' concluded Mr Riderhood, by way of proof and evidence tocharacter, 'I HAVE actiwally forfeited the good opinions of severalpersons--even your own, Captain, if I understand your words--but I'dsooner do it than be forswore. There; if that's conspiracy, call meconspirator. '

'You shall sign, ' said the visitor, taking very little heed of thisoration, 'a statement that it was all utterly false, and the poor girlshall have it. I will bring it with me for your signature, when I comeagain. '

'When might you be expected, Captain?' inquired Riderhood, againdubiously getting between him and door. 

'Quite soon enough for you. I shall not disappoint you; don't beafraid. '

'Might you be inclined to leave any name, Captain?'

'No, not at all. I have no such intention. '

'"Shall" is summ'at of a hard word, Captain, ' urged Riderhood, stillfeebly dodging between him and the door, as he advanced. 'When you say aman "shall" sign this and that and t'other, Captain, you order him aboutin a grand sort of a way. Don't it seem so to yourself?'

The man stood still, and angrily fixed him with his eyes. 

'Father, father!' entreated Pleasant, from the door, with her disengagedhand nervously trembling at her lips; 'don't! Don't get into trouble anymore!'

'Hear me out, Captain, hear me out! All I was wishing to mention, Captain, afore you took your departer, ' said the sneaking Mr Riderhood, falling out of his path, 'was, your handsome words relating to thereward. '

'When I claim it, ' said the man, in a tone which seemed to leave somesuch words as 'you dog, ' very distinctly understood, 'you shall shareit. '

Looking stedfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in a low voice, thistime with a grim sort of admiration of him as a perfect piece of evil, 'What a liar you are!' and, nodding his head twice or thrice over thecompliment, passed out of the shop. But, to Pleasant he said good-nightkindly. 

The honest man who gained his living by the sweat of his brow remainedin a state akin to stupefaction, until the footless glass and theunfinished bottle conveyed themselves into his mind. From his mind heconveyed them into his hands, and so conveyed the last of the wine intohis stomach. When that was done, he awoke to a clear perception thatPoll Parroting was solely chargeable with what had passed. Therefore, not to be remiss in his duty as a father, he threw a pair of sea-bootsat Pleasant, which she ducked to avoid, and then cried, poor thing, using her hair for a pocket-handkerchief. 

Chapter 13

A SOLO AND A DUETT

The wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at the shop-doorinto the darkness and dirt of Limehouse Hole, that it almost blew himin again. Doors were slamming violently, lamps were flickering or blownout, signs were rocking in their frames, the water of the kennels, wind-dispersed, flew about in drops like rain. Indifferent to theweather, and even preferring it to better weather for its clearance ofthe streets, the man looked about him with a scrutinizing glance. 'Thusmuch I know, ' he murmured. 'I have never been here since that night, andnever was here before that night, but thus much I recognize. I wonderwhich way did we take when we came out of that shop. We turned to theright as I have turned, but I can recall no more. Did we go by thisalley? Or down that little lane?'

He tried both, but both confused him equally, and he came strayingback to the same spot. 'I remember there were poles pushed out of upperwindows on which clothes were drying, and I remember a low public-house, and the sound flowing down a narrow passage belonging to it of thescraping of a fiddle and the shuffling of feet. But here are all thesethings in the lane, and here are all these things in the alley. And Ihave nothing else in my mind but a wall, a dark doorway, a flight ofstairs, and a room. '

He tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, dark doorways, flights of stairs and rooms, were too abundant. And, like most people sopuzzled, he again and again described a circle, and found himself atthe point from which he had begun. 'This is like what I have read innarratives of escape from prison, ' said he, 'where the little track ofthe fugitives in the night always seems to take the shape of the greatround world, on which they wander; as if it were a secret law. '

Here he ceased to be the oakum-headed, oakum-whiskered man on whom MissPleasant Riderhood had looked, and, allowing for his being still wrappedin a nautical overcoat, became as like that same lost wanted Mr JuliusHandford, as never man was like another in this world. In the breast ofthe coat he stowed the bristling hair and whisker, in a moment, as thefavouring wind went with him down a solitary place that it had sweptclear of passengers. Yet in that same moment he was the Secretary also, Mr Boffin's Secretary. For John Rokesmith, too, was as like that samelost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like another in thisworld. 

'I have no clue to the scene of my death, ' said he. 'Not that it mattersnow. But having risked discovery by venturing here at all, I should havebeen glad to track some part of the way. ' With which singular words heabandoned his search, came up out of Limehouse Hole, and took the waypast Limehouse Church. At the great iron gate of the churchyard hestopped and looked in. He looked up at the high tower spectrallyresisting the wind, and he looked round at the white tombstones, likeenough to the dead in their winding-sheets, and he counted the ninetolls of the clock-bell. 

'It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals, ' said he, 'to belooking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I nomore hold a place among the living than these dead do, and even to knowthat I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing usesme to it. A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger orlonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel. 

'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, sodifficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thoroughly thinkit out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home. I knowI evade it, as many men--perhaps most men--do evade thinking their waythrough their greatest perplexity. I will try to pin myself to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon; don't evade it; think it out!

'When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I had nonebut most miserable associations, by the accounts of my fine inheritancethat found me abroad, I came back, shrinking from my father's money, shrinking from my father's memory, mistrustful of being forced on amercenary wife, mistrustful of my father's intention in thrusting thatmarriage on me, mistrustful that I was already growing avaricious, mistrustful that I was slackening in gratitude to the two dear noblehonest friends who had made the only sunlight in my childish life orthat of my heartbroken sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind, afraid of myself and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchednessthat my father's wealth had ever brought about. Now, stop, and so farthink it out, John Harmon. Is that so? That is exactly so. 

'On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew nothing ofhim. His name first became known to me about a week before we sailed, through my being accosted by one of the ship-agent's clerks as"Mr Radfoot. " It was one day when I had gone aboard to look to mypreparations, and the clerk, coming behind me as I stood on deck, tappedme on the shoulder, and said, "Mr Rad-foot, look here, " referring tosome papers that he had in his hand. And my name first became known toRadfoot, through another clerk within a day or two, and while the shipwas yet in port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder andbeginning, "I beg your pardon, Mr Harmon--. " I believe we were alikein bulk and stature but not otherwise, and that we were not strikinglyalike, even in those respects, when we were together and could becompared. 

'However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes became an easyintroduction between us, and the weather was hot, and he helped me to acool cabin on deck alongside his own, and his first school had been atBrussels as mine had been, and he had learnt French as I had learnt it, and he had a little history of himself to relate--God only knows howmuch of it true, and how much of it false--that had its likeness tomine. I had been a seaman too. So we got to be confidential together, and the more easily yet, because he and every one on board had knownby general rumour what I was making the voyage to England for. By suchdegrees and means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness of mind, and of its setting at that time in the direction of desiring to see andform some judgment of my allotted wife, before she could possibly knowme for myself; also to try Mrs Boffin and give her a glad surprise. Sothe plot was made out of our getting common sailors' dresses (as he wasable to guide me about London), and throwing ourselves in Bella Wilfer'sneighbourhood, and trying to put ourselves in her way, and doingwhatever chance might favour on the spot, and seeing what came of it. Ifnothing came of it, I should be no worse off, and there would merelybe a short delay in my presenting myself to Lightwood. I have all thesefacts right? Yes. They are all accurately right. 

'His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to be lost. Itmight be for a day or for two days, but I must be lost sight of onlanding, or there would be recognition, anticipation, and failure. Therefore, I disembarked with my valise in my hand--as Pottersonthe steward and Mr Jacob Kibble my fellow-passenger afterwardsremembered--and waited for him in the dark by that very Limehouse Churchwhich is now behind me. 

'As I had always shunned the port of London, I only knew the churchthrough his pointing out its spire from on board. Perhaps I mightrecall, if it were any good to try, the way by which I went to it alonefrom the river; but how we two went from it to Riderhood's shop, I don'tknow--any more than I know what turns we took and doubles we made, afterwe left it. The way was purposely confused, no doubt. 

'But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid confusing them withmy speculations. Whether he took me by a straight way or a crooked way, what is that to the purpose now? Steady, John Harmon. 

'When we stopped at Riderhood's, and he asked that scoundrel a questionor two, purporting to refer only to the lodging-houses in which therewas accommodation for us, had I the least suspicion of him? None. Certainly none until afterwards when I held the clue. I think he musthave got from Riderhood in a paper, the drug, or whatever it was, thatafterwards stupefied me, but I am far from sure. All I felt safe incharging on him to-night, was old companionship in villainy betweenthem. Their undisguised intimacy, and the character I now know Riderhoodto bear, made that not at all adventurous. But I am not clear about thedrug. Thinking out the circumstances on which I found my suspicion, theyare only two. One: I remember his changing a small folded paper from onepocket to another, after we came out, which he had not touched before. Two: I now know Riderhood to have been previously taken up for beingconcerned in the robbery of an unlucky seaman, to whom some such poisonhad been given. 

'It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from that shop, before we came to the wall, the dark doorway, the flight of stairs, andthe room. The night was particularly dark and it rained hard. As I thinkthe circumstances back, I hear the rain splashing on the stone pavementof the passage, which was not under cover. The room overlooked theriver, or a dock, or a creek, and the tide was out. Being possessed ofthe time down to that point, I know by the hour that it must have beenabout low water; but while the coffee was getting ready, I drew back thecurtain (a dark-brown curtain), and, looking out, knew by the kindof reflection below, of the few neighbouring lights, that they werereflected in tidal mud. 

'He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit of hisclothes. I had no change of outer clothes with me, as I was to buyslops. "You are very wet, Mr Harmon, "--I can hear him saying--"and I amquite dry under this good waterproof coat. Put on these clothes ofmine. You may find on trying them that they will answer your purposeto-morrow, as well as the slops you mean to buy, or better. While youchange, I'll hurry the hot coffee. " When he came back, I had his clotheson, and there was a black man with him, wearing a linen jacket, likea steward, who put the smoking coffee on the table in a tray and neverlooked at me. I am so far literal and exact? Literal and exact, I amcertain. 

'Now, I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are so strong, thatI rely upon them; but there are spaces between them that I know nothingabout, and they are not pervaded by any idea of time. 

'I had drank some coffee, when to my sense of sight he began to swellimmensely, and something urged me to rush at him. We had a struggle nearthe door. He got from me, through my not knowing where to strike, in thewhirling round of the room, and the flashing of flames of fire betweenus. I dropped down. Lying helpless on the ground, I was turned over bya foot. I was dragged by the neck into a corner. I heard men speaktogether. I was turned over by other feet. I saw a figure like myselflying dressed in my clothes on a bed. What might have been, for anythingI knew, a silence of days, weeks, months, years, was broken by a violentwrestling of men all over the room. The figure like myself was assailed, and my valise was in its hand. I was trodden upon and fallen over. Iheard a noise of blows, and thought it was a wood-cutter cutting downa tree. I could not have said that my name was John Harmon--I could nothave thought it--I didn't know it--but when I heard the blows, I thoughtof the wood-cutter and his axe, and had some dead idea that I was lyingin a forest. 

'This is still correct? Still correct, with the exception that I cannotpossibly express it to myself without using the word I. But it was notI. There was no such thing as I, within my knowledge. 

'It was only after a downward slide through something like a tube, andthen a great noise and a sparkling and crackling as of fires, that theconsciousness came upon me, "This is John Harmon drowning! John Harmon, struggle for your life. John Harmon, call on Heaven and save yourself!"I think I cried it out aloud in a great agony, and then a heavy horridunintelligible something vanished, and it was I who was struggling therealone in the water. 

'I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsiness, anddriving fast with the tide. Looking over the black water, I saw thelights racing past me on the two banks of the river, as if they wereeager to be gone and leave me dying in the dark. The tide was runningdown, but I knew nothing of up or down then. When, guiding myself safelywith Heaven's assistance before the fierce set of the water, I at lastcaught at a boat moored, one of a tier of boats at a causeway, I wassucked under her, and came up, only just alive, on the other side. 

'Was I long in the water? Long enough to be chilled to the heart, butI don't know how long. Yet the cold was merciful, for it was the coldnight air and the rain that restored me from a swoon on the stones ofthe causeway. They naturally supposed me to have toppled in, drunk, whenI crept to the public-house it belonged to; for I had no notion whereI was, and could not articulate--through the poison that had made meinsensible having affected my speech--and I supposed the night to bethe previous night, as it was still dark and raining. But I had losttwenty-four hours. 

'I have checked the calculation often, and it must have been two nightsthat I lay recovering in that public-house. Let me see. Yes. I am sureit was while I lay in that bed there, that the thought entered my headof turning the danger I had passed through, to the account of beingfor some time supposed to have disappeared mysteriously, and of provingBella. The dread of our being forced on one another, and perpetuatingthe fate that seemed to have fallen on my father's riches--the fate thatthey should lead to nothing but evil--was strong upon the moral timiditythat dates from my childhood with my poor sister. 

'As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the river where Irecovered the shore, being the opposite side to that on which I wasensnared, I shall never understand it now. Even at this moment, while Ileave the river behind me, going home, I cannot conceive that it rollsbetween me and that spot, or that the sea is where it is. But this isnot thinking it out; this is making a leap to the present time. 

'I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the waterproofbelt round my body. Not a great fortune, forty and odd pounds for theinheritor of a hundred and odd thousand! But it was enough. Without it Imust have disclosed myself. Without it, I could never have gone to thatExchequer Coffee House, or taken Mrs Wilfer's lodgings. 

'Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night when I saw thecorpse of Radfoot at the Police Station. The inexpressible mental horrorthat I laboured under, as one of the consequences of the poison, makesthe interval seem greatly longer, but I know it cannot have been longer. That suffering has gradually weakened and weakened since, and has onlycome upon me by starts, and I hope I am free from it now; but even now, I have sometimes to think, constrain myself, and stop before speaking, or I could not say the words I want to say. 

'Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. It is not so farto the end that I need be tempted to break off. Now, on straight!

'I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was missing, butsaw none. Going out that night to walk (for I kept retired while it waslight), I found a crowd assembled round a placard posted at Whitehall. It described myself, John Harmon, as found dead and mutilated in theriver under circumstances of strong suspicion, described my dress, described the papers in my pockets, and stated where I was lying forrecognition. In a wild incautious way I hurried there, and there--withthe horror of the death I had escaped, before my eyes in its mostappalling shape, added to the inconceivable horror tormenting me atthat time when the poisonous stuff was strongest on me--I perceived thatRadfoot had been murdered by some unknown hands for the money for whichhe would have murdered me, and that probably we had both been shot intothe river from the same dark place into the same dark tide, when thestream ran deep and strong. 

'That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected no one, could offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that themurdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, andnext day while I hesitated, it seemed as if the whole country weredetermined to have me dead. The Inquest declared me dead, the Governmentproclaimed me dead; I could not listen at my fireside for five minutesto the outer noises, but it was borne into my ears that I was dead. 

'So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and JohnRokesmith was born. John Rokesmith's intent to-night has been to repaira wrong that he could never have imagined possible, coming to his earsthrough the Lightwood talk related to him, and which he is bound byevery consideration to remedy. In that intent John Rokesmith willpersevere, as his duty is. 

'Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing omitted? No, nothing. But beyond this time? To think it out through the future, is aharder though a much shorter task than to think it out through the past. John Harmon is dead. Should John Harmon come to life?

'If yes, why? If no, why?'

'Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning the offence ofone far beyond it who may have a living mother. To enlighten it with thelights of a stone passage, a flight of stairs, a brown window-curtain, and a black man. To come into possession of my father's money, and withit sordidly to buy a beautiful creature whom I love--I cannot help it;reason has nothing to do with it; I love her against reason--but whowould as soon love me for my own sake, as she would love the beggar atthe corner. What a use for the money, and how worthy of its old misuses!

'Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to life. Because he has passively allowed these dear old faithful friends to passinto possession of the property. Because he sees them happy with it, making a good use of it, effacing the old rust and tarnish on the money. Because they have virtually adopted Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection enough in her nature, and warmth enough inher heart, to develop into something enduringly good, under favourableconditions. Because her faults have been intensified by her place in myfather's will, and she is already growing better. Because her marriagewith John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be ashocking mockery, of which both she and I must always be conscious, andwhich would degrade her in her mind, and me in mine, and each of us inthe other's. Because if John Harmon comes to life and does not marryher, the property falls into the very hands that hold it now. 

'What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetimestill as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive, and makingmy memory an incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I havefound them when they might have slighted my name, and passedgreedily over my grave to ease and wealth, lingering by the way, likesingle-hearted children, to recall their love for me when I was a poorfrightened child. Dead, I have heard from the woman who would have beenmy wife if I had lived, the revolting truth that I should have purchasedher, caring nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave. 

'What would I have? If the dead could know, or do know, how the livinguse them, who among the hosts of dead has found a more disinterestedfidelity on earth than I? Is not that enough for me? If I had come back, these noble creatures would have welcomed me, wept over me, given upeverything to me with joy. I did not come back, and they have passedunspoiled into my place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest inhers. 

'What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall have becomemore accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm ofswindlers under many names shall have found newer prey. By that time, the method I am establishing through all the affairs, and with which Iwill every day take new pains to make them both familiar, will be, I mayhope, a machine in such working order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but ask of their generosity, to have. When the right timecomes, I will ask no more than will replace me in my former path oflife, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he may. ButJohn Harmon shall come back no more. 

'That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak misgivingthat Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for my own sake ifI had plainly asked her, I WILL plainly ask her: proving beyond allquestion what I already know too well. And now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the end, and my mind is easier. '

So deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus communing withhimself, that he had regarded neither the wind nor the way, and hadresisted the former instinctively as he had pursued the latter. Butbeing now come into the City, where there was a coach-stand, he stoodirresolute whether to go to his lodgings, or to go first to Mr Boffin'shouse. He decided to go round by the house, arguing, as he carried hisovercoat upon his arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if leftthere, than if taken to Holloway: both Mrs Wilfer and Miss Lavinia beingravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger stoodpossessed. 

Arriving at the house, he found that Mr and Mrs Boffin were out, butthat Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer had remained athome, in consequence of not feeling very well, and had inquired in theevening if Mr Rokesmith were in his room. 

'Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now. '

Miss Wilfer's compliments came down in return, and, if it were not toomuch trouble, would Mr Rokesmith be so kind as to come up before hewent?

It was not too much trouble, and Mr Rokesmith came up. 

Oh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the fatherof the late John Harmon had but left his money unconditionally to hisson, and if his son had but lighted on this loveable girl for himself, and had the happiness to make her loving as well as loveable!

'Dear me! Are you not well, Mr Rokesmith?'

'Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that YOU werenot. '

'A mere nothing. I had a headache--gone now--and was not quite fit fora hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you if you were not well, because you look so white. '

'Do I? I have had a busy evening. '

She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining jewelof a table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah! what a differentlife the late John Harmon's, if it had been his happy privilege to takehis place upon that ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say, 'I hope the time has been long without me? What a Home Goddess you look, my darling!'

But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A little distance in respect of space, but a great distance in respect of separation. 

'Mr Rokesmith, ' said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it allround the corners, 'I wanted to say something to you when I could havethe opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to you the other day. You have no right to think ill of me, sir. '

The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitivelyinjured, and half pettishly, would have been very much admired by thelate John Harmon. 

'You don't know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer. '

'Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr Rokesmith, when youbelieve that in prosperity I neglect and forget my old home. '

'Do I believe so?'

'You DID, sir, at any rate, ' returned Bella. 

'I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which youhad fallen--insensibly and naturally fallen. It was no more than that. '

'And I beg leave to ask you, Mr Rokesmith, ' said Bella, 'why you tookthat liberty?--I hope there is no offence in the phrase; it is your own, remember. '

'Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at your best. Because I--shall I goon?'

'No, sir, ' returned Bella, with a burning face, 'you have said more thanenough. I beg that you will NOT go on. If you have any generosity, anyhonour, you will say no more. '

The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the down-cast eyes, and at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall of bright brown hairover the beautiful neck, would probably have remained silent. 

'I wish to speak to you, sir, ' said Bella, 'once for all, and I don'tknow how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing to speak toyou, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that I must. I beg fora moment's time. '

He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, sometimesmaking a slight movement as if she would turn and speak. At length shedid so. 

'You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am situatedat home. I must speak to you for myself, since there is no one aboutme whom I could ask to do so. It is not generous in you, it is nothonourable in you, to conduct yourself towards me as you do. '

'Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; fascinated byyou?'

'Preposterous!' said Bella. 

The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a contemptuous andlofty word of repudiation. 

'I now feel obliged to go on, ' pursued the Secretary, 'though it wereonly in self-explanation and self-defence. I hope, Miss Wilfer, thatit is not unpardonable--even in me--to make an honest declaration of anhonest devotion to you. '

'An honest declaration!' repeated Bella, with emphasis. 

'Is it otherwise?'

'I must request, sir, ' said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timelyresentment, 'that I may not be questioned. You must excuse me if Idecline to be cross-examined. '

'Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but whatyour own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even that question. Butwhat I have declared, I take my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal ofmy earnest and deep attachment to you, and I do not recall it. '

'I reject it, sir, ' said Bella. 

'I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply. Forgive my offence, for it carries its punishment with it. '

'What punishment?' asked Bella. 

'Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean tocross-examine you again. '

'You take advantage of a hasty word of mine, ' said Bella with a littlesting of self-reproach, 'to make me seem--I don't know what. I spokewithout consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; butyou repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at leastno better. For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr Rokesmith, thatthere is an end of this between us, now and for ever. '

'Now and for ever, ' he repeated. 

'Yes. I appeal to you, sir, ' proceeded Bella with increasing spirit, 'not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of yourposition in this house to make my position in it distressing anddisagreeable. I appeal to you to discontinue your habit of making yourmisplaced attentions as plain to Mrs Boffin as to me. '

'Have I done so?'

'I should think you have, ' replied Bella. 'In any case it is not yourfault if you have not, Mr Rokesmith. '

'I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very sorry tohave justified it. I think I have not. For the future there is noapprehension. It is all over. '

'I am much relieved to hear it, ' said Bella. 'I have far other views inlife, and why should you waste your own?'

'Mine!' said the Secretary. 'My life!'

His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with whichhe said it. It was gone as he glanced back. 'Pardon me, Miss Wilfer, 'he proceeded, when their eyes met; 'you have used some hard words, forwhich I do not doubt you have a justification in your mind, that I donot understand. Ungenerous and dishonourable. In what?'

'I would rather not be asked, ' said Bella, haughtily looking down. 

'I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me. Kindlyexplain; or if not kindly, justly. '

'Oh, sir!' said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little struggleto forbear, 'is it generous and honourable to use the power here whichyour favour with Mr and Mrs Boffin and your ability in your place giveyou, against me?'

'Against you?'

'Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually bringingtheir influence to bear upon a suit which I have shown you that I do notlike, and which I tell you that I utterly reject?'

The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he would havebeen cut to the heart by such a suspicion as this. 

'Would it be generous and honourable to step into your place--if you didso, for I don't know that you did, and I hope you did not--anticipating, or knowing beforehand, that I should come here, and designing to take meat this disadvantage?'

'This mean and cruel disadvantage, ' said the Secretary. 

'Yes, ' assented Bella. 

The Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely said, 'Youare wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer; wonderfully mistaken. I cannot say, however, that it is your fault. If I deserve better things of you, youdo not know it. '

'At least, sir, ' retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, 'youknow the history of my being here at all. I have heard Mr Boffin saythat you are master of every line and word of that will, as you aremaster of all his affairs. And was it not enough that I should have beenwilled away, like a horse, or a dog, or a bird; but must you too beginto dispose of me in your mind, and speculate in me, as soon as I hadceased to be the talk and the laugh of the town? Am I for ever to bemade the property of strangers?'

'Believe me, ' returned the Secretary, 'you are wonderfully mistaken. '

'I should be glad to know it, ' answered Bella. 

'I doubt if you ever will. Good-night. Of course I shall be careful toconceal any traces of this interview from Mr and Mrs Boffin, as long asI remain here. Trust me, what you have complained of is at an end forever. '

'I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr Rokesmith. It has been painful anddifficult, but it is done. If I have hurt you, I hope you will forgiveme. I am inexperienced and impetuous, and I have been a little spoilt;but I really am not so bad as I dare say I appear, or as you think me. '

He quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in her wilfulinconsistent way. Left alone, she threw herself back on her ottoman, andsaid, 'I didn't know the lovely woman was such a Dragon!' Then, shegot up and looked in the glass, and said to her image, 'You have beenpositively swelling your features, you little fool!' Then, she took animpatient walk to the other end of the room and back, and said, 'Iwish Pa was here to have a talk about an avaricious marriage; but heis better away, poor dear, for I know I should pull his hair if he WAShere. ' And then she threw her work away, and threw her book afterit, and sat down and hummed a tune, and hummed it out of tune, andquarrelled with it. 

And John Rokesmith, what did he?

He went down to his room, and buried John Harmon many additional fathomsdeep. He took his hat, and walked out, and, as he went to Holloway oranywhere else--not at all minding where--heaped mounds upon mounds ofearth over John Harmon's grave. His walking did not bring him home untilthe dawn of day. And so busy had he been all night, piling and pilingweights upon weights of earth above John Harmon's grave, that by thattime John Harmon lay buried under a whole Alpine range; and still theSexton Rokesmith accumulated mountains over him, lightening his labourwith the dirge, 'Cover him, crush him, keep him down!'

Chapter 14

STRONG OF PURPOSE

The sexton-task of piling earth above John Harmon all night long, wasnot conducive to sound sleep; but Rokesmith had some broken morningrest, and rose strengthened in his purpose. It was all over now. Noghost should trouble Mr and Mrs Boffin's peace; invisible and voiceless, the ghost should look on for a little while longer at the state ofexistence out of which it had departed, and then should for ever ceaseto haunt the scenes in which it had no place. 

He went over it all again. He had lapsed into the condition in whichhe found himself, as many a man lapses into many a condition, withoutperceiving the accumulative power of its separate circumstances. Whenin the distrust engendered by his wretched childhood and the action forevil--never yet for good within his knowledge then--of his father andhis father's wealth on all within their influence, he conceived the ideaof his first deception, it was meant to be harmless, it was to lastbut a few hours or days, it was to involve in it only the girl socapriciously forced upon him and upon whom he was so capriciouslyforced, and it was honestly meant well towards her. For, if he hadfound her unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through her heartinclining to another man or for any other cause), he would seriouslyhave said: 'This is another of the old perverted uses of themisery-making money. I will let it go to my and my sister's onlyprotectors and friends. ' When the snare into which he fell sooutstripped his first intention as that he found himself placarded bythe police authorities upon the London walls for dead, he confusedlyaccepted the aid that fell upon him, without considering how firmly itmust seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When hesaw them, and knew them, and even from his vantage-ground of inspectioncould find no flaw in them, he asked himself, 'And shall I come to lifeto dispossess such people as these?' There was no good to set againstthe putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from Bella's ownlips when he stood tapping at the door on that night of his takingthe lodgings, that the marriage would have been on her part thoroughlymercenary. He had since tried her, in his own unknown person andsupposed station, and she not only rejected his advances but resentedthem. Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the meanness ofpunishing her? Yet, by coming to life and accepting the condition of theinheritance, he must do the former; and by coming to life and rejectingit, he must do the latter. 

Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implicationof an innocent man in his supposed murder. He would obtain completeretraction from the accuser, and set the wrong right; but clearly thewrong could never have been done if he had never planned a deception. Then, whatever inconvenience or distress of mind the deception cost him, it was manful repentantly to accept as among its consequences, and makeno complaint. 

Thus John Rokesmith in the morning, and it buried John Harmon still manyfathoms deeper than he had been buried in the night. 

Going out earlier than he was accustomed to do, he encountered thecherub at the door. The cherub's way was for a certain space his way, and they walked together. 

It was impossible not to notice the change in the cherub's appearance. The cherub felt very conscious of it, and modestly remarked:

'A present from my daughter Bella, Mr Rokesmith. '

The words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he remembered thefifty pounds, and he still loved the girl. No doubt it was very weak--italways IS very weak, some authorities hold--but he loved the girl. 

'I don't know whether you happen to have read many books of AfricanTravel, Mr Rokesmith?' said R. W. 

'I have read several. '

'Well, you know, there's usually a King George, or a King Boy, or a KingSambo, or a King Bill, or Bull, or Rum, or Junk, or whatever name thesailors may have happened to give him. '

'Where?' asked Rokesmith. 

'Anywhere. Anywhere in Africa, I mean. Pretty well everywhere, I maysay; for black kings are cheap--and I think'--said R. W. , with anapologetic air, 'nasty'. 

'I am much of your opinion, Mr Wilfer. You were going to say--?'

'I was going to say, the king is generally dressed in a London hat only, or a Manchester pair of braces, or one epaulette, or an uniform coatwith his legs in the sleeves, or something of that kind. '

'Just so, ' said the Secretary. 

'In confidence, I assure you, Mr Rokesmith, ' observed the cheerfulcherub, 'that when more of my family were at home and to be providedfor, I used to remind myself immensely of that king. You have no idea, as a single man, of the difficulty I have had in wearing more than onegood article at a time. '

'I can easily believe it, Mr Wilfer. '

'I only mention it, ' said R. W. In the warmth of his heart, 'as a proofof the amiable, delicate, and considerate affection of my daughterBella. If she had been a little spoilt, I couldn't have thought so verymuch of it, under the circumstances. But no, not a bit. And she is sovery pretty! I hope you agree with me in finding her very pretty, MrRokesmith?'

'Certainly I do. Every one must. '

'I hope so, ' said the cherub. 'Indeed, I have no doubt of it. This is agreat advancement for her in life, Mr Rokesmith. A great opening of herprospects?'

'Miss Wilfer could have no better friends than Mr and Mrs Boffin. '

'Impossible!' said the gratified cherub. 'Really I begin to think thingsare very well as they are. If Mr John Harmon had lived--'

'He is better dead, ' said the Secretary. 

'No, I won't go so far as to say that, ' urged the cherub, a littleremonstrant against the very decisive and unpitying tone; 'but hemightn't have suited Bella, or Bella mightn't have suited him, or fiftythings, whereas now I hope she can choose for herself. '

'Has she--as you place the confidence in me of speaking on the subject, you will excuse my asking--has she--perhaps--chosen?' faltered theSecretary. 

'Oh dear no!' returned R. W. 

'Young ladies sometimes, ' Rokesmith hinted, 'choose without mentioningtheir choice to their fathers. '

'Not in this case, Mr Rokesmith. Between my daughter Bella and me thereis a regular league and covenant of confidence. It was ratified only theother day. The ratification dates from--these, ' said the cherub, giving a little pull at the lappels of his coat and the pockets of histrousers. 'Oh no, she has not chosen. To be sure, young George Sampson, in the days when Mr John Harmon--'

'Who I wish had never been born!' said the Secretary, with a gloomybrow. 

R. W. Looked at him with surprise, as thinking he had contracted anunaccountable spite against the poor deceased, and continued: 'In thedays when Mr John Harmon was being sought out, young George Sampsoncertainly was hovering about Bella, and Bella let him hover. But itnever was seriously thought of, and it's still less than ever to bethought of now. For Bella is ambitious, Mr Rokesmith, and I think I maypredict will marry fortune. This time, you see, she will have the personand the property before her together, and will be able to make herchoice with her eyes open. This is my road. I am very sorry to partcompany so soon. Good morning, sir!'

The Secretary pursued his way, not very much elevated in spirits by thisconversation, and, arriving at the Boffin mansion, found Betty Higdenwaiting for him. 

'I should thank you kindly, sir, ' said Betty, 'if I might make so boldas have a word or two wi' you. '

She should have as many words as she liked, he told her; and took herinto his room, and made her sit down. 

''Tis concerning Sloppy, sir, ' said Betty. 'And that's how I come hereby myself. Not wishing him to know what I'm a-going to say to you, I gotthe start of him early and walked up. '

'You have wonderful energy, ' returned Rokesmith. 'You are as young as Iam. '

Betty Higden gravely shook her head. 'I am strong for my time of life, sir, but not young, thank the Lord!'

'Are you thankful for not being young?'

'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see? But never mind me;'tis concerning Sloppy. '

'And what about him, Betty?'

''Tis just this, sir. It can't be reasoned out of his head by any powersof mine but what that he can do right by your kind lady and gentlemanand do his work for me, both together. Now he can't. To give himself upto being put in the way of arning a good living and getting on, he mustgive me up. Well; he won't. '

'I respect him for it, ' said Rokesmith. 

'DO ye, sir? I don't know but what I do myself. Still that don't make itright to let him have his way. So as he won't give me up, I'm a-going togive him up. '

'How, Betty?'

'I'm a-going to run away from him. '

With an astonished look at the indomitable old face and the bright eyes, the Secretary repeated, 'Run away from him?'

'Yes, sir, ' said Betty, with one nod. And in the nod and in the firm setof her mouth, there was a vigour of purpose not to be doubted. 

'Come, come!' said the Secretary. 'We must talk about this. Let us takeour time over it, and try to get at the true sense of the case and thetrue course, by degrees. '

'Now, lookee here, by dear, ' returned old Betty--'asking your excusefor being so familiar, but being of a time of life a'most to be yourgrandmother twice over. Now, lookee, here. 'Tis a poor living and ahard as is to be got out of this work that I'm a doing now, and but forSloppy I don't know as I should have held to it this long. But it didjust keep us on, the two together. Now that I'm alone--with even Johnnygone--I'd far sooner be upon my feet and tiring of myself out, than asitting folding and folding by the fire. And I'll tell you why. There'sa deadness steals over me at times, that the kind of life favours and Idon't like. Now, I seem to have Johnny in my arms--now, his mother--now, his mother's mother--now, I seem to be a child myself, a lying onceagain in the arms of my own mother--then I get numbed, thought andsense, till I start out of my seat, afeerd that I'm a growing like thepoor old people that they brick up in the Unions, as you may sometimessee when they let 'em out of the four walls to have a warm in the sun, crawling quite scared about the streets. I was a nimble girl, and havealways been a active body, as I told your lady, first time ever I seeher good face. I can still walk twenty mile if I am put to it. I'd farbetter be a walking than a getting numbed and dreary. I'm a good fairknitter, and can make many little things to sell. The loan from yourlady and gentleman of twenty shillings to fit out a basket with, wouldbe a fortune for me. Trudging round the country and tiring of myselfout, I shall keep the deadness off, and get my own bread by my ownlabour. And what more can I want?'

'And this is your plan, ' said the Secretary, 'for running away?'

'Show me a better! My deary, show me a better! Why, I know very well, 'said old Betty Higden, 'and you know very well, that your lady andgentleman would set me up like a queen for the rest of my life, if so bethat we could make it right among us to have it so. But we can't make itright among us to have it so. I've never took charity yet, nor yet hasany one belonging to me. And it would be forsaking of myself indeed, andforsaking of my children dead and gone, and forsaking of their childrendead and gone, to set up a contradiction now at last. '

'It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last, ' the Secretarygently hinted, with a slight stress on the word. 

'I hope it never will! It ain't that I mean to give offence by beinganyways proud, ' said the old creature simply, 'but that I want to be ofa piece like, and helpful of myself right through to my death. '

'And to be sure, ' added the Secretary, as a comfort for her, 'Sloppywill be eagerly looking forward to his opportunity of being to you whatyou have been to him. '

'Trust him for that, sir!' said Betty, cheerfully. 'Though he had needto be something quick about it, for I'm a getting to be an old one. ButI'm a strong one too, and travel and weather never hurt me yet! Now, beso kind as speak for me to your lady and gentleman, and tell 'em what Iask of their good friendliness to let me do, and why I ask it. '

The Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was urged bythis brave old heroine, and he presently repaired to Mrs Boffin andrecommended her to let Betty Higden have her way, at all events for thetime. 'It would be far more satisfactory to your kind heart, I know, 'he said, 'to provide for her, but it may be a duty to respect thisindependent spirit. ' Mrs Boffin was not proof against the considerationset before her. She and her husband had worked too, and had broughttheir simple faith and honour clean out of dustheaps. If they owed aduty to Betty Higden, of a surety that duty must be done. 

'But, Betty, ' said Mrs Boffin, when she accompanied John Rokesmith backto his room, and shone upon her with the light of her radiant face, 'granted all else, I think I wouldn't run away'. 

''Twould come easier to Sloppy, ' said Mrs Higden, shaking her head. ''Twould come easier to me too. But 'tis as you please. '

'When would you go?'

'Now, ' was the bright and ready answer. 'To-day, my deary, to-morrow. Bless ye, I am used to it. I know many parts of the country well. Whennothing else was to be done, I have worked in many a market-garden aforenow, and in many a hop-garden too. '

'If I give my consent to your going, Betty--which Mr Rokesmith thinks Iought to do--'

Betty thanked him with a grateful curtsey. 

'--We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you pass out of ourknowledge. We must know all about you. '

'Yes, my deary, but not through letter-writing, becauseletter-writing--indeed, writing of most sorts hadn't much come up forsuch as me when I was young. But I shall be to and fro. No fear ofmy missing a chance of giving myself a sight of your reviving face. Besides, ' said Betty, with logical good faith, 'I shall have a debt topay off, by littles, and naturally that would bring me back, if nothingelse would. '

'MUST it be done?' asked Mrs Boffin, still reluctant, of the Secretary. 

'I think it must. '

After more discussion it was agreed that it should be done, and MrsBoffin summoned Bella to note down the little purchases that werenecessary to set Betty up in trade. 'Don't ye be timorous for me, mydear, ' said the stanch old heart, observant of Bella's face: when Itake my seat with my work, clean and busy and fresh, in a countrymarket-place, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as ever a farmer's wifethere. '

The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practicalquestion of Mr Sloppy's capabilities. He would have made a wonderfulcabinet-maker, said Mrs Higden, 'if there had been the money to put himto it. ' She had seen him handle tools that he had borrowed to mendthe mangle, or to knock a broken piece of furniture together, in asurprising manner. As to constructing toys for the Minders, out ofnothing, he had done that daily. And once as many as a dozen people hadgot together in the lane to see the neatness with which he fitted thebroken pieces of a foreign monkey's musical instrument. 'That's well, 'said the Secretary. 'It will not be hard to find a trade for him. '

John Harmon being buried under mountains now, the Secretary that verysame day set himself to finish his affairs and have done with him. Hedrew up an ample declaration, to be signed by Rogue Riderhood (knowinghe could get his signature to it, by making him another and much shorterevening call), and then considered to whom should he give the document?To Hexam's son, or daughter? Resolved speedily, to the daughter. But itwould be safer to avoid seeing the daughter, because the son had seenJulius Handford, and--he could not be too careful--there might possiblybe some comparison of notes between the son and daughter, which wouldawaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to consequences. 'I might even, 'he reflected, 'be apprehended as having been concerned in my ownmurder!' Therefore, best to send it to the daughter under cover by thepost. Pleasant Riderhood had undertaken to find out where she lived, and it was not necessary that it should be attended by a single word ofexplanation. So far, straight. 

But, all that he knew of the daughter he derived from Mrs Boffin'saccounts of what she heard from Mr Lightwood, who seemed to have areputation for his manner of relating a story, and to have made thisstory quite his own. It interested him, and he would like to havethe means of knowing more--as, for instance, that she received theexonerating paper, and that it satisfied her--by opening some channelaltogether independent of Lightwood: who likewise had seen JuliusHandford, who had publicly advertised for Julius Handford, and whomof all men he, the Secretary, most avoided. 'But with whom the commoncourse of things might bring me in a moment face to face, any day in theweek or any hour in the day. '

Now, to cast about for some likely means of opening such a channel. Theboy, Hexam, was training for and with a schoolmaster. The Secretary knewit, because his sister's share in that disposal of him seemed to bethe best part of Lightwood's account of the family. This young fellow, Sloppy, stood in need of some instruction. If he, the Secretary, engagedthat schoolmaster to impart it to him, the channel might be opened. Thenext point was, did Mrs Boffin know the schoolmaster's name? No, but sheknew where the school was. Quite enough. Promptly the Secretary wroteto the master of that school, and that very evening Bradley Headstoneanswered in person. 

The Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object was, to send tohim for certain occasional evening instruction, a youth whom Mr and MrsBoffin wished to help to an industrious and useful place in life. Theschoolmaster was willing to undertake the charge of such a pupil. TheSecretary inquired on what terms? The schoolmaster stated on what terms. Agreed and disposed of. 

'May I ask, sir, ' said Bradley Headstone, 'to whose good opinion I owe arecommendation to you?'

'You should know that I am not the principal here. I am Mr Boffin'sSecretary. Mr Boffin is a gentleman who inherited a property of whichyou may have heard some public mention; the Harmon property. '

'Mr Harmon, ' said Bradley: who would have been a great deal more at aloss than he was, if he had known to whom he spoke: 'was murdered andfound in the river. '

'Was murdered and found in the river. '

'It was not--'

'No, ' interposed the Secretary, smiling, 'it was not he who recommendedyou. Mr Boffin heard of you through a certain Mr Lightwood. I think youknow Mr Lightwood, or know of him?'

'I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no acquaintancewith Mr Lightwood, and I desire none. I have no objection to MrLightwood, but I have a particular objection to some of Mr Lightwood'sfriends--in short, to one of Mr Lightwood's friends. His great friend. '

He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so fierce didhe grow (though keeping himself down with infinite pains of repression), when the careless and contemptuous bearing of Eugene Wrayburn rosebefore his mind. 

The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore point, and he would have made a diversion from it, but for Bradley's holding toit in his cumbersome way. 

'I have no objection to mention the friend by name, ' he said, doggedly. 'The person I object to, is Mr Eugene Wrayburn. '

The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of thatnight when he was striving against the drugged drink, there was but adim image of Eugene's person; but he remembered his name, and his mannerof speaking, and how he had gone with them to view the body, and wherehe had stood, and what he had said. 

'Pray, Mr Headstone, what is the name, ' he asked, again trying to make adiversion, 'of young Hexam's sister?'

'Her name is Lizzie, ' said the schoolmaster, with a strong contractionof his whole face. 

'She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is she not?'

'She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr EugeneWrayburn--though an ordinary person might be that, ' said theschoolmaster; 'and I hope you will not think it impertinent in me, sir, to ask why you put the two names together?'

'By mere accident, ' returned the Secretary. 'Observing that Mr Wrayburnwas a disagreeable subject with you, I tried to get away from it: thoughnot very successfully, it would appear. '

'Do you know Mr Wrayburn, sir?'

'No. '

'Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority of anyrepresentation of his?'

'Certainly not. '

'I took the liberty to ask, ' said Bradley, after casting his eyes onthe ground, 'because he is capable of making any representation, in theswaggering levity of his insolence. I--I hope you will not misunderstandme, sir. I--I am much interested in this brother and sister, and thesubject awakens very strong feelings within me. Very, very, strongfeelings. ' With a shaking hand, Bradley took out his handkerchief andwiped his brow. 

The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face, that hehad opened a channel here indeed, and that it was an unexpectedly darkand deep and stormy one, and difficult to sound. All at once, in themidst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley stopped and seemed to challengehis look. Much as though he suddenly asked him, 'What do you see in me?'

'The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommendation here, ' said theSecretary, quietly going back to the point; 'Mr and Mrs Boffin happeningto know, through Mr Lightwood, that he was your pupil. Anything thatI ask respecting the brother and sister, or either of them, I ask formyself out of my own interest in the subject, and not in my officialcharacter, or on Mr Boffin's behalf. How I come to be interested, I neednot explain. You know the father's connection with the discovery of MrHarmon's body. '

'Sir, ' replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, 'I know all thecircumstances of that case. '

'Pray tell me, Mr Headstone, ' said the Secretary. 'Does the sistersuffer under any stigma because of the impossible accusation--groundlesswould be a better word--that was made against the father, andsubstantially withdrawn?'

'No, sir, ' returned Bradley, with a kind of anger. 

'I am very glad to hear it. '

'The sister, ' said Bradley, separating his words over-carefully, andspeaking as if he were repeating them from a book, 'suffers under noreproach that repels a man of unimpeachable character who had madefor himself every step of his way in life, from placing her in his ownstation. I will not say, raising her to his own station; I say, placingher in it. The sister labours under no reproach, unless she shouldunfortunately make it for herself. When such a man is not deterred fromregarding her as his equal, and when he has convinced himself thatthere is no blemish on her, I think the fact must be taken to be prettyexpressive. '

'And there is such a man?' said the Secretary. 

Bradley Headstone knotted his brows, and squared his large lower jaw, and fixed his eyes on the ground with an air of determination thatseemed unnecessary to the occasion, as he replied: 'And there is such aman. '

The Secretary had no reason or excuse for prolonging the conversation, and it ended here. Within three hours the oakum-headed apparition oncemore dived into the Leaving Shop, and that night Rogue Riderhood'srecantation lay in the post office, addressed under cover to LizzieHexam at her right address. 

All these proceedings occupied John Rokesmith so much, that it was notuntil the following day that he saw Bella again. It seemed then to betacitly understood between them that they were to be as distantly easyas they could, without attracting the attention of Mr and Mrs Boffin toany marked change in their manner. The fitting out of old Betty Higdenwas favourable to this, as keeping Bella engaged and interested, and asoccupying the general attention. 

'I think, ' said Rokesmith, when they all stood about her, while shepacked her tidy basket--except Bella, who was busily helping on herknees at the chair on which it stood; 'that at least you might keep aletter in your pocket, Mrs Higden, which I would write for you and datefrom here, merely stating, in the names of Mr and Mrs Boffin, that theyare your friends;--I won't say patrons, because they wouldn't like it. '

'No, no, no, ' said Mr Boffin; 'no patronizing! Let's keep out of THAT, whatever we come to. '

'There's more than enough of that about, without us; ain't there, Noddy?' said Mrs Boffin. 

'I believe you, old lady!' returned the Golden Dustman. 'Overmuchindeed!'

'But people sometimes like to be patronized; don't they, sir?' askedBella, looking up. 

'I don't. And if THEY do, my dear, they ought to learn better, ' said MrBoffin. 'Patrons and Patronesses, and Vice-Patrons and Vice-Patronesses, and Deceased Patrons and Deceased Patronesses, and Ex-Vice-Patrons andEx-Vice-Patronesses, what does it all mean in the books of the Charitiesthat come pouring in on Rokesmith as he sits among 'em pretty well up tohis neck! If Mr Tom Noakes gives his five shillings ain't he a Patron, and if Mrs Jack Styles gives her five shillings ain't she a Patroness?What the deuce is it all about? If it ain't stark staring impudence, what do you call it?'

'Don't be warm, Noddy, ' Mrs Boffin urged. 

'Warm!' cried Mr Boffin. 'It's enough to make a man smoking hot. I can'tgo anywhere without being Patronized. I don't want to be Patronized. IfI buy a ticket for a Flower Show, or a Music Show, or any sort of Show, and pay pretty heavy for it, why am I to be Patroned and Patronessed asif the Patrons and Patronesses treated me? If there's a good thing to bedone, can't it be done on its own merits? If there's a bad thing tobe done, can it ever be Patroned and Patronessed right? Yet when a newInstitution's going to be built, it seems to me that the bricks andmortar ain't made of half so much consequence as the Patrons andPatronesses; no, nor yet the objects. I wish somebody would tell mewhether other countries get Patronized to anything like the extent ofthis one! And as to the Patrons and Patronesses themselves, I wonderthey're not ashamed of themselves. They ain't Pills, or Hair-Washes, orInvigorating Nervous Essences, to be puffed in that way!'

Having delivered himself of these remarks, Mr Boffin took a trot, according to his usual custom, and trotted back to the spot from whichhe had started. 

'As to the letter, Rokesmith, ' said Mr Boffin, 'you're as right as atrivet. Give her the letter, make her take the letter, put it in herpocket by violence. She might fall sick. You know you might fall sick, 'said Mr Boffin. 'Don't deny it, Mrs Higden, in your obstinacy; you knowyou might. '

Old Betty laughed, and said that she would take the letter and bethankful. 

'That's right!' said Mr Boffin. 'Come! That's sensible. And don't bethankful to us (for we never thought of it), but to Mr Rokesmith. '

The letter was written, and read to her, and given to her. 

'Now, how do you feel?' said Mr Boffin. 'Do you like it?'

'The letter, sir?' said Betty. 'Ay, it's a beautiful letter!'

'No, no, no; not the letter, ' said Mr Boffin; 'the idea. Are you sureyou're strong enough to carry out the idea?'

'I shall be stronger, and keep the deadness off better, this way, thanany way left open to me, sir. '

'Don't say than any way left open, you know, ' urged Mr Boffin; 'becausethere are ways without end. A housekeeper would be acceptable overyonder at the Bower, for instance. Wouldn't you like to see theBower, and know a retired literary man of the name of Wegg that livesthere--WITH a wooden leg?'

Old Betty was proof even against this temptation, and fell to adjustingher black bonnet and shawl. 

'I wouldn't let you go, now it comes to this, after all, ' said MrBoffin, 'if I didn't hope that it may make a man and a workman ofSloppy, in as short a time as ever a man and workman was made yet. Why, what have you got there, Betty? Not a doll?'

It was the man in the Guards who had been on duty over Johnny's bed. The solitary old woman showed what it was, and put it up quietly in herdress. Then, she gratefully took leave of Mrs Boffin, and of Mr Boffin, and of Rokesmith, and then put her old withered arms round Bella's youngand blooming neck, and said, repeating Johnny's words: 'A kiss for theboofer lady. '

The Secretary looked on from a doorway at the boofer lady thusencircled, and still looked on at the boofer lady standing alone there, when the determined old figure with its steady bright eyes was trudgingthrough the streets, away from paralysis and pauperism. 

Chapter 15

THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR

Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was to have withLizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he had been impelled by a feelinglittle short of desperation, and the feeling abided by him. It was verysoon after his interview with the Secretary, that he and Charley Hexamset out one leaden evening, not unnoticed by Miss Peecher, to have thisdesperate interview accomplished. 

'That dolls' dressmaker, ' said Bradley, 'is favourable neither to me norto you, Hexam. '

'A pert crooked little chit, Mr Headstone! I knew she would put herselfin the way, if she could, and would be sure to strike in with somethingimpertinent. It was on that account that I proposed our going to theCity to-night and meeting my sister. '

'So I supposed, ' said Bradley, getting his gloves on his nervous handsas he walked. 'So I supposed. '

'Nobody but my sister, ' pursued Charley, 'would have found out such anextraordinary companion. She has done it in a ridiculous fancy of givingherself up to another. She told me so, that night when we went there. '

'Why should she give herself up to the dressmaker?' asked Bradley. 

'Oh!' said the boy, colouring. 'One of her romantic ideas! I tried toconvince her so, but I didn't succeed. However, what we have got to do, is, to succeed to-night, Mr Headstone, and then all the rest follows. '

'You are still sanguine, Hexam. '

'Certainly I am, sir. Why, we have everything on our side. '

'Except your sister, perhaps, ' thought Bradley. But he only gloomilythought it, and said nothing. 

'Everything on our side, ' repeated the boy with boyish confidence. 'Respectability, an excellent connexion for me, common sense, everything!'

'To be sure, your sister has always shown herself a devoted sister, 'said Bradley, willing to sustain himself on even that low ground ofhope. 

'Naturally, Mr Headstone, I have a good deal of influence with her. And now that you have honoured me with your confidence and spoken to mefirst, I say again, we have everything on our side. '

And Bradley thought again, 'Except your sister, perhaps. '

A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death about them, andthe national dread of colour has an air of mourning. The towers andsteeples of the many house-encompassed churches, dark and dingy as thesky that seems descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom;a sun-dial on a church-wall has the look, in its useless black shade, ofhaving failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment for ever;melancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porter sweep melancholywaifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other moremelancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping andpoking for anything to sell. The set of humanity outward from the Cityis as a set of prisoners departing from gaol, and dismal Newgateseems quite as fit a stronghold for the mighty Lord Mayor as his ownstate-dwelling. 

On such an evening, when the city grit gets into the hair and eyes andskin, and when the fallen leaves of the few unhappy city trees grinddown in corners under wheels of wind, the schoolmaster and the pupilemerged upon the Leadenhall Street region, spying eastward for Lizzie. Being something too soon in their arrival, they lurked at a corner, waiting for her to appear. The best-looking among us will not look verywell, lurking at a corner, and Bradley came out of that disadvantagevery poorly indeed. 

'Here she comes, Mr Headstone! Let us go forward and meet her. '

As they advanced, she saw them coming, and seemed rather troubled. Butshe greeted her brother with the usual warmth, and touched the extendedhand of Bradley. 

'Why, where are you going, Charley, dear?' she asked him then. 

'Nowhere. We came on purpose to meet you. '

'To meet me, Charley?'

'Yes. We are going to walk with you. But don't let us take the greatleading streets where every one walks, and we can't hear ourselvesspeak. Let us go by the quiet backways. Here's a large paved court bythis church, and quiet, too. Let us go up here. '

'But it's not in the way, Charley. '

'Yes it is, ' said the boy, petulantly. 'It's in my way, and my way isyours. '

She had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at him witha kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes, under pretence of saying, 'Comealong, Mr Headstone. ' Bradley walked at his side--not at hers--and thebrother and sister walked hand in hand. The court brought them to achurchyard; a paved square court, with a raised bank of earth aboutbreast high, in the middle, enclosed by iron rails. Here, convenientlyand healthfully elevated above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly inclined from theperpendicular, as if they were ashamed of the lies they told. 

They paced the whole of this place once, in a constrained anduncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped and said:

'Lizzie, Mr Headstone has something to say to you. I don't wish to be aninterruption either to him or to you, and so I'll go and take a littlestroll and come back. I know in a general way what Mr Headstone intendsto say, and I very highly approve of it, as I hope--and indeed I donot doubt--you will. I needn't tell you, Lizzie, that I am under greatobligations to Mr Headstone, and that I am very anxious for Mr Headstoneto succeed in all he undertakes. As I hope--and as, indeed, I don'tdoubt--you must be. '

'Charley, ' returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew it, 'Ithink you had better stay. I think Mr Headstone had better not say whathe thinks of saying. '

'Why, how do you know what it is?' returned the boy. 

'Perhaps I don't, but--'

'Perhaps you don't? No, Liz, I should think not. If you knew whatit was, you would give me a very different answer. There; let go; besensible. I wonder you don't remember that Mr Headstone is looking on. '

She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after saying, 'NowLiz, be a rational girl and a good sister, ' walked away. She remainedstanding alone with Bradley Headstone, and it was not until she raisedher eyes, that he spoke. 

'I said, ' he began, 'when I saw you last, that there was somethingunexplained, which might perhaps influence you. I have come this eveningto explain it. I hope you will not judge of me by my hesitating mannerwhen I speak to you. You see me at my greatest disadvantage. It is mostunfortunate for me that I wish you to see me at my best, and that I knowyou see me at my worst. '

She moved slowly on when he paused, and he moved slowly on beside her. 

'It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about myself, ' heresumed, 'but whatever I say to you seems, even in my own ears, belowwhat I want to say, and different from what I want to say. I can't helpit. So it is. You are the ruin of me. '

She started at the passionate sound of the last words, and at thepassionate action of his hands, with which they were accompanied. 

'Yes! you are the ruin--the ruin--the ruin--of me. I have no resourcesin myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have no government ofmyself when you are near me or in my thoughts. And you are always in mythoughts now. I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for me! That was a wretched, miserable day!'

A touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, and she said:'Mr Headstone, I am grieved to have done you any harm, but I have nevermeant it. '

'There!' he cried, despairingly. 'Now, I seem to have reproached you, instead of revealing to you the state of my own mind! Bear with me. I amalways wrong when you are in question. It is my doom. '

Struggling with himself, and by times looking up at the deserted windowsof the houses as if there could be anything written in their grimy panesthat would help him, he paced the whole pavement at her side, before hespoke again. 

'I must try to give expression to what is in my mind; it shall and mustbe spoken. Though you see me so confounded--though you strike me sohelpless--I ask you to believe that there are many people who think wellof me; that there are some people who highly esteem me; that I have inmy way won a Station which is considered worth winning. '

'Surely, Mr Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always known itfrom Charley. '

'I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home such as it is, mystation such as it is, my affections such as they are, to any one of thebest considered, and best qualified, and most distinguished, among theyoung women engaged in my calling, they would probably be accepted. Evenreadily accepted. '

'I do not doubt it, ' said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the ground. 

'I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer and to settledown as many men of my class do: I on the one side of a school, my wifeon the other, both of us interested in the same work. '

'Why have you not done so?' asked Lizzie Hexam. 'Why do you not do so?'

'Far better that I never did! The only one grain of comfort I have hadthese many weeks, ' he said, always speaking passionately, and, whenmost emphatic, repeating that former action of his hands, which waslike flinging his heart's blood down before her in drops upon thepavement-stones; 'the only one grain of comfort I have had these manyweeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and if the same spell had comeupon me for my ruin, I know I should have broken that tie asunder as ifit had been thread. '

She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking gesture. Heanswered, as if she had spoken. 

'No! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more than it isvoluntary in me to be here now. You draw me to you. If I were shut up ina strong prison, you would draw me out. I should break through the wallto come to you. If I were lying on a sick bed, you would draw me up--tostagger to your feet and fall there. '

The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutelyterrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece of the coping of theburial-ground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the stone. 

'No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within him. To somemen it never comes; let them rest and be thankful! To me, you broughtit; on me, you forced it; and the bottom of this raging sea, ' strikinghimself upon the breast, 'has been heaved up ever since. '

'Mr Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will bebetter for you and better for me. Let us find my brother. '

'Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in torments eversince I stopped short of it before. You are alarmed. It is another of mymiseries that I cannot speak to you or speak of you without stumbling atevery syllable, unless I let the check go altogether and run mad. Hereis a man lighting the lamps. He will be gone directly. I entreat of youlet us walk round this place again. You have no reason to look alarmed;I can restrain myself, and I will. '

She yielded to the entreaty--how could she do otherwise!--and they pacedthe stones in silence. One by one the lights leaped up making the coldgrey church tower more remote, and they were alone again. He said nomore until they had regained the spot where he had broken off; there, heagain stood still, and again grasped the stone. In saying what he saidthen, he never looked at her; but looked at it and wrenched at it. 

'You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may meanwhen they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I amunder the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resistedin vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you coulddraw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me toany death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you coulddraw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of mythoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being theruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offerof myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good--every good--withequal force. My circumstances are quite easy, and you would want fornothing. My reputation stands quite high, and would be a shield foryours. If you saw me at my work, able to do it well and respected init, you might even come to take a sort of pride in me;--I would try hardthat you should. Whatever considerations I may have thought of againstthis offer, I have conquered, and I make it with all my heart. Yourbrother favours me to the utmost, and it is likely that we might liveand work together; anyhow, it is certain that he would have my bestinfluence and support. I don't know what I could say more if I tried. Imight only weaken what is ill enough said as it is. I only add thatif it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough earnest, dreadful earnest. '

The powdered mortar from under the stone at which he wrenched, rattledon the pavement to confirm his words. 

'Mr Headstone--'

'Stop! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk round this placeonce more. It will give you a minute's time to think, and me a minute'stime to get some fortitude together. '

Again she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came back to the sameplace, and again he worked at the stone. 

'Is it, ' he said, with his attention apparently engrossed by it, 'yes, or no?'

'Mr Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you gratefully, and hopeyou may find a worthy wife before long and be very happy. But it is no. '

'Is no short time necessary for reflection; no weeks or days?' he asked, in the same half-suffocated way. 

'None whatever. '

'Are you quite decided, and is there no chance of any change in myfavour?'

'I am quite decided, Mr Headstone, and I am bound to answer I am certainthere is none. '

'Then, ' said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning to her, andbringing his clenched hand down upon the stone with a force that laidthe knuckles raw and bleeding; 'then I hope that I may never kill him!'

The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from hislivid lips, and with which he stood holding out his smeared hand asif it held some weapon and had just struck a mortal blow, made her soafraid of him that she turned to run away. But he caught her by the arm. 

'Mr Headstone, let me go. Mr Headstone, I must call for help!'

'It is I who should call for help, ' he said; 'you don't know yet howmuch I need it. '

The working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing round for herbrother and uncertain what to do, might have extorted a cry from her inanother instant; but all at once he sternly stopped it and fixed it, asif Death itself had done so. 

'There! You see I have recovered myself. Hear me out. '

With much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her self-reliantlife and her right to be free from accountability to this man, shereleased her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him. She hadnever been so handsome, in his eyes. A shade came over them whilehe looked back at her, as if she drew the very light out of them toherself. 

'This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid, ' he went on, foldinghis hands before him, clearly to prevent his being betrayed into anyimpetuous gesture; 'this last time at least I will not be tortured withafter-thoughts of a lost opportunity. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. '

'Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and violence?' LizzieHexam demanded with spirit. 

He bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word. 

'Was it Mr Wrayburn that you threatened?'

He bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a word. 

'You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak. Let me find mybrother. '

'Stay! I threatened no one. '

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it tohis mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the other. 'Mr Eugene Wrayburn, ' he repeated. 

'Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr Headstone?'

'Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe! Thereare no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten it uponme. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. '

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name, could hardly have escaped him. 

'He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing enough tolisten to HIM. I know it, as well as he does. '

'Mr Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir, ' said Lizzie, proudly, 'in connexion with the death and with the memory of my poorfather. '

'No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good man, MrEugene Wrayburn. '

'He is nothing to you, I think, ' said Lizzie, with an indignation shecould not repress. 

'Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me. '

'What can he be to you?'

'He can be a rival to me among other things, ' said Bradley. 

'Mr Headstone, ' returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 'it is cowardly inyou to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able to tell you thatI do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, andthat no other living creature has anything to do with the effect youhave produced upon me for yourself. '

His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then looked upagain, moistening his lips. 'I was going on with the little I had leftto say. I knew all this about Mr Eugene Wrayburn, all the while you weredrawing me to you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. Itmade no difference in me. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I wenton. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now. With MrEugene Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been castout. '

'If you give those names to my thanking you for your proposaland declining it, is it my fault, Mr Headstone?' said Lizzie, compassionating the bitter struggle he could not conceal, almost as muchas she was repelled and alarmed by it. 

'I am not complaining, ' he returned, 'I am only stating the case. I hadto wrestle with my self-respect when I submitted to be drawn to you inspite of Mr Wrayburn. You may imagine how low my self-respect lies now. '

She was hurt and angry; but repressed herself in consideration of hissuffering, and of his being her brother's friend. 

'And it lies under his feet, ' said Bradley, unfolding his hands in spiteof himself, and fiercely motioning with them both towards the stones ofthe pavement. 'Remember that! It lies under that fellow's feet, and hetreads upon it and exults above it. '

'He does not!' said Lizzie. 

'He does!' said Bradley. 'I have stood before him face to face, and hecrushed me down in the dirt of his contempt, and walked over me. Why?Because he knew with triumph what was in store for me to-night. '

'O, Mr Headstone, you talk quite wildly. '

'Quite collectedly. I know what I say too well. Now I have said all. Ihave used no threat, remember; I have done no more than show you how thecase stands;--how the case stands, so far. '

At this moment her brother sauntered into view close by. She darted tohim, and caught him by the hand. Bradley followed, and laid his heavyhand on the boy's opposite shoulder. 

'Charley Hexam, I am going home. I must walk home by myself to-night, and get shut up in my room without being spoken to. Give me half anhour's start, and let me be, till you find me at my work in the morning. I shall be at my work in the morning just as usual. '

Clasping his hands, he uttered a short unearthly broken cry, and wenthis way. The brother and sister were left looking at one another neara lamp in the solitary churchyard, and the boy's face clouded anddarkened, as he said in a rough tone: 'What is the meaning of this? Whathave you done to my best friend? Out with the truth!'

'Charley!' said his sister. 'Speak a little more considerately!'

'I am not in the humour for consideration, or for nonsense of any sort, 'replied the boy. 'What have you been doing? Why has Mr Headstone gonefrom us in that way?'

'He asked me--you know he asked me--to be his wife, Charley. '

'Well?' said the boy, impatiently. 

'And I was obliged to tell him that I could not be his wife. '

'You were obliged to tell him, ' repeated the boy angrily, between histeeth, and rudely pushing her away. 'You were obliged to tell him! Doyou know that he is worth fifty of you?'

'It may easily be so, Charley, but I cannot marry him. '

'You mean that you are conscious that you can't appreciate him, anddon't deserve him, I suppose?'

'I mean that I do not like him, Charley, and that I will never marryhim. '

'Upon my soul, ' exclaimed the boy, 'you are a nice picture of a sister!Upon my soul, you are a pretty piece of disinterestedness! And so all myendeavours to cancel the past and to raise myself in the world, and toraise you with me, are to be beaten down by YOUR low whims; are they?'

'I will not reproach you, Charley. '

'Hear her!' exclaimed the boy, looking round at the darkness. 'She won'treproach me! She does her best to destroy my fortunes and her own, and she won't reproach me! Why, you'll tell me, next, that you won'treproach Mr Headstone for coming out of the sphere to which he is anornament, and putting himself at YOUR feet, to be rejected by YOU!'

'No, Charley; I will only tell you, as I told himself, that I thank himfor doing so, that I am sorry he did so, and that I hope he will do muchbetter, and be happy. '

Some touch of compunction smote the boy's hardening heart as he lookedupon her, his patient little nurse in infancy, his patient friend, adviser, and reclaimer in boyhood, the self-forgetting sister who haddone everything for him. His tone relented, and he drew her arm throughhis. 

'Now, come, Liz; don't let us quarrel: let us be reasonable and talkthis over like brother and sister. Will you listen to me?'

'Oh, Charley!' she replied through her starting tears; 'do I not listento you, and hear many hard things!'

'Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. Only you do put meout so. Now see. Mr Headstone is perfectly devoted to you. He has toldme in the strongest manner that he has never been his old self for onesingle minute since I first brought him to see you. Miss Peecher, ourschoolmistress--pretty and young, and all that--is known to be very muchattached to him, and he won't so much as look at her or hear of her. Now, his devotion to you must be a disinterested one; mustn't it? If hemarried Miss Peecher, he would be a great deal better off in all worldlyrespects, than in marrying you. Well then; he has nothing to get by it, has he?'

'Nothing, Heaven knows!'

'Very well then, ' said the boy; 'that's something in his favour, and agreat thing. Then I come in. Mr Headstone has always got me on, and hehas a good deal in his power, and of course if he was my brother-in-lawhe wouldn't get me on less, but would get me on more. Mr Headstonecomes and confides in me, in a very delicate way, and says, "I hope mymarrying your sister would be agreeable to you, Hexam, and useful toyou?" I say, "There's nothing in the world, Mr Headstone, that I couldbe better pleased with. " Mr Headstone says, "Then I may rely upon yourintimate knowledge of me for your good word with your sister, Hexam?"And I say, "Certainly, Mr Headstone, and naturally I have a good deal ofinfluence with her. " So I have; haven't I, Liz?'

'Yes, Charley. '

'Well said! Now, you see, we begin to get on, the moment we begin tobe really talking it over, like brother and sister. Very well. ThenYOU come in. As Mr Headstone's wife you would be occupying a mostrespectable station, and you would be holding a far better place insociety than you hold now, and you would at length get quit of theriver-side and the old disagreeables belonging to it, and you would berid for good of dolls' dressmakers and their drunken fathers, and thelike of that. Not that I want to disparage Miss Jenny Wren: I daresay she is all very well in her way; but her way is not your way asMr Headstone's wife. Now, you see, Liz, on all three accounts--onMr Headstone's, on mine, on yours--nothing could be better or moredesirable. '

They were walking slowly as the boy spoke, and here he stood still, tosee what effect he had made. His sister's eyes were fixed upon him; butas they showed no yielding, and as she remained silent, he walked her onagain. There was some discomfiture in his tone as he resumed, though hetried to conceal it. 

'Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, perhaps I shouldhave done better to have had a little chat with you in the firstinstance, before Mr Headstone spoke for himself. But really all this inhis favour seemed so plain and undeniable, and I knew you to have alwaysbeen so reasonable and sensible, that I didn't consider it worth while. Very likely that was a mistake of mine. However, it's soon set right. All that need be done to set it right, is for you to tell me at oncethat I may go home and tell Mr Headstone that what has taken place isnot final, and that it will all come round by-and-by. '

He stopped again. The pale face looked anxiously and lovingly at him, but she shook her head. 

'Can't you speak?' said the boy sharply. 

'I am very unwilling to speak, Charley. If I must, I must. I cannotauthorize you to say any such thing to Mr Headstone: I cannot allow youto say any such thing to Mr Headstone. Nothing remains to be said to himfrom me, after what I have said for good and all, to-night. '

'And this girl, ' cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her off again, 'calls herself a sister!'

'Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost struckme. Don't be hurt by my words. I don't mean--Heaven forbid!--that youintended it; but you hardly know with what a sudden swing you removedyourself from me. '

'However!' said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, andpursuing his own mortified disappointment, 'I know what this means, andyou shall not disgrace me. '

'It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing more. '

'That's not true, ' said the boy in a violent tone, 'and you know it'snot. It means your precious Mr Wrayburn; that's what it means. '

'Charley! If you remember any old days of ours together, forbear!'

'But you shall not disgrace me, ' doggedly pursued the boy. 'I amdetermined that after I have climbed up out of the mire, you shall notpull me down. You can't disgrace me if I have nothing to do with you, and I will have nothing to do with you for the future. '

'Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse night, I have saton the stones of the street, hushing you in my arms. Unsay those wordswithout even saying you are sorry for them, and my arms are open to youstill, and so is my heart. '

'I'll not unsay them. I'll say them again. You are an inveterately badgirl, and a false sister, and I have done with you. For ever, I havedone with you!'

He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set up a barrierbetween them, and flung himself upon his heel and left her. She remainedimpassive on the same spot, silent and motionless, until the strikingof the church clock roused her, and she turned away. But then, with thebreaking up of her immobility came the breaking up of the waters thatthe cold heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And 'O that I were lyinghere with the dead!' and 'O Charley, Charley, that this should be theend of our pictures in the fire!' were all the words she said, as shelaid her face in her hands on the stone coping. 

A figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked round ather. It was the figure of an old man with a bowed head, wearing a largebrimmed low-crowned hat, and a long-skirted coat. After hesitating alittle, the figure turned back, and, advancing with an air of gentlenessand compassion, said:

'Pardon me, young woman, for speaking to you, but you are under somedistress of mind. I cannot pass upon my way and leave you weeping herealone, as if there was nothing in the place. Can I help you? Can I doanything to give you comfort?'

She raised her head at the sound of these kind words, and answeredgladly, 'O, Mr Riah, is it you?'

'My daughter, ' said the old man, 'I stand amazed! I spoke as to astranger. Take my arm, take my arm. What grieves you? Who has done this?Poor girl, poor girl!'

'My brother has quarrelled with me, ' sobbed Lizzie, 'and renounced me. '

'He is a thankless dog, ' said the Jew, angrily. 'Let him go. ' Shake thedust from thy feet and let him go. Come, daughter! Come home with me--itis but across the road--and take a little time to recover your peace andto make your eyes seemly, and then I will bear you company through thestreets. For it is past your usual time, and will soon be late, and theway is long, and there is much company out of doors to-night. '

She accepted the support he offered her, and they slowly passed outof the churchyard. They were in the act of emerging into the mainthoroughfare, when another figure loitering discontentedly by, andlooking up the street and down it, and all about, started and exclaimed, 'Lizzie! why, where have you been? Why, what's the matter?'

As Eugene Wrayburn thus addressed her, she drew closer to the Jew, andbent her head. The Jew having taken in the whole of Eugene at one sharpglance, cast his eyes upon the ground, and stood mute. 

'Lizzie, what is the matter?'

'Mr Wrayburn, I cannot tell you now. I cannot tell you to-night, if Iever can tell you. Pray leave me. '

'But, Lizzie, I came expressly to join you. I came to walk home withyou, having dined at a coffee-house in this neighbourhood and knowingyour hour. And I have been lingering about, ' added Eugene, 'like abailiff; or, ' with a look at Riah, 'an old clothesman. '

The Jew lifted up his eyes, and took in Eugene once more, at anotherglance. 

'Mr Wrayburn, pray, pray, leave me with this protector. And one thingmore. Pray, pray be careful of yourself. '

'Mysteries of Udolpho!' said Eugene, with a look of wonder. 'May I beexcused for asking, in the elderly gentleman's presence, who is thiskind protector?'

'A trustworthy friend, ' said Lizzie. 

'I will relieve him of his trust, ' returned Eugene. 'But you must tellme, Lizzie, what is the matter?'

'Her brother is the matter, ' said the old man, lifting up his eyesagain. 

'Our brother the matter?' returned Eugene, with airy contempt. 'Ourbrother is not worth a thought, far less a tear. What has our brotherdone?'

The old man lifted up his eyes again, with one grave look at Wrayburn, and one grave glance at Lizzie, as she stood looking down. Both were sofull of meaning that even Eugene was checked in his light career, andsubsided into a thoughtful 'Humph!'

With an air of perfect patience the old man, remaining mute and keepinghis eyes cast down, stood, retaining Lizzie's arm, as though in hishabit of passive endurance, it would be all one to him if he had stoodthere motionless all night. 

'If Mr Aaron, ' said Eugene, who soon found this fatiguing, 'will be goodenough to relinquish his charge to me, he will be quite free for anyengagement he may have at the Synagogue. Mr Aaron, will you have thekindness?'

But the old man stood stock still. 

'Good evening, Mr Aaron, ' said Eugene, politely; 'we need not detainyou. ' Then turning to Lizzie, 'Is our friend Mr Aaron a little deaf?'

'My hearing is very good, Christian gentleman, ' replied the old man, calmly; 'but I will hear only one voice to-night, desiring me to leavethis damsel before I have conveyed her to her home. If she requests it, I will do it. I will do it for no one else. '

'May I ask why so, Mr Aaron?' said Eugene, quite undisturbed in hisease. 

'Excuse me. If she asks me, I will tell her, ' replied the old man. 'Iwill tell no one else. '

'I do not ask you, ' said Lizzie, 'and I beg you to take me home. MrWrayburn, I have had a bitter trial to-night, and I hope you will notthink me ungrateful, or mysterious, or changeable. I am neither; I amwretched. Pray remember what I said to you. Pray, pray, take care. '

'My dear Lizzie, ' he returned, in a low voice, bending over her on theother side; 'of what? Of whom?'

'Of any one you have lately seen and made angry. '

He snapped his fingers and laughed. 'Come, ' said he, 'since no bettermay be, Mr Aaron and I will divide this trust, and see you hometogether. Mr Aaron on that side; I on this. If perfectly agreeable to MrAaron, the escort will now proceed. '

He knew his power over her. He knew that she would not insist upon hisleaving her. He knew that, her fears for him being aroused, she wouldbe uneasy if he were out of her sight. For all his seeming levity andcarelessness, he knew whatever he chose to know of the thoughts of herheart. 

And going on at her side, so gaily, regardless of all that had beenurged against him; so superior in his sallies and self-possession tothe gloomy constraint of her suitor and the selfish petulance of herbrother; so faithful to her, as it seemed, when her own stock wasfaithless; what an immense advantage, what an overpowering influence, were his that night! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she had heard himvilified for her sake, and that she had suffered for his, and where thewonder that his occasional tones of serious interest (setting off hiscarelessness, as if it were assumed to calm her), that his lightesttouch, his lightest look, his very presence beside her in the darkcommon street, were like glimpses of an enchanted world, which it wasnatural for jealousy and malice and all meanness to be unable to bearthe brightness of, and to gird at as bad spirits might. 

Nothing more being said of repairing to Riah's, they went direct toLizzie's lodging. A little short of the house-door she parted from them, and went in alone. 

'Mr Aaron, ' said Eugene, when they were left together in the street, 'with many thanks for your company, it remains for me unwillingly to sayFarewell. '

'Sir, ' returned the other, 'I give you good night, and I wish that youwere not so thoughtless. '

'Mr Aaron, ' returned Eugene, 'I give you good night, and I wish (for youare a little dull) that you were not so thoughtful. '

But now, that his part was played out for the evening, and when inturning his back upon the Jew he came off the stage, he was thoughtfulhimself. 'How did Lightwood's catechism run?' he murmured, as he stoppedto light his cigar. 'What is to come of it? What are you doing? Whereare you going? We shall soon know now. Ah!' with a heavy sigh. 

The heavy sigh was repeated as if by an echo, an hour afterwards, whenRiah, who had been sitting on some dark steps in a corner over againstthe house, arose and went his patient way; stealing through the streetsin his ancient dress, like the ghost of a departed Time. 

Chapter 16

AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION

The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over thestable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, and hearing the horses attheir toilette below, finds himself on the whole in a disadvantageousposition as compared with the noble animals at livery. For whereas, onthe one hand, he has no attendant to slap him soundingly and require himin gruff accents to come up and come over, still, on the other hand, he has no attendant at all; and the mild gentleman's finger-joints andother joints working rustily in the morning, he could deem it agreeableeven to be tied up by the countenance at his chamber-door, so he werethere skilfully rubbed down and slushed and sluiced and polished andclothed, while himself taking merely a passive part in these tryingtransactions. 

How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for thebewilderment of the senses of men, is known only to the Graces and hermaid; but perhaps even that engaging creature, though not reduced tothe self-dependence of Twemlow could dispense with a good deal of thetrouble attendant on the daily restoration of her charms, seeing thatas to her face and neck this adorable divinity is, as it were, a diurnalspecies of lobster--throwing off a shell every forenoon, and needing tokeep in a retired spot until the new crust hardens. 

Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and cravatand wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to breakfast. And tobreakfast with whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of SackvilleStreet, who have imparted to him that he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, butthe peaceable Twemlow reasons, If he IS my kinsman I didn't make him so, and to meet a man is not to know him. '

It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr and Mrs Lammle, and the celebration is a breakfast, because a dinner on the desiredscale of sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less limits than thoseof the non-existent palatial residence of which so many people aremadly envious. So, Twemlow trips with not a little stiffness acrossPiccadilly, sensible of having once been more upright in figure and lessin danger of being knocked down by swift vehicles. To be sure that wasin the days when he hoped for leave from the dread Snigsworth to dosomething, or be something, in life, and before that magnificent Tartarissued the ukase, 'As he will never distinguish himself, he must be apoor gentleman-pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himselfpensioned. '

Ah! my Twemlow! Say, little feeble grey personage, what thoughts are inthy breast to-day, of the Fancy--so still to call her who bruised thyheart when it was green and thy head brown--and whether it be better orworse, more painful or less, to believe in the Fancy to this hour, thanto know her for a greedy armour-plated crocodile, with no more capacityof imagining the delicate and sensitive and tender spot behind thywaistcoat, than of going straight at it with a knitting-needle. Saylikewise, my Twemlow, whether it be the happier lot to be a poorrelation of the great, or to stand in the wintry slush giving the hackhorses to drink out of the shallow tub at the coach-stand, into whichthou has so nearly set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, andgoes on. 

As he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little one-horsecarriage, containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, letting down thewindow, playfully extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being inwaiting there to hand her out. Twemlow hands her out with as much politegravity as if she were anything real, and they proceed upstairs. Tippinsall abroad about the legs, and seeking to express that those unsteadyarticles are only skipping in their native buoyancy. 

And dear Mrs Lammle and dear Mr Lammle, how do you do, and when areyou going down to what's-its-name place--Guy, Earl of Warwick, youknow--what is it?--Dun Cow--to claim the flitch of bacon? And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted out from my list of lovers, by reasonfirst of fickleness and then of base desertion, how do YOU do, wretch?And Mr Wrayburn, YOU here! What can YOU come for, because we are allvery sure before-hand that you are not going to talk! And Veneering, M. P. , how are things going on down at the house, and when will you turnout those terrible people for us? And Mrs Veneering, my dear, can itpositively be true that you go down to that stifling place night afternight, to hear those men prose? Talking of which, Veneering, why don'tyou prose, for you haven't opened your lips there yet, and we are dyingto hear what you have got to say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to seeyou. Pa, here? No! Ma, neither? Oh! Mr Boots! Delighted. Mr Brewer!This IS a gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins, and surveys Fledgeby andoutsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and about, in her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know? No, I think not. Nobodythere. Nobody THERE. Nobody anywhere!

Mr Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying for thehonour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby presented, has the airof going to say something, has the air of going to say nothing, has anair successively of meditation, of resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of Boots, and fades into the extremebackground, feeling for his whisker, as if it might have turned up sincehe was there five minutes ago. 

But Lammle has him out again before he has so much as completelyascertained the bareness of the land. He would seem to be in a bad way, Fledgeby; for Lammle represents him as dying again. He is dying now, ofwant of presentation to Twemlow. 

Twemlow offers his hand. Glad to see him. 'Your mother, sir, was aconnexion of mine. '

'I believe so, ' says Fledgeby, 'but my mother and her family were two. '

'Are you staying in town?' asks Twemlow. 

'I always am, ' says Fledgeby. 

'You like town, ' says Twemlow. But is felled flat by Fledgeby's takingit quite ill, and replying, No, he don't like town. Lammle tries tobreak the force of the fall, by remarking that some people do not liketown. Fledgeby retorting that he never heard of any such case but hisown, Twemlow goes down again heavily. 

'There is nothing new this morning, I suppose?' says Twemlow, returningto the mark with great spirit. 

Fledgeby has not heard of anything. 

'No, there's not a word of news, ' says Lammle. 

'Not a particle, ' adds Boots. 

'Not an atom, ' chimes in Brewer. 

Somehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears to raisethe general spirits as with a sense of duty done, and sets the company agoing. Everybody seems more equal than before, to the calamity of beingin the society of everybody else. Even Eugene standing in a window, moodily swinging the tassel of a blind, gives it a smarter jerk now, asif he found himself in better case. 

Breakfast announced. Everything on table showy and gaudy, but witha self-assertingly temporary and nomadic air on the decorations, asboasting that they will be much more showy and gaudy in the palatialresidence. Mr Lammle's own particular servant behind his chair; theAnalytical behind Veneering's chair; instances in point thatsuch servants fall into two classes: one mistrusting the master'sacquaintances, and the other mistrusting the master. Mr Lammle'sservant, of the second class. Appearing to be lost in wonder and lowspirits because the police are so long in coming to take his master upon some charge of the first magnitude. 

Veneering, M. P. , on the right of Mrs Lammle; Twemlow on her left; MrsVeneering, W. M. P. (wife of Member of Parliament), and Lady Tippins on MrLammle's right and left. But be sure that well within the fascination ofMr Lammle's eye and smile sits little Georgiana. And be sure thatclose to little Georgiana, also under inspection by the same gingerousgentleman, sits Fledgeby. 

Oftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, Mr Twemlowgives a little sudden turn towards Mrs Lammle, and then says to her, 'Ibeg your pardon!' This not being Twemlow's usual way, why is it hisway to-day? Why, the truth is, Twemlow repeatedly labours under theimpression that Mrs Lammle is going to speak to him, and turning findsthat it is not so, and mostly that she has her eyes upon Veneering. Strange that this impression so abides by Twemlow after being corrected, yet so it is. 

Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth (includinggrape-juice in the category) becomes livelier, and applies herself toelicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is always understood among theinitiated, that that faithless lover must be planted at table oppositeto Lady Tippins, who will then strike conversational fire out of him. In a pause of mastication and deglutition, Lady Tippins, contemplatingMortimer, recalls that it was at our dear Veneerings, and in thepresence of a party who are surely all here, that he told them hisstory of the man from somewhere, which afterwards became so horriblyinteresting and vulgarly popular. 

'Yes, Lady Tippins, ' assents Mortimer; 'as they say on the stage, "Evenso!"

'Then we expect you, ' retorts the charmer, 'to sustain your reputation, and tell us something else. '

'Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there isnothing more to be got out of me. '

Mortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that elsewhere it is Eugeneand not he who is the jester, and that in these circles where Eugenepersists in being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but the double of thefriend on whom he has founded himself. 

'But, ' quoth the fascinating Tippins, 'I am resolved on gettingsomething more out of you. Traitor! what is this I hear about anotherdisappearance?'

'As it is you who have heard it, ' returns Lightwood, 'perhaps you'lltell us. '

'Monster, away!' retorts Lady Tippins. 'Your own Golden Dustman referredme to you. '

Mr Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a sequelto the story of the man from somewhere. Silence ensues upon theproclamation. 

'I assure you, ' says Lightwood, glancing round the table, 'I havenothing to tell. ' But Eugene adding in a low voice, 'There, tellit, tell it!' he corrects himself with the addition, 'Nothing worthmentioning. '

Boots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is immensely worthmentioning, and become politely clamorous. Veneering is also visited bya perception to the same effect. But it is understood that his attentionis now rather used up, and difficult to hold, that being the tone of theHouse of Commons. 

'Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves to listen, ' saysMortimer Lightwood, 'because I shall have finished long before you havefallen into comfortable attitudes. It's like--'

'It's like, ' impatiently interrupts Eugene, 'the children's narrative:

 "I'll tell you a story Of Jack a Manory, And now my story's begun; I'll tell you another Of Jack and his brother, And now my story is done. "

--Get on, and get it over!'

Eugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, leaning back inhis chair and looking balefully at Lady Tippins, who nods to him asher dear Bear, and playfully insinuates that she (a self-evidentproposition) is Beauty, and he Beast. 

'The reference, ' proceeds Mortimer, 'which I suppose to be made by myhonourable and fair enslaver opposite, is to the following circumstance. Very lately, the young woman, Lizzie Hexam, daughter of the late JesseHexam, otherwise Gaffer, who will be remembered to have found the bodyof the man from somewhere, mysteriously received, she knew not fromwhom, an explicit retraction of the charges made against her father, byanother water-side character of the name of Riderhood. Nobody believedthem, because little Rogue Riderhood--I am tempted into the paraphraseby remembering the charming wolf who would have rendered society a greatservice if he had devoured Mr Riderhood's father and mother in theirinfancy--had previously played fast and loose with the said charges, and, in fact, abandoned them. However, the retraction I have mentionedfound its way into Lizzie Hexam's hands, with a general flavour on itof having been favoured by some anonymous messenger in a dark cloak andslouched hat, and was by her forwarded, in her father's vindication, toMr Boffin, my client. You will excuse the phraseology of the shop, butas I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall have, Iam rather proud of him as a natural curiosity probably unique. '

Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite as easyas usual below it. With an air of not minding Eugene at all, he feelsthat the subject is not altogether a safe one in that connexion. 

'The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my professionalmuseum, ' he resumes, 'hereupon desires his Secretary--an individualof the hermit-crab or oyster species, and whose name, I think, isChokesmith--but it doesn't in the least matter--say Artichoke--to puthimself in communication with Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes hisreadiness so to do, endeavours to do so, but fails. '

'Why fails?' asks Boots. 

'How fails?' asks Brewer. 

'Pardon me, ' returns Lightwood, ' I must postpone the reply for onemoment, or we shall have an anti-climax. Artichoke failing signally, myclient refers the task to me: his purpose being to advance the interestsof the object of his search. I proceed to put myself in communicationwith her; I even happen to possess some special means, ' with a glanceat Eugene, 'of putting myself in communication with her; but I fail too, because she has vanished. '

'Vanished!' is the general echo. 

'Disappeared, ' says Mortimer. 'Nobody knows how, nobody knows when, nobody knows where. And so ends the story to which my honourable andfair enslaver opposite referred. '

Tippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we shall every oneof us be murdered in our beds. Eugene eyes her as if some of us wouldbe enough for him. Mrs Veneering, W. M. P. , remarks that these socialmysteries make one afraid of leaving Baby. Veneering, M. P. , wishes tobe informed (with something of a second-hand air of seeing the RightHonourable Gentleman at the head of the Home Department in his place)whether it is intended to be conveyed that the vanished person has beenspirited away or otherwise harmed? Instead of Lightwood's answering, Eugene answers, and answers hastily and vexedly: 'No, no, no; he doesn'tmean that; he means voluntarily vanished--but utterly--completely. '

However, the great subject of the happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle mustnot be allowed to vanish with the other vanishments--with the vanishingof the murderer, the vanishing of Julius Handford, the vanishing ofLizzie Hexam, --and therefore Veneering must recall the present sheepto the pen from which they have strayed. Who so fit to discourse ofthe happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle, they being the dearest and oldestfriends he has in the world; or what audience so fit for him to takeinto his confidence as that audience, a noun of multitude or signifyingmany, who are all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world?So Veneering, without the formality of rising, launches into a familiaroration, gradually toning into the Parliamentary sing-song, in which hesees at that board his dear friend Twemlow who on that day twelvemonthbestowed on his dear friend Lammle the fair hand of his dear friendSophronia, and in which he also sees at that board his dear friendsBoots and Brewer whose rallying round him at a period when his dearfriend Lady Tippins likewise rallied round him--ay, and in the foremostrank--he can never forget while memory holds her seat. But he is freeto confess that he misses from that board his dear old friend Podsnap, though he is well represented by his dear young friend Georgiana. And hefurther sees at that board (this he announces with pomp, as if exultingin the powers of an extraordinary telescope) his friend Mr Fledgeby, ifhe will permit him to call him so. For all of these reasons, and manymore which he right well knows will have occurred to persons of yourexceptional acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the time hasarrived when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears in our eyes, with blessings on our lips, and in a general way with a profusion ofgammon and spinach in our emotional larders, we should one and all drinkto our dear friends the Lammles, wishing them many years as happy asthe last, and many many friends as congenially united as themselves. Andthis he will add; that Anastatia Veneering (who is instantly heard toweep) is formed on the same model as her old and chosen friend SophroniaLammle, in respect that she is devoted to the man who wooed and won her, and nobly discharges the duties of a wife. 

Seeing no better way out of it, Veneering here pulls up his oratoricalPegasus extremely short, and plumps down, clean over his head, with:'Lammle, God bless you!'

Then Lammle. Too much of him every way; pervadingly too much nose of acoarse wrong shape, and his nose in his mind and his manners; too muchsmile to be real; too much frown to be false; too many large teeth to bevisible at once without suggesting a bite. He thanks you, dear friends, for your kindly greeting, and hopes to receive you--it may be on thenext of these delightful occasions--in a residence better suited toyour claims on the rites of hospitality. He will never forget that atVeneering's he first saw Sophronia. Sophronia will never forget that atVeneering's she first saw him. 'They spoke of it soon after theywere married, and agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, toVeneering they owe their union. They hope to show their sense of thissome day ('No, no, from Veneering)--oh yes, yes, and let him relyupon it, they will if they can! His marriage with Sophronia was not amarriage of interest on either side: she had her little fortune, he hadhis little fortune: they joined their little fortunes: it was a marriageof pure inclination and suitability. Thank you! Sophronia and he arefond of the society of young people; but he is not sure that their housewould be a good house for young people proposing to remain single, sincethe contemplation of its domestic bliss might induce them to changetheir minds. He will not apply this to any one present; certainly notto their darling little Georgiana. Again thank you! Neither, by-the-by, will he apply it to his friend Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for thefeeling manner in which he referred to their common friend Fledgeby, forhe holds that gentleman in the highest estimation. Thank you. In fact(returning unexpectedly to Fledgeby), the better you know him, the moreyou find in him that you desire to know. Again thank you! In his dearSophronia's name and in his own, thank you!

Mrs Lammle has sat quite still, with her eyes cast down upon thetable-cloth. As Mr Lammle's address ends, Twemlow once more turns to herinvoluntarily, not cured yet of that often recurring impression that sheis going to speak to him. This time she really is going to speak to him. Veneering is talking with his other next neighbour, and she speaks in alow voice. 

'Mr Twemlow. '

He answers, 'I beg your pardon? Yes?' Still a little doubtful, becauseof her not looking at him. 

'You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may trust you. Will yougive me the opportunity of saying a few words to you when you come upstairs?'

'Assuredly. I shall be honoured. '

'Don't seem to do so, if you please, and don't think it inconsistent ifmy manner should be more careless than my words. I may be watched. '

Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and sinksback in his chair meditating. Mrs Lammle rises. All rise. The ladies goup stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devotedthe interval to taking an observation of Boots's whiskers, Brewer'swhiskers, and Lammle's whiskers, and considering which pattern ofwhisker he would prefer to produce out of himself by friction, if theGenie of the cheek would only answer to his rubbing. 

In the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots, and Brewer, flutter like moths around that yellow wax candle--guttering down, and with some hint of a winding-sheet in it--Lady Tippins. Outsiderscultivate Veneering, M P. , and Mrs Veneering, W. M. P. Lammle stands withfolded arms, Mephistophelean in a corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites Mr Twemlow's attention to abook of portraits in her hand. 

Mr Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs Lammleshows him a portrait. 

'You have reason to be surprised, ' she says softly, 'but I wish youwouldn't look so. '

Disturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks much more so. 

'I think, Mr Twemlow, you never saw that distant connexion of yoursbefore to-day?'

'No, never. '

'Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are not proud of him?'

'To say the truth, Mrs Lammle, no. '

'If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to acknowledge him. Here is another portrait. What do you think of it?'

Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: 'Very like!Uncommonly like!'

'You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions? Younotice where he is now, and how engaged?'

'Yes. But Mr Lammle--'

She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows himanother portrait. 

'Very good; is it not?'

'Charming!' says Twemlow. 

'So like as to be almost a caricature?--Mr Twemlow, it is impossibleto tell you what the struggle in my mind has been, before I could bringmyself to speak to you as I do now. It is only in the conviction that Imay trust you never to betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promiseme that you never will betray my confidence--that you will respect it, even though you may no longer respect me, --and I shall be as satisfiedas if you had sworn it. '

'Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman--'

'Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr Twemlow, I implore you to save thatchild!'

'That child?'

'Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and marriedto that connexion of yours. It is a partnership affair, amoney-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to helpherself and she is on the brink of being sold into wretchedness forlife. '

'Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it?' demands Twemlow, shocked andbewildered to the last degree. 

'Here is another portrait. And not good, is it?'

Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to look at itcritically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the expediency of throwing hisown head back, and does so. Though he no more sees the portrait than ifit were in China. 

'Decidedly not good, ' says Mrs Lammle. 'Stiff and exaggerated!'

'And ex--' But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot command theword, and trails off into '--actly so. '

'Mr Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous, self-blindedfather. You know how much he makes of your family. Lose no time. Warnhim. '

'But warn him against whom?'

'Against me. '

By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this criticalinstant. The stimulant is Lammle's voice. 

'Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing Twemlow?'

'Public characters, Alfred. '

'Show him the last of me. '

'Yes, Alfred. '

She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the leaves, andpresents the portrait to Twemlow. 

'That is the last of Mr Lammle. Do you think it good?--Warn her fatheragainst me. I deserve it, for I have been in the scheme from the first. It is my husband's scheme, your connexion's, and mine. I tell you this, only to show you the necessity of the poor little foolish affectionatecreature's being befriended and rescued. You will not repeat this to herfather. You will spare me so far, and spare my husband. For, though thiscelebration of to-day is all a mockery, he is my husband, and we mustlive. --Do you think it like?'

Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait in hishand with the original looking towards him from his Mephistopheleancorner. 

'Very well indeed!' are at length the words which Twemlow with greatdifficulty extracts from himself. 

'I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it the best. The others are so dark. Now here, for instance, is another of MrLammle--'

'But I don't understand; I don't see my way, ' Twemlow stammers, as hefalters over the book with his glass at his eye. 'How warn her father, and not tell him? Tell him how much? Tell him how little? I--I--amgetting lost. '

'Tell him I am a match-maker; tell him I am an artful and designingwoman; tell him you are sure his daughter is best out of my house and mycompany. Tell him any such things of me; they will all be true. You knowwhat a puffed-up man he is, and how easily you can cause his vanity totake the alarm. Tell him as much as will give him the alarm and makehim careful of her, and spare me the rest. Mr Twemlow, I feel my suddendegradation in your eyes; familiar as I am with my degradation in my owneyes, I keenly feel the change that must have come upon me in yours, in these last few moments. But I trust to your good faith with me asimplicitly as when I began. If you knew how often I have tried to speakto you to-day, you would almost pity me. I want no new promise from youon my own account, for I am satisfied, and I always shall be satisfied, with the promise you have given me. I can venture to say no more, forI see that I am watched. If you would set my mind at rest with theassurance that you will interpose with the father and save this harmlessgirl, close that book before you return it to me, and I shall know whatyou mean, and deeply thank you in my heart. --Alfred, Mr Twemlow thinksthe last one the best, and quite agrees with you and me. '

Alfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins rises to go, and MrsVeneering follows her leader. For the moment, Mrs Lammle does not turnto them, but remains looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred's portraitthrough his eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at itsribbon's length, rises, and closes the book with an emphasis which makesthat fragile nursling of the fairies, Tippins, start. 

Then good-bye and good-bye, and charming occasion worthy of the GoldenAge, and more about the flitch of bacon, and the like of that; andTwemlow goes staggering across Piccadilly with his hand to his forehead, and is nearly run down by a flushed lettercart, and at last dropssafe in his easy-chair, innocent good gentleman, with his hand to hisforehead still, and his head in a whirl. 

BOOK THE THIRD -- A LONG LANE

Chapter 1

LODGERS IN QUEER STREET

It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. AnimateLondon, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purposebetween being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither. Gaslights flared in the shops with a haggard and unblest air, as knowingthemselves to be night-creatures that had no business abroad under thesun; while the sun itself when it was for a few moments dimly indicatedthrough circling eddies of fog, showed as if it had gone out and werecollapsing flat and cold. Even in the surrounding country it was a foggyday, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was, at aboutthe boundary line, dark yellow, and a little within it brown, and thenbrowner, and then browner, until at the heart of the City--which callSaint Mary Axe--it was rusty-black. From any point of the high ridge ofland northward, it might have been discerned that the loftiest buildingsmade an occasional struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea, andespecially that the great dome of Saint Paul's seemed to die hard; butthis was not perceivable in the streets at their feet, where the wholemetropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels, and enfolding a gigantic catarrh. 

At nine o'clock on such a morning, the place of business of Pubsey andCo. Was not the liveliest object even in Saint Mary Axe--which is not avery lively spot--with a sobbing gaslight in the counting-house window, and a burglarious stream of fog creeping in to strangle it through thekeyhole of the main door. But the light went out, and the main dooropened, and Riah came forth with a bag under his arm. 

Almost in the act of coming out at the door, Riah went into the fog, andwas lost to the eyes of Saint Mary Axe. But the eyes of this historycan follow him westward, by Cornhill, Cheapside, Fleet Street, and theStrand, to Piccadilly and the Albany. Thither he went at his grave andmeasured pace, staff in hand, skirt at heel; and more than one head, turning to look back at his venerable figure already lost in the mist, supposed it to be some ordinary figure indistinctly seen, which fancyand the fog had worked into that passing likeness. 

Arrived at the house in which his master's chambers were on thesecond floor, Riah proceeded up the stairs, and paused at FascinationFledgeby's door. Making free with neither bell nor knocker, he struckupon the door with the top of his staff, and, having listened, sat downon the threshold. It was characteristic of his habitual submission, that he sat down on the raw dark staircase, as many of his ancestorshad probably sat down in dungeons, taking what befell him as it mightbefall. 

After a time, when he had grown so cold as to be fain to blow upon hisfingers, he arose and knocked with his staff again, and listened again, and again sat down to wait. Thrice he repeated these actions before hislistening ears were greeted by the voice of Fledgeby, calling from hisbed, 'Hold your row!--I'll come and open the door directly!' But, inlieu of coming directly, he fell into a sweet sleep for some quarter ofan hour more, during which added interval Riah sat upon the stairs andwaited with perfect patience. 

At length the door stood open, and Mr Fledgeby's retreating draperyplunged into bed again. Following it at a respectful distance, Riahpassed into the bed-chamber, where a fire had been sometime lighted, andwas burning briskly. 

'Why, what time of night do you mean to call it?' inquired Fledgeby, turning away beneath the clothes, and presenting a comfortable rampartof shoulder to the chilled figure of the old man. 

'Sir, it is full half-past ten in the morning. '

'The deuce it is! Then it must be precious foggy?'

'Very foggy, sir. '

'And raw, then?'

'Chill and bitter, ' said Riah, drawing out a handkerchief, and wipingthe moisture from his beard and long grey hair as he stood on the vergeof the rug, with his eyes on the acceptable fire. 

With a plunge of enjoyment, Fledgeby settled himself afresh. 

'Any snow, or sleet, or slush, or anything of that sort?' he asked. 

'No, sir, no. Not quite so bad as that. The streets are pretty clean. '

'You needn't brag about it, ' returned Fledgeby, disappointed in hisdesire to heighten the contrast between his bed and the streets. 'Butyou're always bragging about something. Got the books there?'

'They are here, sir. '

'All right. I'll turn the general subject over in my mind for a minuteor two, and while I'm about it you can empty your bag and get ready forme. '

With another comfortable plunge, Mr Fledgeby fell asleep again. The oldman, having obeyed his directions, sat down on the edge of a chair, and, folding his hands before him, gradually yielded to the influence of thewarmth, and dozed. He was roused by Mr Fledgeby's appearing erect atthe foot of the bed, in Turkish slippers, rose-coloured Turkish trousers(got cheap from somebody who had cheated some other somebody out ofthem), and a gown and cap to correspond. In that costume he would haveleft nothing to be desired, if he had been further fitted out with abottomless chair, a lantern, and a bunch of matches. 

'Now, old 'un!' cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 'what dodgeryare you up to next, sitting there with your eyes shut? You ain't asleep. Catch a weasel at it, and catch a Jew!'

'Truly, sir, I fear I nodded, ' said the old man. 

'Not you!' returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. 'A telling move witha good many, I dare say, but it won't put ME off my guard. Not a badnotion though, if you want to look indifferent in driving a bargain. Oh, you are a dodger!'

The old man shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation, andsuppressed a sigh, and moved to the table at which Mr Fledgeby was nowpouring out for himself a cup of steaming and fragrant coffee from a potthat had stood ready on the hob. It was an edifying spectacle, the youngman in his easy chair taking his coffee, and the old man with his greyhead bent, standing awaiting his pleasure. 

'Now!' said Fledgeby. 'Fork out your balance in hand, and prove byfigures how you make it out that it ain't more. First of all, light thatcandle. '

Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and referring tothe sum in the accounts for which they made him responsible, told it outupon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great care, and rang everysovereign. 

'I suppose, ' he said, taking one up to eye it closely, 'you haven't beenlightening any of these; but it's a trade of your people's, you know. YOU understand what sweating a pound means, don't you?'

'Much as you do, sir, ' returned the old man, with his hands underopposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood at the table, deferentially observant of the master's face. 'May I take the liberty tosay something?'

'You may, ' Fledgeby graciously conceded. 

'Do you not, sir--without intending it--of a surety without intendingit--sometimes mingle the character I fairly earn in your employment, with the character which it is your policy that I should bear?'

'I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into theinquiry, ' Fascination coolly answered. 

'Not in justice?'

'Bother justice!' said Fledgeby. 

'Not in generosity?'

'Jews and generosity!' said Fledgeby. 'That's a good connexion! Bringout your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem palaver. '

The vouchers were produced, and for the next half-hour Mr Fledgebyconcentrated his sublime attention on them. They and the accounts wereall found correct, and the books and the papers resumed their places inthe bag. 

'Next, ' said Fledgeby, 'concerning that bill-broking branch of thebusiness; the branch I like best. What queer bills are to be bought, andat what prices? You have got your list of what's in the market?'

'Sir, a long list, ' replied Riah, taking out a pocket-book, andselecting from its contents a folded paper, which, being unfolded, became a sheet of foolscap covered with close writing. 

'Whew!' whistled Fledgeby, as he took it in his hand. 'Queer Street isfull of lodgers just at present! These are to be disposed of in parcels;are they?'

'In parcels as set forth, ' returned the old man, looking over hismaster's shoulder; 'or the lump. '

'Half the lump will be waste-paper, one knows beforehand, ' saidFledgeby. 'Can you get it at waste-paper price? That's the question. '

Riah shook his head, and Fledgeby cast his small eyes down the list. They presently began to twinkle, and he no sooner became conscious oftheir twinkling, than he looked up over his shoulder at the grave faceabove him, and moved to the chimney-piece. Making a desk of it, he stoodthere with his back to the old man, warming his knees, perusing the listat his leisure, and often returning to some lines of it, as thoughthey were particularly interesting. At those times he glanced in thechimney-glass to see what note the old man took of him. He took nonethat could be detected, but, aware of his employer's suspicions, stoodwith his eyes on the ground. 

Mr Fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was heard at the outerdoor, and the door was heard to open hastily. 'Hark! That's your doing, you Pump of Israel, ' said Fledgeby; 'you can't have shut it. ' Then thestep was heard within, and the voice of Mr Alfred Lammle called aloud, 'Are you anywhere here, Fledgeby?' To which Fledgeby, after cautioningRiah in a low voice to take his cue as it should be given him, replied, 'Here I am!' and opened his bedroom door. 

'Come in!' said Fledgeby. 'This gentleman is only Pubsey and Co. OfSaint Mary Axe, that I am trying to make terms for an unfortunate friendwith in a matter of some dishonoured bills. But really Pubsey and Co. Are so strict with their debtors, and so hard to move, that I seem to bewasting my time. Can't I make ANY terms with you on my friend's part, MrRiah?'

'I am but the representative of another, sir, ' returned the Jew in a lowvoice. 'I do as I am bidden by my principal. It is not my capital thatis invested in the business. It is not my profit that arises therefrom. '

'Ha ha!' laughed Fledgeby. 'Lammle?'

'Ha ha!' laughed Lammle. 'Yes. Of course. We know. '

'Devilish good, ain't it, Lammle?' said Fledgeby, unspeakably amused byhis hidden joke. 

'Always the same, always the same!' said Lammle. 'Mr--'

'Riah, Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe, ' Fledgeby put in, as he wiped awaythe tears that trickled from his eyes, so rare was his enjoyment of hissecret joke. 

'Mr Riah is bound to observe the invariable forms for such cases madeand provided, ' said Lammle. 

'He is only the representative of another!' cried Fledgeby. 'Does ashe is told by his principal! Not his capital that's invested in thebusiness. Oh, that's good! Ha ha ha ha!' Mr Lammle joined in the laughand looked knowing; and the more he did both, the more exquisite thesecret joke became for Mr Fledgeby. 

'However, ' said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his eyes again, 'ifwe go on in this way, we shall seem to be almost making game of Mr Riah, or of Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe, or of somebody: which is far fromour intention. Mr Riah, if you would have the kindness to step into thenext room for a few moments while I speak with Mr Lammle here, I shouldlike to try to make terms with you once again before you go. '

The old man, who had never raised his eyes during the whole transactionof Mr Fledgeby's joke, silently bowed and passed out by the door whichFledgeby opened for him. Having closed it on him, Fledgeby returned toLammle, standing with his back to the bedroom fire, with one hand underhis coat-skirts, and all his whiskers in the other. 

'Halloa!' said Fledgeby. 'There's something wrong!'

'How do you know it?' demanded Lammle. 

'Because you show it, ' replied Fledgeby in unintentional rhyme. 

'Well then; there is, ' said Lammle; 'there IS something wrong; the wholething's wrong. '

'I say!' remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting down with hishands on his knees to stare at his glowering friend with his back to thefire. 

'I tell you, Fledgeby, ' repeated Lammle, with a sweep of his right arm, 'the whole thing's wrong. The game's up. '

'What game's up?' demanded Fledgeby, as slowly as before, and moresternly. 

'THE game. OUR game. Read that. '

Fledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it aloud. 'AlfredLammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs Podsnap and myself to express our unitedsense of the polite attentions of Mrs Alfred Lammle and yourself towardsour daughter, Georgiana. Allow us also, wholly to reject them for thefuture, and to communicate our final desire that the two familiesmay become entire strangers. I have the honour to be, Sir, your mostobedient and very humble servant, JOHN PODSNAP. ' Fledgeby looked at thethree blank sides of this note, quite as long and earnestly as at thefirst expressive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded withanother extensive sweep of his right arm. 

'Whose doing is this?' said Fledgeby. 

'Impossible to imagine, ' said Lammle. 

'Perhaps, ' suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a very discontentedbrow, 'somebody has been giving you a bad character. '

'Or you, ' said Lammle, with a deeper frown. 

Mr Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain remembranceconnected with that feature operating as a timely warning, he took itthoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammlemeanwhile eyeing him with furtive eyes. 

'Well!' said Fledgeby. 'This won't improve with talking about. If weever find out who did it, we'll mark that person. There's nothing moreto be said, except that you undertook to do what circumstances preventyour doing. '

'And that you undertook to do what you might have done by this time, ifyou had made a prompter use of circumstances, ' snarled Lammle. 

'Hah! That, ' remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the Turkish trousers, 'is matter of opinion. '

'Mr Fledgeby, ' said Lammle, in a bullying tone, 'am I to understand thatyou in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in thisaffair?'

'No, ' said Fledgeby; 'provided you have brought my promissory note inyour pocket, and now hand it over. '

Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked at it, identified it, twisted it up, and threw it into the fire. They bothlooked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash up thechimney. 

'NOW, Mr Fledgeby, ' said Lammle, as before; 'am I to understand thatyou in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in thisaffair?'

'No, ' said Fledgeby. 

'Finally and unreservedly no?'

'Yes. '

'Fledgeby, my hand. '

Mr Fledgeby took it, saying, 'And if we ever find out who did this, we'll mark that person. And in the most friendly manner, let me mentionone thing more. I don't know what your circumstances are, and I don'task. You have sustained a loss here. Many men are liable to be involvedat times, and you may be, or you may not be. But whatever you do, Lammle, don't--don't--don't, I beg of you--ever fall into the hands ofPubsey and Co. In the next room, for they are grinders. Regular flayersand grinders, my dear Lammle, ' repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, 'and they'll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to thesole of your foot, and grind every inch of your skin to tooth-powder. You have seen what Mr Riah is. Never fall into his hands, Lammle, I begof you as a friend!'

Mr Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this affectionateadjuration, demanded why the devil he ever should fall into the hands ofPubsey and Co. ?

'To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy, ' said the candidFledgeby, 'by the manner in which that Jew looked at you when he heardyour name. I didn't like his eye. But it may have been the heatedfancy of a friend. Of course if you are sure that you have no personalsecurity out, which you may not be quite equal to meeting, and which canhave got into his hands, it must have been fancy. Still, I didn't likehis eye. '

The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in hispalpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did dutythere for a smile, looked very like the tormentor who was pinching. 

'But I mustn't keep him waiting too long, ' said Fledgeby, 'or he'llrevenge it on my unfortunate friend. How's your very clever andagreeable wife? She knows we have broken down?'

'I showed her the letter. '

'Very much surprised?' asked Fledgeby. 

'I think she would have been more so, ' answered Lammle, 'if there hadbeen more go in YOU?'

'Oh!--She lays it upon me, then?'

'Mr Fledgeby, I will not have my words misconstrued. '

'Don't break out, Lammle, ' urged Fledgeby, in a submissive tone, 'because there's no occasion. I only asked a question. Then she don'tlay it upon me? To ask another question. '

'No, sir. '

'Very good, ' said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. 'My complimentsto her. Good-bye!'

They shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. Fledgeby saw himinto the fog, and, returning to the fire and musing with his face to it, stretched the legs of the rose-coloured Turkish trousers wide apart, andmeditatively bent his knees, as if he were going down upon them. 

'You have a pair of whiskers, Lammle, which I never liked, ' murmuredFledgeby, 'and which money can't produce; you are boastful of yourmanners and your conversation; you wanted to pull my nose, and you havelet me in for a failure, and your wife says I am the cause of it. I'llbowl you down. I will, though I have no whiskers, ' here he rubbed theplaces where they were due, 'and no manners, and no conversation!'

Having thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs of theTurkish trousers, straightened himself on his knees, and called outto Riah in the next room, 'Halloa, you sir!' At sight of the old manre-entering with a gentleness monstrously in contrast with the characterhe had given him, Mr Fledgeby was so tickled again, that he exclaimed, laughing, 'Good! Good! Upon my soul it is uncommon good!'

'Now, old 'un, ' proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh out, 'you'll buy up these lots that I mark with my pencil--there's a tickthere, and a tick there, and a tick there--and I wager two-pence you'llafterwards go on squeezing those Christians like the Jew you are. Now, next you'll want a cheque--or you'll say you want it, though you'vecapital enough somewhere, if one only knew where, but you'd be pepperedand salted and grilled on a gridiron before you'd own to it--and thatcheque I'll write. '

When he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from it to open anotherdrawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in whichwas another key that opened another drawer, in which was the chequebook; and when he had written the cheque; and when, reversing the keyand drawer process, he had placed his cheque book in safety again; hebeckoned the old man, with the folded cheque, to come and take it. 

'Old 'un, ' said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his pocketbook, andwas putting that in the breast of his outer garment; 'so much at presentfor my affairs. Now a word about affairs that are not exactly mine. Where is she?'

With his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his garment, Riahstarted and paused. 

'Oho!' said Fledgeby. 'Didn't expect it! Where have you hidden her?'

Showing that he was taken by surprise, the old man looked at his masterwith some passing confusion, which the master highly enjoyed. 

'Is she in the house I pay rent and taxes for in Saint Mary Axe?'demanded Fledgeby. 

'No, sir. '

'Is she in your garden up atop of that house--gone up to be dead, orwhatever the game is?' asked Fledgeby. 

'No, sir. '

'Where is she then?'

Riah bent his eyes upon the ground, as if considering whether he couldanswer the question without breach of faith, and then silently raisedthem to Fledgeby's face, as if he could not. 

'Come!' said Fledgeby. 'I won't press that just now. But I want to knowthis, and I will know this, mind you. What are you up to?'

The old man, with an apologetic action of his head and hands, as notcomprehending the master's meaning, addressed to him a look of muteinquiry. 

'You can't be a gallivanting dodger, ' said Fledgeby. 'For you're a"regular pity the sorrows", you know--if you DO know any Christianrhyme--"whose trembling limbs have borne him to"--et cetrer. You're oneof the Patriarchs; you're a shaky old card; and you can't be in lovewith this Lizzie?'

'O, sir!' expostulated Riah. 'O, sir, sir, sir!'

'Then why, ' retorted Fledgeby, with some slight tinge of a blush, 'don'tyou out with your reason for having your spoon in the soup at all?'

'Sir, I will tell you the truth. But (your pardon for the stipulation)it is in sacred confidence; it is strictly upon honour. '

'Honour too!' cried Fledgeby, with a mocking lip. 'Honour among Jews. Well. Cut away. '

'It is upon honour, sir?' the other still stipulated, with respectfulfirmness. 

'Oh, certainly. Honour bright, ' said Fledgeby. 

The old man, never bidden to sit down, stood with an earnest hand laidon the back of the young man's easy chair. The young man sat looking atthe fire with a face of listening curiosity, ready to check him off andcatch him tripping. 

'Cut away, ' said Fledgeby. 'Start with your motive. '

'Sir, I have no motive but to help the helpless. '

Mr Fledgeby could only express the feelings to which this incrediblestatement gave rise in his breast, by a prodigiously long derisivesniff. 

'How I came to know, and much to esteem and to respect, this damsel, Imentioned when you saw her in my poor garden on the house-top, ' said theJew. 

'Did you?' said Fledgeby, distrustfully. 'Well. Perhaps you did, though. '

'The better I knew her, the more interest I felt in her fortunes. Theygathered to a crisis. I found her beset by a selfish and ungratefulbrother, beset by an unacceptable wooer, beset by the snares of a morepowerful lover, beset by the wiles of her own heart. '

'She took to one of the chaps then?'

'Sir, it was only natural that she should incline towards him, for hehad many and great advantages. But he was not of her station, and tomarry her was not in his mind. Perils were closing round her, and thecircle was fast darkening, when I--being as you have said, sir, tooold and broken to be suspected of any feeling for her but afather's--stepped in, and counselled flight. I said, "My daughter, thereare times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution to formis flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight. " She answered, she had had this in her thoughts; but whither to fly without help sheknew not, and there were none to help her. I showed her there was one tohelp her, and it was I. And she is gone. '

'What did you do with her?' asked Fledgeby, feeling his cheek. 

'I placed her, ' said the old man, 'at a distance;' with a grave smoothoutward sweep from one another of his two open hands at arm's length;'at a distance--among certain of our people, where her industry wouldserve her, and where she could hope to exercise it, unassailed from anyquarter. '

Fledgeby's eyes had come from the fire to notice the action of his handswhen he said 'at a distance. ' Fledgeby now tried (very unsuccessfully)to imitate that action, as he shook his head and said, 'Placed her inthat direction, did you? Oh you circular old dodger!'

With one hand across his breast and the other on the easy chair, Riah, without justifying himself, waited for further questioning. But, that itwas hopeless to question him on that one reserved point, Fledgeby, withhis small eyes too near together, saw full well. 

'Lizzie, ' said Fledgeby, looking at the fire again, and then looking up. 'Humph, Lizzie. You didn't tell me the other name in your garden atop ofthe house. I'll be more communicative with you. The other name's Hexam. '

Riah bent his head in assent. 

'Look here, you sir, ' said Fledgeby. 'I have a notion I know somethingof the inveigling chap, the powerful one. Has he anything to do with thelaw?'

'Nominally, I believe it his calling. '

'I thought so. Name anything like Lightwood?'

'Sir, not at all like. '

'Come, old 'un, ' said Fledgeby, meeting his eyes with a wink, 'say thename. '

'Wrayburn. '

'By Jupiter!' cried Fledgeby. 'That one, is it? I thought it might bethe other, but I never dreamt of that one! I shouldn't object to yourbaulking either of the pair, dodger, for they are both conceited enough;but that one is as cool a customer as ever I met with. Got a beardbesides, and presumes upon it. Well done, old 'un! Go on and prosper!'

Brightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked were there moreinstructions for him?

'No, ' said Fledgeby, 'you may toddle now, Judah, and grope about on theorders you have got. ' Dismissed with those pleasing words, the old mantook his broad hat and staff, and left the great presence: more as if hewere some superior creature benignantly blessing Mr Fledgeby, than thepoor dependent on whom he set his foot. Left alone, Mr Fledgeby lockedhis outer door, and came back to his fire. 

'Well done you!' said Fascination to himself. 'Slow, you may be; sure, you are!' This he twice or thrice repeated with much complacency, as heagain dispersed the legs of the Turkish trousers and bent the knees. 

'A tidy shot that, I flatter myself, ' he then soliloquised. 'And a Jewbrought down with it! Now, when I heard the story told at Lammle's, Ididn't make a jump at Riah. Not a hit of it; I got at him by degrees. 'Herein he was quite accurate; it being his habit, not to jump, orleap, or make an upward spring, at anything in life, but to crawl ateverything. 

'I got at him, ' pursued Fledgeby, feeling for his whisker, 'by degrees. If your Lammles or your Lightwoods had got at him anyhow, they wouldhave asked him the question whether he hadn't something to do with thatgal's disappearance. I knew a better way of going to work. Having gotbehind the hedge, and put him in the light, I took a shot at him andbrought him down plump. Oh! It don't count for much, being a Jew, in amatch against ME!'

Another dry twist in place of a smile, made his face crooked here. 

'As to Christians, ' proceeded Fledgeby, 'look out, fellow-Christians, particularly you that lodge in Queer Street! I have got the run of QueerStreet now, and you shall see some games there. To work a lot of powerover you and you not know it, knowing as you think yourselves, wouldbe almost worth laying out money upon. But when it comes to squeezing aprofit out of you into the bargain, it's something like!'

With this apostrophe Mr Fledgeby appropriately proceeded to divesthimself of his Turkish garments, and invest himself with Christianattire. Pending which operation, and his morning ablutions, and hisanointing of himself with the last infallible preparation for theproduction of luxuriant and glossy hair upon the human countenance(quacks being the only sages he believed in besides usurers), the murkyfog closed about him and shut him up in its sooty embrace. If it hadnever let him out any more, the world would have had no irreparableloss, but could have easily replaced him from its stock on hand. 

Chapter 2

A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT

In the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow window-blind ofPubsey and Co. Was drawn down upon the day's work, Riah the Jew oncemore came forth into Saint Mary Axe. But this time he carried no bag, and was not bound on his master's affairs. He passed over London Bridge, and returned to the Middlesex shore by that of Westminster, and so, everwading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker. 

Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window by the lightof her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders that it mightlast the longer and waste the less when she was out--sitting waitingfor him in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the musingsolitude in which she sat, and she came to the door to open it; aidingher steps with a little crutch-stick. 

'Good evening, godmother!' said Miss Jenny Wren. 

The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on. 

'Won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother?' asked Miss Jenny Wren. 

'Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear. '

'Well!' exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. 'Now you ARE a clever old boy!If we gave prizes at this establishment (but we only keep blanks), youshould have the first silver medal, for taking me up so quick. ' As shespake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the house-door from the keyholeand put it in her pocket, and then bustlingly closed the door, and triedit as they both stood on the step. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one hand through the old man's arm and prepared to ply hercrutch-stick with the other. But the key was an instrument of suchgigantic proportions, that before they started Riah proposed to carryit. 

'No, no, no! I'll carry it myself, ' returned Miss Wren. 'I'm awfullylopsided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket it'll trim the ship. Tolet you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side, o'purpose. '

With that they began their plodding through the fog. 

'Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother, ' resumed Miss Wren withgreat approbation, 'to understand me. But, you see, you ARE so like thefairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the restof people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some benevolent object. Boh!' cried Miss Jenny, putting her face close to the old man's. 'I can see your features, godmother, behind the beard. '

'Does the fancy go to my changing other objects too, Jenny?'

'Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick and tap this piece ofpavement--this dirty stone that my foot taps--it would start up a coachand six. I say! Let's believe so!'

'With all my heart, ' replied the good old man. 

'And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask youto be so kind as give my child a tap, and change him altogether. O mychild has been such a bad, bad child of late! It worries me nearlyout of my wits. Not done a stroke of work these ten days. Has had thehorrors, too, and fancied that four copper-coloured men in red wanted tothrow him into a fiery furnace. '

'But that's dangerous, Jenny. '

'Dangerous, godmother? My child is always dangerous, more or less. Hemight'--here the little creature glanced back over her shoulder at thesky--'be setting the house on fire at this present moment. I don't knowwho would have a child, for my part! It's no use shaking him. I haveshaken him till I have made myself giddy. "Why don't you mind yourCommandments and honour your parent, you naughty old boy?" I said to himall the time. But he only whimpered and stared at me. '

'What shall be changed, after him?' asked Riah in a compassionatelyplayful voice. 

'Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and getyou to set me right in the back and the legs. It's a little thing to youwith your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor weak achingme. '

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not theless touching for that. 

'And then?'

'Yes, and then--YOU know, godmother. We'll both jump up into the coachand six and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, godmother, to ask you aserious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been broughtup by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had agood thing and lost it, or never to have had it?'

'Explain, god-daughter. '

'I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, than Iused to feel before I knew her. ' (Tears were in her eyes as she saidso. )

'Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear, ' said theJew, --'that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of promise, hasfaded out of my own life--but the happiness was. '

'Ah!' said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced, and choppingthe exclamation with that sharp little hatchet of hers; 'then I tell youwhat change I think you had better begin with, godmother. You had betterchange Is into Was and Was into Is, and keep them so. '

'Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain then?' askedthe old man tenderly. 

'Right!' exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. 'You have changed mewiser, godmother. --Not, ' she added with the quaint hitch of her chin andeyes, 'that you need be a very wonderful godmother to do that deed. '

Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they traversedthe ground that Riah had lately traversed, and new ground likewise; for, when they had recrossed the Thames by way of London Bridge, they struckdown by the river and held their still foggier course that way. 

But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerablefriend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: 'Nowlook at 'em! All my work!'

This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours ofthe rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going toballs, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going outwalking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to getmarried, for all the gay events of life. '

'Pretty, pretty, pretty!' said the old man with a clap of his hands. 'Most elegant taste!'

'Glad you like 'em, ' returned Miss Wren, loftily. 'But the fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it'sthe hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were notbad and my legs queer. '

He looked at her as not understanding what she said. 

'Bless you, godmother, ' said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town atall hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the greatladies that takes it out of me. '

'How, the trying-on?' asked Riah. 

'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!' returned Miss Wren. 'Lookhere. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park, or a Show, ora Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and Ilook about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, Isay "You'll do, my dear!" and I take particular notice of her, and runhome and cut her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scuddingback again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that little creature isstaring!' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much moreoften yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, "I musthollow out a bit here; I must slope away there;" and I am making aperfect slave of her, with making her try on my doll's dress. Eveningparties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for afull view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriagesand the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. However, there I have 'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into thehall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomypoked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say theythink I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but theylittle think they're only working for my dolls! There was Lady BelindaWhitrose. I made her do double duty in one night. I said when she cameout of the carriage, "YOU'll do, my dear!" and I ran straight home andcut her out and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the menthat called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, "Lady BelindaWhitrose's carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down!" And I made hertry on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated. That'sLady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gaslight for awax one, with her toes turned in. '

When they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, Riah askedthe way to a certain tavern called the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. Following the directions he received, they arrived, after two or threepuzzled stoppages for consideration, and some uncertain looking aboutthem, at the door of Miss Abbey Potterson's dominions. A peep throughthe glass portion of the door revealed to them the glories of the bar, and Miss Abbey herself seated in state on her snug throne, reading thenewspaper. To whom, with deference, they presented themselves. 

Taking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a suspendedexpression of countenance, as if she must finish the paragraph in handbefore undertaking any other business whatever, Miss Abbey demanded, with some slight asperity: 'Now then, what's for you?'

'Could we see Miss Potterson?' asked the old man, uncovering his head. 

'You not only could, but you can and you do, ' replied the hostess. 

'Might we speak with you, madam?'

By this time Miss Abbey's eyes had possessed themselves of the smallfigure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the closer observation of which, MissAbbey laid aside her newspaper, rose, and looked over the half-door ofthe bar. The crutch-stick seemed to entreat for its owner leave to comein and rest by the fire; so, Miss Abbey opened the half-door, and said, as though replying to the crutch-stick:

'Yes, come in and rest by the fire. '

'My name is Riah, ' said the old man, with courteous action, 'and myavocation is in London city. This, my young companion--'

'Stop a bit, ' interposed Miss Wren. 'I'll give the lady my card. ' Sheproduced it from her pocket with an air, after struggling with thegigantic door-key which had got upon the top of it and kept it down. Miss Abbey, with manifest tokens of astonishment, took the diminutivedocument, and found it to run concisely thus:--

MISS JENNY WREN

DOLLS' DRESSMAKER. 

Dolls attended at their own residences. 

'Lud!' exclaimed Miss Potterson, staring. And dropped the card. 

'We take the liberty of coming, my young companion and I, madam, ' saidRiah, 'on behalf of Lizzie Hexam. '

Miss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnet-strings of the dolls'dressmaker. She looked round rather angrily, and said: 'Lizzie Hexam isa very proud young woman. '

'She would be so proud, ' returned Riah, dexterously, 'to stand well inyour good opinion, that before she quitted London for--'

'For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope?' asked Miss Potterson, as though supposing her to have emigrated. 

'For the country, ' was the cautious answer, --'she made us promise tocome and show you a paper, which she left in our hands for that specialpurpose. I am an unserviceable friend of hers, who began to know herafter her departure from this neighbourhood. She has been for some timeliving with my young companion, and has been a helpful and a comfortablefriend to her. Much needed, madam, ' he added, in a lower voice. 'Believeme; if you knew all, much needed. '

'I can believe that, ' said Miss Abbey, with a softening glance at thelittle creature. 

'And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temperthat never tires, and a touch that never hurts, ' Miss Jenny struck in, flushed, 'she is proud. And if it's not, she is NOT. '

Her set purpose of contradicting Miss Abbey point blank, was so far fromoffending that dread authority, as to elicit a gracious smile. 'You doright, child, ' said Miss Abbey, 'to speak well of those who deserve wellof you. '

'Right or wrong, ' muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with a visible hitch ofher chin, 'I mean to do it, and you may make up your mind to THAT, oldlady. '

'Here is the paper, madam, ' said the Jew, delivering into MissPotterson's hands the original document drawn up by Rokesmith, andsigned by Riderhood. 'Will you please to read it?'

'But first of all, ' said Miss Abbey, '--did you ever taste shrub, child?'

Miss Wren shook her head. 

'Should you like to?'

'Should if it's good, ' returned Miss Wren. 

'You shall try. And, if you find it good, I'll mix some for you with hotwater. Put your poor little feet on the fender. It's a cold, cold night, and the fog clings so. ' As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, herloosened bonnet dropped on the floor. 'Why, what lovely hair!' criedMiss Abbey. 'And enough to make wigs for all the dolls in the world. What a quantity!'

'Call THAT a quantity?' returned Miss Wren. 'Poof! What do you say tothe rest of it?' As she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden streamfell over herself and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground. Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She beckonedthe Jew towards her, as she reached down the shrub-bottle from itsniche, and whispered:

'Child, or woman?'

'Child in years, ' was the answer; 'woman in self-reliance and trial. '

'You are talking about Me, good people, ' thought Miss Jenny, sitting inher golden bower, warming her feet. 'I can't hear what you say, but Iknow your tricks and your manners!'

The shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonizing with MissJenny's palate, a judicious amount was mixed by Miss Potterson's skilfulhands, whereof Riah too partook. After this preliminary, Miss Abbey readthe document; and, as often as she raised her eyebrows in so doing, the watchful Miss Jenny accompanied the action with an expressive andemphatic sip of the shrub and water. 

'As far as this goes, ' said Miss Abbey Potterson, when she had read itseveral times, and thought about it, 'it proves (what didn't much needproving) that Rogue Riderhood is a villain. I have my doubts whether heis not the villain who solely did the deed; but I have no expectation ofthose doubts ever being cleared up now. I believe I did Lizzie's fatherwrong, but never Lizzie's self; because when things were at the worst Itrusted her, had perfect confidence in her, and tried to persuade herto come to me for a refuge. I am very sorry to have done a man wrong, particularly when it can't be undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie knowwhat I say; not forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, afterall, bygones being bygones, she will find a home at the Porters, and afriend at the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey of old, remind her, and sheknows what-like the home, and what-like the friend, is likely to turnout. I am generally short and sweet--or short and sour, according as itmay be and as opinions vary--' remarked Miss Abbey, 'and that's aboutall I have got to say, and enough too. '

But before the shrub and water was sipped out, Miss Abbey bethoughtherself that she would like to keep a copy of the paper by her. 'It'snot long, sir, ' said she to Riah, 'and perhaps you wouldn't mind justjotting it down. ' The old man willingly put on his spectacles, and, standing at the little desk in the corner where Miss Abbey filed herreceipts and kept her sample phials (customers' scores were interdictedby the strict administration of the Porters), wrote out the copy ina fair round character. As he stood there, doing his methodicalpenmanship, his ancient scribelike figure intent upon the work, and thelittle dolls' dressmaker sitting in her golden bower before the fire, Miss Abbey had her doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rarefigures into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wakewith a nod next moment and find them gone. 

Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her eyes andopening them again, still finding the figures there, when, dreamlike, a confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she started up, and theyall three looked at one another, it became a noise of clamouring voicesand of the stir of feet; then all the windows were heard to be hastilythrown up, and shouts and cries came floating into the house fromthe river. A moment more, and Bob Gliddery came clattering along thepassage, with the noise of all the nails in his boots condensed intoevery separate nail. 

'What is it?' asked Miss Abbey. 

'It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am, ' answered Bob. 'There's ever somany people in the river. '

'Tell 'em to put on all the kettles!' cried Miss Abbey. 'See that theboiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some blankets to the fire. Heat somestone bottles. Have your senses about you, you girls down stairs, anduse 'em. '

While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bob--whom sheseized by the hair, and whose head she knocked against the wall, as ageneral injunction to vigilance and presence of mind--and partly hailedthe kitchen with them--the company in the public room, jostling oneanother, rushed out to the causeway, and the outer noise increased. 

'Come and look, ' said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all three hurriedto the vacated public room, and passed by one of the windows into thewooden verandah overhanging the river. 

'Does anybody down there know what has happened?' demanded Miss Abbey, in her voice of authority. 

'It's a steamer, Miss Abbey, ' cried one blurred figure in the fog. 

'It always IS a steamer, Miss Abbey, ' cried another. 

'Them's her lights, Miss Abbey, wot you see a-blinking yonder, ' criedanother. 

'She's a-blowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that's what makes thefog and the noise worse, don't you see?' explained another. 

Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were rushingtumultuously to the water's edge. Some man fell in with a splash, andwas pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The drags were called for. A cry for the life-buoy passed from mouth to mouth. It was impossible tomake out what was going on upon the river, for every boat that put offsculled into the fog and was lost to view at a boat's length. Nothingwas clear but that the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproacheson all sides. She was the Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay; she was theManslaughterer, bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to betried for his life; her crew ran down men in row-boats with a relish;she mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles; she fired propertywith her funnels; she always was, and she always would be, wreakingdestruction upon somebody or something, after the manner of all herkind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with such taunts, uttered intones of universal hoarseness. All the while, the steamer's lights movedspectrally a very little, as she lay-to, waiting the upshot of whateveraccident had happened. Now, she began burning blue-lights. These made aluminous patch about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in thepatch--the cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and moreexcited--shadows of men and boats could be seen moving, while voicesshouted: 'There!' 'There again!' 'A couple more strokes a-head!''Hurrah!' 'Look out!' 'Hold on!' 'Haul in!' and the like. Lastly, witha few tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark again, the wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her lights glidedsmoothly away in the direction of the sea. 

It appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that a considerabletime had been thus occupied. There was now as eager a set towards theshore beneath the house as there had been from it; and it was onlyon the first boat of the rush coming in that it was known what hadoccurred. 

'If that's Tom Tootle, ' Miss Abbey made proclamation, in her mostcommanding tones, 'let him instantly come underneath here. '

The submissive Tom complied, attended by a crowd. 

'What is it, Tootle?' demanded Miss Abbey. 

'It's a foreign steamer, miss, run down a wherry. '

'How many in the wherry?'

'One man, Miss Abbey. '

'Found?'

'Yes. He's been under water a long time, Miss; but they've grappled upthe body. '

'Let 'em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the house-door and standby it on the inside, and don't you open till I tell you. Any police downthere?'

'Here, Miss Abbey, ' was official rejoinder. 

'After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, will you? Andhelp Bob Gliddery to shut 'em out. '

'All right, Miss Abbey. '

The autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah and MissJenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side of her, within thehalf-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork. 

'You two stand close here, ' said Miss Abbey, 'and you'll come to nohurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you stand by the door. '

That sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirt-sleeves an extra and afinal tuck on his shoulders, obeyed. 

Sound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. Shuffle and talkwithout. Momentary pause. Two peculiarly blunt knocks or pokes at thedoor, as if the dead man arriving on his back were striking at it withthe soles of his motionless feet. 

'That's the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the two they arecarrying, ' said Miss Abbey, with experienced ear. 'Open, you Bob!'

Door opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A rush. Stoppage of rush. Door shut. Baffled boots from the vexed souls of disappointed outsiders. 

'Come on, men!' said Miss Abbey; for so potent was she with her subjectsthat even then the bearers awaited her permission. 'First floor. '

The entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so took up theburden they had set down, as to carry that low. The recumbent figure, inpassing, lay hardly as high as the half door. 

Miss Abbey started back at sight of it. 'Why, good God!' said she, turning to her two companions, 'that's the very man who made thedeclaration we have just had in our hands. That's Riderhood!'

Chapter 3

THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE

In sooth, it is Riderhood and no other, or it is the outer husk andshell of Riderhood and no other, that is borne into Miss Abbey'sfirst-floor bedroom. Supple to twist and turn as the Rogue has everbeen, he is sufficiently rigid now; and not without much shuffling ofattendant feet, and tilting of his bier this way and that way, andperil even of his sliding off it and being tumbled in a heap over thebalustrades, can he be got up stairs. 

'Fetch a doctor, ' quoth Miss Abbey. And then, 'Fetch his daughter. ' Onboth of which errands, quick messengers depart. 

The doctor-seeking messenger meets the doctor halfway, coming underconvoy of police. Doctor examines the dank carcase, and pronounces, nothopefully, that it is worth while trying to reanimate the same. All thebest means are at once in action, and everybody present lends a hand, and a heart and soul. No one has the least regard for the man; with themall, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; butthe spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably because it IS life, andthey are living and must die. 

In answer to the doctor's inquiry how did it happen, and was anyone toblame, Tom Tootle gives in his verdict, unavoidable accident and no oneto blame but the sufferer. 'He was slinking about in his boat, ' saysTom, 'which slinking were, not to speak ill of the dead, the manner ofthe man, when he come right athwart the steamer's bows and she cut himin two. ' Mr Tootle is so far figurative, touching the dismemberment, asthat he means the boat, and not the man. For, the man lies whole beforethem. 

Captain Joey, the bottle-nosed regular customer in the glazed hat, is apupil of the much-respected old school, and (having insinuated himselfinto the chamber, in the execution of the important service of carryingthe drowned man's neck-kerchief) favours the doctor with a sagaciousold-scholastic suggestion that the body should be hung up by the heels, 'sim'lar', says Captain Joey, 'to mutton in a butcher's shop, ' andshould then, as a particularly choice manoeuvre for promoting easyrespiration, be rolled upon casks. These scraps of the wisdom of thecaptain's ancestors are received with such speechless indignation byMiss Abbey, that she instantly seizes the Captain by the collar, andwithout a single word ejects him, not presuming to remonstrate, from thescene. 

There then remain, to assist the doctor and Tom, only those three otherregular customers, Bob Glamour, William Williams, and Jonathan (familyname of the latter, if any, unknown to man-kind), who are quite enough. Miss Abbey having looked in to make sure that nothing is wanted, descends to the bar, and there awaits the result, with the gentle Jewand Miss Jenny Wren. 

If you are not gone for good, Mr Riderhood, it would be something toknow where you are hiding at present. This flabby lump of mortality thatwe work so hard at with such patient perseverance, yields no sign ofyou. If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you arecoming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery ofthe latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is asolemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendancealike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those belowstart at the least sound of a creaking plank in the floor. 

Stay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing low, and closelywatching, asks himself. 

No. 

Did that nostril twitch?

No. 

This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter undermy hand upon the chest?

No. 

Over and over again No. No. But try over and over again, nevertheless. 

See! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The spark maysmoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see! The fourrough fellows, seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world, norRiderhood in the other, could draw tears from them; but a striving humansoul between the two can do it easily. 

He is struggling to come back. Now, he is almost here, now he is faraway again. Now he is struggling harder to get back. And yet--like usall, when we swoon--like us all, every day of our lives when we wake--heis instinctively unwilling to be restored to the consciousness of thisexistence, and would be left dormant, if he could. 

Bob Gliddery returns with Pleasant Riderhood, who was out when soughtfor, and hard to find. She has a shawl over her head, and her firstaction, when she takes it off weeping, and curtseys to Miss Abbey, is towind her hair up. 

'Thank you, Miss Abbey, for having father here. '

'I am bound to say, girl, I didn't know who it was, ' returns Miss Abbey;'but I hope it would have been pretty much the same if I had known. '

Poor Pleasant, fortified with a sip of brandy, is ushered into thefirst-floor chamber. She could not express much sentiment about herfather if she were called upon to pronounce his funeral oration, but shehas a greater tenderness for him than he ever had for her, and cryingbitterly when she sees him stretched unconscious, asks the doctor, withclasped hands: 'Is there no hope, sir? O poor father! Is poor fatherdead?'

To which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy and watchful, only rejoins without looking round: 'Now, my girl, unless you have theself-command to be perfectly quiet, I cannot allow you to remain in theroom. '

Pleasant, consequently, wipes her eyes with her back-hair, which is infresh need of being wound up, and having got it out of the way, watcheswith terrified interest all that goes on. Her natural woman's aptitudesoon renders her able to give a little help. Anticipating the doctor'swant of this or that, she quietly has it ready for him, and so bydegrees is intrusted with the charge of supporting her father's headupon her arm. 

It is something so new to Pleasant to see her father an object ofsympathy and interest, to find any one very willing to tolerate hissociety in this world, not to say pressingly and soothingly entreatinghim to belong to it, that it gives her a sensation she never experiencedbefore. Some hazy idea that if affairs could remain thus for a long timeit would be a respectable change, floats in her mind. Also some vagueidea that the old evil is drowned out of him, and that if he shouldhappily come back to resume his occupation of the empty form that liesupon the bed, his spirit will be altered. In which state of mind shekisses the stony lips, and quite believes that the impassive hand shechafes will revive a tender hand, if it revive ever. 

Sweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister to him withsuch extraordinary interest, their anxiety is so keen, their vigilanceis so great, their excited joy grows so intense as the signs of lifestrengthen, that how can she resist it, poor thing! And now he beginsto breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor declares him to havecome back from that inexplicable journey where he stopped on the darkroad, and to be here. 

Tom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says this, graspsthe doctor fervently by the hand. Bob Glamour, William Williams, andJonathan of the no surname, all shake hands with one another round, andwith the doctor too. Bob Glamour blows his nose, and Jonathan of theno surname is moved to do likewise, but lacking a pocket handkerchiefabandons that outlet for his emotion. Pleasant sheds tears deserving herown name, and her sweet delusion is at its height. 

There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. Hewonders where he is. Tell him. 

'Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss AbbeyPotterson's. '

He stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his eyes, andlies slumbering on her arm. 

The short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, unimpressibleface is coming up from the depths of the river, or what other depths, tothe surface again. As he grows warm, the doctor and the four men cool. As his lineaments soften with life, their faces and their hearts hardento him. 

'He will do now, ' says the doctor, washing his hands, and looking at thepatient with growing disfavour. 

'Many a better man, ' moralizes Tom Tootle with a gloomy shake of thehead, 'ain't had his luck. '

'It's to be hoped he'll make a better use of his life, ' says BobGlamour, 'than I expect he will. '

'Or than he done afore, ' adds William Williams. 

'But no, not he!' says Jonathan of the no surname, clinching thequartette. 

They speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she sees that theyhave all drawn off, and that they stand in a group at the other end ofthe room, shunning him. It would be too much to suspect them of beingsorry that he didn't die when he had done so much towards it, but theyclearly wish that they had had a better subject to bestow their painson. Intelligence is conveyed to Miss Abbey in the bar, who reappears onthe scene, and contemplates from a distance, holding whispered discoursewith the doctor. The spark of life was deeply interesting while it wasin abeyance, but now that it has got established in Mr Riderhood, thereappears to be a general desire that circumstances had admitted of itsbeing developed in anybody else, rather than that gentleman. 

'However, ' says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, 'you have done your dutylike good and true men, and you had better come down and take somethingat the expense of the Porters. '

This they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. To whom, intheir absence, Bob Gliddery presents himself. 

'His gills looks rum; don't they?' says Bob, after inspecting thepatient. 

Pleasant faintly nods. 

'His gills'll look rummer when he wakes; won't they?' says Bob. 

Pleasant hopes not. Why?

'When he finds himself here, you know, ' Bob explains. 'Cause Miss Abbeyforbid him the house and ordered him out of it. But what you may callthe Fates ordered him into it again. Which is rumness; ain't it?'

'He wouldn't have come here of his own accord, ' returns poor Pleasant, with an effort at a little pride. 

'No, ' retorts Bob. 'Nor he wouldn't have been let in, if he had. '

The short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as she sees on herarm the old father, unimproved, Pleasant sees that everybody there willcut him when he recovers consciousness. 'I'll take him away ever so soonas I can, ' thinks Pleasant with a sigh; 'he's best at home. '

Presently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious thatthey will all be glad to get rid of him. Some clothes are got togetherfor him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and his presentdress being composed of blankets. 

Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent dislikewere finding him out somewhere in his sleep and expressing itself tohim, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by hisdaughter to sit up in bed. 

'Well, Riderhood, ' says the doctor, 'how do you feel?'

He replies gruffly, 'Nothing to boast on. ' Having, in fact, returned tolife in an uncommonly sulky state. 

'I don't mean to preach; but I hope, ' says the doctor, gravely shakinghis head, 'that this escape may have a good effect upon you, Riderhood. '

The patient's discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible; hisdaughter, however, could interpret, if she would, that what he says is, he 'don't want no Poll-Parroting'. 

Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (withhis daughter's help) exactly as if he had just had a Fight. 

'Warn't it a steamer?' he pauses to ask her. 

'Yes, father. '

'I'll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay for it. '

He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping toexamine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he has receivedin the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowlygets them on, with an appearance of great malevolence towards his lateopponent and all the spectators. He has an impression that his nose isbleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, andlooks for the result, in a pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening thatincongruous resemblance. 

'Where's my fur cap?' he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled hisclothes on. 

'In the river, ' somebody rejoins. 

'And warn't there no honest man to pick it up? O' course there wasthough, and to cut off with it arterwards. You are a rare lot, all onyou!'

Thus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of his daughter, with specialill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down over his ears. Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon her, andgrowling, 'Hold still, can't you? What! You must be a staggering next, must you?' he takes his departure out of the ring in which he has hadthat little turn-up with Death. 

Chapter 4

A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY

Mr and Mrs Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred moreanniversaries of their wedding day than Mr and Mrs Lammle had seen oftheirs, but they still celebrated the occasion in the bosom oftheir family. Not that these celebrations ever resulted in anythingparticularly agreeable, or that the family was ever disappointed by thatcircumstance on account of having looked forward to the return of theauspicious day with sanguine anticipations of enjoyment. It was keptmorally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, enabling Mrs Wilfer to holda sombre darkling state, which exhibited that impressive woman in herchoicest colours. 

The noble lady's condition on these delightful occasions was onecompounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness. Lurid indicationsof the better marriages she might have made, shone athwart the awfulgloom of her composure, and fitfully revealed the cherub as a littlemonster unaccountably favoured by Heaven, who had possessed himself of ablessing for which many of his superiors had sued and contended in vain. So firmly had this his position towards his treasure become established, that when the anniversary arrived, it always found him in an apologeticstate. It is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gonethe length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever took theliberty of making so exalted a character his wife. 

As for the children of the union, their experience of these festivalshad been sufficiently uncomfortable to lead them annually to wish, whenout of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married somebody elseinstead of much-teased Pa, or that Pa had married somebody else insteadof Ma. When there came to be but two sisters left at home, the daringmind of Bella on the next of these occasions scaled the height ofwondering with droll vexation 'what on earth Pa ever could have seen inMa, to induce him to make such a little fool of himself as to ask her tohave him. '

The revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly sequence, Bella arrived in the Boffin chariot to assist at the celebration. It wasthe family custom when the day recurred, to sacrifice a pair of fowlson the altar of Hymen; and Bella had sent a note beforehand, to intimatethat she would bring the votive offering with her. So, Bella and thefowls, by the united energies of two horses, two men, four wheels, and aplum-pudding carriage dog with as uncomfortable a collar on as if hehad been George the Fourth, were deposited at the door of the parentaldwelling. They were there received by Mrs Wilfer in person, whosedignity on this, as on most special occasions, was heightened by amysterious toothache. 

'I shall not require the carriage at night, ' said Bella. 'I shall walkback. '

The male domestic of Mrs Boffin touched his hat, and in the act ofdeparture had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs Wilfer, intendedto carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that, whatever hisprivate suspicions might be, male domestics in livery were no raritythere. 

'Well, dear Ma, ' said Bella, 'and how do you do?'

'I am as well, Bella, ' replied Mrs Wilfer, 'as can be expected. '

'Dear me, Ma, ' said Bella; 'you talk as if one was just born!'

'That's exactly what Ma has been doing, ' interposed Lavvy, over thematernal shoulder, 'ever since we got up this morning. It's all verywell to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible toconceive. '

Mrs Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied by anywords, attended both her daughters to the kitchen, where the sacrificewas to be prepared. 

'Mr Rokesmith, ' said she, resignedly, 'has been so polite as to placehis sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will therefore, Bella, beentertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in accordancewith your present style of living, that there will be a drawing-room foryour reception as well as a dining-room. Your papa invited Mr Rokesmithto partake of our lowly fare. In excusing himself on account of aparticular engagement, he offered the use of his apartment. '

Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own room atMr Boffin's, but she approved of his staying away. 'We should only haveput one another out of countenance, ' she thought, 'and we do that quiteoften enough as it is. '

Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it withthe least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its contents. It was tastefully though economically furnished, and very neatlyarranged. There were shelves and stands of books, English, French, andItalian; and in a portfolio on the writing-table there were sheets uponsheets of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently referring tothe Boffin property. On that table also, carefully backed with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was the placard descriptiveof the murdered man who had come from afar to be her husband. She shrankfrom this ghostly surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled andtied it up again. Peeping about here and there, she came upon a print, agraceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in the cornerby the easy chair. 'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Bella, after stopping toruminate before it. 'Oh, indeed, sir! I fancy I can guess whom youthink THAT'S like. But I'll tell you what it's much more like--yourimpudence!' Having said which she decamped: not solely because she wasoffended, but because there was nothing else to look at. 

'Now, Ma, ' said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some remains of ablush, 'you and Lavvy think magnificent me fit for nothing, but I intendto prove the contrary. I mean to be Cook today. '

'Hold!' rejoined her majestic mother. 'I cannot permit it. Cook, in thatdress!'

'As for my dress, Ma, ' returned Bella, merrily searching in adresser-drawer, 'I mean to apron it and towel it all over the front; andas to permission, I mean to do without. '

'YOU cook?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'YOU, who never cooked when you were athome?'

'Yes, Ma, ' returned Bella; 'that is precisely the state of the case. '

She girded herself with a white apron, and busily with knots and pinscontrived a bib to it, coming close and tight under her chin, as if ithad caught her round the neck to kiss her. Over this bib her dimpleslooked delightful, and under it her pretty figure not less so. 'Now, Ma, ' said Bella, pushing back her hair from her temples with both hands, 'what's first?'

'First, ' returned Mrs Wilfer solemnly, 'if you persist in what I cannotbut regard as conduct utterly incompatible with the equipage in whichyou arrived--'

('Which I do, Ma. ')

'First, then, you put the fowls down to the fire. '

'To--be--sure!' cried Bella; 'and flour them, and twirl them round, andthere they go!' sending them spinning at a great rate. 'What's next, Ma?'

'Next, ' said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive ofabdication under protest from the culinary throne, 'I would recommendexamination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of thepotatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens willfurther become necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour. '

'As of course I do, Ma. '

Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot theother, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the third, andremembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made amendswhenever she went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin, which made their chance of ever getting cooked exceedingly doubtful. Butit was pleasant cookery too. Meantime Miss Lavinia, oscillating betweenthe kitchen and the opposite room, prepared the dining-table in thelatter chamber. This office she (always doing her household spiritingwith unwillingness) performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps;laying the table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting downthe glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the door, andclashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive ofhand-to-hand conflict. 

'Look at Ma, ' whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and theystood over the roasting fowls. 'If one was the most dutiful child inexistence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't she enoughto make one want to poke her with something wooden, sitting there boltupright in a corner?'

'Only suppose, ' returned Bella, 'that poor Pa was to sit bolt upright inanother corner. '

'My dear, he couldn't do it, ' said Lavvy. 'Pa would loll directly. Butindeed I do not believe there ever was any human creature who could keepso bolt upright as Ma, 'or put such an amount of aggravation into oneback! What's the matter, Ma? Ain't you well, Ma?'

'Doubtless I am very well, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, turning her eyes uponher youngest born, with scornful fortitude. 'What should be the matterwith Me?'

'You don't seem very brisk, Ma, ' retorted Lavvy the bold. 

'Brisk?' repeated her parent, 'Brisk? Whence the low expression, Lavinia? If I am uncomplaining, if I am silently contented with my lot, let that suffice for my family. '

'Well, Ma, ' returned Lavvy, 'since you will force it out of me, I mustrespectfully take leave to say that your family are no doubt underthe greatest obligations to you for having an annual toothache on yourwedding day, and that it's very disinterested in you, and an immenseblessing to them. Still, on the whole, it is possible to be too boastfuleven of that boon. '

'You incarnation of sauciness, ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'do you speak like thatto me? On this day, of all days in the year? Pray do you know whatwould have become of you, if I had not bestowed my hand upon R. W. , yourfather, on this day?'

'No, Ma, ' replied Lavvy, 'I really do not; and, with the greatestrespect for your abilities and information, I very much doubt if you doeither. '

Whether or no the sharp vigour of this sally on a weak point of MrsWilfer's entrenchments might have routed that heroine for the time, isrendered uncertain by the arrival of a flag of truce in the person ofMr George Sampson: bidden to the feast as a friend of the family, whoseaffections were now understood to be in course of transference fromBella to Lavinia, and whom Lavinia kept--possibly in remembrance of hisbad taste in having overlooked her in the first instance--under a courseof stinging discipline. 

'I congratulate you, Mrs Wilfer, ' said Mr George Sampson, who hadmeditated this neat address while coming along, 'on the day. ' Mrs Wilferthanked him with a magnanimous sigh, and again became an unresistingprey to that inscrutable toothache. 

'I am surprised, ' said Mr Sampson feebly, 'that Miss Bella condescendsto cook. '

Here Miss Lavinia descended on the ill-starred young gentleman with acrushing supposition that at all events it was no business of his. Thisdisposed of Mr Sampson in a melancholy retirement of spirit, until thecherub arrived, whose amazement at the lovely woman's occupation wasgreat. 

However, she persisted in dishing the dinner as well as cooking it, andthen sat down, bibless and apronless, to partake of it as an illustriousguest: Mrs Wilfer first responding to her husband's cheerful 'For whatwe are about to receive--'with a sepulchral Amen, calculated to cast adamp upon the stoutest appetite. 

'But what, ' said Bella, as she watched the carving of the fowls, 'makesthem pink inside, I wonder, Pa! Is it the breed?'

'No, I don't think it's the breed, my dear, ' returned Pa. 'I ratherthink it is because they are not done. '

'They ought to be, ' said Bella. 

'Yes, I am aware they ought to be, my dear, ' rejoined her father, 'butthey--ain't. '

So, the gridiron was put in requisition, and the good-tempered cherub, who was often as un-cherubically employed in his own family as if he hadbeen in the employment of some of the Old Masters, undertook to grillthe fowls. Indeed, except in respect of staring about him (a branch ofthe public service to which the pictorial cherub is much addicted), thisdomestic cherub discharged as many odd functions as his prototype; withthe difference, say, that he performed with a blacking-brush on thefamily's boots, instead of performing on enormous wind instruments anddouble-basses, and that he conducted himself with cheerful alacrity tomuch useful purpose, instead of foreshortening himself in the air withthe vaguest intentions. 

Bella helped him with his supplemental cookery, and made him very happy, but put him in mortal terror too by asking him when they sat down attable again, how he supposed they cooked fowls at the Greenwich dinners, and whether he believed they really were such pleasant dinners as peoplesaid? His secret winks and nods of remonstrance, in reply, made themischievous Bella laugh until she choked, and then Lavinia was obligedto slap her on the back, and then she laughed the more. 

But her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of the table; towhom her father, in the innocence of his good-fellowship, at intervalsappealed with: 'My dear, I am afraid you are not enjoying yourself?'

'Why so, R. W. ?' she would sonorously reply. 

'Because, my dear, you seem a little out of sorts. '

'Not at all, ' would be the rejoinder, in exactly the same tone. 

'Would you take a merry-thought, my dear?'

'Thank you. I will take whatever you please, R. W. '

'Well, but my dear, do you like it?'

'I like it as well as I like anything, R. W. ' The stately woman wouldthen, with a meritorious appearance of devoting herself to the generalgood, pursue her dinner as if she were feeding somebody else on highpublic grounds. 

Bella had brought dessert and two bottles of wine, thus sheddingunprecedented splendour on the occasion. Mrs Wilfer did the honours ofthe first glass by proclaiming: 'R. W. I drink to you. 

'Thank you, my dear. And I to you. '

'Pa and Ma!' said Bella. 

'Permit me, ' Mrs Wilfer interposed, with outstretched glove. 'No. Ithink not. I drank to your papa. If, however, you insist on includingme, I can in gratitude offer no objection. '

'Why, Lor, Ma, ' interposed Lavvy the bold, 'isn't it the day that madeyou and Pa one and the same? I have no patience!'

'By whatever other circumstance the day may be marked, it is not theday, Lavinia, on which I will allow a child of mine to pounce upon me. I beg--nay, command!--that you will not pounce. R. W. , it is appropriateto recall that it is for you to command and for me to obey. It is yourhouse, and you are master at your own table. Both our healths!' Drinkingthe toast with tremendous stiffness. 

'I really am a little afraid, my dear, ' hinted the cherub meekly, 'thatyou are not enjoying yourself?'

'On the contrary, ' returned Mrs Wilfer, 'quite so. Why should I not?'

'I thought, my dear, that perhaps your face might--'

'My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that import, or who shouldknow it, if I smiled?'

And she did smile; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr George Sampsonby so doing. For that young gentleman, catching her smiling eye, was sovery much appalled by its expression as to cast about in his thoughtsconcerning what he had done to bring it down upon himself. 

'The mind naturally falls, ' said Mrs Wilfer, 'shall I say into areverie, or shall I say into a retrospect? on a day like this. '

Lavvy, sitting with defiantly folded arms, replied (but not audibly), 'For goodness' sake say whichever of the two you like best, Ma, and getit over. '

'The mind, ' pursued Mrs Wilfer in an oratorical manner, 'naturallyreverts to Papa and Mamma--I here allude to my parents--at a periodbefore the earliest dawn of this day. I was considered tall; perhaps Iwas. Papa and Mamma were unquestionably tall. I have rarely seen a finerwomen than my mother; never than my father. '

The irrepressible Lavvy remarked aloud, 'Whatever grandpapa was, hewasn't a female. '

'Your grandpapa, ' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with an awful look, and in anawful tone, 'was what I describe him to have been, and would have struckany of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question it. Itwas one of mamma's cherished hopes that I should become united to atall member of society. It may have been a weakness, but if so, it wasequally the weakness, I believe, of King Frederick of Prussia. ' Theseremarks being offered to Mr George Sampson, who had not the courage tocome out for single combat, but lurked with his chest under the tableand his eyes cast down, Mrs Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasingsternness and impressiveness, until she should force that skulkerto give himself up. 'Mamma would appear to have had an indefinableforeboding of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urgeupon me, "Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man. Never, never, never, marry a little man!" Papa also would remark to me(he possessed extraordinary humour), "that a family of whales must notally themselves with sprats. " His company was eagerly sought, as maybe supposed, by the wits of the day, and our house was their continualresort. I have known as many as three copper-plate engravers exchangingthe most exquisite sallies and retorts there, at one time. ' (Here MrSampson delivered himself captive, and said, with an uneasy movement onhis chair, that three was a large number, and it must have been highlyentertaining. ) 'Among the most prominent members of that distinguishedcircle, was a gentleman measuring six feet four in height. HE was NOTan engraver. ' (Here Mr Sampson said, with no reason whatever, Of coursenot. ) 'This gentleman was so obliging as to honour me with attentionswhich I could not fail to understand. ' (Here Mr Sampson murmured thatwhen it came to that, you could always tell. ) 'I immediately announcedto both my parents that those attentions were misplaced, and that Icould not favour his suit. They inquired was he too tall? I replied itwas not the stature, but the intellect was too lofty. At our house, I said, the tone was too brilliant, the pressure was too high, to bemaintained by me, a mere woman, in every-day domestic life. I wellremember mamma's clasping her hands, and exclaiming "This will end ina little man!"' (Here Mr Sampson glanced at his host and shook his headwith despondency. ) 'She afterwards went so far as to predict that itwould end in a little man whose mind would be below the average, butthat was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal disappointment. Within a month, ' said Mrs Wilfer, deepening her voice, as if she wererelating a terrible ghost story, 'within a-month, I first saw R. W. Myhusband. Within a year, I married him. It is natural for the mind torecall these dark coincidences on the present day. '

Mr Sampson at length released from the custody of Mrs Wilfer's eye, nowdrew a long breath, and made the original and striking remark that therewas no accounting for these sort of presentiments. R. W. Scratched hishead and looked apologetically all round the table until he came to hiswife, when observing her as it were shrouded in a more sombre veil thanbefore, he once more hinted, 'My dear, I am really afraid you are notaltogether enjoying yourself?' To which she once more replied, 'On thecontrary, R. W. Quite so. '

The wretched Mr Sampson's position at this agreeable entertainmentwas truly pitiable. For, not only was he exposed defenceless to theharangues of Mrs Wilfer, but he received the utmost contumely at thehands of Lavinia; who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could dowhat she liked with him, and partly to pay him off for still obviouslyadmiring Bella's beauty, led him the life of a dog. Illuminated on theone hand by the stately graces of Mrs Wilfer's oratory, and shadowedon the other by the checks and frowns of the young lady to whom hehad devoted himself in his destitution, the sufferings of this younggentleman were distressing to witness. If his mind for the moment reeledunder them, it may be urged, in extenuation of its weakness, that itwas constitutionally a knock-knee'd mind and never very strong upon itslegs. 

The rosy hours were thus beguiled until it was time for Bella to havePa's escort back. The dimples duly tied up in the bonnet-strings and theleave-taking done, they got out into the air, and the cherub drew a longbreath as if he found it refreshing. 

'Well, dear Pa, ' said Bella, 'the anniversary may be considered over. '

'Yes, my dear, ' returned the cherub, 'there's another of 'em gone. '

Bella drew his arm closer through hers as they walked along, and gave ita number of consolatory pats. 'Thank you, my dear, ' he said, as ifshe had spoken; 'I am all right, my dear. Well, and how do you get on, Bella?'

'I am not at all improved, Pa. '

'Ain't you really though?'

'No, Pa. On the contrary, I am worse. '

'Lor!' said the cherub. 

'I am worse, Pa. I make so many calculations how much a year I must havewhen I marry, and what is the least I can manage to do with, that I ambeginning to get wrinkles over my nose. Did you notice any wrinkles overmy nose this evening, Pa?'

Pa laughing at this, Bella gave him two or three shakes. 

'You won't laugh, sir, when you see your lovely woman turning haggard. You had better be prepared in time, I can tell you. I shall not be ableto keep my greediness for money out of my eyes long, and when you see itthere you'll be sorry, and serve you right for not being warned in time. Now, sir, we entered into a bond of confidence. Have you anything toimpart?'

'I thought it was you who was to impart, my love. '

'Oh! did you indeed, sir? Then why didn't you ask me, the moment we cameout? The confidences of lovely women are not to be slighted. However, Iforgive you this once, and look here, Pa; that's'--Bella laid thelittle forefinger of her right glove on her lip, and then laid it on herfather's lip--'that's a kiss for you. And now I am going seriouslyto tell you--let me see how many--four secrets. Mind! Serious, grave, weighty secrets. Strictly between ourselves. '

'Number one, my dear?' said her father, settling her arm comfortably andconfidentially. 

'Number one, ' said Bella, 'will electrify you, Pa. Who do you thinkhas'--she was confused here in spite of her merry way of beginning 'hasmade an offer to me?'

Pa looked in her face, and looked at the ground, and looked in her faceagain, and declared he could never guess. 

'Mr Rokesmith. '

'You don't tell me so, my dear!'

'Mis--ter Roke--smith, Pa, ' said Bella separating the syllables foremphasis. 'What do you say to THAT?'

Pa answered quietly with the counter-question, 'What did YOU say tothat, my love?'

'I said No, ' returned Bella sharply. 'Of course. '

'Yes. Of course, ' said her father, meditating. 

'And I told him why I thought it a betrayal of trust on his part, and anaffront to me, ' said Bella. 

'Yes. To be sure. I am astonished indeed. I wonder he committed himselfwithout seeing more of his way first. Now I think of it, I suspect healways has admired you though, my dear. '

'A hackney coachman may admire me, ' remarked Bella, with a touch of hermother's loftiness. 

'It's highly probable, my love. Number two, my dear?'

'Number two, Pa, is much to the same purpose, though not sopreposterous. Mr Lightwood would propose to me, if I would let him. '

'Then I understand, my dear, that you don't intend to let him?'

Bella again saying, with her former emphasis, 'Why, of course not!' herfather felt himself bound to echo, 'Of course not. '

'I don't care for him, ' said Bella. 

'That's enough, ' her father interposed. 

'No, Pa, it's NOT enough, ' rejoined Bella, giving him another shake ortwo. 'Haven't I told you what a mercenary little wretch I am? Itonly becomes enough when he has no money, and no clients, and noexpectations, and no anything but debts. '

'Hah!' said the cherub, a little depressed. 'Number three, my dear?'

'Number three, Pa, is a better thing. A generous thing, a noble thing, adelightful thing. Mrs Boffin has herself told me, as a secret, with herown kind lips--and truer lips never opened or closed in this life, I amsure--that they wish to see me well married; and that when I marry withtheir consent they will portion me most handsomely. ' Here the gratefulgirl burst out crying very heartily. 

'Don't cry, my darling, ' said her father, with his hand to his eyes;'it's excusable in me to be a little overcome when I find that my dearfavourite child is, after all disappointments, to be so provided forand so raised in the world; but don't YOU cry, don't YOU cry. I am verythankful. I congratulate you with all my heart, my dear. ' The good softlittle fellow, drying his eyes, here, Bella put her arms round his neckand tenderly kissed him on the high road, passionately telling himhe was the best of fathers and the best of friends, and that on herwedding-morning she would go down on her knees to him and beg his pardonfor having ever teased him or seemed insensible to the worth of sucha patient, sympathetic, genial, fresh young heart. At every one of heradjectives she redoubled her kisses, and finally kissed his hat off, andthen laughed immoderately when the wind took it and he ran after it. 

When he had recovered his hat and his breath, and they were going onagain once more, said her father then: 'Number four, my dear?'

Bella's countenance fell in the midst of her mirth. 'After all, perhapsI had better put off number four, Pa. Let me try once more, if for neverso short a time, to hope that it may not really be so. '

The change in her, strengthened the cherub's interest in number four, and he said quietly: 'May not be so, my dear? May not be how, my dear?'

Bella looked at him pensively, and shook her head. 

'And yet I know right well it is so, Pa. I know it only too well. '

'My love, ' returned her father, 'you make me quite uncomfortable. Haveyou said No to anybody else, my dear?'

'No, Pa. '

'Yes to anybody?' he suggested, lifting up his eyebrows. 

'No, Pa. '

'Is there anybody else who would take his chance between Yes and No, ifyou would let him, my dear?'

'Not that I know of, Pa. '

'There can't be somebody who won't take his chance when you want himto?' said the cherub, as a last resource. 

'Why, of course not, Pa, said Bella, giving him another shake or two. 

'No, of course not, ' he assented. 'Bella, my dear, I am afraid I musteither have no sleep to-night, or I must press for number four. '

'Oh, Pa, there is no good in number four! I am so sorry for it, I am sounwilling to believe it, I have tried so earnestly not to see it, thatit is very hard to tell, even to you. But Mr Boffin is being spoilt byprosperity, and is changing every day. '

'My dear Bella, I hope and trust not. '

'I have hoped and trusted not too, Pa; but every day he changes forthe worse, and for the worse. Not to me--he is always much the sameto me--but to others about him. Before my eyes he grows suspicious, capricious, hard, tyrannical, unjust. If ever a good man were ruined bygood fortune, it is my benefactor. And yet, Pa, think how terrible thefascination of money is! I see this, and hate this, and dread this, anddon't know but that money might make a much worse change in me. And yetI have money always in my thoughts and my desires; and the whole life Iplace before myself is money, money, money, and what money can make oflife!'

Chapter 5

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY

Were Bella Wilfer's bright and ready little wits at fault, or was theGolden Dustman passing through the furnace of proof and coming outdross? Ill news travels fast. We shall know full soon. 

On that very night of her return from the Happy Return, somethingchanced which Bella closely followed with her eyes and ears. There wasan apartment at the side of the Boffin mansion, known as Mr Boffin'sroom. Far less grand than the rest of the house, it was far morecomfortable, being pervaded by a certain air of homely snugness, whichupholstering despotism had banished to that spot when it inexorably setits face against Mr Boffin's appeals for mercy in behalf of any otherchamber. Thus, although a room of modest situation--for its windows gaveon Silas Wegg's old corner--and of no pretensions to velvet, satin, orgilding, it had got itself established in a domestic position analogousto that of an easy dressing-gown or pair of slippers; and whenever thefamily wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant fireside evening, theyenjoyed it, as an institution that must be, in Mr Boffin's room. 

Mr and Mrs Boffin were reported sitting in this room, when Bella gotback. Entering it, she found the Secretary there too; in officialattendance it would appear, for he was standing with some papers in hishand by a table with shaded candles on it, at which Mr Boffin was seatedthrown back in his easy chair. 

'You are busy, sir, ' said Bella, hesitating at the door. 

'Not at all, my dear, not at all. You're one of ourselves. We nevermake company of you. Come in, come in. Here's the old lady in her usualplace. '

Mrs Boffin adding her nod and smile of welcome to Mr Boffin's words, Bella took her book to a chair in the fireside corner, by Mrs Boffin'swork-table. Mr Boffin's station was on the opposite side. 

'Now, Rokesmith, ' said the Golden Dustman, so sharply rapping the tableto bespeak his attention as Bella turned the leaves of her book, thatshe started; 'where were we?'

'You were saying, sir, ' returned the Secretary, with an air of somereluctance and a glance towards those others who were present, 'that youconsidered the time had come for fixing my salary. '

'Don't be above calling it wages, man, ' said Mr Boffin, testily. 'Whatthe deuce! I never talked of any salary when I was in service. '

'My wages, ' said the Secretary, correcting himself. 

'Rokesmith, you are not proud, I hope?' observed Mr Boffin, eyeing himaskance. 

'I hope not, sir. '

'Because I never was, when I was poor, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Poverty andpride don't go at all well together. Mind that. How can they go welltogether? Why it stands to reason. A man, being poor, has nothing to beproud of. It's nonsense. '

With a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some surprise, the Secretary seemed to assent by forming the syllables of the word'nonsense' on his lips. 

'Now, concerning these same wages, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Sit down. '

The Secretary sat down. 

'Why didn't you sit down before?' asked Mr Boffin, distrustfully. 'Ihope that wasn't pride? But about these wages. Now, I've gone into thematter, and I say two hundred a year. What do you think of it? Do youthink it's enough?'

'Thank you. It is a fair proposal. '

'I don't say, you know, ' Mr Boffin stipulated, 'but what it may be morethan enough. And I'll tell you why, Rokesmith. A man of property, likeme, is bound to consider the market-price. At first I didn't enter intothat as much as I might have done; but I've got acquainted with othermen of property since, and I've got acquainted with the duties ofproperty. I mustn't go putting the market-price up, because money mayhappen not to be an object with me. A sheep is worth so much in themarket, and I ought to give it and no more. A secretary is worth so muchin the market, and I ought to give it and no more. However, I don't mindstretching a point with you. '

'Mr Boffin, you are very good, ' replied the Secretary, with an effort. 

'Then we put the figure, ' said Mr Boffin, 'at two hundred a year. Then the figure's disposed of. Now, there must be no misunderstandingregarding what I buy for two hundred a year. If I pay for a sheep, I buyit out and out. Similarly, if I pay for a secretary, I buy HIM out andout. '

'In other words, you purchase my whole time?'

'Certainly I do. Look here, ' said Mr Boffin, 'it ain't that I want tooccupy your whole time; you can take up a book for a minute or two whenyou've nothing better to do, though I think you'll a'most always findsomething useful to do. But I want to keep you in attendance. It'sconvenient to have you at all times ready on the premises. Therefore, betwixt your breakfast and your supper, --on the premises I expect tofind you. '

The Secretary bowed. 

'In bygone days, when I was in service myself, ' said Mr Boffin, 'Icouldn't go cutting about at my will and pleasure, and you won't expectto go cutting about at your will and pleasure. You've rather got intoa habit of that, lately; but perhaps it was for want of a rightspecification betwixt us. Now, let there be a right specificationbetwixt us, and let it be this. If you want leave, ask for it. '

Again the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and astonished, andshowed a sense of humiliation. 

'I'll have a bell, ' said Mr Boffin, 'hung from this room to yours, and when I want you, I'll touch it. I don't call to mind that I haveanything more to say at the present moment. '

The Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. Bella's eyesfollowed him to the door, lighted on Mr Boffin complacently thrown backin his easy chair, and drooped over her book. 

'I have let that chap, that young man of mine, ' said Mr Boffin, taking atrot up and down the room, get above his work. It won't do. I must havehim down a peg. A man of property owes a duty to other men of property, and must look sharp after his inferiors. '

Bella felt that Mrs Boffin was not comfortable, and that the eyes ofthat good creature sought to discover from her face what attention shehad given to this discourse, and what impression it had made upon her. For which reason Bella's eyes drooped more engrossedly over her book, and she turned the page with an air of profound absorption in it. 

'Noddy, ' said Mrs Boffin, after thoughtfully pausing in her work. 

'My dear, ' returned the Golden Dustman, stopping short in his trot. 

'Excuse my putting it to you, Noddy, but now really! Haven't you beena little strict with Mr Rokesmith to-night? Haven't you been alittle--just a little little--not quite like your old self?'

'Why, old woman, I hope so, ' returned Mr Boffin, cheerfully, if notboastfully. 

'Hope so, deary?'

'Our old selves wouldn't do here, old lady. Haven't you found that outyet? Our old selves would be fit for nothing here but to be robbed andimposed upon. Our old selves weren't people of fortune; our new selvesare; it's a great difference. '

'Ah!' said Mrs Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly to draw a longbreath and to look at the fire. 'A great difference. '

'And we must be up to the difference, ' pursued her husband; 'we must beequal to the change; that's what we must be. We've got to hold our ownnow, against everybody (for everybody's hand is stretched out to bedipped into our pockets), and we have got to recollect that money makesmoney, as well as makes everything else. '

'Mentioning recollecting, ' said Mrs Boffin, with her work abandoned, her eyes upon the fire, and her chin upon her hand, 'do you recollect, Noddy, how you said to Mr Rokesmith when he first came to see us at theBower, and you engaged him--how you said to him that if it had pleasedHeaven to send John Harmon to his fortune safe, we could have beencontent with the one Mound which was our legacy, and should never havewanted the rest?'

'Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn't tried what it was to have therest then. Our new shoes had come home, but we hadn't put 'em on. We'rewearing 'em now, we're wearing 'em, and must step out accordingly. '

Mrs Boffin took up her work again, and plied her needle in silence. 

'As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine, ' said Mr Boffin, droppinghis voice and glancing towards the door with an apprehension of beingoverheard by some eavesdropper there, 'it's the same with him as withthe footmen. I have found out that you must either scrunch them, or letthem scrunch you. If you ain't imperious with 'em, they won't believein your being any better than themselves, if as good, after the stories(lies mostly) that they have heard of your beginnings. There's nothingbetwixt stiffening yourself up, and throwing yourself away; take my wordfor that, old lady. '

Bella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him under hereyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion, covetousness, andconceit, overshadowing the once open face. 

'Hows'ever, ' said he, 'this isn't entertaining to Miss Bella. Is it, Bella?'

A deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pensively abstractedair, as if her mind were full of her book, and she had not heard asingle word!

'Hah! Better employed than to attend to it, ' said Mr Boffin. 'That'sright, that's right. Especially as you have no call to be told how tovalue yourself, my dear. '

Colouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, 'I hope sir, you don't think me vain?'

'Not a bit, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin. 'But I think it's very creditablein you, at your age, to be so well up with the pace of the world, and toknow what to go in for. You are right. Go in for money, my love. Money'sthe article. You'll make money of your good looks, and of the money MrsBoffin and me will have the pleasure of settling upon you, and you'lllive and die rich. That's the state to live and die in!' said Mr Boffin, in an unctuous manner. R--r--rich!'

There was an expression of distress in Mrs Boffin's face, as, afterwatching her husband's, she turned to their adopted girl, and said:

'Don't mind him, Bella, my dear. '

'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin. 'What! Not mind him?'

'I don't mean that, ' said Mrs Boffin, with a worried look, 'but I mean, don't believe him to be anything but good and generous, Bella, becausehe is the best of men. No, I must say that much, Noddy. You are alwaysthe best of men. '

She made the declaration as if he were objecting to it: which assuredlyhe was not in any way. 

'And as to you, my dear Bella, ' said Mrs Boffin, still with thatdistressed expression, 'he is so much attached to you, whatever he says, that your own father has not a truer interest in you and can hardly likeyou better than he does. '

'Says too!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Whatever he says! Why, I say so, openly. Give me a kiss, my dear child, in saying Good Night, and let me confirmwhat my old lady tells you. I am very fond of you, my dear, and I amentirely of your mind, and you and I will take care that you shall berich. These good looks of yours (which you have some right to be vainof; my dear, though you are not, you know) are worth money, and youshall make money of 'em. The money you will have, will be worth money, and you shall make money of that too. There's a golden ball at yourfeet. Good night, my dear. '

Somehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance and thisprospect as she might have been. Somehow, when she put her armsround Mrs Boffin's neck and said Good Night, she derived a sense ofunworthiness from the still anxious face of that good woman and herobvious wish to excuse her husband. 'Why, what need to excuse him?'thought Bella, sitting down in her own room. 'What he said was verysensible, I am sure, and very true, I am sure. It is only what I oftensay to myself. Don't I like it then? No, I don't like it, and, thoughhe is my liberal benefactor, I disparage him for it. Then pray, ' saidBella, sternly putting the question to herself in the looking-glass asusual, 'what do you mean by this, you inconsistent little Beast?'

The looking-glass preserving a discreet ministerial silence when thuscalled upon for explanation, Bella went to bed with a weariness upon herspirit which was more than the weariness of want of sleep. And againin the morning, she looked for the cloud, and for the deepening of thecloud, upon the Golden Dustman's face. 

She had begun by this time to be his frequent companion in his morningstrolls about the streets, and it was at this time that he made her aparty to his engaging in a curious pursuit. Having been hard at work inone dull enclosure all his life, he had a child's delight in lookingat shops. It had been one of the first novelties and pleasures of hisfreedom, and was equally the delight of his wife. For many years theironly walks in London had been taken on Sundays when the shops were shut;and when every day in the week became their holiday, they derived anenjoyment from the variety and fancy and beauty of the display in thewindows, which seemed incapable of exhaustion. As if the principalstreets were a great Theatre and the play were childishly new to them, Mr and Mrs Boffin, from the beginning of Bella's intimacy in theirhouse, had been constantly in the front row, charmed with all they sawand applauding vigorously. But now, Mr Boffin's interest began to centrein book-shops; and more than that--for that of itself would not havebeen much--in one exceptional kind of book. 

'Look in here, my dear, ' Mr Boffin would say, checking Bella's arm at abookseller's window; 'you can read at sight, and your eyes are as sharpas they're bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if yousee any book about a Miser. '

If Bella saw such a book, Mr Boffin would instantly dart in and buyit. And still, as if they had not found it, they would seek out anotherbook-shop, and Mr Boffin would say, 'Now, look well all round, mydear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any Lives of oddcharacters who may have been Misers. '

Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the greatestattention, while Mr Boffin would examine her face. The moment shepointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric personages, Anecdotes of strange characters, Records of remarkable individuals, oranything to that purpose, Mr Boffin's countenance would light up, andhe would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, price, quality, were of noaccount. Any book that seemed to promise a chance of miserly biography, Mr Boffin purchased without a moment's delay and carried home. Happeningto be informed by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register wasdevoted to 'Characters', Mr Boffin at once bought a whole set of thatingenious compilation, and began to carry it home piecemeal, confidinga volume to Bella, and bearing three himself. The completion of thislabour occupied them about a fortnight. When the task was done, MrBoffin, with his appetite for Misers whetted instead of satiated, beganto look out again. 

It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, and anunderstanding was established between her and Mr Boffin that she wasalways to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after morning they roamedabout the town together, pursuing this singular research. Miserlyliterature not being abundant, the proportion of failures to successesmay have been as a hundred to one; still Mr Boffin, never wearied, remained as avaricious for misers as he had been at the first onset. Itwas curious that Bella never saw the books about the house, nor did sheever hear from Mr Boffin one word of reference to their contents. Heseemed to save up his Misers as they had saved up their money. As theyhad been greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so hewas greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond alldoubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella very clearly noticed, that, as he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records with the ardour ofDon Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began to spend his money witha more sparing hand. And often when he came out of a shop with some newaccount of one of those wretched lunatics, she would almost shrink fromthe sly dry chuckle with which he would take her arm again and trotaway. It did not appear that Mrs Boffin knew of this taste. He madeno allusion to it, except in the morning walks when he and Bella werealways alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that he took herinto his confidence by implication, and partly in remembrance of MrsBoffin's anxious face that night, held the same reserve. 

While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs Lammle made the discoverythat Bella had a fascinating influence over her. The Lammles, originallypresented by the dear Veneerings, visited the Boffins on all grandoccasions, and Mrs Lammle had not previously found this out; but now theknowledge came upon her all at once. It was a most extraordinary thing(she said to Mrs Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the power ofbeauty, but it wasn't altogether that; she never had been able to resista natural grace of manner, but it wasn't altogether that; it was morethan that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degreeto which she was captivated by this charming girl. 

This charming girl having the words repeated to her by Mrs Boffin (whowas proud of her being admired, and would have done anything to give herpleasure), naturally recognized in Mrs Lammle a woman of penetrationand taste. Responding to the sentiments, by being very gracious to MrsLammle, she gave that lady the means of so improving her opportunity, as that the captivation became reciprocal, though always wearing anappearance of greater sobriety on Bella's part than on the enthusiasticSophronia's. Howbeit, they were so much together that, for a time, theBoffin chariot held Mrs Lammle oftener than Mrs Boffin: a preferenceof which the latter worthy soul was not in the least jealous, placidlyremarking, 'Mrs Lammle is a younger companion for her than I am, andLor! she's more fashionable. '

But between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there was this onedifference, among many others, that Bella was in no danger of beingcaptivated by Alfred. She distrusted and disliked him. Indeed, herperception was so quick, and her observation so sharp, that after allshe mistrusted his wife too, though with her giddy vanity and wilfulnessshe squeezed the mistrust away into a corner of her mind, and blocked itup there. 

Mrs Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella's making a good match. Mrs Lammle said, in a sportive way, she really must show her beautifulBella what kind of wealthy creatures she and Alfred had on hand, whowould as one man fall at her feet enslaved. Fitting occasion made, Mrs Lammle accordingly produced the most passable of those feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose gentlemen who were always lounging inand out of the City on questions of the Bourse and Greek and Spanish andIndia and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three-quartersand seven-eighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to Bellaas if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred horse, well-builtdrag, and remarkable pipe. But without the least effect, though even MrFledgeby's attractions were cast into the scale. 

'I fear, Bella dear, ' said Mrs Lammle one day in the chariot, 'that youwill be very hard to please. '

'I don't expect to be pleased, dear, ' said Bella, with a languid turn ofher eyes. 

'Truly, my love, ' returned Sophronia, shaking her head, and smilingher best smile, 'it would not be very easy to find a man worthy of yourattractions. '

'The question is not a man, my dear, ' said Bella, coolly, 'but anestablishment. '

'My love, ' returned Mrs Lammle, 'your prudence amazes me--where DID youstudy life so well!--you are right. In such a case as yours, the objectis a fitting establishment. You could not descend to an inadequate onefrom Mr Boffin's house, and even if your beauty alone could not commandit, it is to be assumed that Mr and Mrs Boffin will--'

'Oh! they have already, ' Bella interposed. 

'No! Have they really?'

A little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken precipitately, andwithal a little defiant of her own vexation, Bella determined not toretreat. 

'That is to say, ' she explained, 'they have told me they mean to portionme as their adopted child, if you mean that. But don't mention it. '

'Mention it!' replied Mrs Lammle, as if she were full of awakenedfeeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. 'Men-tion it!'

'I don't mind telling you, Mrs Lammle--' Bella began again. 

'My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella. '

With a little short, petulant 'Oh!' Bella complied. 'Oh!--Sophroniathen--I don't mind telling you, Sophronia, that I am convinced I haveno heart, as people call it; and that I think that sort of thing isnonsense. '

'Brave girl!' murmured Mrs Lammle. 

'And so, ' pursued Bella, 'as to seeking to please myself, I don't;except in the one respect I have mentioned. I am indifferent otherwise. '

'But you can't help pleasing, Bella, ' said Mrs Lammle, rallying her withan arch look and her best smile, 'you can't help making a proud and anadmiring husband. You may not care to please yourself, and you may notcare to please him, but you are not a free agent as to pleasing: youare forced to do that, in spite of yourself, my dear; so it may be aquestion whether you may not as well please yourself too, if you can. '

Now, the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon proving that sheactually did please in spite of herself. She had a misgiving that shewas doing wrong--though she had an indistinct foreshadowing that someharm might come of it thereafter, she little thought what consequencesit would really bring about--but she went on with her confidence. 

'Don't talk of pleasing in spite of one's self, dear, ' said Bella. 'Ihave had enough of that. '

'Ay?' cried Mrs Lammle. 'Am I already corroborated, Bella?'

'Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. Don't ask meabout it. '

This plainly meaning Do ask me about it, Mrs Lammle did as she wasrequested. 

'Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr has beeninconveniently attracted to the charming skirts, and with difficultyshaken off?'

'Provoking indeed, ' said Bella, 'and no burr to boast of! But don't askme. '

'Shall I guess?'

'You would never guess. What would you say to our Secretary?'

'My dear! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and down the back stairs, and is never seen!'

'I don't know about his creeping up and down the back stairs, ' saidBella, rather contemptuously, 'further than knowing that he does no suchthing; and as to his never being seen, I should be content never to haveseen him, though he is quite as visible as you are. But I pleased HIM(for my sins) and he had the presumption to tell me so. '

'The man never made a declaration to you, my dear Bella!'

'Are you sure of that, Sophronia?' said Bella. 'I am not. In fact, I amsure of the contrary. '

'The man must be mad, ' said Mrs Lammle, with a kind of resignation. 

'He appeared to be in his senses, ' returned Bella, tossing her head, 'and he had plenty to say for himself. I told him my opinion of hisdeclaration and his conduct, and dismissed him. Of course this has allbeen very inconvenient to me, and very disagreeable. It has remained asecret, however. That word reminds me to observe, Sophronia, that I haveglided on into telling you the secret, and that I rely upon you never tomention it. '

'Mention it!' repeated Mrs Lammle with her former feeling. 'Men-tionit!'

This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it necessaryto bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. A Judas order ofkiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella's hand after givingit, 'Upon your own showing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by thedoting folly of a dustman, I need have no relenting towards YOU. If myhusband, who sends me here, should form any schemes for making YOU avictim, I should certainly not cross him again. ' In those very samemoments, Bella was thinking, 'Why am I always at war with myself? Whyhave I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought tohave withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, inspite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart?'

As usual, there was no answer in the looking-glass when she got home andreferred these questions to it. Perhaps if she had consulted some betteroracle, the result might have been more satisfactory; but she did not, and all things consequent marched the march before them. 

On one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr Boffin, she feltvery inquisitive, and that was the question whether the Secretarywatched him too, and followed the sure and steady change in him, as shedid? Her very limited intercourse with Mr Rokesmith rendered this hardto find out. Their communication now, at no time extended beyond thepreservation of commonplace appearances before Mr and Mrs Boffin; and ifBella and the Secretary were ever left alone together by any chance, he immediately withdrew. She consulted his face when she could do socovertly, as she worked or read, and could make nothing of it. He lookedsubdued; but he had acquired a strong command of feature, and, wheneverMr Boffin spoke to him in Bella's presence, or whatever revelation ofhimself Mr Boffin made, the Secretary's face changed no more than awall. A slightly knitted brow, that expressed nothing but an almostmechanical attention, and a compression of the mouth, that might havebeen a guard against a scornful smile--these she saw from morning tonight, from day to day, from week to week, monotonous, unvarying, set, as in a piece of sculpture. 

The worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly--and mostprovokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in her impetuous littlemanner--that her observation of Mr Boffin involved a continualobservation of Mr Rokesmith. 'Won't THAT extract a look from him?'--'Canit be possible THAT makes no impression on him?' Such questions Bellawould propose to herself, often as many times in a day as there werehours in it. Impossible to know. Always the same fixed face. 

'Can he be so base as to sell his very nature for two hundred a year?'Bella would think. And then, 'But why not? It's a mere question of pricewith others besides him. I suppose I would sell mine, if I could getenough for it. ' And so she would come round again to the war withherself. 

A kind of illegibility, though a different kind, stole over MrBoffin's face. Its old simplicity of expression got masked by a certaincraftiness that assimilated even his good-humour to itself. His verysmile was cunning, as if he had been studying smiles among the portraitsof his misers. Saving an occasional burst of impatience, or coarseassertion of his mastery, his good-humour remained to him, but it hadnow a sordid alloy of distrust; and though his eyes should twinkle andall his face should laugh, he would sit holding himself in his ownarms, as if he had an inclination to hoard himself up, and must alwaysgrudgingly stand on the defensive. 

What with taking heed of these two faces, and what with feelingconscious that the stealthy occupation must set some mark on her own, Bella soon began to think that there was not a candid or a natural faceamong them all but Mrs Boffin's. None the less because it was far lessradiant than of yore, faithfully reflecting in its anxiety and regretevery line of change in the Golden Dustman's. 

'Rokesmith, ' said Mr Boffin one evening when they were all in his roomagain, and he and the Secretary had been going over some accounts, 'Iam spending too much money. Or leastways, you are spending too much forme. '

'You are rich, sir. '

'I am not, ' said Mr Boffin. 

The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary that helied. But it brought no change of expression into the set face. 

'I tell you I am not rich, ' repeated Mr Boffin, 'and I won't have it. '

'You are not rich, sir?' repeated the Secretary, in measured words. 

'Well, ' returned Mr Boffin, 'if I am, that's my business. I am not goingto spend at this rate, to please you, or anybody. You wouldn't like it, if it was your money. '

'Even in that impossible case, sir, I--'

'Hold your tongue!' said Mr Boffin. 'You oughtn't to like it in anycase. There! I didn't mean to be rude, but you put me out so, and afterall I'm master. I didn't intend to tell you to hold your tongue. I begyour pardon. Don't hold your tongue. Only, don't contradict. Did youever come across the life of Mr Elwes?' referring to his favouritesubject at last. 

'The miser?'

'Ah, people called him a miser. People are always calling other peoplesomething. Did you ever read about him?'

'I think so. '

'He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought me twiceover. Did you ever hear of Daniel Dancer?'

'Another miser? Yes. '

'He was a good 'un, ' said Mr Boffin, 'and he had a sister worthy of him. They never called themselves rich neither. If they HAD called themselvesrich, most likely they wouldn't have been so. '

'They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, sir?'

'No, I don't know that they did, ' said Mr Boffin, curtly. 

'Then they are not the Misers I mean. Those abject wretches--'

'Don't call names, Rokesmith, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'--That exemplary brother and sister--lived and died in the foulest andfilthiest degradation. '

'They pleased themselves, ' said Mr Boffin, 'and I suppose they couldhave done no more if they had spent their money. But however, I ain'tgoing to fling mine away. Keep the expenses down. The fact is, you ain'tenough here, Rokesmith. It wants constant attention in the littlestthings. Some of us will be dying in a workhouse next. '

'As the persons you have cited, ' quietly remarked the Secretary, 'thought they would, if I remember, sir. '

'And very creditable in 'em too, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Very independent in'em! But never mind them just now. Have you given notice to quit yourlodgings?'

'Under your direction, I have, sir. '

'Then I tell you what, ' said Mr Boffin; 'pay the quarter's rent--pay thequarter's rent, it'll be the cheapest thing in the end--and come here atonce, so that you may be always on the spot, day and night, and keep theexpenses down. You'll charge the quarter's rent to me, and we must tryand save it somewhere. You've got some lovely furniture; haven't you?'

'The furniture in my rooms is my own. '

'Then we shan't have to buy any for you. In case you was to think it, 'said Mr Boffin, with a look of peculiar shrewdness, 'so honourablyindependent in you as to make it a relief to your mind, to make thatfurniture over to me in the light of a set-off against the quarter'srent, why ease your mind, ease your mind. I don't ask it, but I won'tstand in your way if you should consider it due to yourself. As to yourroom, choose any empty room at the top of the house. '

'Any empty room will do for me, ' said the Secretary. 

'You can take your pick, ' said Mr Boffin, 'and it'll be as good as eightor ten shillings a week added to your income. I won't deduct for it; Ilook to you to make it up handsomely by keeping the expenses down. Now, if you'll show a light, I'll come to your office-room and dispose of aletter or two. '

On that clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin's, Bella had seen such tracesof a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being held, that shehad not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were left alone. Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle untilher busy hand was stopped by Mrs Boffin's hand being lightly laid uponit. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul'slips, and felt a tear fall on it. 

'Oh, my loved husband!' said Mrs Boffin. 'This is hard to see and hear. But my dear Bella, believe me that in spite of all the change in him, heis the best of men. '

He came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand comfortinglybetween her own. 

'Eh?' said he, mistrustfully looking in at the door. 'What's she tellingyou?'

'She is only praising you, sir, ' said Bella. 

'Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for standing on my owndefence against a crew of plunderers, who could suck me dry by driblets?Not blaming me for getting a little hoard together?'

He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon his shoulder, andshook her head as she laid it on her hands. 

'There, there, there!' urged Mr Boffin, not unkindly. 'Don't take on, old lady. '

'But I can't bear to see you so, my dear. '

'Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, we mustscrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must hold our own. Recollect, money makes money. Don't you be uneasy, Bella, my child; don't you bedoubtful. The more I save, the more you shall have. '

Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing with heraffectionate face on his shoulder; for there was a cunning light inhis eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a disagreeableillumination on the change in him, and make it morally uglier. 

Chapter 6

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY

It had come to pass that Mr Silas Wegg now rarely attended the minion offortune and the worm of the hour, at his (the worm's and minion's) ownhouse, but lay under general instructions to await him within a certainmargin of hours at the Bower. Mr Wegg took this arrangement in greatdudgeon, because the appointed hours were evening hours, and those heconsidered precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it wasquite in character, he bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstartwho had trampled on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, MasterGeorge, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his literary man. 

The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr Boffin nextappeared in a cab with Rollin's Ancient History, which valuable workbeing found to possess lethargic properties, broke down, at about theperiod when the whole of the army of Alexander the Macedonian (at thattime about forty thousand strong) burst into tears simultaneously, onhis being taken with a shivering fit after bathing. The Wars of theJews, likewise languishing under Mr Wegg's generalship, Mr Boffinarrived in another cab with Plutarch: whose Lives he found in the sequelextremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not expect him tobelieve them all. What to believe, in the course of his reading, was MrBoffin's chief literary difficulty indeed; for some time he was dividedin his mind between half, all, or none; at length, when he decided, as amoderate man, to compound with half, the question still remained, whichhalf? And that stumbling-block he never got over. 

One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival ofhis patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged withunutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carryingillimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond theconfines of geography--one evening the usual time passed by, and nopatron appeared. After half an hour's grace, Mr Wegg proceeded to theouter gate, and there executed a whistle, conveying to Mr Venus, if perchance within hearing, the tidings of his being at home anddisengaged. Forth from the shelter of a neighbouring wall, Mr Venus thenemerged. 

'Brother in arms, ' said Mr Wegg, in excellent spirits, 'welcome!'

In return, Mr Venus gave him a rather dry good evening. 

'Walk in, brother, ' said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, 'and takeyour seat in my chimley corner; for what says the ballad?

 "No malice to dread, sir, And no falsehood to fear, But truth to delight me, Mr Venus, And I forgot what to cheer. Li toddle de om dee. And something to guide, My ain fireside, sir, My ain fireside. "'

With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spiritthan the words), Mr Wegg conducted his guest to his hearth. 

'And you come, brother, ' said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, 'you comelike I don't know what--exactly like it--I shouldn't know you fromit--shedding a halo all around you. '

'What kind of halo?' asked Mr Venus. 

''Ope sir, ' replied Silas. 'That's YOUR halo. '

Mr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked ratherdiscontentedly at the fire. 

'We'll devote the evening, brother, ' exclaimed Wegg, 'to prosecute ourfriendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing wine-cup--which Iallude to brewing rum and water--we'll pledge one another. For what saysthe Poet?

 "And you needn't Mr Venus be your black bottle, For surely I'll be mine, And we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which you're partial, For auld lang syne. "'

This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observationof some little querulousness on the part of Venus. 

'Why, as to the friendly move, ' observed the last-named gentleman, rubbing his knees peevishly, 'one of my objections to it is, that itDON'T move. '

'Rome, brother, ' returned Wegg: 'a city which (it may not be generallyknown) originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in Imperial marble:wasn't built in a day. '

'Did I say it was?' asked Venus. 

'No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired. '

'But I do say, ' proceeded Venus, 'that I am taken from among my trophiesof anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human warious for merecoal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up. '

'No, sir!' remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. 'No, Sir!

 "Charge, Chester, charge, On, Mr Venus, on!"

Never say die, sir! A man of your mark!'

'It's not so much saying it that I object to, ' returned Mr Venus, 'asdoing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can't afford to wastemy time on groping for nothing in cinders. '

'But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all, 'urged Wegg. 'Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do theycome to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, andfeelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires the wholeframework of society--I allude to the human skelinton--you to give in sosoon!'

'I don't like it, ' returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head betweenhis knees and stuck up his dusty hair. 'And there's no encouragement togo on. '

'Not them Mounds without, ' said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand withan air of solemn reasoning, 'encouragement? Not them Mounds now lookingdown upon us?'

'They're too big, ' grumbled Venus. 'What's a scratch here and a scrapethere, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them. Besides;what have we found?'

'What HAVE we found?' cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce. 'Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade, what MAY we find? There you'll grant me. Anything. '

'I don't like it, ' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came intoit without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't your own MrBoffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well acquaintedwith the deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectationof finding anything?'

At that moment wheels were heard. 

'Now, I should be loth, ' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury, 'to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this timeof night. And yet it sounds like him. '

A ring at the yard bell. 

'It is him, ' said Mr Wegg, 'and he is capable of it. I am sorry, becauseI could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment of respectfor him. '

Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 'Halloa!Wegg! Halloa!'

'Keep your seat, Mr Venus, ' said Wegg. 'He may not stop. ' And thencalled out, 'Halloa, sir! Halloa! I'm with you directly, sir! Half aminute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!' Andso with a show of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate witha light, and there, through the window of a cab, descried Mr Boffininside, blocked up with books. 

'Here! lend a hand, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin excitedly, 'I can't get outtill the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in acab-full of wollumes. Do you know him?'

'Know the Animal Register, sir?' returned the Impostor, who had caughtthe name imperfectly. 'For a trifling wager, I think I could find anyAnimal in him, blindfold, Mr Boffin. '

'And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum, ' said Mr Boffin, 'and Caulfield'sCharacters, and Wilson's. Such Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I musthave one or two of the best of 'em to-night. It's amazing what placesthey used to put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of thatpile of wollumes, Wegg, or it'll bulge out and burst into the mud. Isthere anyone about, to help?'

'There's a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spendingthe evening with me when I gave you up--much against my will--for thenight. '

'Call him out, ' cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; 'get him to bear a hand. Don't drop that one under your arm. It's Dancer. Him and his sister madepies of a dead sheep they found when they were out a walking. Where'syour friend? Oh, here's your friend. Would you be so good as help Weggand myself with these books? But don't take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark, nor yet Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I'll carrythem myself. '

Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, MrBoffin directed the removal and arrangement of the books, appearingto be in some sort beside himself until they were all deposited on thefloor, and the cab was dismissed. 

'There!' said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. 'There they are, like thefour-and-twenty fiddlers--all of a row. Get on your spectacles, Wegg;I know where to find the best of 'em, and we'll have a taste at once ofwhat we have got before us. What's your friend's name?'

Mr Wegg presented his friend as Mr Venus. 

'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin, catching at the name. 'Of Clerkenwell?'

'Of Clerkenwell, sir, ' said Mr Venus. 

'Why, I've heard of you, ' cried Mr Boffin, 'I heard of you in theold man's time. You knew him. Did you ever buy anything of him?' Withpiercing eagerness. 

'No, sir, ' returned Venus. 

'But he showed you things; didn't he?'

Mr Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative. 

'What did he show you?' asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands behind him, and eagerly advancing his head. 'Did he show you boxes, little cabinets, pocket-books, parcels, anything locked or sealed, anything tied up?'

Mr Venus shook his head. 

'Are you a judge of china?'

Mr Venus again shook his head. 

'Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to know ofit, ' said Mr Boffin. And then, with his right hand at his lips, repeatedthoughtfully, 'a Teapot, a Teapot', and glanced over the books on thefloor, as if he knew there was something interesting connected with ateapot, somewhere among them. 

Mr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and Mr Wegg, infitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, over their rims, andtapped the side of his nose: as an admonition to Venus to keep himselfgenerally wide awake. 

'A Teapot, ' repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the books;'a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, Wegg?'

'I am at your service, sir, ' replied that gentleman, taking his usualseat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the tablebefore it. 'Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a seatbeside me, sir, for the conveniency of snuffing the candles?'

Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, Silaspegged at him with his wooden leg, to call his particular attention toMr Boffin standing musing before the fire, in the space between the twosettles. 

'Hem! Ahem!' coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer's attention. 'Wouldyou wish to commence with an Animal, sir--from the Register?'

'No, ' said Mr Boffin, 'no, Wegg. ' With that, producing a little bookfrom his breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to the literarygentlemen, and inquired, 'What do you call that, Wegg?'

'This, sir, ' replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring tothe title-page, 'is Merryweather's Lives and Anecdotes of Misers. MrVenus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles a littlenearer, sir?' This to have a special opportunity of bestowing a stareupon his comrade. 

'Which of 'em have you got in that lot?' asked Mr Boffin. 'Can you findout pretty easy?'

'Well, sir, ' replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowlyfluttering the leaves of the book, 'I should say they must be prettywell all here, sir; here's a large assortment, sir; my eye catches JohnOvers, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend MrJones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer--'

'Give us Dancer, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin. 

With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the place. 

'Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter, "His birth and estate. His garments and outward appearance. Miss Dancerand her feminine graces. The Miser's Mansion. The finding of a treasure. The Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser'scur. Griffiths and his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for aFire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without aShirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill--"'

'Eh? What's that?' demanded Mr Boffin. 

'"The Treasures, " sir, ' repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, '"of aDunghill. " Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?' This, tosecure attention to his adding with his lips only, 'Mounds!'

Mr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and said, seating himself and slyly rubbing his hands:

'Give us Dancer. '

Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its variousphases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer's death on a sickregimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer's keeping his ragstogether with a hayband, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, downto the consolatory incident of his dying naked in a sack. After which heread on as follows:

'"The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, andwhich at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes, was a mostmiserable, decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more thanhalf a century. "'

(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which hadnot been repaired for a long time. )

'"But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was veryrich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole contents;and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into themiser's secret hoards. "'

(Here Mr Wegg repeated 'secret hoards', and pegged his comrade again. )

'"One of Mr Dancer's richest escretoires was found to be a dungheap inthe cowhouse; a sum but little short of two thousand five hundredpounds was contained in this rich piece of manure; and in an old jacket, carefully tied, and strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notesand gold were found five hundred pounds more. "'

(Here Mr Wegg's wooden leg started forward under the table, and slowlyelevated itself as he read on. )

'"Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half-guineas;and at different times on searching the corners of the house they foundvarious parcels of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices ofthe wall"';

(Here Mr Venus looked at the wall. )

'"Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the chairs"';

(Here Mr Venus looked under himself on the settle. )

'"Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; and notesamounting to six hundred pounds were found neatly doubled up in theinside of an old teapot. In the stable the Captain found jugs full ofold dollars and shillings. The chimney was not left unsearched, and paidvery well for the trouble; for in nineteen different holes, all filledwith soot, were found various sums of money, amounting together to morethan two hundred pounds. "'

On the way to this crisis Mr Wegg's wooden leg had gradually elevateditself more and more, and he had nudged Mr Venus with his oppositeelbow deeper and deeper, until at length the preservation of his balancebecame incompatible with the two actions, and he now dropped oversideways upon that gentleman, squeezing him against the settle's edge. Nor did either of the two, for some few seconds, make any effort torecover himself; both remaining in a kind of pecuniary swoon. 

But the sight of Mr Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging himself, with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. Counterfeiting asneeze to cover their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic 'Tish-ho!'pulled himself and Mr Venus up in a masterly manner. 

'Let's have some more, ' said Mr Boffin, hungrily. 

'John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasure to take John Elwes?'

'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Let's hear what John did. '

He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed away gold andsilver in a pickle-pot in a clock-case, a canister-full of treasure ina hole under her stairs, and a quantity of money in an old rat-trap, revived the interest. To her succeeded another lady, claiming to be apauper, whose wealth was found wrapped up in little scraps of paper andold rag. To her, another lady, apple-woman by trade, who had saved afortune of ten thousand pounds and hidden it 'here and there, in cracksand corners, behind bricks and under the flooring. ' To her, a Frenchgentleman, who had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detrimentof its drawing powers, 'a leather valise, containing twenty thousandfrancs, gold coins, and a large quantity of precious stones, ' asdiscovered by a chimneysweep after his death. By these steps Mr Weggarrived at a concluding instance of the human Magpie:

'Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old couple of thename of Jardine: they had two sons: the father was a perfect miser, andat his death one thousand guineas were discovered secreted in his bed. The two sons grew up as parsimonious as their sire. When about twentyyears of age, they commenced business at Cambridge as drapers, andthey continued there until their death. The establishment of the MessrsJardine was the most dirty of all the shops in Cambridge. Customersseldom went in to purchase, except perhaps out of curiosity. Thebrothers were most disreputable-looking beings; for, although surroundedwith gay apparel as their staple in trade, they wore the most filthyrags themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, to save theexpense of one, always slept on a bundle of packing-cloths under thecounter. In their housekeeping they were penurious in the extreme. Ajoint of meat did not grace their board for twenty years. Yet when thefirst of the brothers died, the other, much to his surprise, found largesums of money which had been secreted even from him. '

'There!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Even from him, you see! There was only two of'em, and yet one of 'em hid from the other. '

Mr Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman, had beenstooping to peer up the chimney, had his attention recalled by the lastsentence, and took the liberty of repeating it. 

'Do you like it?' asked Mr Boffin, turning suddenly. 

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'Do you like what Wegg's been a-reading?'

Mr Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting. 

'Then come again, ' said Mr Boffin, 'and hear some more. Come when youlike; come the day after to-morrow, half an hour sooner. There's plentymore; there's no end to it. '

Mr Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted the invitation. 

'It's wonderful what's been hid, at one time and another, ' said MrBoffin, ruminating; 'truly wonderful. '

'Meaning sir, ' observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw him out, and with another peg at his friend and brother, 'in the way of money?'

'Money, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Ah! And papers. '

Mr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr Venus, andagain recovering himself, masked his emotions with a sneeze. 

'Tish-ho! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, sir?'

'Hidden and forgot, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Why the bookseller that sold methe Wonderful Museum--where's the Wonderful Museum?' He was on his kneeson the floor in a moment, groping eagerly among the books. 

'Can I assist you, sir?' asked Wegg. 

'No, I have got it; here it is, ' said Mr Boffin, dusting it with thesleeve of his coat. 'Wollume four. I know it was the fourth wollume, that the bookseller read it to me out of. Look for it, Wegg. '

Silas took the book and turned the leaves. 

'Remarkable petrefaction, sir?'

'No, that's not it, ' said Mr Boffin. 'It can't have been apetrefaction. '

'Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking Rushlight, sir? With portrait?'

'No, nor yet him, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown-piece, sir?'

'To hide it?' asked Mr Boffin. 

'Why, no, sir, ' replied Wegg, consulting the text, 'it appears to havebeen done by accident. Oh! This next must be it. "Singular discovery ofa will, lost twenty-one years. "'

'That's it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Read that. '

'"A most extraordinary case, "' read Silas Wegg aloud, '"was tried atthe last Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It was briefly this. RobertBaldwin, in March 1782, made his will, in which he devised the lands nowin question, to the children of his youngest son; soon after which hisfaculties failed him, and he became altogether childish and died, aboveeighty years old. The defendant, the eldest son, immediately afterwardsgave out that his father had destroyed the will; and no will beingfound, he entered into possession of the lands in question, and somatters remained for twenty-one years, the whole family during allthat time believing that the father had died without a will. But aftertwenty-one years the defendant's wife died, and he very soon afterwards, at the age of seventy-eight, married a very young woman: which causedsome anxiety to his two sons, whose poignant expressions of this feelingso exasperated their father, that he in his resentment executed a willto disinherit his eldest son, and in his fit of anger showed it to hissecond son, who instantly determined to get at it, and destroy it, inorder to preserve the property to his brother. With this view, he brokeopen his father's desk, where he found--not his father's will which hesought after, but the will of his grandfather, which was then altogetherforgotten in the family. "'

'There!' said Mr Boffin. 'See what men put away and forget, or mean todestroy, and don't!' He then added in a slow tone, 'As--ton--ish--ing!'And as he rolled his eyes all round the room, Wegg and Venus likewiserolled their eyes all round the room. And then Wegg, singly, fixed hiseyes on Mr Boffin looking at the fire again; as if he had a mind tospring upon him and demand his thoughts or his life. 

'However, time's up for to-night, ' said Mr Boffin, waving his hand aftera silence. 'More, the day after to-morrow. Range the books upon theshelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr Venus will be so kind as help you. '

While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat, and struggled with some object there that was too large to be got outeasily. What was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when thisobject at last emerging, proved to be a much-dilapidated dark lantern!

Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument, Mr Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of matches, deliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindledmatch, and cast the end into the fire. 'I'm going, Wegg, ' he thenannounced, 'to take a turn about the place and round the yard. I don'twant you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds--thousands--ofsuch turns in our time together. '

'But I couldn't think, sir--not on any account, I couldn't, '--Wegg waspolitely beginning, when Mr Boffin, who had risen and was going towardsthe door, stopped:

'I have told you that I don't want you, Wegg. '

Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred to hismind until he now brought it to bear on the circumstance. He had nothingfor it but to let Mr Boffin go out and shut the door behind him. But, the instant he was on the other side of it, Wegg clutched Venuswith both hands, and said in a choking whisper, as if he were beingstrangled:

'Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn't be lostsight of for a moment. '

'Why mustn't he?' asked Venus, also strangling. 

'Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits whenyou come in to-night. I've found something. '

'What have you found?' asked Venus, clutching him with both hands, sothat they stood interlocked like a couple of preposterous gladiators. 

'There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look forit. We must have an eye upon him instantly. '

Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, andpeeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of the Moundsmade the dark yard darker. 'If not a double swindler, ' whispered Wegg, 'why a dark lantern? We could have seen what he was about, if he hadcarried a light one. Softly, this way. '

Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of crockery setin ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear him at his peculiartrot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. 'He knows the place byheart, ' muttered Silas, 'and don't need to turn his lantern on, confoundhim!' But he did turn it on, almost in that same instant, and flashedits light upon the first of the Mounds. 

'Is that the spot?' asked Venus in a whisper. 

'He's warm, ' said Silas in the same tone. 'He's precious warm. He'sclose. I think he must be going to look for it. What's that he's got inhis hand?'

'A shovel, ' answered Venus. 'And he knows how to use it, remember, fiftytimes as well as either of us. '

'If he looks for it and misses it, partner, ' suggested Wegg, 'what shallwe do?'

'First of all, wait till he does, ' said Venus. 

Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the moundturned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on once more, andwas seen standing at the foot of the second mound, slowly raising thelantern little by little until he held it up at arm's length, as if hewere examining the condition of the whole surface. 

'That can't be the spot too?' said Venus. 

'No, ' said Wegg, 'he's getting cold. '

'It strikes me, ' whispered Venus, 'that he wants to find out whether anyone has been groping about there. '

'Hush!' returned Wegg, 'he's getting colder and colder. --Now he'sfreezing!'

This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern offagain, and on again, and being visible at the foot of the third mound. 

'Why, he's going up it!' said Venus. 

'Shovel and all!' said Wegg. 

At a nimbler trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimulated him byreviving old associations, Mr Boffin ascended the 'serpentining walk', up the Mound which he had described to Silas Wegg on the occasion oftheir beginning to decline and fall. On striking into it he turned hislantern off. The two followed him, stooping low, so that their figuresmight make no mark in relief against the sky when he should turn hislantern on again. Mr Venus took the lead, towing Mr Wegg, in order thathis refractory leg might be promptly extricated from any pitfalls itshould dig for itself. They could just make out that the Golden Dustmanstopped to breathe. Of course they stopped too, instantly. 

'This is his own Mound, ' whispered Wegg, as he recovered his wind, 'thisone. 

'Why all three are his own, ' returned Venus. 

'So he thinks; but he's used to call this his own, because it's the onefirst left to him; the one that was his legacy when it was all he tookunder the will. '

'When he shows his light, ' said Venus, keeping watch upon his duskyfigure all the time, 'drop lower and keep closer. '

He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of the Mound, he turned on his light--but only partially--and stood it on the ground. A bare lopsided weatherbeaten pole was planted in the ashes there, and had been there many a year. Hard by this pole, his lantern stood:lighting a few feet of the lower part of it and a little of the ashysurface around, and then casting off a purposeless little clear trail oflight into the air. 

'He can never be going to dig up the pole!' whispered Venus as theydropped low and kept close. 

'Perhaps it's holler and full of something, ' whispered Wegg. 

He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up his cuffsand spat on his hands, and then went at it like an old digger as hewas. He had no design upon the pole, except that he measured a shovel'slength from it before beginning, nor was it his purpose to dig deep. Some dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed. Then, he stopped, lookeddown into the cavity, bent over it, and took out what appeared to be anordinary case-bottle: one of those squat, high-shouldered, short-neckedglass bottles which the Dutchman is said to keep his Courage in. As soonas he had done this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear thathe was filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved bya skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to make off in good time. Accordingly, Mr Venus slipped past Mr Wegg and towed him down. But MrWegg's descent was not accomplished without some personal inconvenience, for his self-willed leg sticking into the ashes about half way down, andtime pressing, Mr Venus took the liberty of hauling him from his tetherby the collar: which occasioned him to make the rest of the journey onhis back, with his head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and hiswooden leg coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr Wegg by thismode of travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with hisintellectual developments uppermost, he was quite unconscious of hisbearings, and had not the least idea where his place of residence wasto be found, until Mr Venus shoved him into it. Even then he staggeredround and round, weakly staring about him, until Mr Venus with a hardbrush brushed his senses into him and the dust out of him. 

Mr Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had been wellaccomplished, and Mr Venus had had time to take his breath, before hereappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere about him could not bedoubted; where, was not so clear. He wore a large rough coat, buttonedover, and it might be in any one of half a dozen pockets. 

'What's the matter, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin. 'You are as pale as acandle. '

Mr Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if he had had aturn. 

'Bile, ' said Mr Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, shuttingit up, and stowing it away in the breast of his coat as before. 'Are yousubject to bile, Wegg?'

Mr Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he didn'tthink he had ever had a similar sensation in his head, to anything likethe same extent. 

'Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin, 'to be in orderfor next night. By-the-by, this neighbourhood is going to have a loss, Wegg. '

'A loss, sir?'

'Going to lose the Mounds. '

The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at oneanother, that they might as well have stared at one another with alltheir might. 

'Have you parted with them, Mr Boffin?' asked Silas. 

'Yes; they're going. Mine's as good as gone already. '

'You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, sir. '

'Yes, ' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that newtouch of craftiness added to it. 'It has fetched a penny. It'll begin tobe carted off to-morrow. '

'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked Silas, jocosely. 

'No, ' said Mr Boffin. 'What the devil put that in your head?'

He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering closerand closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on exploringexpeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two or threepaces. 

'No offence, sir, ' said Wegg, humbly. 'No offence. '

Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone;and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might have retorted. 

'Good-night, ' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, withhis hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wandering aboutWegg. --'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light. '

Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatoryeffect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill-conditionedblood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch ofinsatiable appetite, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it anddrew Venus along with him. 

'He mustn't go, ' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got thatbottle about him. We must have that bottle. '

'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him. 

'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at anyprice! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you coward?'

'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go, ' muttered Venus, sturdily, clasping him in his arms. 

'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he wasresolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that he wasgoing to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place willbe rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go after him. '

As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venusdeemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with him; wellknowing that, once down, he would not be up again easily with his woodenleg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffinshut the gate. 

Chapter 7

THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION

The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing oneanother, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. In the weakeyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock ofhair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at himon perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity init. Both were flushed, flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; andWegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the backof his devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air ofhaving been highly--but disagreeably--astonished. Each was silent forsome time, leaving it to the other to begin. 

'Brother, ' said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 'you were right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself. '

Mr Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather thinking Mr Wegghad remembered himself, in respect of appearing without any disguise. 

'But comrade, ' pursued Wegg, 'it was never your lot to know MissElizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor Uncle Parker. '

Mr Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished persons, and added, in effect, that he had never so much as desired the honour oftheir acquaintance. 

'Don't say that, comrade!' retorted Wegg: 'No, don't say that! Because, without having known them, you never can fully know what it is to bestimilated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper. '

Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit onhimself, Mr Wegg impelled himself with his hands towards a chair ina corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward gambols, attained a perpendicular position. Mr Venus also rose. 

'Comrade, ' said Wegg, 'take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking countenanceis yours!'

Mr Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked at his hand, as if to see whether any of its speaking properties came off. 

'For clearly do I know, mark you, ' pursued Wegg, pointing his wordswith his forefinger, 'clearly do I know what question your expressivefeatures puts to me. '

'What question?' said Venus. 

'The question, ' returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 'whyI didn't mention sooner, that I had found something. Says your speakingcountenance to me: "Why didn't you communicate that, when I first comein this evening? Why did you keep it back till you thought Mr Boffin hadcome to look for the article?" Your speaking countenance, ' said Wegg, 'puts it plainer than language. Now, you can't read in my face whatanswer I give?'

'No, I can't, ' said Venus. 

'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful candour. 'Because I lay no claims to a speaking countenance. Because I am wellaware of my deficiencies. All men are not gifted alike. But I can answerin words. And in what words? These. I wanted to give you a delightfulsap--pur--IZE!'

Having thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr Wegg shookhis friend and brother by both hands, and then clapped him on bothknees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him not to mention sosmall a service as that which it had been his happy privilege to render. 

'Your speaking countenance, ' said Wegg, 'being answered to itssatisfaction, only asks then, "What have you found?" Why, I hear it saythe words!'

'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you hearit say the words, why don't you answer it?'

'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm a-going to. Hear me out! Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I have founda cash-box. '

'Where?'

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a radiant gush ofHear me out. ) 'On a certain day, sir--'

'When?' said Venus bluntly. 

'N--no, ' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly, thoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's not your expressivecountenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely yourvoice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking inthe yard--taking my lonely round--for in the words of a friend of my ownfamily, the author of All's Well arranged as a duett:

 "Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning moon, When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim night's cheerless noon, On tower, fort, or tented ground, The sentry walks his lonely round, The sentry walks:"

--under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the yardearly one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my hand, withwhich I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile the monotony of aliterary life, when I struck it against an object not necessary totrouble you by naming--'

'It is necessary. What object?' demanded Venus, in a wrathful tone. 

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump. --When I struck it against thePump, and found, not only that the top was loose and opened with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That something, comrade, I discoveredto be a small flat oblong cash-box. Shall I say it was disappointinglylight?'

'There were papers in it, ' said Venus. 

'There your expressive countenance speaks indeed!' cried Wegg. 'Apaper. The box was locked, tied up, and sealed, and on the outside wasa parchment label, with the writing, "MY WILL, JOHN HARMON, TEMPORARILYDEPOSITED HERE. "'

'We must know its contents, ' said Venus. 

'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so, and I broke the box open. 

'Without coming to me!' exclaimed Venus. 

'Exactly so, sir!' returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 'I see I takeyou with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved, as your discriminating goodsense perceives, that if you was to have a sap--pur--IZE, it should bea complete one! Well, sir. And so, as you have honoured me byanticipating, I examined the document. Regularly executed, regularlywitnessed, very short. Inasmuch as he has never made friends, and hasever had a rebellious family, he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffinthe Little Mound, which is quite enough for him, and gives the wholerest and residue of his property to the Crown. '

'The date of the will that has been proved, must be looked to, ' remarkedVenus. 'It may be later than this one. '

'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so. I paid a shilling (never mindyour sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, that will is datedmonths before this will. And now, as a fellow-man, and as a partner in afriendly move, ' added Wegg, benignantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping him on both knees again, 'say have I completed my labour oflove to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sap--pur--IZED?'

Mr Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubting eyes, andthen rejoined stiffly:

'This is great news indeed, Mr Wegg. There's no denying it. But I couldhave wished you had told it me before you got your fright to-night, andI could have wished you had ever asked me as your partner what we wereto do, before you thought you were dividing a responsibility. '

'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I knew you was a-going to say so. Butalone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll bear the blame!' This with anair of great magnanimity. 

'No, ' said Venus. 'Let's see this will and this box. '

'Do I understand, brother, ' returned Wegg with considerable reluctance, 'that it is your wish to see this will and this--?'

Mr Venus smote the table with his hand. 

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'Hear me out! I'll go and fetch 'em. '

After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could hardlymake up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, he returnedwith an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put the other box, for the better preservation of commonplace appearances, and for thedisarming of suspicion. 'But I don't half like opening it here, ' saidSilas in a low voice, looking around: 'he might come back, he may not begone; we don't know what he may be up to, after what we've seen. '

'There's something in that, ' assented Venus. 'Come to my place. '

Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it underthe existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. 'Come, I tell you, ' repeatedVenus, chafing, 'to my place. ' Not very well seeing his way to arefusal, Mr Wegg then rejoined in a gush, '--Hear me out!--Certainly. 'So he locked up the Bower and they set forth: Mr Venus taking his arm, and keeping it with remarkable tenacity. 

They found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr Venus'sestablishment, imperfectly disclosing to the public the usual pairof preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of honour stillunsettled. Mr Venus had closed his shop door on coming out, and nowopened it with the key and shut it again as soon as they were within;but not before he had put up and barred the shutters of the shop window. 'No one can get in without being let in, ' said he then, 'and we couldn'tbe more snug than here. ' So he raked together the yet warm cinders inthe rusty grate, and made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the littlecounter. As the fire cast its flickering gleams here and there upon thedark greasy walls; the Hindoo baby, the African baby, the articulatedEnglish baby, the assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collection, came starting to their various stations as if they had all been out, like their master and were punctual in a general rendezvous to assistat the secret. The French gentleman had grown considerably since Mr Wegglast saw him, being now accommodated with a pair of legs and a head, though his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever the head hadoriginally belonged, Silas Wegg would have regarded it as a personalfavour if he had not cut quite so many teeth. 

Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, andVenus dropping into his low chair produced from among his skeletonhands, his tea-tray and tea-cups, and put the kettle on. Silas inwardlyapproved of these preparations, trusting they might end in Mr Venus'sdiluting his intellect. 

'Now, sir, ' said Venus, 'all is safe and quiet. Let us see thisdiscovery. '

With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances towards theskeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple of them might springforth and clutch the document, Wegg opened the hat-box and revealed thecash-box, opened the cash-box and revealed the will. He held a cornerof it tight, while Venus, taking hold of another corner, searchingly andattentively read it. 

'Was I correct in my account of it, partner?' said Mr Wegg at length. 

'Partner, you were, ' said Mr Venus. 

Mr Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, as though he wouldfold it up; but Mr Venus held on by his corner. 

'No, sir, ' said Mr Venus, winking his weak eyes and shaking his head. 'No, partner. The question is now brought up, who is going to take careof this. Do you know who is going to take care of this, partner?'

'I am, ' said Wegg. 

'Oh dear no, partner, ' retorted Venus. 'That's a mistake. I am. Now lookhere, Mr Wegg. I don't want to have any words with you, and still lessdo I want to have any anatomical pursuits with you. '

'What do you mean?' said Wegg, quickly. 

'I mean, partner, ' replied Venus, slowly, 'that it's hardly possiblefor a man to feel in a more amiable state towards another man than Ido towards you at this present moment. But I am on my own ground, I amsurrounded by the trophies of my art, and my tools is very handy. '

'What do you mean, Mr Venus?' asked Wegg again. 

'I am surrounded, as I have observed, ' said Mr Venus, placidly, 'bythe trophies of my art. They are numerous, my stock of human warious islarge, the shop is pretty well crammed, and I don't just now want anymore trophies of my art. But I like my art, and I know how to exercisemy art. '

'No man better, ' assented Mr Wegg, with a somewhat staggered air. 

'There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens, ' said Venus, '(though you mightn't think it) in the box on which you're sitting. There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens, in the lovelycompo-one behind the door'; with a nod towards the French gentleman. 'Itstill wants a pair of arms. I DON'T say that I'm in any hurry for 'em. '

'You must be wandering in your mind, partner, ' Silas remonstrated. 

'You'll excuse me if I wander, ' returned Venus; 'I am sometimes rathersubject to it. I like my art, and I know how to exercise my art, and Imean to have the keeping of this document. '

'But what has that got to do with your art, partner?' asked Wegg, in aninsinuating tone. 

Mr Venus winked his chronically-fatigued eyes both at once, andadjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to himself, in a hollowvoice, 'She'll bile in a couple of minutes. '

Silas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, glanced at theFrench gentleman behind the door, and shrank a little as he glanced atMr Venus winking his red eyes, and feeling in his waistcoat pocket--asfor a lancet, say--with his unoccupied hand. He and Venus werenecessarily seated close together, as each held a corner of thedocument, which was but a common sheet of paper. 

'Partner, ' said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than before, 'I proposethat we cut it in half, and each keep a half. '

Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, 'It wouldn't do tomutilate it, partner. It might seem to be cancelled. '

'Partner, ' said Wegg, after a silence, during which they hadcontemplated one another, 'don't your speaking countenance say thatyou're a-going to suggest a middle course?'

Venus shook his shock of hair as he replied, 'Partner, you have keptthis paper from me once. You shall never keep it from me again. I offeryou the box and the label to take care of, but I'll take care of thepaper. '

Silas hesitated a little longer, and then suddenly releasing his corner, and resuming his buoyant and benignant tone, exclaimed, 'What's lifewithout trustfulness! What's a fellow-man without honour! You're welcometo it, partner, in a spirit of trust and confidence. '

Continuing to wink his red eyes both together--but in a self-communingway, and without any show of triumph--Mr Venus folded the paper now leftin his hand, and locked it in a drawer behind him, and pocketed the key. He then proposed 'A cup of tea, partner?' To which Mr Wegg returned, 'Thank'ee, partner, ' and the tea was made and poured out. 

'Next, ' said Venus, blowing at his tea in his saucer, and looking overit at his confidential friend, 'comes the question, What's the course tobe pursued?'

On this head, Silas Wegg had much to say. Silas had to say That, hewould beg to remind his comrade, brother, and partner, of the impressivepassages they had read that evening; of the evident parallel in MrBoffin's mind between them and the late owner of the Bower, and thepresent circumstances of the Bower; of the bottle; and of the box. That, the fortunes of his brother and comrade, and of himself were evidentlymade, inasmuch as they had but to put their price upon this document, and get that price from the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour:who now appeared to be less of a minion and more of a worm than had beenpreviously supposed. That, he considered it plain that such price wasstateable in a single expressive word, and that the word was, 'Halves!'That, the question then arose when 'Halves!' should be called. That, here he had a plan of action to recommend, with a conditional clause. That, the plan of action was that they should lie by with patience;that, they should allow the Mounds to be gradually levelled and clearedaway, while retaining to themselves their present opportunity ofwatching the process--which would be, he conceived, to put the troubleand cost of daily digging and delving upon somebody else, while theymight nightly turn such complete disturbance of the dust to the accountof their own private investigations--and that, when the Mounds weregone, and they had worked those chances for their own joint benefitsolely, they should then, and not before, explode on the minion andworm. But here came the conditional clause, and to this he entreated thespecial attention of his comrade, brother, and partner. It was not tobe borne that the minion and worm should carry off any of that propertywhich was now to be regarded as their own property. When he, Mr Wegg, had seen the minion surreptitiously making off with that bottle, and itsprecious contents unknown, he had looked upon him in the light of a mererobber, and, as such, would have despoiled him of his ill-gotten gain, but for the judicious interference of his comrade, brother, and partner. Therefore, the conditional clause he proposed was, that, if the minionshould return in his late sneaking manner, and if, being closelywatched, he should be found to possess himself of anything, no matterwhat, the sharp sword impending over his head should be instantly shownhim, he should be strictly examined as to what he knew or suspected, should be severely handled by them his masters, and should be kept ina state of abject moral bondage and slavery until the time when theyshould see fit to permit him to purchase his freedom at the price ofhalf his possessions. If, said Mr Wegg by way of peroration, he haderred in saying only 'Halves!' he trusted to his comrade, brother, andpartner not to hesitate to set him right, and to reprove his weakness. It might be more according to the rights of things, to sayTwo-thirds; it might be more according to the rights of things, to sayThree-fourths. On those points he was ever open to correction. 

Mr Venus, having wafted his attention to this discourse over threesuccessive saucers of tea, signified his concurrence in the viewsadvanced. Inspirited hereby, Mr Wegg extended his right hand, anddeclared it to be a hand which never yet. Without entering into moreminute particulars. Mr Venus, sticking to his tea, briefly professed hisbelief as polite forms required of him, that it WAS a hand which neveryet. But contented himself with looking at it, and did not take it tohis bosom. 

'Brother, ' said Wegg, when this happy understanding was established, 'Ishould like to ask you something. You remember the night when I firstlooked in here, and found you floating your powerful mind in tea?'

Still swilling tea, Mr Venus nodded assent. 

'And there you sit, sir, ' pursued Wegg with an air of thoughtfuladmiration, 'as if you had never left off! There you sit, sir, as if youhad an unlimited capacity of assimilating the flagrant article! Thereyou sit, sir, in the midst of your works, looking as if you'd beencalled upon for Home, Sweet Home, and was obleeging the company!

 "A exile from home splendour dazzles in vain, O give you your lowly Preparations again, The birds stuffed so sweetly that can't be expected to come at your call, Give you these with the peace of mind dearer than all. Home, Home, Home, sweet Home!"

--Be it ever, ' added Mr Wegg in prose as he glanced about the shop, 'ever so ghastly, all things considered there's no place like it. '

'You said you'd like to ask something; but you haven't asked it, 'remarked Venus, very unsympathetic in manner. 

'Your peace of mind, ' said Wegg, offering condolence, 'your peace ofmind was in a poor way that night. HOW'S it going on? IS it looking upat all?'

'She does not wish, ' replied Mr Venus with a comical mixture ofindignant obstinacy and tender melancholy, 'to regard herself, nor yetto be regarded, in that particular light. There's no more to be said. '

'Ah, dear me, dear me!' exclaimed Wegg with a sigh, but eyeing him whilepretending to keep him company in eyeing the fire, 'such is Woman! AndI remember you said that night, sitting there as I sat here--said thatnight when your peace of mind was first laid low, that you had taken aninterest in these very affairs. Such is coincidence!'

'Her father, ' rejoined Venus, and then stopped to swallow more tea, 'herfather was mixed up in them. '

'You didn't mention her name, sir, I think?' observed Wegg, pensively. 'No, you didn't mention her name that night. '

'Pleasant Riderhood. '

'In--deed!' cried Wegg. 'Pleasant Riderhood. There's something moving inthe name. Pleasant. Dear me! Seems to express what she might havebeen, if she hadn't made that unpleasant remark--and what she ain't, in consequence of having made it. Would it at all pour balm into yourwounds, Mr Venus, to inquire how you came acquainted with her?'

'I was down at the water-side, ' said Venus, taking another gulp oftea and mournfully winking at the fire--'looking for parrots'--takinganother gulp and stopping. 

Mr Wegg hinted, to jog his attention: 'You could hardly have been outparrot-shooting, in the British climate, sir?'

'No, no, no, ' said Venus fretfully. 'I was down at the water-side, looking for parrots brought home by sailors, to buy for stuffing. '

'Ay, ay, ay, sir!'

'--And looking for a nice pair of rattlesnakes, to articulate for aMuseum--when I was doomed to fall in with her and deal with her. It wasjust at the time of that discovery in the river. Her father had seen thediscovery being towed in the river. I made the popularity of the subjecta reason for going back to improve the acquaintance, and I have neversince been the man I was. My very bones is rendered flabby by broodingover it. If they could be brought to me loose, to sort, I should hardlyhave the face to claim 'em as mine. To such an extent have I fallen offunder it. '

Mr Wegg, less interested than he had been, glanced at one particularshelf in the dark. 

'Why I remember, Mr Venus, ' he said in a tone of friendly commiseration'(for I remember every word that falls from you, sir), I remember thatyou said that night, you had got up there--and then your words was, "Never mind. "'

'--The parrot that I bought of her, ' said Venus, with a despondent riseand fall of his eyes. 'Yes; there it lies on its side, dried up; exceptfor its plumage, very like myself. I've never had the heart to prepareit, and I never shall have now. '

With a disappointed face, Silas mentally consigned this parrot toregions more than tropical, and, seeming for the time to have losthis power of assuming an interest in the woes of Mr Venus, fell totightening his wooden leg as a preparation for departure: its gymnasticperformances of that evening having severely tried its constitution. 

After Silas had left the shop, hat-box in hand, and had left Mr Venusto lower himself to oblivion-point with the requisite weight of tea, itgreatly preyed on his ingenuous mind that he had taken this artist intopartnership at all. He bitterly felt that he had overreached himself inthe beginning, by grasping at Mr Venus's mere straws of hints, now shownto be worthless for his purpose. Casting about for ways and means ofdissolving the connexion without loss of money, reproaching himself forhaving been betrayed into an avowal of his secret, and complimentinghimself beyond measure on his purely accidental good luck, he beguiledthe distance between Clerkenwell and the mansion of the Golden Dustman. 

For, Silas Wegg felt it to be quite out of the question that he couldlay his head upon his pillow in peace, without first hovering overMr Boffin's house in the superior character of its Evil Genius. Power(unless it be the power of intellect or virtue) has ever the greatestattraction for the lowest natures; and the mere defiance of theunconscious house-front, with his power to strip the roof off theinhabiting family like the roof of a house of cards, was a treat whichhad a charm for Silas Wegg. 

As he hovered on the opposite side of the street, exulting, the carriagedrove up. 

'There'll shortly be an end of YOU, ' said Wegg, threatening it with thehat-box. 'YOUR varnish is fading. '

Mrs Boffin descended and went in. 

'Look out for a fall, my Lady Dustwoman, ' said Wegg. 

Bella lightly descended, and ran in after her. 

'How brisk we are!' said Wegg. 'You won't run so gaily to your oldshabby home, my girl. You'll have to go there, though. '

A little while, and the Secretary came out. 

'I was passed over for you, ' said Wegg. 'But you had better provideyourself with another situation, young man. '

Mr Boffin's shadow passed upon the blinds of three large windows as hetrotted down the room, and passed again as he went back. 

'Yoop!' cried Wegg. 'You're there, are you? Where's the bottle? Youwould give your bottle for my box, Dustman!'

Having now composed his mind for slumber, he turned homeward. Suchwas the greed of the fellow, that his mind had shot beyond halves, two-thirds, three-fourths, and gone straight to spoliation of the whole. 'Though that wouldn't quite do, ' he considered, growing cooler as he gotaway. 'That's what would happen to him if he didn't buy us up. We shouldget nothing by that. '

We so judge others by ourselves, that it had never come into his headbefore, that he might not buy us up, and might prove honest, and preferto be poor. It caused him a slight tremor as it passed; but a veryslight one, for the idle thought was gone directly. 

'He's grown too fond of money for that, ' said Wegg; 'he's grown too fondof money. ' The burden fell into a strain or tune as he stumped along thepavements. All the way home he stumped it out of the rattling streets, PIANO with his own foot, and FORTE with his wooden leg, 'He's GROWN tooFOND of MONEY for THAT, he's GROWN too FOND of MONEY. '

Even next day Silas soothed himself with this melodious strain, when hewas called out of bed at daybreak, to set open the yard-gate and admitthe train of carts and horses that came to carry off the little Mound. And all day long, as he kept unwinking watch on the slow process whichpromised to protract itself through many days and weeks, whenever(to save himself from being choked with dust) he patrolled a littlecinderous beat he established for the purpose, without taking his eyesfrom the diggers, he still stumped to the tune: He's GROWN too FOND ofMONEY for THAT, he's GROWN too FOND of MONEY. '

Chapter 8

THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY

The train of carts and horses came and went all day from dawn tonightfall, making little or no daily impression on the heap of ashes, though, as the days passed on, the heap was seen to be slowly melting. My lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, when you in the courseof your dust-shovelling and cinder-raking have piled up a mountain ofpretentious failure, you must off with your honourable coats for theremoval of it, and fall to the work with the power of all the queen'shorses and all the queen's men, or it will come rushing down and bury usalive. 

Yes, verily, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, adapting yourCatechism to the occasion, and by God's help so you must. For when wehave got things to the pass that with an enormous treasure at disposalto relieve the poor, the best of the poor detest our mercies, hide theirheads from us, and shame us by starving to death in the midst of us, itis a pass impossible of prosperity, impossible of continuance. It maynot be so written in the Gospel according to Podsnappery; you may not'find these words' for the text of a sermon, in the Returns of the Boardof Trade; but they have been the truth since the foundations of theuniverse were laid, and they will be the truth until the foundations ofthe universe are shaken by the Builder. This boastful handiwork ofours, which fails in its terrors for the professional pauper, the sturdybreaker of windows and the rampant tearer of clothes, strikes with acruel and a wicked stab at the stricken sufferer, and is a horror tothe deserving and unfortunate. We must mend it, lords and gentlemen andhonourable boards, or in its own evil hour it will mar every one of us. 

Old Betty Higden fared upon her pilgrimage as many ruggedly honestcreatures, women and men, fare on their toiling way along the roadsof life. Patiently to earn a spare bare living, and quietly to die, untouched by workhouse hands--this was her highest sublunary hope. 

Nothing had been heard of her at Mr Boffin's house since she trudgedoff. The weather had been hard and the roads had been bad, and herspirit was up. A less stanch spirit might have been subdued by suchadverse influences; but the loan for her little outfit was in no partrepaid, and it had gone worse with her than she had foreseen, and shewas put upon proving her case and maintaining her independence. 

Faithful soul! When she had spoken to the Secretary of that 'deadnessthat steals over me at times', her fortitude had made too little of it. Oftener and ever oftener, it came stealing over her; darker and everdarker, like the shadow of advancing Death. That the shadow shouldbe deep as it came on, like the shadow of an actual presence, was inaccordance with the laws of the physical world, for all the Light thatshone on Betty Higden lay beyond Death. 

The poor old creature had taken the upward course of the river Thames asher general track; it was the track in which her last home lay, and ofwhich she had last had local love and knowledge. She had hovered for alittle while in the near neighbourhood of her abandoned dwelling, andhad sold, and knitted and sold, and gone on. In the pleasant towns ofChertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, her figure came to be quitewell known for some short weeks, and then again passed on. 

She would take her stand in market-places, where there were such things, on market days; at other times, in the busiest (that was seldom verybusy) portion of the little quiet High Street; at still other times shewould explore the outlying roads for great houses, and would ask leaveat the Lodge to pass in with her basket, and would not often get it. Butladies in carriages would frequently make purchases from her triflingstock, and were usually pleased with her bright eyes and her hopefulspeech. In these and her clean dress originated a fable that she waswell to do in the world: one might say, for her station, rich. As makinga comfortable provision for its subject which costs nobody anything, this class of fable has long been popular. 

In those pleasant little towns on Thames, you may hear the fall ofthe water over the weirs, or even, in still weather, the rustle of therushes; and from the bridge you may see the young river, dimpled like ayoung child, playfully gliding away among the trees, unpolluted by thedefilements that lie in wait for it on its course, and as yet out ofhearing of the deep summons of the sea. It were too much to pretend thatBetty Higden made out such thoughts; no; but she heard the tender riverwhispering to many like herself, 'Come to me, come to me! When the cruelshame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me!I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work;I am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My breast is softerthan the pauper-nurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than among thepauper-wards. Come to me!'

There was abundant place for gentler fancies too, in her untutored mind. Those gentlefolks and their children inside those fine houses, couldthey think, as they looked out at her, what it was to be really hungry, really cold? Did they feel any of the wonder about her, that she feltabout them? Bless the dear laughing children! If they could have seensick Johnny in her arms, would they have cried for pity? If they couldhave seen dead Johnny on that little bed, would they have understood it?Bless the dear children for his sake, anyhow! So with the humbler housesin the little street, the inner firelight shining on the panes as theouter twilight darkened. When the families gathered in-doors there, forthe night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if it were a littlehard in them to close the shutter and blacken the flame. So with thelighted shops, and speculations whether their masters and mistressestaking tea in a perspective of back-parlour--not so far within but thatthe flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with the glow of light, into the street--ate or drank or wore what they sold, with the greaterrelish because they dealt in it. So with the churchyard on a branch ofthe solitary way to the night's sleeping-place. 'Ah me! The dead andI seem to have it pretty much to ourselves in the dark and in thisweather! But so much the better for all who are warmly housed at home. 'The poor soul envied no one in bitterness, and grudged no one anything. 

But, the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew weaker, andit found more sustaining food than she did in her wanderings. Now, shewould light upon the shameful spectacle of some desolate creature--orsome wretched ragged groups of either sex, or of both sexes, withchildren among them, huddled together like the smaller vermin fora little warmth--lingering and lingering on a doorstep, while theappointed evader of the public trust did his dirty office of trying toweary them out and so get rid of them. Now, she would light upon somepoor decent person, like herself, going afoot on a pilgrimage ofmany weary miles to see some worn-out relative or friend who had beencharitably clutched off to a great blank barren Union House, as far fromold home as the County Jail (the remoteness of which is always its worstpunishment for small rural offenders), and in its dietary, and inits lodging, and in its tending of the sick, a much more penalestablishment. Sometimes she would hear a newspaper read out, and wouldlearn how the Registrar General cast up the units that had within thelast week died of want and of exposure to the weather: for which thatRecording Angel seemed to have a regular fixed place in his sum, as ifthey were its halfpence. All such things she would hear discussed, aswe, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in our unapproachablemagnificence never hear them, and from all such things she would flywith the wings of raging Despair. 

This is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty Higdenhowever tired, however footsore, would start up and be driven awayby her awakened horror of falling into the hands of Charity. It is aremarkable Christian improvement, to have made a pursuing Fury of theGood Samaritan; but it was so in this case, and it is a type of many, many, many. 

Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoningabhorrence--granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, because thepeople always are unreasoning, and invariably make a point of producingall their smoke without fire. 

One day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an inn, with her little wares for sale, when the deadness that she stroveagainst came over her so heavily that the scene departed from beforeher eyes; when it returned, she found herself on the ground, her headsupported by some good-natured market-women, and a little crowd abouther. 

'Are you better now, mother?' asked one of the women. 'Do you think youcan do nicely now?'

'Have I been ill then?' asked old Betty. 

'You have had a faint like, ' was the answer, 'or a fit. It ain't thatyou've been a-struggling, mother, but you've been stiff and numbed. '

'Ah!' said Betty, recovering her memory. 'It's the numbness. Yes. Itcomes over me at times. '

Was it gone? the women asked her. 

'It's gone now, ' said Betty. 'I shall be stronger than I was afore. Many thanks to ye, my dears, and when you come to be as old as I am, mayothers do as much for you!'

They assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and theysupported her when she sat down again upon the bench. 

'My head's a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy, ' said old Betty, leaning her face drowsily on the breast of the woman who had spokenbefore. 'They'll both come nat'ral in a minute. There's nothing more thematter. '

'Ask her, ' said some farmers standing by, who had come out from theirmarket-dinner, 'who belongs to her. '

'Are there any folks belonging to you, mother?' said the woman. 

'Yes sure, ' answered Betty. 'I heerd the gentleman say it, but Icouldn't answer quick enough. There's plenty belonging to me. Don't yefear for me, my dear. '

'But are any of 'em near here? 'said the men's voices; the women'svoices chiming in when it was said, and prolonging the strain. 

'Quite near enough, ' said Betty, rousing herself. 'Don't ye be afeardfor me, neighbours. '

'But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going?' was the nextcompassionate chorus she heard. 

'I'm a going to London when I've sold out all, ' said Betty, rising withdifficulty. 'I've right good friends in London. I want for nothing. Ishall come to no harm. Thankye. Don't ye be afeard for me. '

A well-meaning bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced, saidhoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that she'oughtn't to be let to go'. 

'For the Lord's love don't meddle with me!' cried old Betty, all herfears crowding on her. 'I am quite well now, and I must go this minute. '

She caught up her basket as she spoke and was making an unsteady rushaway from them, when the same bystander checked her with his hand onher sleeve, and urged her to come with him and see the parish-doctor. Strengthening herself by the utmost exercise of her resolution, the poortrembling creature shook him off, almost fiercely, and took to flight. Nor did she feel safe until she had set a mile or two of by-road betweenherself and the marketplace, and had crept into a copse, like a huntedanimal, to hide and recover breath. Not until then for the first timedid she venture to recall how she had looked over her shoulder beforeturning out of the town, and had seen the sign of the White Lion hangingacross the road, and the fluttering market booths, and the old greychurch, and the little crowd gazing after her but not attempting tofollow her. 

The second frightening incident was this. She had been again as bad, andhad been for some days better, and was travelling along by a part ofthe road where it touched the river, and in wet seasons was so oftenoverflowed by it that there were tall white posts set up to mark theway. A barge was being towed towards her, and she sat down on the bankto rest and watch it. As the tow-rope was slackened by a turn of thestream and dipped into the water, such a confusion stole into hermind that she thought she saw the forms of her dead children and deadgrandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her insolemn measure; then, as the rope tightened and came up, droppingdiamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike her, with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was nobarge, no river, no daylight, and a man whom she had never before seenheld a candle close to her face. 

'Now, Missis, ' said he; 'where did you come from and where are you goingto?'

The poor soul confusedly asked the counter-question where she was?

'I am the Lock, ' said the man. 

'The Lock?'

'I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lock-house. (Lock orDeputy Lock, it's all one, while the t'other man's in the hospital. )What's your Parish?'

'Parish!' She was up from the truckle-bed directly, wildly feeling abouther for her basket, and gazing at him in affright. 

'You'll be asked the question down town, ' said the man. 'They won't letyou be more than a Casual there. They'll pass you on to your settlement, Missis, with all speed. You're not in a state to be let come uponstrange parishes 'ceptin as a Casual. '

''Twas the deadness again!' murmured Betty Higden, with her hand to herhead. 

'It was the deadness, there's not a doubt about it, ' returned the man. 'I should have thought the deadness was a mild word for it, if it hadbeen named to me when we brought you in. Have you got any friends, Missis?'

'The best of friends, Master. '

'I should recommend your looking 'em up if you consider 'em game to doanything for you, ' said the Deputy Lock. 'Have you got any money?'

'Just a morsel of money, sir. '

'Do you want to keep it?'

'Sure I do!'

'Well, you know, ' said the Deputy Lock, shrugging his shoulders with hishands in his pockets, and shaking his head in a sulkily ominous manner, 'the parish authorities down town will have it out of you, if you go on, you may take your Alfred David. '

'Then I'll not go on. '

'They'll make you pay, as fur as your money will go, ' pursued theDeputy, 'for your relief as a Casual and for your being passed to yourParish. '

'Thank ye kindly, Master, for your warning, thank ye for your shelter, and good night. '

'Stop a bit, ' said the Deputy, striking in between her and the door. 'Why are you all of a shake, and what's your hurry, Missis?'

'Oh, Master, Master, ' returned Betty Higden, I've fought against theParish and fled from it, all my life, and I want to die free of it!'

'I don't know, ' said the Deputy, with deliberation, 'as I ought to letyou go. I'm a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my brow, andI may fall into trouble by letting you go. I've fell into trouble aforenow, by George, and I know what it is, and it's made me careful. Youmight be took with your deadness again, half a mile off--or half of halfa quarter, for the matter of that--and then it would be asked, Why didthat there honest Deputy Lock, let her go, instead of putting her safewith the Parish? That's what a man of his character ought to have done, it would be argueyfied, ' said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on thestrong string of her terror; 'he ought to have handed her over safe tothe Parish. That was to be expected of a man of his merits. '

As he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn wayworn woman burstinto tears, and clasped her hands, as if in a very agony she prayed tohim. 

'As I've told you, Master, I've the best of friends. This letter willshow how true I spoke, and they will be thankful for me. '

The Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, which underwent nochange as he eyed its contents. But it might have done, if he could haveread them. 

'What amount of small change, Missis, ' he said, with an abstracted air, after a little meditation, 'might you call a morsel of money?'

Hurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the table, ashilling, and two sixpenny pieces, and a few pence. 

'If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe to the Parish, 'said the Deputy, counting the money with his eyes, 'might it be your ownfree wish to leave that there behind you?'

'Take it, Master, take it, and welcome and thankful!'

'I'm a man, ' said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, and pocketingthe coins, one by one, 'as earns his living by the sweat of his brow;'here he drew his sleeve across his forehead, as if this particularportion of his humble gains were the result of sheer hard labour andvirtuous industry; 'and I won't stand in your way. Go where you like. '

She was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her thispermission, and her tottering steps were on the road again. But, afraidto go back and afraid to go forward; seeing what she fled from, in thesky-glare of the lights of the little town before her, and leaving aconfused horror of it everywhere behind her, as if she had escaped itin every stone of every market-place; she struck off by side ways, amongwhich she got bewildered and lost. That night she took refuge from theSamaritan in his latest accredited form, under a farmer's rick; andif--worth thinking of, perhaps, my fellow-Christians--the Samaritan hadin the lonely night, 'passed by on the other side', she would have mostdevoutly thanked High Heaven for her escape from him. 

The morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as to theclearness of her thoughts, though not as to the steadiness of herpurpose. Comprehending that her strength was quitting her, and that thestruggle of her life was almost ended, she could neither reason out themeans of getting back to her protectors, nor even form the idea. Theovermastering dread, and the proud stubborn resolution it engenderedin her to die undegraded, were the two distinct impressions left in herfailing mind. Supported only by a sense that she was bent on conqueringin her life-long fight, she went on. 

The time was come, now, when the wants of this little life were passingaway from her. She could not have swallowed food, though a table hadbeen spread for her in the next field. The day was cold and wet, butshe scarcely knew it. She crept on, poor soul, like a criminal afraid ofbeing taken, and felt little beyond the terror of falling down while itwas yet daylight, and being found alive. She had no fear that she wouldlive through another night. 

Sewn in the breast of her gown, the money to pay for her burial wasstill intact. If she could wear through the day, and then lie down todie under cover of the darkness, she would die independent. If she werecaptured previously, the money would be taken from her as a pauper whohad no right to it, and she would be carried to the accursed workhouse. Gaining her end, the letter would be found in her breast, along withthe money, and the gentlefolks would say when it was given back to them, 'She prized it, did old Betty Higden; she was true to it; and while shelived, she would never let it be disgraced by falling into the handsof those that she held in horror. ' Most illogical, inconsequential, andlight-headed, this; but travellers in the valley of the shadow of deathare apt to be light-headed; and worn-out old people of low estate havea trick of reasoning as indifferently as they live, and doubtlesswould appreciate our Poor Law more philosophically on an income of tenthousand a year. 

So, keeping to byways, and shunning human approach, this troublesomeold woman hid herself, and fared on all through the dreary day. Yet sounlike was she to vagrant hiders in general, that sometimes, as the dayadvanced, there was a bright fire in her eyes, and a quicker beating ather feeble heart, as though she said exultingly, 'The Lord will see methrough it!'

By what visionary hands she was led along upon that journey of escapefrom the Samaritan; by what voices, hushed in the grave, she seemedto be addressed; how she fancied the dead child in her arms again, andtimes innumerable adjusted her shawl to keep it warm; what infinitevariety of forms of tower and roof and steeple the trees took; how manyfurious horsemen rode at her, crying, 'There she goes! Stop! Stop, Betty Higden!' and melted away as they came close; be these things leftuntold. Faring on and hiding, hiding and faring on, the poor harmlesscreature, as though she were a Murderess and the whole country were upafter her, wore out the day, and gained the night. 

'Water-meadows, or such like, ' she had sometimes murmured, on the day'spilgrimage, when she had raised her head and taken any note of the realobjects about her. There now arose in the darkness, a great building, full of lighted windows. Smoke was issuing from a high chimney inthe rear of it, and there was the sound of a water-wheel at the side. Between her and the building, lay a piece of water, in which the lightedwindows were reflected, and on its nearest margin was a plantation oftrees. 'I humbly thank the Power and the Glory, ' said Betty Higden, holding up her withered hands, 'that I have come to my journey's end!'

She crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence she could see, beyond some intervening trees and branches, the lighted windows, both intheir reality and their reflection in the water. She placed her orderlylittle basket at her side, and sank upon the ground, supporting herselfagainst the tree. It brought to her mind the foot of the Cross, andshe committed herself to Him who died upon it. Her strength held out toenable her to arrange the letter in her breast, so as that it couldbe seen that she had a paper there. It had held out for this, and itdeparted when this was done. 

'I am safe here, ' was her last benumbed thought. 'When I am found deadat the foot of the Cross, it will be by some of my own sort; some ofthe working people who work among the lights yonder. I cannot see thelighted windows now, but they are there. I am thankful for all!'

The darkness gone, and a face bending down. 

'It cannot be the boofer lady?'

'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again with thisbrandy. I have been away to fetch it. Did you think that I was longgone?'

It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich dark hair. It is the earnest face of a woman who is young and handsome. But all isover with me on earth, and this must be an Angel. 

'Have I been long dead?'

'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again. I hurriedall I could, and brought no one back with me, lest you should die of theshock of strangers. '

'Am I not dead?'

'I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so low and broken thatI cannot hear you. Do you hear me?'

'Yes. '

'Do you mean Yes?'

'Yes. '

'I was coming from my work just now, along the path outside (I was upwith the night-hands last night), and I heard a groan, and found youlying here. '

'What work, deary?'

'Did you ask what work? At the paper-mill. '

'Where is it?'

'Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can't see it. It is closeby. You can see my face, here, between you and the sky?'

'Yes. '

'Dare I lift you?'

'Not yet. '

'Not even lift your head to get it on my arm? I will do it by verygentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it. '

'Not yet. Paper. Letter. '

'This paper in your breast?'

'Bless ye!'

'Let me wet your lips again. Am I to open it? To read it?'

'Bless ye!'

She reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new expression and anadded interest on the motionless face she kneels beside. 

'I know these names. I have heard them often. '

'Will you send it, my dear?'

'I cannot understand you. Let me wet your lips again, and your forehead. There. O poor thing, poor thing!' These words through her fast-droppingtears. 'What was it that you asked me? Wait till I bring my ear quiteclose. '

'Will you send it, my dear?'

'Will I send it to the writers? Is that your wish? Yes, certainly. '

'You'll not give it up to any one but them?'

'No. '

'As you must grow old in time, and come to your dying hour, my dear, you'll not give it up to any one but them?'

'No. Most solemnly. '

'Never to the Parish!' with a convulsed struggle. 

'No. Most solemnly. '

'Nor let the Parish touch me, not yet so much as look at me!' withanother struggle. 

'No. Faithfully. '

A look of thankfulness and triumph lights the worn old face. 

The eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the sky, turn with meaningin them towards the compassionate face from which the tears aredropping, and a smile is on the aged lips as they ask:

'What is your name, my dear?'

'My name is Lizzie Hexam. '

'I must be sore disfigured. Are you afraid to kiss me?'

The answer is, the ready pressure of her lips upon the cold but smilingmouth. 

'Bless ye! NOW lift me, my love. '

Lizzie Hexam very softly raised the weather-stained grey head, andlifted her as high as Heaven. 

Chapter 9

SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION

'"We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliverthis our sister out of the miseries of this sinful world. "' So read theReverend Frank Milvey in a not untroubled voice, for his heart misgavehim that all was not quite right between us and our sister--or say oursister in Law--Poor Law--and that we sometimes read these words in anawful manner, over our Sister and our Brother too. 

And Sloppy--on whom the brave deceased had never turned her back untilshe ran away from him, knowing that otherwise he would not be separatedfrom her--Sloppy could not in his conscience as yet find the heartythanks required of it. Selfish in Sloppy, and yet excusable, it may behumbly hoped, because our sister had been more than his mother. 

The words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in a corner of achurchyard near the river; in a churchyard so obscure that there wasnothing in it but grass-mounds, not so much as one single tombstone. It might not be to do an unreasonably great deal for the diggers andhewers, in a registering age, if we ticketed their graves at the commoncharge; so that a new generation might know which was which: so that thesoldier, sailor, emigrant, coming home, should be able to identify theresting-place of father, mother, playmate, or betrothed. For, we turn upour eyes and say that we are all alike in death, and we might turnthem down and work the saying out in this world, so far. It wouldbe sentimental, perhaps? But how say ye, my lords and gentleman andhonourable boards, shall we not find good standing-room left for alittle sentiment, if we look into our crowds?

Near unto the Reverend Frank Milvey as he read, stood his little wife, John Rokesmith the Secretary, and Bella Wilfer. These, over and aboveSloppy, were the mourners at the lowly grave. Not a penny had beenadded to the money sewn in her dress: what her honest spirit had so longprojected, was fulfilled. 

'I've took it in my head, ' said Sloppy, laying it, inconsolable, againstthe church door, when all was done: I've took it in my wretched headthat I might have sometimes turned a little harder for her, and it cutsme deep to think so now. '

The Reverend Frank Milvey, comforting Sloppy, expounded to him how thebest of us were more or less remiss in our turnings at our respectiveMangles--some of us very much so--and how we were all a halting, failing, feeble, and inconstant crew. 

'SHE warn't, sir, ' said Sloppy, taking this ghostly counsel rather ill, in behalf of his late benefactress. 'Let us speak for ourselves, sir. She went through with whatever duty she had to do. She went through withme, she went through with the Minders, she went through with herself, she went through with everythink. O Mrs Higden, Mrs Higden, you was awoman and a mother and a mangler in a million million!'

With those heartfelt words, Sloppy removed his dejected head from thechurch door, and took it back to the grave in the corner, and laid itdown there, and wept alone. 'Not a very poor grave, ' said the ReverendFrank Milvey, brushing his hand across his eyes, 'when it has thathomely figure on it. Richer, I think, than it could be made by most ofthe sculpture in Westminster Abbey!'

They left him undisturbed, and passed out at the wicket-gate. Thewater-wheel of the paper-mill was audible there, and seemed to have asoftening influence on the bright wintry scene. They had arrived but alittle while before, and Lizzie Hexam now told them the little she couldadd to the letter in which she had enclosed Mr Rokesmith's letter andhad asked for their instructions. This was merely how she had heard thegroan, and what had afterwards passed, and how she had obtained leavefor the remains to be placed in that sweet, fresh, empty store-room ofthe mill from which they had just accompanied them to the churchyard, and how the last requests had been religiously observed. 

'I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself, ' said Lizzie. 'I should not have wanted the will; but I should not have had the power, without our managing partner. '

'Surely not the Jew who received us?' said Mrs Milvey. 

('My dear, ' observed her husband in parenthesis, 'why not?')

'The gentleman certainly is a Jew, ' said Lizzie, 'and the lady, hiswife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to their notice by a Jew. ButI think there cannot be kinder people in the world. '

'But suppose they try to convert you!' suggested Mrs Milvey, bristlingin her good little way, as a clergyman's wife. 

'To do what, ma'am?' asked Lizzie, with a modest smile. 

'To make you change your religion, ' said Mrs Milvey. 

Lizzie shook her head, still smiling. 'They have never asked me whatmy religion is. They asked me what my story was, and I told them. Theyasked me to be industrious and faithful, and I promised to be so. They most willingly and cheerfully do their duty to all of us who areemployed here, and we try to do ours to them. Indeed they do much morethan their duty to us, for they are wonderfully mindful of us in manyways. 

'It is easy to see you're a favourite, my dear, ' said little Mrs Milvey, not quite pleased. 

'It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not, ' returned Lizzie, 'for I have been already raised to a place of confidence here. But thatmakes no difference in their following their own religion and leavingall of us to ours. They never talk of theirs to us, and they never talkof ours to us. If I was the last in the mill, it would be just the same. They never asked me what religion that poor thing had followed. '

'My dear, ' said Mrs Milvey, aside to the Reverend Frank, 'I wish youwould talk to her. '

'My dear, ' said the Reverend Frank aside to his good little wife, 'Ithink I will leave it to somebody else. The circumstances are hardlyfavourable. There are plenty of talkers going about, my love, and shewill soon find one. '

While this discourse was interchanging, both Bella and the Secretaryobserved Lizzie Hexam with great attention. Brought face to face for thefirst time with the daughter of his supposed murderer, it was naturalthat John Harmon should have his own secret reasons for a carefulscrutiny of her countenance and manner. Bella knew that Lizzie'sfather had been falsely accused of the crime which had had so great aninfluence on her own life and fortunes; and her interest, though it hadno secret springs, like that of the Secretary, was equally natural. Bothhad expected to see something very different from the real Lizzie Hexam, and thus it fell out that she became the unconscious means of bringingthem together. 

For, when they had walked on with her to the little house in the cleanvillage by the paper-mill, where Lizzie had a lodging with an elderlycouple employed in the establishment, and when Mrs Milvey and Bellahad been up to see her room and had come down, the mill bell rang. This called Lizzie away for the time, and left the Secretary and Bellastanding rather awkwardly in the small street; Mrs Milvey being engagedin pursuing the village children, and her investigations whether theywere in danger of becoming children of Israel; and the Reverend Frankbeing engaged--to say the truth--in evading that branch of his spiritualfunctions, and getting out of sight surreptitiously. 

Bella at length said:

'Hadn't we better talk about the commission we have undertaken, MrRokesmith?'

'By all means, ' said the Secretary. 

'I suppose, ' faltered Bella, 'that we ARE both commissioned, or weshouldn't both be here?'

'I suppose so, ' was the Secretary's answer. 

'When I proposed to come with Mr and Mrs Milvey, ' said Bella, 'MrsBoffin urged me to do so, in order that I might give her my smallreport--it's not worth anything, Mr Rokesmith, except for it's beinga woman's--which indeed with you may be a fresh reason for it's beingworth nothing--of Lizzie Hexam. '

'Mr Boffin, ' said the Secretary, 'directed me to come for the samepurpose. '

As they spoke they were leaving the little street and emerging on thewooded landscape by the river. 

'You think well of her, Mr Rokesmith?' pursued Bella, conscious ofmaking all the advances. 

'I think highly of her. '

'I am so glad of that! Something quite refined in her beauty, is therenot?'

'Her appearance is very striking. '

'There is a shade of sadness upon her that is quite touching. At leastI--I am not setting up my own poor opinion, you know, Mr Rokesmith, 'said Bella, excusing and explaining herself in a pretty shy way; 'I amconsulting you. '

'I noticed that sadness. I hope it may not, ' said the Secretary ina lower voice, 'be the result of the false accusation which has beenretracted. '

When they had passed on a little further without speaking, Bella, afterstealing a glance or two at the Secretary, suddenly said:

'Oh, Mr Rokesmith, don't be hard with me, don't be stern with me; bemagnanimous! I want to talk with you on equal terms. '

The Secretary as suddenly brightened, and returned: 'Upon my honour Ihad no thought but for you. I forced myself to be constrained, lest youmight misinterpret my being more natural. There. It's gone. '

'Thank you, ' said Bella, holding out her little hand. 'Forgive me. '

'No!' cried the Secretary, eagerly. 'Forgive ME!' For there were tearsin her eyes, and they were prettier in his sight (though they smote himon the heart rather reproachfully too) than any other glitter in theworld. 

When they had walked a little further:

'You were going to speak to me, ' said the Secretary, with the shadow solong on him quite thrown off and cast away, 'about Lizzie Hexam. So wasI going to speak to you, if I could have begun. '

'Now that you CAN begin, sir, ' returned Bella, with a look as if sheitalicized the word by putting one of her dimples under it, 'what wereyou going to say?'

'You remember, of course, that in her short letter to Mrs Boffin--short, but containing everything to the purpose--she stipulated that eitherher name, or else her place of residence, must be kept strictly a secretamong us. '

Bella nodded Yes. 

'It is my duty to find out why she made that stipulation. I have it incharge from Mr Boffin to discover, and I am very desirous for myself todiscover, whether that retracted accusation still leaves any stain uponher. I mean whether it places her at any disadvantage towards any one, even towards herself. '

'Yes, ' said Bella, nodding thoughtfully; 'I understand. That seems wise, and considerate. '

'You may not have noticed, Miss Wilfer, that she has the same kind ofinterest in you, that you have in her. Just as you are attracted by herbeaut--by her appearance and manner, she is attracted by yours. '

'I certainly have NOT noticed it, ' returned Bella, again italicizingwith the dimple, 'and I should have given her credit for--'

The Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plainly interposing 'notfor better taste', that Bella's colour deepened over the little piece ofcoquetry she was checked in. 

'And so, ' resumed the Secretary, 'if you would speak with her alonebefore we go away from here, I feel quite sure that a natural and easyconfidence would arise between you. Of course you would not be asked tobetray it; and of course you would not, if you were. But if you do notobject to put this question to her--to ascertain for us her own feelingin this one matter--you can do so at a far greater advantage than I orany else could. Mr Boffin is anxious on the subject. And I am, ' addedthe Secretary after a moment, 'for a special reason, very anxious. '

'I shall be happy, Mr Rokesmith, ' returned Bella, 'to be of the leastuse; for I feel, after the serious scene of to-day, that I am uselessenough in this world. '

'Don't say that, ' urged the Secretary. 

'Oh, but I mean that, ' said Bella, raising her eyebrows. 

'No one is useless in this world, ' retorted the Secretary, 'who lightensthe burden of it for any one else. '

'But I assure you I DON'T, Mr Rokesmith, ' said Bella, half-crying. 

'Not for your father?'

'Dear, loving, self-forgetting, easily-satisfied Pa! Oh, yes! He thinksso. '

'It is enough if he only thinks so, ' said the Secretary. 'Excuse theinterruption: I don't like to hear you depreciate yourself. '

'But YOU once depreciated ME, sir, ' thought Bella, pouting, 'and I hopeyou may be satisfied with the consequences you brought upon your head!'However, she said nothing to that purpose; she even said something to adifferent purpose. 

'Mr Rokesmith, it seems so long since we spoke together naturally, thatI am embarrassed in approaching another subject. Mr Boffin. You know Iam very grateful to him; don't you? You know I feel a true respect forhim, and am bound to him by the strong ties of his own generosity; nowdon't you?'

'Unquestionably. And also that you are his favourite companion. '

'That makes it, ' said Bella, 'so very difficult to speak of him. But--. Does he treat you well?'

'You see how he treats me, ' the Secretary answered, with a patient andyet proud air. 

'Yes, and I see it with pain, ' said Bella, very energetically. 

The Secretary gave her such a radiant look, that if he had thanked her ahundred times, he could not have said as much as the look said. 

'I see it with pain, ' repeated Bella, 'and it often makes me miserable. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be supposed to approve of it, orhave any indirect share in it. Miserable, because I cannot bear to beforced to admit to myself that Fortune is spoiling Mr Boffin. '

'Miss Wilfer, ' said the Secretary, with a beaming face, 'if you couldknow with what delight I make the discovery that Fortune isn't spoilingYOU, you would know that it more than compensates me for any slight atany other hands. '

'Oh, don't speak of ME, ' said Bella, giving herself an impatient littleslap with her glove. 'You don't know me as well as--'

'As you know yourself?' suggested the Secretary, finding that shestopped. 'DO you know yourself?'

'I know quite enough of myself, ' said Bella, with a charming air ofbeing inclined to give herself up as a bad job, 'and I don't improveupon acquaintance. But Mr Boffin. '

'That Mr Boffin's manner to me, or consideration for me, is not what itused to be, ' observed the Secretary, 'must be admitted. It is too plainto be denied. '

'Are you disposed to deny it, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella, with a look ofwonder. 

'Ought I not to be glad to do so, if I could: though it were only for myown sake?'

'Truly, ' returned Bella, 'it must try you very much, and--you mustplease promise me that you won't take ill what I am going to add, MrRokesmith?'

'I promise it with all my heart. '

'--And it must sometimes, I should think, ' said Bella, hesitating, 'alittle lower you in your own estimation?'

Assenting with a movement of his head, though not at all looking as ifit did, the Secretary replied:

'I have very strong reasons, Miss Wilfer, for bearing with the drawbacksof my position in the house we both inhabit. Believe that they are notall mercenary, although I have, through a series of strange fatalities, faded out of my place in life. If what you see with such a graciousand good sympathy is calculated to rouse my pride, there are otherconsiderations (and those you do not see) urging me to quiet endurance. The latter are by far the stronger. '

'I think I have noticed, Mr Rokesmith, ' said Bella, looking at him withcuriosity, as not quite making him out, 'that you repress yourself, andforce yourself, to act a passive part. '

'You are right. I repress myself and force myself to act a part. It isnot in tameness of spirit that I submit. I have a settled purpose. '

'And a good one, I hope, ' said Bella. 

'And a good one, I hope, ' he answered, looking steadily at her. 

'Sometimes I have fancied, sir, ' said Bella, turning away her eyes, 'that your great regard for Mrs Boffin is a very powerful motive withyou. '

'You are right again; it is. I would do anything for her, bear anythingfor her. There are no words to express how I esteem that good, goodwoman. '

'As I do too! May I ask you one thing more, Mr Rokesmith?'

'Anything more. '

'Of course you see that she really suffers, when Mr Boffin shows how heis changing?'

'I see it, every day, as you see it, and am grieved to give her pain. '

'To give her pain?' said Bella, repeating the phrase quickly, with hereyebrows raised. 

'I am generally the unfortunate cause of it. '

'Perhaps she says to you, as she often says to me, that he is the bestof men, in spite of all. '

'I often overhear her, in her honest and beautiful devotion to him, saying so to you, ' returned the Secretary, with the same steady look, 'but I cannot assert that she ever says so to me. '

Bella met the steady look for a moment with a wistful, musing littlelook of her own, and then, nodding her pretty head several times, likea dimpled philosopher (of the very best school) who was moralizing onLife, heaved a little sigh, and gave up things in general for a bad job, as she had previously been inclined to give up herself. 

But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were bare ofleaves, and the river was bare of water-lilies; but the sky was not bareof its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, and a deliciouswind ran with the stream, touching the surface crisply. Perhaps the oldmirror was never yet made by human hands, which, if all the images ithas in its time reflected could pass across its surface again, wouldfail to reveal some scene of horror or distress. But the great serenemirror of the river seemed as if it might have reproduced all it hadever reflected between those placid banks, and brought nothing to thelight save what was peaceful, pastoral, and blooming. 

So, they walked, speaking of the newly filled-up grave, and of Johnny, and of many things. So, on their return, they met brisk Mrs Milveycoming to seek them, with the agreeable intelligence that there was nofear for the village children, there being a Christian school in thevillage, and no worse Judaical interference with it than to plant itsgarden. So, they got back to the village as Lizzie Hexam was coming fromthe paper-mill, and Bella detached herself to speak with her in her ownhome. 

'I am afraid it is a poor room for you, ' said Lizzie, with a smile ofwelcome, as she offered the post of honour by the fireside. 

'Not so poor as you think, my dear, ' returned Bella, 'if you knew all. 'Indeed, though attained by some wonderful winding narrow stairs, whichseemed to have been erected in a pure white chimney, and though very lowin the ceiling, and very rugged in the floor, and rather blinking asto the proportions of its lattice window, it was a pleasanter room thanthat despised chamber once at home, in which Bella had first bemoanedthe miseries of taking lodgers. 

The day was closing as the two girls looked at one another by thefireside. The dusky room was lighted by the fire. The grate might havebeen the old brazier, and the glow might have been the old hollow downby the flare. 

'It's quite new to me, ' said Lizzie, 'to be visited by a lady so nearlyof my own age, and so pretty, as you. It's a pleasure to me to look atyou. '

'I have nothing left to begin with, ' returned Bella, blushing, 'becauseI was going to say that it was a pleasure to me to look at you, Lizzie. But we can begin without a beginning, can't we?'

Lizzie took the pretty little hand that was held out in as pretty alittle frankness. 

'Now, dear, ' said Bella, drawing her chair a little nearer, and takingLizzie's arm as if they were going out for a walk, 'I am commissionedwith something to say, and I dare say I shall say it wrong, but Iwon't if I can help it. It is in reference to your letter to Mr and MrsBoffin, and this is what it is. Let me see. Oh yes! This is what it is. '

With this exordium, Bella set forth that request of Lizzie's touchingsecrecy, and delicately spoke of that false accusation and itsretraction, and asked might she beg to be informed whether it had anybearing, near or remote, on such request. 'I feel, my dear, ' said Bella, quite amazing herself by the business-like manner in which she wasgetting on, 'that the subject must be a painful one to you, but Iam mixed up in it also; for--I don't know whether you may know it orsuspect it--I am the willed-away girl who was to have been married tothe unfortunate gentleman, if he had been pleased to approve of me. SoI was dragged into the subject without my consent, and you were draggedinto it without your consent, and there is very little to choose betweenus. '

'I had no doubt, ' said Lizzie, 'that you were the Miss Wilfer I haveoften heard named. Can you tell me who my unknown friend is?'

'Unknown friend, my dear?' said Bella. 

'Who caused the charge against poor father to be contradicted, and sentme the written paper. '

Bella had never heard of him. Had no notion who he was. 

'I should have been glad to thank him, ' returned Lizzie. 'He has done agreat deal for me. I must hope that he will let me thank him some day. You asked me has it anything to do--'

'It or the accusation itself, ' Bella put in. 

'Yes. Has either anything to do with my wishing to live quite secret andretired here? No. '

As Lizzie Hexam shook her head in giving this reply and as her glancesought the fire, there was a quiet resolution in her folded hands, notlost on Bella's bright eyes. 

'Have you lived much alone?' asked Bella. 

'Yes. It's nothing new to me. I used to be always alone many hourstogether, in the day and in the night, when poor father was alive. '

'You have a brother, I have been told?'

'I have a brother, but he is not friendly with me. He is a very goodboy though, and has raised himself by his industry. I don't complain ofhim. '

As she said it, with her eyes upon the fire-glow, there was aninstantaneous escape of distress into her face. Bella seized the momentto touch her hand. 

'Lizzie, I wish you would tell me whether you have any friend of yourown sex and age. '

'I have lived that lonely kind of life, that I have never had one, ' wasthe answer. 

'Nor I neither, ' said Bella. 'Not that my life has been lonely, for Icould have sometimes wished it lonelier, instead of having Ma going onlike the Tragic Muse with a face-ache in majestic corners, and Lavvybeing spiteful--though of course I am very fond of them both. I wishyou could make a friend of me, Lizzie. Do you think you could? I haveno more of what they call character, my dear, than a canary-bird, but Iknow I am trustworthy. '

The wayward, playful, affectionate nature, giddy for want of theweight of some sustaining purpose, and capricious because it was alwaysfluttering among little things, was yet a captivating one. To Lizzie itwas so new, so pretty, at once so womanly and so childish, that it wonher completely. And when Bella said again, 'Do you think you could, Lizzie?' with her eyebrows raised, her head inquiringly on one side, and an odd doubt about it in her own bosom, Lizzie showed beyond allquestion that she thought she could. 

'Tell me, my dear, ' said Bella, 'what is the matter, and why you livelike this. '

Lizzie presently began, by way of prelude, 'You must have many lovers--'when Bella checked her with a little scream of astonishment. 

'My dear, I haven't one!'

'Not one?'

'Well! Perhaps one, ' said Bella. 'I am sure I don't know. I HAD one, butwhat he may think about it at the present time I can't say. Perhaps Ihave half a one (of course I don't count that Idiot, George Sampson). However, never mind me. I want to hear about you. '

'There is a certain man, ' said Lizzie, 'a passionate and angry man, whosays he loves me, and who I must believe does love me. He is the friendof my brother. I shrank from him within myself when my brother firstbrought him to me; but the last time I saw him he terrified me more thanI can say. ' There she stopped. 

'Did you come here to escape from him, Lizzie?'

'I came here immediately after he so alarmed me. '

'Are you afraid of him here?'

'I am not timid generally, but I am always afraid of him. I am afraidto see a newspaper, or to hear a word spoken of what is done in London, lest he should have done some violence. '

'Then you are not afraid of him for yourself, dear?' said Bella, afterpondering on the words. 

'I should be even that, if I met him about here. I look round for himalways, as I pass to and fro at night. '

'Are you afraid of anything he may do to himself in London, my dear?'

'No. He might be fierce enough even to do some violence to himself, butI don't think of that. '

'Then it would almost seem, dear, ' said Bella quaintly, 'as if theremust be somebody else?'

Lizzie put her hands before her face for a moment before replying: 'Thewords are always in my ears, and the blow he struck upon a stone wall ashe said them is always before my eyes. I have tried hard to think itnot worth remembering, but I cannot make so little of it. His hand wastrickling down with blood as he said to me, "Then I hope that I maynever kill him!"

Rather startled, Bella made and clasped a girdle of her arms roundLizzie's waist, and then asked quietly, in a soft voice, as they bothlooked at the fire:

'Kill him! Is this man so jealous, then?'

'Of a gentleman, ' said Lizzie. '--I hardly know how to tell you--of agentleman far above me and my way of life, who broke father's death tome, and has shown an interest in me since. '

'Does he love you?'

Lizzie shook her head. 

'Does he admire you?'

Lizzie ceased to shake her head, and pressed her hand upon her livinggirdle. 

'Is it through his influence that you came here?'

'O no! And of all the world I wouldn't have him know that I am here, orget the least clue where to find me. '

'Lizzie, dear! Why?' asked Bella, in amazement at this burst. But thenquickly added, reading Lizzie's face: 'No. Don't say why. That was afoolish question of mine. I see, I see. '

There was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping head, glanceddown at the glow in the fire where her first fancies had been nursed, and her first escape made from the grim life out of which she hadplucked her brother, foreseeing her reward. 

'You know all now, ' she said, raising her eyes to Bella's. 'There isnothing left out. This is my reason for living secret here, with the aidof a good old man who is my true friend. For a short part of my lifeat home with father, I knew of things--don't ask me what--that I set myface against, and tried to better. I don't think I could have done more, then, without letting my hold on father go; but they sometimes lie heavyon my mind. By doing all for the best, I hope I may wear them out. '

'And wear out too, ' said Bella soothingly, 'this weakness, Lizzie, infavour of one who is not worthy of it. '

'No. I don't want to wear that out, ' was the flushed reply, 'nor do Iwant to believe, nor do I believe, that he is not worthy of it. Whatshould I gain by that, and how much should I lose!'

Bella's expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the fire for someshort time before she rejoined:

'Don't think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn't you gain in peace, and hope, and even in freedom? Wouldn't it be better not to live asecret life in hiding, and not to be shut out from your natural andwholesome prospects? Forgive my asking you, would that be no gain?'

'Does a woman's heart that--that has that weakness in it which you havespoken of, ' returned Lizzie, 'seek to gain anything?'

The question was so directly at variance with Bella's views in life, asset forth to her father, that she said internally, 'There, you littlemercenary wretch! Do you hear that? Ain't you ashamed of your self?'and unclasped the girdle of her arms, expressly to give herself apenitential poke in the side. 

'But you said, Lizzie, ' observed Bella, returning to her subject whenshe had administered this chastisement, 'that you would lose, besides. Would you mind telling me what you would lose, Lizzie?'

'I should lose some of the best recollections, best encouragements, and best objects, that I carry through my daily life. I should lose mybelief that if I had been his equal, and he had loved me, I should havetried with all my might to make him better and happier, as he would havemade me. I should lose almost all the value that I put upon the littlelearning I have, which is all owing to him, and which I conquered thedifficulties of, that he might not think it thrown away upon me. Ishould lose a kind of picture of him--or of what he might have been, if I had been a lady, and he had loved me--which is always with me, andwhich I somehow feel that I could not do a mean or a wrong thing before. I should leave off prizing the remembrance that he has done me nothingbut good since I have known him, and that he has made a change withinme, like--like the change in the grain of these hands, which werecoarse, and cracked, and hard, and brown when I rowed on the river withfather, and are softened and made supple by this new work as you seethem now. '

They trembled, but with no weakness, as she showed them. 

'Understand me, my dear;' thus she went on. I have never dreamed ofthe possibility of his being anything to me on this earth but thekind picture that I know I could not make you understand, if theunderstanding was not in your own breast already. I have no more dreamedof the possibility of MY being his wife, than he ever has--and wordscould not be stronger than that. And yet I love him. I love him so much, and so dearly, that when I sometimes think my life may be but a wearyone, I am proud of it and glad of it. I am proud and glad to suffersomething for him, even though it is of no service to him, and he willnever know of it or care for it. '

Bella sat enchained by the deep, unselfish passion of this girl or womanof her own age, courageously revealing itself in the confidence of hersympathetic perception of its truth. And yet she had never experiencedanything like it, or thought of the existence of anything like it. 

'It was late upon a wretched night, ' said Lizzie, 'when his eyes firstlooked at me in my old river-side home, very different from this. Hiseyes may never look at me again. I would rather that they never did; Ihope that they never may. But I would not have the light of them takenout of my life, for anything my life can give me. I have told youeverything now, my dear. If it comes a little strange to me to haveparted with it, I am not sorry. I had no thought of ever parting with asingle word of it, a moment before you came in; but you came in, and mymind changed. '

Bella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly for herconfidence. 'I only wish, ' said Bella, 'I was more deserving of it. '

'More deserving of it?' repeated Lizzie, with an incredulous smile. 

'I don't mean in respect of keeping it, ' said Bella, 'because anyone should tear me to bits before getting at a syllable of it--thoughthere's no merit in that, for I am naturally as obstinate as a Pig. WhatI mean is, Lizzie, that I am a mere impertinent piece of conceit, andyou shame me. '

Lizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling down, owing tothe energy with which Bella shook her head; and she remonstrated whilethus engaged, 'My dear!'

'Oh, it's all very well to call me your dear, ' said Bella, with apettish whimper, 'and I am glad to be called so, though I have slightenough claim to be. But I AM such a nasty little thing!'

'My dear!' urged Lizzie again. 

'Such a shallow, cold, worldly, Limited little brute!' said Bella, bringing out her last adjective with culminating force. 

'Do you think, ' inquired Lizzie with her quiet smile, the hair being nowsecured, 'that I don't know better?'

'DO you know better though?' said Bella. 'Do you really believe you knowbetter? Oh, I should be so glad if you did know better, but I am so verymuch afraid that I must know best!'

Lizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw her own faceor heard her own voice?

'I suppose so, ' returned Bella; 'I look in the glass often enough, and Ichatter like a Magpie. '

'I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate, ' said Lizzie, 'and they have tempted me to say to you--with a certainty of not goingwrong--what I thought I should never say to any one. Does that lookill?'

'No, I hope it doesn't, ' pouted Bella, stopping herself in somethingbetween a humoured laugh and a humoured sob. 

'I used once to see pictures in the fire, ' said Lizzie playfully, 'toplease my brother. Shall I tell you what I see down there where the fireis glowing?'

They had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time being come forseparating; each had drawn an arm around the other to take leave. 

'Shall I tell you, ' asked Lizzie, 'what I see down there?'

'Limited little b?' suggested Bella with her eyebrows raised. 

'A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goesthrough fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is neverdaunted. '

'Girl's heart?' asked Bella, with accompanying eyebrows. Lizzie nodded. 'And the figure to which it belongs--'

Is yours, ' suggested Bella. 

'No. Most clearly and distinctly yours. '

So the interview terminated with pleasant words on both sides, and withmany reminders on the part of Bella that they were friends, and pledgesthat she would soon come down into that part of the country again. Therewith Lizzie returned to her occupation, and Bella ran over to the littleinn to rejoin her company. 

'You look rather serious, Miss Wilfer, ' was the Secretary's firstremark. 

'I feel rather serious, ' returned Miss Wilfer. 

She had nothing else to tell him but that Lizzie Hexam's secret hadno reference whatever to the cruel charge, or its withdrawal. Oh yesthough! said Bella; she might as well mention one other thing; Lizziewas very desirous to thank her unknown friend who had sent her thewritten retractation. Was she, indeed? observed the Secretary. Ah! Bellaasked him, had he any notion who that unknown friend might be? He had nonotion whatever. 

They were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor old BettyHigden strayed. They were to return by the train presently, and, thestation being near at hand, the Reverend Frank and Mrs Frank, and Sloppyand Bella and the Secretary, set out to walk to it. Few rustic paths arewide enough for five, and Bella and the Secretary dropped behind. 

'Can you believe, Mr Rokesmith, ' said Bella, 'that I feel as if wholeyears had passed since I went into Lizzie Hexam's cottage?'

'We have crowded a good deal into the day, ' he returned, 'and you weremuch affected in the churchyard. You are over-tired. '

'No, I am not at all tired. I have not quite expressed what I mean. Idon't mean that I feel as if a great space of time had gone by, but thatI feel as if much had happened--to myself, you know. '

'For good, I hope?'

'I hope so, ' said Bella. 

'You are cold; I felt you tremble. Pray let me put this wrapper of mineabout you. May I fold it over this shoulder without injuring your dress?Now, it will be too heavy and too long. Let me carry this end over myarm, as you have no arm to give me. '

Yes she had though. How she got it out, in her muffled state, Heavenknows; but she got it out somehow--there it was--and slipped it throughthe Secretary's. 

'I have had a long and interesting talk with Lizzie, Mr Rokesmith, andshe gave me her full confidence. '

'She could not withhold it, ' said the Secretary. 

'I wonder how you come, ' said Bella, stopping short as she glanced athim, 'to say to me just what she said about it!'

'I infer that it must be because I feel just as she felt about it. '

'And how was that, do you mean to say, sir?' asked Bella, moving again. 

'That if you were inclined to win her confidence--anybody'sconfidence--you were sure to do it. '

The railway, at this point, knowingly shutting a green eye and openinga red one, they had to run for it. As Bella could not run easily sowrapped up, the Secretary had to help her. When she took her oppositeplace in the carriage corner, the brightness in her face was so charmingto behold, that on her exclaiming, 'What beautiful stars and what aglorious night!' the Secretary said 'Yes, ' but seemed to prefer to seethe night and the stars in the light of her lovely little countenance, to looking out of window. 

O boofer lady, fascinating boofer lady! If I were but legally executorof Johnny's will! If I had but the right to pay your legacy and to takeyour receipt!--Something to this purpose surely mingled with the blastof the train as it cleared the stations, all knowingly shutting up theirgreen eyes and opening their red ones when they prepared to let theboofer lady pass. 

Chapter 10

SCOUTS OUT

'And so, Miss Wren, ' said Mr Eugene Wrayburn, 'I cannot persuade you todress me a doll?'

'No, ' replied Miss Wren snappishly; 'if you want one, go and buy one atthe shop. '

'And my charming young goddaughter, ' said Mr Wrayburn plaintively, 'downin Hertfordshire--'

('Humbugshire you mean, I think, ' interposed Miss Wren. )

'--is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and isto derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the CourtDressmaker?'

'If it's any advantage to your charming godchild--and oh, a preciousgodfather she has got!'--replied Miss Wren, pricking at him in the airwith her needle, 'to be informed that the Court Dressmaker knowsyour tricks and your manners, you may tell her so by post, with mycompliments. '

Miss Wren was busy at her work by candle-light, and Mr Wrayburn, halfamused and half vexed, and all idle and shiftless, stood by her benchlooking on. Miss Wren's troublesome child was in the corner in deepdisgrace, and exhibiting great wretchedness in the shivering stage ofprostration from drink. 

'Ugh, you disgraceful boy!' exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the soundof his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd all drop down your throat andplay at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee-baa, black sheep!'

On her accompanying each of these reproaches with a threatening stamp ofthe foot, the wretched creature protested with a whine. 

'Pay five shillings for you indeed!' Miss Wren proceeded; 'how manyhours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, you infamousboy?--Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a doll at you. Pay fiveshillings fine for you indeed. Fine in more ways than one, I think! I'dgive the dustman five shillings, to carry you off in the dust cart. '

'No, no, ' pleaded the absurd creature. 'Please!'

'He's enough to break his mother's heart, is this boy, ' said Miss Wren, half appealing to Eugene. 'I wish I had never brought him up. He'd besharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as dull as ditch water. Look at him. There's a pretty object for a parent's eyes!'

Assuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at least fatten ontheir guzzling, and make themselves good to eat), he was a pretty objectfor any eyes. 

'A muddling and a swipey old child, ' said Miss Wren, rating him withgreat severity, 'fit for nothing but to be preserved in the liquorthat destroys him, and put in a great glass bottle as a sight for otherswipey children of his own pattern, --if he has no consideration for hisliver, has he none for his mother?'

'Yes. Deration, oh don't!' cried the subject of these angry remarks. 

'Oh don't and oh don't, ' pursued Miss Wren. 'It's oh do and oh do. Andwhy do you?'

'Won't do so any more. Won't indeed. Pray!'

'There!' said Miss Wren, covering her eyes with her hand. 'I can'tbear to look at you. Go up stairs and get me my bonnet and shawl. Makeyourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me have your room insteadof your company, for one half minute. '

Obeying her, he shambled out, and Eugene Wrayburn saw the tears exudefrom between the little creature's fingers as she kept her hand beforeher eyes. He was sorry, but his sympathy did not move his carelessnessto do anything but feel sorry. 

'I'm going to the Italian Opera to try on, ' said Miss Wren, taking awayher hand after a little while, and laughing satirically to hide that shehad been crying; 'I must see your back before I go, Mr Wrayburn. Let mefirst tell you, once for all, that it's of no use your paying visitsto me. You wouldn't get what you want, of me, no, not if you broughtpincers with you to tear it out. '

'Are you so obstinate on the subject of a doll's dress for my godchild?'

'Ah!' returned Miss Wren with a hitch of her chin, 'I am soobstinate. And of course it's on the subject of a doll's dress--orADdress--whichever you like. Get along and give it up!'

Her degraded charge had come back, and was standing behind her with thebonnet and shawl. 

'Give 'em to me and get back into your corner, you naughty old thing!'said Miss Wren, as she turned and espied him. 'No, no, I won't have yourhelp. Go into your corner, this minute!'

The miserable man, feebly rubbing the back of his faltering handsdownward from the wrists, shuffled on to his post of disgrace; but notwithout a curious glance at Eugene in passing him, accompanied with whatseemed as if it might have been an action of his elbow, if any action ofany limb or joint he had, would have answered truly to his will. Takingno more particular notice of him than instinctively falling away fromthe disagreeable contact, Eugene, with a lazy compliment or so to MissWren, begged leave to light his cigar, and departed. 

'Now you prodigal old son, ' said Jenny, shaking her head and heremphatic little forefinger at her burden, 'you sit there till I comeback. You dare to move out of your corner for a single instant while I'mgone, and I'll know the reason why. '

With this admonition, she blew her work candles out, leaving him to thelight of the fire, and, taking her big door-key in her pocket and hercrutch-stick in her hand, marched off. 

Eugene lounged slowly towards the Temple, smoking his cigar, but sawno more of the dolls' dressmaker, through the accident of their takingopposite sides of the street. He lounged along moodily, and stopped atCharing Cross to look about him, with as little interest in the crowdas any man might take, and was lounging on again, when a most unexpectedobject caught his eyes. No less an object than Jenny Wren's bad boytrying to make up his mind to cross the road. 

A more ridiculous and feeble spectacle than this tottering wretch makingunsteady sallies into the roadway, and as often staggering back again, oppressed by terrors of vehicles that were a long way off or werenowhere, the streets could not have shown. Over and over again, when thecourse was perfectly clear, he set out, got half way, described a loop, turned, and went back again; when he might have crossed and re-crossedhalf a dozen times. Then, he would stand shivering on the edge of thepavement, looking up the street and looking down, while scores of peoplejostled him, and crossed, and went on. Stimulated in course of timeby the sight of so many successes, he would make another sally, makeanother loop, would all but have his foot on the opposite pavement, would see or imagine something coming, and would stagger back again. There, he would stand making spasmodic preparations as if for a greatleap, and at last would decide on a start at precisely the wrong moment, and would be roared at by drivers, and would shrink back once more, andstand in the old spot shivering, with the whole of the proceedings to gothrough again. 

'It strikes me, ' remarked Eugene coolly, after watching him for someminutes, 'that my friend is likely to be rather behind time if he hasany appointment on hand. ' With which remark he strolled on, and took nofurther thought of him. 

Lightwood was at home when he got to the Chambers, and had dined alonethere. Eugene drew a chair to the fire by which he was having his wineand reading the evening paper, and brought a glass, and filled it forgood fellowship's sake. 

'My dear Mortimer, you are the express picture of contented industry, reposing (on credit) after the virtuous labours of the day. '

'My dear Eugene, you are the express picture of discontented idlenessnot reposing at all. Where have you been?'

'I have been, ' replied Wrayburn, '--about town. I have turned up at thepresent juncture, with the intention of consulting my highly intelligentand respected solicitor on the position of my affairs. '

'Your highly intelligent and respect solicitor is of opinion that youraffairs are in a bad way, Eugene. '

'Though whether, ' said Eugene thoughtfully, 'that can be intelligentlysaid, now, of the affairs of a client who has nothing to lose and whocannot possibly be made to pay, may be open to question. '

'You have fallen into the hands of the Jews, Eugene. '

'My dear boy, ' returned the debtor, very composedly taking up his glass, 'having previously fallen into the hands of some of the Christians, Ican bear it with philosophy. '

'I have had an interview to-day, Eugene, with a Jew, who seemsdetermined to press us hard. Quite a Shylock, and quite a Patriarch. Apicturesque grey-headed and grey-bearded old Jew, in a shovel-hat andgaberdine. '

'Not, ' said Eugene, pausing in setting down his glass, 'surely not myworthy friend Mr Aaron?'

'He calls himself Mr Riah. '

'By-the-by, ' said Eugene, 'it comes into my mind that--no doubt with aninstinctive desire to receive him into the bosom of our Church--I gavehim the name of Aaron!'

'Eugene, Eugene, ' returned Lightwood, 'you are more ridiculous thanusual. Say what you mean. '

'Merely, my dear fellow, that I have the honour and pleasure of aspeaking acquaintance with such a Patriarch as you describe, and that Iaddress him as Mr Aaron, because it appears to me Hebraic, expressive, appropriate, and complimentary. Notwithstanding which strong reasons forits being his name, it may not be his name. '

'I believe you are the absurdest man on the face of the earth, ' saidLightwood, laughing. 

'Not at all, I assure you. Did he mention that he knew me?'

'He did not. He only said of you that he expected to be paid by you. '

'Which looks, ' remarked Eugene with much gravity, 'like NOT knowing me. I hope it may not be my worthy friend Mr Aaron, for, to tell you thetruth, Mortimer, I doubt he may have a prepossession against me. Istrongly suspect him of having had a hand in spiriting away Lizzie. '

'Everything, ' returned Lightwood impatiently, 'seems, by a fatality, to bring us round to Lizzie. "About town" meant about Lizzie, just now, Eugene. '

'My solicitor, do you know, ' observed Eugene, turning round to thefurniture, 'is a man of infinite discernment!'

'Did it not, Eugene?'

'Yes it did, Mortimer. '

'And yet, Eugene, you know you do not really care for her. '

Eugene Wrayburn rose, and put his hands in his pockets, and stood with afoot on the fender, indolently rocking his body and looking at the fire. After a prolonged pause, he replied: 'I don't know that. I must ask younot to say that, as if we took it for granted. '

'But if you do care for her, so much the more should you leave her toherself. '

Having again paused as before, Eugene said: 'I don't know that, either. But tell me. Did you ever see me take so much trouble about anything, asabout this disappearance of hers? I ask, for information. '

'My dear Eugene, I wish I ever had!'

'Then you have not? Just so. You confirm my own impression. Does thatlook as if I cared for her? I ask, for information. '

'I asked YOU for information, Eugene, ' said Mortimer reproachfully. 

'Dear boy, I know it, but I can't give it. I thirst for information. What do I mean? If my taking so much trouble to recover her does notmean that I care for her, what does it mean? "If Peter Piper picked apeck of pickled pepper, where's the peck, " &c. ?'

Though he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed and inquisitiveface, as if he actually did not know what to make of himself. 'Look onto the end--' Lightwood was beginning to remonstrate, when he caught atthe words:

'Ah! See now! That's exactly what I am incapable of doing. How veryacute you are, Mortimer, in finding my weak place! When we were atschool together, I got up my lessons at the last moment, day by day andbit by bit; now we are out in life together, I get up my lessons in thesame way. In the present task I have not got beyond this:--I am benton finding Lizzie, and I mean to find her, and I will take any meansof finding her that offer themselves. Fair means or foul means, are allalike to me. I ask you--for information--what does that mean? When Ihave found her I may ask you--also for information--what do I mean now?But it would be premature in this stage, and it's not the character ofmy mind. '

Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his friend heldforth thus--an air so whimsically open and argumentative as almost todeprive what he said of the appearance of evasion--when a shuffling washeard at the outer door, and then an undecided knock, as thoughsome hand were groping for the knocker. 'The frolicsome youth of theneighbourhood, ' said Eugene, 'whom I should be delighted to pitch fromthis elevation into the churchyard below, without any intermediateceremonies, have probably turned the lamp out. I am on duty to-night, and will see to the door. '

His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam ofdetermination with which he had spoken of finding this girl, and whichhad faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, when Eugenecame back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking fromhead to foot, and clothed in shabby grease and smear. 

'This interesting gentleman, ' said Eugene, 'is the son--theoccasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings--of a lady of myacquaintance. My dear Mortimer--Mr Dolls. ' Eugene had no idea what hisname was, knowing the little dressmaker's to be assumed, but presentedhim with easy confidence under the first appellation that hisassociations suggested. 

'I gather, my dear Mortimer, ' pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared atthe obscene visitor, 'from the manner of Mr Dolls--which is occasionallycomplicated--that he desires to make some communication to me. I havementioned to Mr Dolls that you and I are on terms of confidence, andhave requested Mr Dolls to develop his views here. '

The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what remainedof his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the door, and put him down in achair. 

'It will be necessary, I think, ' he observed, 'to wind up Mr Dolls, before anything to any mortal purpose can be got out of him. Brandy, MrDolls, or--?'

'Threepenn'orth Rum, ' said Mr Dolls. 

A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in awine-glass, and he began to convey it to his mouth, with all kinds offalterings and gyrations on the road. 

'The nerves of Mr Dolls, ' remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'areconsiderably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to fumigateMr Dolls. '

He took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live ashes on it, andfrom a box on the chimney-piece took a few pastiles, which he set uponthem; then, with great composure began placidly waving the shovel infront of Mr Dolls, to cut him off from his company. 

'Lord bless my soul, Eugene!' cried Lightwood, laughing again, 'what amad fellow you are! Why does this creature come to see you?'

'We shall hear, ' said Wrayburn, very observant of his face withal. 'Nowthen. Speak out. Don't be afraid. State your business, Dolls. '

'Mist Wrayburn!' said the visitor, thickly and huskily. '--'TIS MistWrayburn, ain't?' With a stupid stare. 

'Of course it is. Look at me. What do you want?'

Mr Dolls collapsed in his chair, and faintly said 'Threepenn'orth Rum. '

'Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind up Mr Dollsagain?' said Eugene. 'I am occupied with the fumigation. '

A similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got it to his lipsby similar circuitous ways. Having drunk it, Mr Dolls, with an evidentfear of running down again unless he made haste, proceeded to business. 

'Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn't. You want thatdrection. You want t'know where she lives. DO you Mist Wrayburn?'

With a glance at his friend, Eugene replied to the question sternly, 'Ido. '

'I am er man, ' said Mr Dolls, trying to smite himself on the breast, butbringing his hand to bear upon the vicinity of his eye, 'er do it. I amer man er do it. '

'What are you the man to do?' demanded Eugene, still sternly. 

'Er give up that drection. '

'Have you got it?'

With a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr Dolls rolledhis head for some time, awakening the highest expectations, and thenanswered, as if it were the happiest point that could possibly beexpected of him: 'No. '

'What do you mean then?'

Mr Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his late intellectualtriumph, replied: 'Threepenn'orth Rum. '

'Wind him up again, my dear Mortimer, ' said Wrayburn; 'wind him upagain. '

'Eugene, Eugene, ' urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he complied, 'canyou stoop to the use of such an instrument as this?'

'I said, ' was the reply, made with that former gleam of determination, 'that I would find her out by any means, fair or foul. These are foul, and I'll take them--if I am not first tempted to break the head of MrDolls with the fumigator. Can you get the direction? Do you mean that?Speak! If that's what you have come for, say how much you want. '

'Ten shillings--Threepenn'orths Rum, ' said Mr Dolls. 

'You shall have it. '

'Fifteen shillings--Threepenn'orths Rum, ' said Mr Dolls, making anattempt to stiffen himself. 

'You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get the direction youtalk of?'

'I am er man, ' said Mr Dolls, with majesty, 'er get it, sir. '

'How will you get it, I ask you?'

'I am ill-used vidual, ' said Mr Dolls. 'Blown up morning t'night. Callednames. She makes Mint money, sir, and never stands Threepenn'orth Rum. '

'Get on, ' rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with thefire-shovel, as it sank on his breast. 'What comes next?'

Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it were, dropping half a dozen pieces of himself while he tried in vain to pickup one, Mr Dolls, swaying his head from side to side, regarded hisquestioner with what he supposed to be a haughty smile and a scornfulglance. 

'She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am NOT mere child, sir. Man. Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt 'em. Postman lerrers. Easy for mantalent er get drection, as get his own drection. '

'Get it then, ' said Eugene; adding very heartily under his breath, '--You Brute! Get it, and bring it here to me, and earn the money forsixty threepenn'orths of rum, and drink them all, one a top of another, and drink yourself dead with all possible expedition. ' The latterclauses of these special instructions he addressed to the fire, as hegave it back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the shovel. 

Mr Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that he had beeninsulted by Lightwood, and stated his desire to 'have it out with him'on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the liberal terms ofa sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr Dolls then fell a crying, and thenexhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last manifestation as by farthe most alarming, by reason of its threatening his prolonged stayon the premises, necessitated vigorous measures. Eugene picked up hisworn-out hat with the tongs, clapped it on his head, and, taking him bythe collar--all this at arm's length--conducted him down stairs and outof the precincts into Fleet Street. There, he turned his face westward, and left him. 

When he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, brooding in asufficiently low-spirited manner. 

'I'll wash my hands of Mr Dolls physically--' said Eugene, 'and be withyou again directly, Mortimer. '

'I would much prefer, ' retorted Mortimer, 'your washing your hands of MrDolls, morally, Eugene. '

'So would I, ' said Eugene; 'but you see, dear boy, I can't do withouthim. '

In a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly unconcerned asusual, and rallied his friend on having so narrowly escaped the prowessof their muscular visitor. 

'I can't be amused on this theme, ' said Mortimer, restlessly. 'You canmake almost any theme amusing to me, Eugene, but not this. '

'Well!' cried Eugene, 'I am a little ashamed of it myself, and thereforelet us change the subject. '

'It is so deplorably underhanded, ' said Mortimer. 'It is so unworthy ofyou, this setting on of such a shameful scout. '

'We have changed the subject!' exclaimed Eugene, airily. 'We have founda new one in that word, scout. Don't be like Patience on a mantelpiecefrowning at Dolls, but sit down, and I'll tell you something that youreally will find amusing. Take a cigar. Look at this of mine. Ilight it--draw one puff--breathe the smoke out--there it goes--it'sDolls!--it's gone--and being gone you are a man again. '

'Your subject, ' said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, and comfortinghimself with a whiff or two, 'was scouts, Eugene. '

'Exactly. Isn't it droll that I never go out after dark, but I findmyself attended, always by one scout, and often by two?'

Lightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and looked at hisfriend, as if with a latent suspicion that there must be a jest orhidden meaning in his words. 

'On my honour, no, ' said Wrayburn, answering the look and smilingcarelessly; 'I don't wonder at your supposing so, but on my honour, no. I say what I mean. I never go out after dark, but I find myself in theludicrous situation of being followed and observed at a distance, alwaysby one scout, and often by two. '

'Are you sure, Eugene?'

'Sure? My dear boy, they are always the same. '

'But there's no process out against you. The Jews only threaten. Theyhave done nothing. Besides, they know where to find you, and I representyou. Why take the trouble?'

'Observe the legal mind!' remarked Eugene, turning round to thefurniture again, with an air of indolent rapture. 'Observe the dyer'shand, assimilating itself to what it works in, --or would work in, ifanybody would give it anything to do. Respected solicitor, it's notthat. The schoolmaster's abroad. '

'The schoolmaster?'

'Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are both abroad. Why, howsoon you rust in my absence! You don't understand yet? Those fellowswho were here one night. They are the scouts I speak of, as doing me thehonour to attend me after dark. '

'How long has this been going on?' asked Lightwood, opposing a seriousface to the laugh of his friend. 

'I apprehend it has been going on, ever since a certain person went off. Probably, it had been going on some little time before I noticed it:which would bring it to about that time. '

'Do you think they suppose you to have inveigled her away?'

'My dear Mortimer, you know the absorbing nature of my professionaloccupations; I really have not had leisure to think about it. '

'Have you asked them what they want? Have you objected?'

'Why should I ask them what they want, dear fellow, when I amindifferent what they want? Why should I express objection, when I don'tobject?'

'You are in your most reckless mood. But you called the situation justnow, a ludicrous one; and most men object to that, even those who areutterly indifferent to everything else. '

'You charm me, Mortimer, with your reading of my weaknesses. (By-the-by, that very word, Reading, in its critical use, always charms me. Anactress's Reading of a chambermaid, a dancer's Reading of a hornpipe, asinger's Reading of a song, a marine painter's Reading of the sea, the kettle-drum's Reading of an instrumental passage, are phrasesever youthful and delightful. ) I was mentioning your perception of myweaknesses. I own to the weakness of objecting to occupy a ludicrousposition, and therefore I transfer the position to the scouts. '

'I wish, Eugene, you would speak a little more soberly and plainly, ifit were only out of consideration for my feeling less at ease than youdo. '

'Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the schoolmaster to madness. I make the schoolmaster so ridiculous, and so aware of being maderidiculous, that I see him chafe and fret at every pore when we crossone another. The amiable occupation has been the solace of my life, since I was baulked in the manner unnecessary to recall. I have derivedinexpressible comfort from it. I do it thus: I stroll out after dark, stroll a little way, look in at a window and furtively look out for theschoolmaster. Sooner or later, I perceive the schoolmaster on the watch;sometimes accompanied by his hopeful pupil; oftener, pupil-less. Havingmade sure of his watching me, I tempt him on, all over London. Onenight I go east, another night north, in a few nights I go all round thecompass. Sometimes, I walk; sometimes, I proceed in cabs, draining thepocket of the schoolmaster who then follows in cabs. I study and getup abstruse No Thoroughfares in the course of the day. With Venetianmystery I seek those No Thoroughfares at night, glide into them by meansof dark courts, tempt the schoolmaster to follow, turn suddenly, andcatch him before he can retreat. Then we face one another, and I passhim as unaware of his existence, and he undergoes grinding torments. Similarly, I walk at a great pace down a short street, rapidly turn thecorner, and, getting out of his view, as rapidly turn back. I catch himcoming on post, again pass him as unaware of his existence, and againhe undergoes grinding torments. Night after night his disappointment isacute, but hope springs eternal in the scholastic breast, and he followsme again to-morrow. Thus I enjoy the pleasures of the chase, and derivegreat benefit from the healthful exercise. When I do not enjoy thepleasures of the chase, for anything I know he watches at the TempleGate all night. '

'This is an extraordinary story, ' observed Lightwood, who had heard itout with serious attention. 'I don't like it. '

'You are a little hipped, dear fellow, ' said Eugene; 'you have been toosedentary. Come and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. '

'Do you mean that you believe he is watching now?'

'I have not the slightest doubt he is. '

'Have you seen him to-night?'

'I forgot to look for him when I was last out, ' returned Eugene with thecalmest indifference; 'but I dare say he was there. Come! Be a Britishsportsman and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. It will do you good. '

Lightwood hesitated; but, yielding to his curiosity, rose. 

'Bravo!' cried Eugene, rising too. 'Or, if Yoicks would be in betterkeeping, consider that I said Yoicks. Look to your feet, Mortimer, forwe shall try your boots. When you are ready, I am--need I say with a HeyHo Chivey, and likewise with a Hark Forward, Hark Forward, Tantivy?'

'Will nothing make you serious?' said Mortimer, laughing through hisgravity. 

'I am always serious, but just now I am a little excited by the gloriousfact that a southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a hunting evening. Ready? So. We turn out the lamp and shut the door, and take the field. '

As the two friends passed out of the Temple into the public street, Eugene demanded with a show of courteous patronage in which directionMortimer would you like the run to be? 'There is a rather difficultcountry about Bethnal Green, ' said Eugene, 'and we have not taken inthat direction lately. What is your opinion of Bethnal Green?' Mortimerassented to Bethnal Green, and they turned eastward. 'Now, when we cometo St Paul's churchyard, ' pursued Eugene, 'we'll loiter artfully, andI'll show you the schoolmaster. ' But, they both saw him, before they gotthere; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the houses, onthe opposite side of the way. 

'Get your wind, ' said Eugene, 'for I am off directly. Does it occurto you that the boys of Merry England will begin to deteriorate in aneducational light, if this lasts long? The schoolmaster can't attend tome and the boys too. Got your wind? I am off!'

At what a rate he went, to breathe the schoolmaster; and how he thenlounged and loitered, to put his patience to another kind of wear;what preposterous ways he took, with no other object on earth than todisappoint and punish him; and how he wore him out by every piece ofingenuity that his eccentric humour could devise; all this Lightwoodnoted, with a feeling of astonishment that so careless a man could be sowary, and that so idle a man could take so much trouble. At last, far onin the third hour of the pleasures of the chase, when he had brought thepoor dogging wretch round again into the City, he twisted Mortimer upa few dark entries, twisted him into a little square court, twisted himsharp round again, and they almost ran against Bradley Headstone. 

'And you see, as I was saying, Mortimer, ' remarked Eugene aloud withthe utmost coolness, as though there were no one within hearingby themselves: 'and you see, as I was saying--undergoing grindingtorments. '

It was not too strong a phrase for the occasion. Looking like the huntedand not the hunter, baffled, worn, with the exhaustion of deferredhope and consuming hate and anger in his face, white-lipped, wild-eyed, draggle-haired, seamed with jealousy and anger, and torturing himselfwith the conviction that he showed it all and they exulted in it, hewent by them in the dark, like a haggard head suspended in the air: socompletely did the force of his expression cancel his figure. 

Mortimer Lightwood was not an extraordinarily impressible man, but thisface impressed him. He spoke of it more than once on the remainder ofthe way home, and more than once when they got home. 

They had been abed in their respective rooms two or three hours, whenEugene was partly awakened by hearing a footstep going about, and wasfully awakened by seeing Lightwood standing at his bedside. 

'Nothing wrong, Mortimer?'

'No. '

'What fancy takes you, then, for walking about in the night?'

'I am horribly wakeful. '

'How comes that about, I wonder!'

'Eugene, I cannot lose sight of that fellow's face. '

'Odd!' said Eugene with a light laugh, 'I can. ' And turned over, andfell asleep again. 

Chapter 11

IN THE DARK

There was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night when EugeneWrayburn turned so easily in his bed; there was no sleep for littleMiss Peecher. Bradley consumed the lonely hours, and consumed himself inhaunting the spot where his careless rival lay a dreaming; little MissPeecher wore them away in listening for the return home of the masterof her heart, and in sorrowfully presaging that much was amiss with him. Yet more was amiss with him than Miss Peecher's simply arranged littlework-box of thoughts, fitted with no gloomy and dark recesses, couldhold. For, the state of the man was murderous. 

The state of the man was murderous, and he knew it. More; he irritatedit, with a kind of perverse pleasure akin to that which a sick mansometimes has in irritating a wound upon his body. Tied up all day withhis disciplined show upon him, subdued to the performance of his routineof educational tricks, encircled by a gabbling crowd, he broke loose atnight like an ill-tamed wild animal. Under his daily restraint, it washis compensation, not his trouble, to give a glance towards his state atnight, and to the freedom of its being indulged. If great criminals toldthe truth--which, being great criminals, they do not--they would veryrarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles aretowards it. They buffet with opposing waves, to gain the bloody shore, not to recede from it. This man perfectly comprehended that he hated hisrival with his strongest and worst forces, and that if he tracked him toLizzie Hexam, his so doing would never serve himself with her, or serveher. All his pains were taken, to the end that he might incense himselfwith the sight of the detested figure in her company and favour, in herplace of concealment. And he knew as well what act of his would followif he did, as he knew that his mother had borne him. Granted, that hemay not have held it necessary to make express mention to himself of theone familiar truth any more than of the other. 

He knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, and that heaccumulated provocation and self-justification, by being made thenightly sport of the reckless and insolent Eugene. Knowing allthis, --and still always going on with infinite endurance, pains, andperseverance, could his dark soul doubt whither he went?

Baffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the Temple gatewhen it closed on Wrayburn and Lightwood, debating with himself shouldhe go home for that time or should he watch longer. Possessed in hisjealousy by the fixed idea that Wrayburn was in the secret, if it werenot altogether of his contriving, Bradley was as confident of gettingthe better of him at last by sullenly sticking to him, as he would havebeen--and often had been--of mastering any piece of study in the wayof his vocation, by the like slow persistent process. A man of rapidpassions and sluggish intelligence, it had served him often and shouldserve him again. 

The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his eyes uponthe Temple gate, that perhaps she was even concealed in that set ofChambers. It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn's purposelesswalks, and it might be. He thought of it and thought of it, untilhe resolved to steal up the stairs, if the gatekeeper would let himthrough, and listen. So, the haggard head suspended in the air flittedacross the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads erst hoistedupon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped before the watchman. 

The watchman looked at it, and asked: 'Who for?'

'Mr Wrayburn. '

'It's very late. '

'He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours ago. But ifhe has gone to bed, I'll put a paper in his letter-box. I am expected. '

The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though ratherdoubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and fast inthe right direction, he seemed satisfied. 

The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly descendednearer to the floor outside the outer door of the chambers. The doorsof the rooms within, appeared to be standing open. There were rays ofcandlelight from one of them, and there was the sound of a footstepgoing about. There were two voices. The words they uttered were notdistinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In a few momentsthe voices were silent, and there was no sound of footstep, and theinner light went out. If Lightwood could have seen the face which kepthim awake, staring and listening in the darkness outside the door ashe spoke of it, he might have been less disposed to sleep, through theremainder of the night. 

'Not there, ' said Bradley; 'but she might have been. ' The head arose toits former height from the ground, floated down the stair-case again, and passed on to the gate. A man was standing there, in parley with thewatchman. 

'Oh!' said the watchman. 'Here he is!'

Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from thewatchman to the man. 

'This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood, ' the watchman explained, showing it in his hand; 'and I was mentioning that a person had justgone up to Mr Lightwood's chambers. It might be the same businessperhaps?'

'No, ' said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to him. 

'No, ' the man assented in a surly way; 'my letter--it's wrote by mydaughter, but it's mine--is about my business, and my business ain'tnobody else's business. '

As Bradley passed out at the gate with an undecided foot, he heard itshut behind him, and heard the footstep of the man coming after him. 

''Scuse me, ' said the man, who appeared to have been drinking and ratherstumbled at him than touched him, to attract his attention: 'but mightyou be acquainted with the T'other Governor?'

'With whom?' asked Bradley. 

'With, ' returned the man, pointing backward over his right shoulder withhis right thumb, 'the T'other Governor?'

'I don't know what you mean. '

'Why look here, ' hooking his proposition on his left-hand fingers withthe forefinger of his right. 'There's two Governors, ain't there? Oneand one, two--Lawyer Lightwood, my first finger, he's one, ain't he?Well; might you be acquainted with my middle finger, the T'other?'

'I know quite as much of him, ' said Bradley, with a frown and a distantlook before him, 'as I want to know. '

'Hooroar!' cried the man. 'Hooroar T'other t'other Governor. HooroarT'otherest Governor! I am of your way of thinkin'. '

'Don't make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. What are youtalking about?'

'Look here, T'otherest Governor, ' replied the man, becoming hoarselyconfidential. 'The T'other Governor he's always joked his jokes agin me, owing, as I believe, to my being a honest man as gets my living by thesweat of my brow. Which he ain't, and he don't. '

'What is that to me?'

'T'otherest Governor, ' returned the man in a tone of injured innocence, 'if you don't care to hear no more, don't hear no more. You begun it. You said, and likeways showed pretty plain, as you warn't by no meansfriendly to him. But I don't seek to force my company nor yet myopinions on no man. I am a honest man, that's what I am. Put me in thedock anywhere--I don't care where--and I says, "My Lord, I am a honestman. " Put me in the witness-box anywhere--I don't care where--and Isays the same to his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don't kiss mycoat-cuff; I kisses the book. '

It was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials tocharacter, as in his restless casting about for any way or help towardsthe discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley Headstonereplied: 'You needn't take offence. I didn't mean to stop you. You weretoo--loud in the open street; that was all. '

''Totherest Governor, ' replied Mr Riderhood, mollified and mysterious, 'I know wot it is to be loud, and I know wot it is to be soft. Nat'rallyI do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by the Chris'en name ofRoger, which took it arter my own father, which took it from his ownfather, though which of our fam'ly fust took it nat'ral I will not inany ways mislead you by undertakin' to say. And wishing that your elthmay be better than your looks, which your inside must be bad indeed ifit's on the footing of your out. '

Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much of his mind, Bradley made an effort to clear his brow. It might be worth knowing whatthis strange man's business was with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or both, atsuch an unseasonable hour. He set himself to find out, for the man mightprove to be a messenger between those two. 

'You call at the Temple late, ' he remarked, with a lumbering show ofease. 

'Wish I may die, ' cried Mr Riderhood, with a hoarse laugh, 'if I warn'ta goin' to say the self-same words to you, T'otherest Governor!'

'It chanced so with me, ' said Bradley, looking disconcertedly about him. 

'And it chanced so with me, ' said Riderhood. 'But I don't mind tellingyou how. Why should I mind telling you? I'm a Deputy Lock-keeper up theriver, and I was off duty yes'day, and I shall be on to-morrow. '

'Yes?'

'Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. My privateaffairs is to get appinted to the Lock as reg'lar keeper at fust hand, and to have the law of a busted B'low-Bridge steamer which drownded ofme. I ain't a goin' to be drownded and not paid for it!'

Bradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be a Ghost. 

'The steamer, ' said Mr Riderhood, obstinately, 'run me down and drowndedof me. Interference on the part of other parties brought me round; butI never asked 'em to bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked 'emto it. I mean to be paid for the life as the steamer took. '

'Was that your business at Mr Lightwood's chambers in the middle of thenight?' asked Bradley, eyeing him with distrust. 

'That and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock Keeper. A recommendationin writing being looked for, who else ought to give it to me? As I saysin the letter in my daughter's hand, with my mark put to it to make itgood in law, Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this herestifficate, and who but you ought to go in for damages on my accountagin the Steamer? For (as I says under my mark) I have had troubleenough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer Lightwood, hadbacked me good and true, and if the T'other Governor had took me downcorrect (I says under my mark), I should have been worth money at thepresent time, instead of having a barge-load of bad names chucked at me, and being forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of foodwotever a man's appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night, T'otherest Governor, ' growled Mr Riderhood, winding up his monotonoussummary of his wrongs, 'throw your eye on this here bundle under my arm, and bear in mind that I'm a walking back to my Lock, and that the Templelaid upon my line of road. '

Bradley Headstone's face had changed during this latter recital, and hehad observed the speaker with a more sustained attention. 

'Do you know, ' said he, after a pause, during which they walked on sideby side, 'that I believe I could tell you your name, if I tried?'

'Prove your opinion, ' was the answer, accompanied with a stop and astare. 'Try. '

'Your name is Riderhood. '

'I'm blest if it ain't, ' returned that gentleman. 'But I don't knowyour'n. '

'That's quite another thing, ' said Bradley. 'I never supposed you did. '

As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his sidemuttering. The purport of the muttering was: 'that Rogue Riderhood, byGeorge! seemed to be made public property on, now, and that every manseemed to think himself free to handle his name as if it was a StreetPump. ' The purport of the meditating was: 'Here is an instrument. Can Iuse it?'

They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turnedup-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone waiting on the paceand lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So slowwere the schoolmaster's thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes whenthey were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose or rather when, like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista atthe end of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie onwhich his eyes were fixed--that at least a good half-mile was traversedbefore he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask:

'Where is your Lock?'

'Twenty mile and odd--call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, if youlike--up stream, ' was the sullen reply. 

'How is it called?'

'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. '

'Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then?'

'Why, then, I'd take it, ' said Mr Riderhood. 

The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced twohalf-crowns, and placed them in Mr Riderhood's palm: who stopped ata convenient doorstep to ring them both, before acknowledging theirreceipt. 

'There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor, ' said Riderhood, faring on again, 'as looks well and goes fur. You're a ready money man. Now;' when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himselfwhich was furthest from his new friend; 'what's this for?'

'For you. '

'Why, o' course I know THAT, ' said Riderhood, as arguing something thatwas self-evident. 'O' course I know very well as no man in his rightsenses would suppose as anythink would make me give it up agin when I'donce got it. But what do you want for it?'

'I don't know that I want anything for it. Or if I do want anythingfor it, I don't know what it is. ' Bradley gave this answer in a stolid, vacant, and self-communing manner, which Mr Riderhood found veryextraordinary. 

'You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn, ' said Bradley, coming tothe name in a reluctant and forced way, as if he were dragged to it. 

'No. '

'Neither have I. '

Riderhood nodded, and asked: 'Is it for that?'

'It's as much for that as anything else. It's something to be agreedwith, on a subject that occupies so much of one's thoughts. '

'It don't agree with YOU, ' returned Mr Riderhood, bluntly. 'No! Itdon't, T'otherest Governor, and it's no use a lookin' as if you wantedto make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in you. It rankles inyou, rusts in you, and pisons you. '

'Say that it does so, ' returned Bradley with quivering lips; 'is thereno cause for it?'

'Cause enough, I'll bet a pound!' cried Mr Riderhood. 

'Haven't you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped provocations, insults, and affronts on you, or something to that effect? He has donethe same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from thecrown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or sostupid, as not to know that he and the other will treat your applicationwith contempt, and light their cigars with it?'

'I shouldn't wonder if they did, by George!' said Riderhood, turningangry. 

'If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. I know somethingmore than your name about you; I knew something about Gaffer Hexam. Whendid you last set eyes upon his daughter?'

'When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T'otherest Governor?'repeated Mr Riderhood, growing intentionally slower of comprehension asthe other quickened in his speech. 

'Yes. Not to speak to her. To see her--anywhere?'

The Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it with a clumsyhand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate face, as if he were tryingto work out a sum in his mind, he slowly answered:

'I ain't set eyes upon her--never once--not since the day of Gaffer'sdeath. '

'You know her well, by sight?'

'I should think I did! No one better. '

'And you know him as well?'

'Who's him?' asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and rubbing hisforehead, as he directed a dull look at his questioner. 

'Curse the name! Is it so agreeable to you that you want to hear itagain?'

'Oh! HIM!' said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster intothis corner, that he might again take note of his face under its evilpossession. 'I'd know HIM among a thousand. '

'Did you--' Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he mightwith his voice, he could not subdue his face;--'did you ever see themtogether?'

(The Rogue had got the clue in both hands now. )

'I see 'em together, T'otherest Governor, on the very day when Gafferwas towed ashore. '

Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharpeyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyesof the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast. 'You shall put it plain if you want it answered, ' thought the Rogue, doggedly; 'I ain't a-going a wolunteering. '

'Well! was he insolent to her too?' asked Bradley after a struggle. 'Ordid he make a show of being kind to her?'

'He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her, ' said Riderhood. 'ByGeorge! now I--'

His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked athim for the reason. 

'Now I think of it, ' said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he wassubstituting those words for 'Now I see you so jealous, ' which was thephrase really in his mind; 'P'r'aps he went and took me down wrong, apurpose, on account o' being sweet upon her!'

The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (forhe could not have really entertained it), was a line's breadth beyondthe mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing andintriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, andupon her brother too, was attained. The line's breadth further, laybeyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face. 

What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work out in hisslow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had an injury against the object ofhis hatred, and that was something; though it was less than he supposed, for there dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as burnedin his own breast. The man knew her, and might by a fortunate chance seeher, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyesand ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be inhis pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were asbad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from thepossession of a congenial instrument, though it might never be used. 

Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank if he knewwhere she was? Clearly, he did not know. He asked Riderhood if he wouldbe willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seekingher or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate itif it were paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was 'agin 'emboth, ' he said with an oath, and for why? 'Cause they had both stoodbetwixt him and his getting his living by the sweat of his brow. 

'It will not be long then, ' said Bradley Headstone, after some morediscourse to this effect, 'before we see one another again. Here is thecountry road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise. '

'But, T'otherest Governor, ' urged Mr Riderhood, 'I don't know where tofind you. '

'It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll come toyour Lock. '

'But, T'otherest Governor, ' urged Mr Riderhood again, 'no luck nevercome yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's wet it, in a mouth-fill of rum andmilk, T'otherest Governor. '

Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, haunted byunsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts, farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain humannightbirds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves aftertheir several manners; and where not one of the nightbirds hoveringabout the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wastednightbird with respectable feathers, the worst nightbird of all. 

An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going his way ledto Mr Riderhood's being elevated on a high heap of baskets on a waggon, and pursuing his journey recumbent on his back with his head on hisbundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his steps, and by-and-by struckoff through little-traversed ways, and by-and-by reached school andhome. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodicallydressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, andpepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket, and its decent hair-guard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad forthe field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him. 

Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of themuch-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities under acontagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture, he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newlygone. He had been spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a recordof the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scriptureon the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken frightand run away from the master. 

Chapter 12

MEANING MISCHIEF

Up came the sun, steaming all over London, and in its gloriousimpartiality even condescending to make prismatic sparkles in thewhiskers of Mr Alfred Lammle as he sat at breakfast. In need of somebrightening from without, was Mr Alfred Lammle, for he had the air ofbeing dull enough within, and looked grievously discontented. 

Mrs Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of swindlers, withthe comfortable tie between them that each had swindled the other, satmoodily observant of the tablecloth. Things looked so gloomy in thebreakfast-room, albeit on the sunny side of Sackville Street, that anyof the family tradespeople glancing through the blinds might have takenthe hint to send in his account and press for it. But this, indeed, mostof the family tradespeople had already done, without the hint. 

'It seems to me, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'that you have had no money at all, ever since we have been married. '

'What seems to you, ' said Mr Lammle, 'to have been the case, maypossibly have been the case. It doesn't matter. '

Was it the speciality of Mr and Mrs Lammle, or does it ever obtainwith other loving couples? In these matrimonial dialogues they neveraddressed each other, but always some invisible presence that appearedto take a station about midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in thecupboard comes out to be talked to, on such domestic occasions?

'I have never seen any money in the house, ' said Mrs Lammle to theskeleton, 'except my own annuity. That I swear. '

'You needn't take the trouble of swearing, ' said Mr Lammle to theskeleton; 'once more, it doesn't matter. You never turned your annuityto so good an account. '

'Good an account! In what way?' asked Mrs Lammle. 

'In the way of getting credit, and living well, ' said Mr Lammle. Perhapsthe skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted with this questionand this answer; certainly Mrs Lammle did, and Mr Lammle did. 

'And what is to happen next?' asked Mrs Lammle of the skeleton. 

'Smash is to happen next, ' said Mr Lammle to the same authority. 

After this, Mrs Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton--but withoutcarrying the look on to Mr Lammle--and drooped her eyes. After that, MrLammle did exactly the same thing, and drooped HIS eyes. A servant thenentering with toast, the skeleton retired into the closet, and shutitself up. 

'Sophronia, ' said Mr Lammle, when the servant had withdrawn. And then, very much louder: 'Sophronia!'

'Well?'

'Attend to me, if you please. ' He eyed her sternly until she did attend, and then went on. 'I want to take counsel with you. Come, come; no moretrifling. You know our league and covenant. We are to work together forour joint interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn'tbe together, if you were not. What's to be done? We are hemmed into acorner. What shall we do?'

'Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in anything?'

Mr Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came outhopeless: 'No; as adventurers we are obliged to play rash games forchances of high winnings, and there has been a run of luck against us. '

She was resuming, 'Have you nothing--' when he stopped her. 

'We, Sophronia. We, we, we. '

'Have we nothing to sell?'

'Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this furniture, andhe could take it to-morrow, to-day, now. He would have taken it beforenow, I believe, but for Fledgeby. '

'What has Fledgeby to do with him?'

'Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into his claws. Couldn't persuade him then, in behalf of somebody else. '

'Do you mean that Fledgeby has at all softened him towards you?'

'Us, Sophronia. Us, us, us. '

'Towards us?'

'I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might have done, and thatFledgeby takes the credit of having got him to hold his hand. '

'Do you believe Fledgeby?'

'Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my dear, since Ibelieved you. But it looks like it. '

Having given her this back-handed reminder of her mutinous observationsto the skeleton, Mr Lammle rose from table--perhaps, the better toconceal a smile, and a white dint or two about his nose--and took a turnon the carpet and came to the hearthrug. 

'If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana;--but however;that's spilled milk. '

As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown withhis back to the fire, said this, looking down at his wife, she turnedpale and looked down at the ground. With a sense of disloyalty uponher, and perhaps with a sense of personal danger--for she was afraid ofhim--even afraid of his hand and afraid of his foot, though he had neverdone her violence--she hastened to put herself right in his eyes. 

'If we could borrow money, Alfred--'

'Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be all one to us, Sophronia, ' her husband struck in. 

'--Then, we could weather this?'

'No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, Sophronia, two and two make four. '

But, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he gathered upthe skirts of his dressing-gown again, and, tucking them under one arm, and collecting his ample whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye uponher, silently. 

'It is natural, Alfred, ' she said, looking up with some timidity intohis face, 'to think in such an emergency of the richest people we know, and the simplest. '

'Just so, Sophronia. '

'The Boffins. '

'Just so, Sophronia. '

'Is there nothing to be done with them?'

'What is there to be done with them, Sophronia?'

She cast about in her thoughts again, and he kept his eye upon her asbefore. 

'Of course I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, Sophronia, ' heresumed, after a fruitless silence; 'but I have seen my way to nothing. They are well guarded. That infernal Secretary stands between themand--people of merit. '

'If he could be got rid of?' said she, brightening a little, after morecasting about. 

'Take time, Sophronia, ' observed her watchful husband, in a patronizingmanner. 

'If working him out of the way could be presented in the light of aservice to Mr Boffin?'

'Take time, Sophronia. '

'We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the old man is turning verysuspicious and distrustful. '

'Miserly too, my dear; which is far the most unpromising for us. Nevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take time. '

She took time and then said:

'Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in him of which wehave made ourselves quite sure. Suppose my conscience--'

'And we know what a conscience it is, my soul. Yes?'

'Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to myself anylonger what that upstart girl told me of the Secretary's having made adeclaration to her. Suppose my conscience should oblige me to repeat itto Mr Boffin. '

'I rather like that, ' said Lammle. 

'Suppose I so repeated it to Mr Boffin, as to insinuate that mysensitive delicacy and honour--'

'Very good words, Sophronia. '

'--As to insinuate that OUR sensitive delicacy and honour, ' she resumed, with a bitter stress upon the phrase, 'would not allow us to be silentparties to so mercenary and designing a speculation on the Secretary'spart, and so gross a breach of faith towards his confiding employer. Suppose I had imparted my virtuous uneasiness to my excellent husband, and he had said, in his integrity, "Sophronia, you must immediatelydisclose this to Mr Boffin. "'

'Once more, Sophronia, ' observed Lammle, changing the leg on which hestood, 'I rather like that. '

'You remark that he is well guarded, ' she pursued. 'I think so too. Butif this should lead to his discharging his Secretary, there would be aweak place made. '

'Go on expounding, Sophronia. I begin to like this very much. '

'Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the service of openinghis eyes to the treachery of the person he trusted, we shall haveestablished a claim upon him and a confidence with him. Whether itcan be made much of, or little of, we must wait--because we can't helpit--to see. Probably we shall make the most of it that is to be made. '

'Probably, ' said Lammle. 

'Do you think it impossible, ' she asked, in the same cold plotting way, 'that you might replace the Secretary?'

'Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. At any rate itmight be skilfully led up to. '

She nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked at the fire. 'MrLammle, ' she said, musingly: not without a slight ironical touch: 'MrLammle would be so delighted to do anything in his power. Mr Lammle, himself a man of business as well as a capitalist. Mr Lammle, accustomedto be intrusted with the most delicate affairs. Mr Lammle, who hasmanaged my own little fortune so admirably, but who, to be sure, beganto make his reputation with the advantage of being a man of property, above temptation, and beyond suspicion. '

Mr Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his sinisterrelish of the scheme, as he stood above her, making it the subject ofhis cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose on his face as hehad ever had in his life. 

He stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire withoutmoving, for some time. But, the moment he began to speak again shelooked up with a wince and attended to him, as if that double-dealing ofhers had been in her mind, and the fear were revived in her of his handor his foot. 

'It appears to me, Sophronia, that you have omitted one branch of thesubject. Perhaps not, for women understand women. We might oust the girlherself?'

Mrs Lammle shook her head. 'She has an immensely strong hold upon themboth, Alfred. Not to be compared with that of a paid secretary. 

'But the dear child, ' said Lammle, with a crooked smile, 'ought to havebeen open with her benefactor and benefactress. The darling loveought to have reposed unbounded confidence in her benefactor andbenefactress. '

Sophronia shook her head again. 

'Well! Women understand women, ' said her husband, rather disappointed. 'I don't press it. It might be the making of our fortune to make aclean sweep of them both. With me to manage the property, and my wife tomanage the people--Whew!'

Again shaking her head, she returned: 'They will never quarrel with thegirl. They will never punish the girl. We must accept the girl, relyupon it. '

'Well!' cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, 'so be it: only alwaysremember that we don't want her. '

'Now, the sole remaining question is, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'when shall Ibegin?'

'You cannot begin too soon, Sophronia. As I have told you, the conditionof our affairs is desperate, and may be blown upon at any moment. '

'I must secure Mr Boffin alone, Alfred. If his wife was present, shewould throw oil upon the waters. I know I should fail to move him to anangry outburst, if his wife was there. And as to the girl herself--as Iam going to betray her confidence, she is equally out of the question. '

'It wouldn't do to write for an appointment?' said Lammle. 

'No, certainly not. They would wonder among themselves why I wrote, andI want to have him wholly unprepared. '

'Call, and ask to see him alone?' suggested Lammle. 

'I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare me the littlecarriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don't succeed to-day), andI'll lie in wait for him. '

It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pass the windowsand heard to knock and ring. 'Here's Fledgeby, ' said Lammle. 'He admiresyou, and has a high opinion of you. I'll be out. Coax him to use hisinfluence with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the House of Pubsey andCo. ' Adding these words under his breath, lest he should be audiblein the erect ears of Mr Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall, Lammle, making signals of discretion to his servant, went softly upstairs. 

'Mr Fledgeby, ' said Mrs Lammle, giving him a very gracious reception, 'so glad to see you! My poor dear Alfred, who is greatly worried justnow about his affairs, went out rather early. Dear Mr Fledgeby, do sitdown. '

Dear Mr Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judging fromthe expression of his countenance, DISsatisfied himself) that nothingnew had occurred in the way of whisker-sprout since he came round thecorner from the Albany. 

'Dear Mr Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my poor dearAlfred is much worried about his affairs at present, for he has told mewhat a comfort you are to him in his temporary difficulties, and what agreat service you have rendered him. '

'Oh!' said Mr Fledgeby. 

'Yes, ' said Mrs Lammle. 

'I didn't know, ' remarked Mr Fledgeby, trying a new part of his chair, 'but that Lammle might be reserved about his affairs. '

'Not to me, ' said Mrs Lammle, with deep feeling. 

'Oh, indeed?' said Fledgeby. 

'Not to me, dear Mr Fledgeby. I am his wife. '

'Yes. I--I always understood so, ' said Mr Fledgeby. 

'And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr Fledgeby, wholly without hisauthority or knowledge, as I am sure your discernment will perceive, entreat you to continue that great service, and once more use yourwell-earned influence with Mr Riah for a little more indulgence? Thename I have heard Alfred mention, tossing in his dreams, IS Riah; is itnot?'

'The name of the Creditor is Riah, ' said Mr Fledgeby, with a ratheruncompromising accent on his noun-substantive. 'Saint Mary Axe. Pubseyand Co. '

'Oh yes!' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, clasping her hands with a certaingushing wildness. 'Pubsey and Co. !'

'The pleading of the feminine--' Mr Fledgeby began, and there stuck solong for a word to get on with, that Mrs Lammle offered him sweetly, 'Heart?'

'No, ' said Mr Fledgeby, 'Gender--is ever what a man is bound to listento, and I wish it rested with myself. But this Riah is a nasty one, MrsLammle; he really is. '

'Not if YOU speak to him, dear Mr Fledgeby. '

'Upon my soul and body he is!' said Fledgeby. 

'Try. Try once more, dearest Mr Fledgeby. What is there you cannot do, if you will!'

'Thank you, ' said Fledgeby, 'you're very complimentary to say so. Idon't mind trying him again, at your request. But of course I can'tanswer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, and when he sayshe'll do a thing, he'll do it. '

'Exactly so, ' cried Mrs Lammle, 'and when he says to you he'll wait, he'll wait. '

('She is a devilish clever woman, ' thought Fledgeby. 'I didn't see thatopening, but she spies it out and cuts into it as soon as it's made. ')

'In point of fact, dear Mr Fledgeby, ' Mrs Lammle went on in a veryinteresting manner, 'not to affect concealment of Alfred's hopes, to youwho are so much his friend, there is a distant break in his horizon. '

This figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascination Fledgeby, who said, 'There's a what in his--eh?'

'Alfred, dear Mr Fledgeby, discussed with me this very morning before hewent out, some prospects he has, which might entirely change the aspectof his present troubles. '

'Really?' said Fledgeby. 

'O yes!' Here Mrs Lammle brought her handkerchief into play. 'And youknow, dear Mr Fledgeby--you who study the human heart, and study theworld--what an affliction it would be to lose position and to losecredit, when ability to tide over a very short time might save allappearances. '

'Oh!' said Fledgeby. 'Then you think, Mrs Lammle, that if Lammlegot time, he wouldn't burst up?--To use an expression, ' Mr Fledgebyapologetically explained, 'which is adopted in the Money Market. '

'Indeed yes. Truly, truly, yes!'

'That makes all the difference, ' said Fledgeby. 'I'll make a point ofseeing Riah at once. '

'Blessings on you, dearest Mr Fledgeby!'

'Not at all, ' said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. 'The hand, ' said MrFledgeby, 'of a lovely and superior-minded female is ever the repaymentof a--'

'Noble action!' said Mrs Lammle, extremely anxious to get rid of him. 

'It wasn't what I was going to say, ' returned Fledgeby, who never would, under any circumstances, accept a suggested expression, 'but you're verycomplimentary. May I imprint a--a one--upon it? Good morning!'

'I may depend upon your promptitude, dearest Mr Fledgeby?'

Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully kissing hishand, 'You may depend upon it. '

In fact, Mr Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the goodspirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their stationin his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a freshtrill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of thestaircase: 'Now, Judah, what are you up to there?'

The old man appeared, with his accustomed deference. 

'Halloa!' said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. 'You mean mischief, Jerusalem!'

The old man raised his eyes inquiringly. 

'Yes you do, ' said Fledgeby. 'Oh, you sinner! Oh, you dodger! What!You're going to act upon that bill of sale at Lammle's, are you? Nothingwill turn you, won't it? You won't be put off for another single minute, won't you?'

Ordered to immediate action by the master's tone and look, the old mantook up his hat from the little counter where it lay. 

'You have been told that he might pull through it, if you didn't go into win, Wide-Awake; have you?' said Fledgeby. 'And it's not your gamethat he should pull through it; ain't it? You having got security, andthere being enough to pay you? Oh, you Jew!'

The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, as if theremight be further instructions for him in reserve. 

'Do I go, sir?' he at length asked in a low voice. 

'Asks me if he is going!' exclaimed Fledgeby. 'Asks me, as if he didn'tknow his own purpose! Asks me, as if he hadn't got his hat on ready!Asks me, as if his sharp old eye--why, it cuts like a knife--wasn'tlooking at his walking-stick by the door!'

'Do I go, sir?'

'Do you go?' sneered Fledgeby. 'Yes, you do go. Toddle, Judah!'

Chapter 13

GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM

Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, strolled aboutwith his hat on one side, whistling, and investigating the drawers, andprying here and there for any small evidences of his being cheated, but could find none. 'Not his merit that he don't cheat me, ' was MrFledgeby's commentary delivered with a wink, 'but my precaution. ' Hethen with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as lord of Pubsey andCo. By poking his cane at the stools and boxes, and spitting in thefireplace, and so loitered royally to the window and looked out into thenarrow street, with his small eyes just peering over the top of Pubseyand Co. 's blind. As a blind in more senses than one, it reminded himthat he was alone in the counting-house with the front door open. He wasmoving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified withthe establishment, when he was stopped by some one coming to the door. 

This some one was the dolls' dressmaker, with a little basket on herarm, and her crutch stick in her hand. Her keen eyes had espied MrFledgeby before Mr Fledgeby had espied her, and he was paralysed in hispurpose of shutting her out, not so much by her approaching the door, asby her favouring him with a shower of nods, the instant he saw her. Thisadvantage she improved by hobbling up the steps with such despatch thatbefore Mr Fledgeby could take measures for her finding nobody at home, she was face to face with him in the counting-house. 

'Hope I see you well, sir, ' said Miss Wren. 'Mr Riah in?'

Fledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the attitude of one waitingwearily. 'I suppose he will be back soon, ' he replied; 'he has cutout and left me expecting him back, in an odd way. Haven't I seen youbefore?'

'Once before--if you had your eyesight, ' replied Miss Wren; theconditional clause in an under-tone. 

'When you were carrying on some games up at the top of the house. Iremember. How's your friend?'

'I have more friends than one, sir, I hope, ' replied Miss Wren. 'Whichfriend?'

'Never mind, ' said Mr Fledgeby, shutting up one eye, 'any of yourfriends, all your friends. Are they pretty tolerable?'

Somewhat confounded, Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, and sat down in acorner behind the door, with her basket in her lap. By-and-by, she said, breaking a long and patient silence:

'I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr Riah at this time, andso I generally come at this time. I only want to buy my poor little twoshillings' worth of waste. Perhaps you'll kindly let me have it, andI'll trot off to my work. '

'I let you have it?' said Fledgeby, turning his head towards her; for hehad been sitting blinking at the light, and feeling his cheek. 'Why, youdon't really suppose that I have anything to do with the place, or thebusiness; do you?'

'Suppose?' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'He said, that day, you were themaster!'

'The old cock in black said? Riah said? Why, he'd say anything. '

'Well; but you said so too, ' returned Miss Wren. 'Or at least you tookon like the master, and didn't contradict him. '

'One of his dodges, ' said Mr Fledgeby, with a cool and contemptuousshrug. 'He's made of dodges. He said to me, "Come up to the top of thehouse, sir, and I'll show you a handsome girl. But I shall call youthe master. " So I went up to the top of the house and he showed me thehandsome girl (very well worth looking at she was), and I was called themaster. I don't know why. I dare say he don't. He loves a dodge forits own sake; being, ' added Mr Fledgeby, after casting about for anexpressive phrase, 'the dodgerest of all the dodgers. '

'Oh my head!' cried the dolls' dressmaker, holding it with both herhands, as if it were cracking. 'You can't mean what you say. '

'I can, my little woman, retorted Fledgeby, 'and I do, I assure you. 

This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on Fledgeby'spart, in case of his being surprised by any other caller, but was also aretort upon Miss Wren for her over-sharpness, and a pleasant instanceof his humour as regarded the old Jew. 'He has got a bad name as an oldJew, and he is paid for the use of it, and I'll have my money's worthout of him. ' This was Fledgeby's habitual reflection in the way ofbusiness, and it was sharpened just now by the old man's presumingto have a secret from him: though of the secret itself, as annoyingsomebody else whom he disliked, he by no means disapproved. 

Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door lookingthoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient silence hadagain set in for some time, when the expression of Mr Fledgeby's facebetokened that through the upper portion of the door, which was ofglass, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the counting-house. Presently there was a rustle and a tap, and then some more rustling andanother tap. Fledgeby taking no notice, the door was at length softlyopened, and the dried face of a mild little elderly gentleman looked in. 

'Mr Riah?' said this visitor, very politely. 

'I am waiting for him, sir, ' returned Mr Fledgeby. 'He went out and leftme here. I expect him back every minute. Perhaps you had better take achair. '

The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as ifhe were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr Fledgeby eyed him aside, andseemed to relish his attitude. 

'A fine day, sir, ' remarked Fledgeby. 

The little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own depressedreflections that he did not notice the remark until the sound of MrFledgeby's voice had died out of the counting-house. Then he started, and said: 'I beg your pardon, sir. I fear you spoke to me?'

'I said, ' remarked Fledgeby, a little louder than before, 'it was a fineday. '

'I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. Yes. '

Again the little dried gentleman put his hand to his forehead, and againMr Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his doing it. When the gentleman changed hisattitude with a sigh, Fledgeby spake with a grin. 

'Mr Twemlow, I think?'

The dried gentleman seemed much surprised. 

'Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle's, ' said Fledgeby. 'Evenhave the honour of being a connexion of yours. An unexpected sort ofplace this to meet in; but one never knows, when one gets into the City, what people one may knock up against. I hope you have your health, andare enjoying yourself. '

There might have been a touch of impertinence in the last words; on theother hand, it might have been but the native grace of Mr Fledgeby'smanner. Mr Fledgeby sat on a stool with a foot on the rail of anotherstool, and his hat on. Mr Twemlow had uncovered on looking in at thedoor, and remained so. Now the conscientious Twemlow, knowing what hehad done to thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly disconcertedby this encounter. He was as ill at ease as a gentleman well could be. He felt himself bound to conduct himself stiffly towards Fledgeby, and he made him a distant bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes smallerin taking special note of his manner. The dolls' dressmaker sat in hercorner behind the door, with her eyes on the ground and her hands foldedon her basket, holding her crutch-stick between them, and appearing totake no heed of anything. 

'He's a long time, ' muttered Mr Fledgeby, looking at his watch. 'Whattime may you make it, Mr Twemlow?'

Mr Twemlow made it ten minutes past twelve, sir. 

'As near as a toucher, ' assented Fledgeby. 'I hope, Mr Twemlow, yourbusiness here may be of a more agreeable character than mine. '

'Thank you, sir, ' said Mr Twemlow. 

Fledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced with greatcomplacency at Twemlow, who was timorously tapping the table with afolded letter. 

'What I know of Mr Riah, ' said Fledgeby, with a very disparagingutterance of his name, 'leads me to believe that this is about the shopfor disagreeable business. I have always found him the bitingest andtightest screw in London. '

Mr Twemlow acknowledged the remark with a little distant bow. Itevidently made him nervous. 

'So much so, ' pursued Fledgeby, 'that if it wasn't to be true to afriend, nobody should catch me waiting here a single minute. But if youhave friends in adversity, stand by them. That's what I say and act upto. '

The equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of theutterer, demanded his cordial assent. 'You are very right, sir, ' herejoined with spirit. 'You indicate the generous and manly course. 

'Glad to have your approbation, ' returned Fledgeby. 'It's a coincidence, Mr Twemlow;' here he descended from his perch, and sauntered towardshim; 'that the friends I am standing by to-day are the friends at whosehouse I met you! The Lammles. She's a very taking and agreeable woman?'

Conscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. 'Yes, ' he said. 'She is. '

'And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try what I coulddo to pacify their creditor, this Mr Riah--that I certainly have gainedsome little influence with in transacting business for another friend, but nothing like so much as she supposes--and when a woman like thatspoke to me as her dearest Mr Fledgeby, and shed tears--why what could Ido, you know?'

Twemlow gasped 'Nothing but come. '

'Nothing but come. And so I came. But why, ' said Fledgeby, puttinghis hands in his pockets and counterfeiting deep meditation, 'why Riahshould have started up, when I told him that the Lammles entreated himto hold over a Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why heshould have cut out, saying he would be back directly; and why he shouldhave left me here alone so long; I cannot understand. '

The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was not in acondition to offer any suggestion. He was too penitent, too remorseful. For the first time in his life he had done an underhanded action, and hehad done wrong. He had secretly interposed against this confiding youngman, for no better real reason than because the young man's ways werenot his ways. 

But, the confiding young man proceeded to heap coals of fire on hissensitive head. 

'I beg your pardon, Mr Twemlow; you see I am acquainted with the natureof the affairs that are transacted here. Is there anything I can do foryou here? You have always been brought up as a gentleman, and never as aman of business;' another touch of possible impertinence in this place;'and perhaps you are but a poor man of business. What else is to beexpected!'

'I am even a poorer man of business than I am a man, sir, ' returnedTwemlow, 'and I could hardly express my deficiency in a stronger way. Ireally do not so much as clearly understand my position in the matteron which I am brought here. But there are reasons which make mevery delicate of accepting your assistance. I am greatly, greatly, disinclined to profit by it. I don't deserve it. '

Good childish creature! Condemned to a passage through the world by suchnarrow little dimly-lighted ways, and picking up so few specks or spotson the road!

'Perhaps, ' said Fledgeby, 'you may be a little proud of entering on thetopic, --having been brought up as a gentleman. '

'It's not that, sir, ' returned Twemlow, 'it's not that. I hope Idistinguish between true pride and false pride. '

'I have no pride at all, myself, ' said Fledgeby, 'and perhaps I don'tcut things so fine as to know one from t'other. But I know this is aplace where even a man of business needs his wits about him; and if minecan be of any use to you here, you're welcome to them. '

'You are very good, ' said Twemlow, faltering. 'But I am mostunwilling--'

'I don't, you know, ' proceeded Fledgeby with an ill-favoured glance, 'entertain the vanity of supposing that my wits could be of any useto you in society, but they might be here. You cultivate society andsociety cultivates you, but Mr Riah's not society. In society, Mr Riahis kept dark; eh, Mr Twemlow?'

Twemlow, much disturbed, and with his hand fluttering about hisforehead, replied: 'Quite true. '

The confiding young man besought him to state his case. The innocentTwemlow, expecting Fledgeby to be astounded by what he should unfold, and not for an instant conceiving the possibility of its happening everyday, but treating of it as a terrible phenomenon occurring in the courseof ages, related how that he had had a deceased friend, a married civilofficer with a family, who had wanted money for change of place onchange of post, and how he, Twemlow, had 'given him his name, ' with theusual, but in the eyes of Twemlow almost incredible result that he hadbeen left to repay what he had never had. How, in the course of years, he had reduced the principal by trifling sums, 'having, ' said Twemlow, 'always to observe great economy, being in the enjoyment of a fixedincome limited in extent, and that depending on the munificence ofa certain nobleman, ' and had always pinched the full interest out ofhimself with punctual pinches. How he had come, in course of time, to look upon this one only debt of his life as a regular quarterlydrawback, and no worse, when 'his name' had some way fallen into thepossession of Mr Riah, who had sent him notice to redeem it by paying upin full, in one plump sum, or take tremendous consequences. This, withhazy remembrances of how he had been carried to some office to 'confessjudgment' (as he recollected the phrase), and how he had been carriedto another office where his life was assured for somebody not whollyunconnected with the sherry trade whom he remembered by the remarkablecircumstance that he had a Straduarius violin to dispose of, and also aMadonna, formed the sum and substance of Mr Twemlow's narrative. Throughwhich stalked the shadow of the awful Snigsworth, eyed afar off bymoney-lenders as Security in the Mist, and menacing Twemlow with hisbaronial truncheon. 

To all, Mr Fledgeby listened with the modest gravity becoming aconfiding young man who knew it all beforehand, and, when it wasfinished, seriously shook his head. 'I don't like, Mr Twemlow, ' saidFledgeby, 'I don't like Riah's calling in the principal. If he'sdetermined to call it in, it must come. '

'But supposing, sir, ' said Twemlow, downcast, 'that it can't come?'

'Then, ' retorted Fledgeby, 'you must go, you know. '

'Where?' asked Twemlow, faintly. 

'To prison, ' returned Fledgeby. Whereat Mr Twemlow leaned his innocenthead upon his hand, and moaned a little moan of distress and disgrace. 

'However, ' said Fledgeby, appearing to pluck up his spirits, 'we'll hopeit's not so bad as that comes to. If you'll allow me, I'll mention to MrRiah when he comes in, who you are, and I'll tell him you're my friend, and I'll say my say for you, instead of your saying it for yourself; Imay be able to do it in a more business-like way. You won't consider ita liberty?'

'I thank you again and again, sir, ' said Twemlow. 'I am strong, strongly, disinclined to avail myself of your generosity, though myhelplessness yields. For I cannot but feel that I--to put it in themildest form of speech--that I have done nothing to deserve it. '

'Where CAN he be?' muttered Fledgeby, referring to his watch again. 'What CAN he have gone out for? Did you ever see him, Mr Twemlow?'

'Never. '

'He is a thorough Jew to look at, but he is a more thorough Jew to dealwith. He's worst when he's quiet. If he's quiet, I shall take it as avery bad sign. Keep your eye upon him when he comes in, and, if he'squiet, don't be hopeful. Here he is!--He looks quiet. '

With these words, which had the effect of causing the harmless Twemlowpainful agitation, Mr Fledgeby withdrew to his former post, and the oldman entered the counting-house. 

'Why, Mr Riah, ' said Fledgeby, 'I thought you were lost!'

The old man, glancing at the stranger, stood stock-still. He perceivedthat his master was leading up to the orders he was to take, and hewaited to understand them. 

'I really thought, ' repeated Fledgeby slowly, 'that you were lost, MrRiah. Why, now I look at you--but no, you can't have done it; no, youcan't have done it!'

Hat in hand, the old man lifted his head, and looked distressfully atFledgeby as seeking to know what new moral burden he was to bear. 

'You can't have rushed out to get the start of everybody else, and putin that bill of sale at Lammle's?' said Fledgeby. 'Say you haven't, MrRiah. '

'Sir, I have, ' replied the old man in a low voice. 

'Oh my eye!' cried Fledgeby. 'Tut, tut, tut! Dear, dear, dear! Well! Iknew you were a hard customer, Mr Riah, but I never thought you were ashard as that. '

'Sir, ' said the old man, with great uneasiness, 'I do as I am directed. I am not the principal here. I am but the agent of a superior, and Ihave no choice, no power. '

'Don't say so, ' retorted Fledgeby, secretly exultant as the old manstretched out his hands, with a shrinking action of defending himselfagainst the sharp construction of the two observers. 'Don't play thetune of the trade, Mr Riah. You've a right to get in your debts, ifyou're determined to do it, but don't pretend what every one in yourline regularly pretends. At least, don't do it to me. Why should you, MrRiah? You know I know all about you. '

The old man clasped the skirt of his long coat with his disengaged hand, and directed a wistful look at Fledgeby. 

'And don't, ' said Fledgeby, 'don't, I entreat you as a favour, Mr Riah, be so devilish meek, for I know what'll follow if you are. Look here, MrRiah. This gentleman is Mr Twemlow. '

The Jew turned to him and bowed. That poor lamb bowed in return; polite, and terrified. 

'I have made such a failure, ' proceeded Fledgeby, 'in trying to doanything with you for my friend Lammle, that I've hardly a hope of doinganything with you for my friend (and connexion indeed) Mr Twemlow. ButI do think that if you would do a favour for anybody, you would for me, and I won't fail for want of trying, and I've passed my promise to MrTwemlow besides. Now, Mr Riah, here is Mr Twemlow. Always good for hisinterest, always coming up to time, always paying his little way. Now, why should you press Mr Twemlow? You can't have any spite against MrTwemlow! Why not be easy with Mr Twemlow?'

The old man looked into Fledgeby's little eyes for any sign of leave tobe easy with Mr Twemlow; but there was no sign in them. 

'Mr Twemlow is no connexion of yours, Mr Riah, ' said Fledgeby; 'youcan't want to be even with him for having through life gone in for agentleman and hung on to his Family. If Mr Twemlow has a contempt forbusiness, what can it matter to you?'

'But pardon me, ' interposed the gentle victim, 'I have not. I shouldconsider it presumption. '

'There, Mr Riah!' said Fledgeby, 'isn't that handsomely said? Come! Maketerms with me for Mr Twemlow. '

The old man looked again for any sign of permission to spare the poorlittle gentleman. No. Mr Fledgeby meant him to be racked. 

'I am very sorry, Mr Twemlow, ' said Riah. 'I have my instructions. I aminvested with no authority for diverging from them. The money must bepaid. '

'In full and slap down, do you mean, Mr Riah?' asked Fledgeby, to makethings quite explicit. 

'In full, sir, and at once, ' was Riah's answer. 

Mr Fledgeby shook his head deploringly at Twemlow, and mutely expressedin reference to the venerable figure standing before him with eyes uponthe ground: 'What a Monster of an Israelite this is!'

'Mr Riah, ' said Fledgeby. 

The old man lifted up his eyes once more to the little eyes in MrFledgeby's head, with some reviving hope that the sign might be comingyet. 

'Mr Riah, it's of no use my holding back the fact. There's a certaingreat party in the background in Mr Twemlow's case, and you know it. 

'I know it, ' the old man admitted. 

'Now, I'll put it as a plain point of business, Mr Riah. Are you fullydetermined (as a plain point of business) either to have that said greatparty's security, or that said great party's money?'

'Fully determined, ' answered Riah, as he read his master's face, andlearnt the book. 

'Not at all caring for, and indeed as it seems to me rather enjoying, 'said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, 'the precious kick-up and row thatwill come off between Mr Twemlow and the said great party?'

This required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr Twemlow, who hadbetrayed the keenest mental terrors since his noble kinsman loomed inthe perspective, rose with a sigh to take his departure. 'I thank youvery much, sir, ' he said, offering Fledgeby his feverish hand. 'You havedone me an unmerited service. Thank you, thank you!'

'Don't mention it, ' answered Fledgeby. 'It's a failure so far, but I'llstay behind, and take another touch at Mr Riah. '

'Do not deceive yourself Mr Twemlow, ' said the Jew, then addressing himdirectly for the first time. 'There is no hope for you. You must expectno leniency here. You must pay in full, and you cannot pay too promptly, or you will be put to heavy charges. Trust nothing to me, sir. Money, money, money. ' When he had said these words in an emphatic manner, heacknowledged Mr Twemlow's still polite motion of his head, and thatamiable little worthy took his departure in the lowest spirits. 

Fascination Fledgeby was in such a merry vein when the counting-housewas cleared of him, that he had nothing for it but to go to the window, and lean his arms on the frame of the blind, and have his silent laughout, with his back to his subordinate. When he turned round again with acomposed countenance, his subordinate still stood in the same place, andthe dolls' dressmaker sat behind the door with a look of horror. 

'Halloa!' cried Mr Fledgeby, 'you're forgetting this young lady, MrRiah, and she has been waiting long enough too. Sell her her waste, please, and give her good measure if you can make up your mind to do theliberal thing for once. '

He looked on for a time, as the Jew filled her little basket with suchscraps as she was used to buy; but, his merry vein coming on again, hewas obliged to turn round to the window once more, and lean his arms onthe blind. 

'There, my Cinderella dear, ' said the old man in a whisper, and with aworn-out look, 'the basket's full now. Bless you! And get you gone!'

'Don't call me your Cinderella dear, ' returned Miss Wren. 'O you cruelgodmother!'

She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face atparting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she had ever shaken it at hergrim old child at home. 

'You are not the godmother at all!' said she. 'You are the Wolf inthe Forest, the wicked Wolf! And if ever my dear Lizzie is sold andbetrayed, I shall know who sold and betrayed her!'

Chapter 14

MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN'S NOSE

Having assisted at a few more expositions of the lives of Misers, MrVenus became almost indispensable to the evenings at the Bower. Thecircumstance of having another listener to the wonders unfolded byWegg, or, as it were, another calculator to cast up the guineas found inteapots, chimneys, racks and mangers, and other such banks of deposit, seemed greatly to heighten Mr Boffin's enjoyment; while Silas Wegg, forhis part, though of a jealous temperament which might under ordinarycircumstances have resented the anatomist's getting into favour, wasso very anxious to keep his eye on that gentleman--lest, being toomuch left to himself, he should be tempted to play any tricks with theprecious document in his keeping--that he never lost an opportunity ofcommending him to Mr Boffin's notice as a third party whose company wasmuch to be desired. Another friendly demonstration towards him Mr Weggnow regularly gratified. After each sitting was over, and the patronhad departed, Mr Wegg invariably saw Mr Venus home. To be sure, he asinvariably requested to be refreshed with a sight of the paper in whichhe was a joint proprietor; but he never failed to remark that it was thegreat pleasure he derived from Mr Venus's improving society which hadinsensibly lured him round to Clerkenwell again, and that, findinghimself once more attracted to the spot by the social powers of Mr V. , he would beg leave to go through that little incidental procedure, as amatter of form. 'For well I know, sir, ' Mr Wegg would add, 'that aman of your delicate mind would wish to be checked off whenever theopportunity arises, and it is not for me to baulk your feelings. '

A certain rustiness in Mr Venus, which never became so lubricated bythe oil of Mr Wegg but that he turned under the screw in a creaking andstiff manner, was very noticeable at about this period. While assistingat the literary evenings, he even went so far, on two or threeoccasions, as to correct Mr Wegg when he grossly mispronounced a word, or made nonsense of a passage; insomuch that Mr Wegg took to surveyinghis course in the day, and to making arrangements for getting roundrocks at night instead of running straight upon them. Of the slightestanatomical reference he became particularly shy, and, if he saw a boneahead, would go any distance out of his way rather than mention it byname. 

The adverse destinies ordained that one evening Mr Wegg's labouringbark became beset by polysyllables, and embarrassed among a perfectarchipelago of hard words. It being necessary to take soundings everyminute, and to feel the way with the greatest caution, Mr Wegg'sattention was fully employed. Advantage was taken of this dilemma byMr Venus, to pass a scrap of paper into Mr Boffin's hand, and lay hisfinger on his own lip. 

When Mr Boffin got home at night he found that the paper contained MrVenus's card and these words: 'Should be glad to be honoured with a callrespecting business of your own, about dusk on an early evening. '

The very next evening saw Mr Boffin peeping in at the preserved frogsin Mr Venus's shop-window, and saw Mr Venus espying Mr Boffin with thereadiness of one on the alert, and beckoning that gentleman into hisinterior. Responding, Mr Boffin was invited to seat himself on the boxof human miscellanies before the fire, and did so, looking round theplace with admiring eyes. The fire being low and fitful, and the duskgloomy, the whole stock seemed to be winking and blinking with botheyes, as Mr Venus did. The French gentleman, though he had no eyes, wasnot at all behind-hand, but appeared, as the flame rose and fell, toopen and shut his no eyes, with the regularity of the glass-eyed dogsand ducks and birds. The big-headed babies were equally obliging inlending their grotesque aid to the general effect. 

'You see, Mr Venus, I've lost no time, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Here I am. '

'Here you are, sir, ' assented Mr Venus. 

'I don't like secrecy, ' pursued Mr Boffin--'at least, not in a generalway I don't--but I dare say you'll show me good reason for being secretso far. '

'I think I shall, sir, ' returned Venus. 

'Good, ' said Mr Boffin. 'You don't expect Wegg, I take it for granted?'

'No, sir. I expect no one but the present company. '

Mr Boffin glanced about him, as accepting under that inclusivedenomination the French gentleman and the circle in which he didn'tmove, and repeated, 'The present company. '

'Sir, ' said Mr Venus, 'before entering upon business, I shall have toask you for your word and honour that we are in confidence. '

'Let's wait a bit and understand what the expression means, ' answered MrBoffin. 'In confidence for how long? In confidence for ever and a day?'

'I take your hint, sir, ' said Venus; 'you think you might consider thebusiness, when you came to know it, to be of a nature incompatible withconfidence on your part?'

'I might, ' said Mr Boffin with a cautious look. 

'True, sir. Well, sir, ' observed Venus, after clutching at his dustyhair, to brighten his ideas, 'let us put it another way. I open thebusiness with you, relying upon your honour not to do anything in it, and not to mention me in it, without my knowledge. '

'That sounds fair, ' said Mr Boffin. 'I agree to that. '

'I have your word and honour, sir?'

'My good fellow, ' retorted Mr Boffin, 'you have my word; and how youcan have that, without my honour too, I don't know. I've sorted a lotof dust in my time, but I never knew the two things go into separateheaps. '

This remark seemed rather to abash Mr Venus. He hesitated, and said, 'Very true, sir;' and again, 'Very true, sir, ' before resuming thethread of his discourse. 

'Mr Boffin, if I confess to you that I fell into a proposal of which youwere the subject, and of which you oughtn't to have been the subject, you will allow me to mention, and will please take into favourableconsideration, that I was in a crushed state of mind at the time. '

The Golden Dustman, with his hands folded on the top of his stoutstick, with his chin resting upon them, and with something leering andwhimsical in his eyes, gave a nod, and said, 'Quite so, Venus. '

'That proposal, sir, was a conspiring breach of your confidence, tosuch an extent, that I ought at once to have made it known to you. But Ididn't, Mr Boffin, and I fell into it. '

Without moving eye or finger, Mr Boffin gave another nod, and placidlyrepeated, 'Quite so, Venus. '

'Not that I was ever hearty in it, sir, ' the penitent anatomist wenton, 'or that I ever viewed myself with anything but reproach for havingturned out of the paths of science into the paths of--' he was goingto say 'villany, ' but, unwilling to press too hard upon himself, substituted with great emphasis--'Weggery. '

Placid and whimsical of look as ever, Mr Boffin answered:

'Quite so, Venus. '

'And now, sir, ' said Venus, 'having prepared your mind in the rough, Iwill articulate the details. ' With which brief professional exordium, heentered on the history of the friendly move, and truly recounted it. Onemight have thought that it would have extracted some show of surprise oranger, or other emotion, from Mr Boffin, but it extracted nothing beyondhis former comment:

'Quite so, Venus. '

'I have astonished you, sir, I believe?' said Mr Venus, pausingdubiously. 

Mr Boffin simply answered as aforesaid: 'Quite so, Venus. '

By this time the astonishment was all on the other side. It did not, however, so continue. For, when Venus passed to Wegg's discovery, andfrom that to their having both seen Mr Boffin dig up the Dutch bottle, that gentleman changed colour, changed his attitude, became extremelyrestless, and ended (when Venus ended) by being in a state of manifestanxiety, trepidation, and confusion. 

'Now, sir, ' said Venus, finishing off; 'you best know what was in thatDutch bottle, and why you dug it up, and took it away. I don't pretendto know anything more about it than I saw. All I know is this: I amproud of my calling after all (though it has been attended by onedreadful drawback which has told upon my heart, and almost equally uponmy skeleton), and I mean to live by my calling. Putting the same meaninginto other words, I do not mean to turn a single dishonest penny by thisaffair. As the best amends I can make you for having ever gone into it, I make known to you, as a warning, what Wegg has found out. My opinionis, that Wegg is not to be silenced at a modest price, and I build thatopinion on his beginning to dispose of your property the moment he knewhis power. Whether it's worth your while to silence him at any price, you will decide for yourself, and take your measures accordingly. Asfar as I am concerned, I have no price. If I am ever called upon forthe truth, I tell it, but I want to do no more than I have now done andended. '

'Thank'ee, Venus!' said Mr Boffin, with a hearty grip of his hand;'thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus!' And then walked up and down thelittle shop in great agitation. 'But look here, Venus, ' he by-and-byresumed, nervously sitting down again; 'if I have to buy Wegg up, Ishan't buy him any cheaper for your being out of it. Instead of hishaving half the money--it was to have been half, I suppose? Share andshare alike?'

'It was to have been half, sir, ' answered Venus. 

'Instead of that, he'll now have all. I shall pay the same, if not more. For you tell me he's an unconscionable dog, a ravenous rascal. '

'He is, ' said Venus. 

'Don't you think, Venus, ' insinuated Mr Boffin, after looking at thefire for a while--'don't you feel as if--you might like to pretend to bein it till Wegg was bought up, and then ease your mind by handing overto me what you had made believe to pocket?'

'No I don't, sir, ' returned Venus, very positively. 

'Not to make amends?' insinuated Mr Boffin. 

'No, sir. It seems to me, after maturely thinking it over, that the bestamends for having got out of the square is to get back into the square. '

'Humph!' mused Mr Boffin. 'When you say the square, you mean--'

'I mean, ' said Venus, stoutly and shortly, 'the right. '

'It appears to me, ' said Mr Boffin, grumbling over the fire in aninjured manner, 'that the right is with me, if it's anywhere. I havemuch more right to the old man's money than the Crown can ever have. What was the Crown to him except the King's Taxes? Whereas, me and mywife, we was all in all to him. '

Mr Venus, with his head upon his hands, rendered melancholy by thecontemplation of Mr Boffin's avarice, only murmured to steep himselfin the luxury of that frame of mind: 'She did not wish so to regardherself, nor yet to be so regarded. '

'And how am I to live, ' asked Mr Boffin, piteously, 'if I'm to be goingbuying fellows up out of the little that I've got? And how am I to setabout it? When am I to get my money ready? When am I to make a bid? Youhaven't told me when he threatens to drop down upon me. '

Venus explained under what conditions, and with what views, the droppingdown upon Mr Boffin was held over until the Mounds should be clearedaway. Mr Boffin listened attentively. 'I suppose, ' said he, with agleam of hope, 'there's no doubt about the genuineness and date of thisconfounded will?'

'None whatever, ' said Mr Venus. 

'Where might it be deposited at present?' asked Mr Boffin, in awheedling tone. 

'It's in my possession, sir. '

'Is it?' he cried, with great eagerness. 'Now, for any liberal sum ofmoney that could be agreed upon, Venus, would you put it in the fire?'

'No, sir, I wouldn't, ' interrupted Mr Venus. 

'Nor pass it over to me?'

'That would be the same thing. No, sir, ' said Mr Venus. 

The Golden Dustman seemed about to pursue these questions, when astumping noise was heard outside, coming towards the door. 'Hush! here'sWegg!' said Venus. 'Get behind the young alligator in the corner, MrBoffin, and judge him for yourself. I won't light a candle till he'sgone; there'll only be the glow of the fire; Wegg's well acquainted withthe alligator, and he won't take particular notice of him. Draw yourlegs in, Mr Boffin, at present I see a pair of shoes at the end of histail. Get your head well behind his smile, Mr Boffin, and you'll liecomfortable there; you'll find plenty of room behind his smile. He's alittle dusty, but he's very like you in tone. Are you right, sir?'

Mr Boffin had but whispered an affirmative response, when Wegg camestumping in. 'Partner, ' said that gentleman in a sprightly manner, 'how's yourself?'

'Tolerable, ' returned Mr Venus. 'Not much to boast of. '

'In-deed!' said Wegg: 'sorry, partner, that you're not picking upfaster, but your soul's too large for your body, sir; that's whereit is. And how's our stock in trade, partner? Safe bind, safe find, partner? Is that about it?'

'Do you wish to see it?' asked Venus. 

'If you please, partner, ' said Wegg, rubbing his hands. 'I wish to seeit jintly with yourself. Or, in similar words to some that was set tomusic some time back:

 "I wish you to see it with your eyes, And I will pledge with mine. "'

Turning his back and turning a key, Mr Venus produced the document, holding on by his usual corner. Mr Wegg, holding on by the oppositecorner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by Mr Boffin, and lookedit over. 'All right, sir, ' he slowly and unwillingly admitted, in hisreluctance to loose his hold, 'all right!' And greedily watched hispartner as he turned his back again, and turned his key again. 

'There's nothing new, I suppose?' said Venus, resuming his low chairbehind the counter. 

'Yes there is, sir, ' replied Wegg; 'there was something new thismorning. That foxey old grasper and griper--'

'Mr Boffin?' inquired Venus, with a glance towards the alligator's yardor two of smile. 

'Mister be blowed!' cried Wegg, yielding to his honest indignation. 'Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and grinder, sir, turnsinto the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial toolof his own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, "What do you want here, young man? This is a private yard, " he pulls outa paper from Boffin's other blackguard, the one I was passed over for. "This is to authorize Sloppy to overlook the carting and to watch thework. " That's pretty strong, I think, Mr Venus?'

'Remember he doesn't know yet of our claim on the property, ' suggestedVenus. 

'Then he must have a hint of it, ' said Wegg, 'and a strong one that'lljog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and he'll take an ell. Let himalone this time, and what'll he do with our property next? I tell youwhat, Mr Venus; it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, orI shall fly into several pieces. I can't contain myself when I lookat him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his pocket, I see himputting it into my pocket. Every time I hear him jingling his money, Ihear him taking liberties with my money. Flesh and blood can't bear it. No, ' said Mr Wegg, greatly exasperated, 'and I'll go further. A woodenleg can't bear it!'

'But, Mr Wegg, ' urged Venus, 'it was your own idea that he should not beexploded upon, till the Mounds were carted away. '

'But it was likewise my idea, Mr Venus, ' retorted Wegg, 'that if he camesneaking and sniffing about the property, he should be threatened, givento understand that he has no right to it, and be made our slave. Wasn'tthat my idea, Mr Venus?'

'It certainly was, Mr Wegg. '

'It certainly was, as you say, partner, ' assented Wegg, put intoa better humour by the ready admission. 'Very well. I consider hisplanting one of his menial tools in the yard, an act of sneaking andsniffing. And his nose shall be put to the grindstone for it. '

'It was not your fault, Mr Wegg, I must admit, ' said Venus, 'that he gotoff with the Dutch bottle that night. '

'As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not my fault. I'd havehad that bottle out of him. Was it to be borne that he should come, likea thief in the dark, digging among stuff that was far more ours than his(seeing that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn't buyus at our own figure), and carrying off treasure from its bowels? No, it was not to be borne. And for that, too, his nose shall be put to thegrindstone. '

'How do you propose to do it, Mr Wegg?'

'To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose, ' returned that estimableman, 'to insult him openly. And, if looking into this eye of mine, hedares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him before he can takehis breath, "Add another word to that, you dusty old dog, and you're abeggar. "'

'Suppose he says nothing, Mr Wegg?'

'Then, ' replied Wegg, 'we shall have come to an understanding with verylittle trouble, and I'll break him and drive him, Mr Venus. I'll puthim in harness, and I'll bear him up tight, and I'll break him and drivehim. The harder the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he'll pay. And Imean to be paid high, Mr Venus, I promise you. '

'You speak quite revengefully, Mr Wegg. '

'Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and falled, night after night? Is it for his pleasure that I've waited at home of anevening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and knocked over, set upand knocked over, by whatever balls--or books--he chose to bring againstme? Why, I'm a hundred times the man he is, sir; five hundred times!'

Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worstthat Mr Venus looked as if he doubted that. 

'What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace, by that minion of fortune and worm of the hour, ' said Wegg, falling backupon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter, 'that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in allweathers, waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that veryhouse as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when Iwas selling halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel inthe dust for HIM to walk over? No!'

There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French gentlemanunder the influence of the firelight, as if he were computing how manythousand slanderers and traitors array themselves against the fortunate, on premises exactly answering to those of Mr Wegg. One might havefancied that the big-headed babies were toppling over with theirhydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who transformtheir benefactors into their injurers by the same process. The yard ortwo of smile on the part of the alligator might have been invested withthe meaning, 'All about this was quite familiar knowledge down in thedepths of the slime, ages ago. '

'But, ' said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to the foregoingeffect, 'your speaking countenance remarks, Mr Venus, that I'm dullerand savager than usual. Perhaps I HAVE allowed myself to brood too much. Begone, dull Care! 'Tis gone, sir. I've looked in upon you, and empireresumes her sway. For, as the song says--subject to your correction, sir--

 "When the heart of a man is depressed with cares, The mist is dispelled if Venus appears. Like the notes of a fiddle, you sweetly, sir, sweetly, Raises our spirits and charms our ears. "

Good-night, sir. '

'I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr Wegg, before long, 'remarked Venus, 'respecting my share in the project we've been speakingof. '

'My time, sir, ' returned Wegg, 'is yours. In the meanwhile let it befully understood that I shall not neglect bringing the grindstone tobear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin's nose to it. His nose once broughtto it, shall be held to it by these hands, Mr Venus, till the sparksflies out in showers. '

With this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut the shop-doorafter him. 'Wait till I light a candle, Mr Boffin, ' said Venus, 'andyou'll come out more comfortable. ' So, he lighting a candle and holdingit up at arm's length, Mr Boffin disengaged himself from behind thealligator's smile, with an expression of countenance so very downcastthat it not only appeared as if the alligator had the whole of the joketo himself, but further as if it had been conceived and executed at MrBoffin's expense. 

'That's a treacherous fellow, ' said Mr Boffin, dusting his arms and legsas he came forth, the alligator having been but musty company. 'That's adreadful fellow. '

'The alligator, sir?' said Venus. 

'No, Venus, no. The Serpent. '

'You'll have the goodness to notice, Mr Boffin, ' remarked Venus, 'that Isaid nothing to him about my going out of the affair altogether, becauseI didn't wish to take you anyways by surprise. But I can't be too soonout of it for my satisfaction, Mr Boffin, and I now put it to you whenit will suit your views for me to retire?'

'Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus; but I don't know what to say, 'returned Mr Boffin, 'I don't know what to do. He'll drop down on me anyway. He seems fully determined to drop down; don't he?'

Mr Venus opined that such was clearly his intention. 

'You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained in it, ' saidMr Boffin; 'you might stand betwixt him and me, and take the edge offhim. Don't you feel as if you could make a show of remaining in it, Venus, till I had time to turn myself round?'

Venus naturally inquired how long Mr Boffin thought it might take him toturn himself round?

'I am sure I don't know, ' was the answer, given quite at a loss. 'Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had never come into theproperty, I shouldn't have minded. But being in it, it would be verytrying to be turned out; now, don't you acknowledge that it would, Venus?'

Mr Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr Boffin to arrive at his ownconclusions on that delicate question. 

'I am sure I don't know what to do, ' said Mr Boffin. 'If I ask advice ofany one else, it's only letting in another person to be bought out, andthen I shall be ruined that way, and might as well have given up theproperty and gone slap to the workhouse. If I was to take advice of myyoung man, Rokesmith, I should have to buy HIM out. Sooner or later, ofcourse, he'd drop down upon me, like Wegg. I was brought into the worldto be dropped down upon, it appears to me. '

Mr Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while Mr Boffinjogged to and fro, holding his pockets as if he had a pain in them. 

'After all, you haven't said what you mean to do yourself, Venus. Whenyou do go out of it, how do you mean to go?'

Venus replied that as Wegg had found the document and handed it to him, it was his intention to hand it back to Wegg, with the declaration thathe himself would have nothing to say to it, or do with it, and that Weggmust act as he chose, and take the consequences. 

'And then he drops down with his whole weight upon ME!' cried Mr Boffin, ruefully. 'I'd sooner be dropped upon by you than by him, or even by youjintly, than by him alone!'

Mr Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed intention to betakehimself to the paths of science, and to walk in the same all the daysof his life; not dropping down upon his fellow-creatures until they weredeceased, and then only to articulate them to the best of his humbleability. 

'How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appearance of remainingin it?' asked Mr Boffin, retiring on his other idea. 'Could you be gotto do so, till the Mounds are gone?'

No. That would protract the mental uneasiness of Mr Venus too long, hesaid. 

'Not if I was to show you reason now?' demanded Mr Boffin; 'not if I wasto show you good and sufficient reason?'

If by good and sufficient reason Mr Boffin meant honest andunimpeachable reason, that might weigh with Mr Venus against hispersonal wishes and convenience. But he must add that he saw no openingto the possibility of such reason being shown him. 

'Come and see me, Venus, ' said Mr Boffin, 'at my house. '

'Is the reason there, sir?' asked Mr Venus, with an incredulous smileand blink. 

'It may be, or may not be, ' said Mr Boffin, 'just as you view it. Butin the meantime don't go out of the matter. Look here. Do this. Give meyour word that you won't take any steps with Wegg, without my knowledge, just as I have given you my word that I won't without yours. '

'Done, Mr Boffin!' said Venus, after brief consideration. 

'Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus! Done!'

'When shall I come to see you, Mr Boffin. '

'When you like. The sooner the better. I must be going now. Good-night, Venus. '

'Good-night, sir. '

'And good-night to the rest of the present company, ' said Mr Boffin, glancing round the shop. 'They make a queer show, Venus, and I shouldlike to be better acquainted with them some day. Good-night, Venus, good-night! Thankee, Venus, thankee, Venus!' With that he jogged outinto the street, and jogged upon his homeward way. 

'Now, I wonder, ' he meditated as he went along, nursing his stick, 'whether it can be, that Venus is setting himself to get the better ofWegg? Whether it can be, that he means, when I have bought Wegg out, tohave me all to himself and to pick me clean to the bones!'

It was a cunning and suspicious idea, quite in the way of his schoolof Misers, and he looked very cunning and suspicious as he went joggingthrough the streets. More than once or twice, more than twice or thrice, say half a dozen times, he took his stick from the arm on which henursed it, and hit a straight sharp rap at the air with its head. Possibly the wooden countenance of Mr Silas Wegg was incorporeallybefore him at those moments, for he hit with intense satisfaction. 

He was within a few streets of his own house, when a little privatecarriage, coming in the contrary direction, passed him, turned round, and passed him again. It was a little carriage of eccentric movement, for again he heard it stop behind him and turn round, and again he sawit pass him. Then it stopped, and then went on, out of sight. But, notfar out of sight, for, when he came to the corner of his own street, there it stood again. 

There was a lady's face at the window as he came up with this carriage, and he was passing it when the lady softly called to him by his name. 

'I beg your pardon, Ma'am?' said Mr Boffin, coming to a stop. 

'It is Mrs Lammle, ' said the lady. 

Mr Boffin went up to the window, and hoped Mrs Lammle was well. 

'Not very well, dear Mr Boffin; I have fluttered myself bybeing--perhaps foolishly--uneasy and anxious. I have been waiting foryou some time. Can I speak to you?'

Mr Boffin proposed that Mrs Lammle should drive on to his house, a fewhundred yards further. 

'I would rather not, Mr Boffin, unless you particularly wish it. I feelthe difficulty and delicacy of the matter so much that I would ratheravoid speaking to you at your own home. You must think this verystrange?'

Mr Boffin said no, but meant yes. 

'It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all myfriends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot bear to run the risk offorfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of duty. I have asked myhusband (my dear Alfred, Mr Boffin) whether it is the cause of duty, and he has most emphatically said Yes. I wish I had asked him sooner. Itwould have spared me much distress. '

('Can this be more dropping down upon me!' thought Mr Boffin, quitebewildered. )

'It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr Boffin. Alfred said, "Don'tcome back, Sophronia, until you have seen Mr Boffin, and told him all. Whatever he may think of it, he ought certainly to know it. " Would youmind coming into the carriage?'

Mr Boffin answered, 'Not at all, ' and took his seat at Mrs Lammle'sside. 

'Drive slowly anywhere, ' Mrs Lammle called to her coachman, 'and don'tlet the carriage rattle. '

'It MUST be more dropping down, I think, ' said Mr Boffin to himself. 'What next?'

Chapter 15

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST

The breakfast table at Mr Boffin's was usually a very pleasant one, andwas always presided over by Bella. As though he began each new day inhis healthy natural character, and some waking hours were necessary tohis relapse into the corrupting influences of his wealth, the face andthe demeanour of the Golden Dustman were generally unclouded at thatmeal. It would have been easy to believe then, that there was no changein him. It was as the day went on that the clouds gathered, and thebrightness of the morning became obscured. One might have said that theshadows of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow lengthened, and that the night closed around him gradually. 

But, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black midnightwith the Golden Dustman when he first appeared. His altered characterhad never been so grossly marked. His bearing towards his Secretary wasso charged with insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter roseand left the table before breakfast was half done. The look he directedat the Secretary's retiring figure was so cunningly malignant, thatBella would have sat astounded and indignant, even though he had notgone the length of secretly threatening Rokesmith with his clenchedfist as he closed the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings in theyear, was the morning next after Mr Boffin's interview with Mrs Lammlein her little carriage. 

Bella looked to Mrs Boffin's face for comment on, or explanation of, this stormy humour in her husband, but none was there. An anxious anda distressed observation of her own face was all she could read in it. When they were left alone together--which was not until noon, for MrBoffin sat long in his easy-chair, by turns jogging up and downthe breakfast-room, clenching his fist and muttering--Bella, inconsternation, asked her what had happened, what was wrong? 'I amforbidden to speak to you about it, Bella dear; I mustn't tell you, 'was all the answer she could get. And still, whenever, in her wonder anddismay, she raised her eyes to Mrs Boffin's face, she saw in it the sameanxious and distressed observation of her own. 

Oppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and lost inspeculations why Mrs Boffin should look at her as if she had any part init, Bella found the day long and dreary. It was far on in the afternoonwhen, she being in her own room, a servant brought her a message from MrBoffin begging her to come to his. 

Mrs Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr Boffin was jogging up anddown. On seeing Bella he stopped, beckoned her to him, and drew her armthrough his. 'Don't be alarmed, my dear, ' he said, gently; 'I am notangry with you. Why you actually tremble! Don't be alarmed, Bella mydear. I'll see you righted. '

'See me righted?' thought Bella. And then repeated aloud in a tone ofastonishment: 'see me righted, sir?'

'Ay, ay!' said Mr Boffin. 'See you righted. Send Mr Rokesmith here, yousir. '

Bella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been pauseenough; but the servant found Mr Rokesmith near at hand, and he almostimmediately presented himself. 

'Shut the door, sir!' said Mr Boffin. 'I have got something to say toyou which I fancy you'll not be pleased to hear. '

'I am sorry to reply, Mr Boffin, ' returned the Secretary, as, havingclosed the door, he turned and faced him, 'that I think that verylikely. '

'What do you mean?' blustered Mr Boffin. 

'I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from your lips whatI would rather not hear. '

'Oh! Perhaps we shall change that, ' said Mr Boffin with a threateningroll of his head. 

'I hope so, ' returned the Secretary. He was quiet and respectful; butstood, as Bella thought (and was glad to think), on his manhood too. 

'Now, sir, ' said Mr Boffin, 'look at this young lady on my arm. 

Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference wasmade to herself, met those of Mr Rokesmith. He was pale and seemedagitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin's, and she met the lookagain. In a flash it enlightened her, and she began to understand whatshe had done. 

'I say to you, sir, ' Mr Boffin repeated, 'look at this young lady on myarm. 

'I do so, ' returned the Secretary. 

As his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she thought there wasreproach in it. But it is possible that the reproach was within herself. 

'How dare you, sir, ' said Mr Boffin, 'tamper, unknown to me, with thisyoung lady? How dare you come out of your station, and your place in myhouse, to pester this young lady with your impudent addresses?'

'I must decline to answer questions, ' said the Secretary, 'that are sooffensively asked. '

'You decline to answer?' retorted Mr Boffin. 'You decline to answer, do you? Then I'll tell you what it is, Rokesmith; I'll answer for you. There are two sides to this matter, and I'll take 'em separately. Thefirst side is, sheer Insolence. That's the first side. '

The Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he would have said, 'So I see and hear. '

'It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you, ' said Mr Boffin, 'even tothink of this young lady. This young lady was far above YOU. This younglady was no match for YOU. This young lady was lying in wait (as she wasqualified to do) for money, and you had no money. '

Bella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from Mr Boffin'sprotecting arm. 

'What are you, I should like to know, ' pursued Mr Boffin, 'that you wereto have the audacity to follow up this young lady? This young lady waslooking about the market for a good bid; she wasn't in it to be snappedup by fellows that had no money to lay out; nothing to buy with. '

'Oh, Mr Boffin! Mrs Boffin, pray say something for me!' murmured Bella, disengaging her arm, and covering her face with her hands. 

'Old lady, ' said Mr Boffin, anticipating his wife, 'you hold yourtongue. Bella, my dear, don't you let yourself be put out. I'll rightyou. '

'But you don't, you don't right me!' exclaimed Bella, with greatemphasis. 'You wrong me, wrong me!'

'Don't you be put out, my dear, ' complacently retorted Mr Boffin. 'I'llbring this young man to book. Now, you Rokesmith! You can't declineto hear, you know, as well as to answer. You hear me tell you that thefirst side of your conduct was Insolence--Insolence and Presumption. Answer me one thing, if you can. Didn't this young lady tell you soherself?'

'Did I, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella with her face still covered. 'O say, Mr Rokesmith! Did I?'

'Don't be distressed, Miss Wilfer; it matters very little now. '

'Ah! You can't deny it, though!' said Mr Boffin, with a knowing shake ofhis head. 

'But I have asked him to forgive me since, ' cried Bella; 'and I wouldask him to forgive me now again, upon my knees, if it would spare him!'

Here Mrs Boffin broke out a-crying. 

'Old lady, ' said Mr Boffin, 'stop that noise! Tender-hearted in you, Miss Bella; but I mean to have it out right through with this young man, having got him into a corner. Now, you Rokesmith. I tell you that's oneside of your conduct--Insolence and Presumption. Now, I'm a-coming tothe other, which is much worse. This was a speculation of yours. '

'I indignantly deny it. '

'It's of no use your denying it; it doesn't signify a bit whetheryou deny it or not; I've got a head upon my shoulders, and it ain't ababy's. What!' said Mr Boffin, gathering himself together in his mostsuspicious attitude, and wrinkling his face into a very map of curvesand corners. 'Don't I know what grabs are made at a man with money? IfI didn't keep my eyes open, and my pockets buttoned, shouldn't Ibe brought to the workhouse before I knew where I was? Wasn't theexperience of Dancer, and Elwes, and Hopkins, and Blewbury Jones, andever so many more of 'em, similar to mine? Didn't everybody want to makegrabs at what they'd got, and bring 'em to poverty and ruin? Weren'tthey forced to hide everything belonging to 'em, for fear it should besnatched from 'em? Of course they was. I shall be told next that theydidn't know human natur!'

'They! Poor creatures, ' murmured the Secretary. 

'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him. 'However, youneedn't be at the trouble of repeating it, for it ain't worth hearing, and won't go down with ME. I'm a-going to unfold your plan, before thisyoung lady; I'm a-going to show this young lady the second view of you;and nothing you can say will stave it off. (Now, attend here, Bella, mydear. ) Rokesmith, you're a needy chap. You're a chap that I pick up inthe street. Are you, or ain't you?'

'Go on, Mr Boffin; don't appeal to me. '

'Not appeal to YOU, ' retorted Mr Boffin as if he hadn't done so. 'No, I should hope not! Appealing to YOU, would be rather a rum course. As Iwas saying, you're a needy chap that I pick up in the street. You comeand ask me in the street to take you for a Secretary, and I take you. Very good. '

'Very bad, ' murmured the Secretary. 

'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him again. 

He returned no answer. Mr Boffin, after eyeing him with a comical lookof discomfited curiosity, was fain to begin afresh. 

'This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for my Secretary outof the open street. This Rokesmith gets acquainted with my affairs, andgets to know that I mean to settle a sum of money on this young lady. "Oho!" says this Rokesmith;' here Mr Boffin clapped a finger againsthis nose, and tapped it several times with a sneaking air, as embodyingRokesmith confidentially confabulating with his own nose; '"This willbe a good haul; I'll go in for this!" And so this Rokesmith, greedy andhungering, begins a-creeping on his hands and knees towards the money. Not so bad a speculation either: for if this young lady had had lessspirit, or had had less sense, through being at all in the romanticline, by George he might have worked it out and made it pay! Butfortunately she was too many for him, and a pretty figure he cuts nowhe is exposed. There he stands!' said Mr Boffin, addressing Rokesmithhimself with ridiculous inconsistency. 'Look at him!'

'Your unfortunate suspicions, Mr Boffin--' began the Secretary. 

'Precious unfortunate for you, I can tell you, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'--are not to be combated by any one, and I address myself to no suchhopeless task. But I will say a word upon the truth. '

'Yah! Much you care about the truth, ' said Mr Boffin, with a snap of hisfingers. 

'Noddy! My dear love!' expostulated his wife. 

'Old lady, ' returned Mr Boffin, 'you keep still. I say to this Rokesmithhere, much he cares about the truth. I tell him again, much he caresabout the truth. '

'Our connexion being at an end, Mr Boffin, ' said the Secretary, 'it canbe of very little moment to me what you say. '

'Oh! You are knowing enough, ' retorted Mr Boffin, with a sly look, 'tohave found out that our connexion's at an end, eh? But you can't getbeforehand with me. Look at this in my hand. This is your pay, on yourdischarge. You can only follow suit. You can't deprive me of the lead. Let's have no pretending that you discharge yourself. I discharge you. '

'So that I go, ' remarked the Secretary, waving the point aside with hishand, 'it is all one to me. '

'Is it?' said Mr Boffin. 'But it's two to me, let me tell you. Allowing a fellow that's found out, to discharge himself, is one thing;discharging him for insolence and presumption, and likewise for designsupon his master's money, is another. One and one's two; not one. (Oldlady, don't you cut in. You keep still. )'

'Have you said all you wish to say to me?' demanded the Secretary. 

'I don't know whether I have or not, ' answered Mr Boffin. 'It depends. '

'Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other strongexpressions that you would like to bestow upon me?'

'I'll consider that, ' said Mr Boffin, obstinately, 'at my convenience, and not at yours. You want the last word. It may not be suitable to letyou have it. '

'Noddy! My dear, dear Noddy! You sound so hard!' cried poor Mrs Boffin, not to be quite repressed. 

'Old lady, ' said her husband, but without harshness, 'if you cut in whenrequested not, I'll get a pillow and carry you out of the room upon it. What do you want to say, you Rokesmith?'

'To you, Mr Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and to your good kindwife, a word. '

'Out with it then, ' replied Mr Boffin, 'and cut it short, for we've hadenough of you. '

'I have borne, ' said the Secretary, in a low voice, 'with my falseposition here, that I might not be separated from Miss Wilfer. To benear her, has been a recompense to me from day to day, even for theundeserved treatment I have had here, and for the degraded aspect inwhich she has often seen me. Since Miss Wilfer rejected me, I have neveragain urged my suit, to the best of my belief, with a spoken syllable ora look. But I have never changed in my devotion to her, except--if shewill forgive my saying so--that it is deeper than it was, and betterfounded. '

'Now, mark this chap's saying Miss Wilfer, when he means L. S. D. !' criedMr Boffin, with a cunning wink. 'Now, mark this chap's making MissWilfer stand for Pounds, Shillings, and Pence!'

'My feeling for Miss Wilfer, ' pursued the Secretary, without deigning tonotice him, 'is not one to be ashamed of. I avow it. I love her. Letme go where I may when I presently leave this house, I shall go into ablank life, leaving her. '

'Leaving L. S. D. Behind me, ' said Mr Boffin, by way of commentary, withanother wink. 

'That I am incapable, ' the Secretary went on, still without heeding him, 'of a mercenary project, or a mercenary thought, in connexion with MissWilfer, is nothing meritorious in me, because any prize that I couldput before my fancy would sink into insignificance beside her. Ifthe greatest wealth or the highest rank were hers, it would only beimportant in my sight as removing her still farther from me, and makingme more hopeless, if that could be. Say, ' remarked the Secretary, looking full at his late master, 'say that with a word she could stripMr Boffin of his fortune and take possession of it, she would be of nogreater worth in my eyes than she is. '

'What do you think by this time, old lady, ' asked Mr Boffin, turning tohis wife in a bantering tone, 'about this Rokesmith here, and his caringfor the truth? You needn't say what you think, my dear, because I don'twant you to cut in, but you can think it all the same. As to takingpossession of my property, I warrant you he wouldn't do that himself ifhe could. '

'No, ' returned the Secretary, with another full look. 

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr Boffin. 'There's nothing like a good 'un whileyou ARE about it. '

'I have been for a moment, ' said the Secretary, turning from him andfalling into his former manner, 'diverted from the little I have to say. My interest in Miss Wilfer began when I first saw her; even began when Ihad only heard of her. It was, in fact, the cause of my throwing myselfin Mr Boffin's way, and entering his service. Miss Wilfer has neverknown this until now. I mention it now, only as a corroboration (thoughI hope it may be needless) of my being free from the sordid designattributed to me. '

'Now, this is a very artful dog, ' said Mr Boffin, with a deep look. 'This is a longer-headed schemer than I thought him. See how patientlyand methodically he goes to work. He gets to know about me and myproperty, and about this young lady, and her share in poor young John'sstory, and he puts this and that together, and he says to himself, "I'llget in with Boffin, and I'll get in with this young lady, and I'll work'em both at the same time, and I'll bring my pigs to market somewhere. "I hear him say it, bless you! I look at him, now, and I see him say it!'

Mr Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, and huggedhimself in his great penetration. 

'But luckily he hadn't to deal with the people he supposed, Bella, mydear!' said Mr Boffin. 'No! Luckily he had to deal with you, and withme, and with Daniel and Miss Dancer, and with Elwes, and with VultureHopkins, and with Blewbury Jones and all the rest of us, one downt'other come on. And he's beat; that's what he is; regularly beat. Hethought to squeeze money out of us, and he has done for himself instead, Bella my dear!'

Bella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquiescence. When shehad first covered her face she had sunk upon a chair with her handsresting on the back of it, and had never moved since. There was a shortsilence at this point, and Mrs Boffin softly rose as if to go to her. But, Mr Boffin stopped her with a gesture, and she obediently sat downagain and stayed where she was. 

'There's your pay, Mister Rokesmith, ' said the Golden Dustman, jerking the folded scrap of paper he had in his hand, towards his lateSecretary. 'I dare say you can stoop to pick it up, after what you havestooped to here. '

'I have stooped to nothing but this, ' Rokesmith answered as he took itfrom the ground; 'and this is mine, for I have earned it by the hardestof hard labour. '

'You're a pretty quick packer, I hope, ' said Mr Boffin; 'because thesooner you are gone, bag and baggage, the better for all parties. '

'You need have no fear of my lingering. '

'There's just one thing though, ' said Mr Boffin, 'that I should like toask you before we come to a good riddance, if it was only to show thisyoung lady how conceited you schemers are, in thinking that nobody findsout how you contradict yourselves. '

'Ask me anything you wish to ask, ' returned Rokesmith, 'but use theexpedition that you recommend. '

'You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young lady?' said MrBoffin, laying his hand protectingly on Bella's head without lookingdown at her. 

'I do not pretend. '

'Oh! Well. You HAVE a mighty admiration for this young lady--since youare so particular?'

'Yes. '

'How do you reconcile that, with this young lady's being aweak-spirited, improvident idiot, not knowing what was due to herself, flinging up her money to the church-weathercocks, and racing off at asplitting pace for the workhouse?'

'I don't understand you. '

'Don't you? Or won't you? What else could you have made this young ladyout to be, if she had listened to such addresses as yours?'

'What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections and possessher heart?'

'Win her affections, ' retorted Mr Boffin, with ineffable contempt, 'and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack-quack says the duck, Bow-wow-wow says the dog! Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew, Quack-quack, Bow-wow!'

John Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with some faint ideathat he had gone mad. 

'What is due to this young lady, ' said Mr Boffin, 'is Money, and thisyoung lady right well knows it. '

'You slander the young lady. '

'YOU slander the young lady; you with your affections and hearts andtrumpery, ' returned Mr Boffin. 'It's of a piece with the rest of yourbehaviour. I heard of these doings of yours only last night, or youshould have heard of 'em from me, sooner, take your oath of it. I heardof 'em from a lady with as good a headpiece as the best, and she knowsthis young lady, and I know this young lady, and we all three know thatit's Money she makes a stand for--money, money, money--and that you andyour affections and hearts are a Lie, sir!'

'Mrs Boffin, ' said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, 'for your delicateand unvarying kindness I thank you with the warmest gratitude. Good-bye!Miss Wilfer, good-bye!'

'And now, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin, laying his hand on Bella's headagain, 'you may begin to make yourself quite comfortable, and I hope youfeel that you've been righted. '

But, Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she shrank fromhis hand and from the chair, and, starting up in an incoherent passionof tears, and stretching out her arms, cried, 'O Mr Rokesmith, beforeyou go, if you could but make me poor again! O! Make me poor again, Somebody, I beg and pray, or my heart will break if this goes on! Pa, dear, make me poor again and take me home! I was bad enough there, butI have been so much worse here. Don't give me money, Mr Boffin, I won'thave money. Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good littlePa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs. Nobody else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, nobody elseknows how unworthy I am, and yet can love me like a little child. I ambetter with Pa than any one--more innocent, more sorry, more glad!' So, crying out in a wild way that she could not bear this, Bella drooped herhead on Mrs Boffin's ready breast. 

John Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr Boffin from his, looked on at her in silence until she was silent herself. Then Mr Boffinobserved in a soothing and comfortable tone, 'There, my dear, there; youare righted now, and it's ALL right. I don't wonder, I'm sure, at yourbeing a little flurried by having a scene with this fellow, but it's allover, my dear, and you're righted, and it's--and it's ALL right!' WhichMr Boffin repeated with a highly satisfied air of completeness andfinality. 

'I hate you!' cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, with a stamp ofher little foot--'at least, I can't hate you, but I don't like you!'

'HUL--LO!' exclaimed Mr Boffin in an amazed under-tone. 

'You're a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature!'cried Bella. 'I am angry with my ungrateful self for calling you names;but you are, you are; you know you are!'

Mr Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting that he must bein some sort of fit. 

'I have heard you with shame, ' said Bella. 'With shame for myself, andwith shame for you. You ought to be above the base tale-bearing of atime-serving woman; but you are above nothing now. '

Mr Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was a fit, rolled hiseyes and loosened his neckcloth. 

'When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, and I soon lovedyou, ' cried Bella. 'And now I can't bear the sight of you. At least, Idon't know that I ought to go so far as that--only you're a--you're aMonster!' Having shot this bolt out with a great expenditure of force, Bella hysterically laughed and cried together. 

'The best wish I can wish you is, ' said Bella, returning to the charge, 'that you had not one single farthing in the world. If any true friendand well-wisher could make you a bankrupt, you would be a Duck; but as aman of property you are a Demon!'

After despatching this second bolt with a still greater expenditure offorce, Bella laughed and cried still more. 

'Mr Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word from me beforeyou go! I am deeply sorry for the reproaches you have borne on myaccount. Out of the depths of my heart I earnestly and truly beg yourpardon. '

As she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave him her hand, he putit to his lips, and said, 'God bless you!' No laughing was mixed withBella's crying then; her tears were pure and fervent. 

'There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard addressed toyou--heard with scorn and indignation, Mr Rokesmith--but it has woundedme far more than you, for I have deserved it, and you never have. MrRokesmith, it is to me you owe this perverted account of what passedbetween us that night. I parted with the secret, even while I was angrywith myself for doing so. It was very bad in me, but indeed it was notwicked. I did it in a moment of conceit and folly--one of my many suchmoments--one of my many such hours--years. As I am punished for itseverely, try to forgive it!'

'I do with all my soul. '

'Thank you. O thank you! Don't part from me till I have said one otherword, to do you justice. The only fault you can be truly charged with, in having spoken to me as you did that night--with how much delicacyand how much forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to youfor--is, that you laid yourself open to be slighted by a worldly shallowgirl whose head was turned, and who was quite unable to rise to theworth of what you offered her. Mr Rokesmith, that girl has often seenherself in a pitiful and poor light since, but never in so pitifuland poor a light as now, when the mean tone in which she answeredyou--sordid and vain girl that she was--has been echoed in her ears byMr Boffin. '

He kissed her hand again. 

'Mr Boffin's speeches were detestable to me, shocking to me, ' saidBella, startling that gentleman with another stamp of her littlefoot. 'It is quite true that there was a time, and very lately, when Ideserved to be so "righted, " Mr Rokesmith; but I hope that I shall neverdeserve it again!'

He once more put her hand to his lips, and then relinquished it, andleft the room. Bella was hurrying back to the chair in which she hadhidden her face so long, when, catching sight of Mrs Boffin by theway, she stopped at her. 'He is gone, ' sobbed Bella indignantly, despairingly, in fifty ways at once, with her arms round Mrs Boffin'sneck. 'He has been most shamefully abused, and most unjustly and mostbasely driven away, and I am the cause of it!'

All this time, Mr Boffin had been rolling his eyes over his loosenedneckerchief, as if his fit were still upon him. Appearing now to thinkthat he was coming to, he stared straight before him for a while, tiedhis neckerchief again, took several long inspirations, swallowed severaltimes, and ultimately exclaimed with a deep sigh, as if he felt himselfon the whole better: 'Well!'

No word, good or bad, did Mrs Boffin say; but she tenderly took care ofBella, and glanced at her husband as if for orders. Mr Boffin, withoutimparting any, took his seat on a chair over against them, and theresat leaning forward, with a fixed countenance, his legs apart, a hand oneach knee, and his elbows squared, until Bella should dry her eyes andraise her head, which in the fulness of time she did. 

'I must go home, ' said Bella, rising hurriedly. 'I am very grateful toyou for all you have done for me, but I can't stay here. '

'My darling girl!' remonstrated Mrs Boffin. 

'No, I can't stay here, ' said Bella; 'I can't indeed. --Ugh! you viciousold thing!' (This to Mr Boffin. )

'Don't be rash, my love, ' urged Mrs Boffin. 'Think well of what you do. '

'Yes, you had better think well, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'I shall never more think well of YOU, ' cried Bella, cutting himshort, with intense defiance in her expressive little eyebrows, andchampionship of the late Secretary in every dimple. 'No! Never again!Your money has changed you to marble. You are a hard-hearted Miser. Youare worse than Dancer, worse than Hopkins, worse than Blackberry Jones, worse than any of the wretches. And more!' proceeded Bella, breakinginto tears again, 'you were wholly undeserving of the Gentleman you havelost. '

'Why, you don't mean to say, Miss Bella, ' the Golden Dustman slowlyremonstrated, 'that you set up Rokesmith against me?'

'I do!' said Bella. 'He is worth a Million of you. '

Very pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made herself astall as she possibly could (which was not extremely tall), and utterlyrenounced her patron with a lofty toss of her rich brown head. 

'I would rather he thought well of me, ' said Bella, 'though he swept thestreet for bread, than that you did, though you splashed the mud uponhim from the wheels of a chariot of pure gold. --There!'

'Well I'm sure!' cried Mr Boffin, staring. 

'And for a long time past, when you have thought you set yourself abovehim, I have only seen you under his feet, ' said Bella--'There! Andthroughout I saw in him the master, and I saw in you the man--There! Andwhen you used him shamefully, I took his part and loved him--There! Iboast of it!'

After which strong avowal Bella underwent reaction, and cried to anyextent, with her face on the back of her chair. 

'Now, look here, ' said Mr Boffin, as soon as he could find an openingfor breaking the silence and striking in. 'Give me your attention, Bella. I am not angry. '

'I AM!' said Bella. 

'I say, ' resumed the Golden Dustman, 'I am not angry, and I mean kindlyto you, and I want to overlook this. So you'll stay where you are, andwe'll agree to say no more about it. '

'No, I can't stay here, ' cried Bella, rising hurriedly again; 'I can'tthink of staying here. I must go home for good. '

'Now, don't be silly, ' Mr Boffin reasoned. 'Don't do what you can'tundo; don't do what you're sure to be sorry for. '

'I shall never be sorry for it, ' said Bella; 'and I should always besorry, and should every minute of my life despise myself if I remainedhere after what has happened. '

'At least, Bella, ' argued Mr Boffin, 'let there be no mistake about it. Look before you leap, you know. Stay where you are, and all's well, andall's as it was to be. Go away, and you can never come back. '

'I know that I can never come back, and that's what I mean, ' said Bella. 

'You mustn't expect, ' Mr Boffin pursued, 'that I'm a-going to settlemoney on you, if you leave us like this, because I am not. No, Bella! Becareful! Not one brass farthing. '

'Expect!' said Bella, haughtily. 'Do you think that any power on earthcould make me take it, if you did, sir?'

But there was Mrs Boffin to part from, and, in the full flush of herdignity, the impressible little soul collapsed again. Down upon herknees before that good woman, she rocked herself upon her breast, andcried, and sobbed, and folded her in her arms with all her might. 

'You're a dear, a dear, the best of dears!' cried Bella. 'You're thebest of human creatures. I can never be thankful enough to you, and Ican never forget you. If I should live to be blind and deaf I know Ishall see and hear you, in my fancy, to the last of my dim old days!'

Mrs Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all fondness; butsaid not one single word except that she was her dear girl. She saidthat often enough, to be sure, for she said it over and over again; butnot one word else. 

Bella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out of the room, when in her own little queer affectionate way, she half relented towardsMr Boffin. 

'I am very glad, ' sobbed Bella, 'that I called you names, sir, becauseyou richly deserved it. But I am very sorry that I called you names, because you used to be so different. Say good-bye!'

'Good-bye, ' said Mr Boffin, shortly. 

'If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would ask youto let me touch it, ' said Bella, 'for the last time. But not because Irepent of what I have said to you. For I don't. It's true!'

'Try the left hand, ' said Mr Boffin, holding it out in a stolid manner;'it's the least used. '

'You have been wonderfully good and kind to me, ' said Bella, 'and I kissit for that. You have been as bad as bad could be to Mr Rokesmith, and Ithrow it away for that. Thank you for myself, and good-bye!'

'Good-bye, ' said Mr Boffin as before. 

Bella caught him round the neck and kissed him, and ran out for ever. 

She ran up-stairs, and sat down on the floor in her own room, and criedabundantly. But the day was declining and she had no time to lose. Sheopened all the places where she kept her dresses; selected only thoseshe had brought with her, leaving all the rest; and made a greatmisshapen bundle of them, to be sent for afterwards. 

'I won't take one of the others, ' said Bella, tying the knots of thebundle very tight, in the severity of her resolution. 'I'll leave allthe presents behind, and begin again entirely on my own account. ' Thatthe resolution might be thoroughly carried into practice, she evenchanged the dress she wore, for that in which she had come to the grandmansion. Even the bonnet she put on, was the bonnet that had mountedinto the Boffin chariot at Holloway. 

'Now, I am complete, ' said Bella. 'It's a little trying, but I havesteeped my eyes in cold water, and I won't cry any more. You have beena pleasant room to me, dear room. Adieu! We shall never see each otheragain. '

With a parting kiss of her fingers to it, she softly closed the door andwent with a light foot down the great staircase, pausing and listeningas she went, that she might meet none of the household. No one chancedto be about, and she got down to the hall in quiet. The door of the lateSecretary's room stood open. She peeped in as she passed, and divinedfrom the emptiness of his table, and the general appearance of things, that he was already gone. Softly opening the great hall door, andsoftly closing it upon herself, she turned and kissed it on theoutside--insensible old combination of wood and iron that itwas!--before she ran away from the house at a swift pace. 

'That was well done!' panted Bella, slackening in the next street, andsubsiding into a walk. 'If I had left myself any breath to cry with, Ishould have cried again. Now poor dear darling little Pa, you are goingto see your lovely woman unexpectedly. '

Chapter 16

THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS

The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her way along itsgritty streets. Most of its money-mills were slackening sail, or hadleft off grinding for the day. The master-millers had already departed, and the journeymen were departing. There was a jaded aspect onthe business lanes and courts, and the very pavements had a wearyappearance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must behours of night to temper down the day's distraction of so feverish aplace. As yet the worry of the newly-stopped whirling and grinding onthe part of the money-mills seemed to linger in the air, and the quietwas more like the prostration of a spent giant than the repose of onewho was renewing his strength. 

If Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank, how agreeable itwould be to have an hour's gardening there, with a bright copper shovel, among the money, still she was not in an avaricious vein. Much improvedin that respect, and with certain half-formed images which had littlegold in their composition, dancing before her bright eyes, she arrivedin the drug-flavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the sensation ofhaving just opened a drawer in a chemist's shop. 

The counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles was pointed outby an elderly female accustomed to the care of offices, who dropped uponBella out of a public-house, wiping her mouth, and accounted for itshumidity on natural principles well known to the physical sciences, byexplaining that she had looked in at the door to see what o'clock itwas. The counting-house was a wall-eyed ground floor by a dark gateway, and Bella was considering, as she approached it, could there be anyprecedent in the City for her going in and asking for R. Wilfer, whenwhom should she see, sitting at one of the windows with the plate-glasssash raised, but R. Wilfer himself, preparing to take a slightrefection. 

On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection hadthe appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth of milk. Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discoveredher, and invoked the echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim 'My gracious me!'

He then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and embraced her, and handed her in. 'For it's after hours and I am all alone, my dear, 'he explained, 'and am having--as I sometimes do when they are allgone--a quiet tea. '

Looking round the office, as if her father were a captive and this hiscell, Bella hugged him and choked him to her heart's content. 

'I never was so surprised, my dear!' said her father. 'I couldn'tbelieve my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they had taken to lying! Theidea of your coming down the Lane yourself! Why didn't you send thefootman down the Lane, my dear?'

'I have brought no footman with me, Pa. '

'Oh indeed! But you have brought the elegant turn-out, my love?'

'No, Pa. '

'You never can have walked, my dear?'

'Yes, I have, Pa. '

He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make up her mindto break it to him just yet. 

'The consequence is, Pa, that your lovely woman feels a little faint, and would very much like to share your tea. '

The cottage loaf and the pennyworth of milk had been set forth on asheet of paper on the window-seat. The cherubic pocket-knife, with thefirst bit of the loaf still on its point, lay beside them where it hadbeen hastily thrown down. Bella took the bit off, and put it in hermouth. 'My dear child, ' said her father, 'the idea of your partaking ofsuch lowly fare! But at least you must have your own loaf and your ownpenn'orth. One moment, my dear. The Dairy is just over the way and roundthe corner. '

Regardless of Bella's dissuasions he ran out, and quickly returned withthe new supply. 'My dear child, ' he said, as he spread it on anotherpiece of paper before her, 'the idea of a splendid--!' and then lookedat her figure, and stopped short. 

'What's the matter, Pa?'

'--of a splendid female, ' he resumed more slowly, 'putting up withsuch accommodation as the present!--Is that a new dress you have on, mydear?'

'No, Pa, an old one. Don't you remember it?'

'Why, I THOUGHT I remembered it, my dear!'

'You should, for you bought it, Pa. '

'Yes, I THOUGHT I bought it my dear!' said the cherub, giving himself alittle shake, as if to rouse his faculties. 

'And have you grown so fickle that you don't like your own taste, Padear?'

'Well, my love, ' he returned, swallowing a bit of the cottage loaf withconsiderable effort, for it seemed to stick by the way: 'I should havethought it was hardly sufficiently splendid for existing circumstances. '

'And so, Pa, ' said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side instead ofremaining opposite, 'you sometimes have a quiet tea here all alone? Iam not in the tea's way, if I draw my arm over your shoulder like this, Pa?'

'Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, and CertainlyNot to the second. Respecting the quiet tea, my dear, why you see theoccupations of the day are sometimes a little wearing; and if there'snothing interposed between the day and your mother, why SHE is sometimesa little wearing, too. '

'I know, Pa. '

'Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the window here, witha little quiet contemplation of the Lane (which comes soothing), betweenthe day, and domestic--'

'Bliss, ' suggested Bella, sorrowfully. 

'And domestic Bliss, ' said her father, quite contented to accept thephrase. 

Bella kissed him. 'And it is in this dark dingy place of captivity, poor dear, that you pass all the hours of your life when you are not athome?'

'Not at home, or not on the road there, or on the road here, my love. Yes. You see that little desk in the corner?'

'In the dark corner, furthest both from the light and from thefireplace? The shabbiest desk of all the desks?'

'Now, does it really strike you in that point of view, my dear?' saidher father, surveying it artistically with his head on one side: 'that'smine. That's called Rumty's Perch. '

'Whose Perch?' asked Bella with great indignation. 

'Rumty's. You see, being rather high and up two steps they call it aPerch. And they call ME Rumty. '

'How dare they!' exclaimed Bella. 

'They're playful, Bella my dear; they're playful. They're more or lessyounger than I am, and they're playful. What does it matter? It mightbe Surly, or Sulky, or fifty disagreeable things that I really shouldn'tlike to be considered. But Rumty! Lor, why not Rumty?'

To inflict a heavy disappointment on this sweet nature, which had been, through all her caprices, the object of her recognition, love, andadmiration from infancy, Bella felt to be the hardest task of her hardday. 'I should have done better, ' she thought, 'to tell him at first;I should have done better to tell him just now, when he had some slightmisgiving; he is quite happy again, and I shall make him wretched. '

He was falling back on his loaf and milk, with the pleasantestcomposure, and Bella stealing her arm a little closer about him, and atthe same time sticking up his hair with an irresistible propensityto play with him founded on the habit of her whole life, had preparedherself to say: 'Pa dear, don't be cast down, but I must tell yousomething disagreeable!' when he interrupted her in an unlooked-formanner. 

'My gracious me!' he exclaimed, invoking the Mincing Lane echoes asbefore. 'This is very extraordinary!'

'What is, Pa?'

'Why here's Mr Rokesmith now!'

'No, no, Pa, no, ' cried Bella, greatly flurried. 'Surely not. '

'Yes there is! Look here!'

Sooth to say, Mr Rokesmith not only passed the window, but came into thecounting-house. And not only came into the counting-house, but, findinghimself alone there with Bella and her father, rushed at Bella andcaught her in his arms, with the rapturous words 'My dear, dear girl; mygallant, generous, disinterested, courageous, noble girl!' And not onlythat even, (which one might have thought astonishment enough for onedose), but Bella, after hanging her head for a moment, lifted it up andlaid it on his breast, as if that were her head's chosen and lastingresting-place!

'I knew you would come to him, and I followed you, ' said Rokesmith. 'Mylove, my life! You ARE mine?'

To which Bella responded, 'Yes, I AM yours if you think me worthtaking!' And after that, seemed to shrink to next to nothing in theclasp of his arms, partly because it was such a strong one on his part, and partly because there was such a yielding to it on hers. 

The cherub, whose hair would have done for itself under the influence ofthis amazing spectacle, what Bella had just now done for it, staggeredback into the window-seat from which he had risen, and surveyed the pairwith his eyes dilated to their utmost. 

'But we must think of dear Pa, ' said Bella; 'I haven't told dear Pa; letus speak to Pa. ' Upon which they turned to do so. 

'I wish first, my dear, ' remarked the cherub faintly, 'that you'd havethe kindness to sprinkle me with a little milk, for I feel as if Iwas--Going. '

In fact, the good little fellow had become alarmingly limp, and hissenses seemed to be rapidly escaping, from the knees upward. Bellasprinkled him with kisses instead of milk, but gave him a little of thatarticle to drink; and he gradually revived under her caressing care. 

'We'll break it to you gently, dearest Pa, ' said Bella. 

'My dear, ' returned the cherub, looking at them both, 'you broke so muchin the first--Gush, if I may so express myself--that I think I am equalto a good large breakage now. '

'Mr Wilfer, ' said John Rokesmith, excitedly and joyfully, 'Bella takesme, though I have no fortune, even no present occupation; nothing butwhat I can get in the life before us. Bella takes me!'

'Yes, I should rather have inferred, my dear sir, ' returned the cherubfeebly, 'that Bella took you, from what I have within these few minutesremarked. '

'You don't know, Pa, ' said Bella, 'how ill I have used him!'

'You don't know, sir, ' said Rokesmith, 'what a heart she has!'

'You don't know, Pa, ' said Bella, 'what a shocking creature I wasgrowing, when he saved me from myself!'

'You don't know, sir, ' said Rokesmith, 'what a sacrifice she has madefor me!'

'My dear Bella, ' replied the cherub, still pathetically scared, 'and mydear John Rokesmith, if you will allow me so to call you--'

'Yes do, Pa, do!' urged Bella. 'I allow you, and my will is his law. Isn't it--dear John Rokesmith?'

There was an engaging shyness in Bella, coupled with an engagingtenderness of love and confidence and pride, in thus first calling himby name, which made it quite excusable in John Rokesmith to do what hedid. What he did was, once more to give her the appearance of vanishingas aforesaid. 

'I think, my dears, ' observed the cherub, 'that if you could make itconvenient to sit one on one side of me, and the other on the other, weshould get on rather more consecutively, and make things ratherplainer. John Rokesmith mentioned, a while ago, that he had no presentoccupation. '

'None, ' said Rokesmith. 

'No, Pa, none, ' said Bella. 

'From which I argue, ' proceeded the cherub, 'that he has left MrBoffin?'

'Yes, Pa. And so--'

'Stop a bit, my dear. I wish to lead up to it by degrees. And that MrBoffin has not treated him well?'

'Has treated him most shamefully, dear Pa!' cried Bella with a flashingface. 

'Of which, ' pursued the cherub, enjoining patience with his hand, 'acertain mercenary young person distantly related to myself, could notapprove? Am I leading up to it right?'

'Could not approve, sweet Pa, ' said Bella, with a tearful laugh and ajoyful kiss. 

'Upon which, ' pursued the cherub, 'the certain mercenary young persondistantly related to myself, having previously observed and mentionedto myself that prosperity was spoiling Mr Boffin, felt that she must notsell her sense of what was right and what was wrong, and what was trueand what was false, and what was just and what was unjust, for anyprice that could be paid to her by any one alive? Am I leading up to itright?'

With another tearful laugh Bella joyfully kissed him again. 

'And therefore--and therefore, ' the cherub went on in a glowing voice, as Bella's hand stole gradually up his waistcoat to his neck, 'thismercenary young person distantly related to myself, refused theprice, took off the splendid fashions that were part of it, put on thecomparatively poor dress that I had last given her, and trusting to mysupporting her in what was right, came straight to me. Have I led up toit?'

Bella's hand was round his neck by this time, and her face was on it. 

'The mercenary young person distantly related to myself, ' said hergood father, 'did well! The mercenary young person distantly relatedto myself, did not trust to me in vain! I admire this mercenary youngperson distantly related to myself, more in this dress than if she hadcome to me in China silks, Cashmere shawls, and Golconda diamonds. Ilove this young person dearly. I say to the man of this young person'sheart, out of my heart and with all of it, "My blessing on thisengagement betwixt you, and she brings you a good fortune when shebrings you the poverty she has accepted for your sake and the honesttruth's!"'

The stanch little man's voice failed him as he gave John Rokesmith hishand, and he was silent, bending his face low over his daughter. But, not for long. He soon looked up, saying in a sprightly tone:

'And now, my dear child, if you think you can entertain John Rokesmithfor a minute and a half, I'll run over to the Dairy, and fetch HIM acottage loaf and a drink of milk, that we may all have tea together. '

It was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for the threenursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, without theirthunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, 'Somebody's beendrinking MY milk!' It was a delicious repast; by far the most deliciousthat Bella, or John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer had ever made. Theuncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with the two brass knobs of theiron safe of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles staring from a corner, like the eyes of some dull dragon, only made it the more delightful. 

'To think, ' said the cherub, looking round the office with unspeakableenjoyment, 'that anything of a tender nature should come off here, iswhat tickles me. To think that ever I should have seen my Bella foldedin the arms of her future husband, HERE, you know!'

It was not until the cottage loaves and the milk had for some timedisappeared, and the foreshadowings of night were creeping over MincingLane, that the cherub by degrees became a little nervous, and said toBella, as he cleared his throat:

'Hem!--Have you thought at all about your mother, my dear?'

'Yes, Pa. '

'And your sister Lavvy, for instance, my dear?'

'Yes, Pa. I think we had better not enter into particulars at home. Ithink it will be quite enough to say that I had a difference with MrBoffin, and have left for good. '

'John Rokesmith being acquainted with your Ma, my love, ' said herfather, after some slight hesitation, 'I need have no delicacy inhinting before him that you may perhaps find your Ma a little wearing. '

'A little, patient Pa?' said Bella with a tuneful laugh: the tunefullerfor being so loving in its tone. 

'Well! We'll say, strictly in confidence among ourselves, wearing;we won't qualify it, ' the cherub stoutly admitted. 'And your sister'stemper is wearing. '

'I don't mind, Pa. '

'And you must prepare yourself you know, my precious, ' said her father, with much gentleness, 'for our looking very poor and meagre at home, andbeing at the best but very uncomfortable, after Mr Boffin's house. '

'I don't mind, Pa. I could bear much harder trials--for John. '

The closing words were not so softly and blushingly said but that Johnheard them, and showed that he heard them by again assisting Bella toanother of those mysterious disappearances. 

'Well!' said the cherub gaily, and not expressing disapproval, 'whenyou--when you come back from retirement, my love, and reappear on thesurface, I think it will be time to lock up and go. '

If the counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles had ever beenshut up by three happier people, glad as most people were to shut it up, they must have been superlatively happy indeed. But first Bella mountedupon Rumty's Perch, and said, 'Show me what you do here all day long, dear Pa. Do you write like this?' laying her round cheek upon her plumpleft arm, and losing sight of her pen in waves of hair, in a highlyunbusiness-like manner. Though John Rokesmith seemed to like it. 

So, the three hobgoblins, having effaced all traces of their feast, andswept up the crumbs, came out of Mincing Lane to walk to Holloway; andif two of the hobgoblins didn't wish the distance twice as long as itwas, the third hobgoblin was much mistaken. Indeed, that modest spiritdeemed himself so much in the way of their deep enjoyment of thejourney, that he apologetically remarked: 'I think, my dears, I'll takethe lead on the other side of the road, and seem not to belong to you. 'Which he did, cherubically strewing the path with smiles, in the absenceof flowers. 

It was almost ten o'clock when they stopped within view of WilferCastle; and then, the spot being quiet and deserted, Bella began aseries of disappearances which threatened to last all night. 

'I think, John, ' the cherub hinted at last, 'that if you can spare methe young person distantly related to myself, I'll take her in. '

'I can't spare her, ' answered John, 'but I must lend her to you. '--MyDarling!' A word of magic which caused Bella instantly to disappearagain. 

'Now, dearest Pa, ' said Bella, when she became visible, 'put your handin mine, and we'll run home as fast as ever we can run, and get it over. Now, Pa. Once!--'

'My dear, ' the cherub faltered, with something of a craven air, 'I wasgoing to observe that if your mother--'

'You mustn't hang back, sir, to gain time, ' cried Bella, putting out herright foot; 'do you see that, sir? That's the mark; come up to the mark, sir. Once! Twice! Three times and away, Pa!' Off she skimmed, bearingthe cherub along, nor ever stopped, nor suffered him to stop, until shehad pulled at the bell. 'Now, dear Pa, ' said Bella, taking him by bothears as if he were a pitcher, and conveying his face to her rosy lips, 'we are in for it!'

Miss Lavvy came out to open the gate, waited on by that attentivecavalier and friend of the family, Mr George Sampson. 'Why, it's neverBella!' exclaimed Miss Lavvy starting back at the sight. And thenbawled, 'Ma! Here's Bella!'

This produced, before they could get into the house, Mrs Wilfer. Who, standing in the portal, received them with ghostly gloom, and all herother appliances of ceremony. 

'My child is welcome, though unlooked for, ' said she, at the timepresenting her cheek as if it were a cool slate for visitors to enrolthemselves upon. 'You too, R. W. , are welcome, though late. Does themale domestic of Mrs Boffin hear me there?' This deep-toned inquiry wascast forth into the night, for response from the menial in question. 

'There is no one waiting, Ma, dear, ' said Bella. 

'There is no one waiting?' repeated Mrs Wilfer in majestic accents. 

'No, Ma, dear. '

A dignified shiver pervaded Mrs Wilfer's shoulders and gloves, aswho should say, 'An Enigma!' and then she marched at the head of theprocession to the family keeping-room, where she observed:

'Unless, R. W. ': who started on being solemnly turned upon: 'you havetaken the precaution of making some addition to our frugal supper onyour way home, it will prove but a distasteful one to Bella. Cold neckof mutton and a lettuce can ill compete with the luxuries of Mr Boffin'sboard. '

'Pray don't talk like that, Ma dear, ' said Bella; 'Mr Boffin's board isnothing to me. '

But, here Miss Lavinia, who had been intently eyeing Bella's bonnet, struck in with 'Why, Bella!'

'Yes, Lavvy, I know. '

The Irrepressible lowered her eyes to Bella's dress, and stooped to lookat it, exclaiming again: 'Why, Bella!'

'Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going to tell Ma when youinterrupted. I have left Mr Boffin's house for good, Ma, and I have comehome again. '

Mrs Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her offspring for aminute or two in an awful silence, retired into her corner of statebackward, and sat down: like a frozen article on sale in a Russianmarket. 

'In short, dear Ma, ' said Bella, taking off the depreciated bonnet andshaking out her hair, 'I have had a very serious difference with MrBoffin on the subject of his treatment of a member of his household, andit's a final difference, and there's an end of all. '

'And I am bound to tell you, my dear, ' added R. W. , submissively, 'thatBella has acted in a truly brave spirit, and with a truly right feeling. And therefore I hope, my dear, you'll not allow yourself to be greatlydisappointed. '

'George!' said Miss Lavvy, in a sepulchral, warning voice, founded onher mother's; 'George Sampson, speak! What did I tell you about thoseBoffins?'

Mr Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring among shoals andbreakers, thought it safest not to refer back to any particular thingthat he had been told, lest he should refer back to the wrong thing. With admirable seamanship he got his bark into deep water by murmuring'Yes indeed. '

'Yes! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells you, said MissLavvy, 'that those hateful Boffins would pick a quarrel with Bella, assoon as her novelty had worn off. Have they done it, or have they not?Was I right, or was I wrong? And what do you say to us, Bella, of yourBoffins now?'

'Lavvy and Ma, ' said Bella, 'I say of Mr and Mrs Boffin what I alwayshave said; and I always shall say of them what I always have said. Butnothing will induce me to quarrel with any one to-night. I hope youare not sorry to see me, Ma dear, ' kissing her; 'and I hope you are notsorry to see me, Lavvy, ' kissing her too; 'and as I notice the lettuceMa mentioned, on the table, I'll make the salad. '

Bella playfully setting herself about the task, Mrs Wilfer's impressivecountenance followed her with glaring eyes, presenting a combinationof the once popular sign of the Saracen's Head, with a piece ofDutch clock-work, and suggesting to an imaginative mind that from thecomposition of the salad, her daughter might prudently omit the vinegar. But no word issued from the majestic matron's lips. And this was moreterrific to her husband (as perhaps she knew) than any flow of eloquencewith which she could have edified the company. 

'Now, Ma dear, ' said Bella in due course, 'the salad's ready, and it'spast supper-time. '

Mrs Wilfer rose, but remained speechless. 'George!' said Miss Laviniain her voice of warning, 'Ma's chair!' Mr Sampson flew to the excellentlady's back, and followed her up close chair in hand, as she stalkedto the banquet. Arrived at the table, she took her rigid seat, afterfavouring Mr Sampson with a glare for himself, which caused the younggentleman to retire to his place in much confusion. 

The cherub not presuming to address so tremendous an object, transactedher supper through the agency of a third person, as 'Mutton to your Ma, Bella, my dear'; and 'Lavvy, I dare say your Ma would take some lettuceif you were to put it on her plate. ' Mrs Wilfer's manner of receivingthose viands was marked by petrified absence of mind; in which state, likewise, she partook of them, occasionally laying down her knife andfork, as saying within her own spirit, 'What is this I am doing?' andglaring at one or other of the party, as if in indignant search ofinformation. A magnetic result of such glaring was, that the personglared at could not by any means successfully pretend to be ignorant ofthe fact: so that a bystander, without beholding Mrs Wilfer at all, musthave known at whom she was glaring, by seeing her refracted from thecountenance of the beglared one. 

Miss Lavinia was extremely affable to Mr Sampson on this specialoccasion, and took the opportunity of informing her sister why. 

'It was not worth troubling you about, Bella, when you were in a sphereso far removed from your family as to make it a matter in which youcould be expected to take very little interest, ' said Lavinia with atoss of her chin; 'but George Sampson is paying his addresses to me. '

Bella was glad to hear it. Mr Sampson became thoughtfully red, andfelt called upon to encircle Miss Lavinia's waist with his arm; but, encountering a large pin in the young lady's belt, scarified a finger, uttered a sharp exclamation, and attracted the lightning of Mrs Wilfer'sglare. 

'George is getting on very well, ' said Miss Lavinia which might not havebeen supposed at the moment--'and I dare say we shall be married, one ofthese days. I didn't care to mention it when you were with your Bof--'here Miss Lavinia checked herself in a bounce, and added more placidly, 'when you were with Mr and Mrs Boffin; but now I think it sisterly toname the circumstance. '

'Thank you, Lavvy dear. I congratulate you. '

'Thank you, Bella. The truth is, George and I did discuss whetherI should tell you; but I said to George that you wouldn't be muchinterested in so paltry an affair, and that it was far more likely youwould rather detach yourself from us altogether, than have him added tothe rest of us. '

'That was a mistake, dear Lavvy, ' said Bella. 

'It turns out to be, ' replied Miss Lavinia; 'but circumstances havechanged, you know, my dear. George is in a new situation, and hisprospects are very good indeed. I shouldn't have had the courage to tellyou so yesterday, when you would have thought his prospects poor, andnot worth notice; but I feel quite bold tonight. '

'When did you begin to feel timid, Lavvy? inquired Bella, with a smile. 

'I didn't say that I ever felt timid, Bella, ' replied the Irrepressible. 'But perhaps I might have said, if I had not been restrained by delicacytowards a sister's feelings, that I have for some time felt independent;too independent, my dear, to subject myself to have my intended match(you'll prick yourself again, George) looked down upon. It is not that Icould have blamed you for looking down upon it, when you were looking upto a rich and great match, Bella; it is only that I was independent. '

Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella's declaration that shewould not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked by Bella'sreturn to the sphere of Mr George Sampson's courtship, or whether it wasa necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collisionwith somebody on the present occasion, --anyhow she made a dash at herstately parent now, with the greatest impetuosity. 

'Ma, pray don't sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating manner!If you see a black on my nose, tell me so; if you don't, leave mealone. '

'Do you address Me in those words?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Do you presume?'

'Don't talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness' sake. A girl who is oldenough to be engaged, is quite old enough to object to be stared at asif she was a Clock. '

'Audacious one!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Your grandmamma, if so addressed byone of her daughters, at any age, would have insisted on her retiring toa dark apartment. '

'My grandmamma, ' returned Lavvy, folding her arms and leaning backin her chair, 'wouldn't have sat staring people out of countenance, Ithink. '

'She would!' said Mrs Wilfer. 

'Then it's a pity she didn't know better, ' said Lavvy. 'And if mygrandmamma wasn't in her dotage when she took to insisting on people'sretiring to dark apartments, she ought to have been. A pretty exhibitionmy grandmamma must have made of herself! I wonder whether she everinsisted on people's retiring into the ball of St Paul's; and if shedid, how she got them there!'

'Silence!' proclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'I command silence!'

'I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma, ' returnedLavinia coolly, 'but quite the contrary. I am not going to be eyed as ifI had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. I am not goingto have George Sampson eyed as if HE had come from the Boffins, and sitsilent under it. If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if HE had come fromthe Boffins also, well and good. I don't choose to. And I won't!'

Lavinia's engineering having made this crooked opening at Bella, MrsWilfer strode into it. 

'You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, Lavinia. Ifin violation of your mother's sentiments, you had condescended to allowyourself to be patronized by the Boffins, and if you had come from thosehalls of slavery--'

'That's mere nonsense, Ma, ' said Lavinia. 

'How!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, with sublime severity. 

'Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense, ' returned the unmovedIrrepressible. 

'I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neighbourhood ofPortland Place, bending under the yoke of patronage and attended by itsdomestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you think my deep-seatedfeelings could have been expressed in looks?'

'All I think about it, is, ' returned Lavinia, 'that I should wish themexpressed to the right person. '

'And if, ' pursued her mother, 'if making light of my warnings that theface of Mrs Boffin alone was a face teeming with evil, you had clung toMrs Boffin instead of to me, and had after all come home rejected by MrsBoffin, trampled under foot by Mrs Boffin, and cast out by Mrs Boffin, do you think my feelings could have been expressed in looks?'

Lavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that she might as wellhave dispensed with her looks altogether then, when Bella rose and said, 'Good night, dear Ma. I have had a tiring day, and I'll go to bed. ' Thisbroke up the agreeable party. Mr George Sampson shortly afterwards tookhis leave, accompanied by Miss Lavinia with a candle as far as the hall, and without a candle as far as the garden gate; Mrs Wilfer, washing herhands of the Boffins, went to bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth; andR. W. Was left alone among the dilapidations of the supper table, in amelancholy attitude. 

But, a light footstep roused him from his meditations, and it wasBella's. Her pretty hair was hanging all about her, and she had trippeddown softly, brush in hand, and barefoot, to say good-night to him. 

'My dear, you most unquestionably ARE a lovely woman, ' said the cherub, taking up a tress in his hand. 

'Look here, sir, ' said Bella; 'when your lovely woman marries, you shallhave that piece if you like, and she'll make you a chain of it. Wouldyou prize that remembrance of the dear creature?'

'Yes, my precious. '

'Then you shall have it if you're good, sir. I am very, very sorry, dearest Pa, to have brought home all this trouble. '

'My pet, ' returned her father, in the simplest good faith, 'don't makeyourself uneasy about that. It really is not worth mentioning, becausethings at home would have taken pretty much the same turn any way. Ifyour mother and sister don't find one subject to get at times a littlewearing on, they find another. We're never out of a wearing subject, my dear, I assure you. I am afraid you find your old room with Lavvy, dreadfully inconvenient, Bella?'

'No I don't, Pa; I don't mind. Why don't I mind, do you think, Pa?'

'Well, my child, you used to complain of it when it wasn't such acontrast as it must be now. Upon my word, I can only answer, because youare so much improved. '

'No, Pa. Because I am so thankful and so happy!'

Here she choked him until her long hair made him sneeze, and then shelaughed until she made him laugh, and then she choked him again thatthey might not be overheard. 

'Listen, sir, ' said Bella. 'Your lovely woman was told her fortuneto night on her way home. It won't be a large fortune, because if thelovely woman's Intended gets a certain appointment that he hopes to getsoon, she will marry on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. But that's atfirst, and even if it should never be more, the lovely woman will makeit quite enough. But that's not all, sir. In the fortune there's acertain fair man--a little man, the fortune-teller said--who, it seems, will always find himself near the lovely woman, and will always havekept, expressly for him, such a peaceful corner in the lovely woman'slittle house as never was. Tell me the name of that man, sir. '

'Is he a Knave in the pack of cards?' inquired the cherub, with atwinkle in his eyes. 

'Yes!' cried Bella, in high glee, choking him again. 'He's the Knave ofWilfers! Dear Pa, the lovely woman means to look forward to this fortunethat has been told for her, so delightfully, and to cause it to make hera much better lovely woman than she ever has been yet. What the littlefair man is expected to do, sir, is to look forward to it also, bysaying to himself when he is in danger of being over-worried, "I seeland at last!"

'I see land at last!' repeated her father. 

'There's a dear Knave of Wilfers!' exclaimed Bella; then putting out hersmall white bare foot, 'That's the mark, sir. Come to the mark. Put yourboot against it. We keep to it together, mind! Now, sir, you may kissthe lovely woman before she runs away, so thankful and so happy. O yes, fair little man, so thankful and so happy!'

Chapter 17

A SOCIAL CHORUS

Amazement sits enthroned upon the countenances of Mr and Mrs AlfredLammle's circle of acquaintance, when the disposal of their first-classfurniture and effects (including a Billiard Table in capital letters), 'by auction, under a bill of sale, ' is publicly announced on a wavinghearthrug in Sackville Street. But, nobody is half so much amazed asHamilton Veneering, Esquire, M. P. For Pocket-Breaches, who instantlybegins to find out that the Lammles are the only people ever entered onhis soul's register, who are NOT the oldest and dearest friends he hasin the world. Mrs Veneering, W. M. P. For Pocket-Breaches, like a faithfulwife shares her husband's discovery and inexpressible astonishment. Perhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last unutterable feelingparticularly due to their reputation, by reason that once upon a timesome of the longer heads in the City are whispered to have shakenthemselves, when Veneering's extensive dealings and great wealth werementioned. But, it is certain that neither Mr nor Mrs Veneering canfind words to wonder in, and it becomes necessary that they give to theoldest and dearest friends they have in the world, a wondering dinner. 

For, it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befals, the Veneeringsmust give a dinner upon it. Lady Tippins lives in a chronic stateof invitation to dine with the Veneerings, and in a chronic state ofinflammation arising from the dinners. Boots and Brewer go about incabs, with no other intelligible business on earth than to beat uppeople to come and dine with the Veneerings. Veneering pervades thelegislative lobbies, intent upon entrapping his fellow-legislators todinner. Mrs Veneering dined with five-and-twenty bran-new faces overnight; calls upon them all to day; sends them every one a dinner-cardto-morrow, for the week after next; before that dinner is digested, calls upon their brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, theirnephews and nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and invitesthem all to dinner. And still, as at first, howsoever, the dining circlewidens, it is to be observed that all the diners are consistent inappearing to go to the Veneerings, not to dine with Mr and Mrs Veneering(which would seem to be the last thing in their minds), but to dine withone another. 

Perhaps, after all, --who knows?--Veneering may find this dining, thoughexpensive, remunerative, in the sense that it makes champions. Mr Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone in caring veryparticularly for his own dignity, if not for that of his acquaintances, and therefore in angrily supporting the acquaintances who have taken outhis Permit, lest, in their being lessened, he should be. The gold andsilver camels, and the ice-pails, and the rest of the Veneering tabledecorations, make a brilliant show, and when I, Podsnap, casually remarkelsewhere that I dined last Monday with a gorgeous caravan of camels, I find it personally offensive to have it hinted to me that they arebroken-kneed camels, or camels labouring under suspicion of any sort. 'Idon't display camels myself, I am above them: I am a more solid man; butthese camels have basked in the light of my countenance, and how dareyou, sir, insinuate to me that I have irradiated any but unimpeachablecamels?'

The camels are polishing up in the Analytical's pantry for the dinnerof wonderment on the occasion of the Lammles going to pieces, and MrTwemlow feels a little queer on the sofa at his lodgings over the stableyard in Duke Street, Saint James's, in consequence of having takentwo advertised pills at about mid-day, on the faith of the printedrepresentation accompanying the box (price one and a penny halfpenny, government stamp included), that the same 'will be found highly salutaryas a precautionary measure in connection with the pleasures of thetable. ' To whom, while sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pillsticking in his gullet, and also with the sensation of a deposit of warmgum languidly wandering within him a little lower down, a servant enterswith the announcement that a lady wishes to speak with him. 

'A lady!' says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. 'Ask the favour ofthe lady's name. '

The lady's name is Lammle. The lady will not detain Mr Twemlow longerthan a very few minutes. The lady is sure that Mr Twemlow will do herthe kindness to see her, on being told that she particularly desiresa short interview. The lady has no doubt whatever of Mr Twemlow'scompliance when he hears her name. Has begged the servant to beparticular not to mistake her name. Would have sent in a card, but hasnone. 

'Show the lady in. ' Lady shown in, comes in. 

Mr Twemlow's little rooms are modestly furnished, in an old-fashionedmanner (rather like the housekeeper's room at Snigsworthy Park), andwould be bare of mere ornament, were it not for a full-length engravingof the sublime Snigsworth over the chimneypiece, snorting at aCorinthian column, with an enormous roll of paper at his feet, and aheavy curtain going to tumble down on his head; those accessories beingunderstood to represent the noble lord as somehow in the act of savinghis country. 

'Pray take a seat, Mrs Lammle. ' Mrs Lammle takes a seat and opens theconversation. 

'I have no doubt, Mr Twemlow, that you have heard of a reverse offortune having befallen us. Of course you have heard of it, for no kindof news travels so fast--among one's friends especially. '

Mindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little twinge, admitsthe imputation. 

'Probably it will not, ' says Mrs Lammle, with a certain hardened mannerupon her, that makes Twemlow shrink, 'have surprised you so much as someothers, after what passed between us at the house which is now turnedout at windows. I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, MrTwemlow, to add a sort of postscript to what I said that day. '

Mr Twemlow's dry and hollow cheeks become more dry and hollow at theprospect of some new complication. 

'Really, ' says the uneasy little gentleman, 'really, Mrs Lammle, Ishould take it as a favour if you could excuse me from any furtherconfidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my life--which, unfortunately, has not had many objects--to be inoffensive, and to keepout of cabals and interferences. '

Mrs Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely finds itnecessary to look at Twemlow while he speaks, so easily does she readhim. 

'My postscript--to retain the term I have used'--says Mrs Lammle, fixingher eyes on his face, to enforce what she says herself--'coincidesexactly with what you say, Mr Twemlow. So far from troubling you withany new confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one was. Sofar from asking you for interference, I merely wish to claim your strictneutrality. '

Twemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, knowing her ears tobe quite enough for the contents of so weak a vessel. 

'I can, I suppose, ' says Twemlow, nervously, 'offer no reasonableobjection to hearing anything that you do me the honour to wish to sayto me under those heads. But if I may, with all possible delicacy andpoliteness, entreat you not to range beyond them, I--I beg to do so. '

'Sir, ' says Mrs Lammle, raising her eyes to his face again, and quitedaunting him with her hardened manner, 'I imparted to you a certainpiece of knowledge, to be imparted again, as you thought best, to acertain person. '

'Which I did, ' says Twemlow. 

'And for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I scarcely know whyI turned traitress to my husband in the matter, for the girl is a poorlittle fool. I was a poor little fool once myself; I can find no betterreason. ' Seeing the effect she produces on him by her indifferent laughand cold look, she keeps her eyes upon him as she proceeds. 'Mr Twemlow, if you should chance to see my husband, or to see me, or to see both ofus, in the favour or confidence of any one else--whether of our commonacquaintance or not, is of no consequence--you have no right to useagainst us the knowledge I intrusted you with, for one special purposewhich has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. It is not astipulation; to a gentleman it is simply a reminder. '

Twemlow sits murmuring to himself with his hand to his forehead. 

'It is so plain a case, ' Mrs Lammle goes on, 'as between me (from thefirst relying on your honour) and you, that I will not waste anotherword upon it. ' She looks steadily at Mr Twemlow, until, with a shrug, he makes her a little one-sided bow, as though saying 'Yes, I think youhave a right to rely upon me, ' and then she moistens her lips, and showsa sense of relief. 

'I trust I have kept the promise I made through your servant, that Iwould detain you a very few minutes. I need trouble you no longer, MrTwemlow. '

'Stay!' says Twemlow, rising as she rises. 'Pardon me a moment. I shouldnever have sought you out, madam, to say what I am going to say, butsince you have sought me out and are here, I will throw it off my mind. Was it quite consistent, in candour, with our taking that resolutionagainst Mr Fledgeby, that you should afterwards address Mr Fledgeby asyour dear and confidential friend, and entreat a favour of Mr Fledgeby?Always supposing that you did; I assert no knowledge of my own on thesubject; it has been represented to me that you did. '

'Then he told you?' retorts Mrs Lammle, who again has saved her eyeswhile listening, and uses them with strong effect while speaking. 

'Yes. '

'It is strange that he should have told you the truth, ' says MrsLammle, seriously pondering. 'Pray where did a circumstance so veryextraordinary happen?'

Twemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well as weaker, and, as she stands above him with her hardened manner and her well-used eyes, he finds himself at such a disadvantage that he would like to be of theopposite sex. 

'May I ask where it happened, Mr Twemlow? In strict confidence?'

'I must confess, ' says the mild little gentleman, coming to his answerby degrees, 'that I felt some compunctions when Mr Fledgeby mentionedit. I must admit that I could not regard myself in an agreeable light. More particularly, as Mr Fledgeby did, with great civility, which Icould not feel that I deserved from him, render me the same service thatyou had entreated him to render you. 

It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman's soul to saythis last sentence. 'Otherwise, ' he has reflected, 'I shall assume thesuperior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know ofhers. Which would be mean, very mean. 

'Was Mr Fledgeby's advocacy as effectual in your case as in ours?' MrsLammle demands. 

'As ineffectual. '

'Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr Fledgeby, MrTwemlow?'

'I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservationwas not intentional. I encountered Mr Fledgeby, quite by accident, onthe spot. --By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr Riah's in SaintMary Axe. '

'Have you the misfortune to be in Mr Riah's hands then?'

'Unfortunately, madam, ' returns Twemlow, 'the one money obligation towhich I stand committed, the one debt of my life (but it is a just debt;pray observe that I don't dispute it), has fallen into Mr Riah's hands. '

'Mr Twemlow, ' says Mrs Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he wouldprevent her doing if he could, but he can't; 'it has fallen into MrFledgeby's hands. Mr Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr Fledgeby'shands. Let me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may beof use to you, if only to prevent your credulity, in judging anotherman's truthfulness by your own, from being imposed upon. '

'Impossible!' cries Twemlow, standing aghast. 'How do you know it?'

'I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of circumstances seemedto take fire at once, and show it to me. '

'Oh! Then you have no proof. '

'It is very strange, ' says Mrs Lammle, coldly and boldly, and with somedisdain, 'how like men are to one another in some things, though theircharacters are as different as can be! No two men can have less affinitybetween them, one would say, than Mr Twemlow and my husband. Yet myhusband replies to me "You have no proof, " and Mr Twemlow replies to mewith the very same words!'

'But why, madam?' Twemlow ventures gently to argue. 'Consider whythe very same words? Because they state the fact. Because you HAVE noproof. '

'Men are very wise in their way, ' quoth Mrs Lammle, glancing haughtilyat the Snigsworth portrait, and shaking out her dress before departing;'but they have wisdom to learn. My husband, who is not over-confiding, ingenuous, or inexperienced, sees this plain thing no more than MrTwemlow does--because there is no proof! Yet I believe five women out ofsix, in my place, would see it as clearly as I do. However, I will neverrest (if only in remembrance of Mr Fledgeby's having kissed my hand)until my husband does see it. And you will do well for yourself to seeit from this time forth, Mr Twemlow, though I CAN give you no proof. '

As she moves towards the door, Mr Twemlow, attending on her, expresseshis soothing hope that the condition of Mr Lammle's affairs is notirretrievable. 

'I don't know, ' Mrs Lammle answers, stopping, and sketching out thepattern of the paper on the wall with the point of her parasol; 'itdepends. There may be an opening for him dawning now, or there may benone. We shall soon find out. If none, we are bankrupt here, and must goabroad, I suppose. '

Mr Twemlow, in his good-natured desire to make the best of it, remarksthat there are pleasant lives abroad. 

'Yes, ' returns Mrs Lammle, still sketching on the wall; 'but I doubtwhether billiard-playing, card-playing, and so forth, for the means tolive under suspicion at a dirty table-d'hote, is one of them. '

It is much for Mr Lammle, Twemlow politely intimates (though greatlyshocked), to have one always beside him who is attached to him in allhis fortunes, and whose restraining influence will prevent him fromcourses that would be discreditable and ruinous. As he says it, MrsLammle leaves off sketching, and looks at him. 

'Restraining influence, Mr Twemlow? We must eat and drink, and dress, and have a roof over our heads. Always beside him and attached in allhis fortunes? Not much to boast of in that; what can a woman at my agedo? My husband and I deceived one another when we married; we must bearthe consequences of the deception--that is to say, bear one another, andbear the burden of scheming together for to-day's dinner and to-morrow'sbreakfast--till death divorces us. '

With those words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint James's. MrTwemlow returning to his sofa, lays down his aching head on its slipperylittle horsehair bolster, with a strong internal conviction that apainful interview is not the kind of thing to be taken after the dinnerpills which are so highly salutary in connexion with the pleasures ofthe table. 

But, six o'clock in the evening finds the worthy little gentlemangetting better, and also getting himself into his obsolete little silkstockings and pumps, for the wondering dinner at the Veneerings. Andseven o'clock in the evening finds him trotting out into Duke Street, totrot to the corner and save a sixpence in coach-hire. 

Tippins the divine has dined herself into such a condition by this time, that a morbid mind might desire her, for a blessed change, to supat last, and turn into bed. Such a mind has Mr Eugene Wrayburn, whomTwemlow finds contemplating Tippins with the moodiest of visages, while that playful creature rallies him on being so long overdue at thewoolsack. Skittish is Tippins with Mortimer Lightwood too, and has rapsto give him with her fan for having been best man at the nuptials ofthese deceiving what's-their-names who have gone to pieces. Though, indeed, the fan is generally lively, and taps away at the men inall directions, with something of a grisly sound suggestive of theclattering of Lady Tippins's bones. 

A new race of intimate friends has sprung up at Veneering's since hewent into Parliament for the public good, to whom Mrs Veneering is veryattentive. These friends, like astronomical distances, are only to bespoken of in the very largest figures. Boots says that one of them is aContractor who (it has been calculated) gives employment, directly andindirectly, to five hundred thousand men. Brewer says that another ofthem is a Chairman, in such request at so many Boards, so far apart, that he never travels less by railway than three thousand miles a week. Buffer says that another of them hadn't a sixpence eighteen months ago, and, through the brilliancy of his genius in getting those shares issuedat eighty-five, and buying them all up with no money and selling themat par for cash, has now three hundred and seventy-five thousandpounds--Buffer particularly insisting on the odd seventy-five, anddeclining to take a farthing less. With Buffer, Boots, and Brewer, LadyTippins is eminently facetious on the subject of these Fathers of theScrip-Church: surveying them through her eyeglass, and inquiring whetherBoots and Brewer and Buffer think they will make her fortune if shemakes love to them? with other pleasantries of that nature. Veneering, in his different way, is much occupied with the Fathers too, piouslyretiring with them into the conservatory, from which retreat the word'Committee' is occasionally heard, and where the Fathers instructVeneering how he must leave the valley of the piano on his left, take the level of the mantelpiece, cross by an open cutting at thecandelabra, seize the carrying-traffic at the console, and cut up theopposition root and branch at the window curtains. 

Mr and Mrs Podsnap are of the company, and the Fathers descry in MrsPodsnap a fine woman. She is consigned to a Father--Boots's Father, who employs five hundred thousand men--and is brought to anchor onVeneering's left; thus affording opportunity to the sportive Tippins onhis right (he, as usual, being mere vacant space), to entreat to be toldsomething about those loves of Navvies, and whether they really do liveon raw beefsteaks, and drink porter out of their barrows. But, in spiteof such little skirmishes it is felt that this was to be a wonderingdinner, and that the wondering must not be neglected. Accordingly, Brewer, as the man who has the greatest reputation to sustain, becomesthe interpreter of the general instinct. 

'I took, ' says Brewer in a favourable pause, 'a cab this morning, and Irattled off to that Sale. '

Boots (devoured by envy) says, 'So did I. '

Buffer says, 'So did I'; but can find nobody to care whether he did ornot. 

'And what was it like?' inquires Veneering. 

'I assure you, ' replies Brewer, looking about for anybody else toaddress his answer to, and giving the preference to Lightwood; 'I assureyou, the things were going for a song. Handsome things enough, butfetching nothing. '

'So I heard this afternoon, ' says Lightwood. 

Brewer begs to know now, would it be fair to ask a professional manhow--on--earth--these--people--ever--did--come--TO--such--A--totalsmash? (Brewer's divisions being for emphasis. )

Lightwood replies that he was consulted certainly, but could give noopinion which would pay off the Bill of Sale, and therefore violates noconfidence in supposing that it came of their living beyond their means. 

'But how, ' says Veneering, 'CAN people do that!'

Hah! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull's eye. How CANpeople do that! The Analytical Chemist going round with champagne, looksvery much as if HE could give them a pretty good idea how people didthat, if he had a mind. 

'How, ' says Mrs Veneering, laying down her fork to press her aquilinehands together at the tips of the fingers, and addressing the Father whotravels the three thousand miles per week: 'how a mother can look ather baby, and know that she lives beyond her husband's means, I cannotimagine. '

Eugene suggests that Mrs Lammle, not being a mother, had no baby to lookat. 

'True, ' says Mrs Veneering, 'but the principle is the same. '

Boots is clear that the principle is the same. So is Buffer. It is theunfortunate destiny of Buffer to damage a cause by espousing it. Therest of the company have meekly yielded to the proposition that theprinciple is the same, until Buffer says it is; when instantly a generalmurmur arises that the principle is not the same. 

'But I don't understand, ' says the Father of the three hundred andseventy-five thousand pounds, '--if these people spoken of, occupied theposition of being in society--they were in society?'

Veneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and were evenmarried from here. 

'Then I don't understand, ' pursues the Father, 'how even their livingbeyond their means could bring them to what has been termed a totalsmash. Because, there is always such a thing as an adjustment ofaffairs, in the case of people of any standing at all. '

Eugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of suggestiveness), suggests, 'Suppose you have no means and live beyond them?'

This is too insolvent a state of things for the Father to entertain. Itis too insolvent a state of things for any one with any self-respectto entertain, and is universally scouted. But, it is so amazing how anypeople can have come to a total smash, that everybody feels bound toaccount for it specially. One of the Fathers says, 'Gaming table. 'Another of the Fathers says, 'Speculated without knowing thatspeculation is a science. ' Boots says 'Horses. ' Lady Tippins says to herfan, 'Two establishments. ' Mr Podsnap, saying nothing, is referredto for his opinion; which he delivers as follows; much flushed andextremely angry:

'Don't ask me. I desire to take no part in the discussion of thesepeople's affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an odious subject, anoffensive subject, a subject that makes me sick, and I--' And with hisfavourite right-arm flourish which sweeps away everything and settles itfor ever, Mr Podsnap sweeps these inconveniently unexplainable wretcheswho have lived beyond their means and gone to total smash, off the faceof the universe. 

Eugene, leaning back in his chair, is observing Mr Podsnap with anirreverent face, and may be about to offer a new suggestion, whenthe Analytical is beheld in collision with the Coachman; the Coachmanmanifesting a purpose of coming at the company with a silver salver, as though intent upon making a collection for his wife and family; theAnalytical cutting him off at the sideboard. The superior stateliness, if not the superior generalship, of the Analytical prevails over a manwho is as nothing off the box; and the Coachman, yielding up his salver, retires defeated. 

Then, the Analytical, perusing a scrap of paper lying on the salver, with the air of a literary Censor, adjusts it, takes his time aboutgoing to the table with it, and presents it to Mr Eugene Wrayburn. Whereupon the pleasant Tippins says aloud, 'The Lord Chancellor hasresigned!'

With distracting coolness and slowness--for he knows the curiosity ofthe Charmer to be always devouring--Eugene makes a pretence of gettingout an eyeglass, polishing it, and reading the paper with difficulty, long after he has seen what is written on it. What is written on it inwet ink, is:

'Young Blight. '

'Waiting?' says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence, with theAnalytical. 

'Waiting, ' returns the Analytical in responsive confidence. 

Eugene looks 'Excuse me, ' towards Mrs Veneering, goes out, and findsYoung Blight, Mortimer's clerk, at the hall-door. 

'You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if he come whileyou was out and I was in, ' says that discreet young gentleman, standingon tiptoe to whisper; 'and I've brought him. '

'Sharp boy. Where is he?' asks Eugene. 

'He's in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to show him, yousee, if it could be helped; for he's a-shaking all over, like--Blight'ssimile is perhaps inspired by the surrounding dishes of sweets--'likeGlue Monge. '

'Sharp boy again, ' returns Eugene. 'I'll go to him. '

Goes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on the open windowof a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr Dolls: who has brought his ownatmosphere with him, and would seem from its odour to have brought it, for convenience of carriage, in a rum-cask. 

'Now Dolls, wake up!'

'Mist Wrayburn? Drection! Fifteen shillings!'

After carefully reading the dingy scrap of paper handed to him, and ascarefully tucking it into his waistcoat pocket, Eugene tells out themoney; beginning incautiously by telling the first shilling into MrDolls's hand, which instantly jerks it out of window; and ending bytelling the fifteen shillings on the seat. 

'Give him a ride back to Charing Cross, sharp boy, and there get rid ofhim. '

Returning to the dining-room, and pausing for an instant behind thescreen at the door, Eugene overhears, above the hum and clatter, thefair Tippins saying: 'I am dying to ask him what he was called out for!'

'Are you?' mutters Eugene, 'then perhaps if you can't ask him, you'lldie. So I'll be a benefactor to society, and go. A stroll and a cigar, and I can think this over. Think this over. ' Thus, with a thoughtfulface, he finds his hat and cloak, unseen of the Analytical, and goes hisway. 

BOOK THE FOURTH -- A TURNING

Chapter 1

SETTING TRAPS

Plashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an evening inthe summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves of the fresh green trees, and passed like a smooth shadow over the river, and like a smoothershadow over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, likethe voices of the sea and the wind, were as an outer memory to acontemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr Riderhood, who saton one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. Wine mustbe got into a butt by some agency before it can be drawn out; and thewine of sentiment never having been got into Mr Riderhood by any agency, nothing in nature tapped him. 

As the Rogue sat, ever and again nodding himself off his balance, hisrecovery was always attended by an angry stare and growl, as if, in theabsence of any one else, he had aggressive inclinations towards himself. In one of these starts the cry of 'Lock, ho! Lock!' prevented hisrelapse into a doze. Shaking himself as he got up like the surly brutehe was, he gave his growl a responsive twist at the end, and turned hisface down-stream to see who hailed. 

It was an amateur-sculler, well up to his work though taking it easily, in so light a boat that the Rogue remarked: 'A little less on you, andyou'd a'most ha' been a Wagerbut'; then went to work at his windlasshandles and sluices, to let the sculler in. As the latter stood in hisboat, holding on by the boat-hook to the woodwork at the lock side, waiting for the gates to open, Rogue Riderhood recognized his 'T'othergovernor, ' Mr Eugene Wrayburn; who was, however, too indifferent or toomuch engaged to recognize him. 

The creaking lock-gates opened slowly, and the light boat passed in assoon as there was room enough, and the creaking lock-gates closed uponit, and it floated low down in the dock between the two sets of gates, until the water should rise and the second gates should open and let itout. When Riderhood had run to his second windlass and turned it, andwhile he leaned against the lever of that gate to help it to swingopen presently, he noticed, lying to rest under the green hedge by thetowing-path astern of the Lock, a Bargeman. 

The water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing the scumwhich had formed behind the lumbering gates, and sending the boat up, so that the sculler gradually rose like an apparition against the lightfrom the bargeman's point of view. Riderhood observed that the bargemanrose too, leaning on his arm, and seemed to have his eyes fastened onthe rising figure. 

But, there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now complainingand opening. The T'other governor tossed it ashore, twisted in a pieceof paper, and as he did so, knew his man. 

'Ay, ay? It's you, is it, honest friend?' said Eugene, seating himselfpreparatory to resuming his sculls. 'You got the place, then?'

'I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet none to LawyerLightwood, ' gruffly answered Riderhood. 

'We saved our recommendation, honest fellow, ' said Eugene, 'for the nextcandidate--the one who will offer himself when you are transported orhanged. Don't be long about it; will you be so good?'

So imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent to his work thatRiderhood remained staring at him, without having found a retort, untilhe had rowed past a line of wooden objects by the weir, which showedlike huge teetotums standing at rest in the water, and was almost hiddenby the drooping boughs on the left bank, as he rowed away, keepingout of the opposing current. It being then too late to retort withany effect--if that could ever have been done--the honest man confinedhimself to cursing and growling in a grim under-tone. Having thengot his gates shut, he crossed back by his plank lock-bridge to thetowing-path side of the river. 

If, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he did it bystealth. He cast himself on the grass by the Lock side, in an indolentway, with his back in that direction, and, having gathered a few blades, fell to chewing them. The dip of Eugene Wrayburn's sculls had becomehardly audible in his ears when the bargeman passed him, putting theutmost width that he could between them, and keeping under the hedge. Then, Riderhood sat up and took a long look at his figure, and thencried: 'Hi--I--i! Lock, ho! Lock! Plashwater Weir Mill Lock!'

The bargeman stopped, and looked back. 

'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, T'otherest gov--er--nor--or--or--or!' criedMr Riderhood, with his hands to his mouth. 

The bargeman turned back. Approaching nearer and nearer, the bargemanbecame Bradley Headstone, in rough water-side second-hand clothing. 

'Wish I may die, ' said Riderhood, smiting his right leg, and laughing, as he sat on the grass, 'if you ain't ha' been a imitating me, T'otherest governor! Never thought myself so good-looking afore!'

Truly, Bradley Headstone had taken careful note of the honest man'sdress in the course of that night-walk they had had together. He musthave committed it to memory, and slowly got it by heart. It wasexactly reproduced in the dress he now wore. And whereas, in his ownschoolmaster clothes, he usually looked as if they were the clothes ofsome other man, he now looked, in the clothes of some other man or men, as if they were his own. 

'THIS your Lock?' said Bradley, whose surprise had a genuine air; 'theytold me, where I last inquired, it was the third I should come to. Thisis only the second. '

'It's my belief, governor, ' returned Riderhood, with a wink and shake ofhis head, 'that you've dropped one in your counting. It ain't Locks asYOU'VE been giving your mind to. No, no!'

As he expressively jerked his pointing finger in the direction the boathad taken, a flush of impatience mounted into Bradley's face, and helooked anxiously up the river. 

'It ain't Locks as YOU'VE been a reckoning up, ' said Riderhood, when theschoolmaster's eyes came back again. 'No, no!'

'What other calculations do you suppose I have been occupied with?Mathematics?'

'I never heerd it called that. It's a long word for it. Hows'ever, p'raps you call it so, ' said Riderhood, stubbornly chewing his grass. 

'It. What?'

'I'll say them, instead of it, if you like, ' was the coolly growledreply. 'It's safer talk too. '

'What do you mean that I should understand by them?'

'Spites, affronts, offences giv' and took, deadly aggrawations, suchlike, ' answered Riderhood. 

Do what Bradley Headstone would, he could not keep that former flush ofimpatience out of his face, or so master his eyes as to prevent theiragain looking anxiously up the river. 

'Ha ha! Don't be afeerd, T'otherest, ' said Riderhood. 'The T'other's gotto make way agin the stream, and he takes it easy. You can soon come upwith him. But wot's the good of saying that to you! YOU know how furyou could have outwalked him betwixt anywheres about where he lost thetide--say Richmond--and this, if you had a mind to it. '

'You think I have been following him?' said Bradley. 

'I KNOW you have, ' said Riderhood. 

'Well! I have, I have, ' Bradley admitted. 'But, ' with another anxiouslook up the river, 'he may land. '

'Easy you! He won't be lost if he does land, ' said Riderhood. 'He mustleave his boat behind him. He can't make a bundle or a parcel on it, andcarry it ashore with him under his arm. '

'He was speaking to you just now, ' said Bradley, kneeling on one knee onthe grass beside the Lock-keeper. 'What did he say?'

'Cheek, ' said Riderhood. 

'What?'

'Cheek, ' repeated Riderhood, with an angry oath; 'cheek is what he said. He can't say nothing but cheek. I'd ha' liked to plump down aboard ofhim, neck and crop, with a heavy jump, and sunk him. '

Bradley turned away his haggard face for a few moments, and then said, tearing up a tuft of grass:

'Damn him!'

'Hooroar!' cried Riderhood. 'Does you credit! Hooroar! I cry chorus tothe T'otherest. '

'What turn, ' said Bradley, with an effort at self-repression that forcedhim to wipe his face, 'did his insolence take to-day?'

'It took the turn, ' answered Riderhood, with sullen ferocity, 'of hopingas I was getting ready to be hanged. '

'Let him look to that, ' cried Bradley. 'Let him look to that! It willbe bad for him when men he has injured, and at whom he has jeered, arethinking of getting hanged. Let HIM get ready for HIS fate, when thatcomes about. There was more meaning in what he said than he knew of, orhe wouldn't have had brains enough to say it. Let him look to it; lethim look to it! When men he has wronged, and on whom he has bestowedhis insolence, are getting ready to be hanged, there is a death-bellringing. And not for them. '

Riderhood, looking fixedly at him, gradually arose from his recumbentposture while the schoolmaster said these words with the utmostconcentration of rage and hatred. So, when the words were all spoken, he too kneeled on one knee on the grass, and the two men looked at oneanother. 

'Oh!' said Riderhood, very deliberately spitting out the grass he hadbeen chewing. 'Then, I make out, T'otherest, as he is a-going to her?'

'He left London, ' answered Bradley, 'yesterday. I have hardly a doubt, this time, that at last he is going to her. '

'You ain't sure, then?'

'I am as sure here, ' said Bradley, with a clutch at the breast of hiscoarse shirt, 'as if it was written there;' with a blow or a stab at thesky. 

'Ah! But judging from the looks on you, ' retorted Riderhood, completelyridding himself of his grass, and drawing his sleeve across his mouth, 'you've made ekally sure afore, and have got disapinted. It has toldupon you. '

'Listen, ' said Bradley, in a low voice, bending forward to lay his handupon the Lock-keeper's shoulder. 'These are my holidays. '

'Are they, by George!' muttered Riderhood, with his eyes on thepassion-wasted face. 'Your working days must be stiff 'uns, if these isyour holidays. '

'And I have never left him, ' pursued Bradley, waving the interruptionaside with an impatient hand, 'since they began. And I never will leavehim now, till I have seen him with her. '

'And when you have seen him with her?' said Riderhood. 

'--I'll come back to you. '

Riderhood stiffened the knee on which he had been resting, got up, andlooked gloomily at his new friend. After a few moments they walked sideby side in the direction the boat had taken, as if by tacit consent;Bradley pressing forward, and Riderhood holding back; Bradley gettingout his neat prim purse into his hand (a present made him by pennysubscription among his pupils); and Riderhood, unfolding his arms tosmear his coat-cuff across his mouth with a thoughtful air. 

'I have a pound for you, ' said Bradley. 

'You've two, ' said Riderhood. 

Bradley held a sovereign between his fingers. Slouching at his side withhis eyes upon the towing-path, Riderhood held his left hand open, witha certain slight drawing action towards himself. Bradley dipped in hispurse for another sovereign, and two chinked in Riderhood's hand, thedrawing action of which, promptly strengthening, drew them home to hispocket. 

'Now, I must follow him, ' said Bradley Headstone. 'He takes thisriver-road--the fool!--to confuse observation, or divert attention, ifnot solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himselfinvisible before he can shake Me off. '

Riderhood stopped. 'If you don't get disapinted agin, T'otherest, maybeyou'll put up at the Lock-house when you come back?'

'I will. '

Riderhood nodded, and the figure of the bargeman went its way along thesoft turf by the side of the towing-path, keeping near the hedge andmoving quickly. They had turned a point from which a long stretch ofriver was visible. A stranger to the scene might have been certain thathere and there along the line of hedge a figure stood, watching thebargeman, and waiting for him to come up. So he himself had oftenbelieved at first, until his eyes became used to the posts, bearing thedagger that slew Wat Tyler, in the City of London shield. 

Within Mr Riderhood's knowledge all daggers were as one. Even to BradleyHeadstone, who could have told to the letter without book all about WatTyler, Lord Mayor Walworth, and the King, that it is dutiful for youthto know, there was but one subject living in the world for every sharpdestructive instrument that summer evening. So, Riderhood looking afterhim as he went, and he with his furtive hand laid upon the dagger as hepassed it, and his eyes upon the boat, were much upon a par. 

The boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their tranquilshadows in the water. The bargeman skulking on the opposite bank of thestream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed Riderhood whenand where the rower dipped his blades, until, even as he stood idlywatching, the sun went down and the landscape was dyed red. And then thered had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven, aswe say that blood, guiltily shed, does. 

Turning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of view of it), theRogue pondered as deeply as it was within the contracted power of sucha fellow to do. 'Why did he copy my clothes? He could have looked likewhat he wanted to look like, without that. ' This was the subject-matterin his thoughts; in which, too, there came lumbering up, by times, likeany half floating and half sinking rubbish in the river, the question, Was it done by accident? The setting of a trap for finding out whetherit was accidentally done, soon superseded, as a practical piece ofcunning, the abstruser inquiry why otherwise it was done. And he deviseda means. 

Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought forth, into thenow sober grey light, his chest of clothes. Sitting on the grass besideit, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, until he cameto a conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black here and there bywear. It arrested his attention, and he sat pausing over it, until hetook off the rusty colourless wisp that he wore round his throat, andsubstituted the red neckerchief, leaving the long ends flowing. 'Now, 'said the Rogue, 'if arter he sees me in this neckhankecher, I see him ina sim'lar neckhankecher, it won't be accident!' Elated by his device, hecarried his chest in again and went to supper. 

'Lock ho! Lock!' It was a light night, and a barge coming down summonedhim out of a long doze. In due course he had let the barge throughand was alone again, looking to the closing of his gates, when BradleyHeadstone appeared before him, standing on the brink of the Lock. 

'Halloa!' said Riderhood. 'Back a' ready, T'otherest?'

'He has put up for the night, at an Angler's Inn, ' was the fatigued andhoarse reply. 'He goes on, up the river, at six in the morning. I havecome back for a couple of hours' rest. '

'You want 'em, ' said Riderhood, making towards the schoolmaster by hisplank bridge. 

'I don't want them, ' returned Bradley, irritably, 'because I wouldrather not have them, but would much prefer to follow him all night. However, if he won't lead, I can't follow. I have been waiting about, until I could discover, for a certainty, at what time he starts; if Icouldn't have made sure of it, I should have stayed there. --This wouldbe a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. Theseslippery smooth walls would give him no chance. And I suppose thosegates would suck him down?'

'Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn't get out, ' said Riderhood. 'Not even, if his hands warn't tied, he wouldn't. Shut him in at bothends, and I'd give him a pint o' old ale ever to come up to me standinghere. '

Bradley looked down with a ghastly relish. 'You run about the brink, andrun across it, in this uncertain light, on a few inches width of rottenwood, ' said he. 'I wonder you have no thought of being drowned. '

'I can't be!' said Riderhood. 

'You can't be drowned?'

'No!' said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of thoroughconviction, 'it's well known. I've been brought out o' drowning, and Ican't be drowned. I wouldn't have that there busted B'lowbridger awareon it, or her people might make it tell agin' the damages I mean to get. But it's well known to water-side characters like myself, that him ashas been brought out o drowning, can never be drowned. '

Bradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have corrected in one ofhis pupils, and continued to look down into the water, as if the placehad a gloomy fascination for him. 

'You seem to like it, ' said Riderhood. 

He took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had not heard thewords. There was a very dark expression on his face; an expressionthat the Rogue found it hard to understand. It was fierce, and fullof purpose; but the purpose might have been as much against himself asagainst another. If he had stepped back for a spring, taken a leap, andthrown himself in, it would have been no surprising sequel to the look. Perhaps his troubled soul, set upon some violence, did hover for themoment between that violence and another. 

'Didn't you say, ' asked Riderhood, after watching him for a while witha sidelong glance, 'as you had come back for a couple o' hours' rest?'But, even then he had to jog him with his elbow before he answered. 

'Eh? Yes. '

'Hadn't you better come in and take your couple o' hours' rest?'

'Thank you. Yes. '

With the look of one just awakened, he followed Riderhood into theLock-house, where the latter produced from a cupboard some cold saltbeef and half a loaf, some gin in a bottle, and some water in a jug. Thelast he brought in, cool and dripping, from the river. 

'There, T'otherest, ' said Riderhood, stooping over him to put it onthe table. 'You'd better take a bite and a sup, afore you takesyour snooze. ' The draggling ends of the red neckerchief caught theschoolmaster's eyes. Riderhood saw him look at it. 

'Oh!' thought that worthy. 'You're a-taking notice, are you? Come! Youshall have a good squint at it then. ' With which reflection he sat downon the other side of the table, threw open his vest, and made a pretenceof re-tying the neckerchief with much deliberation. 

Bradley ate and drank. As he sat at his platter and mug, Riderhood sawhim, again and yet again, steal a look at the neckerchief, as if he werecorrecting his slow observation and prompting his sluggish memory. 'When you're ready for your snooze, ' said that honest creature, 'chuckyourself on my bed in the corner, T'otherest. It'll be broad day aforethree. I'll call you early. '

'I shall require no calling, ' answered Bradley. And soon afterwards, divesting himself only of his shoes and coat, laid himself down. 

Riderhood, leaning back in his wooden arm-chair with his arms foldedon his breast, looked at him lying with his right hand clenched in hissleep and his teeth set, until a film came over his own sight, and heslept too. He awoke to find that it was daylight, and that hisvisitor was already astir, and going out to the river-side to cool hishead:--'Though I'm blest, ' muttered Riderhood at the Lock-house door, looking after him, 'if I think there's water enough in all the Thamesto do THAT for you!' Within five minutes he had taken his departure, and was passing on into the calm distance as he had passed yesterday. Riderhood knew when a fish leaped, by his starting and glancing round. 

'Lock ho! Lock!' at intervals all day, and 'Lock ho! Lock!' thrice inthe ensuing night, but no return of Bradley. The second day was sultryand oppressive. In the afternoon, a thunderstorm came up, and had butnewly broken into a furious sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door, like the storm itself. 

'You've seen him with her!' exclaimed Riderhood, starting up. 

'I have. '

'Where?'

'At his journey's end. His boat's hauled up for three days. I heardhim give the order. Then, I saw him wait for her and meet her. I sawthem'--he stopped as though he were suffocating, and began again--'I sawthem walking side by side, last night. '

'What did you do?'

'Nothing. '

'What are you going to do?'

He dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately afterwards, a greatspirt of blood burst from his nose. 

'How does that happen?' asked Riderhood. 

'I don't know. I can't keep it back. It has happened twice--threetimes--four times--I don't know how many times--since last night. Itaste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it breaks out likethis. '

He went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, bending lowover the river, and scooping up the water with his two hands, washed theblood away. All beyond his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door, was a vast dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of theheavens. He raised his head and came back, wet from head to foot, butwith the lower parts of his sleeves, where he had dipped into the river, streaming water. 

'Your face is like a ghost's, ' said Riderhood. 

'Did you ever see a ghost?' was the sullen retort. 

'I mean to say, you're quite wore out. '

'That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. I don'tremember that I have so much as sat down since I left here. '

'Lie down now, then, ' said Riderhood. 

'I will, if you'll give me something to quench my thirst first. '

The bottle and jug were again produced, and he mixed a weak draught, andanother, and drank both in quick succession. 'You asked me something, 'he said then. 

'No, I didn't, ' replied Riderhood. 

'I tell you, ' retorted Bradley, turning upon him in a wild and desperatemanner, 'you asked me something, before I went out to wash my face inthe river. 

'Oh! Then?' said Riderhood, backing a little. 'I asked you wot you wosa-going to do. '

'How can a man in this state know?' he answered, protesting with bothhis tremulous hands, with an action so vigorously angry that he shookthe water from his sleeves upon the floor, as if he had wrung them. 'Howcan I plan anything, if I haven't sleep?'

'Why, that's what I as good as said, ' returned the other. 'Didn't I saylie down?'

'Well, perhaps you did. '

'Well! Anyways I says it again. Sleep where you slept last; the sounderand longer you can sleep, the better you'll know arterwards what you'reup to. '

His pointing to the truckle bed in the corner, seemed gradually to bringthat poor couch to Bradley's wandering remembrance. He slipped off hisworn down-trodden shoes, and cast himself heavily, all wet as he was, upon the bed. 

Riderhood sat down in his wooden arm-chair, and looked through thewindow at the lightning, and listened to the thunder. But, his thoughtswere far from being absorbed by the thunder and the lightning, for againand again and again he looked very curiously at the exhausted man uponthe bed. The man had turned up the collar of the rough coat he wore, to shelter himself from the storm, and had buttoned it about his neck. Unconscious of that, and of most things, he had left the coat so, bothwhen he had laved his face in the river, and when he had cast himselfupon the bed; though it would have been much easier to him if he hadunloosened it. 

The thunder rolled heavily, and the forked lightning seemed to makejagged rents in every part of the vast curtain without, as Riderhood satby the window, glancing at the bed. Sometimes, he saw the man upon thebed, by a red light; sometimes, by a blue; sometimes, he scarcely sawhim in the darkness of the storm; sometimes he saw nothing of him inthe blinding glare of palpitating white fire. Anon, the rain would comeagain with a tremendous rush, and the river would seem to rise to meetit, and a blast of wind, bursting upon the door, would flutter the hairand dress of the man, as if invisible messengers were come around thebed to carry him away. From all these phases of the storm, Riderhoodwould turn, as if they were interruptions--rather striking interruptionspossibly, but interruptions still--of his scrutiny of the sleeper. 

'He sleeps sound, ' he said within himself; 'yet he's that up to me andthat noticing of me that my getting out of my chair may wake him, when arattling peal won't; let alone my touching of him. '

He very cautiously rose to his feet. 'T'otherest, ' he said, in a low, calm voice, 'are you a lying easy? There's a chill in the air, governor. Shall I put a coat over you?'

No answer. 

'That's about what it is a'ready, you see, ' muttered Riderhood in alower and a different voice; 'a coat over you, a coat over you!'

The sleeper moving an arm, he sat down again in his chair, and feignedto watch the storm from the window. It was a grand spectacle, but not sogrand as to keep his eyes, for half a minute together, from stealing alook at the man upon the bed. 

It was at the concealed throat of the sleeper that Riderhood so oftenlooked so curiously, until the sleep seemed to deepen into the stuporof the dead-tired in mind and body. Then, Riderhood came from the windowcautiously, and stood by the bed. 

'Poor man!' he murmured in a low tone, with a crafty face, and a verywatchful eye and ready foot, lest he should start up; 'this here coatof his must make him uneasy in his sleep. Shall I loosen it for him, and make him more comfortable? Ah! I think I ought to do it, poor man. Ithink I will. '

He touched the first button with a very cautious hand, and a stepbackward. But, the sleeper remaining in profound unconsciousness, hetouched the other buttons with a more assured hand, and perhaps the morelightly on that account. Softly and slowly, he opened the coat and drewit back. 

The draggling ends of a bright-red neckerchief were then disclosed, andhe had even been at the pains of dipping parts of it in some liquid, to give it the appearance of having become stained by wear. With amuch-perplexed face, Riderhood looked from it to the sleeper, and fromthe sleeper to it, and finally crept back to his chair, and there, withhis hand to his chin, sat long in a brown study, looking at both. 

Chapter 2

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE

Mr and Mrs Lammle had come to breakfast with Mr and Mrs Boffin. Theywere not absolutely uninvited, but had pressed themselves with so muchurgency on the golden couple, that evasion of the honour and pleasureof their company would have been difficult, if desired. They were in acharming state of mind, were Mr and Mrs Lammle, and almost as fond of Mrand Mrs Boffin as of one another. 

'My dear Mrs Boffin, ' said Mrs Lammle, 'it imparts new life to me, tosee my Alfred in confidential communication with Mr Boffin. The twowere formed to become intimate. So much simplicity combined with so muchforce of character, such natural sagacity united to such amiability andgentleness--these are the distinguishing characteristics of both. '

This being said aloud, gave Mr Lammle an opportunity, as he came with MrBoffin from the window to the breakfast table, of taking up his dear andhonoured wife. 

'My Sophronia, ' said that gentleman, 'your too partial estimate of yourhusband's character--'

'No! Not too partial, Alfred, ' urged the lady, tenderly moved; 'neversay that. '

'My child, your favourable opinion, then, of your husband--you don'tobject to that phrase, darling?'

'How can I, Alfred?'

'Your favourable opinion then, my Precious, does less than justice to MrBoffin, and more than justice to me. '

'To the first charge, Alfred, I plead guilty. But to the second, oh no, no!'

'Less than justice to Mr Boffin, Sophronia, ' said Mr Lammle, soaringinto a tone of moral grandeur, 'because it represents Mr Boffin as on mylower level; more than justice to me, Sophronia, because it representsme as on Mr Boffin's higher level. Mr Boffin bears and forbears far morethan I could. '

'Far more than you could for yourself, Alfred?'

'My love, that is not the question. '

'Not the question, Lawyer?' said Mrs Lammle, archly. 

'No, dear Sophronia. From my lower level, I regard Mr Boffin as toogenerous, as possessed of too much clemency, as being too good topersons who are unworthy of him and ungrateful to him. To those noblequalities I can lay no claim. On the contrary, they rouse my indignationwhen I see them in action. '

'Alfred!'

'They rouse my indignation, my dear, against the unworthy persons, and give me a combative desire to stand between Mr Boffin and all suchpersons. Why? Because, in my lower nature I am more worldly and lessdelicate. Not being so magnanimous as Mr Boffin, I feel his injuriesmore than he does himself, and feel more capable of opposing hisinjurers. '

It struck Mrs Lammle that it appeared rather difficult this morningto bring Mr and Mrs Boffin into agreeable conversation. Here had beenseveral lures thrown out, and neither of them had uttered a word. Herewere she, Mrs Lammle, and her husband discoursing at once affectinglyand effectively, but discoursing alone. Assuming that the dear oldcreatures were impressed by what they heard, still one would like to besure of it, the more so, as at least one of the dear old creatureswas somewhat pointedly referred to. If the dear old creatures were toobashful or too dull to assume their required places in the discussion, why then it would seem desirable that the dear old creatures should betaken by their heads and shoulders and brought into it. 

'But is not my husband saying in effect, ' asked Mrs Lammle, therefore, with an innocent air, of Mr and Mrs Boffin, 'that he becomes unmindfulof his own temporary misfortunes in his admiration of another whom he isburning to serve? And is not that making an admission that his nature isa generous one? I am wretched in argument, but surely this is so, dearMr and Mrs Boffin?'

Still, neither Mr and Mrs Boffin said a word. He sat with his eyes onhis plate, eating his muffins and ham, and she sat shyly looking at theteapot. Mrs Lammle's innocent appeal was merely thrown into the air, tomingle with the steam of the urn. Glancing towards Mr and Mrs Boffin, she very slightly raised her eyebrows, as though inquiring of herhusband: 'Do I notice anything wrong here?'

Mr Lammle, who had found his chest effective on a variety of occasions, manoeuvred his capacious shirt front into the largest demonstrationpossible, and then smiling retorted on his wife, thus:

'Sophronia, darling, Mr and Mrs Boffin will remind you of the old adage, that self-praise is no recommendation. '

'Self-praise, Alfred? Do you mean because we are one and the same?'

'No, my dear child. I mean that you cannot fail to remember, if youreflect for a single moment, that what you are pleased to compliment meupon feeling in the case of Mr Boffin, you have yourself confided to meas your own feeling in the case of Mrs Boffin. '

('I shall be beaten by this Lawyer, ' Mrs Lammle gaily whispered toMrs Boffin. 'I am afraid I must admit it, if he presses me, for it'sdamagingly true. ')

Several white dints began to come and go about Mr Lammle's nose, as heobserved that Mrs Boffin merely looked up from the teapot for a momentwith an embarrassed smile, which was no smile, and then looked downagain. 

'Do you admit the charge, Sophronia?' inquired Alfred, in a rallyingtone. 

'Really, I think, ' said Mrs Lammle, still gaily, 'I must throw myselfon the protection of the Court. Am I bound to answer that question, myLord?' To Mr Boffin. 

'You needn't, if you don't like, ma'am, ' was his answer. 'It's not ofthe least consequence. '

Both husband and wife glanced at him, very doubtfully. His manner wasgrave, but not coarse, and derived some dignity from a certain represseddislike of the tone of the conversation. 

Again Mrs Lammle raised her eyebrows for instruction from her husband. He replied in a slight nod, 'Try 'em again. '

'To protect myself against the suspicion of covert self-laudation, mydear Mrs Boffin, ' said the airy Mrs Lammle therefore, 'I must tell youhow it was. '

'No. Pray don't, ' Mr Boffin interposed. 

Mrs Lammle turned to him laughingly. 'The Court objects?'

'Ma'am, ' said Mr Boffin, 'the Court (if I am the Court) does object. TheCourt objects for two reasons. First, because the Court don't think itfair. Secondly, because the dear old lady, Mrs Court (if I am Mr) getsdistressed by it. '

A very remarkable wavering between two bearings--between herpropitiatory bearing there, and her defiant bearing at Mr Twemlow's--wasobservable on the part of Mrs Lammle as she said:

'What does the Court not consider fair?'

'Letting you go on, ' replied Mr Boffin, nodding his head soothingly, aswho should say, We won't be harder on you than we can help; we'll makethe best of it. 'It's not above-board and it's not fair. When the oldlady is uncomfortable, there's sure to be good reason for it. I see sheis uncomfortable, and I plainly see this is the good reason wherefore. HAVE you breakfasted, ma'am. '

Mrs Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed her plate away, looked at her husband, and laughed; but by no means gaily. 

'Have YOU breakfasted, sir?' inquired Mr Boffin. 

'Thank you, ' replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. 'If Mrs Boffin willoblige me, I'll take another cup of tea. '

He spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have been soeffective, and which had done so little; but on the whole drank it withsomething of an air, though the coming and going dints got almost aslarge, the while, as if they had been made by pressure of the teaspoon. 'A thousand thanks, ' he then observed. 'I have breakfasted. '

'Now, which, ' said Mr Boffin softly, taking out a pocket-book, 'which ofyou two is Cashier?'

'Sophronia, my dear, ' remarked her husband, as he leaned back in hischair, waving his right hand towards her, while he hung his left handby the thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat: 'it shall be yourdepartment. '

'I would rather, ' said Mr Boffin, 'that it was your husband's, ma'am, because--but never mind, because, I would rather have to do with him. However, what I have to say, I will say with as little offence aspossible; if I can say it without any, I shall be heartily glad. You twohave done me a service, a very great service, in doing what you did (myold lady knows what it was), and I have put into this envelope a banknote for a hundred pound. I consider the service well worth a hundredpound, and I am well pleased to pay the money. Would you do me thefavour to take it, and likewise to accept my thanks?'

With a haughty action, and without looking towards him, Mrs Lammle heldout her left hand, and into it Mr Boffin put the little packet. When shehad conveyed it to her bosom, Mr Lammle had the appearance of feelingrelieved, and breathing more freely, as not having been quite certainthat the hundred pounds were his, until the note had been safelytransferred out of Mr Boffin's keeping into his own Sophronia's. 

'It is not impossible, ' said Mr Boffin, addressing Alfred, 'that youhave had some general idea, sir, of replacing Rokesmith, in course oftime?'

'It is not, ' assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a great dealof nose, 'not impossible. '

'And perhaps, ma'am, ' pursued Mr Boffin, addressing Sophronia, 'you havebeen so kind as to take up my old lady in your own mind, and to do herthe honour of turning the question over whether you mightn't one ofthese days have her in charge, like? Whether you mightn't be a sort ofMiss Bella Wilfer to her, and something more?'

'I should hope, ' returned Mrs Lammle, with a scornful look and in a loudvoice, 'that if I were anything to your wife, sir, I could hardly failto be something more than Miss Bella Wilfer, as you call her. '

'What do YOU call her, ma'am?' asked Mr Boffin. 

Mrs Lammle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating one foot on theground. 

'Again I think I may say, that's not impossible. Is it, sir?' asked MrBoffin, turning to Alfred. 

'It is not, ' said Alfred, smiling assent as before, 'not impossible. '

'Now, ' said Mr Boffin, gently, 'it won't do. I don't wish to say asingle word that might be afterwards remembered as unpleasant; but itwon't do. '

'Sophronia, my love, ' her husband repeated in a bantering manner, 'youhear? It won't do. '

'No, ' said Mr Boffin, with his voice still dropped, 'it really won't. You positively must excuse us. If you'll go your way, we'll go ours, andso I hope this affair ends to the satisfaction of all parties. '

Mrs Lammle gave him the look of a decidedly dissatisfied party demandingexemption from the category; but said nothing. 

'The best thing we can make of the affair, ' said Mr Boffin, 'is a matterof business, and as a matter of business it's brought to a conclusion. You have done me a great service, a very great service, and I have paidfor it. Is there any objection to the price?'

Mr and Mrs Lammle looked at one another across the table, but neithercould say that there was. Mr Lammle shrugged his shoulders, and MrsLammle sat rigid. 

'Very good, ' said Mr Boffin. 'We hope (my old lady and me) that you'llgive us credit for taking the plainest and honestest short-cut thatcould be taken under the circumstances. We have talked it over with adeal of care (my old lady and me), and we have felt that at all to leadyou on, or even at all to let you go on of your own selves, wouldn't bethe right thing. So, I have openly given you to understand that--'Mr Boffin sought for a new turn of speech, but could find none soexpressive as his former one, repeated in a confidential tone, '--thatit won't do. If I could have put the case more pleasantly I would; butI hope I haven't put it very unpleasantly; at all events I haven't meantto. So, ' said Mr Boffin, by way of peroration, 'wishing you well in theway you go, we now conclude with the observation that perhaps you'll goit. '

Mr Lammle rose with an impudent laugh on his side of the table, and MrsLammle rose with a disdainful frown on hers. At this moment a hasty footwas heard on the staircase, and Georgiana Podsnap broke into the room, unannounced and in tears. 

'Oh, my dear Sophronia, ' cried Georgiana, wringing her hands as she ranup to embrace her, 'to think that you and Alfred should be ruined! Oh, my poor dear Sophronia, to think that you should have had a Sale at yourhouse after all your kindness to me! Oh, Mr and Mrs Boffin, pray forgiveme for this intrusion, but you don't know how fond I was of Sophroniawhen Pa wouldn't let me go there any more, or what I have felt forSophronia since I heard from Ma of her having been brought low in theworld. You don't, you can't, you never can, think, how I have lain awakeat night and cried for my good Sophronia, my first and only friend!'

Mrs Lammle's manner changed under the poor silly girl's embraces, andshe turned extremely pale: directing one appealing look, first to MrsBoffin, and then to Mr Boffin. Both understood her instantly, witha more delicate subtlety than much better educated people, whoseperception came less directly from the heart, could have brought to bearupon the case. 

'I haven't a minute, ' said poor little Georgiana, 'to stay. I am outshopping early with Ma, and I said I had a headache and got Ma to leaveme outside in the phaeton, in Piccadilly, and ran round to SackvilleStreet, and heard that Sophronia was here, and then Ma came to see, ohsuch a dreadful old stony woman from the country in a turban in PortlandPlace, and I said I wouldn't go up with Ma but would drive round andleave cards for the Boffins, which is taking a liberty with the name;but oh my goodness I am distracted, and the phaeton's at the door, andwhat would Pa say if he knew it!'

'Don't ye be timid, my dear, ' said Mrs Boffin. 'You came in to see us. '

'Oh, no, I didn't, ' cried Georgiana. 'It's very impolite, I know, butI came to see my poor Sophronia, my only friend. Oh! how I felt theseparation, my dear Sophronia, before I knew you were brought low in theworld, and how much more I feel it now!'

There were actually tears in the bold woman's eyes, as the soft-headedand soft-hearted girl twined her arms about her neck. 

'But I've come on business, ' said Georgiana, sobbing and drying herface, and then searching in a little reticule, 'and if I don't despatchit I shall have come for nothing, and oh good gracious! what would Pasay if he knew of Sackville Street, and what would Ma say if she waskept waiting on the doorsteps of that dreadful turban, and there neverwere such pawing horses as ours unsettling my mind every moment moreand more when I want more mind than I have got, by pawing up Mr Boffin'sstreet where they have no business to be. Oh! where is, where is it?Oh! I can't find it!' All this time sobbing, and searching in the littlereticule. 

'What do you miss, my dear?' asked Mr Boffin, stepping forward. 

'Oh! it's little enough, ' replied Georgiana, 'because Ma always treatsme as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I wish I was!), but I hardlyever spend it and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and Ihope three five-pound notes are better than nothing, though so little, so little! And now I have found that--oh, my goodness! there's the othergone next! Oh no, it isn't, here it is!'

With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgianaproduced a necklace. 

'Ma says chits and jewels have no business together, ' pursued Georgiana, 'and that's the reason why I have no trinkets except this, but I supposemy aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this, though I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it'salways kept in jewellers' cotton. However, here it is, I am thankfulto say, and of use at last, and you'll sell it, dear Sophronia, and buythings with it. '

'Give it to me, ' said Mr Boffin, gently taking it. 'I'll see that it'sproperly disposed of. '

'Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia's, Mr Boffin?' cried Georgiana. 'Oh, how good of you! Oh, my gracious! there was something else, andit's gone out of my head! Oh no, it isn't, I remember what it was. Mygrandmamma's property, that'll come to me when I am of age, Mr Boffin, will be all my own, and neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else will haveany control over it, and what I wish to do it so make some of it oversomehow to Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that'llprevail on somebody to advance them something. I want them to havesomething handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my goodnessme! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia's, you won't refuse me, will you?'

'No, no, ' said Mr Boffin, 'it shall be seen to. '

'Oh, thank you, thank you!' cried Georgiana. 'If my maid had a littlenote and half a crown, I could run round to the pastrycook's to signsomething, or I could sign something in the Square if somebody wouldcome and cough for me to let 'em in with the key, and would bring a penand ink with 'em and a bit of blotting-paper. Oh, my gracious! I musttear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! Dear, dear Sophronia, good, good-bye!'

The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs Lammle mostaffectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr Lammle. 

'Good-bye, dear Mr Lammle--I mean Alfred. You won't think after to-daythat I have deserted you and Sophronia because you have been brought lowin the world, will you? Oh me! oh me! I have been crying my eyes out ofmy head, and Ma will be sure to ask me what's the matter. Oh, take medown, somebody, please, please, please!'

Mr Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with her poorlittle red eyes and weak chin peering over the great apron of thecustard-coloured phaeton, as if she had been ordered to expiate somechildish misdemeanour by going to bed in the daylight, and were peepingover the counterpane in a miserable flutter of repentance and lowspirits. Returning to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs Lammle stillstanding on her side of the table, and Mr Lammle on his. 

'I'll take care, ' said Mr Boffin, showing the money and the necklace, 'that these are soon given back. '

Mrs Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, and stoodsketching with it on the pattern of the damask cloth, as she hadsketched on the pattern of Mr Twemlow's papered wall. 

'You will not undeceive her I hope, Mr Boffin?' she said, turning herhead towards him, but not her eyes. 

'No, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend, ' Mrs Lammle explained, in a measured voice, and with an emphasis on her last word. 

'No, ' he returned. 'I may try to give a hint at her home that she is inwant of kind and careful protection, but I shall say no more than thatto her parents, and I shall say nothing to the young lady herself. '

'Mr and Mrs Boffin, ' said Mrs Lammle, still sketching, and seeming tobestow great pains upon it, 'there are not many people, I think, who, under the circumstances, would have been so considerate and sparing asyou have been to me just now. Do you care to be thanked?'

'Thanks are always worth having, ' said Mrs Boffin, in her ready goodnature. 

'Then thank you both. '

'Sophronia, ' asked her husband, mockingly, 'are you sentimental?'

'Well, well, my good sir, ' Mr Boffin interposed, 'it's a very goodthing to think well of another person, and it's a very good thing to bethought well of BY another person. Mrs Lammle will be none the worse forit, if she is. '

'Much obliged. But I asked Mrs Lammle if she was. '

She stood sketching on the table-cloth, with her face clouded and set, and was silent. 

'Because, ' said Alfred, 'I am disposed to be sentimental myself, onyour appropriation of the jewels and the money, Mr Boffin. As our littleGeorgiana said, three five-pound notes are better than nothing, and ifyou sell a necklace you can buy things with the produce. '

'IF you sell it, ' was Mr Boffin's comment, as he put it in his pocket. 

Alfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued the notesuntil they vanished into Mr Boffin's waistcoat pocket. Then he directeda look, half exasperated and half jeering, at his wife. She still stoodsketching; but, as she sketched, there was a struggle within her, whichfound expression in the depth of the few last lines the parasol pointindented into the table-cloth, and then some tears fell from her eyes. 

'Why, confound the woman, ' exclaimed Lammle, 'she IS sentimental!

She walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, looked outfor a moment, and turned round quite coldly. 

'You have had no former cause of complaint on the sentimental score, Alfred, and you will have none in future. It is not worth your noticing. We go abroad soon, with the money we have earned here?'

'You know we do; you know we must. '

'There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. I should soon beeased of it, if I did. But it will be all left behind. It IS all leftbehind. Are you ready, Alfred?'

'What the deuce have I been waiting for but you, Sophronia?'

'Let us go then. I am sorry I have delayed our dignified departure. '

She passed out and he followed her. Mr and Mrs Boffin had the curiositysoftly to raise a window and look after them as they went down the longstreet. They walked arm-in-arm, showily enough, but without appearingto interchange a syllable. It might have been fanciful to suppose thatunder their outer bearing there was something of the shamed air of twocheats who were linked together by concealed handcuffs; but, not so, tosuppose that they were haggardly weary of one another, of themselves, and of all this world. In turning the street corner they might haveturned out of this world, for anything Mr and Mrs Boffin ever saw ofthem to the contrary; for, they set eyes on the Lammles never more. 

Chapter 3

THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN

The evening of that day being one of the reading evenings at the Bower, Mr Boffin kissed Mrs Boffin after a five o'clock dinner, and trottedout, nursing his big stick in both arms, so that, as of old, it seemedto be whispering in his ear. He carried so very attentive an expressionon his countenance that it appeared as if the confidential discourse ofthe big stick required to be followed closely. Mr Boffin's face was likethe face of a thoughtful listener to an intricate communication, and, introtting along, he occasionally glanced at that companion with the lookof a man who was interposing the remark: 'You don't mean it!'

Mr Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they arrived atcertain cross-ways where they would be likely to fall in with any onecoming, at about the same time, from Clerkenwell to the Bower. Here theystopped, and Mr Boffin consulted his watch. 

'It wants five minutes, good, to Venus's appointment, ' said he. 'I'mrather early. '

But Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr Boffin replaced his watchin its pocket, was to be descried coming towards him. He quickened hispace on seeing Mr Boffin already at the place of meeting, and was soonat his side. 

'Thank'ee, Venus, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Thank'ee, thank'ee, thank'ee!'

It would not have been very evident why he thanked the anatomist, butfor his furnishing the explanation in what he went on to say. 

'All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you've been to see me, and haveconsented to keep up the appearance before Wegg of remaining in it for atime, I have got a sort of a backer. All right, Venus. Thank'ee, Venus. Thank'ee, thank'ee, thank'ee!'

Mr Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, and they pursuedthe direction of the Bower. 

'Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me to-night, Venus?'inquired Mr Boffin, wistfully, as they went along. 

'I think he is, sir. '

'Have you any particular reason for thinking so, Venus?'

'Well, sir, ' returned that personage, 'the fact is, he has given meanother look-in, to make sure of what he calls our stock-in-trade beingcorrect, and he has mentioned his intention that he was not to be putoff beginning with you the very next time you should come. And this, 'hinted Mr Venus, delicately, 'being the very next time, you know, sir--'

--'Why, therefore you suppose he'll turn to at the grindstone, eh, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin. 

'Just so, sir. '

Mr Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already excoriated, and the sparks were beginning to fly out of that feature. 'He's aterrible fellow, Venus; he's an awful fellow. I don't know how ever Ishall go through with it. You must stand by me, Venus like a good manand true. You'll do all you can to stand by me, Venus; won't you?'

Mr Venus replied with the assurance that he would; and Mr Boffin, looking anxious and dispirited, pursued the way in silence until theyrang at the Bower gate. The stumping approach of Wegg was soon heardbehind it, and as it turned upon its hinges he became visible with hishand on the lock. 

'Mr Boffin, sir?' he remarked. 'You're quite a stranger!'

'Yes. I've been otherwise occupied, Wegg. '

'Have you indeed, sir?' returned the literary gentleman, with athreatening sneer. 'Hah! I've been looking for you, sir, rather what Imay call specially. '

'You don't say so, Wegg?'

'Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn't come round to me tonight, dashmy wig if I wouldn't have come round to you tomorrow. Now! I tell you!'

'Nothing wrong, I hope, Wegg?'

'Oh no, Mr Boffin, ' was the ironical answer. 'Nothing wrong! What shouldbe wrong in Boffinses Bower! Step in, sir. '

 '"If you'll come to the Bower I've shaded for you, Your bed shan't be roses all spangled with doo: Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower? Oh, won't you, won't you, won't you, won't you, come to the Bower?"'

An unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the eyes of MrWegg, as he turned the key on his patron, after ushering him into theyard with this vocal quotation. Mr Boffin's air was crestfallen andsubmissive. Whispered Wegg to Venus, as they crossed the yard behindhim: 'Look at the worm and minion; he's down in the mouth already. 'Whispered Venus to Wegg: 'That's because I've told him. I've preparedthe way for you. '

Mr Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon the settleusually reserved for him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and, with his shoulders raised and his hat drooping back upon them, lookingdisconsolately at Wegg. 'My friend and partner, Mr Venus, gives me tounderstand, ' remarked that man of might, addressing him, 'that you areaware of our power over you. Now, when you have took your hat off, we'llgo into that pint. '

Mr Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped on the floorbehind him, and remained in his former attitude with his former ruefullook upon him. 

'First of all, I'm a-going to call you Boffin, for short, ' said Wegg. 'If you don't like it, it's open to you to lump it. '

'I don't mind it, Wegg, ' Mr Boffin replied. 

'That's lucky for you, Boffin. Now, do you want to be read to?'

'I don't particularly care about it to-night, Wegg. '

'Because if you did want to, ' pursued Mr Wegg, the brilliancy of whosepoint was dimmed by his having been unexpectedly answered: 'you wouldn'tbe. I've been your slave long enough. I'm not to be trampled under-footby a dustman any more. With the single exception of the salary, Irenounce the whole and total sitiwation. '

'Since you say it is to be so, Wegg, ' returned Mr Boffin, with foldedhands, 'I suppose it must be. '

'I suppose it must be, ' Wegg retorted. 'Next (to clear the ground beforecoming to business), you've placed in this yard a skulking, a sneaking, and a sniffing, menial. '

'He hadn't a cold in his head when I sent him here, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Boffin!' retorted Wegg, 'I warn you not to attempt a joke with me!'

Here Mr Venus interposed, and remarked that he conceived Mr Boffin tohave taken the description literally; the rather, forasmuch as he, MrVenus, had himself supposed the menial to have contracted an afflictionor a habit of the nose, involving a serious drawback on the pleasures ofsocial intercourse, until he had discovered that Mr Wegg's descriptionof him was to be accepted as merely figurative. 

'Anyhow, and every how, ' said Wegg, 'he has been planted here, and heis here. Now, I won't have him here. So I call upon Boffin, before I sayanother word, to fetch him in and send him packing to the right-about. '

The unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his many buttonswithin view of the window. Mr Boffin, after a short interval ofimpassive discomfiture, opened the window and beckoned him to come in. 

'I call upon Boffin, ' said Wegg, with one arm a-kimbo and his head onone side, like a bullying counsel pausing for an answer from a witness, 'to inform that menial that I am Master here!'

In humble obedience, when the button-gleaming Sloppy entered Mr Boffinsaid to him: 'Sloppy, my fine fellow, Mr Wegg is Master here. He doesn'twant you, and you are to go from here. '

'For good!' Mr Wegg severely stipulated. 

'For good, ' said Mr Boffin. 

Sloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and his mouthwide open; but was without loss of time escorted forth by Silas Wegg, pushed out at the yard gate by the shoulders, and locked out. 

'The atomspear, ' said Wegg, stumping back into the room again, alittle reddened by his late exertion, 'is now freer for the purposes ofrespiration. Mr Venus, sir, take a chair. Boffin, you may sit down. '

Mr Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, sat onthe edge of the settle, shrunk into a small compass, and eyed the potentSilas with conciliatory looks. 

'This gentleman, ' said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, 'this gentleman, Boffin, is more milk and watery with you than I'll be. But he hasn'tborne the Roman yoke as I have, nor yet he hasn't been required topander to your depraved appetite for miserly characters. '

'I never meant, my dear Wegg--' Mr Boffin was beginning, when Silasstopped him. 

'Hold your tongue, Boffin! Answer when you're called upon to answer. You'll find you've got quite enough to do. Now, you're aware--areyou--that you're in possession of property to which you've no right atall? Are you aware of that?'

'Venus tells me so, ' said Mr Boffin, glancing towards him for anysupport he could give. 

'I tell you so, ' returned Silas. 'Now, here's my hat, Boffin, and here'smy walking-stick. Trifle with me, and instead of making a bargain withyou, I'll put on my hat and take up my walking-stick, and go out, andmake a bargain with the rightful owner. Now, what do you say?'

'I say, ' returned Mr Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed appeal, with hishands on his knees, 'that I am sure I don't want to trifle. Wegg. I havesaid so to Venus. '

'You certainly have, sir, ' said Venus. 

'You're too milk and watery with our friend, you are indeed, 'remonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of his wooden head. Thenat once you confess yourself desirous to come to terms, do you Boffin?Before you answer, keep this hat well in your mind and also thiswalking-stick. '

'I am willing, Wegg, to come to terms. '

'Willing won't do, Boffin. I won't take willing. Are you desirous tocome to terms? Do you ask to be allowed as a favour to come to terms?'Mr Wegg again planted his arm, and put his head on one side. 

'Yes. '

'Yes what?' said the inexorable Wegg: 'I won't take yes. I'll have itout of you in full, Boffin. '

'Dear me!' cried that unfortunate gentleman. 'I am so worrited! I ask tobe allowed to come to terms, supposing your document is all correct. '

'Don't you be afraid of that, ' said Silas, poking his head at him. 'Youshall be satisfied by seeing it. Mr Venus will show it you, and I'llhold you the while. Then you want to know what the terms are. Isthat about the sum and substance of it? Will you or won't you answer, Boffin?' For he had paused a moment. 

'Dear me!' cried that unfortunate gentleman again, 'I am worrited tothat degree that I'm almost off my head. You hurry me so. Be so good asname the terms, Wegg. '

'Now, mark, Boffin, ' returned Silas: 'Mark 'em well, because they'rethe lowest terms and the only terms. You'll throw your Mound (the littleMound as comes to you any way) into the general estate, and then you'lldivide the whole property into three parts, and you'll keep one and handover the others. '

Mr Venus's mouth screwed itself up, as Mr Boffin's face lengtheneditself, Mr Venus not having been prepared for such a rapacious demand. 

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin, ' Wegg proceeded, 'there's something more. You've been a squandering this property--laying some of it out onyourself. THAT won't do. You've bought a house. You'll be charged forit. '

'I shall be ruined, Wegg!' Mr Boffin faintly protested. 

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. You'll leave me insole custody of these Mounds till they're all laid low. If any waluablesshould be found in 'em, I'll take care of such waluables. You'll produceyour contract for the sale of the Mounds, that we may know to a pennywhat they're worth, and you'll make out likewise an exact list ofall the other property. When the Mounds is cleared away to the lastshovel-full, the final diwision will come off. '

'Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! I shall die in a workhouse!' cried theGolden Dustman, with his hands to his head. 

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. You've been unlawfullyferreting about this yard. You've been seen in the act of ferretingabout this yard. Two pair of eyes at the present moment brought to bearupon you, have seen you dig up a Dutch bottle. '

'It was mine, Wegg, ' protested Mr Boffin. 'I put it there myself. '

'What was in it, Boffin?' inquired Silas. 

'Not gold, not silver, not bank notes, not jewels, nothing that youcould turn into money, Wegg; upon my soul!'

'Prepared, Mr Venus, ' said Wegg, turning to his partner with a knowingand superior air, 'for an ewasive answer on the part of our dusty friendhere, I have hit out a little idea which I think will meet your views. We charge that bottle against our dusty friend at a thousand pound. '

Mr Boffin drew a deep groan. 

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. In your employmentis an under-handed sneak, named Rokesmith. It won't answer to have HIMabout, while this business of ours is about. He must be discharged. '

'Rokesmith is already discharged, ' said Mr Boffin, speaking in a muffledvoice, with his hands before his face, as he rocked himself on thesettle. 

'Already discharged, is he?' returned Wegg, surprised. 'Oh! Then, Boffin, I believe there's nothing more at present. '

The unlucky gentleman continuing to rock himself to and fro, and toutter an occasional moan, Mr Venus besought him to bear up against hisreverses, and to take time to accustom himself to the thought of his newposition. But, his taking time was exactly the thing of all others thatSilas Wegg could not be induced to hear of. 'Yes or no, and no halfmeasures!' was the motto which that obdurate person many times repeated;shaking his fist at Mr Boffin, and pegging his motto into the floor withhis wooden leg, in a threatening and alarming manner. 

At length, Mr Boffin entreated to be allowed a quarter of an hour'sgrace, and a cooling walk of that duration in the yard. With somedifficulty Mr Wegg granted this great favour, but only on conditionthat he accompanied Mr Boffin in his walk, as not knowing what he mightfraudulently unearth if he were left to himself. A more absurd sightthan Mr Boffin in his mental irritation trotting very nimbly, and MrWegg hopping after him with great exertion, eager to watch the slightestturn of an eyelash, lest it should indicate a spot rich with somesecret, assuredly had never been seen in the shadow of the Mounds. MrWegg was much distressed when the quarter of an hour expired, and camehopping in, a very bad second. 

'I can't help myself!' cried Mr Boffin, flouncing on the settle in aforlorn manner, with his hands deep in his pockets, as if his pocketshad sunk. 'What's the good of my pretending to stand out, when I can'thelp myself? I must give in to the terms. But I should like to see thedocument. '

Wegg, who was all for clinching the nail he had so strongly driven home, announced that Boffin should see it without an hour's delay. Taking himinto custody for that purpose, or overshadowing him as if he really werehis Evil Genius in visible form, Mr Wegg clapped Mr Boffin's hatupon the back of his head, and walked him out by the arm, asserting aproprietorship over his soul and body that was at once more grim andmore ridiculous than anything in Mr Venus's rare collection. Thatlight-haired gentleman followed close upon their heels, at least backingup Mr Boffin in a literal sense, if he had not had recent opportunitiesof doing so spiritually; while Mr Boffin, trotting on as hard as hecould trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions with the public, much as a pre-occupied blind man's dog may be seen to involve hismaster. 

Thus they reached Mr Venus's establishment, somewhat heated by thenature of their progress thither. Mr Wegg, especially, was in a flamingglow, and stood in the little shop, panting and mopping his head withhis pocket-handkerchief, speechless for several minutes. 

Meanwhile, Mr Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight it out inhis absence by candlelight for the public delectation, put the shuttersup. When all was snug, and the shop-door fastened, he said to theperspiring Silas: 'I suppose, Mr Wegg, we may now produce the paper?'

'Hold on a minute, sir, ' replied that discreet character; 'hold on aminute. Will you obligingly shove that box--which you mentioned on aformer occasion as containing miscellanies--towards me in the midst ofthe shop here?'

Mr Venus did as he was asked. 

'Very good, ' said Silas, looking about: 've--ry good. Will you hand methat chair, sir, to put a-top of it?'

Venus handed him the chair. 

'Now, Boffin, ' said Wegg, 'mount up here and take your seat, will you?'

Mr Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, or to beelectrified, or to be made a Freemason, or to be placed at any othersolitary disadvantage, ascended the rostrum prepared for him. 

'Now, Mr Venus, ' said Silas, taking off his coat, 'when I catches ourfriend here round the arms and body, and pins him tight to the back ofthe chair, you may show him what he wants to see. If you'll open it andhold it well up in one hand, sir, and a candle in the other, he can readit charming. '

Mr Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these precautionaryarrangements, but, being immediately embraced by Wegg, resigned himself. Venus then produced the document, and Mr Boffin slowly spelt it outaloud: so very slowly, that Wegg, who was holding him in the chairwith the grip of a wrestler, became again exceedingly the worse for hisexertions. 'Say when you've put it safe back, Mr Venus, ' he uttered withdifficulty, 'for the strain of this is terrimenjious. '

At length the document was restored to its place; and Wegg, whoseuncomfortable attitude had been that of a very persevering manunsuccessfully attempting to stand upon his head, took a seat to recoverhimself. Mr Boffin, for his part, made no attempt to come down, butremained aloft disconsolate. 

'Well, Boffin!' said Wegg, as soon as he was in a condition to speak. 'Now, you know. '

'Yes, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin, meekly. 'Now, I know. '

'You have no doubts about it, Boffin. '

'No, Wegg. No, Wegg. None, ' was the slow and sad reply. 

'Then, take care, you, ' said Wegg, 'that you stick to your conditions. Mr Venus, if on this auspicious occasion, you should happen to have adrop of anything not quite so mild as tea in the 'ouse, I think I'd takethe friendly liberty of asking you for a specimen of it. '

Mr Venus, reminded of the duties of hospitality, produced some rum. In answer to the inquiry, 'Will you mix it, Mr Wegg?' that gentlemanpleasantly rejoined, 'I think not, sir. On so auspicious an occasion, Iprefer to take it in the form of a Gum-Tickler. '

Mr Boffin, declining rum, being still elevated on his pedestal, was ina convenient position to be addressed. Wegg having eyed him with animpudent air at leisure, addressed him, therefore, while refreshinghimself with his dram. 

'Bof--fin!'

'Yes, Wegg, ' he answered, coming out of a fit of abstraction, with asigh. 

'I haven't mentioned one thing, because it's a detail that comes ofcourse. You must be followed up, you know. You must be kept underinspection. '

'I don't quite understand, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Don't you?' sneered Wegg. 'Where's your wits, Boffin? Till the Moundsis down and this business completed, you're accountable for all theproperty, recollect. Consider yourself accountable to me. Mr Venus herebeing too milk and watery with you, I am the boy for you. '

'I've been a-thinking, ' said Mr Boffin, in a tone of despondency, 'thatI must keep the knowledge from my old lady. '

'The knowledge of the diwision, d'ye mean?' inquired Wegg, helpinghimself to a third Gum-Tickler--for he had already taken a second. 

'Yes. If she was to die first of us two she might then think all herlife, poor thing, that I had got the rest of the fortune still, and wassaving it. '

'I suspect, Boffin, ' returned Wegg, shaking his head sagaciously, andbestowing a wooden wink upon him, 'that you've found out some accountof some old chap, supposed to be a Miser, who got himself the credit ofhaving much more money than he had. However, I don't mind. '

'Don't you see, Wegg?' Mr Boffin feelingly represented to him: 'don'tyou see? My old lady has got so used to the property. It would be such ahard surprise. '

'I don't see it at all, ' blustered Wegg. 'You'll have as much as Ishall. And who are you?'

'But then, again, ' Mr Boffin gently represented; 'my old lady has veryupright principles. '

'Who's your old lady, ' returned Wegg, 'to set herself up for havinguprighter principles than mine?'

Mr Boffin seemed a little less patient at this point than at any otherof the negotiations. But he commanded himself, and said tamely enough:'I think it must be kept from my old lady, Wegg. '

'Well, ' said Wegg, contemptuously, though, perhaps, perceiving some hintof danger otherwise, 'keep it from your old lady. I ain't going to tellher. I can have you under close inspection without that. I'm as good aman as you, and better. Ask me to dinner. Give me the run of your 'ouse. I was good enough for you and your old lady once, when I helped you outwith your weal and hammers. Was there no Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, before YOU two?'

'Gently, Mr Wegg, gently, ' Venus urged. 

'Milk and water-erily you mean, sir, ' he returned, with some littlethickness of speech, in consequence of the Gum-Ticklers having tickledit. 'I've got him under inspection, and I'll inspect him. 

 "Along the line the signal ran England expects as this present man Will keep Boffin to his duty. "

--Boffin, I'll see you home. '

Mr Boffin descended with an air of resignation, and gave himself up, after taking friendly leave of Mr Venus. Once more, Inspector andInspected went through the streets together, and so arrived at MrBoffin's door. 

But even there, when Mr Boffin had given his keeper good-night, and hadlet himself in with his key, and had softly closed the door, even thereand then, the all-powerful Silas must needs claim another assertion ofhis newly-asserted power. 

'Bof--fin!' he called through the keyhole. 

'Yes, Wegg, ' was the reply through the same channel. 

'Come out. Show yourself again. Let's have another look at you!'Mr Boffin--ah, how fallen from the high estate of his honestsimplicity!--opened the door and obeyed. 

'Go in. You may get to bed now, ' said Wegg, with a grin. 

The door was hardly closed, when he again called through the keyhole:'Bof--fin!'

'Yes, Wegg. '

This time Silas made no reply, but laboured with a will at turning animaginary grindstone outside the keyhole, while Mr Boffin stooped at itwithin; he then laughed silently, and stumped home. 

Chapter 4

A RUNAWAY MATCH

Cherubic Pa arose with as little noise as possible from beside majesticMa, one morning early, having a holiday before him. Pa and the lovelywoman had a rather particular appointment to keep. 

Yet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. Bella was upbefore four, but had no bonnet on. She was waiting at the foot of thestairs--was sitting on the bottom stair, in fact--to receive Pa when hecame down, but her only object seemed to be to get Pa well out of thehouse. 

'Your breakfast is ready, sir, ' whispered Bella, after greeting him witha hug, 'and all you have to do, is, to eat it up and drink it up, andescape. How do you feel, Pa?'

'To the best of my judgement, like a housebreaker new to the business, my dear, who can't make himself quite comfortable till he is off thepremises. '

Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and they wentdown to the kitchen on tiptoe; she stopping on every separate stair toput the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on hislips, according to her favourite petting way of kissing Pa. 

'How do YOU feel, my love?' asked R. W. , as she gave him his breakfast. 

'I feel as if the Fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, and the fairlittle man was turning out as was predicted. '

'Ho! Only the fair little man?' said her father. 

Bella put another of those finger-seals upon his lips, and then said, kneeling down by him as he sat at table: 'Now, look here, sir. If youkeep well up to the mark this day, what do you think you deserve?What did I promise you should have, if you were good, upon a certainoccasion?'

'Upon my word I don't remember, Precious. Yes, I do, though. Wasn'tit one of these beau--tiful tresses?' with his caressing hand upon herhair. 

'Wasn't it, too!' returned Bella, pretending to pout. 'Upon my word! Doyou know, sir, that the Fortune-teller would give five thousand guineas(if it was quite convenient to him, which it isn't) for the lovely pieceI have cut off for you? You can form no idea, sir, of the number oftimes he kissed quite a scrubby little piece--in comparison--that I cutoff for HIM. And he wears it, too, round his neck, I can tell you! Nearhis heart!' said Bella, nodding. 'Ah! very near his heart! However, youhave been a good, good boy, and you are the best of all the dearest boysthat ever were, this morning, and here's the chain I have made ofit, Pa, and you must let me put it round your neck with my own lovinghands. '

As Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then said (afterhaving stopped to dry her eyes on his white waistcoat, the discovery ofwhich incongruous circumstance made her laugh): 'Now, darling Pa, give me your hands that I may fold them together, and do you say afterme:--My little Bella. '

'My little Bella, ' repeated Pa. 

'I am very fond of you. '

'I am very fond of you, my darling, ' said Pa. 

'You mustn't say anything not dictated to you, sir. You daren't do it inyour responses at Church, and you mustn't do it in your responses out ofChurch. '

'I withdraw the darling, ' said Pa. 

'That's a pious boy! Now again:--You were always--'

'You were always, ' repeated Pa. 

'A vexatious--'

'No you weren't, ' said Pa. 

'A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless, troublesome, Animal; but I hope you'll do better in the time to come, and I bless you and forgive you!' Here, she quite forgot that it wasPa's turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck. 'Dear Pa, if youknew how much I think this morning of what you told me once, about thefirst time of our seeing old Mr Harmon, when I stamped and screamedand beat you with my detestable little bonnet! I feel as if I had beenstamping and screaming and beating you with my hateful little bonnet, ever since I was born, darling!'

'Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always been nicebonnets, for they have always become you--or you have become them;perhaps it was that--at every age. '

'Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?' asked Bella, laughing(notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic pleasure in thepicture, 'when I beat you with my bonnet?'

'No, my child. Wouldn't have hurt a fly!'

'Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn't have beat you at all, unless I hadmeant to hurt you, ' said Bella. 'Did I pinch your legs, Pa?'

'Not much, my dear; but I think it's almost time I--'

'Oh, yes!' cried Bella. 'If I go on chattering, you'll be taken alive. Fly, Pa, fly!'

So, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella withher light hand softly removed the fastenings of the house door, and Pa, having received a parting hug, made off. When he had gone a little way, he looked back. Upon which, Bella set another of those finger seals uponthe air, and thrust out her little foot expressive of the mark. Pa, inappropriate action, expressed fidelity to the mark, and made off as fastas he could go. 

Bella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and more, and then, returning to the bedroom where Lavvy the Irrepressible still slumbered, put on a little bonnet of quiet, but on the whole of sly appearance, which she had yesterday made. 'I am going for a walk, Lavvy, ' she said, as she stooped down and kissed her. The Irrepressible, with a bounce inthe bed, and a remark that it wasn't time to get up yet, relapsed intounconsciousness, if she had come out of it. 

Behold Bella tripping along the streets, the dearest girl afoot underthe summer sun! Behold Pa waiting for Bella behind a pump, at leastthree miles from the parental roof-tree. Behold Bella and Pa aboard anearly steamboat for Greenwich. 

Were they expected at Greenwich? Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmithwas on the pier looking out, about a couple of hours before the coaly(but to him gold-dusty) little steamboat got her steam up in London. Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith seemed perfectly satisfied whenhe descried them on board. Probably. At least, Bella no sooner steppedashore than she took Mr John Rokesmith's arm, without evincing surprise, and the two walked away together with an ethereal air of happinesswhich, as it were, wafted up from the earth and drew after them a gruffand glum old pensioner to see it out. Two wooden legs had this gruff andglum old pensioner, and, a minute before Bella stepped out of the boat, and drew that confiding little arm of hers through Rokesmith's, he hadhad no object in life but tobacco, and not enough of that. Stranded wasGruff and Glum in a harbour of everlasting mud, when all in an instantBella floated him, and away he went. 

Say, cherubic parent taking the lead, in what direction do we steerfirst? With some such inquiry in his thoughts, Gruff and Glum, strickenby so sudden an interest that he perked his neck and looked over theintervening people, as if he were trying to stand on tiptoe with his twowooden legs, took an observation of R. W. There was no 'first' in thecase, Gruff and Glum made out; the cherubic parent was bearing down andcrowding on direct for Greenwich church, to see his relations. 

For, Gruff and Glum, though most events acted on him simply astobacco-stoppers, pressing down and condensing the quids within him, might be imagined to trace a family resemblance between the cherubs inthe church architecture, and the cherub in the white waistcoat. Someremembrance of old Valentines, wherein a cherub, less appropriatelyattired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had been seen conductinglovers to the altar, might have been fancied to inflame the ardour ofhis timber toes. Be it as it might, he gave his moorings the slip, andfollowed in chase. 

The cherub went before, all beaming smiles; Bella and John Rokesmithfollowed; Gruff and Glum stuck to them like wax. For years, the wingsof his mind had gone to look after the legs of his body; but Bella hadbrought them back for him per steamer, and they were spread again. 

He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took a cross cutfor the rendezvous, and pegged away as if he were scoring furiouslyat cribbage. When the shadow of the church-porch swallowed them up, victorious Gruff and Glum likewise presented himself to be swallowed up. And by this time the cherubic parent was so fearful of surprise, that, but for the two wooden legs on which Gruff and Glum was reassuringlymounted, his conscience might have introduced, in the person of thatpensioner, his own stately lady disguised, arrived at Greenwich in acar and griffins, like the spiteful Fairy at the christenings of thePrincesses, to do something dreadful to the marriage service. And trulyhe had a momentary reason to be pale of face, and to whisper to Bella, 'You don't think that can be your Ma; do you, my dear?' on account ofa mysterious rustling and a stealthy movement somewhere in the remoteneighbourhood of the organ, though it was gone directly and was heard nomore. Albeit it was heard of afterwards, as will afterwards be read inthis veracious register of marriage. 

Who taketh? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth? I, R. W. Forasmuch, Gruff and Glum, as John and Bella have consented together in holywedlock, you may (in short) consider it done, and withdraw your twowooden legs from this temple. To the foregoing purport, the Ministerspeaking, as directed by the Rubric, to the People, selectly representedin the present instance by G. And G. Above mentioned. 

And now, the church-porch having swallowed up Bella Wilfer for ever andever, had it not in its power to relinquish that young woman, but slidinto the happy sunlight, Mrs John Rokesmith instead. And long on thebright steps stood Gruff and Glum, looking after the pretty bride, witha narcotic consciousness of having dreamed a dream. 

After which, Bella took out from her pocket a little letter, and read italoud to Pa and John; this being a true copy of the same. 

'DEAREST MA, I hope you won't be angry, but I am most happily married to Mr JohnRokesmith, who loves me better than I can ever deserve, except by lovinghim with all my heart. I thought it best not to mention it beforehand, in case it should cause any little difference at home. Please telldarling Pa. With love to Lavvy, Ever dearest Ma, Your affectionate daughter, BELLA (P. S. --Rokesmith). '

Then, John Rokesmith put the queen's countenance on the letter--when hadHer Gracious Majesty looked so benign as on that blessed morning!--andthen Bella popped it into the post-office, and said merrily, 'Now, dearest Pa, you are safe, and will never be taken alive!'

Pa was, at first, in the stirred depths of his conscience, so far fromsure of being safe yet, that he made out majestic matrons lurking inambush among the harmless trees of Greenwich Park, and seemed to see astately countenance tied up in a well-known pocket-handkerchief gloomingdown at him from a window of the Observatory, where the Familiars of theAstronomer Royal nightly outwatch the winking stars. But, the minutespassing on and no Mrs Wilfer in the flesh appearing, he became moreconfident, and so repaired with good heart and appetite to Mr and MrsJohn Rokesmith's cottage on Blackheath, where breakfast was ready. 

A modest little cottage but a bright and a fresh, and on the snowytablecloth the prettiest of little breakfasts. In waiting, too, likean attendant summer breeze, a fluttering young damsel, all pink andribbons, blushing as if she had been married instead of Bella, and yetasserting the triumph of her sex over both John and Pa, in an exultingand exalted flurry: as who should say, 'This is what you must all cometo, gentlemen, when we choose to bring you to book. ' This same youngdamsel was Bella's serving-maid, and unto her did deliver a bunch ofkeys, commanding treasures in the way of dry-saltery, groceries, jamsand pickles, the investigation of which made pastime after breakfast, when Bella declared that 'Pa must taste everything, John dear, or itwill never be lucky, ' and when Pa had all sorts of things poked intohis mouth, and didn't quite know what to do with them when they were putthere. 

Then they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a charming strollamong heath in bloom, and there behold the identical Gruff and Glum withhis wooden legs horizontally disposed before him, apparently sittingmeditating on the vicissitudes of life! To whom said Bella, in herlight-hearted surprise: 'Oh! How do you do again? What a dear oldpensioner you are!' To which Gruff and Glum responded that he see hermarried this morning, my Beauty, and that if it warn't a liberty hewished her ji and the fairest of fair wind and weather; further, in ageneral way requesting to know what cheer? and scrambling up on his twowooden legs to salute, hat in hand, ship-shape, with the gallantry of aman-of-warsman and a heart of oak. 

It was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see thissalt old Gruff and Glum, waving his shovel hat at Bella, while his thinwhite hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched him into bluewater again. 'You are a charming old pensioner, ' said Bella, 'and I amso happy that I wish I could make you happy, too. ' Answered Gruff andGlum, 'Give me leave to kiss your hand, my Lovely, and it's done!' So itwas done to the general contentment; and if Gruff and Glum didn't in thecourse of the afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want ofthe means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bandsof Hope. 

But, the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for what had brideand bridegroom plotted to do, but to have and to hold that dinner in thevery room of the very hotel where Pa and the lovely woman had once dinedtogether! Bella sat between Pa and John, and divided her attentionspretty equally, but felt it necessary (in the waiter's absence beforedinner) to remind Pa that she was HIS lovely woman no longer. 

'I am well aware of it, my dear, ' returned the cherub, 'and I resign youwillingly. '

'Willingly, sir? You ought to be brokenhearted. '

'So I should be, my dear, if I thought that I was going to lose you. '

'But you know you are not; don't you, poor dear Pa? You know that youhave only made a new relation who will be as fond of you and as thankfulto you--for my sake and your own sake both--as I am; don't you, dearlittle Pa? Look here, Pa!' Bella put her finger on her own lip, and thenon Pa's, and then on her own lip again, and then on her husband's. 'Now, we are a partnership of three, dear Pa. '

The appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of herdisappearances: the more effectually, because it was put on under theauspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, wholooked much more like a clergyman than THE clergyman, and seemed tohave mounted a great deal higher in the church: not to say, scaled thesteeple. This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith onthe subject of punch and wines, bent his head as though stooping tothe Papistical practice of receiving auricular confession. Likewise, on John's offering a suggestion which didn't meet his views, his facebecame overcast and reproachful, as enjoining penance. 

What a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea, surelyhad swum their way to it, and if samples of the fishes of diverscolours that made a speech in the Arabian Nights (quite a ministerialexplanation in respect of cloudiness), and then jumped out of thefrying-pan, were not to be recognized, it was only because they had allbecome of one hue by being cooked in batter among the whitebait. And thedishes being seasoned with Bliss--an article which they are sometimesout of, at Greenwich--were of perfect flavour, and the golden drinkshad been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles eversince. 

The best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had made acovenant that they would not reveal to mortal eyes any appearancewhatever of being a wedding party. Now, the supervising dignitary, theArchbishop of Greenwich, knew this as well as if he had performed thenuptial ceremony. And the loftiness with which his Grace entered intotheir confidence without being invited, and insisted on a showof keeping the waiters out of it, was the crowning glory of theentertainment. 

There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with weakishlegs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiterhood, and but too evidentlyof a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not too much to addhopelessly) in love with some young female not aware of his merit. This guileless youth, descrying the position of affairs, which evenhis innocence could not mistake, limited his waiting to languishingadmiringly against the sideboard when Bella didn't want anything, andswooping at her when she did. Him, his Grace the Archbishop perpetuallyobstructed, cutting him out with his elbow in the moment of success, despatching him in degrading quest of melted butter, and, when by anychance he got hold of any dish worth having, bereaving him of it, andordering him to stand back. 

'Pray excuse him, madam, ' said the Archbishop in a low stately voice;'he is a very young man on liking, and we DON'T like him. '

This induced John Rokesmith to observe--by way of making the thing morenatural--'Bella, my love, this is so much more successful than anyof our past anniversaries, that I think we must keep our futureanniversaries here. '

Whereunto Bella replied, with probably the least successful attempt atlooking matronly that ever was seen: 'Indeed, I think so, John, dear. '

Here the Archbishop of Greenwich coughed a stately cough to attract theattention of three of his ministers present, and staring at them, seemedto say: 'I call upon you by your fealty to believe this!'

With his own hands he afterwards put on the dessert, as remarking to thethree guests, 'The period has now arrived at which we can dispense withthe assistance of those fellows who are not in our confidence, ' andwould have retired with complete dignity but for a daring action issuingfrom the misguided brain of the young man on liking. He finding, byill-fortune, a piece of orange flower somewhere in the lobbies nowapproached undetected with the same in a finger-glass, and placed it onBella's right hand. The Archbishop instantly ejected and excommunicatedhim; but the thing was done. 

'I trust, madam, ' said his Grace, returning alone, 'that you will havethe kindness to overlook it, in consideration of its being the act of avery young man who is merely here on liking, and who will never answer. '

With that, he solemnly bowed and retired, and they all burst intolaughter, long and merry. 'Disguise is of no use, ' said Bella; 'theyall find me out; I think it must be, Pa and John dear, because I look sohappy!'

Her husband feeling it necessary at this point to demand one of thosemysterious disappearances on Bella's part, she dutifully obeyed; sayingin a softened voice from her place of concealment:

'You remember how we talked about the ships that day, Pa?'

'Yes, my dear. '

'Isn't it strange, now, to think that there was no John in all theships, Pa?'

'Not at all, my dear. '

'Oh, Pa! Not at all?'

'No, my dear. How can we tell what coming people are aboard the shipsthat may be sailing to us now from the unknown seas!'

Bella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained at hisdessert and wine, until he remembered it was time for him to get home toHolloway. 'Though I positively cannot tear myself away, ' he cherubicallyadded, '--it would be a sin--without drinking to many, many happyreturns of this most happy day. '

'Here! ten thousand times!' cried John. 'I fill my glass and my preciouswife's. '

'Gentlemen, ' said the cherub, inaudibly addressing, in his Anglo-Saxontendency to throw his feelings into the form of a speech, the boys downbelow, who were bidding against each other to put their heads in the mudfor sixpence: 'Gentlemen--and Bella and John--you will readily supposethat it is not my intention to trouble you with many observations on thepresent occasion. You will also at once infer the nature and eventhe terms of the toast I am about to propose on the present occasion. Gentlemen--and Bella and John--the present occasion is an occasionfraught with feelings that I cannot trust myself to express. Butgentlemen--and Bella and John--for the part I have had in it, for theconfidence you have placed in me, and for the affectionate good-natureand kindness with which you have determined not to find me in the way, when I am well aware that I cannot be otherwise than in it more or less, I do most heartily thank you. Gentlemen--and Bella and John--my loveto you, and may we meet, as on the present occasion, on many futureoccasions; that is to say, gentlemen--and Bella and John--on many happyreturns of the present happy occasion. '

Having thus concluded his address, the amiable cherub embraced hisdaughter, and took his flight to the steamboat which was to convey himto London, and was then lying at the floating pier, doing its best tobump the same to bits. But, the happy couple were not going to part withhim in that way, and before he had been on board two minutes, there theywere, looking down at him from the wharf above. 

'Pa, dear!' cried Bella, beckoning him with her parasol to approach theside, and bending gracefully to whisper. 

'Yes, my darling. '

'Did I beat you much with that horrid little bonnet, Pa?'

'Nothing to speak of; my dear. '

'Did I pinch your legs, Pa?'

'Only nicely, my pet. '

'You are sure you quite forgive me, Pa? Please, Pa, please, forgive mequite!' Half laughing at him and half crying to him, Bella besought himin the prettiest manner; in a manner so engaging and so playful andso natural, that her cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she hadnever grown up, and said, 'What a silly little Mouse it is!'

'But you do forgive me that, and everything else; don't you, Pa?'

'Yes, my dearest. '

'And you don't feel solitary or neglected, going away by yourself; doyou, Pa?'

'Lord bless you! No, my Life!'

'Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!'

'Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. Take her home!'

So, she leaning on her husband's arm, they turned homeward by a rosypath which the gracious sun struck out for them in its setting. And Othere are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what abright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makesthe world go round!

Chapter 5

CONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE

The impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received her husband on hisreturn from the wedding, knocked so hard at the door of the cherubicconscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs, that the culprit's tottering condition of mind and body might haveroused suspicion in less occupied persons that the grimly heroic lady, Miss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson. But, the attention of all three being fully possessed by the mainfact of the marriage, they had happily none to bestow on the guiltyconspirator; to which fortunate circumstance he owed the escape forwhich he was in nowise indebted to himself. 

'You do not, R. W. ' said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, 'inquirefor your daughter Bella. '

'To be sure, my dear, ' he returned, with a most flagrant assumption ofunconsciousness, 'I did omit it. How--or perhaps I should rather saywhere--IS Bella?'

'Not here, ' Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms. 

The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of 'Oh, indeed, my dear!'

'Not here, ' repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. 'In a word, R. W. , you have no daughter Bella. '

'No daughter Bella, my dear?'

'No. Your daughter Bella, ' said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of neverhaving had the least copartnership in that young lady: of whom she nowmade reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband hadset up entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to heradvice: '--your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant. '

'Good gracious, my dear!'

'Show your father his daughter Bella's letter, Lavinia, ' said MrsWilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, and waving her hand. 'I think your father will admit it to be documentary proof of what Itell him. I believe your father is acquainted with his daughter Bella'swriting. But I do not know. He may tell you he is not. Nothing willsurprise me. '

'Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning, ' said the Irrepressible, flouncing at her father in handing him the evidence. 'Hopes Ma won't beangry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, and didn't mentionit beforehand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and loveto me, and I should like to know what you'd have said if any otherunmarried member of the family had done it!'

He read the letter, and faintly exclaimed 'Dear me!'

'You may well say Dear me!' rejoined Mrs Wilfer, in a deep tone. Uponwhich encouragement he said it again, though scarcely with the successhe had expected; for the scornful lady then remarked, with extremebitterness: 'You said that before. '

'It's very surprising. But I suppose, my dear, ' hinted the cherub, as hefolded the letter after a disconcerting silence, 'that we must make thebest of it? Would you object to my pointing out, my dear, that MrJohn Rokesmith is not (so far as I am acquainted with him), strictlyspeaking, a Mendicant. '

'Indeed?' returned Mrs Wilfer, with an awful air of politeness. 'Trulyso? I was not aware that Mr John Rokesmith was a gentleman of landedproperty. But I am much relieved to hear it. '

'I doubt if you HAVE heard it, my dear, ' the cherub submitted withhesitation. 

'Thank you, ' said Mrs Wilfer. 'I make false statements, it appears? Sobe it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The onething is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in thearrangement. By all means!' Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, adeadly cheerfulness. 

But, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging thereluctant form of Mr Sampson after her. 

'Ma, ' interposed the young lady, 'I must say I think it would be muchbetter if you would keep to the point, and not hold forth aboutpeople's flying into people's faces, which is nothing more nor less thanimpossible nonsense. '

'How!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, knitting her dark brows. 

'Just im-possible nonsense, Ma, ' returned Lavvy, 'and George Sampsonknows it is, as well as I do. '

Mrs Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes uponthe wretched George: who, divided between the support due from him tohis love, and the support due from him to his love's mamma, supportednobody, not even himself. 

'The true point is, ' pursued Lavinia, 'that Bella has behaved in a mostunsisterly way to me, and might have severely compromised me with Georgeand with George's family, by making off and getting married in this verylow and disreputable manner--with some pew-opener or other, I suppose, for a bridesmaid--when she ought to have confided in me, and oughtto have said, "If, Lavvy, you consider it due to your engagement withGeorge, that you should countenance the occasion by being present, thenLavvy, I beg you to BE present, keeping my secret from Ma and Pa. " As ofcourse I should have done. '

'As of course you would have done? Ingrate!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'Viper!'

'I say! You know ma'am. Upon my honour you mustn't, ' Mr Sampsonremonstrated, shaking his head seriously, 'With the highest respect foryou, ma'am, upon my life you mustn't. No really, you know. When a manwith the feelings of a gentleman finds himself engaged to a young lady, and it comes (even on the part of a member of the family) to vipers, youknow!--I would merely put it to your own good feeling, you know, ' saidMr Sampson, in rather lame conclusion. 

Mrs Wilfer's baleful stare at the young gentleman in acknowledgment ofhis obliging interference was of such a nature that Miss Lavinia burstinto tears, and caught him round the neck for his protection. 

'My own unnatural mother, ' screamed the young lady, 'wants to annihilateGeorge! But you shan't be annihilated, George. I'll die first!'

Mr Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled to shake hishead at Mrs Wilfer, and to remark: 'With every sentiment of respect foryou, you know, ma'am--vipers really doesn't do you credit. '

'You shall not be annihilated, George!' cried Miss Lavinia. 'Ma shalldestroy me first, and then she'll be contented. Oh, oh, oh! Have I luredGeorge from his happy home to expose him to this! George, dear, be free!Leave me, ever dearest George, to Ma and to my fate. Give my love toyour aunt, George dear, and implore her not to curse the viper that hascrossed your path and blighted your existence. Oh, oh, oh!' The younglady who, hysterically speaking, was only just come of age, and hadnever gone off yet, here fell into a highly creditable crisis, which, regarded as a first performance, was very successful; Mr Sampson, bending over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, whichinduced him to address Mrs Wilfer in the inconsistent expressions:'Demon--with the highest respect for you--behold your work!'

The cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, but on thewhole was inclined to welcome this diversion as one in which, by reasonof the absorbent properties of hysterics, the previous question wouldbecome absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressiblegradually coming to herself; and asking with wild emotion, 'George dear, are you safe?' and further, 'George love, what has happened? Where isMa?' Mr Sampson, with words of comfort, raised her prostrate form, andhanded her to Mrs Wilfer as if the young lady were something in thenature of refreshments. Mrs Wilfer with dignity partaking of therefreshments, by kissing her once on the brow (as if accepting anoyster), Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the protection of MrSampson; to whom she said, 'George dear, I am afraid I have beenfoolish; but I am still a little weak and giddy; don't let go my hand, George!' And whom she afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, bygiving utterance, when least expected, to a sound between a sob and abottle of soda water, that seemed to rend the bosom of her frock. 

Among the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be mentioned itshaving, when peace was restored, an inexplicable moral influence, of anelevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs Wilfer, and Mr George Sampson, fromwhich R. W. Was altogether excluded, as an outsider and non-sympathizer. Miss Lavinia assumed a modest air of having distinguished herself; MrsWilfer, a serene air of forgiveness and resignation; Mr Sampson, an airof having been improved and chastened. The influence pervaded the spiritin which they returned to the previous question. 

'George dear, ' said Lavvy, with a melancholy smile, 'after what haspassed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he may tell Bella we shall all beglad to see her and her husband. '

Mr Sampson said he was sure of it too; murmuring how eminently herespected Mrs Wilfer, and ever must, and ever would. Never moreeminently, he added, than after what had passed. 

'Far be it from me, ' said Mrs Wilfer, making deep proclamation from hercorner, 'to run counter to the feelings of a child of mine, and of aYouth, ' Mr Sampson hardly seemed to like that word, 'who is the objectof her maiden preference. I may feel--nay, know--that I have beendeluded and deceived. I may feel--nay, know--that I have been setaside and passed over. I may feel--nay, know--that after having so farovercome my repugnance towards Mr and Mrs Boffin as to receive themunder this roof, and to consent to your daughter Bella's, ' here turningto her husband, 'residing under theirs, it were well if your daughterBella, ' again turning to her husband, 'had profited in a worldlypoint of view by a connection so distasteful, so disreputable. I mayfeel--nay, know--that in uniting herself to Mr Rokesmith she has unitedherself to one who is, in spite of shallow sophistry, a Mendicant. AndI may feel well assured that your daughter Bella, ' again turning to herhusband, 'does not exalt her family by becoming a Mendicant's bride. ButI suppress what I feel, and say nothing of it. '

Mr Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing you might expectfrom one who had ever in her own family been an example and neveran outrage. And ever more so (Mr Sampson added, with some degree ofobscurity, ) and never more so, than in and through what had passed. Hemust take the liberty of adding, that what was true of the motherwas true of the youngest daughter, and that he could never forget thetouching feelings that the conduct of both had awakened within him. Inconclusion, he did hope that there wasn't a man with a beating heart whowas capable of something that remained undescribed, in consequence ofMiss Lavinia's stopping him as he reeled in his speech. 

'Therefore, R. W. ' said Mrs Wilfer, resuming her discourse and turningto her lord again, 'let your daughter Bella come when she will, and shewill be received. So, ' after a short pause, and an air of having takenmedicine in it, 'so will her husband. '

'And I beg, Pa, ' said Lavinia, 'that you will not tell Bella what Ihave undergone. It can do no good, and it might cause her to reproachherself. '

'My dearest girl, ' urged Mr Sampson, 'she ought to know it. '

'No, George, ' said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute self-denial. 'No, dearest George, let it be buried in oblivion. '

Mr Sampson considered that, 'too noble. '

'Nothing is too noble, dearest George, ' returned Lavinia. 'And Pa, Ihope you will be careful not to refer before Bella, if you can helpit, to my engagement to George. It might seem like reminding her of herhaving cast herself away. And I hope, Pa, that you will think it equallyright to avoid mentioning George's rising prospects, when Bella ispresent. It might seem like taunting her with her own poor fortunes. Let me ever remember that I am her younger sister, and ever spare herpainful contrasts, which could not but wound her sharply. '

Mr Sampson expressed his belief that such was the demeanour of Angels. Miss Lavvy replied with solemnity, 'No, dearest George, I am but toowell aware that I am merely human. '

Mrs Wilfer, for her part, still further improved the occasion by sittingwith her eyes fastened on her husband, like two great black notes ofinterrogation, severely inquiring, Are you looking into your breast? Doyou deserve your blessings? Can you lay your hand upon your heart andsay that you are worthy of so hysterical a daughter? I do not ask you ifyou are worthy of such a wife--put Me out of the question--but areyou sufficiently conscious of, and thankful for, the pervading moralgrandeur of the family spectacle on which you are gazing? Theseinquiries proved very harassing to R. W. Who, besides being a littledisturbed by wine, was in perpetual terror of committing himself by theutterance of stray words that would betray his guilty foreknowledge. However, the scene being over, and--all things considered--well over, hesought refuge in a doze; which gave his lady immense offence. 

'Can you think of your daughter Bella, and sleep?' she disdainfullyinquired. 

To which he mildly answered, 'Yes, I think I can, my dear. '

'Then, ' said Mrs Wilfer, with solemn indignation, 'I would recommendyou, if you have a human feeling, to retire to bed. '

'Thank you, my dear, ' he replied; 'I think it IS the best place for me. 'And with these unsympathetic words very gladly withdrew. 

Within a few weeks afterwards, the Mendicant's bride (arm-in-arm withthe Mendicant) came to tea, in fulfilment of an engagement made throughher father. And the way in which the Mendicant's bride dashed at theunassailable position so considerately to be held by Miss Lavy, andscattered the whole of the works in all directions in a moment, wastriumphant. 

'Dearest Ma, ' cried Bella, running into the room with a radiant face, 'how do you do, dearest Ma?' And then embraced her, joyously. 'And Lavvydarling, how do YOU do, and how's George Sampson, and how is he gettingon, and when are you going to be married, and how rich are you goingto grow? You must tell me all about it, Lavvy dear, immediately. John, love, kiss Ma and Lavvy, and then we shall all be at home andcomfortable. '

Mrs Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, but washelpless. Apparently with no compunction, and assuredly with noceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, and sat down to make the tea. 

'Dearest Ma and Lavvy, you both take sugar, I know. And Pa (you goodlittle Pa), you don't take milk. John does. I didn't before I wasmarried; but I do now, because John does. John dear, did you kiss Ma andLavvy? Oh, you did! Quite correct, John dear; but I didn't see you doit, so I asked. Cut some bread and butter, John; that's a love. Ma likesit doubled. And now you must tell me, dearest Ma and Lavvy, upon yourwords and honours! Didn't you for a moment--just a moment--think I was adreadful little wretch when I wrote to say I had run away?'

Before Mrs Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant's bride in hermerriest affectionate manner went on again. 

'I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and Lavvy, and Iknow I deserved that you should be very cross. But you see I had beensuch a heedless, heartless creature, and had led you so to expect thatI should marry for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable ofmarrying for love, that I thought you couldn't believe me. Because, yousee, you didn't know how much of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt fromJohn. Well! So I was sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed meto be, and fearful that we couldn't understand one another and mightcome to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so Isaid to John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. Andas he did like, I let him. And we were married at Greenwich church inthe presence of nobody--except an unknown individual who dropped in, 'here her eyes sparkled more brightly, 'and half a pensioner. And now, isn't it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to know that no words have beensaid which any of us can be sorry for, and that we are all the best offriends at the pleasantest of teas!'

Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her chair(after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband round the neck) andagain went on. 

'And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and Lavvy, howwe live, and what we have got to live upon. Well! And so we live onBlackheath, in the charm--ingest of dolls' houses, de--lightfullyfurnished, and we have a clever little servant who is de--cidedlypretty, and we are economical and orderly, and do everything byclockwork, and we have a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and wehave all we want, and more. And lastly, if you would like to know inconfidence, as perhaps you may, what is my opinion of my husband, myopinion is--that I almost love him!'

'And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may, 'said her husband, smiling, as he stood by her side, without her havingdetected his approach, 'my opinion of my wife, my opinion is--. ' ButBella started up, and put her hand upon his lips. 

'Stop, Sir! No, John, dear! Seriously! Please not yet a while! I want tobe something so much worthier than the doll in the doll's house. '

'My darling, are you not?'

'Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you may someday find me! Try me through some reverse, John--try me through sometrial--and tell them after THAT, what you think of me. '

'I will, my Life, ' said John. 'I promise it. '

'That's my dear John. And you won't speak a word now; will you?'

'And I won't, ' said John, with a very expressive look of admirationaround him, 'speak a word now!'

She laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, and said, looking at the rest of them sideways out of her bright eyes: 'I'll gofurther, Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John don't suspect it--he has no idea ofit--but I quite love him!'

Even Mrs Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her married daughter, andseemed in a majestic manner to imply remotely that if R. W. Had been amore deserving object, she too might have condescended to come down fromher pedestal for his beguilement. Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, hadstrong doubts of the policy of the course of treatment, and whether itmight not spoil Mr Sampson, if experimented on in the case of that younggentleman. R. W. Himself was for his part convinced that he was fatherof one of the most charming of girls, and that Rokesmith was the mostfavoured of men; which opinion, if propounded to him, Rokesmith wouldprobably not have contested. 

The newly-married pair left early, so that they might walk at leisure totheir starting-place from London, for Greenwich. At first they werevery cheerful and talked much; but after a while, Bella fancied that herhusband was turning somewhat thoughtful. So she asked him:

'John dear, what's the matter?'

'Matter, my love?'

'Won't you tell me, ' said Bella, looking up into his face, 'what you arethinking of?'

'There's not much in the thought, my soul. I was thinking whether youwouldn't like me to be rich?'

'You rich, John?' repeated Bella, shrinking a little. 

'I mean, really rich. Say, as rich as Mr Boffin. You would like that?'

'I should be almost afraid to try, John dear. Was he much the better forhis wealth? Was I much the better for the little part I once had in it?'

'But all people are not the worse for riches, my own. '

'Most people?' Bella musingly suggested with raised eyebrows. 

'Nor even most people, it may be hoped. If you were rich, for instance, you would have a great power of doing good to others. '

'Yes, sir, for instance, ' Bella playfully rejoined; 'but should Iexercise the power, for instance? And again, sir, for instance; shouldI, at the same time, have a great power of doing harm to myself?'

Laughing and pressing her arm, he retorted: 'But still, again forinstance; would you exercise that power?'

'I don't know, ' said Bella, thoughtfully shaking her head. 'I hope not. I think not. But it's so easy to hope not and think not, without theriches. '

'Why don't you say, my darling--instead of that phrase--being poor?' heasked, looking earnestly at her. 

'Why don't I say, being poor! Because I am not poor. Dear John, it's notpossible that you suppose I think we are poor?'

'I do, my love. '

'Oh John!'

'Understand me, sweetheart. I know that I am rich beyond all wealth inhaving you; but I think OF you, and think FOR you. In such a dress asyou are wearing now, you first charmed me, and in no dress could youever look, to my thinking, more graceful or more beautiful. But you haveadmired many finer dresses this very day; and is it not natural that Iwish I could give them to you?'

'It's very nice that you should wish it, John. It brings these tears ofgrateful pleasure into my eyes, to hear you say so with such tenderness. But I don't want them. '

'Again, ' he pursued, 'we are now walking through the muddy streets. Ilove those pretty feet so dearly, that I feel as if I could not bear thedirt to soil the sole of your shoe. Is it not natural that I wish youcould ride in a carriage?'

'It's very nice, ' said Bella, glancing downward at the feet in question, 'to know that you admire them so much, John dear, and since you do, Iam sorry that these shoes are a full size too large. But I don't want acarriage, believe me. '

'You would like one if you could have one, Bella?'

'I shouldn't like it for its own sake, half so well as such a wish forit. Dear John, your wishes are as real to me as the wishes in the Fairystory, that were all fulfilled as soon as spoken. Wish me everythingthat you can wish for the woman you dearly love, and I have as good asgot it, John. I have better than got it, John!'

They were not the less happy for such talk, and home was not the lesshome for coming after it. Bella was fast developing a perfect geniusfor home. All the loves and graces seemed (her husband thought) to havetaken domestic service with her, and to help her to make home engaging. 

Her married life glided happily on. She was alone all day, for, after anearly breakfast her husband repaired every morning to the City, and didnot return until their late dinner hour. He was 'in a China house, ' heexplained to Bella: which she found quite satisfactory, without pursuingthe China house into minuter details than a wholesale vision of tea, rice, odd-smelling silks, carved boxes, and tight-eyed people in morethan double-soled shoes, with their pigtails pulling their heads ofhair off, painted on transparent porcelain. She always walked with herhusband to the railroad, and was always there again to meet him; her oldcoquettish ways a little sobered down (but not much), and her dressas daintily managed as if she managed nothing else. But, John gone tobusiness and Bella returned home, the dress would be laid aside, trimlittle wrappers and aprons would be substituted, and Bella, putting backher hair with both hands, as if she were making the most business-likearrangements for going dramatically distracted, would enter on thehousehold affairs of the day. Such weighing and mixing and choppingand grating, such dusting and washing and polishing, such snippingand weeding and trowelling and other small gardening, such making andmending and folding and airing, such diverse arrangements, and above allsuch severe study! For Mrs J. R. , who had never been wont to do too muchat home as Miss B. W. , was under the constant necessity of referring foradvice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British FamilyHousewife, which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the tableand her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poringover the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete BritishHousewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means an expertBriton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue, and sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose in theKamskatchan language. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would suddenlyexclaim aloud, 'Oh you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that?You must have been drinking!' And having made this marginal note, wouldtry the Housewife again, with all her dimples screwed into an expressionof profound research. 

There was likewise a coolness on the part of the British Housewife, which Mrs John Rokesmith found highly exasperating. She would say, 'Take a salamander, ' as if a general should command a private to catcha Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the order, 'Throw in a handful--'of something entirely unattainable. In these, the Housewife's mostglaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up and knock her onthe table, apostrophising her with the compliment, 'O you ARE a stupidold Donkey! Where am I to get it, do you think?'

Another branch of study claimed the attention of Mrs John Rokesmith fora regular period every day. This was the mastering of the newspaper, sothat she might be close up with John on general topics when John camehome. In her desire to be in all things his companion, she would haveset herself with equal zeal to master Algebra, or Euclid, if he haddivided his soul between her and either. Wonderful was the way in whichshe would store up the City Intelligence, and beamingly shed itupon John in the course of the evening; incidentally mentioning thecommodities that were looking up in the markets, and how much gold hadbeen taken to the Bank, and trying to look wise and serious over ituntil she would laugh at herself most charmingly and would say, kissinghim: 'It all comes of my love, John dear. '

For a City man, John certainly did appear to care as little as might befor the looking up or looking down of things, as well as for the goldthat got taken to the Bank. But he cared, beyond all expression, for hiswife, as a most precious and sweet commodity that was always looking up, and that never was worth less than all the gold in the world. And she, being inspired by her affection, and having a quick wit and a fine readyinstinct, made amazing progress in her domestic efficiency, though, as an endearing creature, she made no progress at all. This was herhusband's verdict, and he justified it by telling her that she had begunher married life as the most endearing creature that could possibly be. 

'And you have such a cheerful spirit!' he said, fondly. 'You are like abright light in the house. '

'Am I truly, John?'

'Are you truly? Yes, indeed. Only much more, and much better. '

'Do you know, John dear, ' said Bella, taking him by a button of hiscoat, 'that I sometimes, at odd moments--don't laugh, John, please. '

Nothing should induce John to do it, when she asked him not to do it. 

'--That I sometimes think, John, I feel a little serious. '

'Are you too much alone, my darling?'

'O dear, no, John! The time is so short that I have not a moment toomuch in the week. '

'Why serious, my life, then? When serious?'

'When I laugh, I think, ' said Bella, laughing as she laid her head uponhis shoulder. 'You wouldn't believe, sir, that I feel serious now? But Ido. ' And she laughed again, and something glistened in her eyes. 

'Would you like to be rich, pet?' he asked her coaxingly. 

'Rich, John! How CAN you ask such goose's questions?'

'Do you regret anything, my love?'

'Regret anything? No!' Bella confidently answered. But then, suddenlychanging, she said, between laughing and glistening: 'Oh yes, I dothough. I regret Mrs Boffin. '

'I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps it is onlytemporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as that you may sometimes seeher again--as that we may sometimes see her again. ' Bella might be veryanxious on the subject, but she scarcely seemed so at the moment. Withan absent air, she was investigating that button on her husband's coat, when Pa came in to spend the evening. 

Pa had his special chair and his special corner reserved for him onall occasions, and--without disparagement of his domestic joys--was farhappier there, than anywhere. It was always pleasantly droll to see Paand Bella together; but on this present evening her husband thought hermore than usually fantastic with him. 

'You are a very good little boy, ' said Bella, 'to come unexpectedly, as soon as you could get out of school. And how have they used you atschool to-day, you dear?'

'Well, my pet, ' replied the cherub, smiling and rubbing his hands as shesat him down in his chair, 'I attend two schools. There's the MincingLane establishment, and there's your mother's Academy. Which might youmean, my dear?'

'Both, ' said Bella. 

'Both, eh? Why, to say the truth, both have taken a little out of meto-day, my dear, but that was to be expected. There's no royal road tolearning; and what is life but learning!'

'And what do you do with yourself when you have got your learning byheart, you silly child?'

'Why then, my dear, ' said the cherub, after a little consideration, 'Isuppose I die. '

'You are a very bad boy, ' retorted Bella, 'to talk about dismal thingsand be out of spirits. '

'My Bella, ' rejoined her father, 'I am not out of spirits. I am as gayas a lark. ' Which his face confirmed. 

'Then if you are sure and certain it's not you, I suppose it must beI, ' said Bella; 'so I won't do so any more. John dear, we must give thislittle fellow his supper, you know. '

'Of course we must, my darling. '

'He has been grubbing and grubbing at school, ' said Bella, looking ather father's hand and lightly slapping it, 'till he's not fit to beseen. O what a grubby child!'

'Indeed, my dear, ' said her father, 'I was going to ask to be allowed towash my hands, only you find me out so soon. '

'Come here, sir!' cried Bella, taking him by the front of his coat, 'come here and be washed directly. You are not to be trusted to do itfor yourself. Come here, sir!'

The cherub, to his genial amusement, was accordingly conducted to alittle washing-room, where Bella soaped his face and rubbed his face, and soaped his hands and rubbed his hands, and splashed him and rinsedhim and towelled him, until he was as red as beet-root, even to his veryears: 'Now you must be brushed and combed, sir, ' said Bella, busily. 'Hold the light, John. Shut your eyes, sir, and let me take hold of yourchin. Be good directly, and do as you are told!'

Her father being more than willing to obey, she dressed his hair in hermost elaborate manner, brushing it out straight, parting it, winding itover her fingers, sticking it up on end, and constantly falling back onJohn to get a good look at the effect of it. Who always received heron his disengaged arm, and detained her, while the patient cherub stoodwaiting to be finished. 

'There!' said Bella, when she had at last completed the final touches. 'Now, you are something like a genteel boy! Put your jacket on, and comeand have your supper. '

The cherub investing himself with his coat was led back to hiscorner--where, but for having no egotism in his pleasant nature, hewould have answered well enough for that radiant though self-sufficientboy, Jack Horner--Bella with her own hands laid a cloth for him, andbrought him his supper on a tray. 'Stop a moment, ' said she, 'we mustkeep his little clothes clean;' and tied a napkin under his chin, in avery methodical manner. 

While he took his supper, Bella sat by him, sometimes admonishing himto hold his fork by the handle, like a polite child, and at other timescarving for him, or pouring out his drink. Fantastic as it all was, andaccustomed as she ever had been to make a plaything of her good father, ever delighted that she should put him to that account, still there wasan occasional something on Bella's part that was new. It could not besaid that she was less playful, whimsical, or natural, than she alwayshad been; but it seemed, her husband thought, as if there were somerather graver reason than he had supposed for what she had so latelysaid, and as if throughout all this, there were glimpses of anunderlying seriousness. 

It was a circumstance in support of this view of the case, that when shehad lighted her father's pipe, and mixed him his glass of grog, she satdown on a stool between her father and her husband, leaning her arm uponthe latter, and was very quiet. So quiet, that when her father rose totake his leave, she looked round with a start, as if she had forgottenhis being there. 

'You go a little way with Pa, John?'

'Yes, my dear. Do you?'

'I have not written to Lizzie Hexam since I wrote and told her that Ireally had a lover--a whole one. I have often thought I would like totell her how right she was when she pretended to read in the live coalsthat I would go through fire and water for him. I am in the humour totell her so to-night, John, and I'll stay at home and do it. '

'You are tired. '

'Not at all tired, John dear, but in the humour to write to Lizzie. Goodnight, dear Pa. Good night, you dear, good, gentle Pa!'

Left to herself she sat down to write, and wrote Lizzie a long letter. She had but completed it and read it over, when her husband came back. 'You are just in time, sir, ' said Bella; 'I am going to give you yourfirst curtain lecture. It shall be a parlour-curtain lecture. You shalltake this chair of mine when I have folded my letter, and I will takethe stool (though you ought to take it, I can tell you, sir, if it'sthe stool of repentance), and you'll soon find yourself taken to tasksoundly. '

Her letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her pen wiped, and hermiddle finger wiped, and her desk locked up and put away, and thesetransactions performed with an air of severe business sedateness, whichthe Complete British Housewife might have assumed, and certainly wouldnot have rounded off and broken down in with a musical laugh, as Belladid: she placed her husband in his chair, and placed herself upon herstool. 

'Now, sir! To begin at the beginning. What is your name?'

A question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was keeping fromher, could not have astounded him. But he kept his countenance and hissecret, and answered, 'John Rokesmith, my dear. '

'Good boy! Who gave you that name?'

With a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed him toher, he answered, interrogatively, 'My godfathers and my godmothers, dear love?'

'Pretty good!' said Bella. 'Not goodest good, because you hesitate aboutit. However, as you know your Catechism fairly, so far, I'll let you offthe rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of my own head. John dear, why did you go back, this evening, to the question you once asked mebefore--would I like to be rich?'

Again, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked up at him, withher hands folded on his knee, and it was as nearly told as ever secretwas. 

Having no reply ready, he could do no better than embrace her. 

'In short, dear John, ' said Bella, 'this is the topic of my lecture: Iwant nothing on earth, and I want you to believe it. '

'If that's all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do. '

'It's not all, John dear, ' Bella hesitated. 'It's only Firstly. There'sa dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to come--as I used to say tomyself in sermon-time when I was a very small-sized sinner at church. '

'Let them come, my dearest. '

'Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in your innermostheart of hearts--?'

'Which is not in my keeping, ' he rejoined. 

'No, John, but the key is. --Are you absolutely certain that down at thebottom of that heart of hearts, which you have given to me as Ihave given mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was once verymercenary?'

'Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time you speak of, ' hesoftly asked her with his lips to hers, 'could I love you quite as wellas I do; could I have in the Calendar of my life the brightest of itsdays; could I whenever I look at your dear face, or hear your dearvoice, see and hear my noble champion? It can never have been that whichmade you serious, darling?'

'No John, it wasn't that, and still less was it Mrs Boffin, though Ilove her. Wait a moment, and I'll go on with the lecture. Give me amoment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, tocry for joy. '

She did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, laughed a little whenshe said, 'I think I am ready now for Thirdly, John. '

'I am ready for Thirdly, ' said John, 'whatever it is. '

'I believe, John, ' pursued Bella, 'that you believe that I believe--'

'My dear child, ' cried her husband gaily, 'what a quantity ofbelieving!'

'Isn't there?' said Bella, with another laugh. 'I never knew such aquantity! It's like verbs in an exercise. But I can't get on with lessbelieving. I'll try again. I believe, dear John, that you believe thatI believe that we have as much money as we require, and that we want fornothing. '

'It is strictly true, Bella. '

'But if our money should by any means be rendered not so much--if wehad to stint ourselves a little in purchases that we can afford tomake now--would you still have the same confidence in my being quitecontented, John?'

'Precisely the same confidence, my soul. '

'Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of times. And I may takeit for granted, no doubt, ' with a little faltering, 'that you would bequite as contented yourself John? But, yes, I know I may. For, knowingthat I should be so, how surely I may know that you would be so; you whoare so much stronger, and firmer, and more reasonable and more generous, than I am. '

'Hush!' said her husband, 'I must not hear that. You are all wrongthere, though otherwise as right as can be. And now I am brought to alittle piece of news, my dearest, that I might have told you earlierin the evening. I have strong reason for confidently believing thatwe shall never be in the receipt of a smaller income than our presentincome. '

She might have shown herself more interested in the intelligence;but she had returned to the investigation of the coat-button that hadengaged her attention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed to heedwhat he said. 

'And now we have got to the bottom of it at last, ' cried her husband, rallying her, 'and this is the thing that made you serious?'

'No dear, ' said Bella, twisting the button and shaking her head, 'itwasn't this. '

'Why then, Lord bless this little wife of mine, there's a Fourthly!'exclaimed John. 

'This worried me a little, and so did Secondly, ' said Bella, occupiedwith the button, 'but it was quite another sort of seriousness--a muchdeeper and quieter sort of seriousness--that I spoke of John dear. '

As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid herlittle right hand on his eyes, and kept it there. 

'Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa's speaking of theships that might be sailing towards us from the unknown seas?'

'Perfectly, my darling!'

'I think... Among them... There is a ship upon the ocean... Bringing... Toyou and me... A little baby, John. '

Chapter 6

A CRY FOR HELP

The Paper Mill had stopped work for the night, and the paths and roadsin its neighbourhood were sprinkled with clusters of people going homefrom their day's labour in it. There were men, women, and children inthe groups, and there was no want of lively colour to flutter in thegentle evening wind. The mingling of various voices and the sound oflaughter made a cheerful impression upon the ear, analogous to that ofthe fluttering colours upon the eye. Into the sheet of water reflectingthe flushed sky in the foreground of the living picture, a knot ofurchins were casting stones, and watching the expansion of the ripplingcircles. So, in the rosy evening, one might watch the ever-wideningbeauty of the landscape--beyond the newly-released workers wendinghome--beyond the silver river--beyond the deep green fields of corn, soprospering, that the loiterers in their narrow threads of pathway seemedto float immersed breast-high--beyond the hedgerows and the clumps oftrees--beyond the windmills on the ridge--away to where the sky appearedto meet the earth, as if there were no immensity of space betweenmankind and Heaven. 

It was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village dogs, alwaysmuch more interested in the doings of humanity than in the affairs oftheir own species, were particularly active. At the general shop, atthe butcher's and at the public-house, they evinced an inquiring spiritnever to be satiated. Their especial interest in the public-house wouldseem to imply some latent rakishness in the canine character; for littlewas eaten there, and they, having no taste for beer or tobacco (MrsHubbard's dog is said to have smoked, but proof is wanting), could onlyhave been attracted by sympathy with loose convivial habits. Moreover, a most wretched fiddle played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, thatone lean long-bodied cur, with a better ear than the rest, found himselfunder compulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, evenhe returned to the public-house on each occasion with the tenacity of aconfirmed drunkard. 

Fearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the village. Some despairing gingerbread that had been vainly trying to dispose ofitself all over the country, and had cast a quantity of dust upon itshead in its mortification, again appealed to the public from an infirmbooth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from Barcelona, and yetspeaking English so indifferently as to call fourteen of themselvesa pint. A Peep-show which had originally started with the Battle ofWaterloo, and had since made it every other battle of later dateby altering the Duke of Wellington's nose, tempted the student ofillustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps in part sustained uponpostponed pork, her professional associate being a Learned Pig, displayed her life-size picture in a low dress as she appeared whenpresented at Court, several yards round. All this was a viciousspectacle as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougherhewers of wood and drawers of water in this land of England ever is andshall be. They MUST NOT vary the rheumatism with amusement. They mayvary it with fever and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations asthey have joints; but positively not with entertainment after their ownmanner. 

The various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, and floatingaway into the still evening air, made the evening, at any point whichthey just reached fitfully, mellowed by the distance, more still bycontrast. Such was the stillness of the evening to Eugene Wrayburn, ashe walked by the river with his hands behind him. 

He walked slowly, and with the measured step and preoccupied air of onewho was waiting. He walked between the two points, an osier-bed at thisend and some floating lilies at that, and at each point stopped andlooked expectantly in one direction. 

'It is very quiet, ' said he. 

It was very quiet. Some sheep were grazing on the grass by theriver-side, and it seemed to him that he had never before heard thecrisp tearing sound with which they cropped it. He stopped idly, andlooked at them. 

'You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever enough to getthrough life tolerably to your satisfaction, you have got the better ofme, Man as I am, and Mutton as you are!'

A rustle in a field beyond the hedge attracted his attention. 'What'shere to do?' he asked himself leisurely going towards the gate andlooking over. 'No jealous paper-miller? No pleasures of the chase inthis part of the country? Mostly fishing hereabouts!'

The field had been newly mown, and there were yet the marks of thescythe on the yellow-green ground, and the track of wheels where the hayhad been carried. Following the tracks with his eyes, the view closedwith the new hayrick in a corner. 

Now, if he had gone on to the hayrick, and gone round it? But, saythat the event was to be, as the event fell out, and how idle are suchsuppositions! Besides, if he had gone; what is there of warning in aBargeman lying on his face?

'A bird flying to the hedge, ' was all he thought about it; and cameback, and resumed his walk. 

'If I had not a reliance on her being truthful, ' said Eugene, aftertaking some half-dozen turns, 'I should begin to think she had given methe slip for the second time. But she promised, and she is a girl of herword. '

Turning again at the water-lilies, he saw her coming, and advanced tomeet her. 

'I was saying to myself, Lizzie, that you were sure to come, though youwere late. '

'I had to linger through the village as if I had no object before me, and I had to speak to several people in passing along, Mr Wrayburn. '

'Are the lads of the village--and the ladies--such scandal-mongers?' heasked, as he took her hand and drew it through his arm. 

She submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. He put her hand tohis lips, and she quietly drew it away. 

'Will you walk beside me, Mr Wrayburn, and not touch me?' For, his armwas already stealing round her waist. 

She stopped again, and gave him an earnest supplicating look. 'Well, Lizzie, well!' said he, in an easy way though ill at ease with himself'don't be unhappy, don't be reproachful. '

'I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be reproachful. MrWrayburn, I implore you to go away from this neighbourhood, to-morrowmorning. '

'Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!' he remonstrated. 'As well be reproachful aswholly unreasonable. I can't go away. '

'Why not?'

'Faith!' said Eugene in his airily candid manner. 'Because you won't letme. Mind! I don't mean to be reproachful either. I don't complain thatyou design to keep me here. But you do it, you do it. '

'Will you walk beside me, and not touch me;' for, his arm was comingabout her again; 'while I speak to you very seriously, Mr Wrayburn?'

'I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for you, Lizzie, 'he answered with pleasant gaiety as he folded his arms. 'See here!Napoleon Buonaparte at St Helena. '

'When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the night before last, 'said Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him with the look of supplicationwhich troubled his better nature, 'you told me that you were muchsurprised to see me, and that you were on a solitary fishing excursion. Was it true?'

'It was not, ' replied Eugene composedly, 'in the least true. I camehere, because I had information that I should find you here. '

'Can you imagine why I left London, Mr Wrayburn?'

'I am afraid, Lizzie, ' he openly answered, 'that you left London to getrid of me. It is not flattering to my self-love, but I am afraid youdid. '

'I did. '

'How could you be so cruel?'

'O Mr Wrayburn, ' she answered, suddenly breaking into tears, 'is thecruelty on my side! O Mr Wrayburn, Mr Wrayburn, is there no cruelty inyour being here to-night!'

'In the name of all that's good--and that is not conjuring you in myown name, for Heaven knows I am not good'--said Eugene, 'don't bedistressed!'

'What else can I be, when I know the distance and the difference betweenus? What else can I be, when to tell me why you came here, is to put meto shame!' said Lizzie, covering her face. 

He looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful tenderness andpity. It was not strong enough to impell him to sacrifice himself andspare her, but it was a strong emotion. 

'Lizzie! I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world whocould affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in yourconstruction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don't know how thecursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every otherturning of my life, WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, Ithink, and I sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along withit. '

She had not been prepared for such passionate expressions, and theyawakened some natural sparks of feminine pride and joy in her breast. Toconsider, wrong as he was, that he could care so much for her, and thatshe had the power to move him so!

'It grieves you to see me distressed, Mr Wrayburn; it grieves me to seeyou distressed. I don't reproach you. Indeed I don't reproach you. You have not felt this as I feel it, being so different from me, andbeginning from another point of view. You have not thought. But Ientreat you to think now, think now!'

'What am I to think of?' asked Eugene, bitterly. 

'Think of me. '

'Tell me how NOT to think of you, Lizzie, and you'll change mealtogether. '

'I don't mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging to another station, and quite cut off from you in honour. Remember that I have no protectornear me, unless I have one in your noble heart. Respect my good name. If you feel towards me, in one particular, as you might if I was a lady, give me the full claims of a lady upon your generous behaviour. I amremoved from you and your family by being a working girl. How true agentleman to be as considerate of me as if I was removed by being aQueen!'

He would have been base indeed to have stood untouched by her appeal. His face expressed contrition and indecision as he asked:

'Have I injured you so much, Lizzie?'

'No, no. You may set me quite right. I don't speak of the past, MrWrayburn, but of the present and the future. Are we not here now, because through two days you have followed me so closely where thereare so many eyes to see you, that I consented to this appointment as anescape?'

'Again, not very flattering to my self-love, ' said Eugene, moodily; 'butyes. Yes. Yes. '

'Then I beseech you, Mr Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, leave thisneighbourhood. If you do not, consider to what you will drive me. '

He did consider within himself for a moment or two, and then retorted, 'Drive you? To what shall I drive you, Lizzie?'

'You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and respected, and I amwell employed here. You will force me to quit this place as I quittedLondon, and--by following me again--will force me to quit the next placein which I may find refuge, as I quitted this. '

'Are you so determined, Lizzie--forgive the word I am going to use, forits literal truth--to fly from a lover?'

'I am so determined, ' she answered resolutely, though trembling, 'to flyfrom such a lover. There was a poor woman died here but a little whileago, scores of years older than I am, whom I found by chance, lying onthe wet earth. You may have heard some account of her?'

'I think I have, ' he answered, 'if her name was Higden. '

'Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, she kept true toone purpose to the very last. Even at the very last, she made me promisethat her purpose should be kept to, after she was dead, so settledwas her determination. What she did, I can do. Mr Wrayburn, if Ibelieved--but I do not believe--that you could be so cruel to me asto drive me from place to place to wear me out, you should drive me todeath and not do it. '

He looked full at her handsome face, and in his own handsome face therewas a light of blended admiration, anger, and reproach, which she--wholoved him so in secret whose heart had long been so full, and he thecause of its overflowing--drooped before. She tried hard to retain herfirmness, but he saw it melting away under his eyes. In the moment ofits dissolution, and of his first full knowledge of his influence uponher, she dropped, and he caught her on his arm. 

'Lizzie! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. If I had not been whatyou call removed from you and cut off from you, would you have made thisappeal to me to leave you?'

'I don't know, I don't know. Don't ask me, Mr Wrayburn. Let me go back. '

'I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to you, youshall go alone. I'll not accompany you, I'll not follow you, if you willreply. '

'How can I, Mr Wrayburn? How can I tell you what I should have done, ifyou had not been what you are?'

'If I had not been what you make me out to be, ' he struck in, skilfullychanging the form of words, 'would you still have hated me?'

'O Mr Wrayburn, ' she replied appealingly, and weeping, 'you know mebetter than to think I do!'

'If I had not been what you make me out to be, Lizzie, would you stillhave been indifferent to me?'

'O Mr Wrayburn, ' she answered as before, 'you know me better than thattoo!'

There was something in the attitude of her whole figure as he supportedit, and she hung her head, which besought him to be merciful and notforce her to disclose her heart. He was not merciful with her, and hemade her do it. 

'If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate dog though Iam!) that you hate me, or even that you are wholly indifferent to me, Lizzie, let me know so much more from yourself before we separate. Letme know how you would have dealt with me if you had regarded me as beingwhat you would have considered on equal terms with you. '

'It is impossible, Mr Wrayburn. How can I think of you as being on equalterms with me? If my mind could put you on equal terms with me, youcould not be yourself. How could I remember, then, the night when Ifirst saw you, and when I went out of the room because you looked atme so attentively? Or, the night that passed into the morning when youbroke to me that my father was dead? Or, the nights when you used tocome to see me at my next home? Or, your having known how uninstructedI was, and having caused me to be taught better? Or, my having so lookedup to you and wondered at you, and at first thought you so good to be atall mindful of me?'

'Only "at first" thought me so good, Lizzie? What did you think me after"at first"? So bad?'

'I don't say that. I don't mean that. But after the first wonder andpleasure of being noticed by one so different from any one who had everspoken to me, I began to feel that it might have been better if I hadnever seen you. '

'Why?'

'Because you WERE so different, ' she answered in a lower voice. 'Becauseit was so endless, so hopeless. Spare me!'

'Did you think for me at all, Lizzie?' he asked, as if he were a littlestung. 

'Not much, Mr Wrayburn. Not much until to-night. '

'Will you tell me why?'

'I never supposed until to-night that you needed to be thought for. Butif you do need to be; if you do truly feel at heart that you have indeedbeen towards me what you have called yourself to-night, and that thereis nothing for us in this life but separation; then Heaven help you, andHeaven bless you!'

The purity with which in these words she expressed something of herown love and her own suffering, made a deep impression on him for thepassing time. He held her, almost as if she were sanctified to him bydeath, and kissed her, once, almost as he might have kissed the dead. 

'I promised that I would not accompany you, nor follow you. Shall I keepyou in view? You have been agitated, and it's growing dark. '

'I am used to be out alone at this hour, and I entreat you not to doso. '

'I promise. I can bring myself to promise nothing more tonight, Lizzie, except that I will try what I can do. '

'There is but one means, Mr Wrayburn, of sparing yourself and of sparingme, every way. Leave this neighbourhood to-morrow morning. '

'I will try. '

As he spoke the words in a grave voice, she put her hand in his, removedit, and went away by the river-side. 

'Now, could Mortimer believe this?' murmured Eugene, still remaining, after a while, where she had left him. 'Can I even believe it myself?'

He referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon his hand, as he stood covering his eyes. 'A most ridiculous position this, to befound out in!' was his next thought. And his next struck its root in alittle rising resentment against the cause of the tears. 

'Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let her be as muchin earnest as she will!'

The reflection brought back the yielding of her face and form as shehad drooped under his gaze. Contemplating the reproduction, he seemedto see, for the second time, in the appeal and in the confession ofweakness, a little fear. 

'And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be very earnest inthat passion. She cannot choose for herself to be strong in this fancy, wavering in that, and weak in the other. She must go through with hernature, as I must go through with mine. If mine exacts its pains andpenalties all round, so must hers, I suppose. '

Pursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, 'Now, if I marriedher. If, outfacing the absurdity of the situation in correspondence withM. R. F. , I astonished M. R. F. To the utmost extent of his respectedpowers, by informing him that I had married her, how would M. R. F. Reason with the legal mind? "You wouldn't marry for some money and somestation, because you were frightfully likely to become bored. Are youless frightfully likely to become bored, marrying for no money and nostation? Are you sure of yourself?" Legal mind, in spite of forensicprotestations, must secretly admit, "Good reasoning on the part of M. R. F. NOT sure of myself. "'

In the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, he felt it tobe profligate and worthless, and asserted her against it. 

'And yet, ' said Eugene, 'I should like to see the fellow (Mortimerexcepted) who would undertake to tell me that this was not a realsentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her worth, in spite of myself, and that I would not be true to her. I shouldparticularly like to see the fellow to-night who would tell me so, orwho would tell me anything that could be construed to her disadvantage;for I am wearily out of sorts with one Wrayburn who cuts a sorry figure, and I would far rather be out of sorts with somebody else. "Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business. " Ah! So go the MortimerLightwood bells, and they sound melancholy to-night. '

Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himself to task for. 'Where is the analogy, Brute Beast, ' he said impatiently, 'between awoman whom your father coolly finds out for you and a woman whom youhave found out for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more andmore of constancy since you first set eyes upon her? Ass! Can you reasonno better than that?'

But, again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full knowledgeof his power just now, and of her disclosure of her heart. To try nomore to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless conclusion itturned uppermost. And yet again, 'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a badbusiness!' And, 'I wish I could stop the Lightwood peal, for it soundslike a knell. '

Looking above, he found that the young moon was up, and that the starswere beginning to shine in the sky from which the tones of red andyellow were flickering out, in favour of the calm blue of a summernight. He was still by the river-side. Turning suddenly, he met a man, so close upon him that Eugene, surprised, stepped back, to avoid acollision. The man carried something over his shoulder which mighthave been a broken oar, or spar, or bar, and took no notice of him, butpassed on. 

'Halloa, friend!' said Eugene, calling after him, 'are you blind?'

The man made no reply, but went his way. 

Eugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands behind him and hispurpose in his thoughts. He passed the sheep, and passed the gate, andcame within hearing of the village sounds, and came to the bridge. Theinn where he stayed, like the village and the mill, was not acrossthe river, but on that side of the stream on which he walked. However, knowing the rushy bank and the backwater on the other side to be aretired place, and feeling out of humour for noise or company, hecrossed the bridge, and sauntered on: looking up at the stars as theyseemed one by one to be kindled in the sky, and looking down at theriver as the same stars seemed to be kindled deep in the water. Alanding-place overshadowed by a willow, and a pleasure-boat lying mooredthere among some stakes, caught his eye as he passed along. The spot wasin such dark shadow, that he paused to make out what was there, and thenpassed on again. 

The rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in hisuneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but theywere in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strongcurrent. As the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then, and palely flashed in a new shape and with a new sound, so parts ofhis thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and revealed theirwickedness. 'Out of the question to marry her, ' said Eugene, 'and out ofthe question to leave her. The crisis!'

He had sauntered far enough. Before turning to retrace his steps, hestopped upon the margin, to look down at the reflected night. In aninstant, with a dreadful crash, the reflected night turned crooked, flames shot jaggedly across the air, and the moon and stars camebursting from the sky. 

Was he struck by lightning? With some incoherent half-formed thoughtto that effect, he turned under the blows that were blinding him andmashing his life, and closed with a murderer, whom he caught by a redneckerchief--unless the raining down of his own blood gave it that hue. 

Eugene was light, active, and expert; but his arms were broken, or hewas paralysed, and could do no more than hang on to the man, with hishead swung back, so that he could see nothing but the heaving sky. Afterdragging at the assailant, he fell on the bank with him, and then therewas another great crash, and then a splash, and all was done. 

Lizzie Hexam, too, had avoided the noise, and the Saturday movement ofpeople in the straggling street, and chose to walk alone by the wateruntil her tears should be dry, and she could so compose herself asto escape remark upon her looking ill or unhappy on going home. Thepeaceful serenity of the hour and place, having no reproaches or evilintentions within her breast to contend against, sank healingly intoits depths. She had meditated and taken comfort. She, too, was turninghomeward, when she heard a strange sound. 

It startled her, for it was like a sound of blows. She stood still, andlistened. It sickened her, for blows fell heavily and cruelly on thequiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, all was silent. As sheyet listened, she heard a faint groan, and a fall into the river. 

Her old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. Without vain wasteof breath in crying for help where there were none to hear, she rantowards the spot from which the sounds had come. It lay between her andthe bridge, but it was more removed from her than she had thought; thenight being so very quiet, and sound travelling far with the help ofwater. 

At length, she reached a part of the green bank, much and newly trodden, where there lay some broken splintered pieces of wood and some tornfragments of clothes. Stooping, she saw that the grass was bloody. Following the drops and smears, she saw that the watery margin of thebank was bloody. Following the current with her eyes, she saw a bloodyface turned up towards the moon, and drifting away. 

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, and grant, O BlessedLord, that through thy wonderful workings it may turn to good at last!To whomsoever the drifting face belongs, be it man's or woman's, helpmy humble hands, Lord God, to raise it from death and restore it to someone to whom it must be dear!

It was thought, fervently thought, but not for a moment did the prayercheck her. She was away before it welled up in her mind, away, swiftand true, yet steady above all--for without steadiness it could neverbe done--to the landing-place under the willow-tree, where she also hadseen the boat lying moored among the stakes. 

A sure touch of her old practised hand, a sure step of her old practisedfoot, a sure light balance of her body, and she was in the boat. Aquick glance of her practised eye showed her, even through the deep darkshadow, the sculls in a rack against the red-brick garden-wall. Anothermoment, and she had cast off (taking the line with her), and the boathad shot out into the moonlight, and she was rowing down the stream asnever other woman rowed on English water. 

Intently over her shoulder, without slackening speed, she looked aheadfor the driving face. She passed the scene of the struggle--yonder itwas, on her left, well over the boat's stern--she passed on her right, the end of the village street, a hilly street that almost dipped intothe river; its sounds were growing faint again, and she slackened;looking as the boat drove, everywhere, everywhere, for the floatingface. 

She merely kept the boat before the stream now, and rested on her oars, knowing well that if the face were not soon visible, it had gone down, and she would overshoot it. An untrained sight would never have seen bythe moonlight what she saw at the length of a few strokes astern. Shesaw the drowning figure rise to the surface, slightly struggle, and asif by instinct turn over on its back to float. Just so had she firstdimly seen the face which she now dimly saw again. 

Firm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on, until it was very near; then, with a touch unshipped her sculls, andcrept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let thebody evade her, not being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seizedit by its bloody hair. 

It was insensible, if not virtually dead; it was mutilated, and streakedthe water all about it with dark red streaks. As it could not helpitself, it was impossible for her to get it on board. She bent over thestern to secure it with the line, and then the river and its shores rangto the terrible cry she uttered. 

But, as if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, she lashedit safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in, desperately, for the nearestshallow water where she might run the boat aground. Desperately, but notwildly, for she knew that if she lost distinctness of intention, all waslost and gone. 

She ran the boat ashore, went into the water, released him from theline, and by main strength lifted him in her arms and laid him in thebottom of the boat. He had fearful wounds upon him, and she bound themup with her dress torn into strips. Else, supposing him to be stillalive, she foresaw that he must bleed to death before he could be landedat his inn, which was the nearest place for succour. 

This done very rapidly, she kissed his disfigured forehead, looked upin anguish to the stars, and blessed him and forgave him, 'if she hadanything to forgive. ' It was only in that instant that she thought ofherself, and then she thought of herself only for him. 

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, enabling me, withouta wasted moment, to have got the boat afloat again, and to row backagainst the stream! And grant, O Blessed Lord God, that through poor mehe may be raised from death, and preserved to some one else to whom hemay be dear one day, though never dearer than to me!

She rowed hard--rowed desperately, but never wildly--and seldom removedher eyes from him in the bottom of the boat. She had so laid him there, as that she might see his disfigured face; it was so much disfiguredthat his mother might have covered it, but it was above and beyonddisfigurement in her eyes. 

The boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn, sloping gently tothe water. There were lights in the windows, but there chanced to beno one out of doors. She made the boat fast, and again by main strengthtook him up, and never laid him down until she laid him down in thehouse. 

Surgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his head. She hadoftentimes heard in days that were gone, how doctors would lift the handof an insensible wounded person, and would drop it if the person weredead. She waited for the awful moment when the doctors might lift thishand, all broken and bruised, and let it fall. 

The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceeding to hisexamination, 'Who brought him in?'

'I brought him in, sir, ' answered Lizzie, at whom all present looked. 

'You, my dear? You could not lift, far less carry, this weight. '

'I think I could not, at another time, sir; but I am sure I did. '

The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with somecompassion. Having with a grave face touched the wounds upon the head, and the broken arms, he took the hand. 

O! would he let it drop?

He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it gently down, took a candle, looked more closely at the injuries on the head, and atthe pupils of the eyes. That done, he replaced the candle and took thehand again. Another surgeon then coming in, the two exchanged a whisper, and the second took the hand. Neither did he let it fall at once, butkept it for a while and laid it gently down. 

'Attend to the poor girl, ' said the first surgeon then. 'She is quiteunconscious. She sees nothing and hears nothing. All the better forher! Don't rouse her, if you can help it; only move her. Poor girl, poorgirl! She must be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much to be fearedthat she has set her heart upon the dead. Be gentle with her. '

Chapter 7

BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN

Day was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. Stars were yet visible, but there was dull light in the east that was not the light of night. The moon had gone down, and a mist crept along the banks of the river, seen through which the trees were the ghosts of trees, and the waterwas the ghost of water. This earth looked spectral, and so did thepale stars: while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to heat orcolour, with the eye of the firmament quenched, might have been likenedto the stare of the dead. 

Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing on the brinkof the lock. For certain, Bradley Headstone looked that way, when achill air came up, and when it passed on murmuring, as if itwhispered something that made the phantom trees and water tremble--orthreaten--for fancy might have made it either. 

He turned away, and tried the Lock-house door. It was fastened on theinside. 

'Is he afraid of me?' he muttered, knocking. 

Rogue Riderhood was soon roused, and soon undrew the bolt and let himin. 

'Why, T'otherest, I thought you had been and got lost! Two nights away!I a'most believed as you'd giv' me the slip, and I had as good as half amind for to advertise you in the newspapers to come for'ard. '

Bradley's face turned so dark on this hint, that Riderhood deemed itexpedient to soften it into a compliment. 

'But not you, governor, not you, ' he went on, stolidly shaking his head. 'For what did I say to myself arter having amused myself with that therestretch of a comic idea, as a sort of a playful game? Why, I says tomyself; "He's a man o' honour. " That's what I says to myself. "He's aman o' double honour. "'

Very remarkably, Riderhood put no question to him. He had looked at himon opening the door, and he now looked at him again (stealthily thistime), and the result of his looking was, that he asked him no question. 

'You'll be for another forty on 'em, governor, as I judges, afore youturns your mind to breakfast, ' said Riderhood, when his visitor satdown, resting his chin on his hand, with his eyes on the ground. Andvery remarkably again: Riderhood feigned to set the scanty furniture inorder, while he spoke, to have a show of reason for not looking at him. 

'Yes. I had better sleep, I think, ' said Bradley, without changing hisposition. 

'I myself should recommend it, governor, ' assented Riderhood. 'Might yoube anyways dry?'

'Yes. I should like a drink, ' said Bradley; but without appearing toattend much. 

Mr Riderhood got out his bottle, and fetched his jug-full of water, and administered a potation. Then, he shook the coverlet of his bed andspread it smooth, and Bradley stretched himself upon it in the clotheshe wore. Mr Riderhood poetically remarking that he would pick the bonesof his night's rest, in his wooden chair, sat in the window as before;but, as before, watched the sleeper narrowly until he was very soundasleep. Then, he rose and looked at him close, in the bright daylight, on every side, with great minuteness. He went out to his Lock to sum upwhat he had seen. 

'One of his sleeves is tore right away below the elber, and thet'other's had a good rip at the shoulder. He's been hung on to, prettytight, for his shirt's all tore out of the neck-gathers. He's been inthe grass and he's been in the water. And he's spotted, and I know withwhat, and with whose. Hooroar!'

Bradley slept long. Early in the afternoon a barge came down. Otherbarges had passed through, both ways, before it; but the Lock-keeperhailed only this particular barge, for news, as if he had made a timecalculation with some nicety. The men on board told him a piece of news, and there was a lingering on their part to enlarge upon it. 

Twelve hours had intervened since Bradley's lying down, when he got up. 'Not that I swaller it, ' said Riderhood, squinting at his Lock, when hesaw Bradley coming out of the house, 'as you've been a sleeping all thetime, old boy!'

Bradley came to him, sitting on his wooden lever, and asked what o'clockit was? Riderhood told him it was between two and three. 

'When are you relieved?' asked Bradley. 

'Day arter to-morrow, governor. '

'Not sooner?'

'Not a inch sooner, governor. '

On both sides, importance seemed attached to this question of relief. Riderhood quite petted his reply; saying a second time, and prolonging anegative roll of his head, 'n--n--not a inch sooner, governor. '

'Did I tell you I was going on to-night?' asked Bradley. 

'No, governor, ' returned Riderhood, in a cheerful, affable, andconversational manner, 'you did not tell me so. But most like you meantto it and forgot to it. How, otherways, could a doubt have come intoyour head about it, governor?'

'As the sun goes down, I intend to go on, ' said Bradley. 

'So much the more necessairy is a Peck, ' returned Riderhood. 'Come inand have it, T'otherest. '

The formality of spreading a tablecloth not being observed in MrRiderhood's establishment, the serving of the 'peck' was the affair ofa moment; it merely consisting in the handing down of a capacious bakingdish with three-fourths of an immense meat pie in it, and the productionof two pocket-knives, an earthenware mug, and a large brown bottle ofbeer. 

Both ate and drank, but Riderhood much the more abundantly. In lieu ofplates, that honest man cut two triangular pieces from the thick crustof the pie, and laid them, inside uppermost, upon the table: the onebefore himself, and the other before his guest. Upon these platters heplaced two goodly portions of the contents of the pie, thus impartingthe unusual interest to the entertainment that each partaker scooped outthe inside of his plate, and consumed it with his other fare, besideshaving the sport of pursuing the clots of congealed gravy over the plainof the table, and successfully taking them into his mouth at last fromthe blade of his knife, in case of their not first sliding off it. 

Bradley Headstone was so remarkably awkward at these exercises, that theRogue observed it. 

'Look out, T'otherest!' he cried, 'you'll cut your hand!'

But, the caution came too late, for Bradley gashed it at the instant. And, what was more unlucky, in asking Riderhood to tie it up, and instanding close to him for the purpose, he shook his hand under the smartof the wound, and shook blood over Riderhood's dress. 

When dinner was done, and when what remained of the platters and whatremained of the congealed gravy had been put back into what remained ofthe pie, which served as an economical investment for all miscellaneoussavings, Riderhood filled the mug with beer and took a long drink. Andnow he did look at Bradley, and with an evil eye. 

'T'otherest!' he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the table to touchhis arm. 'The news has gone down the river afore you. '

'What news?'

'Who do you think, ' said Riderhood, with a hitch of his head, as if hedisdainfully jerked the feint away, 'picked up the body? Guess. '

'I am not good at guessing anything. '

'She did. Hooroar! You had him there agin. She did. '

The convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone's face, and the suddenhot humour that broke out upon it, showed how grimly the intelligencetouched him. But he said not a single word, good or bad. He only smiledin a lowering manner, and got up and stood leaning at the window, looking through it. Riderhood followed him with his eyes. Riderhood castdown his eyes on his own besprinkled clothes. Riderhood began to have anair of being better at a guess than Bradley owned to being. 

'I have been so long in want of rest, ' said the schoolmaster, 'that withyour leave I'll lie down again. '

'And welcome, T'otherest!' was the hospitable answer of his host. He hadlaid himself down without waiting for it, and he remained upon the beduntil the sun was low. When he arose and came out to resume his journey, he found his host waiting for him on the grass by the towing-pathoutside the door. 

'Whenever it may be necessary that you and I should have any furthercommunication together, ' said Bradley, 'I will come back. Good-night!'

'Well, since no better can be, ' said Riderhood, turning on his heel, 'Good-night!' But he turned again as the other set forth, and addedunder his breath, looking after him with a leer: 'You wouldn't be let togo like that, if my Relief warn't as good as come. I'll catch you up ina mile. '

In a word, his real time of relief being that evening at sunset, hismate came lounging in, within a quarter of an hour. Not staying to fillup the utmost margin of his time, but borrowing an hour or so, to berepaid again when he should relieve his reliever, Riderhood straightwayfollowed on the track of Bradley Headstone. 

He was a better follower than Bradley. It had been the calling of hislife to slink and skulk and dog and waylay, and he knew his callingwell. He effected such a forced march on leaving the Lock House that hewas close up with him--that is to say, as close up with him as he deemedit convenient to be--before another Lock was passed. His man looked backpretty often as he went, but got no hint of him. HE knew how to takeadvantage of the ground, and where to put the hedge between them, andwhere the wall, and when to duck, and when to drop, and had a thousandarts beyond the doomed Bradley's slow conception. 

But, all his arts were brought to a standstill, like himself whenBradley, turning into a green lane or riding by the river-side--asolitary spot run wild in nettles, briars, and brambles, and encumberedwith the scathed trunks of a whole hedgerow of felled trees, on theoutskirts of a little wood--began stepping on these trunks and droppingdown among them and stepping on them again, apparently as a schoolboymight have done, but assuredly with no schoolboy purpose, or want ofpurpose. 

'What are you up to?' muttered Riderhood, down in the ditch, and holdingthe hedge a little open with both hands. And soon his actions made amost extraordinary reply. 'By George and the Draggin!' cried Riderhood, 'if he ain't a going to bathe!'

He had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees again, and haspassed on to the water-side and had begun undressing on the grass. Fora moment it had a suspicious look of suicide, arranged to counterfeitaccident. 'But you wouldn't have fetched a bundle under your arm, fromamong that timber, if such was your game!' said Riderhood. Neverthelessit was a relief to him when the bather after a plunge and a few strokescame out. 'For I shouldn't, ' he said in a feeling manner, 'have liked tolose you till I had made more money out of you neither. '

Prone in another ditch (he had changed his ditch as his man had changedhis position), and holding apart so small a patch of the hedge that thesharpest eyes could not have detected him, Rogue Riderhood watched thebather dressing. And now gradually came the wonder that he stood up, completely clothed, another man, and not the Bargeman. 

'Aha!' said Riderhood. 'Much as you was dressed that night. I see. You're a taking me with you, now. You're deep. But I knows a deeper. '

When the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the grass, doingsomething with his hands, and again stood up with his bundle under hisarm. Looking all around him with great attention, he then went to theriver's edge, and flung it in as far, and yet as lightly as he could. Itwas not until he was so decidedly upon his way again as to be beyond abend of the river and for the time out of view, that Riderhood scrambledfrom the ditch. 

'Now, ' was his debate with himself 'shall I foller you on, or shall Ilet you loose for this once, and go a fishing?' The debate continuing, he followed, as a precautionary measure in any case, and got him againin sight. 'If I was to let you loose this once, ' said Riderhood then, still following, 'I could make you come to me agin, or I could findyou out in one way or another. If I wasn't to go a fishing, othersmight. --I'll let you loose this once, and go a fishing!' With that, hesuddenly dropped the pursuit and turned. 

The miserable man whom he had released for the time, but not for long, went on towards London. Bradley was suspicious of every sound he heard, and of every face he saw, but was under a spell which very commonlyfalls upon the shedder of blood, and had no suspicion of the real dangerthat lurked in his life, and would have it yet. Riderhood was muchin his thoughts--had never been out of his thoughts since thenight-adventure of their first meeting; but Riderhood occupied a verydifferent place there, from the place of pursuer; and Bradley had beenat the pains of devising so many means of fitting that place to him, andof wedging him into it, that his mind could not compass the possibilityof his occupying any other. And this is another spell against whichthe shedder of blood for ever strives in vain. There are fifty doors bywhich discovery may enter. With infinite pains and cunning, he doublelocks and bars forty-nine of them, and cannot see the fiftieth standingwide open. 

Now, too, was he cursed with a state of mind more wearing and morewearisome than remorse. He had no remorse; but the evildoer who can holdthat avenger at bay, cannot escape the slower torture of incessantlydoing the evil deed again and doing it more efficiently. In thedefensive declarations and pretended confessions of murderers, thepursuing shadow of this torture may be traced through every lie theytell. If I had done it as alleged, is it conceivable that I would havemade this and this mistake? If I had done it as alleged, should I haveleft that unguarded place which that false and wicked witness against meso infamously deposed to? The state of that wretch who continually findsthe weak spots in his own crime, and strives to strengthen them whenit is unchangeable, is a state that aggravates the offence by doingthe deed a thousand times instead of once; but it is a state, too, thattauntingly visits the offence upon a sullen unrepentant nature with itsheaviest punishment every time. 

Bradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred and hisvengeance, and thinking how he might have satiated both in many betterways than the way he had taken. The instrument might have been better, the spot and the hour might have been better chosen. To batter a mandown from behind in the dark, on the brink of a river, was well enough, but he ought to have been instantly disabled, whereas he had turned andseized his assailant; and so, to end it before chance-help came, andto be rid of him, he had been hurriedly thrown backward into the riverbefore the life was fully beaten out of him. Now if it could be doneagain, it must not be so done. Supposing his head had been held downunder water for a while. Supposing the first blow had been truer. Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled. Supposethis way, that way, the other way. Suppose anything but gettingunchained from the one idea, for that was inexorably impossible. 

The school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or no change intheir master's face, for it always wore its slowly labouring expression. But, as he heard his classes, he was always doing the deed and doing itbetter. As he paused with his piece of chalk at the black board beforewriting on it, he was thinking of the spot, and whether the water wasnot deeper and the fall straighter, a little higher up, or a littlelower down. He had half a mind to draw a line or two upon the board, andshow himself what he meant. He was doing it again and improving onthe manner, at prayers, in his mental arithmetic, all through hisquestioning, all through the day. 

Charley Hexam was a master now, in another school, under another head. It was evening, and Bradley was walking in his garden observed frombehind a blind by gentle little Miss Peecher, who contemplated offeringhim a loan of her smelling salts for headache, when Mary Anne, infaithful attendance, held up her arm. 

'Yes, Mary Anne?'

'Young Mr Hexam, if you please, ma'am, coming to see Mr Headstone. '

'Very good, Mary Anne. '

Again Mary Anne held up her arm. 

'You may speak, Mary Anne?'

'Mr Headstone has beckoned young Mr Hexam into his house, ma'am, and hehas gone in himself without waiting for young Mr Hexam to come up, andnow HE has gone in too, ma'am, and has shut the door. '

'With all my heart, Mary Anne. '

Again Mary Anne's telegraphic arm worked. 

'What more, Mary Anne?'

'They must find it rather dull and dark, Miss Peecher, for the parlourblind's down, and neither of them pulls it up. '

'There is no accounting, ' said good Miss Peecher with a little sad sighwhich she repressed by laying her hand on her neat methodical boddice, 'there is no accounting for tastes, Mary Anne. '

Charley, entering the dark room, stopped short when he saw his oldfriend in its yellow shade. 

'Come in, Hexam, come in. '

Charley advanced to take the hand that was held out to him; but stoppedagain, short of it. The heavy, bloodshot eyes of the schoolmaster, rising to his face with an effort, met his look of scrutiny. 

'Mr Headstone, what's the matter?'

'Matter? Where?'

'Mr Headstone, have you heard the news? This news about the fellow, MrEugene Wrayburn? That he is killed?'

'He is dead, then!' exclaimed Bradley. 

Young Hexam standing looking at him, he moistened his lips with histongue, looked about the room, glanced at his former pupil, and lookeddown. 'I heard of the outrage, ' said Bradley, trying to constrain hisworking mouth, 'but I had not heard the end of it. '

'Where were you, ' said the boy, advancing a step as he lowered hisvoice, 'when it was done? Stop! I don't ask that. Don't tell me. If youforce your confidence upon me, Mr Headstone, I'll give up every word ofit. Mind! Take notice. I'll give up it, and I'll give up you. I will!'

The wretched creature seemed to suffer acutely under this renunciation. A desolate air of utter and complete loneliness fell upon him, like avisible shade. 

'It's for me to speak, not you, ' said the boy. 'If you do, you'll doit at your peril. I am going to put your selfishness before you, MrHeadstone--your passionate, violent, and ungovernable selfishness--toshow you why I can, and why I will, have nothing more to do with you. '

He looked at young Hexam as if he were waiting for a scholar to go onwith a lesson that he knew by heart and was deadly tired of. But he hadsaid his last word to him. 

'If you had any part--I don't say what--in this attack, ' pursued theboy; 'or if you know anything about it--I don't say how much--or if youknow who did it--I go no closer--you did an injury to me that's neverto be forgiven. You know that I took you with me to his chambers in theTemple when I told him my opinion of him, and made myself responsiblefor my opinion of you. You know that I took you with me when I waswatching him with a view to recovering my sister and bringing her to hersenses; you know that I have allowed myself to be mixed up with you, allthrough this business, in favouring your desire to marry my sister. Andhow do you know that, pursuing the ends of your own violent temper, youhave not laid me open to suspicion? Is that your gratitude to me, MrHeadstone?'

Bradley sat looking steadily before him at the vacant air. As oftenas young Hexam stopped, he turned his eyes towards him, as if he werewaiting for him to go on with the lesson, and get it done. As often asthe boy resumed, Bradley resumed his fixed face. 

'I am going to be plain with you, Mr Headstone, ' said young Hexam, shaking his head in a half-threatening manner, 'because this is no timefor affecting not to know things that I do know--except certain thingsat which it might not be very safe for you, to hint again. What I meanis this: if you were a good master, I was a good pupil. I have done youplenty of credit, and in improving my own reputation I have improvedyours quite as much. Very well then. Starting on equal terms, I want toput before you how you have shown your gratitude to me, for doing allI could to further your wishes with reference to my sister. You havecompromised me by being seen about with me, endeavouring to counteractthis Mr Eugene Wrayburn. That's the first thing you have done. If mycharacter, and my now dropping you, help me out of that, Mr Headstone, the deliverance is to be attributed to me, and not to you. No thanks toyou for it!'

The boy stopping again, he moved his eyes again. 

'I am going on, Mr Headstone, don't you be afraid. I am going on to theend, and I have told you beforehand what the end is. Now, you know mystory. You are as well aware as I am, that I have had many disadvantagesto leave behind me in life. You have heard me mention my father, and youare sufficiently acquainted with the fact that the home from which I, asI may say, escaped, might have been a more creditable one than it was. My father died, and then it might have been supposed that my way torespectability was pretty clear. No. For then my sister begins. '

He spoke as confidently, and with as entire an absence of any tell-talecolour in his cheek, as if there were no softening old time behind him. Not wonderful, for there WAS none in his hollow empty heart. What isthere but self, for selfishness to see behind it?

'When I speak of my sister, I devoutly wish that you had never seenher, Mr Headstone. However, you did see her, and that's useless now. Iconfided in you about her. I explained her character to you, and how sheinterposed some ridiculous fanciful notions in the way of our being asrespectable as I tried for. You fell in love with her, and I favouredyou with all my might. She could not be induced to favour you, and sowe came into collision with this Mr Eugene Wrayburn. Now, what have youdone? Why, you have justified my sister in being firmly set against youfrom first to last, and you have put me in the wrong again! And whyhave you done it? Because, Mr Headstone, you are in all your passionsso selfish, and so concentrated upon yourself that you have not bestowedone proper thought on me. '

The cool conviction with which the boy took up and held his position, could have been derived from no other vice in human nature. 

'It is, ' he went on, actually with tears, 'an extraordinary circumstanceattendant on my life, that every effort I make towards perfectrespectability, is impeded by somebody else through no fault of mine!Not content with doing what I have put before you, you will drag my nameinto notoriety through dragging my sister's--which you are pretty sureto do, if my suspicions have any foundation at all--and the worse youprove to be, the harder it will be for me to detach myself from beingassociated with you in people's minds. '

When he had dried his eyes and heaved a sob over his injuries, he beganmoving towards the door. 

'However, I have made up my mind that I will become respectable in thescale of society, and that I will not be dragged down by others. I havedone with my sister as well as with you. Since she cares so little forme as to care nothing for undermining my respectability, she shall goher way and I will go mine. My prospects are very good, and I mean tofollow them alone. Mr Headstone, I don't say what you have got upon yourconscience, for I don't know. Whatever lies upon it, I hope you will seethe justice of keeping wide and clear of me, and will find a consolationin completely exonerating all but yourself. I hope, before many yearsare out, to succeed the master in my present school, and the mistressbeing a single woman, though some years older than I am, I might evenmarry her. If it is any comfort to you to know what plans I may work outby keeping myself strictly respectable in the scale of society, theseare the plans at present occurring to me. In conclusion, if you feel asense of having injured me, and a desire to make some small reparation, I hope you will think how respectable you might have been yourself andwill contemplate your blighted existence. '

Was it strange that the wretched man should take this heavily toheart? Perhaps he had taken the boy to heart, first, through somelong laborious years; perhaps through the same years he had foundhis drudgery lightened by communication with a brighter and moreapprehensive spirit than his own; perhaps a family resemblance of faceand voice between the boy and his sister, smote him hard in the gloomof his fallen state. For whichsoever reason, or for all, he drooped hisdevoted head when the boy was gone, and shrank together on the floor, and grovelled there, with the palms of his hands tight-clasping his hottemples, in unutterable misery, and unrelieved by a single tear. 

Rogue Riderhood had been busy with the river that day. He had fishedwith assiduity on the previous evening, but the light was short, andhe had fished unsuccessfully. He had fished again that day with betterluck, and had carried his fish home to Plashwater Weir Mill Lock-house, in a bundle. 

Chapter 8

A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER

The dolls' dressmaker went no more to the business-premises of Pubseyand Co. In St Mary Axe, after chance had disclosed to her (as shesupposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr Riah. She oftenmoralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that venerablecheat, but made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a secludedlife. After much consultation with herself, she decided not to putLizzie Hexam on her guard against the old man, arguing that thedisappointment of finding him out would come upon her quite soon enough. Therefore, in her communication with her friend by letter, she wassilent on this theme, and principally dilated on the backslidings of herbad child, who every day grew worse and worse. 

'You wicked old boy, ' Miss Wren would say to him, with a menacingforefinger, 'you'll force me to run away from you, after all, you will;and then you'll shake to bits, and there'll be nobody to pick up thepieces!'

At this foreshadowing of a desolate decease, the wicked old boy wouldwhine and whimper, and would sit shaking himself into the lowest of lowspirits, until such time as he could shake himself out of the house andshake another threepennyworth into himself. But dead drunk or deadsober (he had come to such a pass that he was least alive in the latterstate), it was always on the conscience of the paralytic scarecrow thathe had betrayed his sharp parent for sixty threepennyworths of rum, which were all gone, and that her sharpness would infallibly detect hishaving done it, sooner or later. All things considered therefore, andaddition made of the state of his body to the state of his mind, the bedon which Mr Dolls reposed was a bed of roses from which the flowersand leaves had entirely faded, leaving him to lie upon the thorns andstalks. 

On a certain day, Miss Wren was alone at her work, with the house-doorset open for coolness, and was trolling in a small sweet voice amournful little song which might have been the song of the doll she wasdressing, bemoaning the brittleness and meltability of wax, when whomshould she descry standing on the pavement, looking in at her, but MrFledgeby. 

'I thought it was you?' said Fledgeby, coming up the two steps. 

'Did you?' Miss Wren retorted. 'And I thought it was you, young man. Quite a coincidence. You're not mistaken, and I'm not mistaken. Howclever we are!'

'Well, and how are you?' said Fledgeby. 

'I am pretty much as usual, sir, ' replied Miss Wren. 'A very unfortunateparent, worried out of my life and senses by a very bad child. '

Fledgeby's small eyes opened so wide that they might have passed forordinary-sized eyes, as he stared about him for the very young personwhom he supposed to be in question. 

'But you're not a parent, ' said Miss Wren, 'and consequently it's of nouse talking to you upon a family subject. --To what am I to attribute thehonour and favour?'

'To a wish to improve your acquaintance, ' Mr Fledgeby replied. 

Miss Wren, stopping to bite her thread, looked at him very knowingly. 

'We never meet now, ' said Fledgeby; 'do we?'

'No, ' said Miss Wren, chopping off the word. 

'So I had a mind, ' pursued Fledgeby, 'to come and have a talk with youabout our dodging friend, the child of Israel. '

'So HE gave you my address; did he?' asked Miss Wren. 

'I got it out of him, ' said Fledgeby, with a stammer. 

'You seem to see a good deal of him, ' remarked Miss Wren, with shrewddistrust. 'A good deal of him you seem to see, considering. '

'Yes, I do, ' said Fledgeby. 'Considering. '

'Haven't you, ' inquired the dressmaker, bending over the doll on whichher art was being exercised, 'done interceding with him yet?'

'No, ' said Fledgeby, shaking his head. 

'La! Been interceding with him all this time, and sticking to himstill?' said Miss Wren, busy with her work. 

'Sticking to him is the word, ' said Fledgeby. 

Miss Wren pursued her occupation with a concentrated air, and asked, after an interval of silent industry:

'Are you in the army?'

'Not exactly, ' said Fledgeby, rather flattered by the question. 

'Navy?' asked Miss Wren. 

'N--no, ' said Fledgeby. He qualified these two negatives, as if he werenot absolutely in either service, but was almost in both. 

'What are you then?' demanded Miss Wren. 

'I am a gentleman, I am, ' said Fledgeby. 

'Oh!' assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an appearance ofconviction. 'Yes, to be sure! That accounts for your having so muchtime to give to interceding. But only to think how kind and friendly agentleman you must be!'

Mr Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board marked Dangerous, and had better cut out a fresh track. 'Let's get back to the dodgerestof the dodgers, ' said he. 'What's he up to in the case of your friendthe handsome gal? He must have some object. What's his object?'

'Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!' returned Miss Wren, composedly. 

'He won't acknowledge where she's gone, ' said Fledgeby; 'and I havea fancy that I should like to have another look at her. Now I know heknows where she is gone. '

'Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!' Miss Wren again rejoined. 

'And you know where she is gone, ' hazarded Fledgeby. 

'Cannot undertake to say, sir, really, ' replied Miss Wren. 

The quaint little chin met Mr Fledgeby's gaze with such a bafflinghitch, that that agreeable gentleman was for some time at a loss how toresume his fascinating part in the dialogue. At length he said:

'Miss Jenny!--That's your name, if I don't mistake?'

'Probably you don't mistake, sir, ' was Miss Wren's cool answer; 'becauseyou had it on the best authority. Mine, you know. '

'Miss Jenny! Instead of coming up and being dead, let's come out andlook alive. It'll pay better, I assure you, ' said Fledgeby, bestowingan inveigling twinkle or two upon the dressmaker. 'You'll find it paybetter. '

'Perhaps, ' said Miss Jenny, holding out her doll at arm's length, andcritically contemplating the effect of her art with her scissors on herlips and her head thrown back, as if her interest lay there, and not inthe conversation; 'perhaps you'll explain your meaning, young man, whichis Greek to me. --You must have another touch of blue in your trimming, my dear. ' Having addressed the last remark to her fair client, MissWren proceeded to snip at some blue fragments that lay before her, amongfragments of all colours, and to thread a needle from a skein of bluesilk. 

'Look here, ' said Fledgeby. --'Are you attending?'

'I am attending, sir, ' replied Miss Wren, without the slightestappearance of so doing. 'Another touch of blue in your trimming, mydear. '

'Well, look here, ' said Fledgeby, rather discouraged by thecircumstances under which he found himself pursuing the conversation. 'If you're attending--'

('Light blue, my sweet young lady, ' remarked Miss Wren, in a sprightlytone, 'being best suited to your fair complexion and your flaxencurls. ')

'I say, if you're attending, ' proceeded Fledgeby, 'it'll pay better inthis way. It'll lead in a roundabout manner to your buying damage andwaste of Pubsey and Co. At a nominal price, or even getting it fornothing. '

'Aha!' thought the dressmaker. 'But you are not so roundabout, LittleEyes, that I don't notice your answering for Pubsey and Co. After all!Little Eyes, Little Eyes, you're too cunning by half. '

'And I take it for granted, ' pursued Fledgeby, 'that to get the most ofyour materials for nothing would be well worth your while, Miss Jenny?'

'You may take it for granted, ' returned the dressmaker with many knowingnods, 'that it's always well worth my while to make money. '

'Now, ' said Fledgeby approvingly, 'you're answering to a sensiblepurpose. Now, you're coming out and looking alive! So I make so free, Miss Jenny, as to offer the remark, that you and Judah were too thicktogether to last. You can't come to be intimate with such a deep fileas Judah without beginning to see a little way into him, you know, ' saidFledgeby with a wink. 

'I must own, ' returned the dressmaker, with her eyes upon her work, 'that we are not good friends at present. '

'I know you're not good friends at present, ' said Fledgeby. 'I know allabout it. I should like to pay off Judah, by not letting him have hisown deep way in everything. In most things he'll get it by hook orby crook, but--hang it all!--don't let him have his own deep way ineverything. That's too much. ' Mr Fledgeby said this with some display ofindignant warmth, as if he was counsel in the cause for Virtue. 

'How can I prevent his having his own way?' began the dressmaker. 

'Deep way, I called it, ' said Fledgeby. 

'--His own deep way, in anything?'

'I'll tell you, ' said Fledgeby. 'I like to hear you ask it, becauseit's looking alive. It's what I should expect to find in one of yoursagacious understanding. Now, candidly. '

'Eh?' cried Miss Jenny. 

'I said, now candidly, ' Mr Fledgeby explained, a little put out. 

'Oh-h!'

'I should be glad to countermine him, respecting the handsome gal, yourfriend. He means something there. You may depend upon it, Judah meanssomething there. He has a motive, and of course his motive is a darkmotive. Now, whatever his motive is, it's necessary to his motive'--MrFledgeby's constructive powers were not equal to the avoidance of sometautology here--'that it should be kept from me, what he has done withher. So I put it to you, who know: What HAS he done with her? I ask nomore. And is that asking much, when you understand that it will pay?'

Miss Jenny Wren, who had cast her eyes upon the bench again after herlast interruption, sat looking at it, needle in hand but not working, for some moments. She then briskly resumed her work, and said with asidelong glance of her eyes and chin at Mr Fledgeby:

'Where d'ye live?'

'Albany, Piccadilly, ' replied Fledgeby. 

'When are you at home?'

'When you like. '

'Breakfast-time?' said Jenny, in her abruptest and shortest manner. 

'No better time in the day, ' said Fledgeby. 

'I'll look in upon you to-morrow, young man. Those two ladies, ' pointingto dolls, 'have an appointment in Bond Street at ten precisely. WhenI've dropped 'em there, I'll drive round to you. With a weird littlelaugh, Miss Jenny pointed to her crutch-stick as her equipage. 

'This is looking alive indeed!' cried Fledgeby, rising. 

'Mark you! I promise you nothing, ' said the dolls' dressmaker, dabbingtwo dabs at him with her needle, as if she put out both his eyes. 

'No no. I understand, ' returned Fledgeby. 'The damage and waste questionshall be settled first. It shall be made to pay; don't you be afraid. Good-day, Miss Jenny. '

'Good-day, young man. '

Mr Fledgeby's prepossessing form withdrew itself; and the littledressmaker, clipping and snipping and stitching, and stitching andsnipping and clipping, fell to work at a great rate; musing andmuttering all the time. 

'Misty, misty, misty. Can't make it out. Little Eyes and the wolf in aconspiracy? Or Little Eyes and the wolf against one another? Can't makeit out. My poor Lizzie, have they both designs against you, either way?Can't make it out. Is Little Eyes Pubsey, and the wolf Co? Can't make itout. Pubsey true to Co, and Co to Pubsey? Pubsey false to Co, and Co toPubsey? Can't make it out. What said Little Eyes? "Now, candidly?"Ah! However the cat jumps, HE'S a liar. That's all I can make out atpresent; but you may go to bed in the Albany, Piccadilly, with THAT foryour pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbedout his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread anddeftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring himinto the bargain. 

For the terrors undergone by Mr Dolls that evening when his littleparent sat profoundly meditating over her work, and when he imaginedhimself found out, as often as she changed her attitude, or turned hereyes towards him, there is no adequate name. Moreover it was her habitto shake her head at that wretched old boy whenever she caught his eyeas he shivered and shook. What are popularly called 'the trembles' beingin full force upon him that evening, and likewise what are popularlycalled 'the horrors, ' he had a very bad time of it; which was notmade better by his being so remorseful as frequently to moan 'Sixtythreepennorths. ' This imperfect sentence not being at all intelligibleas a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram, brought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounceat him in a more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm him withbitter reproaches. 

What was a bad time for Mr Dolls, could not fail to be a bad time forthe dolls' dressmaker. However, she was on the alert next morning, anddrove to Bond Street, and set down the two ladies punctually, and thendirected her equipage to conduct her to the Albany. Arrived at thedoorway of the house in which Mr Fledgeby's chambers were, she found alady standing there in a travelling dress, holding in her hand--of allthings in the world--a gentleman's hat. 

'You want some one?' said the lady in a stern manner. 

'I am going up stairs to Mr Fledgeby's. '

'You cannot do that at this moment. There is a gentleman with him. I amwaiting for the gentleman. His business with Mr Fledgeby will very soonbe transacted, and then you can go up. Until the gentleman comes down, you must wait here. '

While speaking, and afterwards, the lady kept watchfully between her andthe staircase, as if prepared to oppose her going up, by force. Thelady being of a stature to stop her with a hand, and looking mightilydetermined, the dressmaker stood still. 

'Well? Why do you listen?' asked the lady. 

'I am not listening, ' said the dressmaker. 

'What do you hear?' asked the lady, altering her phrase. 

'Is it a kind of a spluttering somewhere?' said the dressmaker, with aninquiring look. 

'Mr Fledgeby in his shower-bath, perhaps, ' remarked the lady, smiling. 

'And somebody's beating a carpet, I think?'

'Mr Fledgeby's carpet, I dare say, ' replied the smiling lady. 

Miss Wren had a reasonably good eye for smiles, being well accustomedto them on the part of her young friends, though their smiles mostly ransmaller than in nature. But she had never seen so singular a smileas that upon this lady's face. It twitched her nostrils open in aremarkable manner, and contracted her lips and eyebrows. It was a smileof enjoyment too, though of such a fierce kind that Miss Wren thoughtshe would rather not enjoy herself than do it in that way. 

'Well!' said the lady, watching her. 'What now?'

'I hope there's nothing the matter!' said the dressmaker. 

'Where?' inquired the lady. 

'I don't know where, ' said Miss Wren, staring about her. 'But I neverheard such odd noises. Don't you think I had better call somebody?'

'I think you had better not, ' returned the lady with a significantfrown, and drawing closer. 

On this hint, the dressmaker relinquished the idea, and stood lookingat the lady as hard as the lady looked at her. Meanwhile the dressmakerlistened with amazement to the odd noises which still continued, and thelady listened too, but with a coolness in which there was no trace ofamazement. 

Soon afterwards, came a slamming and banging of doors; and then camerunning down stairs, a gentleman with whiskers, and out of breath, whoseemed to be red-hot. 

'Is your business done, Alfred?' inquired the lady. 

'Very thoroughly done, ' replied the gentleman, as he took his hat fromher. 

'You can go up to Mr Fledgeby as soon as you like, ' said the lady, moving haughtily away. 

'Oh! And you can take these three pieces of stick with you, ' added thegentleman politely, 'and say, if you please, that they come from MrAlfred Lammle, with his compliments on leaving England. Mr AlfredLammle. Be so good as not to forget the name. '

The three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed fragments of astout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking them wonderingly, and the gentlemanrepeating with a grin, 'Mr Alfred Lammle, if you'll be so good. Compliments, on leaving England, ' the lady and gentleman walked awayquite deliberately, and Miss Jenny and her crutch-stick went up stairs. 'Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?' Miss Jenny repeated as she panted from stairto stair, 'where have I heard that name? Lammle, Lammle? I know! SaintMary Axe!'

With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls'dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby's bell. No one answered; but, from withinthe chambers, there proceeded a continuous spluttering sound of a highlysingular and unintelligible nature. 

'Good gracious! Is Little Eyes choking?' cried Miss Jenny. 

Pulling at the bell again and getting no reply, she pushed the outerdoor, and found it standing ajar. No one being visible on her opening itwider, and the spluttering continuing, she took the liberty of openingan inner door, and then beheld the extraordinary spectacle of MrFledgeby in a shirt, a pair of Turkish trousers, and a Turkish cap, rolling over and over on his own carpet, and spluttering wonderfully. 

'Oh Lord!' gasped Mr Fledgeby. 'Oh my eye! Stop thief! I am strangling. Fire! Oh my eye! A glass of water. Give me a glass of water. Shut thedoor. Murder! Oh Lord!' And then rolled and spluttered more than ever. 

Hurrying into another room, Miss Jenny got a glass of water, and broughtit for Fledgeby's relief: who, gasping, spluttering, and rattling in histhroat betweenwhiles, drank some water, and laid his head faintly on herarm. 

'Oh my eye!' cried Fledgeby, struggling anew. 'It's salt and snuff. It'sup my nose, and down my throat, and in my wind-pipe. Ugh! Ow! Ow! Ow!Ah--h--h--h!' And here, crowing fearfully, with his eyes starting out ofhis head, appeared to be contending with every mortal disease incidentalto poultry. 

'And Oh my Eye, I'm so sore!' cried Fledgeby, starting, over on hisback, in a spasmodic way that caused the dressmaker to retreat to thewall. 'Oh I smart so! Do put something to my back and arms, and legs andshoulders. Ugh! It's down my throat again and can't come up. Ow! Ow! Ow!Ah--h--h--h! Oh I smart so!' Here Mr Fledgeby bounded up, and boundeddown, and went rolling over and over again. 

The dolls' dressmaker looked on until he rolled himself into a cornerwith his Turkish slippers uppermost, and then, resolving in the firstplace to address her ministration to the salt and snuff, gave him morewater and slapped his back. But, the latter application was by no meansa success, causing Mr Fledgeby to scream, and to cry out, 'Oh my eye!don't slap me! I'm covered with weales and I smart so!'

However, he gradually ceased to choke and crow, saving at intervals, and Miss Jenny got him into an easy-chair: where, with his eyes red andwatery, with his features swollen, and with some half-dozen livid barsacross his face, he presented a most rueful sight. 

'What ever possessed you to take salt and snuff, young man?' inquiredMiss Jenny. 

'I didn't take it, ' the dismal youth replied. 'It was crammed into mymouth. '

'Who crammed it?' asked Miss Jenny. 

'He did, ' answered Fledgeby. 'The assassin. Lammle. He rubbed it intomy mouth and up my nose and down my throat--Ow! Ow! Ow! Ah--h--h--h!Ugh!--to prevent my crying out, and then cruelly assaulted me. '

'With this?' asked Miss Jenny, showing the pieces of cane. 

'That's the weapon, ' said Fledgeby, eyeing it with the air of anacquaintance. 'He broke it over me. Oh I smart so! How did you come byit?'

'When he ran down stairs and joined the lady he had left in the hallwith his hat'--Miss Jenny began. 

'Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, writhing, 'she was holding his hat, was she?I might have known she was in it. '

'When he came down stairs and joined the lady who wouldn't let me comeup, he gave me the pieces for you, and I was to say, "With Mr AlfredLammle's compliments on his leaving England. "' Miss Jenny said it withsuch spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes asmight have added to Mr Fledgeby's miseries, if he could have noticedeither, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head. 

'Shall I go for the police?' inquired Miss Jenny, with a nimble starttowards the door. 

'Stop! No, don't!' cried Fledgeby. 'Don't, please. We had better keep itquiet. Will you be so good as shut the door? Oh I do smart so!'

In testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr Fledgeby camewallowing out of the easy-chair, and took another roll on the carpet. 

Now the door's shut, ' said Mr Fledgeby, sitting up in anguish, withhis Turkish cap half on and half off, and the bars on his face gettingbluer, 'do me the kindness to look at my back and shoulders. They mustbe in an awful state, for I hadn't got my dressing-gown on, when thebrute came rushing in. Cut my shirt away from the collar; there's a pairof scissors on that table. Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, with his hand tohis head again. 'How I do smart, to be sure!'

'There?' inquired Miss Jenny, alluding to the back and shoulders. 

'Oh Lord, yes!' moaned Fledgeby, rocking himself. 'And all over!Everywhere!'

The busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, and laidbare the results of as furious and sound a thrashing as even Mr Fledgebymerited. 'You may well smart, young man!' exclaimed Miss Jenny. Andstealthily rubbed her little hands behind him, and poked a few exultantpokes with her two forefingers over the crown of his head. 

'What do you think of vinegar and brown paper?' inquired the sufferingFledgeby, still rocking and moaning. 'Does it look as if vinegar andbrown paper was the sort of application?'

'Yes, ' said Miss Jenny, with a silent chuckle. 'It looks as if it oughtto be Pickled. '

Mr Fledgeby collapsed under the word 'Pickled, ' and groaned again. 'My kitchen is on this floor, ' he said; 'you'll find brown paper in adresser-drawer there, and a bottle of vinegar on a shelf. Would you havethe kindness to make a few plasters and put 'em on? It can't be kept tooquiet. '

'One, two--hum--five, six. You'll want six, ' said the dress-maker. 

'There's smart enough, ' whimpered Mr Fledgeby, groaning and writhingagain, 'for sixty. '

Miss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found the brownpaper and found the vinegar, and skilfully cut out and steeped sixlarge plasters. When they were all lying ready on the dresser, an ideaoccurred to her as she was about to gather them up. 

'I think, ' said Miss Jenny with a silent laugh, 'he ought to have alittle pepper? Just a few grains? I think the young man's tricks andmanners make a claim upon his friends for a little pepper?'

Mr Fledgeby's evil star showing her the pepper-box on the chimneypiece, she climbed upon a chair, and got it down, and sprinkled all theplasters with a judicious hand. She then went back to Mr Fledgeby, andstuck them all on him: Mr Fledgeby uttering a sharp howl as each was putin its place. 

'There, young man!' said the dolls' dressmaker. 'Now I hope you feelpretty comfortable?'

Apparently, Mr Fledgeby did not, for he cried by way of answer, 'Oh--hhow I do smart!'

Miss Jenny got his Persian gown upon him, extinguished his eyescrookedly with his Persian cap, and helped him to his bed: upon which heclimbed groaning. 'Business between you and me being out of the questionto-day, young man, and my time being precious, ' said Miss Jenny then, 'I'll make myself scarce. Are you comfortable now?'

'Oh my eye!' cried Mr Fledgeby. 'No, I ain't. Oh--h--h! how I do smart!'

The last thing Miss Jenny saw, as she looked back before closing theroom door, was Mr Fledgeby in the act of plunging and gambolling allover his bed, like a porpoise or dolphin in its native element. She thenshut the bedroom door, and all the other doors, and going down stairsand emerging from the Albany into the busy streets, took omnibus forSaint Mary Axe: pressing on the road all the gaily-dressed ladies whomshe could see from the window, and making them unconscious lay-figuresfor dolls, while she mentally cut them out and basted them. 

Chapter 9

TWO PLACES VACATED

Set down by the omnibus at the corner of Saint Mary Axe, and trustingto her feet and her crutch-stick within its precincts, the dolls'dressmaker proceeded to the place of business of Pubsey and Co. Allthere was sunny and quiet externally, and shady and quiet internally. Hiding herself in the entry outside the glass door, she could see fromthat post of observation the old man in his spectacles sitting writingat his desk. 

'Boh!' cried the dressmaker, popping in her head at the glass-door. 'MrWolf at home?'

The old man took his glasses off, and mildly laid them down beside him. 'Ah Jenny, is it you? I thought you had given me up. '

'And so I had given up the treacherous wolf of the forest, ' she replied;'but, godmother, it strikes me you have come back. I am not quite sure, because the wolf and you change forms. I want to ask you a question ortwo, to find out whether you are really godmother or really wolf. MayI?'

'Yes, Jenny, yes. ' But Riah glanced towards the door, as if he thoughthis principal might appear there, unseasonably. 

'If you're afraid of the fox, ' said Miss Jenny, 'you may dismiss allpresent expectations of seeing that animal. HE won't show himselfabroad, for many a day. '

'What do you mean, my child?'

'I mean, godmother, ' replied Miss Wren, sitting down beside the Jew, 'that the fox has caught a famous flogging, and that if his skin andbones are not tingling, aching, and smarting at this present instant, nofox did ever tingle, ache, and smart. ' Therewith Miss Jenny related whathad come to pass in the Albany, omitting the few grains of pepper. 

'Now, godmother, ' she went on, 'I particularly wish to ask you what hastaken place here, since I left the wolf here? Because I have an ideaabout the size of a marble, rolling about in my little noddle. First andforemost, are you Pubsey and Co. , or are you either? Upon your solemnword and honour. '

The old man shook his head. 

'Secondly, isn't Fledgeby both Pubsey and Co. ?'

The old man answered with a reluctant nod. 

'My idea, ' exclaimed Miss Wren, 'is now about the size of an orange. Butbefore it gets any bigger, welcome back, dear godmother!'

The little creature folded her arms about the old man's neck with greatearnestness, and kissed him. 'I humbly beg your forgiveness, godmother. I am truly sorry. I ought to have had more faith in you. But what couldI suppose when you said nothing for yourself, you know? I don't mean tooffer that as a justification, but what could I suppose, when you were asilent party to all he said? It did look bad; now didn't it?'

'It looked so bad, Jenny, ' responded the old man, with gravity, 'that Iwill straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I washateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hatefulto the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond myself--I reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonourto my ancient faith and race. I reflected--clearly reflected for thefirst time--that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, inChristian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, 'Thisis a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but thereare good Turks. ' Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easilyenough--among what peoples are the bad not easily found?--but they takethe worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us aspresentations of the highest; and they say "All Jews are alike. " If, doing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the pastand have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could havedone it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as aJew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions andall countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I wouldthat all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so, seeing that it came home so late to me. '

The dolls' dressmaker sat holding the old man by the hand, and lookingthoughtfully in his face. 

'Thus I reflected, I say, sitting that evening in my garden on thehousetop. And passing the painful scene of that day in review beforeme many times, I always saw that the poor gentleman believed the storyreadily, because I was one of the Jews--that you believed the storyreadily, my child, because I was one of the Jews--that the story itselffirst came into the invention of the originator thereof, because I wasone of the Jews. This was the result of my having had you three beforeme, face to face, and seeing the thing visibly presented as upon atheatre. Wherefore I perceived that the obligation was upon me to leavethis service. But Jenny, my dear, ' said Riah, breaking off, 'I promisedthat you should pursue your questions, and I obstruct them. '

'On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as a pumpkin--andYOU know what a pumpkin is, don't you? So you gave notice that youwere going? Does that come next?' asked Miss Jenny with a look of closeattention. 

'I indited a letter to my master. Yes. To that effect. '

'And what said Tingling-Tossing-Aching-Screaming-Scratching-Smarter?'asked Miss Wren with an unspeakable enjoyment in the utterance of thosehonourable titles and in the recollection of the pepper. 

'He held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful termof notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon their expiration--not before--Ihad meant to set myself right with my Cinderella. '

'My idea is getting so immense now, ' cried Miss Wren, clasping hertemples, 'that my head won't hold it! Listen, godmother; I am going toexpound. Little Eyes (that's Screaming-Scratching-Smarter) owes you aheavy grudge for going. Little Eyes casts about how best to pay you off. Little Eyes thinks of Lizzie. Little Eyes says to himself, 'I'll findout where he has placed that girl, and I'll betray his secret becauseit's dear to him. ' Perhaps Little Eyes thinks, "I'll make love to hermyself too;" but that I can't swear--all the rest I can. So, Little Eyescomes to me, and I go to Little Eyes. That's the way of it. And now themurder's all out, I'm sorry, ' added the dolls' dressmaker, rigid fromhead to foot with energy as she shook her little fist before her eyes, 'that I didn't give him Cayenne pepper and chopped pickled Capsicum!'

This expression of regret being but partially intelligible to Mr Riah, the old man reverted to the injuries Fledgeby had received, and hintedat the necessity of his at once going to tend that beaten cur. 

'Godmother, godmother, godmother!' cried Miss Wren irritably, 'I reallylose all patience with you. One would think you believed in the GoodSamaritan. How can you be so inconsistent?'

'Jenny dear, ' began the old man gently, 'it is the custom of our peopleto help--'

'Oh! Bother your people!' interposed Miss Wren, with a toss of her head. 'If your people don't know better than to go and help Little Eyes, it'sa pity they ever got out of Egypt. Over and above that, ' she added, 'hewouldn't take your help if you offered it. Too much ashamed. Wants tokeep it close and quiet, and to keep you out of the way. '

They were still debating this point when a shadow darkened the entry, and the glass door was opened by a messenger who brought a letterunceremoniously addressed, 'Riah. ' To which he said there was an answerwanted. 

The letter, which was scrawled in pencil uphill and downhill and roundcrooked corners, ran thus:

'OLD RIAH, Your accounts being all squared, go. Shut up the place, turn outdirectly, and send me the key by bearer. Go. You are an unthankful dogof a Jew. Get out. 

F. '

The dolls' dressmaker found it delicious to trace the screaming andsmarting of Little Eyes in the distorted writing of this epistle. Shelaughed over it and jeered at it in a convenient corner (to the greatastonishment of the messenger) while the old man got his few goodstogether in a black bag. That done, the shutters of the upper windowsclosed, and the office blind pulled down, they issued forth upon thesteps with the attendant messenger. There, while Miss Jenny held thebag, the old man locked the house door, and handed over the key to him;who at once retired with the same. 

'Well, godmother, ' said Miss Wren, as they remained upon the stepstogether, looking at one another. 'And so you're thrown upon the world!'

'It would appear so, Jenny, and somewhat suddenly. '

'Where are you going to seek your fortune?' asked Miss Wren. 

The old man smiled, but looked about him with a look of having lost hisway in life, which did not escape the dolls' dressmaker. 

'Verily, Jenny, ' said he, 'the question is to the purpose, and moreeasily asked than answered. But as I have experience of the readygoodwill and good help of those who have given occupation to Lizzie, Ithink I will seek them out for myself. '

'On foot?' asked Miss Wren, with a chop. 

'Ay!' said the old man. 'Have I not my staff?'

It was exactly because he had his staff, and presented so quaint anaspect, that she mistrusted his making the journey. 

'The best thing you can do, ' said Jenny, 'for the time being, at allevents, is to come home with me, godmother. Nobody's there but my badchild, and Lizzie's lodging stands empty. ' The old man when satisfiedthat no inconvenience could be entailed on any one by his compliance, readily complied; and the singularly-assorted couple once more wentthrough the streets together. 

Now, the bad child having been strictly charged by his parent to remainat home in her absence, of course went out; and, being in the very laststage of mental decrepitude, went out with two objects; firstly, to establish a claim he conceived himself to have upon any licensedvictualler living, to be supplied with threepennyworth of rum fornothing; and secondly, to bestow some maudlin remorse on Mr EugeneWrayburn, and see what profit came of it. Stumblingly pursuing thesetwo designs--they both meant rum, the only meaning of which he wascapable--the degraded creature staggered into Covent Garden Market andthere bivouacked, to have an attack of the trembles succeeded by anattack of the horrors, in a doorway. 

This market of Covent Garden was quite out of the creature's line ofroad, but it had the attraction for him which it has for the worst ofthe solitary members of the drunken tribe. It may be the companionshipof the nightly stir, or it may be the companionship of the gin andbeer that slop about among carters and hucksters, or it may be thecompanionship of the trodden vegetable refuse which is so like their owndress that perhaps they take the Market for a great wardrobe; but beit what it may, you shall see no such individual drunkards on doorstepsanywhere, as there. Of dozing women-drunkards especially, you shall comeupon such specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you mightseek out of doors in vain through London. Such stale vapid rejectedcabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged-orange countenance, such squashed pulp of humanity, are open to the day nowhere else. So, the attraction of the Market drew Mr Dolls to it, and he had out his twofits of trembles and horrors in a doorway on which a woman had had outher sodden nap a few hours before. 

There is a swarm of young savages always flitting about this same place, creeping off with fragments of orange-chests, and mouldy litter--Heavenknows into what holes they can convey them, having no home!--whose barefeet fall with a blunt dull softness on the pavement as the policemanhunts them, and who are (perhaps for that reason) little heard bythe Powers that be, whereas in top-boots they would make a deafeningclatter. These, delighting in the trembles and the horrors of Mr Dolls, as in a gratuitous drama, flocked about him in his doorway, buttedat him, leaped at him, and pelted him. Hence, when he came out ofhis invalid retirement and shook off that ragged train, he was muchbespattered, and in worse case than ever. But, not yet at his worst;for, going into a public-house, and being supplied in stress of businesswith his rum, and seeking to vanish without payment, he was collared, searched, found penniless, and admonished not to try that again, by having a pail of dirty water cast over him. This applicationsuperinduced another fit of the trembles; after which Mr Dolls, asfinding himself in good cue for making a call on a professional friend, addressed himself to the Temple. 

There was nobody at the chambers but Young Blight. That discreet youth, sensible of a certain incongruity in the association of such aclient with the business that might be coming some day, with the bestintentions temporized with Dolls, and offered a shilling for coach-hirehome. Mr Dolls, accepting the shilling, promptly laid it out intwo threepennyworths of conspiracy against his life, and twothreepennyworths of raging repentance. Returning to the Chambers withwhich burden, he was descried coming round into the court, by the waryyoung Blight watching from the window: who instantly closed the outerdoor, and left the miserable object to expend his fury on the panels. 

The more the door resisted him, the more dangerous and imminent becamethat bloody conspiracy against his life. Force of police arriving, he recognized in them the conspirators, and laid about him hoarsely, fiercely, staringly, convulsively, foamingly. A humble machine, familiarto the conspirators and called by the expressive name of Stretcher, being unavoidably sent for, he was rendered a harmless bundle of tornrags by being strapped down upon it, with voice and consciousness goneout of him, and life fast going. As this machine was borne out at theTemple gate by four men, the poor little dolls' dressmaker and herJewish friend were coming up the street. 

'Let us see what it is, ' cried the dressmaker. 'Let us make haste andlook, godmother. '

The brisk little crutch-stick was but too brisk. 'O gentlemen, gentlemen, he belongs to me!'

'Belongs to you?' said the head of the party, stopping it. 

'O yes, dear gentlemen, he's my child, out without leave. My poor bad, bad boy! and he don't know me, he don't know me! O what shall I do, 'cried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, 'when myown child don't know me!'

The head of the party looked (as well he might) to the old man forexplanation. He whispered, as the dolls' dressmaker bent over theexhausted form and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition fromit: 'It's her drunken father. '

As the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the head of the partyaside, and whispered that he thought the man was dying. 'No, surelynot?' returned the other. But he became less confident, on looking, anddirected the bearers to 'bring him to the nearest doctor's shop. '

Thither he was brought; the window becoming from within, a wall offaces, deformed into all kinds of shapes through the agency of globularred bottles, green bottles, blue bottles, and other coloured bottles. Aghastly light shining upon him that he didn't need, the beast so furiousbut a few minutes gone, was quiet enough now, with a strange mysteriouswriting on his face, reflected from one of the great bottles, as ifDeath had marked him: 'Mine. '

The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than itsometimes is in a Court of Justice. 'You had better send for somethingto cover it. All's over. '

Therefore, the police sent for something to cover it, and it was coveredand borne through the streets, the people falling away. After it, went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish skirts, andclinging to them with one hand, while with the other she plied herstick. It was carried home, and, by reason that the staircase was verynarrow, it was put down in the parlour--the little working-bench beingset aside to make room for it--and there, in the midst of the dolls withno speculation in their eyes, lay Mr Dolls with no speculation in his. 

Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was inthe dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for Mr Dolls. As the old man, Riah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found itdifficult to make out whether she really did realize that the deceasedhad been her father. 

'If my poor boy, ' she would say, 'had been brought up better, he mighthave done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause forthat. '

'None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain. '

'Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see itis so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day. When he was out of employment, I couldn't always keep him near me. Hegot fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into thestreets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out ofsight. How often it happens with children!'

'Too often, even in this sad sense!' thought the old man. 

'How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my backhaving been so bad and my legs so queer, when I was young!' thedressmaker would go on. 'I had nothing to do but work, and so I worked. I couldn't play. But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turnedout the worse for him. '

'And not for him alone, Jenny. '

'Well! I don't know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunateboy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity ofnames;' shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. 'I don'tknow that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, letus forget it. '

'You are a good girl, you are a patient girl. '

'As for patience, ' she would reply with a shrug, 'not much of that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names. But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibilityas a mother, so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I triedcoaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding and scolding failed. But Iwas bound to try everything, you know, with such a charge upon my hands. Where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not triedeverything!'

With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industriouslittle creature, the day-work and the night-work were beguiled untilenough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into the kitchen, where the working-bench now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasionrequired, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. 'And now, ' said Miss Jenny, 'having knocked off my rosy-cheeked youngfriends, I'll knock off my white-cheeked self. ' This referred to hermaking her own dress, which at last was done. 'The disadvantage ofmaking for yourself, ' said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to lookat the result in the glass, 'is, that you can't charge anybody else forthe job, and the advantage is, that you haven't to go out to try on. Humph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now (whoever he is) I hopehe wouldn't repent of his bargain!'

The simple arrangements were of her own making, and were stated to Riahthus:

'I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you'll be sokind as keep house while I am gone. It's not far off. And when I return, we'll have a cup of tea, and a chat over future arrangements. It's avery plain last house that I have been able to give my poor unfortunateboy; but he'll accept the will for the deed if he knows anything aboutit; and if he doesn't know anything about it, ' with a sob, and wipingher eyes, 'why, it won't matter to him. I see the service in thePrayer-book says, that we brought nothing into this world and it iscertain we can take nothing out. It comforts me for not being able tohire a lot of stupid undertaker's things for my poor child, and seemingas if I was trying to smuggle 'em out of this world with him, when ofcourse I must break down in the attempt, and bring 'em all back again. As it is, there'll be nothing to bring back but me, and that's quiteconsistent, for I shan't be brought back, some day!'

After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched oldfellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken on the shoulders of halfa dozen blossom-faced men, who shuffled with him to the churchyard, and who were preceded by another blossom-faced man, affecting astately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of the D(eath) Division, andceremoniously pretending not to know his intimate acquaintances, as heled the pageant. Yet, the spectacle of only one little mourner hobblingafter, caused many people to turn their heads with a look of interest. 

At last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be buriedno more, and the stately stalker stalked back before the solitarydressmaker, as if she were bound in honour to have no notion of the wayhome. Those Furies, the conventionalities, being thus appeased, he lefther. 

'I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for good, 'said the little creature, coming in. 'Because after all a child is achild, you know. '

It was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, it woreitself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker came forth, andwashed her face, and made the tea. 'You wouldn't mind my cutting outsomething while we are at tea, would you?' she asked her Jewish friend, with a coaxing air. 

'Cinderella, dear child, ' the old man expostulated, 'will you neverrest?'

'Oh! It's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't, ' said Miss Jenny, withher busy little scissors already snipping at some paper. 'The truth is, godmother, I want to fix it while I have it correct in my mind. '

'Have you seen it to-day then?' asked Riah. 

'Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It's a surplice, that's what itis. Thing our clergymen wear, you know, ' explained Miss Jenny, inconsideration of his professing another faith. 

'And what have you to do with that, Jenny?'

'Why, godmother, ' replied the dressmaker, 'you must know that weProfessors who live upon our taste and invention, are obliged to keepour eyes always open. And you know already that I have many extraexpenses to meet just now. So, it came into my head while I was weepingat my poor boy's grave, that something in my way might be done with aclergyman. '

'What can be done?' asked the old man. 

'Not a funeral, never fear!' returned Miss Jenny, anticipating hisobjection with a nod. 'The public don't like to be made melancholy, Iknow very well. I am seldom called upon to put my young friends intomourning; not into real mourning, that is; Court mourning they arerather proud of. But a doll clergyman, my dear, --glossy black curlsand whiskers--uniting two of my young friends in matrimony, ' said MissJenny, shaking her forefinger, 'is quite another affair. If you don'tsee those three at the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name's JackRobinson!'

With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll intowhitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and was displayingit for the edification of the Jewish mind, when a knock was heard at thestreet-door. Riah went to open it, and presently came back, ushering in, with the grave and courteous air that sat so well upon him, a gentleman. 

The gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker; but even in the momentof his casting his eyes upon her, there was something in his mannerwhich brought to her remembrance Mr Eugene Wrayburn. 

'Pardon me, ' said the gentleman. 'You are the dolls' dressmaker?'

'I am the dolls' dressmaker, sir. '

'Lizzie Hexam's friend?'

'Yes, sir, ' replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. 'And LizzieHexam's friend. '

'Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the request ofMr Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr Riah chances to know that I am MrMortimer Lightwood, and will tell you so. '

Riah bent his head in corroboration. 

'Will you read the note?'

'It's very short, ' said Jenny, with a look of wonder, when she had readit. 

'There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very precious. My dearfriend Mr Eugene Wrayburn is dying. '

The dressmaker clasped her hands, and uttered a little piteous cry. 

'Is dying, ' repeated Lightwood, with emotion, 'at some distance fromhere. He is sinking under injuries received at the hands of a villainwho attacked him in the dark. I come straight from his bedside. He isalmost always insensible. In a short restless interval of sensibility, or partial sensibility, I made out that he asked for you to be broughtto sit by him. Hardly relying on my own interpretation of the indistinctsounds he made, I caused Lizzie to hear them. We were both sure that heasked for you. '

The dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked affrightedly fromthe one to the other of her two companions. 

'If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, with hislast wish--intrusted to me--we have long been much more thanbrothers--unfulfilled. I shall break down, if I try to say more. 

In a few moments the black bonnet and the crutch-stick were on duty, thegood Jew was left in possession of the house, and the dolls' dressmaker, side by side in a chaise with Mortimer Lightwood, was posting out oftown. 

Chapter 10

THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD

A darkened and hushed room; the river outside the windows flowing onto the vast ocean; a figure on the bed, swathed and bandaged and bound, lying helpless on its back, with its two useless arms in splints at itssides. Only two days of usage so familiarized the little dressmakerwith this scene, that it held the place occupied two days ago by therecollections of years. 

He had scarcely moved since her arrival. Sometimes his eyes were open, sometimes closed. When they were open, there was no meaning in theirunwinking stare at one spot straight before them, unless for a momentthe brow knitted into a faint expression of anger, or surprise. Then, Mortimer Lightwood would speak to him, and on occasions he would be sofar roused as to make an attempt to pronounce his friend's name. But, inan instant consciousness was gone again, and no spirit of Eugene was inEugene's crushed outer form. 

They provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, and she had alittle table placed at the foot of his bed. Sitting there, with her richshower of hair falling over the chair-back, they hoped she might attracthis notice. With the same object, she would sing, just above her breath, when he opened his eyes, or she saw his brow knit into that faintexpression, so evanescent that it was like a shape made in water. Butas yet he had not heeded. The 'they' here mentioned were the medicalattendant; Lizzie, who was there in all her intervals of rest; andLightwood, who never left him. 

The two days became three, and the three days became four. At length, quite unexpectedly, he said something in a whisper. 

'What was it, my dear Eugene?'

'Will you, Mortimer--'

'Will I--?

--'Send for her?'

'My dear fellow, she is here. '

Quite unconscious of the long blank, he supposed that they were stillspeaking together. 

The little dressmaker stood up at the foot of the bed, humming her song, and nodded to him brightly. 'I can't shake hands, Jenny, ' said Eugene, with something of his old look; 'but I am very glad to see you. '

Mortimer repeated this to her, for it could only be made out by bendingover him and closely watching his attempts to say it. In a little while, he added:

'Ask her if she has seen the children. '

Mortimer could not understand this, neither could Jenny herself, untilhe added:

'Ask her if she has smelt the flowers. '

'Oh! I know!' cried Jenny. 'I understand him now!' Then, Lightwoodyielded his place to her quick approach, and she said, bending over thebed, with that better look: 'You mean my long bright slanting rows ofchildren, who used to bring me ease and rest? You mean the children whoused to take me up, and make me light?'

Eugene smiled, 'Yes. '

'I have not seen them since I saw you. I never see them now, but I amhardly ever in pain now. '

'It was a pretty fancy, ' said Eugene. 

'But I have heard my birds sing, ' cried the little creature, 'and I havesmelt my flowers. Yes, indeed I have! And both were most beautiful andmost Divine!'

'Stay and help to nurse me, ' said Eugene, quietly. 'I should like you tohave the fancy here, before I die. '

She touched his lips with her hand, and shaded her eyes with that samehand as she went back to her work and her little low song. He heard thesong with evident pleasure, until she allowed it gradually to sink awayinto silence. 

'Mortimer. '

'My dear Eugene. '

'If you can give me anything to keep me here for only a few minutes--'

To keep you here, Eugene?'

'To prevent my wandering away I don't know where--for I begin to besensible that I have just come back, and that I shall lose myselfagain--do so, dear boy!'

Mortimer gave him such stimulants as could be given him with safety(they were always at hand, ready), and bending over him once more, wasabout to caution him, when he said:

'Don't tell me not to speak, for I must speak. If you knew theharassing anxiety that gnaws and wears me when I am wandering in thoseplaces--where are those endless places, Mortimer? They must be at animmense distance!'

He saw in his friend's face that he was losing himself; for he addedafter a moment: 'Don't be afraid--I am not gone yet. What was it?'

'You wanted to tell me something, Eugene. My poor dear fellow, youwanted to say something to your old friend--to the friend who has alwaysloved you, admired you, imitated you, founded himself upon you, beennothing without you, and who, God knows, would be here in your place ifhe could!'

'Tut, tut!' said Eugene with a tender glance as the other put his handbefore his face. 'I am not worth it. I acknowledge that I like it, dear boy, but I am not worth it. This attack, my dear Mortimer; thismurder--'

His friend leaned over him with renewed attention, saying: 'You and Isuspect some one. '

'More than suspect. But, Mortimer, while I lie here, and when I liehere no longer, I trust to you that the perpetrator is never brought tojustice. '

'Eugene?'

'Her innocent reputation would be ruined, my friend. She would bepunished, not he. I have wronged her enough in fact; I have wronged herstill more in intention. You recollect what pavement is said to be madeof good intentions. It is made of bad intentions too. Mortimer, I amlying on it, and I know!'

'Be comforted, my dear Eugene. '

'I will, when you have promised me. Dear Mortimer, the man must never bepursued. If he should be accused, you must keep him silent and savehim. Don't think of avenging me; think only of hushing the storyand protecting her. You can confuse the case, and turn aside thecircumstances. Listen to what I say to you. It was not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Twice; it was not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Three times; it was not theschoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. '

He stopped, exhausted. His speech had been whispered, broken, andindistinct; but by a great effort he had made it plain enough to beunmistakeable. 

'Dear fellow, I am wandering away. Stay me for another moment, if youcan. '

Lightwood lifted his head at the neck, and put a wine-glass to his lips. He rallied. 

'I don't know how long ago it was done, whether weeks, days, or hours. No matter. There is inquiry on foot, and pursuit. Say! Is there not?'

'Yes. '

'Check it; divert it! Don't let her be brought in question. Shieldher. The guilty man, brought to justice, would poison her name. Let theguilty man go unpunished. Lizzie and my reparation before all! Promiseme!'

'Eugene, I do. I promise you!'

In the act of turning his eyes gratefully towards his friend, hewandered away. His eyes stood still, and settled into that former intentunmeaning stare. 

Hours and hours, days and nights, he remained in this same condition. There were times when he would calmly speak to his friend after a longperiod of unconsciousness, and would say he was better, and would askfor something. Before it could be given him, he would be gone again. 

The dolls' dressmaker, all softened compassion now, watched him with anearnestness that never relaxed. She would regularly change the ice, orthe cooling spirit, on his head, and would keep her ear at the pillowbetweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell from him in hiswanderings. It was amazing through how many hours at a time she wouldremain beside him, in a crouching attitude, attentive to his slightestmoan. As he could not move a hand, he could make no sign of distress;but, through this close watching (if through no secret sympathy orpower) the little creature attained an understanding of him thatLightwood did not possess. Mortimer would often turn to her, as if shewere an interpreter between this sentient world and the insensible man;and she would change the dressing of a wound, or ease a ligature, orturn his face, or alter the pressure of the bedclothes on him, with anabsolute certainty of doing right. The natural lightness and delicacy oftouch which had become very refined by practice in her miniature work, no doubt was involved in this; but her perception was at least as fine. 

The one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a certain phaseof his distressful state, which was the worst to those who tended him, he would roll his head upon the pillow, incessantly repeating the namein a hurried and impatient manner, with the misery of a disturbed mind, and the monotony of a machine. Equally, when he lay still and staring, he would repeat it for hours without cessation, but then, always in atone of subdued warning and horror. Her presence and her touch upon hisbreast or face would often stop this, and then they learned to expectthat he would for some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and thathe would be conscious on opening them. But, the heavy disappointment oftheir hope--revived by the welcome silence of the room--was, that hisspirit would glide away again and be lost, in the moment of their joythat it was there. 

This frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to sink again, wasdreadful to the beholders. But, gradually the change stole upon him thatit became dreadful to himself. His desire to impart something that wason his mind, his unspeakable yearning to have speech with his friendand make a communication to him, so troubled him when he recoveredconsciousness, that its term was thereby shortened. As the man risingfrom the deep would disappear the sooner for fighting with the water, sohe in his desperate struggle went down again. 

One afternoon when he had been lying still, and Lizzie, unrecognized, had just stolen out of the room to pursue her occupation, he utteredLightwood's name. 

'My dear Eugene, I am here. '

'How long is this to last, Mortimer?'

Lightwood shook his head. 'Still, Eugene, you are no worse than youwere. '

'But I know there's no hope. Yet I pray it may last long enough for youto do me one last service, and for me to do one last action. Keep mehere a few moments, Mortimer. Try, try!'

His friend gave him what aid he could, and encouraged him to believethat he was more composed, though even then his eyes were losing theexpression they so rarely recovered. 

'Hold me here, dear fellow, if you can. Stop my wandering away. I amgoing!'

'Not yet, not yet. Tell me, dear Eugene, what is it I shall do?'

'Keep me here for only a single minute. I am going away again. Don't letme go. Hear me speak first. Stop me--stop me!'

'My poor Eugene, try to be calm. '

'I do try. I try so hard. If you only knew how hard! Don't let me wandertill I have spoken. Give me a little more wine. '

Lightwood complied. Eugene, with a most pathetic struggle against theunconsciousness that was coming over him, and with a look of appeal thataffected his friend profoundly, said:

'You can leave me with Jenny, while you speak to her and tell her what Ibeseech of her. You can leave me with Jenny, while you are gone. There'snot much for you to do. You won't be long away. '

'No, no, no. But tell me what it is that I shall do, Eugene!'

'I am going! You can't hold me. '

'Tell me in a word, Eugene!'

His eyes were fixed again, and the only word that came from his lips wasthe word millions of times repeated. Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie. 

But, the watchful little dressmaker had been vigilant as ever in herwatch, and she now came up and touched Lightwood's arm as he looked downat his friend, despairingly. 

'Hush!' she said, with her finger on her lips. 'His eyes are closing. He'll be conscious when he next opens them. Shall I give you a leadingword to say to him?'

'O Jenny, if you could only give me the right word!'

'I can. Stoop down. '

He stooped, and she whispered in his ear. She whispered in his ear oneshort word of a single syllable. Lightwood started, and looked at her. 

'Try it, ' said the little creature, with an excited and exultant face. She then bent over the unconscious man, and, for the first time, kissedhim on the cheek, and kissed the poor maimed hand that was nearest toher. Then, she withdrew to the foot of the bed. 

Some two hours afterwards, Mortimer Lightwood saw his consciousness comeback, and instantly, but very tranquilly, bent over him. 

'Don't speak, Eugene. Do no more than look at me, and listen to me. Youfollow what I say. '

He moved his head in assent. 

'I am going on from the point where we broke off. Is the word we shouldsoon have come to--is it--Wife?'

'O God bless you, Mortimer!'

'Hush! Don't be agitated. Don't speak. Hear me, dear Eugene. Your mindwill be more at peace, lying here, if you make Lizzie your wife. Youwish me to speak to her, and tell her so, and entreat her to be yourwife. You ask her to kneel at this bedside and be married to you, thatyour reparation may be complete. Is that so?'

'Yes. God bless you! Yes. '

'It shall be done, Eugene. Trust it to me. I shall have to go awayfor some few hours, to give effect to your wishes. You see this isunavoidable?'

'Dear friend, I said so. '

'True. But I had not the clue then. How do you think I got it?'

Glancing wistfully around, Eugene saw Miss Jenny at the foot of the bed, looking at him with her elbows on the bed, and her head upon her hands. There was a trace of his whimsical air upon him, as he tried to smile ather. 

'Yes indeed, ' said Lightwood, 'the discovery was hers. Observe my dearEugene; while I am away you will know that I have discharged my trustwith Lizzie, by finding her here, in my present place at your bedside, to leave you no more. A final word before I go. This is the right courseof a true man, Eugene. And I solemnly believe, with all my soul, that ifProvidence should mercifully restore you to us, you will be blessed witha noble wife in the preserver of your life, whom you will dearly love. '

'Amen. I am sure of that. But I shall not come through it, Mortimer. '

'You will not be the less hopeful or less strong, for this, Eugene. '

'No. Touch my face with yours, in case I should not hold out till youcome back. I love you, Mortimer. Don't be uneasy for me while you aregone. If my dear brave girl will take me, I feel persuaded that I shalllive long enough to be married, dear fellow. '

Miss Jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place between thefriends, and sitting with her back towards the bed in the bower made byher bright hair, wept heartily, though noiselessly. Mortimer Lightwoodwas soon gone. As the evening light lengthened the heavy reflections ofthe trees in the river, another figure came with a soft step into thesick room. 

'Is he conscious?' asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took itsstation by the pillow. For, Jenny had given place to it immediately, andcould not see the sufferer's face, in the dark room, from her new andremoved position. 

'He is conscious, Jenny, ' murmured Eugene for himself. 'He knows hiswife. '

Chapter 11

EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY

Mrs John Rokesmith sat at needlework in her neat little room, beside abasket of neat little articles of clothing, which presented so much ofthe appearance of being in the dolls' dressmaker's way of business, thatone might have supposed she was going to set up in opposition to MissWren. Whether the Complete British Family Housewife had imparted sagecounsel anent them, did not appear, but probably not, as that cloudyoracle was nowhere visible. For certain, however, Mrs John Rokesmithstitched at them with so dexterous a hand, that she must have takenlessons of somebody. Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher, and perhaps love (from a pictorial point of view, with nothing on buta thimble), had been teaching this branch of needlework to Mrs JohnRokesmith. 

It was near John's time for coming home, but as Mrs John was desirous tofinish a special triumph of her skill before dinner, she did not go outto meet him. Placidly, though rather consequentially smiling, she satstitching away with a regular sound, like a sort of dimpled littlecharming Dresden-china clock by the very best maker. 

A knock at the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John; or Bella wouldhave flown out to meet him. Then who, if not John? Bella was askingherself the question, when that fluttering little fool of a servantfluttered in, saying, 'Mr Lightwood!'

Oh good gracious!

Bella had but time to throw a handkerchief over the basket, when MrLightwood made his bow. There was something amiss with Mr Lightwood, forhe was strangely grave and looked ill. 

With a brief reference to the happy time when it had been his privilegeto know Mrs Rokesmith as Miss Wilfer, Mr Lightwood explained what wasamiss with him and why he came. He came bearing Lizzie Hexam's earnesthope that Mrs John Rokesmith would see her married. 

Bella was so fluttered by the request, and by the short narrative he hadfeelingly given her, that there never was a more timely smelling-bottlethan John's knock. 'My husband, ' said Bella; 'I'll bring him in. '

But, that turned out to be more easily said than done; for, the instantshe mentioned Mr Lightwood's name, John stopped, with his hand upon thelock of the room door. 

'Come up stairs, my darling. '

Bella was amazed by the flush in his face, and by his sudden turningaway. 'What can it mean?' she thought, as she accompanied him up stairs. 

'Now, my life, ' said John, taking her on his knee, 'tell me all aboutit. '

All very well to say, 'Tell me all about it;' but John was very muchconfused. His attention evidently trailed off, now and then, even whileBella told him all about it. Yet she knew that he took a great interestin Lizzie and her fortunes. What could it mean?

'You will come to this marriage with me, John dear?'

'N--no, my love; I can't do that. '

'You can't do that, John?'

'No, my dear, it's quite out of the question. Not to be thought of. '

'Am I to go alone, John?'

'No, my dear, you will go with Mr Lightwood. '

'Don't you think it's time we went down to Mr Lightwood, John dear?'Bella insinuated. 

'My darling, it's almost time you went, but I must ask you to excuse meto him altogether. '

'You never mean, John dear, that you are not going to see him? Why, heknows you have come home. I told him so. '

'That's a little unfortunate, but it can't be helped. Unfortunate orfortunate, I positively cannot see him, my love. '

Bella cast about in her mind what could be his reason for thisunaccountable behaviour; as she sat on his knee looking at him inastonishment and pouting a little. A weak reason presented itself. 

'John dear, you never can be jealous of Mr Lightwood?'

'Why, my precious child, ' returned her husband, laughing outright: 'howcould I be jealous of him? Why should I be jealous of him?'

'Because, you know, John, ' pursued Bella, pouting a little more, 'thoughhe did rather admire me once, it was not my fault. '

'It was your fault that I admired you, ' returned her husband, with alook of pride in her, 'and why not your fault that he admired you? But, I jealous on that account? Why, I must go distracted for life, if Iturned jealous of every one who used to find my wife beautiful andwinning!'

'I am half angry with you, John dear, ' said Bella, laughing a little, 'and half pleased with you; because you are such a stupid old fellow, and yet you say nice things, as if you meant them. Don't be mysterious, sir. What harm do you know of Mr Lightwood?'

'None, my love. '

'What has he ever done to you, John?'

'He has never done anything to me, my dear. I know no more againsthim than I know against Mr Wrayburn; he has never done anything to me;neither has Mr Wrayburn. And yet I have exactly the same objection toboth of them. '

'Oh, John!' retorted Bella, as if she were giving him up for a bad job, as she used to give up herself. 'You are nothing better than a sphinx!And a married sphinx isn't a--isn't a nice confidential husband, ' saidBella, in a tone of injury. 

'Bella, my life, ' said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, with a gravesmile, as she cast down her eyes and pouted again; 'look at me. I wantto speak to you. '

'In earnest, Blue Beard of the secret chamber?' asked Bella, clearingher pretty face. 

'In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don't you rememberthat you asked me not to declare what I thought of your higher qualitiesuntil you had been tried?'

'Yes, John dear. And I fully meant it, and I fully mean it. '

'The time will come, my darling--I am no prophet, but I say so, --whenyou WILL be tried. The time will come, I think, when you will undergoa trial through which you will never pass quite triumphantly for me, unless you can put perfect faith in me. '

'Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put perfect faith inyou, and I do, and I always, always will. Don't judge me by a littlething like this, John. In little things, I am a little thing myself--Ialways was. But in great things, I hope not; I don't mean to boast, Johndear, but I hope not!'

He was even better convinced of the truth of what she said than she was, as he felt her loving arms about him. If the Golden Dustman's riches hadbeen his to stake, he would have staked them to the last farthing on thefidelity through good and evil of her affectionate and trusting heart. 

'Now, I'll go down to, and go away with, Mr Lightwood, ' said Bella, springing up. 'You are the most creasing and tumbling Clumsy-Boots of apacker, John, that ever was; but if you're quite good, and will promisenever to do so any more (though I don't know what you have done!) youmay pack me a little bag for a night, while I get my bonnet on. '

He gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and shook her headinto her bonnet, and pulled out the bows of her bonnet-strings, andgot her gloves on, finger by finger, and finally got them on herlittle plump hands, and bade him good-bye and went down. Mr Lightwood'simpatience was much relieved when he found her dressed for departure. 

'Mr Rokesmith goes with us?' he said, hesitating, with a look towardsthe door. 

'Oh, I forgot!' replied Bella. 'His best compliments. His face isswollen to the size of two faces, and he is to go to bed directly, poorfellow, to wait for the doctor, who is coming to lance him. '

'It is curious, ' observed Lightwood, 'that I have never yet seen MrRokesmith, though we have been engaged in the same affairs. '

'Really?' said the unblushing Bella. 

'I begin to think, ' observed Lightwood, 'that I never shall see him. '

'These things happen so oddly sometimes, ' said Bella with a steadycountenance, 'that there seems a kind of fatality in them. But I amquite ready, Mr Lightwood. '

They started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood had broughtwith him from never-to-be-forgotten Greenwich; and from Greenwich theystarted directly for London; and in London they waited at a railwaystation until such time as the Reverend Frank Milvey, and Margarettahis wife, with whom Mortimer Lightwood had been already in conference, should come and join them. 

That worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old parishioner of thefemale gender, who was one of the plagues of their lives, and with whomthey bore with most exemplary sweetness and good-humour, notwithstandingher having an infection of absurdity about her, that communicated itselfto everything with which, and everybody with whom, she came in contact. She was a member of the Reverend Frank's congregation, and made a pointof distinguishing herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping ateverything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his publicministration; also by applying to herself the various lamentations ofDavid, and complaining in a personally injured manner (much in arrear ofthe clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were diggingpit-falls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. Indeed, thisold widow discharged herself of that portion of the Morning and EveningService as if she were lodging a complaint on oath and applying fora warrant before a magistrate. But this was not her most inconvenientcharacteristic, for that took the form of an impression, usuallyrecurring in inclement weather and at about daybreak, that she hadsomething on her mind and stood in immediate need of the Reverend Frankto come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, andgone out to Mrs Sprodgkin (such was the disciple's name), suppressinga strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, andperfectly knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However, beyond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs Milvey seldomhinted that Mrs Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she gave; butboth made the best of her, as they did of all their troubles. 

This very exacting member of the fold appeared to be endowed with asixth sense, in regard of knowing when the Reverend Frank Milvey leastdesired her company, and with promptitude appearing in his little hall. Consequently, when the Reverend Frank had willingly engaged that he andhis wife would accompany Lightwood back, he said, as a matter of course:'We must make haste to get out, Margaretta, my dear, or we shall bedescended on by Mrs Sprodgkin. ' To which Mrs Milvey replied, in herpleasantly emphatic way, 'Oh YES, for she IS such a marplot, Frank, andDOES worry so!' Words that were scarcely uttered when their themewas announced as in faithful attendance below, desiring counsel on aspiritual matter. The points on which Mrs Sprodgkin sought elucidationbeing seldom of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, or someinformation concerning the Amorites), Mrs Milvey on this specialoccasion resorted to the device of buying her off with a present of teaand sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts Mrs Sprodgkin accepted, but still insisted on dutifully remaining in the hall, to curtsey to theReverend Frank as he came forth. Who, incautiously saying in his genialmanner, 'Well, Sally, there you are!' involved himself in a discursiveaddress from Mrs Sprodgkin, revolving around the result that sheregarded tea and sugar in the light of myrrh and frankincense, andconsidered bread and butter identical with locusts and wild honey. Having communicated this edifying piece of information, Mrs Sprodgkinwas left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr and Mrs Milvey hurried ina heated condition to the railway station. All of which is here recordedto the honour of that good Christian pair, representatives of hundredsof other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful, who mergethe smallness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger oflosing dignity when they adapt themselves to incomprehensible humbugs. 

'Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim upon me, ' was theReverend Frank's apology to Lightwood, taking no thought of himself. To which Mrs Milvey added, taking thought for him, like the championinglittle wife she was; 'Oh yes, detained at the last moment. But AS tothe claim, Frank, I MUST say that I DO think you are OVER-consideratesometimes, and allow THAT to be a LITTLE abused. '

Bella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, that herhusband's absence would give disagreeable occasion for surprise to theMilveys. Nor could she appear quite at her ease when Mrs Milvey asked:

'HOW is Mr Rokesmith, and IS he gone before us, or DOES he follow us?'

It becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to bed again and hold himin waiting to be lanced again, Bella did it. But not half as well onthe second occasion as on the first; for, a twice-told white one seemsalmost to become a black one, when you are not used to it. 

'Oh DEAR!' said Mrs Milvey, 'I am SO sorry! Mr Rokesmith took SUCH aninterest in Lizzie Hexam, when we were there before. And if we had ONLYknown of his face, we COULD have given him something that would havekept it down long enough for so SHORT a purpose. '

By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipulate thathe was not in pain. Mrs Milvey was SO glad of it. 

'I don't know HOW it is, ' said Mrs Milvey, 'and I am SURE you don't, Frank, but the clergy and their wives seem to CAUSE swelled faces. Whenever I take notice of a child in the school, it seems to me as ifits face swelled INSTANTLY. Frank NEVER makes acquaintance with a newold woman, but she gets the face-ache. And another thing is, we DO makethe poor children sniff so. I don't know HOW we do it, and I shouldbe so glad not to; but the MORE we take notice of them, the MORE theysniff. Just as they do when the text is given out. --Frank, that's aschoolmaster. I have seen him somewhere. '

The reference was to a young man of reserved appearance, in a coat andwaistcoat of black, and pantaloons of pepper and salt. He had comeinto the office of the station, from its interior, in an unsettled way, immediately after Lightwood had gone out to the train; and he had beenhurriedly reading the printed hills and notices on the wall. He had hada wandering interest in what was said among the people waiting thereand passing to and fro. He had drawn nearer, at about the time whenMrs Milvey mentioned Lizzie Hexam, and had remained near, since: thoughalways glancing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. Hestood with his back towards them, and his gloved hands clasped behindhim. There was now so evident a faltering upon him, expressive ofindecision whether or no he should express his having heard himselfreferred to, that Mr Milvey spoke to him. 

'I cannot recall your name, ' he said, 'but I remember to have seen youin your school. '

'My name is Bradley Headstone, sir, ' he replied, backing into a moreretired place. 

'I ought to have remembered it, ' said Mr Milvey, giving him his hand. 'Ihope you are well? A little overworked, I am afraid?'

'Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir. '

'Had no play in your last holiday time?'

'No, sir. '

'All work and no play, Mr Headstone, will not make dulness, in yourcase, I dare say; but it will make dyspepsia, if you don't take care. '

'I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to speak to you, outside, a moment?'

'By all means. '

It was evening, and the office was well lighted. The schoolmaster, whohad never remitted his watch on Lightwood's door, now moved by anotherdoor to a corner without, where there was more shadow than light; andsaid, plucking at his gloves:

'One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a name that I amacquainted with; I may say, well acquainted with. The name of the sisterof an old pupil of mine. He was my pupil for a long time, and has got onand gone upward rapidly. The name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie Hexam. 'He seemed to be a shy man, struggling against nervousness, and spoke ina very constrained way. The break he set between his last two sentenceswas quite embarrassing to his hearer. 

'Yes, ' replied Mr Milvey. 'We are going down to see her. '

'I gathered as much, sir. I hope there is nothing amiss with the sisterof my old pupil? I hope no bereavement has befallen her. I hope she isin no affliction? Has lost no--relation?'

Mr Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, and a dark downwardlook; but he answered in his usual open way. 

'I am glad to tell you, Mr Headstone, that the sister of your old pupilhas not sustained any such loss. You thought I might be going down tobury some one?'

'That may have been the connexion of ideas, sir, with your clericalcharacter, but I was not conscious of it. --Then you are not, sir?'

A man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking look that wasquite oppressive. 

'No. In fact, ' said Mr Milvey, 'since you are so interested in thesister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you that I am going down tomarry her. '

The schoolmaster started back. 

'Not to marry her, myself, ' said Mr Milvey, with a smile, 'because Ihave a wife already. To perform the marriage service at her wedding. '

Bradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. If Mr Milvey knewan ashy face when he saw it, he saw it then. 

'You are quite ill, Mr Headstone!'

'It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am accustomed to beseized with giddiness. Don't let me detain you, sir; I stand in needof no assistance, I thank you. Much obliged by your sparing me theseminutes of your time. '

As Mr Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made a suitable replyand turned back into the office, he observed the schoolmaster tolean against the pillar with his hat in his hand, and to pull at hisneckcloth as if he were trying to tear it off. The Reverend Frankaccordingly directed the notice of one of the attendants to him, bysaying: 'There is a person outside who seems to be really ill, and torequire some help, though he says he does not. '

Lightwood had by this time secured their places, and the departure-bellwas about to be rung. They took their seats, and were beginning tomove out of the station, when the same attendant came running along theplatform, looking into all the carriages. 

'Oh! You are here, sir!' he said, springing on the step, and holdingthe window-frame by his elbow, as the carriage moved. 'That person youpointed out to me is in a fit. '

'I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such attacks. Hewill come to, in the air, in a little while. '

He was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and knocking about him(the man said) furiously. Would the gentleman give him his card, as hehad seen him first? The gentleman did so, with the explanation thathe knew no more of the man attacked than that he was a man of a veryrespectable occupation, who had said he was out of health, as hisappearance would of itself have indicated. The attendant received thecard, watched his opportunity for sliding down, slid down, and so itended. 

Then, the train rattled among the house-tops, and among the ragged sidesof houses torn down to make way for it, and over the swarming streets, and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river: burstingover the quiet surface like a bomb-shell, and gone again as if it hadexploded in the rush of smoke and steam and glare. A little more, andagain it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the wateryturnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight toits end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no matter what livingwaters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses, produce their little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there, are noisy or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course has onesure termination, though their sources and devices are many. 

Then, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing awayby night, as all things steal away, by night and by day, so quietlyyielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock of Eternity; and thenearer they drew to the chamber where Eugene lay, the more they fearedthat they might find his wanderings done. At last they saw its dim lightshining out, and it gave them hope: though Lightwood faltered as hethought: 'If he were gone, she would still be sitting by him. '

But he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, entering witha raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie softly, but said not a word. Neither did any of them speak, but all sat down at the foot of the bed, silently waiting. And now, in this night-watch, mingling with the flowof the river and with the rush of the train, came the questions intoBella's mind again: What could be in the depths of that mystery ofJohn's? Why was it that he had never been seen by Mr Lightwood, whom hestill avoided? When would that trial come, through which her faithin, and her duty to, her dear husband, was to carry her, rendering himtriumphant? For, that had been his term. Her passing through the trialwas to make the man she loved with all her heart, triumphant. Term notto sink out of sight in Bella's breast. 

Far on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was sensible, and saidat once: 'How does the time go? Has our Mortimer come back?'

Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. 'Yes, Eugene, and all is ready. '

'Dear boy!' returned Eugene with a smile, 'we both thank you heartily. Lizzie, tell them how welcome they are, and that I would be eloquent ifI could. '

'There is no need, ' said Mr Milvey. 'We know it. Are you better, MrWrayburn?'

'I am much happier, ' said Eugene. 

'Much better too, I hope?'

Eugene turned his eyes towards Lizzie, as if to spare her, and answerednothing. 

Then, they all stood around the bed, and Mr Milvey, opening his book, began the service; so rarely associated with the shadow of death; soinseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety and hope andhealth and joy. Bella thought how different from her own sunny littlewedding, and wept. Mrs Milvey overflowed with pity, and wept too. Thedolls' dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in her goldenbower. Reading in a low clear voice, and bending over Eugene, who kepthis eyes upon him, Mr Milvey did his office with suitable simplicity. As the bridegroom could not move his hand, they touched his fingers withthe ring, and so put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth, she laid her hand on his and kept it there. When the ceremony was done, and all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under hishead, and laid her own head down upon the pillow by his side. 

'Undraw the curtains, my dear girl, ' said Eugene, after a while, 'andlet us see our wedding-day. '

The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room, as she cameback, and put her lips to his. 'I bless the day!' said Eugene. 'I blessthe day!' said Lizzie. 

'You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wife, ' said Eugene. 'Ashattered graceless fellow, stretched at his length here, and next tonothing for you when you are a young widow. '

'I have made the marriage that I would have given all the world to dareto hope for, ' she replied. 

'You have thrown yourself away, ' said Eugene, shaking his head. 'But youhave followed the treasure of your heart. My justification is, that youhad thrown that away first, dear girl!'

'No. I had given it to you. '

'The same thing, my poor Lizzie!'

'Hush! hush! A very different thing. '

There were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to close them. 'No, 'said Eugene, again shaking his head; 'let me look at you, Lizzie, whileI can. You brave devoted girl! You heroine!'

Her own eyes filled under his praises. And when he mustered strength tomove his wounded head a very little way, and lay it on her bosom, thetears of both fell. 

'Lizzie, ' said Eugene, after a silence: 'when you see me wandering awayfrom this refuge that I have so ill deserved, speak to me by my name, and I think I shall come back. '

'Yes, dear Eugene. '

'There!' he exclaimed, smiling. 'I should have gone then, but for that!'

A little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking intoinsensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice: 'Eugene, my dearhusband!' He immediately answered: 'There again! You see how you canrecall me!' And afterwards, when he could not speak, he still answeredby a slight movement of his head upon her bosom. 

The sun was high in the sky, when she gently disengaged herself to givehim the stimulants and nourishment he required. The utter helplessnessof the wreck of him that lay cast ashore there, now alarmed her, but hehimself appeared a little more hopeful. 

'Ah, my beloved Lizzie!' he said, faintly. 'How shall I ever pay all Iowe you, if I recover!'

'Don't be ashamed of me, ' she replied, 'and you will have more than paidall. '

'It would require a life, Lizzie, to pay all; more than a life. '

'Live for that, then; live for me, Eugene; live to see how hard I willtry to improve myself, and never to discredit you. '

'My darling girl, ' he replied, rallying more of his old manner thanhe had ever yet got together. 'On the contrary, I have been thinkingwhether it is not the best thing I can do, to die. '

'The best thing you can do, to leave me with a broken heart?'

'I don't mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of that. What I wasthinking of was this. Out of your compassion for me, in this maimed andbroken state, you make so much of me--you think so well of me--you loveme so dearly. '

'Heaven knows I love you dearly!'

'And Heaven knows I prize it! Well. If I live, you'll find me out. '

'I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose and energy, andwill turn it to the best account?'

'I hope so, dearest Lizzie, ' said Eugene, wistfully, and yet somewhatwhimsically. 'I hope so. But I can't summon the vanity to think so. Howcan I think so, looking back on such a trifling wasted youth as mine! Ihumbly hope it; but I daren't believe it. There is a sharp misgivingin my conscience that if I were to live, I should disappoint your goodopinion and my own--and that I ought to die, my dear!'

Chapter 12

THE PASSING SHADOW

The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, the earthmoved round the sun a certain number of times, the ship upon the oceanmade her voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella home. Then who so blestand happy as Mrs John Rokesmith, saving and excepting Mr John Rokesmith!

'Would you not like to be rich NOW, my darling?'

'How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not rich?'

These were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she layasleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelligence, evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother's society, andbeing invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when thatdignified lady honoured her with any attention. 

It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding outher own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were looking in theglass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarkedto her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before, reminding him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk to itas she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produceanother baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sungto it, as Bella said and sung to this baby; or who was dressed andundressed as often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed andundressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stopits father's way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a word, whodid half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of agay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did. 

The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began tonotice a cloud upon her husband's brow. Watching it, she saw a gatheringand deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More thanonce, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he mutterednothing worse than her own name, it was plain to her that hisrestlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at lengthput in her claim to divide this load, and hear her half of it. 

'You know, John dear, ' she said, cheerily reverting to their formerconversation, 'that I hope I may safely be trusted in great things. Andit surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so much uneasiness. It's very considerate of you to try to hide from me that you areuncomfortable about something, but it's quite impossible to be done, John love. '

'I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own. '

'Then please to tell me what about, sir. '

But no, he evaded that. 'Never mind!' thought Bella, resolutely. 'John requires me to put perfect faith in him, and he shall not bedisappointed. '

She went up to London one day, to meet him, in order that they mightmake some purchases. She found him waiting for her at her journey'send, and they walked away together through the streets. He was in gayspirits, though still harping on that notion of their being rich; andhe said, now let them make believe that yonder fine carriage was theirs, and that it was waiting to take them home to a fine house they had; whatwould Bella, in that case, best like to find in the house? Well! Belladidn't know: already having everything she wanted, she couldn't say. But, by degrees she was led on to confess that she would like to havefor the inexhaustible baby such a nursery as never was seen. It wasto be 'a very rainbow for colours', as she was quite sure baby noticedcolours; and the staircase was to be adorned with the most exquisiteflowers, as she was absolutely certain baby noticed flowers; and therewas to be an aviary somewhere, of the loveliest little birds, as therewas not the smallest doubt in the world that baby noticed birds. Was there nothing else? No, John dear. The predilections of theinexhaustible baby being provided for, Bella could think of nothingelse. 

They were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, 'No jewelsfor your own wear, for instance?' and Bella had replied laughing. O! ifhe came to that, yes, there might be a beautiful ivory case of jewelson her dressing-table; when these pictures were in a moment darkened andblotted out. 

They turned a corner, and met Mr Lightwood. 

He stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella's husband, whoin the same moment had changed colour. 

'Mr Lightwood and I have met before, ' he said. 

'Met before, John?' Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. 'Mr Lightwoodtold me he had never seen you. '

'I did not then know that I had, ' said Lightwood, discomposed on heraccount. I believed that I had only heard of--Mr Rokesmith. ' With anemphasis on the name. 

'When Mr Lightwood saw me, my love, ' observed her husband, not avoidinghis eye, but looking at him, 'my name was Julius Handford. '

Julius Handford! The name that Bella had so often seen in oldnewspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr Boffin's house! JuliusHandford, who had been publicly entreated to appear, and forintelligence of whom a reward had been publicly offered!

'I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence, ' said Lightwood toBella, delicately; 'but since your husband mentions it himself, I mustconfirm his strange admission. I saw him as Mr Julius Handford, and Iafterwards (unquestionably to his knowledge) took great pains to tracehim out. '

'Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest, ' said Rokesmith, quietly, 'to be traced out. '

Bella looked from the one to the other, in amazement. 

'Mr Lightwood, ' pursued her husband, 'as chance has brought us face toface at last--which is not to be wondered at, for the wonder is, that, in spite of all my pains to the contrary, chance has not confrontedus together sooner--I have only to remind you that you have been at myhouse, and to add that I have not changed my residence. '

'Sir' returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards Bella, 'myposition is a truly painful one. I hope that no complicity in a verydark transaction may attach to you, but you cannot fail to know thatyour own extraordinary conduct has laid you under suspicion. '

'I know it has, ' was all the reply. 

'My professional duty, ' said Lightwood hesitating, with another glancetowards Bella, 'is greatly at variance with my personal inclination; butI doubt, Mr Handford, or Mr Rokesmith, whether I am justified in takingleave of you here, with your whole course unexplained. '

Bella caught her husband by the hand. 

'Don't be alarmed, my darling. Mr Lightwood will find that he is quitejustified in taking leave of me here. At all events, ' added Rokesmith, 'he will find that I mean to take leave of him here. '

'I think, sir, ' said Lightwood, 'you can scarcely deny that when I cameto your house on the occasion to which you have referred, you avoided meof a set purpose. '

'Mr Lightwood, I assure you I have no disposition to deny it, orintention to deny it. I should have continued to avoid you, in pursuanceof the same set purpose, for a short time longer, if we had not met now. I am going straight home, and shall remain at home to-morrow until noon. Hereafter, I hope we may be better acquainted. Good-day. '

Lightwood stood irresolute, but Bella's husband passed him in thesteadiest manner, with Bella on his arm; and they went home withoutencountering any further remonstrance or molestation from any one. 

When they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith said to his wife, whohad preserved her cheerfulness: 'And you don't ask me, my dear, why Ibore that name?'

'No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course;' (which heranxious face confirmed;) 'but I wait until you can tell me of your ownfree will. You asked me if I could have perfect faith in you, and I saidyes, and I meant it. '

It did not escape Bella's notice that he began to look triumphant. Shewanted no strengthening in her firmness; but if she had had need of any, she would have derived it from his kindling face. 

'You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a discovery as thatthis mysterious Mr Handford was identical with your husband?'

'No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to prepare to be tried, and I prepared myself. '

He drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would soon be over, and the truth would soon appear. 'And now, ' he went on, 'lay stress, my dear, on these words that I am going to add. I stand in no kind ofperil, and I can by possibility be hurt at no one's hand. '

'You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?'

'Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injuredno man. Shall I swear it?'

'No, John!' cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proudlook. 'Never to me!'

'But circumstances, ' he went on '--I can, and I will, disperse them ina moment--have surrounded me with one of the strangest suspicions everknown. You heard Mr Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?'

'Yes, John. '

'You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?'

'Yes, John. '

'My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted husband. '

With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. 'You cannotbe suspected, John?'

'Dear love, I can be--for I am!'

There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, with thecolour quite gone from her own face and lips. 'How dare they!' she criedat length, in a burst of generous indignation. 'My beloved husband, howdare they!'

He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to his heart. 'Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella?'

'I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could not trust you, I should fall dead at your feet. '

The kindling triumph in his face was bright indeed, as he looked up andrapturously exclaimed, what had he done to deserve the blessing of thisdear confiding creature's heart! Again she put her hand upon his lips, saying, 'Hush!' and then told him, in her own little natural patheticway, that if all the world were against him, she would be for him; thatif all the world repudiated him, she would believe him; that if he wereinfamous in other eyes, he would be honoured in hers; and that, underthe worst unmerited suspicion, she could devote her life to consolinghim, and imparting her own faith in him to their little child. 

A twilight calm of happiness then succeeding to their radiant noon, theyremained at peace, until a strange voice in the room startled them both. The room being by that time dark, the voice said, 'Don't let the ladybe alarmed by my striking a light, ' and immediately a match rattled, andglimmered in a hand. The hand and the match and the voice were then seenby John Rokesmith to belong to Mr Inspector, once meditatively active inthis chronicle. 

'I take the liberty, ' said Mr Inspector, in a business-like manner, 'tobring myself to the recollection of Mr Julius Handford, who gave me hisname and address down at our place a considerable time ago. Would thelady object to my lighting the pair of candles on the chimneypiece, tothrow a further light upon the subject? No? Thank you, ma'am. Now, welook cheerful. '

Mr Inspector, in a dark-blue buttoned-up frock coat and pantaloons, presented a serviceable, half-pay, Royal Arms kind of appearance, as heapplied his pocket handkerchief to his nose and bowed to the lady. 

'You favoured me, Mr Handford, ' said Mr Inspector, 'by writing down yourname and address, and I produce the piece of paper on which you wroteit. Comparing the same with the writing on the fly-leaf of this book onthe table--and a sweet pretty volume it is--I find the writing of theentry, "Mrs John Rokesmith. From her husband on her birthday"--and verygratifying to the feelings such memorials are--to correspond exactly. Can I have a word with you?'

'Certainly. Here, if you please, ' was the reply. 

'Why, ' retorted Mr Inspector, again using his pocket handkerchief, 'though there's nothing for the lady to be at all alarmed at, still, ladies are apt to take alarm at matters of business--being of thatfragile sex that they're not accustomed to them when not of a strictlydomestic character--and I do generally make it a rule to proposeretirement from the presence of ladies, before entering upon businesstopics. Or perhaps, ' Mr Inspector hinted, 'if the lady was to stepup-stairs, and take a look at baby now!'

'Mrs Rokesmith, '--her husband was beginning; when Mr Inspector, regarding the words as an introduction, said, 'Happy I am sure, to havethe honour. ' And bowed, with gallantry. 

'Mrs Rokesmith, ' resumed her husband, 'is satisfied that she can have noreason for being alarmed, whatever the business is. '

'Really? Is that so?' said Mr Inspector. 'But it's a sex to live andlearn from, and there's nothing a lady can't accomplish when she oncefully gives her mind to it. It's the case with my own wife. Well, ma'am, this good gentleman of yours has given rise to a rather large amountof trouble which might have been avoided if he had come forward andexplained himself. Well you see! He DIDN'T come forward and explainhimself. Consequently, now that we meet, him and me, you'll say--and sayright--that there's nothing to be alarmed at, in my proposing to himTO come forward--or, putting the same meaning in another form, to comealong with me--and explain himself. '

When Mr Inspector put it in that other form, 'to come along with me, 'there was a relishing roll in his voice, and his eye beamed with anofficial lustre. 

'Do you propose to take me into custody?' inquired John Rokesmith, verycoolly. 

'Why argue?' returned Mr Inspector in a comfortable sort ofremonstrance; 'ain't it enough that I propose that you shall come alongwith me?'

'For what reason?'

Lord bless my soul and body!' returned Mr Inspector, 'I wonder at it ina man of your education. Why argue?'

'What do you charge against me?'

'I wonder at you before a lady, ' said Mr Inspector, shaking his headreproachfully: 'I wonder, brought up as you have been, you haven't amore delicate mind! I charge you, then, with being some way concernedin the Harmon Murder. I don't say whether before, or in, or after, thefact. I don't say whether with having some knowledge of it that hasn'tcome out. '

'You don't surprise me. I foresaw your visit this afternoon. '

'Don't!' said Mr Inspector. 'Why, why argue? It's my duty to inform youthat whatever you say, will be used against you. '

'I don't think it will. '

'But I tell you it will, ' said Mr Inspector. 'Now, having received thecaution, do you still say that you foresaw my visit this afternoon?'

'Yes. And I will say something more, if you will step with me into thenext room. '

With a reassuring kiss on the lips of the frightened Bella, her husband(to whom Mr Inspector obligingly offered his arm), took up a candle, andwithdrew with that gentleman. They were a full half-hour in conference. When they returned, Mr Inspector looked considerably astonished. 

'I have invited this worthy officer, my dear, ' said John, 'to make ashort excursion with me in which you shall be a sharer. He will takesomething to eat and drink, I dare say, on your invitation, while youare getting your bonnet on. '

Mr Inspector declined eating, but assented to the proposal of a glass ofbrandy and water. Mixing this cold, and pensively consuming it, he brokeat intervals into such soliloquies as that he never did know such amove, that he never had been so gravelled, and that what a game wasthis to try the sort of stuff a man's opinion of himself was madeof! Concurrently with these comments, he more than once burst out alaughing, with the half-enjoying and half-piqued air of a man, whohad given up a good conundrum, after much guessing, and been told theanswer. Bella was so timid of him, that she noted these things in ahalf-shrinking, half-perceptive way, and similarly noted that there wasa great change in his manner towards John. That coming-along-with-himdeportment was now lost in long musing looks at John and at herself andsometimes in slow heavy rubs of his hand across his forehead, as if hewere ironing cut the creases which his deep pondering made there. He hadhad some coughing and whistling satellites secretly gravitating towardshim about the premises, but they were now dismissed, and he eyed John asif he had meant to do him a public service, but had unfortunately beenanticipated. Whether Bella might have noted anything more, if shehad been less afraid of him, she could not determine; but it was allinexplicable to her, and not the faintest flash of the real state of thecase broke in upon her mind. Mr Inspector's increased notice of herselfand knowing way of raising his eyebrows when their eyes by any chancemet, as if he put the question 'Don't you see?' augmented her timidity, and, consequently, her perplexity. For all these reasons, when heand she and John, at towards nine o'clock of a winter evening went toLondon, and began driving from London Bridge, among low-lying water-sidewharves and docks and strange places, Bella was in the state of adreamer; perfectly unable to account for her being there, perfectlyunable to forecast what would happen next, or whither she was going, orwhy; certain of nothing in the immediate present, but that she confidedin John, and that John seemed somehow to be getting more triumphant. Butwhat a certainty was that!

They alighted at last at the corner of a court, where there was abuilding with a bright lamp and wicket gate. Its orderly appearance wasvery unlike that of the surrounding neighbourhood, and was explained bythe inscription POLICE STATION. 

'We are not going in here, John?' said Bella, clinging to him. 

'Yes, my dear; but of our own accord. We shall come out again as easily, never fear. '

The whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the methodicalbook-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, and some distant howlerwas banging against a cell door as of old. The sanctuary was not apermanent abiding-place, but a kind of criminal Pickford's. The lowerpassions and vices were regularly ticked off in the books, warehoused inthe cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left little markupon it. 

Mr Inspector placed two chairs for his visitors, before the fire, andcommuned in a low voice with a brother of his order (also of a half-pay, and Royal Arms aspect), who, judged only by his occupation at themoment, might have been a writing-master, setting copies. Theirconference done, Mr Inspector returned to the fireplace, and, havingobserved that he would step round to the Fellowships and see how mattersstood, went out. He soon came back again, saying, 'Nothing could bebetter, for they're at supper with Miss Abbey in the bar;' and then theyall three went out together. 

Still, as in a dream, Bella found herself entering a snug old-fashionedpublic-house, and found herself smuggled into a little three-corneredroom nearly opposite the bar of that establishment. Mr Inspectorachieved the smuggling of herself and John into this queer room, calledCosy in an inscription on the door, by entering in the narrow passagefirst in order, and suddenly turning round upon them with extended arms, as if they had been two sheep. The room was lighted for their reception. 

'Now, ' said Mr Inspector to John, turning the gas lower; 'I'll mix with'em in a casual way, and when I say Identification, perhaps you'll showyourself. '

John nodded, and Mr Inspector went alone to the half-door of the bar. From the dim doorway of Cosy, within which Bella and her husband stood, they could see a comfortable little party of three persons sitting atsupper in the bar, and could hear everything that was said. 

The three persons were Miss Abbey and two male guests. To whomcollectively, Mr Inspector remarked that the weather was getting sharpfor the time of year. 

'It need be sharp to suit your wits, sir, ' said Miss Abbey. 'What haveyou got in hand now?'

'Thanking you for your compliment: not much, Miss Abbey, ' was MrInspector's rejoinder. 

'Who have you got in Cosy?' asked Miss Abbey. 

'Only a gentleman and his wife, Miss. '

'And who are they? If one may ask it without detriment to your deepplans in the interests of the honest public?' said Miss Abbey, proud ofMr Inspector as an administrative genius. 

'They are strangers in this part of the town, Miss Abbey. They arewaiting till I shall want the gentleman to show himself somewhere, forhalf a moment. '

'While they're waiting, ' said Miss Abbey, 'couldn't you join us?'

Mr Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat down at the sideof the half-door, with his back towards the passage, and directly facingthe two guests. 'I don't take my supper till later in the night, ' saidhe, 'and therefore I won't disturb the compactness of the table. ButI'll take a glass of flip, if that's flip in the jug in the fender. '

'That's flip, ' replied Miss Abbey, 'and it's my making, and if even youcan find out better, I shall be glad to know where. ' Filling him, withhospitable hands, a steaming tumbler, Miss Abbey replaced the jug bythe fire; the company not having yet arrived at the flip-stage of theirsupper, but being as yet skirmishing with strong ale. 

'Ah--h!' cried Mr Inspector. 'That's the smack! There's not a Detectivein the Force, Miss Abbey, that could find out better stuff than that. '

'Glad to hear you say so, ' rejoined Miss Abbey. 'You ought to know, ifanybody does. '

'Mr Job Potterson, ' Mr Inspector continued, 'I drink your health. MrJacob Kibble, I drink yours. Hope you have made a prosperous voyagehome, gentlemen both. '

Mr Kibble, an unctuous broad man of few words and many mouthfuls, said, more briefly than pointedly, raising his ale to his lips: 'Same to you. 'Mr Job Potterson, a semi-seafaring man of obliging demeanour, said, 'Thank you, sir. '

'Lord bless my soul and body!' cried Mr Inspector. 'Talk of trades, MissAbbey, and the way they set their marks on men' (a subject which nobodyhad approached); 'who wouldn't know your brother to be a Steward!There's a bright and ready twinkle in his eye, there's a neatness in hisaction, there's a smartness in his figure, there's an air of reliabilityabout him in case you wanted a basin, which points out the steward! AndMr Kibble; ain't he Passenger, all over? While there's that mercantilecut upon him which would make you happy to give him credit for fivehundred pound, don't you see the salt sea shining on him too?'

'YOU do, I dare say, ' returned Miss Abbey, 'but I don't. And as forstewarding, I think it's time my brother gave that up, and took hisHouse in hand on his sister's retiring. The House will go to pieces ifhe don't. I wouldn't sell it for any money that could be told out, to aperson that I couldn't depend upon to be a Law to the Porters, as I havebeen. '

'There you're right, Miss, ' said Mr Inspector. 'A better kept house isnot known to our men. What do I say? Half so well a kept house is notknown to our men. Show the Force the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, and the Force--to a constable--will show you a piece of perfection, MrKibble. '

That gentleman, with a very serious shake of his head, subscribed thearticle. 

'And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal at rusticsports with its tail soaped, ' said Mr Inspector (again, a subject whichnobody had approached); 'why, well you may. Well you may. How has itslipped by us, since the time when Mr Job Potterson here present, MrJacob Kibble here present, and an Officer of the Force here present, first came together on a matter of Identification!'

Bella's husband stepped softly to the half-door of the bar, and stoodthere. 

'How has Time slipped by us, ' Mr Inspector went on slowly, with his eyesnarrowly observant of the two guests, 'since we three very men, at anInquest in this very house--Mr Kibble? Taken ill, sir?'

Mr Kibble had staggered up, with his lower jaw dropped, catchingPotterson by the shoulder, and pointing to the half-door. He now criedout: 'Potterson! Look! Look there!' Potterson started up, started back, and exclaimed: 'Heaven defend us, what's that!' Bella's husband steppedback to Bella, took her in his arms (for she was terrified by theunintelligible terror of the two men), and shut the door of the littleroom. A hurry of voices succeeded, in which Mr Inspector's voice wasbusiest; it gradually slackened and sank; and Mr Inspector reappeared. 'Sharp's the word, sir!' he said, looking in with a knowing wink. 'We'llget your lady out at once. ' Immediately, Bella and her husband wereunder the stars, making their way back, alone, to the vehicle they hadkept in waiting. 

All this was most extraordinary, and Bella could make nothing of it butthat John was in the right. How in the right, and how suspected of beingin the wrong, she could not divine. Some vague idea that he had neverreally assumed the name of Handford, and that there was a remarkablelikeness between him and that mysterious person, was her nearestapproach to any definite explanation. But John was triumphant; that muchwas made apparent; and she could wait for the rest. 

When John came home to dinner next day, he said, sitting down on thesofa by Bella and baby-Bella: 'My dear, I have a piece of news to tellyou. I have left the China House. '

As he seemed to like having left it, Bella took it for granted thatthere was no misfortune in the case. 

'In a word, my love, ' said John, 'the China House is broken up andabolished. There is no such thing any more. '

'Then, are you already in another House, John?'

'Yes, my darling. I am in another way of business. And I am ratherbetter off. '

The inexhaustible baby was instantly made to congratulate him, andto say, with appropriate action on the part of a very limp arm and aspeckled fist: 'Three cheers, ladies and gemplemorums. Hoo--ray!'

'I am afraid, my life, ' said John, 'that you have become very muchattached to this cottage?'

'Afraid I have, John? Of course I have. '

'The reason why I said afraid, ' returned John, 'is, because we mustmove. '

'O John!'

'Yes, my dear, we must move. We must have our head-quarters in Londonnow. In short, there's a dwelling-house rent-free, attached to my newposition, and we must occupy it. '

'That's a gain, John. '

'Yes, my dear, it is undoubtedly a gain. '

He gave her a very blithe look, and a very sly look. Which occasionedthe inexhaustible baby to square at him with the speckled fists, anddemand in a threatening manner what he meant?

'My love, you said it was a gain, and I said it was a gain. A veryinnocent remark, surely. '

'I won't, ' said the inexhaustible baby, '--allow--you--to--make--game--of--my--venerable--Ma. ' At each divisionadministering a soft facer with one of the speckled fists. 

John having stooped down to receive these punishing visitations, Bellaasked him, would it be necessary to move soon? Why yes, indeed (saidJohn), he did propose that they should move very soon. Taking thefurniture with them, of course? (said Bella). Why, no (said John), thefact was, that the house was--in a sort of a kind of a way--furnishedalready. 

The inexhaustible baby, hearing this, resumed the offensive, and said:'But there's no nursery for me, sir. What do you mean, marble-heartedparent?' To which the marble-hearted parent rejoined that there wasa--sort of a kind of a--nursery, and it might be 'made to do'. 'Made todo?' returned the Inexhaustible, administering more punishment, 'what doyou take me for?' And was then turned over on its back in Bella's lap, and smothered with kisses. 

'But really, John dear, ' said Bella, flushed in quite a lovely mannerby these exercises, 'will the new house, just as it stands, do for baby?That's the question. '

'I felt that to be the question, ' he returned, 'and therefore I arrangedthat you should come with me and look at it, to-morrow morning. 'Appointment made, accordingly, for Bella to go up with him to-morrowmorning; John kissed; and Bella delighted. 

When they reached London in pursuance of their little plan, they tookcoach and drove westward. Not only drove westward, but drove into thatparticular westward division, which Bella had seen last when she turnedher face from Mr Boffin's door. Not only drove into that particulardivision, but drove at last into that very street. Not only drove intothat very street, but stopped at last at that very house. 

'John dear!' cried Bella, looking out of window in a flutter. 'Do yousee where we are?'

'Yes, my love. The coachman's quite right. '

The house-door was opened without any knocking or ringing, and Johnpromptly helped her out. The servant who stood holding the door, askedno question of John, neither did he go before them or follow them asthey went straight up-stairs. It was only her husband's encircling arm, urging her on, that prevented Bella from stopping at the foot of thestaircase. As they ascended, it was seen to be tastefully ornamentedwith most beautiful flowers. 

'O John!' said Bella, faintly. 'What does this mean?'

'Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on. '

Going on a little higher, they came to a charming aviary, in which anumber of tropical birds, more gorgeous in colour than the flowers, were flying about; and among those birds were gold and silver fish, andmosses, and water-lilies, and a fountain, and all manner of wonders. 

'O my dear John!' said Bella. 'What does this mean?'

'Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on. '

They went on, until they came to a door. As John put out his hand toopen it, Bella caught his hand. 

'I don't know what it means, but it's too much for me. Hold me, John, love. '

John caught her up in his arm, and lightly dashed into the room withher. 

Behold Mr and Mrs Boffin, beaming! Behold Mrs Boffin clapping her handsin an ecstacy, running to Bella with tears of joy pouring down hercomely face, and folding her to her breast, with the words: 'My dearydeary, deary girl, that Noddy and me saw married and couldn't wish joyto, or so much as speak to! My deary, deary, deary, wife of John andmother of his little child! My loving loving, bright bright, PrettyPretty! Welcome to your house and home, my deary!'

Chapter 13

SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST

In all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most bewilderinglywonderful thing to Bella was the shining countenance of Mr Boffin. Thathis wife should be joyous, open-hearted, and genial, or that her faceshould express every quality that was large and trusting, and no qualitythat was little or mean, was accordant with Bella's experience. But, that he, with a perfectly beneficent air and a plump rosy face, shouldbe standing there, looking at her and John, like some jovial goodspirit, was marvellous. For, how had he looked when she last saw him inthat very room (it was the room in which she had given him that piece ofher mind at parting), and what had become of all those crooked lines ofsuspicion, avarice, and distrust, that twisted his visage then?

Mrs Boffin seated Bella on the large ottoman, and seated herself besideher, and John her husband seated himself on the other side of her, andMr Boffin stood beaming at every one and everything he could see, withsurpassing jollity and enjoyment. Mrs Boffin was then taken with alaughing fit of clapping her hands, and clapping her knees, and rockingherself to and fro, and then with another laughing fit of embracingBella, and rocking her to and fro--both fits, of considerable duration. 

'Old lady, old lady, ' said Mr Boffin, at length; 'if you don't beginsomebody else must. '

'I'm a going to begin, Noddy, my dear, ' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Only itisn't easy for a person to know where to begin, when a person is in thisstate of delight and happiness. Bella, my dear. Tell me, who's this?'

'Who is this?' repeated Bella. 'My husband. '

'Ah! But tell me his name, deary!' cried Mrs Boffin. 

'Rokesmith. '

'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, and shaking herhead. 'Not a bit of it. '

'Handford then, ' suggested Bella. 

'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, again clapping her hands and shakingher head. 'Not a bit of it. '

'At least, his name is John, I suppose?' said Bella. 

'Ah! I should think so, deary!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'I should hope so!Many and many is the time I have called him by his name of John. Butwhat's his other name, his true other name? Give a guess, my pretty!'

'I can't guess, ' said Bella, turning her pale face from one to another. 

'I could, ' cried Mrs Boffin, 'and what's more, I did! I found him out, all in a flash as I may say, one night. Didn't I, Noddy?'

'Ay! That the old lady did!' said Mr Boffin, with stout pride in thecircumstance. 

'Harkee to me, deary, ' pursued Mrs Boffin, taking Bella's hands betweenher own, and gently beating on them from time to time. 'It was after aparticular night when John had been disappointed--as he thought--inhis affections. It was after a night when John had made an offer to acertain young lady, and the certain young lady had refused it. It wasafter a particular night, when he felt himself cast-away-like, and hadmade up his mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. MyNoddy wanted a paper out of his Secretary's room, and I says to Noddy, "I am going by the door, and I'll ask him for it. " I tapped at his door, and he didn't hear me. I looked in, and saw him a sitting lonely by hisfire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with a pleased kind ofsmile in my company when he saw me, and then in a single moment everygrain of the gunpowder that had been lying sprinkled thick about himever since I first set eyes upon him as a man at the Bower, took fire!Too many a time had I seen him sitting lonely, when he was a poor child, to be pitied, heart and hand! Too many a time had I seen him in need ofbeing brightened up with a comforting word! Too many and too many a timeto be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No, no! I justmakes out to cry, "I know you now! You're John!" And he catches me asI drops. --So what, ' says Mrs Boffin, breaking off in the rush of herspeech to smile most radiantly, 'might you think by this time that yourhusband's name was, dear?'

'Not, ' returned Bella, with quivering lips; 'not Harmon? That's notpossible?'

'Don't tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things arepossible?' demanded Mrs Boffin, in a soothing tone. 

'He was killed, ' gasped Bella. 

'Thought to be, ' said Mrs Boffin. 'But if ever John Harmon drew thebreath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon's arm round yourwaist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wifeis certainly you. If ever John Harmon and his wife had a child on earth, that child is certainly this. '

By a master-stroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby hereappeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. MrsBoffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella's lap, where both Mrs and MrBoffin (as the saying is) 'took it out of' the Inexhaustible in a showerof caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella fromswooning. This, and her husband's earnestness in explaining further toher how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, andhad even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a piousfraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for itsdisclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance forthe object with which it had originated, and in which it had fullydeveloped. 

'But bless ye, my beauty!' cried Mrs Boffin, taking him up short at thispoint, with another hearty clap of her hands. 'It wasn't John only thatwas in it. We was all of us in it. '

'I don't, ' said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, 'yetunderstand--'

'Of course you don't, my deary, ' exclaimed Mrs Boffin. 'How can you tillyou're told! So now I am a going to tell you. So you put your two handsbetween my two hands again, ' cried the comfortable creature, embracingher, 'with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shallbe told all the story. Now, I'm a going to tell the story. Once, twice, three times, and the horses is off. Here they go! When I cries out thatnight, "I know you now, you're John! "--which was my exact words; wasn'tthey, John?'

'Your exact words, ' said John, laying his hand on hers. 

'That's a very good arrangement, ' cried Mrs Boffin. 'Keep it there, John. And as we was all of us in it, Noddy you come and lay yours a topof his, and we won't break the pile till the story's done. '

Mr Boffin hitched up a chair, and added his broad brown right hand tothe heap. 

'That's capital!' said Mrs Boffin, giving it a kiss. 'Seems quite afamily building; don't it? But the horses is off. Well! When I criesout that night, "I know you now! you're John!" John catches of me, itis true; but I ain't a light weight, bless ye, and he's forced to let medown. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon as I anywayscomes to myself I calls to him, "Noddy, well I might say as I did say, that night at the Bower, for the Lord be thankful this is John!" Onwhich he gives a heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head underthe writing-table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings himround comfortable, and then John and him and me we all fall a crying forjoy. '

'Yes! They cry for joy, my darling, ' her husband struck in. 'Youunderstand? These two, whom I come to life to disappoint and dispossess, cry for joy!'

Bella looked at him confusedly, and looked again at Mrs Boffin's radiantface. 

'That's right, my dear, don't you mind him, ' said Mrs Boffin, 'stickto me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, and holds aconfabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind onaccounts of a certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn't found himout, he was going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fullymeant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongfulinheritance for ever and a day. At which you never see a man sofrightened as my Noddy was. For to think that he should have come intothe property wrongful, however innocent, and--more than that--might havegone on keeping it to his dying day, turned him whiter than chalk. '

'And you too, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Don't you mind him, neither, my deary, ' resumed Mrs Boffin; 'stickto me. This brings up a confabulation regarding the certain fair youngperson; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a dearycreetur. "She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat'rally spoilt, " he says, "by circumstances, but that's only the surface, and I lay my life, " hesays, "that she's the true golden gold at heart. "

'So did you, ' said Mr Boffin. 

'Don't you mind him a single morsel, my dear, ' proceeded Mrs Boffin, 'but stick to me. Then says John, O, if he could but prove so! Then weboth of us ups and says, that minute, "Prove so!"'

With a start, Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr Boffin. But, he was sitting thoughtfully smiling at that broad brown hand of his, andeither didn't see it, or would take no notice of it. 

'"Prove it, John!" we says, ' repeated Mrs Boffin. '"Prove it andovercome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the first time inyour life, and for the rest of your life. " This puts John in a state, to be sure. Then we says, "What will content you? If she was to stand upfor you when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generousmind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you waspoorest and friendliest, and all this against her own seeming interest, how would that do?" "Do?" says John, "it would raise me to the skies. ""Then, " says my Noddy, "make your preparations for the ascent, John, itbeing my firm belief that up you go!"'

Bella caught Mr Boffin's twinkling eye for half an instant; but he gotit away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand. 

'From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy's, ' saidMrs Boffin, shaking her head. 'O you were! And if I had been inclinedto be jealous, I don't know what I mightn't have done to you. But as Iwasn't--why, my beauty, ' with a hearty laugh and an embrace, 'I made youa special favourite of my own too. But the horses is coming round thecorner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit tomake 'em ache again: "Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John, for if ever a man had a hard master, you shall find me from this presenttime to be such to you. " And then he began!' cried Mrs Boffin, in anecstacy of admiration. 'Lord bless you, then he began! And how he DIDbegin; didn't he!'

Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed. 

'But, bless you, ' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'if you could have seen him of anight, at that time of it! The way he'd sit and chuckle over himself!The way he'd say "I've been a regular brown bear to-day, " and takehimself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he hadpretended. But every night he says to me: "Better and better, old lady. What did we say of her? She'll come through it, the true golden gold. This'll be the happiest piece of work we ever done. " And then he'd say, "I'll be a grislier old growler to-morrow!" and laugh, he would, tillJohn and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of hiswindpipes with a little water. '

Mr Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastlyenjoying himself. 

'And so, my good and pretty, ' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'you was married, andthere was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; forhe wouldn't let us out with it then, as was first meant. "No, " he says, "she's so unselfish and contented, that I can't afford to be rich yet. Imust wait a little longer. " Then, when baby was expected, he says, "Sheis such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can't afford to be richyet. I must wait a little longer. " Then when baby was born, he says, "She is so much better than she ever was, that I can't afford to be richyet. I must wait a little longer. " And so he goes on and on, till I saysoutright, "Now, John, if you don't fix a time for setting her up in herown house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I'll turn Informer. "Then he says he'll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thoughtpossible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; andhe says, "She shall see me under suspicion of having murdered myself, and YOU shall see how trusting and how true she'll be. " Well! Noddy andme agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses isin, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless usall!'

The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs Boffin took a good longhug of one another: to the apparent peril of the inexhaustible baby, lying staring in Bella's lap. 

'But IS the story done?' said Bella, pondering. 'Is there no more ofit?'

'What more of it should there be, deary?' returned Mrs Boffin, full ofglee. 

'Are you sure you have left nothing out of it?' asked Bella. 

'I don't think I have, ' said Mrs Boffin, archly. 

'John dear, ' said Bella, 'you're a good nurse; will you please holdbaby?' Having deposited the Inexhaustible in his arms with those words, Bella looked hard at Mr Boffin, who had moved to a table where he wasleaning his head upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietlysettling herself on her knees at his side, and drawing one arm over hisshoulder, said: 'Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake ofa word when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (notworse) than Hopkins, better (not worse) than Dancer, better (not worse)than Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Pleasesomething more!' cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as shestruggled with him and forced him to turn his delighted face to hers. 'Please I have found out something not yet mentioned. Please I don'tbelieve you are a hard-hearted miser at all, and please I don't believeyou ever for one single minute were!'

At this, Mrs Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating herfeet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself backwardsand forwards, like a demented member of some Mandarin's family. 

'O, I understand you now, sir!' cried Bella. 'I want neither you nor anyone else to tell me the rest of the story. I can tell it to YOU, now, ifyou would like to hear it. '

'Can you, my dear?' said Mr Boffin. 'Tell it then. '

'What?' cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat with both hands. 'When you saw what a greedy little wretch you were the patron of, youdetermined to show her how much misused and misprized riches coulddo, and often had done, to spoil people; did you? Not caring what shethought of you (and Goodness knows THAT was of no consequence!) youshowed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of wealth, saying inyour own mind, "This shallow creature would never work the truth out ofher own weak soul, if she had a hundred years to do it in; but a glaringinstance kept before her may open even her eyes and set her thinking. "That was what you said to yourself, was it, sir?'

'I never said anything of the sort, ' Mr Boffin declared in a state ofthe highest enjoyment. 

'Then you ought to have said it, sir, ' returned Bella, giving him twopulls and one kiss, 'for you must have thought and meant it. You sawthat good fortune was turning my stupid head and hardening my sillyheart--was making me grasping, calculating, insolent, insufferable--andyou took the pains to be the dearest and kindest fingerpost that everwas set up anywhere, pointing out the road that I was taking and the endit led to. Confess instantly!'

'John, ' said Mr Boffin, one broad piece of sunshine from head to foot, 'I wish you'd help me out of this. '

'You can't be heard by counsel, sir, ' returned Bella. 'You must speakfor yourself. Confess instantly!'

'Well, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin, 'the truth is, that when we did go infor the little scheme that my old lady has pinted out, I did put it toJohn, what did he think of going in for some such general scheme as YOUhave pinted out? But I didn't in any way so word it, because I didn't inany way so mean it. I only said to John, wouldn't it be more consistent, me going in for being a reg'lar brown bear respecting him, to go in as areg'lar brown bear all round?'

'Confess this minute, sir, ' said Bella, 'that you did it to correct andamend me!'

'Certainly, my dear child, ' said Mr Boffin, 'I didn't do it to harm you;you may be sure of that. And I did hope it might just hint a caution. Still, it ought to be mentioned that no sooner had my old lady found outJohn, than John made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon athankless person by the name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the punishment ofwhich Wegg, by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhandedgame that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so manyof together (and, by-the-by, my dear, he wasn't Blackberry Jones, butBlewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name of Silas Weggaforesaid. '

Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr Boffin's feet, gradually sankdown into a sitting posture on the ground, as she meditated more andmore thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face. 

'Still, ' said Bella, after this meditative pause, 'there remain twothings that I cannot understand. Mrs Boffin never supposed any part ofthe change in Mr Boffin to be real; did she?--You never did; did you?'asked Bella, turning to her. 

'No!' returned Mrs Boffin, with a most rotund and glowing negative. 

'And yet you took it very much to heart, ' said Bella. 'I remember itsmaking you very uneasy, indeed. '

'Ecod, you see Mrs John has a sharp eye, John!' cried Mr Boffin, shakinghis head with an admiring air. 'You're right, my dear. The old ladynearly blowed us into shivers and smithers, many times. '

'Why?' asked Bella. 'How did that happen, when she was in your secret?'

'Why, it was a weakness in the old lady, ' said Mr Boffin; 'and yet, totell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm rather proud ofit. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me that she couldn't abearto see and hear me coming out as a reg'lar brown one. Couldn't abearto make-believe as I meant it! In consequence of which, we waseverlastingly in danger with her. '

Mrs Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain glistening in herhonest eyes revealed that she was by no means cured of that dangerouspropensity. 

'I assure you, my dear, ' said Mr Boffin, 'that on the celebratedday when I made what has since been agreed upon to be my grandestdemonstration--I allude to Mew says the cat, Quack quack says theduck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog--I assure you, my dear, that on thatcelebrated day, them flinty and unbelieving words hit my old lady so hardon my account, that I had to hold her, to prevent her running out afteryou, and defending me by saying I was playing a part. '

Mrs Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened again, andit then appeared, not only that in that burst of sarcastic eloquenceMr Boffin was considered by his two fellow-conspirators to have outdonehimself, but that in his own opinion it was a remarkable achievement. 'Never thought of it afore the moment, my dear!' he observed to Bella. 'When John said, if he had been so happy as to win your affections andpossess your heart, it come into my head to turn round upon him with"Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack quacksays the duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog. " I couldn't tell you howit come into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of arasper that I own to you it astonished myself. I was awful nigh burstingout a laughing though, when it made John stare!'

'You said, my pretty, ' Mrs Boffin reminded Bella, 'that there was oneother thing you couldn't understand. '

'O yes!' cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; 'but that Inever shall be able to understand as long as I live. It is, how Johncould love me so when I so little deserved it, and how you, Mr and MrsBoffin, could be so forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains andtrouble, to make me a little better, and after all to help him to sounworthy a wife. But I am very very grateful. '

It was John Harmon's turn then--John Harmon now for good, and JohnRokesmith for nevermore--to plead with her (quite unnecessarily) inbehalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and over again, that ithad been prolonged by her own winning graces in her supposed station oflife. This led on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoymenton all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observedstaring, in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin's breast, waspronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the whole transaction, and was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave ofthe speckled fist (with difficulty detached from an exceedingly shortwaist), 'I have already informed my venerable Ma that I know all aboutit!'

Then, said John Harmon, would Mrs John Harmon come and see her house?And a dainty house it was, and a tastefully beautiful; and they wentthrough it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin's bosom (stillstaring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up therear. And on Bella's exquisite toilette table was an ivory casket, andin the casket were jewels the like of which she had never dreamed of, and aloft on an upper floor was a nursery garnished as with rainbows;'though we were hard put to it, ' said John Harmon, 'to get it done in soshort a time. 

The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who wasshortly afterwards heard screaming among the rainbows; whereupon Bellawithdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of gemplemorums, andthe screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associated herself with thatyoung olive branch. 

'Come and look in, Noddy!' said Mrs Boffin to Mr Boffin. 

Mr Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, looked inwith immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to see but Bellain a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon thehearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashesshading her eyes from the fire. 

'It looks as if the old man's spirit had found rest at last; don't it?'said Mrs Boffin. 

'Yes, old lady. '

'And as if his money had turned bright again, after a long long rust inthe dark, and was at last a beginning to sparkle in the sunlight?'

'Yes, old lady. '

'And it makes a pretty and a promising picter; don't it?'

'Yes, old lady. '

But, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr Boffinquenched that observation in this--delivered in the grisliest growlingof the regular brown bear. 'A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew, Quack quack, Bow-wow!' And then trotted silently downstairs, with hisshoulders in a state of the liveliest commotion. 

Chapter 14

CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE

Mr and Mrs John Harmon had so timed their taking possession of theirrightful name and their London house, that the event befel on the veryday when the last waggon-load of the last Mound was driven out at thegates of Boffin's Bower. As it jolted away, Mr Wegg felt that thelast load was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed theauspicious season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closelysheared. 

Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had keptwatch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had watched thegrowth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dustof which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should therebe any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined everywaif and stray into money, long before?

Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensiblyrelieved by the close of the labour, to grumble to any great extent. A foreman-representative of the dust contractors, purchasers of theMounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of theproceedings, asserting his employers' rights to cart off by daylight, nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death ofSilas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleephimself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hatand velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy anduntimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day's workin fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing, when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce anapproaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall towork again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out of his soundestsleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his posteight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him notto trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Weggthat indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, andthat attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken washis rest through these means, that he led the life of having wageredto keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and lookedpiteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed. So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden leg showeddisproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrastwith the rest of his plagued body, which might almost have been termedchubby. 

However, Wegg's comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over, and that he was immediately coming into his property. Of late, thegrindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own noserather than Boffin's, but Boffin's nose was now to be sharpened fine. Thus far, Mr Wegg had let his dusty friend off lightly, having beenbaulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by themachinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to deputeMr Venus to keep their dusty friend, Boffin, under inspection, while hehimself turned lank and lean at the Bower. 

To Mr Venus's museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Moundswere down and gone. It being evening, he found that gentleman, as heexpected, seated over his fire; but did not find him, as he expected, floating his powerful mind in tea. 

'Why, you smell rather comfortable here!' said Wegg, seeming to take itill, and stopping and sniffing as he entered. 

'I AM rather comfortable, sir, ' said Venus. 

'You don't use lemon in your business, do you?' asked Wegg, sniffingagain. 

'No, Mr Wegg, ' said Venus. 'When I use it at all, I mostly use it incobblers' punch. '

'What do you call cobblers' punch?' demanded Wegg, in a worse humourthan before. 

'It's difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir, ' returned Venus, 'because, however particular you may be in allotting your materials, so much will still depend upon the individual gifts, and there being afeeling thrown into it. But the groundwork is gin. '

'In a Dutch bottle?' said Wegg gloomily, as he sat himself down. 

'Very good, sir, very good!' cried Venus. 'Will you partake, sir?'

'Will I partake?' returned Wegg very surlily. 'Why, of course I will!WILL a man partake, as has been tormented out of his five senses byan everlasting dustman with his head tied up! WILL he, too! As if hewouldn't!'

'Don't let it put you out, Mr Wegg. You don't seem in your usualspirits. '

'If you come to that, you don't seem in your usual spirits, ' growledWegg. 'You seem to be setting up for lively. '

This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give Mr Wegguncommon offence. 

'And you've been having your hair cut!' said Wegg, missing the usualdusty shock. 

'Yes, Mr Wegg. But don't let that put you out, either. '

'And I am blest if you ain't getting fat!' said Wegg, with culminatingdiscontent. 'What are you going to do next?'

'Well, Mr Wegg, ' said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, 'I suspectyou could hardly guess what I am going to do next. '

'I don't want to guess, ' retorted Wegg. 'All I've got to say is, thatit's well for you that the diwision of labour has been what it has been. It's well for you to have had so light a part in this business, whenmine has been so heavy. You haven't had YOUR rest broke, I'll be bound. '

'Not at all, sir, ' said Venus. 'Never rested so well in all my life, Ithank you. '

'Ah!' grumbled Wegg, 'you should have been me. If you had been me, andhad been fretted out of your bed, and your sleep, and your meals, andyour mind, for a stretch of months together, you'd have been out ofcondition and out of sorts. '

'Certainly, it has trained you down, Mr Wegg, ' said Venus, contemplatinghis figure with an artist's eye. 'Trained you down very low, it has! Soweazen and yellow is the kivering upon your bones, that one might almostfancy you had come to give a look-in upon the French gentleman in thecorner, instead of me. '

Mr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman'scorner, seemed to notice something new there, which induced him toglance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stareat all the nooks and corners of the dim shop in succession. 

'Why, you've been having the place cleaned up!' he exclaimed. 

'Yes, Mr Wegg. By the hand of adorable woman. '

'Then what you're going to do next, I suppose, is to get married?'

'That's it, sir. '

Silas took off his glasses again--finding himself too intenselydisgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to beara magnified view of him and made the inquiry:

'To the old party?'

'Mr Wegg!' said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. 'The lady inquestion is not a old party. '

'I meant, ' exclaimed Wegg, testily, 'to the party as formerly objected?'

'Mr Wegg, ' said Venus, 'in a case of so much delicacy, I must troubleyou to say what you mean. There are strings that must not be playedupon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tunefulmanner. Of such melodious strings is Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed. '

'Then it IS the lady as formerly objected?' said Wegg. 

'Sir, ' returned Venus with dignity, 'I accept the altered phrase. It isthe lady as formerly objected. '

'When is it to come off?' asked Silas. 

'Mr Wegg, ' said Venus, with another flush. 'I cannot permit it to beput in the form of a Fight. I must temperately but firmly call upon you, sir, to amend that question. '

'When is the lady, ' Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining his illtemper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, 'agoing to give her 'and where she has already given her 'art?'

'Sir, ' returned Venus, 'I again accept the altered phrase, and withpleasure. The lady is a going to give her 'and where she has alreadygiven her 'art, next Monday. '

'Then the lady's objection has been met?' said Silas. 

'Mr Wegg, ' said Venus, 'as I did name to you, I think, on a formeroccasion, if not on former occasions--'

'On former occasions, ' interrupted Wegg. 

'--What, ' pursued Venus, 'what the nature of the lady's objection was, Imay impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprungup between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kindinterference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquaintedwith the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those twofriends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady totry if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear--thepint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage, I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the loweranimals, it might not relieve the lady's mind of her feeling respectingbeing as a lady--regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, sir, and it took root. '

'It would seem, Mr Venus, ' observed Wegg, with a touch of distrust, 'that you are flush of friends?'

'Pretty well, sir, ' that gentleman answered, in a tone of placidmystery. 'So-so, sir. Pretty well. '

'However, ' said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of distrust, 'I wish you joy. One man spends his fortune in one way, and another inanother. You are going to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling. '

'Indeed, Mr Wegg?'

'Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope may bring meround after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with hishead tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended andthe Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would tento-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin's noseto the grindstone?'

Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr Venus for that excellentpurpose. 

'You have had him well under inspection, I hope?' said Silas. 

Mr Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day. 

'Suppose you was just to step round to-night then, and give him ordersfrom me--I say from me, because he knows I won't be played with--to beready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in themorning?' said Wegg. 'And as a matter of form, which will be agreeableto your own feelings, before we go out (for I'll walk with you part ofthe way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let's have a lookat the stock in trade. '

Mr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertookto produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg onBoffin's doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of theroad between Clerkenwell and Boffin's house (Mr Wegg expressly insistedthat there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman's name) thepartners separated for the night. 

It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning. Thestreets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable, in the morning, that Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, asit were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could wellafford that trifling expense. 

Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conductthe conference. Door knocked at. Door opened. 

'Boffin at home?'

The servant replied that MR Boffin was at home. 

'He'll do, ' said Wegg, 'though it ain't what I call him. '

The servant inquired if they had any appointment?

'Now, I tell you what, young fellow, ' said Wegg, 'I won't have it. Thiswon't do for me. I don't want menials. I want Boffin. '

They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful Wegg worehis hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up a clock thatstood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike. In a few minutesthey were shown upstairs into what used to be Boffin's room; which, besides the door of entrance, had folding-doors in it, to make it oneof a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here, Boffin was seated at alibrary-table, and here Mr Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servantto withdraw, drew up a chair and seated himself, in his hat, closebeside him. Here, also, Mr Wegg instantly underwent the remarkableexperience of having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of awindow, which was opened and shut for the purpose. 

'Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman'spresence, ' said the owner of the hand which had done this, 'or I willthrow you after it. '

Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at theSecretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, andwho had come in quietly by the folding-doors. 

'Oh!' said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power of speech. 'Very good! I gave directions for YOU to be dismissed. And you ain'tgone, ain't you? Oh! We'll look into this presently. Very good!'

'No, nor I ain't gone, ' said another voice. 

Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turning hishead, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutredwith fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying histied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that wasSloppy's. 

'Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!' roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and withimmeasureable relish. 'He never thought as I could sleep standing, andoften done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I usedto give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did leadhim a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID!'Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, andthrowing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons. 

'Oh!' said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: 'one and oneis two not dismissed, is it? Bof--fin! Just let me ask a question. Whoset this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employedthis fellow?'

'I say!' remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. 'No fellows, orI'll throw you out of winder!'

Mr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: 'I employedhim, Wegg. '

'Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms, and we can't do better than proceed to business. Bof--fin! I want theroom cleared of these two scum. '

'That's not going to be done, Wegg, ' replied Mr Boffin, sittingcomposedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary satcomposedly on it at the other. 

'Bof--fin! Not going to be done?' repeated Wegg. 'Not at your peril?'

'No, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. 'Not at myperil, and not on any other terms. '

Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: 'Mr Venus, will you be so goodas hand me over that same dockyment?'

'Certainly, sir, ' replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness. 'There it is. Having now, sir, parted with it, I wish to make a smallobservation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expressesany new doctrine or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind. Silas Wegg, you are a precious old rascal. '

Mr Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beatingtime with the paper to the other's politeness until this unexpectedconclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly. 

'Silas Wegg, ' said Venus, 'know that I took the liberty of taking MrBoffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very early period ofour firm's existence. 

'Quite true, ' added Mr Boffin; 'and I tested Venus by making him apretended proposal or two; and I found him on the whole a very honestman, Wegg. '

'So Mr Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say, ' Venus remarked:'though in the beginning of this dirt, my hands were not, for a fewhours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and fullamends. '

'Venus, you did, ' said Mr Boffin. 'Certainly, certainly, certainly. '

Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. 'Thank you, sir. I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For your good opinion now, foryour way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself incommunication with you, and for the influence since so kindly broughtto bear upon a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr John Harmon. ' Towhom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed. 

Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes, and a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his bullying air, when his attention was re-claimed by Venus. 

'Everything else between you and me, Mr Wegg, ' said Venus, 'now explainsitself, and you can now make out, sir, without further words from me. But totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise onwhat I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the closeof our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon torepeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringingunder your notice. You are a precious old rascal!'

'You are a fool, ' said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, 'and I'd havegot rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any way of doingit. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. Youleave the more for me. Because, you know, ' said Wegg, dividing his nextobservation between Mr Boffin and Mr Harmon, 'I am worth my price, andI mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and ittells with such an anatomical Pump as this one, ' pointing out Mr Venus, 'but it won't do with a Man. I am here to be bought off, and I havenamed my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me. '

'I'll leave you, Wegg, said Mr Boffin, laughing, 'as far as I amconcerned. '

'Bof--fin!' replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, 'Iunderstand YOUR new-born boldness. I see the brass underneath YOURsilver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you'venothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why, you're just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! But Mr Harmonis in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pairof shoes. Now, I've heerd something lately about this being MrHarmon--I make out now, some hints that I've met on that subject inthe newspaper--and I drop you, Bof--fin, as beneath my notice. I ask MrHarmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this present paper?'

'It is a will of my late father's, of more recent date than the willproved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed himalready, and I'll knock you down), leaving the whole of his propertyto the Crown, ' said John Harmon, with as much indifference as wascompatible with extreme sternness. 

'Bight you are!' cried Wegg. 'Then, ' screwing the weight of his bodyupon his wooden leg, and screwing his wooden head very much on one side, and screwing up one eye: 'then, I put the question to you, what's thispaper worth?'

'Nothing, ' said John Harmon. 

Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on somesarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himselfgripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered; shoved back, staggering, into a corner of the room; and pinned there. 

'You scoundrel!' said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that ofa vice. 

'You're knocking my head against the wall, ' urged Silas faintly. 

'I mean to knock your head against the wall, ' returned John Harmon, suiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good will; 'and I'dgive a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, youscoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle. '

Sloppy held it up, for his edification. 

'That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the manywills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. That will giveseverything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin, excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a brokenheart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor andyours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottledistressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister wereboth no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we haddone nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it laywhile you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking--often verynear it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see thelight; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. Afterthe discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on thesubject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for such a hound asyou to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him thenecessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced andestablished. The first thing you saw him do, and the second thing hasbeen done without your knowledge. Consequently, the paper now rattlingin your hand as I shake you--and I should like to shake the life outof you--is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do youunderstand?'

Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head waggedbackwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable manner, he didunderstand. 

Now, scoundrel, ' said John Harmon, taking another sailor-like turn onhis cravat and holding him in his corner at arms' length, 'I shall maketwo more short speeches to you, because I hope they will torment you. Your discovery was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody hadthought of looking into that place. Neither did we know you had made it, until Venus spoke to Mr Boffin, though I kept you under good observationfrom my first appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made itthe chief occupation and delight of his life, to attend you like yourshadow. I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you topersuade Mr Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded, to the last possiblemoment, in order that your disappointment might be the heaviest possibledisappointment. That's the first short speech, do you understand?'

Here, John Harmon assisted his comprehension with another shake. 

'Now, scoundrel, ' he pursued, 'I am going to finish. You supposed mejust now, to be the possessor of my father's property. --So I am. Butthrough any act of my father's, or by any right I have? No. Through themunificence of Mr Boffin. The conditions that he made with me, beforeparting with the secret of the Dutch bottle, were, that I should takethe fortune, and that he should take his Mound and no more. I oweeverything I possess, solely to the disinterestedness, uprightness, tenderness, goodness (there are no words to satisfy me) of Mr and MrsBoffin. And when, knowing what I knew, I saw such a mud-worm as youpresume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder is, 'added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a very ugly turnindeed on Wegg's cravat, 'that I didn't try to twist your head off, and fling THAT out of window! So. That's the last short speech, do youunderstand?'

Silas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and looked asif he had a rather large fishbone in that region. Simultaneously withthis action on his part in his corner, a singular, and on the surfacean incomprehensible, movement was made by Mr Sloppy: who began backingtowards Mr Wegg along the wall, in the manner of a porter or heaver whois about to lift a sack of flour or coals. 

'I am sorry, Wegg, ' said Mr Boffin, in his clemency, 'that my old ladyand I can't have a better opinion of you than the bad one we are forcedto entertain. But I shouldn't like to leave you, after all said anddone, worse off in life than I found you. Therefore say in a word, before we part, what it'll cost to set you up in another stall. '

'And in another place, ' John Harmon struck in. 'You don't come outsidethese windows. '

'Mr Boffin, ' returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation: 'when I first hadthe honour of making your acquaintance, I had got together a collectionof ballads which was, I may say, above price. '

'Then they can't be paid for, ' said John Harmon, 'and you had better nottry, my dear sir. '

'Pardon me, Mr Boffin, ' resumed Wegg, with a malignant glance in thelast speaker's direction, 'I was putting the case to you, who, if mysenses did not deceive me, put the case to me. I had a very choicecollection of ballads, and there was a new stock of gingerbread in thetin box. I say no more, but would rather leave it to you. '

'But it's difficult to name what's right, ' said Mr Boffin uneasily, withhis hand in his pocket, 'and I don't want to go beyond what's right, because you really have turned out such a very bad fellow. So artful, and so ungrateful you have been, Wegg; for when did I ever injure you?'

'There was also, ' Mr Wegg went on, in a meditative manner, 'a errandconnection, in which I was much respected. But I would not wish to bedeemed covetous, and I would rather leave it to you, Mr Boffin. '

'Upon my word, I don't know what to put it at, ' the Golden Dustmanmuttered. 

'There was likewise, ' resumed Wegg, 'a pair of trestles, for which alonea Irish person, who was deemed a judge of trestles, offered five andsix--a sum I would not hear of, for I should have lost by it--and therewas a stool, a umbrella, a clothes-horse, and a tray. But I leave it toyou, Mr Boffin. '

The Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in some abstruse calculation, Mr Wegg assisted him with the following additional items. 

'There was, further, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and UncleParker. Ah! When a man thinks of the loss of such patronage as that;when a man finds so fair a garden rooted up by pigs; he finds it hardindeed, without going high, to work it into money. But I leave it whollyto you, sir. '

Mr Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface hisincomprehensible, movement. 

'Leading on has been mentioned, ' said Wegg with a melancholy air, 'andit's not easy to say how far the tone of my mind may have been loweredby unwholesome reading on the subject of Misers, when you was leading meand others on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, thatI felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time. And how can a man put aprice upon his mind! There was likewise a hat just now. But I leave theole to you, Mr Boffin. '

'Come!' said Mr Boffin. 'Here's a couple of pound. '

'In justice to myself, I couldn't take it, sir. '

The words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon lifted his finger, and Sloppy, who was now close to Wegg, backed to Wegg's back, stooped, grasped his coat collar behind with both hands, and deftly swung himup like the sack of flour or coals before mentioned. A countenance ofspecial discontent and amazement Mr Wegg exhibited in this position, with his buttons almost as prominently on view as Sloppy's own, andwith his wooden leg in a highly unaccommodating state. But, not for manyseconds was his countenance visible in the room; for, Sloppy lightlytrotted out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr Venus attendingto open the street door. Mr Sloppy's instructions had been to deposithis burden in the road; but, a scavenger's cart happening to standunattended at the corner, with its little ladder planted against thewheel, Mr S. Found it impossible to resist the temptation of shooting MrSilas Wegg into the cart's contents. A somewhat difficult feat, achievedwith great dexterity, and with a prodigious splash. 

Chapter 15

WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET

How Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in his mind since thequiet evening when by the river-side he had risen, as it were, out ofthe ashes of the Bargeman, none but he could have told. Not even hecould have told, for such misery can only be felt. 

First, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge of what hehad done, of that haunting reproach that he might have done it so muchbetter, and of the dread of discovery. This was load enough to crushhim, and he laboured under it day and night. It was as heavy on him inhis scanty sleep, as in his red-eyed waking hours. It bore him down witha dread unchanging monotony, in which there was not a moment's variety. The overweighted beast of burden, or the overweighted slave, can forcertain instants shift the physical load, and find some slight respiteeven in enforcing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or sucha limb. Not even that poor mockery of relief could the wretched manobtain, under the steady pressure of the infernal atmosphere into whichhe had entered. 

Time went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him; time went by, andin such public accounts of the attack as were renewed at intervals, he began to see Mr Lightwood (who acted as lawyer for the injured man)straying further from the fact, going wider of the issue, and evidentlyslackening in his zeal. By degrees, a glimmering of the cause of thisbegan to break on Bradley's sight. Then came the chance meeting with MrMilvey at the railway station (where he often lingered in his leisurehours, as a place where any fresh news of his deed would be circulated, or any placard referring to it would be posted), and then he saw in thelight what he had brought about. 

For, then he saw that through his desperate attempt to separate thosetwo for ever, he had been made the means of uniting them. That he haddipped his hands in blood, to mark himself a miserable fool and tool. That Eugene Wrayburn, for his wife's sake, set him aside and left him tocrawl along his blasted course. He thought of Fate, or Providence, orbe the directing Power what it might, as having put a fraud uponhim--overreached him--and in his impotent mad rage bit, and tore, andhad his fit. 

New assurance of the truth came upon him in the next few following days, when it was put forth how the wounded man had been married on his bed, and to whom, and how, though always in a dangerous condition, he was ashade better. Bradley would far rather have been seized for his murder, than he would have read that passage, knowing himself spared, andknowing why. 

But, not to be still further defrauded and overreached--which he wouldbe, if implicated by Riderhood, and punished by the law for his abjectfailure, as though it had been a success--he kept close in his schoolduring the day, ventured out warily at night, and went no more to therailway station. He examined the advertisements in the newspapers forany sign that Riderhood acted on his hinted threat of so summoning himto renew their acquaintance, but found none. Having paid him handsomelyfor the support and accommodation he had had at the Lock House, andknowing him to be a very ignorant man who could not write, he began todoubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether they need ever meetagain. 

All this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his raging sense ofhaving been made to fling himself across the chasm which divided thosetwo, and bridge it over for their coming together, never cooled down. This horrible condition brought on other fits. He could not have saidhow many, or when; but he saw in the faces of his pupils that they hadseen him in that state, and that they were possessed by a dread of hisrelapsing. 

One winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering the sills andframes of the schoolroom windows, he stood at his black board, crayon inhand, about to commence with a class; when, reading in the countenancesof those boys that there was something wrong, and that they seemed inalarm for him, he turned his eyes to the door towards which they faced. He then saw a slouching man of forbidding appearance standing in themidst of the school, with a bundle under his arm; and saw that it wasRiderhood. 

He sat down on a stool which one of his boys put for him, and he had apassing knowledge that he was in danger of falling, and that his facewas becoming distorted. But, the fit went off for that time, and hewiped his mouth, and stood up again. 

'Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave!' said Riderhood, knucklinghis forehead, with a chuckle and a leer. 'What place may this be?'

'This is a school. '

'Where young folks learns wot's right?' said Riderhood, gravely nodding. 'Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave! But who teaches this school?'

'I do. '

'You're the master, are you, learned governor?'

'Yes. I am the master. '

'And a lovely thing it must be, ' said Riderhood, 'fur to learn youngfolks wot's right, and fur to know wot THEY know wot you do it. Beg yourpardon, learned governor! By your leave!--That there black board; wot'sit for?'

'It is for drawing on, or writing on. '

'Is it though!' said Riderhood. 'Who'd have thought it, from thelooks on it! WOULD you be so kind as write your name upon it, learnedgovernor?' (In a wheedling tone. )

Bradley hesitated for a moment; but placed his usual signature, enlarged, upon the board. 

'I ain't a learned character myself, ' said Riderhood, surveying theclass, 'but I do admire learning in others. I should dearly like to hearthese here young folks read that there name off, from the writing. '

The arms of the class went up. At the miserable master's nod, the shrillchorus arose: 'Bradley Headstone!'

'No?' cried Riderhood. 'You don't mean it? Headstone! Why, that's in achurchyard. Hooroar for another turn!'

Another tossing of arms, another nod, and another shrill chorus:

'Bradley Headstone!'

'I've got it now!' said Riderhood, after attentively listening, andinternally repeating: 'Bradley. I see. Chris'en name, Bradley sim'lar toRoger which is my own. Eh? Fam'ly name, Headstone, sim'lar to Riderhoodwhich is my own. Eh?'

Shrill chorus. 'Yes!'

'Might you be acquainted, learned governor, ' said Riderhood, 'with aperson of about your own heighth and breadth, and wot 'ud pull down ina scale about your own weight, answering to a name sounding summat likeTotherest?'

With a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, though his jawwas heavily squared; with his eyes upon Riderhood; and with traces ofquickened breathing in his nostrils; the schoolmaster replied, in asuppressed voice, after a pause: 'I think I know the man you mean. '

'I thought you knowed the man I mean, learned governor. I want the man. '

With a half glance around him at his pupils, Bradley returned:

'Do you suppose he is here?'

'Begging your pardon, learned governor, and by your leave, ' saidRiderhood, with a laugh, 'how could I suppose he's here, when there'snobody here but you, and me, and these young lambs wot you're a learningon? But he is most excellent company, that man, and I want him to comeand see me at my Lock, up the river. '

'I'll tell him so. '

'D'ye think he'll come?' asked Riderhood. 

'I am sure he will. '

'Having got your word for him, ' said Riderhood, 'I shall count upon him. P'raps you'd so fur obleege me, learned governor, as tell him that if hedon't come precious soon, I'll look him up. '

'He shall know it. '

'Thankee. As I says a while ago, ' pursued Riderhood, changing his hoarsetone and leering round upon the class again, 'though not a learnedcharacter my own self, I do admire learning in others, to be sure! Beinghere and having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore Igo, ask a question of these here young lambs of yourn?'

'If it is in the way of school, ' said Bradley, always sustaining hisdark look at the other, and speaking in his suppressed voice, 'you may. '

'Oh! It's in the way of school!' cried Riderhood. 'I'll pound it, Master, to be in the way of school. Wot's the diwisions of water, mylambs? Wot sorts of water is there on the land?'

Shrill chorus: 'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds. '

'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds, ' said Riderhood. 'They've got all thelot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn't have left out lakes, never havingclapped eyes upon one, to my knowledge. Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Wot is it, lambs, as they ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds?'

Shrill chorus (with some contempt for the ease of the question):

'Fish!'

'Good a-gin!' said Riderhood. 'But wot else is it, my lambs, as theysometimes ketches in rivers?'

Chorus at a loss. One shrill voice: 'Weed!'

'Good agin!' cried Riderhood. 'But it ain't weed neither. You'll neverguess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish, as they sometimes ketches inrivers? Well! I'll tell you. It's suits o' clothes. '

Bradley's face changed. 

'Leastways, lambs, ' said Riderhood, observing him out of the cornersof his eyes, 'that's wot I my own self sometimes ketches in rivers. Forstrike me blind, my lambs, if I didn't ketch in a river the wery bundleunder my arm!'

The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregularentrapment of this mode of examination. The master looked at theexaminer, as if he would have torn him to pieces. 

'I ask your pardon, learned governor, ' said Riderhood, smearing hissleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a relish, 'tain't fair to thelambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawedthis here bundle out of a river! It's a Bargeman's suit of clothes. Yousee, it had been sunk there by the man as wore it, and I got it up. '

'How do you know it was sunk by the man who wore it?' asked Bradley. 

'Cause I see him do it, ' said Riderhood. 

They looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing his eyes, turnedhis face to the black board and slowly wiped his name out. 

'A heap of thanks, Master, ' said Riderhood, 'for bestowing so much ofyour time, and of the lambses' time, upon a man as hasn't got no otherrecommendation to you than being a honest man. Wishing to see at my Lockup the river, the person as we've spoke of, and as you've answered for, I takes my leave of the lambs and of their learned governor both. '

With those words, he slouched out of the school, leaving the masterto get through his weary work as he might, and leaving the whisperingpupils to observe the master's face until he fell into the fit which hadbeen long impending. 

The next day but one was Saturday, and a holiday. Bradley rose early, and set out on foot for Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. He rose so early thatit was not yet light when he began his journey. Before extinguishing thecandle by which he had dressed himself, he made a little parcel of hisdecent silver watch and its decent guard, and wrote inside the paper:'Kindly take care of these for me. ' He then addressed the parcel to MissPeecher, and left it on the most protected corner of the little seat inher little porch. 

It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gateand turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered his schoolroomwindows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was fallingwhite, while the wind blew black. The tardy day did not appear until hehad been on foot two hours, and had traversed a greater part of Londonfrom east to west. Such breakfast as he had, he took at the comfortlesspublic-house where he had parted from Riderhood on the occasion oftheir night-walk. He took it, standing at the littered bar, and lookedloweringly at a man who stood where Riderhood had stood that earlymorning. 

He outwalked the short day, and was on the towing-path by the river, somewhat footsore, when the night closed in. Still two or three milesshort of the Lock, he slackened his pace then, but went steadily on. Theground was now covered with snow, though thinly, and there were floatinglumps of ice in the more exposed parts of the river, and broken sheetsof ice under the shelter of the banks. He took heed of nothing but theice, the snow, and the distance, until he saw a light ahead, which heknew gleamed from the Lock House window. It arrested his steps, and helooked all around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, hadabsolute possession of the dreary scene. In the distance before him, laythe place where he had struck the worse than useless blows that mockedhim with Lizzie's presence there as Eugene's wife. In the distancebehind him, lay the place where the children with pointing arms hadseemed to devote him to the demons in crying out his name. Within there, where the light was, was the man who as to both distances could give himup to ruin. To these limits had his world shrunk. 

He mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with a strangeintensity, as if he were taking aim at it. When he approached it sonearly as that it parted into rays, they seemed to fasten themselvesto him and draw him on. When he struck the door with his hand, his footfollowed so quickly on his hand, that he was in the room before he wasbidden to enter. 

The light was the joint product of a fire and a candle. Between the two, with his feet on the iron fender, sat Riderhood, pipe in mouth. 

He looked up with a surly nod when his visitor came in. His visitorlooked down with a surly nod. His outer clothing removed, the visitorthen took a seat on the opposite side of the fire. 

'Not a smoker, I think?' said Riderhood, pushing a bottle to him acrossthe table. 

'No. '

They both lapsed into silence, with their eyes upon the fire. 

'You don't need to be told I am here, ' said Bradley at length. 'Who isto begin?'

'I'll begin, ' said Riderhood, 'when I've smoked this here pipe out. '

He finished it with great deliberation, knocked out the ashes on thehob, and put it by. 

'I'll begin, ' he then repeated, 'Bradley Headstone, Master, if you wishit. '

'Wish it? I wish to know what you want with me. '

'And so you shall. ' Riderhood had looked hard at his hands and hispockets, apparently as a precautionary measure lest he should have anyweapon about him. But, he now leaned forward, turning the collar ofhis waistcoat with an inquisitive finger, and asked, 'Why, where's yourwatch?'

'I have left it behind. '

'I want it. But it can be fetched. I've took a fancy to it. '

Bradley answered with a contemptuous laugh. 

'I want it, ' repeated Riderhood, in a louder voice, 'and I mean to haveit. '

'That is what you want of me, is it?'

'No, ' said Riderhood, still louder; 'it's on'y part of what I want ofyou. I want money of you. '

'Anything else?'

'Everythink else!' roared Riderhood, in a very loud and furious way. 'Answer me like that, and I won't talk to you at all. '

Bradley looked at him. 

'Don't so much as look at me like that, or I won't talk to you at all, 'vociferated Riderhood. 'But, instead of talking, I'll bring my handdown upon you with all its weight, ' heavily smiting the table with greatforce, 'and smash you!'

'Go on, ' said Bradley, after moistening his lips. 

'O! I'm a going on. Don't you fear but I'll go on full-fast enough foryou, and fur enough for you, without your telling. Look here, BradleyHeadstone, Master. You might have split the T'other governor to chipsand wedges, without my caring, except that I might have come upon youfor a glass or so now and then. Else why have to do with you at all? Butwhen you copied my clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, andwhen you shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wotI'll be paid for and paid heavy for. If it come to be throw'd upon you, you was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you? Where else butin Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a man dressed according asdescribed? Where else but in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there aman as had had words with him coming through in his boat? Look at theLock-keeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answering clothesand with that same answering red neckhankercher, and see whether hisclothes happens to be bloody or not. Yes, they do happen to be bloody. Ah, you sly devil!'

Bradley, very white, sat looking at him in silence. 

'But two could play at your game, ' said Riderhood, snapping his fingersat him half a dozen times, 'and I played it long ago; long afore youtried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you hadn't begun croakingyour lecters or what not in your school. I know to a figure how youdone it. Where you stole away, I could steal away arter you, and do itknowinger than you. I know how you come away from London in your ownclothes, and where you changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I seeyou with my own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-placeamong them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account foryour dressing yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise upBradley Headstone, Master, where you sat down Bargeman. I see you pitchyour Bargeman's bundle into the river. I hooked your Bargeman's bundleout of the river. I've got your Bargeman's clothes, tore this way andthat way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and spatteredall over with what bust from the blows. I've got them, and I've got you. I don't care a curse for the T'other governor, alive or dead, but I carea many curses for my own self. And as you laid your plots agin me andwas a sly devil agin me, I'll be paid for it--I'll be paid for it--I'llbe paid for it--till I've drained you dry!'

Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for awhile. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure ofvoice and feature:

'You can't get blood out of a stone, Riderhood. '

'I can get money out of a schoolmaster though. '

'You can't get out of me what is not in me. You can't wrest from me whatI have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than twoguineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowingfor a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?'

'I don't know, nor I don't care. Yours is a 'spectable calling. Tosave your 'spectability, it's worth your while to pawn every article ofclothes you've got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrowevery penny you can get trusted with. When you've done that and handedover, I'll leave you. Not afore. '

'How do you mean, you'll leave me?'

'I mean as I'll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away fromhere. Let the Lock take care of itself. I'll take care of you, once I'vegot you. '

Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took uphis pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned hiselbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the firewith a most intent abstraction. 

'Riderhood, ' he said, raising himself in his chair, after a longsilence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. 'SayI part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you havemy watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you acertain portion of it. '

'Say nothink of the sort, ' retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as hesmoked. 'You've got away once, and I won't run the chance agin. I've hadtrouble enough to find you, and shouldn't have found you, if I hadn'tseen you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till youwas safe housed. I'll have one settlement with you for good and all. '

'Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I have no resourcesbeyond myself. I have absolutely no friends. '

'That's a lie, ' said Riderhood. 'You've got one friend as I knows of;one as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I'm a blue monkey!'

Bradley's face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse anddrew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go on tosay. 

'I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday, ' said Riderhood. 'Found myself among the young ladies, by George! Over the young ladies, I see a Missis. That Missis is sweet enough upon you, Master, to sellherself up, slap, to get you out of trouble. Make her do it then. '

Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite knowinghow to take it, affected to be occupied with the encircling smoke fromhis pipe; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing it off. 

'You spoke to the mistress, did you?' inquired Bradley, with thatformer composure of voice and feature that seemed inconsistent, and withaverted eyes. 

'Poof! Yes, ' said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention from the smoke. 'I spoke to her. I didn't say much to her. She was put in a fluster bymy dropping in among the young ladies (I never did set up for a lady'sman), and she took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothinkwrong. I tells her, "O no, nothink wrong. The master's my wery goodfriend. " But I see how the land laid, and that she was comfortable off. '

Bradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist with hisright hand, and sat rigidly contemplating the fire. 

'She couldn't live more handy to you than she does, ' said Riderhood, 'and when I goes home with you (as of course I am a going), I recommendyou to clean her out without loss of time. You can marry her, arter youand me have come to a settlement. She's nice-looking, and I knowyou can't be keeping company with no one else, having been so latelydisapinted in another quarter. '

Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once did hechange his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his wrist. Rigid before thefire, as if it were a charmed flame that was turning him old, he sat, with the dark lines deepening in his face, its stare becoming more andmore haggard, its surface turning whiter and whiter as if it were beingoverspread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his hairdegenerating. 

Not until the late daylight made the window transparent, did thisdecaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and sat in the windowlooking out. 

Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of the nighthe had muttered twice or thrice that it was bitter cold; or that thefire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it; but, as he could elicit fromhis companion neither sound nor movement, he had afterwards held hispeace. He was making some disorderly preparations for coffee, whenBradley came from the window and put on his outer coat and hat. 

'Hadn't us better have a bit o' breakfast afore we start?' saidRiderhood. 'It ain't good to freeze a empty stomach, Master. '

Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of the LockHouse. Catching up from the table a piece of bread, and taking hisBargeman's bundle under his arm, Riderhood immediately followed him. Bradley turned towards London. Riderhood caught him up, and walked athis side. 

The two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles. Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. Instantly, Riderhoodturned likewise, and they went back side by side. 

Bradley re-entered the Lock House. So did Riderhood. Bradley sat down inthe window. Riderhood warmed himself at the fire. After an hour or more, Bradley abruptly got up again, and again went out, but this time turnedthe other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up in a fewpaces, and walked at his side. 

This time, as before, when he found his attendant not to be shaken off, Bradley suddenly turned back. This time, as before, Riderhood turnedback along with him. But, not this time, as before, did they go into theLock House, for Bradley came to a stand on the snow-covered turf by theLock, looking up the river and down the river. Navigation was impeded bythe frost, and the scene was a mere white and yellow desert. 

'Come, come, Master, ' urged Riderhood, at his side. 'This is a dry game. And where's the good of it? You can't get rid of me, except by coming toa settlement. I am a going along with you wherever you go. '

Without a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over the woodenbridge on the lock gates. 'Why, there's even less sense in this movethan t'other, ' said Riderhood, following. 'The Weir's there, and you'llhave to come back, you know. '

Without taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body against a post, in a resting attitude, and there rested with his eyes cast down. 'Beingbrought here, ' said Riderhood, gruffly, 'I'll turn it to some use bychanging my gates. ' With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swung-tothe lock gates that were standing open, before opening the others. So, both sets of gates were, for the moment, closed. 

'You'd better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, Master, ' saidRiderhood, passing him, 'or I'll drain you all the dryer for it, when wedo settle. --Ah! Would you!'

Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be girdled with aniron ring. They were on the brink of the Lock, about midway between thetwo sets of gates. 

'Let go!' said Riderhood, 'or I'll get my knife out and slash youwherever I can cut you. Let go!'

Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing away fromit. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradleygot him round, with his back to the Lock, and still worked him backward. 

'Let go!' said Riderhood. 'Stop! What are you trying at? You can't drownMe. Ain't I told you that the man as has come through drowning can neverbe drowned? I can't be drowned. '

'I can be!' returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. 'I amresolved to be. I'll hold you living, and I'll hold you dead. Comedown!'

Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstoneupon him. When the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum behindone of the rotting gates, Riderhood's hold had relaxed, probably infalling, and his eyes were staring upward. But, he was girdled stillwith Bradley's iron ring, and the rivets of the iron ring held tight. 

Chapter 16

PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL

Mr and Mrs John Harmon's first delightful occupation was, to set allmatters right that had strayed in any way wrong, or that might, could, would, or should, have strayed in any way wrong, while their name was inabeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John's fictitious death wasto be considered in any way responsible, they used a very broad and freeconstruction; regarding, for instance, the dolls' dressmaker as havinga claim on their protection, because of her association with Mrs EugeneWrayburn, and because of Mrs Eugene's old association, in her turn, withthe dark side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as agood and serviceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor evenMr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on afalse scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer, that a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect thathe had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow flip inthe bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he 'didn't stand tolose a farthing' through Mr Harmon's coming to life, but was quite aswell satisfied as if that gentleman had been barbarously murdered, andhe (Mr Inspector) had pocketed the government reward. 

In all their arrangements of such nature, Mr and Mrs John Harmon derivedmuch assistance from their eminent solicitor, Mr Mortimer Lightwood; wholaid about him professionally with such unwonted despatch and intention, that a piece of work was vigorously pursued as soon as cut out; wherebyYoung Blight was acted on as by that transatlantic dram which ispoetically named An Eye-Opener, and found himself staring at realclients instead of out of window. The accessibility of Riah provingvery useful as to a few hints towards the disentanglement of Eugene'saffairs, Lightwood applied himself with infinite zest to attacking andharassing Mr Fledgeby: who, discovering himself in danger of being blowninto the air by certain explosive transactions in which he had beenengaged, and having been sufficiently flayed under his beating, cameto a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow profited bythe conditions entered into, though he little thought it. Mr Riahunaccountably melted; waited in person on him over the stable yard inDuke Street, St James's, no longer ravening but mild, to inform himthat payment of interest as heretofore, but henceforth at Mr Lightwood'soffices, would appease his Jewish rancour; and departed with the secretthat Mr John Harmon had advanced the money and become the creditor. Thus, was the sublime Snigsworth's wrath averted, and thus did he snortno larger amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column in theprint over the fireplace, than was normally in his (and the British)constitution. 

Mrs Wilfer's first visit to the Mendicant's bride at the new abode ofMendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had been sent for into the City, on the very day of taking possession, and had been stunned withastonishment, and brought-to, and led about the house by one ear, tobehold its various treasures, and had been enraptured and enchanted. Pahad also been appointed Secretary, and had been enjoined to give instantnotice of resignation to Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, for ever andever. But Ma came later, and came, as was her due, in state. 

The carriage was sent for Ma, who entered it with a bearing worthy ofthe occasion, accompanied, rather than supported, by Miss Lavinia, whoaltogether declined to recognize the maternal majesty. Mr George Sampsonmeekly followed. He was received in the vehicle, by Mrs Wilfer, as ifadmitted to the honour of assisting at a funeral in the family, and shethen issued the order, 'Onward!' to the Mendicant's menial. 

'I wish to goodness, Ma, ' said Lavvy, throwing herself back among thecushions, with her arms crossed, 'that you'd loll a little. '

'How!' repeated Mrs Wilfer. 'Loll!'

'Yes, Ma. '

'I hope, ' said the impressive lady, 'I am incapable of it. '

'I am sure you look so, Ma. But why one should go out to dine with one'sown daughter or sister, as if one's under-petticoat was a blackboard, Ido NOT understand. '

'Neither do I understand, ' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with deep scorn, 'howa young lady can mention the garment in the name of which you haveindulged. I blush for you. '

'Thank you, Ma, ' said Lavvy, yawning, 'but I can do it for myself, I amobliged to you, when there's any occasion. '

Here, Mr Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, which he neverunder any circumstances succeeded in doing, said with an agreeablesmile: 'After all, you know, ma'am, we know it's there. ' And immediatelyfelt that he had committed himself. 

'We know it's there!' said Mrs Wilfer, glaring. 

'Really, George, ' remonstrated Miss Lavinia, 'I must say that I don'tunderstand your allusions, and that I think you might be more delicateand less personal. '

'Go it!' cried Mr Sampson, becoming, on the shortest notice, a prey todespair. 'Oh yes! Go it, Miss Lavinia Wilfer!'

'What you may mean, George Sampson, by your omnibus-driving expressions, I cannot pretend to imagine. Neither, ' said Miss Lavinia, 'Mr GeorgeSampson, do I wish to imagine. It is enough for me to know in my ownheart that I am not going to--' having imprudently got into a sentencewithout providing a way out of it, Miss Lavinia was constrained toclose with 'going to it'. A weak conclusion which, however, derived someappearance of strength from disdain. 

'Oh yes!' cried Mr Sampson, with bitterness. 'Thus it ever is. Inever--'

'If you mean to say, ' Miss Lavvy cut him short, that you never broughtup a young gazelle, you may save yourself the trouble, because nobodyin this carriage supposes that you ever did. We know you better. ' (As ifthis were a home-thrust. )

'Lavinia, ' returned Mr Sampson, in a dismal vein, I did not mean tosay so. What I did mean to say, was, that I never expected to retain myfavoured place in this family, after Fortune shed her beams upon it. Whydo you take me, ' said Mr Sampson, 'to the glittering halls with whichI can never compete, and then taunt me with my moderate salary? Is itgenerous? Is it kind?'

The stately lady, Mrs Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity of delivering afew remarks from the throne, here took up the altercation. 

'Mr Sampson, ' she began, 'I cannot permit you to misrepresent theintentions of a child of mine. '

'Let him alone, Ma, ' Miss Lavvy interposed with haughtiness. 'It isindifferent to me what he says or does. '

'Nay, Lavinia, ' quoth Mrs Wilfer, 'this touches the blood of the family. If Mr George Sampson attributes, even to my youngest daughter--'

('I don't see why you should use the word "even", Ma, ' Miss Lavvyinterposed, 'because I am quite as important as any of the others. ')

'Peace!' said Mrs Wilfer, solemnly. 'I repeat, if Mr George Sampsonattributes, to my youngest daughter, grovelling motives, he attributesthem equally to the mother of my youngest daughter. That motherrepudiates them, and demands of Mr George Sampson, as a youth of honour, what he WOULD have? I may be mistaken--nothing is more likely--but MrGeorge Sampson, ' proceeded Mrs Wilfer, majestically waving her gloves, 'appears to me to be seated in a first-class equipage. Mr George Sampsonappears to me to be on his way, by his own admission, to a residencethat may be termed Palatial. Mr George Sampson appears to me to beinvited to participate in the--shall I say the--Elevation which hasdescended on the family with which he is ambitious, shall I say toMingle? Whence, then, this tone on Mr Sampson's part?'

'It is only, ma'am, ' Mr Sampson explained, in exceedingly low spirits, 'because, in a pecuniary sense, I am painfully conscious of myunworthiness. Lavinia is now highly connected. Can I hope that she willstill remain the same Lavinia as of old? And is it not pardonable ifI feel sensitive, when I see a disposition on her part to take me upshort?'

'If you are not satisfied with your position, sir, ' observed MissLavinia, with much politeness, 'we can set you down at any turning youmay please to indicate to my sister's coachman. '

'Dearest Lavinia, ' urged Mr Sampson, pathetically, 'I adore you. '

'Then if you can't do it in a more agreeable manner, ' returned the younglady, 'I wish you wouldn't. '

'I also, ' pursued Mr Sampson, 'respect you, ma'am, to an extent whichmust ever be below your merits, I am well aware, but still up to anuncommon mark. Bear with a wretch, Lavinia, bear with a wretch, ma'am, who feels the noble sacrifices you make for him, but is goaded almost tomadness, ' Mr Sampson slapped his forehead, 'when he thinks of competingwith the rich and influential. '

'When you have to compete with the rich and influential, it willprobably be mentioned to you, ' said Miss Lavvy, 'in good time. At least, it will if the case is MY case. '

Mr Sampson immediately expressed his fervent Opinion that this was 'morethan human', and was brought upon his knees at Miss Lavinia's feet. 

It was the crowning addition indispensable to the full enjoyment of bothmother and daughter, to bear Mr Sampson, a grateful captive, into theglittering halls he had mentioned, and to parade him through the same, at once a living witness of their glory, and a bright instance of theircondescension. Ascending the staircase, Miss Lavinia permitted him towalk at her side, with the air of saying: 'Notwithstanding all thesesurroundings, I am yours as yet, George. How long it may last is anotherquestion, but I am yours as yet. ' She also benignantly intimated to him, aloud, the nature of the objects upon which he looked, and to which hewas unaccustomed: as, 'Exotics, George, ' 'An aviary, George, ' 'Anormolu clock, George, ' and the like. While, through the whole of thedecorations, Mrs Wilfer led the way with the bearing of a Savage Chief, who would feel himself compromised by manifesting the slightest token ofsurprise or admiration. 

Indeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout the day, was apattern to all impressive women under similar circumstances. She renewedthe acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Boffin, as if Mr and Mrs Boffin had saidof her what she had said of them, and as if Time alone could quite wearher injury out. She regarded every servant who approached her, as hersworn enemy, expressly intending to offer her affronts with the dishes, and to pour forth outrages on her moral feelings from the decanters. She sat erect at table, on the right hand of her son-in-law, as halfsuspecting poison in the viands, and as bearing up with native force ofcharacter against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella wasas a carriage towards a young lady of good position, whom she had met insociety a few years ago. Even when, slightly thawing under the influenceof sparkling champagne, she related to her son-in-law some passages ofdomestic interest concerning her papa, she infused into the narrativesuch Arctic suggestions of her having been an unappreciated blessing tomankind, since her papa's days, and also of that gentleman's havingbeen a frosty impersonation of a frosty race, as struck cold to thevery soles of the feet of the hearers. The Inexhaustible being produced, staring, and evidently intending a weak and washy smile shortly, nosooner beheld her, than it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. Whenshe took her leave at last, it would have been hard to say whether itwas with the air of going to the scaffold herself, or of leaving theinmates of the house for immediate execution. Yet, John Harmon enjoyedit all merrily, and told his wife, when he and she were alone, that hernatural ways had never seemed so dearly natural as beside this foil, and that although he did not dispute her being her father's daughter, he should ever remain stedfast in the faith that she could not be hermother's. 

This visit was, as has been said, a grand event. Another event, notgrand but deemed in the house a special one, occurred at about the sameperiod; and this was, the first interview between Mr Sloppy and MissWren. 

The dolls' dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible upon afull-dressed doll some two sizes larger than that young person, MrSloppy undertook to call for it, and did so. 

'Come in, sir, ' said Miss Wren, who was working at her bench. 'And whomay you be?'

Mr Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons. 

'Oh indeed!' cried Jenny. 'Ah! I have been looking forward to knowingyou. I heard of your distinguishing yourself. '

'Did you, Miss?' grinned Sloppy. 'I am sure I am glad to hear it, but Idon't know how. '

'Pitching somebody into a mud-cart, ' said Miss Wren. 

'Oh! That way!' cried Sloppy. 'Yes, Miss. ' And threw back his head andlaughed. 

'Bless us!' exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. 'Don't open your mouthas wide as that, young man, or it'll catch so, and not shut again someday. '

Mr Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open until hislaugh was out. 

'Why, you're like the giant, ' said Miss Wren, 'when he came home in theland of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for supper. '

'Was he good-looking, Miss?' asked Sloppy. 

'No, ' said Miss Wren. 'Ugly. '

Her visitor glanced round the room--which had many comforts in it now, that had not been in it before--and said: 'This is a pretty place, Miss. '

'Glad you think so, sir, ' returned Miss Wren. 'And what do you think ofMe?'

The honesty of Mr Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, hetwisted a button, grinned, and faltered. 

'Out with it!' said Miss Wren, with an arch look. 'Don't you think mea queer little comicality?' In shaking her head at him after asking thequestion, she shook her hair down. 

'Oh!' cried Sloppy, in a burst of admiration. 'What a lot, and what acolour!'

Miss Wren, with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. But, left her hair as it was; not displeased by the effect it had made. 

'You don't live here alone; do you, Miss?' asked Sloppy. 

'No, ' said Miss Wren, with a chop. 'Live here with my fairy godmother. '

'With;' Mr Sloppy couldn't make it out; 'with who did you say, Miss?'

'Well!' replied Miss Wren, more seriously. 'With my second father. Orwith my first, for that matter. ' And she shook her head, and drew asigh. 'If you had known a poor child I used to have here, ' she added, 'you'd have understood me. But you didn't, and you can't. All thebetter!'

'You must have been taught a long time, ' said Sloppy, glancing at thearray of dolls in hand, 'before you came to work so neatly, Miss, andwith such a pretty taste. '

'Never was taught a stitch, young man!' returned the dress-maker, tossing her head. 'Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to doit. Badly enough at first, but better now. '

'And here have I, ' said Sloppy, in something of a self-reproachful tone, 'been a learning and a learning, and here has Mr Boffin been a payingand a paying, ever so long!'

'I have heard what your trade is, ' observed Miss Wren; 'it'scabinet-making. '

Mr Sloppy nodded. 'Now that the Mounds is done with, it is. I'll tellyou what, Miss. I should like to make you something. '

'Much obliged. But what?'

'I could make you, ' said Sloppy, surveying the room, 'I could make youa handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or I could make you a handylittle set of drawers, to keep your silks and threads and scraps in. OrI could turn you a rare handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs tohim you call your father. '

'It belongs to me, ' returned the little creature, with a quick flush ofher face and neck. 'I am lame. '

Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behindhis buttons, and his own hand had struck it. He said, perhaps, the bestthing in the way of amends that could be said. 'I am very glad it'syours, because I'd rather ornament it for you than for any one else. Please may I look at it?'

Miss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her bench, when shepaused. 'But you had better see me use it, ' she said, sharply. 'This isthe way. Hoppetty, Kicketty, Pep-peg-peg. Not pretty; is it?'

'It seems to me that you hardly want it at all, ' said Sloppy. 

The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying, with that better look upon her, and with a smile: 'Thank you!'

'And as concerning the nests and the drawers, ' said Sloppy, aftermeasuring the handle on his sleeve, and softly standing the stick asideagainst the wall, 'why, it would be a real pleasure to me. I've heerdtell that you can sing most beautiful; and I should be better paid witha song than with any money, for I always loved the likes of that, andoften giv' Mrs Higden and Johnny a comic song myself, with "Spoken" init. Though that's not your sort, I'll wager. '

'You are a very kind young man, ' returned the dressmaker; 'a really kindyoung man. I accept your offer. --I suppose He won't mind, ' she added asan afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; 'and if he does, he may!'

'Meaning him that you call your father, Miss, ' asked Sloppy. 

'No, no, ' replied Miss Wren. 'Him, Him, Him!'

'Him, him, him?' repeated Sloppy; staring about, as if for Him. 

'Him who is coming to court and marry me, ' returned Miss Wren. 'Dear me, how slow you are!'

'Oh! HIM!' said Sloppy. And seemed to turn thoughtful and a littletroubled. 'I never thought of him. When is he coming, Miss?'

'What a question!' cried Miss Wren. 'How should I know!'

'Where is he coming from, Miss?'

'Why, good gracious, how can I tell! He is coming from somewhere orother, I suppose, and he is coming some day or other, I suppose. I don'tknow any more about him, at present. '

This tickled Mr Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threwback his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. At the sight ofhim laughing in that absurd way, the dolls' dressmaker laughed veryheartily indeed. So they both laughed, till they were tired. 

'There, there, there!' said Miss Wren. 'For goodness' sake, stop, Giant, or I shall be swallowed up alive, before I know it. And to this minuteyou haven't said what you've come for. '

'I have come for little Miss Harmonses doll, ' said Sloppy. 

'I thought as much, ' remarked Miss Wren, 'and here is little MissHarmonses doll waiting for you. She's folded up in silver paper, yousee, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new Bank notes. Takecare of her, and there's my hand, and thank you again. '

'I'll take more care of her than if she was a gold image, ' said Sloppy, 'and there's both MY hands, Miss, and I'll soon come back again. '

But, the greatest event of all, in the new life of Mr and Mrs JohnHarmon, was a visit from Mr and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn. Sadly wan and wornwas the once gallant Eugene, and walked resting on his wife's arm, andleaning heavily upon a stick. But, he was daily growing stronger andbetter, and it was declared by the medical attendants that he might notbe much disfigured by-and-by. It was a grand event, indeed, when Mrand Mrs Eugene Wrayburn came to stay at Mr and Mrs John Harmon's house:where, by the way, Mr and Mrs Boffin (exquisitely happy, and dailycruising about, to look at shops, ) were likewise staying indefinitely. 

To Mr Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs John Harmon impart whatshe had known of the state of his wife's affections, in his recklesstime. And to Mrs John Harmon, in confidence, did Mr Eugene Wrayburnimpart that, please God, she should see how his wife had changed him!

'I make no protestations, ' said Eugene; '--who does, who means them!--Ihave made a resolution. '

'But would you believe, Bella, ' interposed his wife, coming to resumeher nurse's place at his side, for he never got on well without her:'that on our wedding day he told me he almost thought the best thing hecould do, was to die?'

'As I didn't do it, Lizzie, ' said Eugene, 'I'll do that better thing yousuggested--for your sake. '

That same afternoon, Eugene lying on his couch in his own room upstairs, Lightwood came to chat with him, while Bella took his wife out for aride. 'Nothing short of force will make her go, Eugene had said; so, Bella had playfully forced her. 

'Dear old fellow, ' Eugene began with Lightwood, reaching up his hand, 'you couldn't have come at a better time, for my mind is full, and Iwant to empty it. First, of my present, before I touch upon my future. M. R. F. , who is a much younger cavalier than I, and a professed admirerof beauty, was so affable as to remark the other day (he paid us a visitof two days up the river there, and much objected to the accommodationof the hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which, coming from M. R. F. , may be considered equivalent to a melodramaticblessing. '

'You are getting well, ' said Mortimer, with a smile. 

'Really, ' said Eugene, 'I mean it. When M. R. F. Said that, and followedit up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and I paid), in hismouth, and saying, "My dear son, why do you drink this trash?" it wastantamount in him--to a paternal benediction on our union, accompaniedwith a gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. Is not to be measured byordinary standards. '

'True enough, ' said Lightwood. 

'That's all, ' pursued Eugene, 'that I shall ever hear from M. R. F. Onthe subject, and he will continue to saunter through the world withhis hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly recognized at thefamily altar, I have no further trouble on that score. Next, you reallyhave done wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing my money-perplexities, andwith such a guardian and steward beside me, as the preserver of my life(I am hardly strong yet, you see, for I am not man enough to referto her without a trembling voice--she is so inexpressibly dear to me, Mortimer!), the little that I can call my own will be more than it everhas been. It need be more, for you know what it always has been in myhands. Nothing. '

'Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income (I devoutlywish that my grandfather had left it to the Ocean rather than to me!)has been an effective Something, in the way of preventing me fromturning to at Anything. And I think yours has been much the same. '

'There spake the voice of wisdom, ' said Eugene. 'We are shepherds both. In turning to at last, we turn to in earnest. Let us say no more ofthat, for a few years to come. Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, oftaking myself and my wife to one of the colonies, and working at myvocation there. '

'I should be lost without you, Eugene; but you may be right. '

'No, ' said Eugene, emphatically. 'Not right. Wrong!'

He said it with such a lively--almost angry--flash, that Mortimer showedhimself greatly surprised. 

'You think this thumped head of mine is excited?' Eugene went on, with ahigh look; 'not so, believe me. I can say to you of the healthful musicof my pulse what Hamlet said of his. My blood is up, but wholesomely up, when I think of it. Tell me! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and sneakaway with her, as if I were ashamed of her! Where would your friend'spart in this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and onimmeasurably better occasion?'

'Honourable and stanch, ' said Lightwood. 'And yet, Eugene--'

'And yet what, Mortimer?'

'And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I say forher sake) any slight coldness towards her on the part of--Society?'

'O! You and I may well stumble at the word, ' returned Eugene, laughing. 'Do we mean our Tippins?'

'Perhaps we do, ' said Mortimer, laughing also. 

'Faith, we DO!' returned Eugene, with great animation. 'We may hidebehind the bush and beat about it, but we DO! Now, my wife is somethingnearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and I owe her a littlemore than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I everwas of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, withher and for her, here, in the open field. When I hide her, or strikefor her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love nextbest upon earth, tell me what I shall most righteously deserve to betold:--that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot thatnight when I lay bleeding to death, and spat in my dastard face. '

The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradiated hisfeatures that he looked, for the time, as though he had never beenmutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond, and they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resumingher place at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, shesaid:

'Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed with you. You are more flushed than you have been for many days. What have youbeen doing?'

'Nothing, ' replied Eugene, 'but looking forward to your coming back. '

'And talking to Mr Lightwood, ' said Lizzie, turning to him with a smile. 'But it cannot have been Society that disturbed you. '

'Faith, my dear love!' retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, as helaughed and kissed her, 'I rather think it WAS Society though!'

The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood's thoughts as he went home tothe Temple that night, that he resolved to take a look at Society, whichhe had not seen for a considerable period. 

Chapter 17

THE VOICE OF SOCIETY

Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner card from Mrand Mrs Veneering requesting the honour, and to signify that Mr MortimerLightwood will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings havebeen, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, andwhoever desires to take a hand had best be quick about it, for it iswritten in the Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make aresounding smash next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that greatmystery how people can contrive to live beyond their means, and havingover-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by thepure electors of Pocket-Breaches, it shall come to pass next week thatVeneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the legal gentleman inBritannia's confidence will again accept the Pocket-Breaches Thousands, and that the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on MrsVeneering's diamonds (in which Mr Veneering, as a good husband, has fromtime to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to Neptune andothers, how that, before Veneering retired from Parliament, the Houseof Commons was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-sevendearest and oldest friends he had in the world. It shall likewise cometo pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society willdiscover that it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering, and that when it went to Veneering's to dinner it always hadmisgivings--though very secretly at the time, it would seem, and in aperfectly private and confidential manner. 

The next week's books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being not yetopened, there is the usual rush to the Veneerings, of the people who goto their house to dine with one another and not with them. There is LadyTippins. There are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs Podsnap. There is Twemlow. There are Buffer, Boots, and Brewer. There is the Contractor, whois Providence to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman, travelling three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant geniuswho turned the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundredand seventy five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence. 

To whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them with areassumption of his old languid air, founded on Eugene, and belonging tothe days when he told the story of the man from Somewhere. 

That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her falseswain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan; but the deserter, predetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. Podsnap alwaystalks Britain, and talks as if he were a sort of Private Watchmanemployed, in the British interests, against the rest of the world. 'Weknow what Russia means, sir, ' says Podsnap; 'we know what France wants;we see what America is up to; but we know what England is. That's enoughfor us. '

However, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops into his old placeover against Lady Tippins, she can be fended off no longer. 'Longbanished Robinson Crusoe, ' says the charmer, exchanging salutations, 'how did you leave the Island?'

'Thank you, ' says Lightwood. 'It made no complaint of being in painanywhere. '

'Say, how did you leave the savages?' asks Lady Tippins. 

'They were becoming civilized when I left Juan Fernandez, ' saysLightwood. 'At least they were eating one another, which looked likeit. '

'Tormentor!' returns the dear young creature. 'You know what I mean, andyou trifle with my impatience. Tell me something, immediately, about themarried pair. You were at the wedding. '

'Was I, by-the-by?' Mortimer pretends, at great leisure, to consider. 'So I was!'

'How was the bride dressed? In rowing costume?'

Mortimer looks gloomy, and declines to answer. 

'I hope she steered herself, skiffed herself, paddled herself, larboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the technical term maybe, to the ceremony?' proceeds the playful Tippins. 

'However she got to it, she graced it, ' says Mortimer. 

Lady Tippins with a skittish little scream, attracts the generalattention. 'Graced it! Take care of me if I faint, Veneering. He meansto tell us, that a horrid female waterman is graceful!'

'Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing, Lady Tippins, ' repliesLightwood. And keeps his word by eating his dinner with a show of theutmost indifference. 

'You shall not escape me in this way, you morose backwoodsman, ' retortsLady Tippins. 'You shall not evade the question, to screen your friendEugene, who has made this exhibition of himself. The knowledge shall bebrought home to you that such a ridiculous affair is condemned by thevoice of Society. My dear Mrs Veneering, do let us resolve ourselvesinto a Committee of the whole House on the subject. '

Mrs Veneering, always charmed by this rattling sylph, cries. 'Oh yes!Do let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the whole House!So delicious!' Veneering says, 'As many as are of that opinion, sayAye, --contrary, No--the Ayes have it. ' But nobody takes the slightestnotice of his joke. 

'Now, I am Chairwoman of Committees!' cries Lady Tippins. 

('What spirits she has!' exclaims Mrs Veneering; to whom likewise nobodyattends. )

'And this, ' pursues the sprightly one, 'is a Committee of the wholeHouse to what-you-may-call-it--elicit, I suppose--the voice of Society. The question before the Committee is, whether a young man of very fairfamily, good appearance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man ofhimself in marrying a female waterman, turned factory girl. '

'Hardly so, I think, ' the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. 'I take thequestion to be, whether such a man as you describe, Lady Tippins, doesright or wrong in marrying a brave woman (I say nothing of her beauty), who has saved his life, with a wonderful energy and address; whom heknows to be virtuous, and possessed of remarkable qualities; whom he haslong admired, and who is deeply attached to him. '

'But, excuse me, ' says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirt-collarabout equally rumpled; 'was this young woman ever a female waterman?'

'Never. But she sometimes rowed in a boat with her father, I believe. '

General sensation against the young woman. Brewer shakes his head. Bootsshakes his head. Buffer shakes his head. 

'And now, Mr Lightwood, was she ever, ' pursues Podsnap, with hisindignation rising high into those hair-brushes of his, 'a factorygirl?'

'Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I believe. '

General sensation repeated. Brewer says, 'Oh dear!' Boots says, 'Ohdear!' Buffer says, 'Oh dear!' All, in a rumbling tone of protest. 

'Then all I have to say is, ' returns Podsnap, putting the thing awaywith his right arm, 'that my gorge rises against such a marriage--thatit offends and disgusts me--that it makes me sick--and that I desire toknow no more about it. '

('Now I wonder, ' thinks Mortimer, amused, 'whether YOU are the Voice ofSociety!')

'Hear, hear, hear!' cries Lady Tippins. 'Your opinion of thisMESALLIANCE, honourable colleagues of the honourable member who has justsat down?'

Mrs Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters there should be anequality of station and fortune, and that a man accustomed to Societyshould look out for a woman accustomed to Society and capable of bearingher part in it with--an ease and elegance of carriage--that. ' MrsPodsnap stops there, delicately intimating that every such man shouldlook out for a fine woman as nearly resembling herself as he may hope todiscover. 

('Now I wonder, ' thinks Mortimer, 'whether you are the Voice!')

Lady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hundred thousandpower. It appears to this potentate, that what the man in questionshould have done, would have been, to buy the young woman a boat and asmall annuity, and set her up for herself. These things are a questionof beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young woman a boat. Very good. Youbuy her, at the same time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity inpounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks andso many pints of porter. On the one hand, the young woman has the boat. On the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beefsteaks and so manypints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that porter are the fuel to thatyoung woman's engine. She derives therefrom a certain amount of power torow the boat; that power will produce so much money; you add that to thesmall annuity; and thus you get at the young woman's income. That (itseems to the Contractor) is the way of looking at it. 

The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps during thelast exposition, nobody likes to wake her. Fortunately, she comesawake of herself, and puts the question to the Wandering Chairman. TheWanderer can only speak of the case as if it were his own. If such ayoung woman as the young woman described, had saved his own life, hewould have been very much obliged to her, wouldn't have married her, andwould have got her a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where youngwomen answer very well. 

What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy-five thousandpounds, no shillings, and nopence, think? He can't say what he thinks, without asking: Had the young woman any money?

'No, ' says Lightwood, in an uncompromising voice; 'no money. '

'Madness and moonshine, ' is then the compressed verdict of the Genius. 'A man may do anything lawful, for money. But for no money!--Bosh!'

What does Boots say?

Boots says he wouldn't have done it under twenty thousand pound. 

What does Brewer say?

Brewer says what Boots says. 

What does Buffer say?

Buffer says he knows a man who married a bathing-woman, and bolted. 

Lady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the wholeCommittee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings for their opinion), when, looking round the table through her eyeglass, she perceives MrTwemlow with his hand to his forehead. 

Good gracious! My Twemlow forgotten! My dearest! My own! What is hisvote?

Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand from hisforehead and replies. 

'I am disposed to think, ' says he, 'that this is a question of thefeelings of a gentleman. '

'A gentleman can have no feelings who contracts such a marriage, 'flushes Podsnap. 

'Pardon me, sir, ' says Twemlow, rather less mildly than usual, 'I don'tagree with you. If this gentleman's feelings of gratitude, of respect, of admiration, and affection, induced him (as I presume they did) tomarry this lady--'

'This lady!' echoes Podsnap. 

'Sir, ' returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a little, 'YOUrepeat the word; I repeat the word. This lady. What else would you callher, if the gentleman were present?'

This being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, he merelywaves it away with a speechless wave. 

'I say, ' resumes Twemlow, 'if such feelings on the part of thisgentleman, induced this gentleman to marry this lady, I think he is thegreater gentleman for the action, and makes her the greater lady. I begto say, that when I use the word, gentleman, I use it in the sense inwhich the degree may be attained by any man. The feelings of a gentlemanI hold sacred, and I confess I am not comfortable when they are made thesubject of sport or general discussion. '

'I should like to know, ' sneers Podsnap, 'whether your noble relationwould be of your opinion. '

'Mr Podsnap, ' retorts Twemlow, 'permit me. He might be, or he might notbe. I cannot say. But, I could not allow even him to dictate to me on apoint of great delicacy, on which I feel very strongly. '

Somehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon the company, andLady Tippins was never known to turn so very greedy or so very cross. Mortimer Lightwood alone brightens. He has been asking himself, as toevery other member of the Committee in turn, 'I wonder whether you arethe Voice!' But he does not ask himself the question after Twemlow hasspoken, and he glances in Twemlow's direction as if he were grateful. When the company disperse--by which time Mr and Mrs Veneering have hadquite as much as they want of the honour, and the guests have had quiteas much as THEY want of the other honour--Mortimer sees Twemlow home, shakes hands with him cordially at parting, and fares to the Temple, gaily. 

POSTSCRIPT

IN LIEU OF PREFACE

When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class ofreaders and commentators would suppose that I was at great pains toconceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: namely, that MrJohn Harmon was not slain, and that Mr John Rokesmith was he. Pleasingmyself with the idea that the supposition might in part arise outof some ingenuity in the story, and thinking it worth while, in theinterests of art, to hint to an audience that an artist (of whateverdenomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he is about in hisvocation, if they will concede him a little patience, I was not alarmedby the anticipation. 

To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself out, another purpose originating in that leading incident, and turning it toa pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the most interestingand the most difficult part of my design. Its difficulty was muchenhanced by the mode of publication; for, it would be very unreasonableto expect that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from monthto month through nineteen months, will, until they have it before themcomplete, perceive the relations of its finer threads to the wholepattern which is always before the eyes of the story-weaver at his loom. Yet, that I hold the advantages of the mode of publication to outweighits disadvantages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in thePickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since. 

There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute asimprobable in fiction, what are the commonest experiences in fact. Therefore, I note here, though it may not be at all necessary, thatthere are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), far moreremarkable than that fancied in this book; and that the stores of thePrerogative Office teem with instances of testators who have made, changed, contradicted, hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, and leftuncancelled, each many more wills than were ever made by the elder MrHarmon of Harmony Jail. 

In my social experiences since Mrs Betty Higden came upon the scene andleft it, I have found Circumlocutional champions disposed to bewarm with me on the subject of my view of the Poor Law. Mr friend MrBounderby could never see any difference between leaving the Coketown'hands' exactly as they were, and requiring them to be fed with turtlesoup and venison out of gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a parallelnature have been freely offered for my acceptance, and I have beencalled upon to admit that I would give Poor Law relief to anybody, anywhere, anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed asuspicious tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; theone, contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer death byslow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies of some RelievingOfficers and some Union Houses; the other, admitting that there are suchPoor, but denying that they have any cause or reason for what they do. The records in our newspapers, the late exposure by THE LANCET, and thecommon sense and senses of common people, furnish too abundant evidenceagainst both defences. But, that my view of the Poor Law may not bemistaken or misrepresented, I will state it. I believe there has beenin England, since the days of the STUARTS, no law so often infamouslyadministered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually soill-supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease anddeath from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the country, the illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity--and known languagecould say no more of their lawlessness. 

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (intheir manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast)were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructiveaccident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed backinto my carriage--nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant uponthe turn--to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, butotherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer onher wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone's redneckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that Ican never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, thanI was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two wordswith which I have this day closed this book:--THE END. 

September 2nd, 1865.