‘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 the

circumstance.

‘Harkee to me, deary,’ pursued Mrs Boffin, taking Bella’s hands between

her own, and gently beating on them from time to time. ‘It was after a

particular night when John had been disappointed—as he thought—in

his affections. It was after a night when John had made an offer to a

certain young lady, and the certain young lady had refused it. It was

after a particular night, when he felt himself cast-away-like, and had

made up his mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. My

Noddy 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 his

fire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with a pleased kind of

smile in my company when he saw me, and then in a single moment every

grain of the gunpowder that had been lying sprinkled thick about him

ever 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 of

being brightened up with a comforting word! Too many and too many a time

to be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No, no! I just

makes out to cry, “I know you now! You’re John!” And he catches me as

I drops.—So what,’ says Mrs Boffin, breaking off in the rush of her

speech to smile most radiantly, ‘might you think by this time that your

husband’s name was, dear?’

‘Not,’ returned Bella, with quivering lips; ‘not Harmon? That’s not

possible?’

‘Don’t tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things are

possible?’ demanded Mrs Boffin, in a soothing tone.

‘He was killed,’ gasped Bella.

‘Thought to be,’ said Mrs Boffin. ‘But if ever John Harmon drew the

breath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon’s arm round your

waist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wife

is 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 here

appeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. Mrs

Boffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella’s lap, where both Mrs and Mr

Boffin (as the saying is) ‘took it out of’ the Inexhaustible in a shower

of caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from

swooning. This, and her husband’s earnestness in explaining further to

her how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and

had even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a pious

fraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its

disclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance for

the object with which it had originated, and in which it had fully

developed.

‘But bless ye, my beauty!’ cried Mrs Boffin, taking him up short at this

point, with another hearty clap of her hands. ‘It wasn’t John only that

was in it. We was all of us in it.’

‘I don’t,’ said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, ‘yet

understand—’

‘Of course you don’t, my deary,’ exclaimed Mrs Boffin. ‘How can you till

you’re told! So now I am a going to tell you. So you put your two hands

between my two hands again,’ cried the comfortable creature, embracing

her, ‘with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shall

be 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 that

night, “I know you now, you’re John!”—which was my exact words; wasn’t

they, 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 top

of 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 to

the heap.

‘That’s capital!’ said Mrs Boffin, giving it a kiss. ‘Seems quite a

family building; don’t it? But the horses is off. Well! When I cries

out that night, “I know you now! you’re John!” John catches of me, it

is true; but I ain’t a light weight, bless ye, and he’s forced to let me

down. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon as I anyways

comes 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!” On

which he gives a heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head under

the writing-table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings him

round comfortable, and then John and him and me we all fall a crying for

joy.’

‘Yes! They cry for joy, my darling,’ her husband struck in. ‘You

understand? 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 radiant

face.

‘That’s right, my dear, don’t you mind him,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘stick

to me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, and holds a

confabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind on

accounts of a certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn’t found him

out, he was going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fully

meant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongful

inheritance for ever and a day. At which you never see a man so

frightened as my Noddy was. For to think that he should have come into

the property wrongful, however innocent, and—more than that—might have

gone 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; ‘stick

to me. This brings up a confabulation regarding the certain fair young

person; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a deary

creetur. “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,” he

says, “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 we

both 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, and

either didn’t see it, or would take no notice of it.

‘“Prove it, John!” we says,’ repeated Mrs Boffin. ‘“Prove it and

overcome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the first time in

your 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 up

for you when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generous

mind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you was

poorest 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, it

being my firm belief that up you go!”’

Bella caught Mr Boffin’s twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got

it away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand.

‘From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy’s,’ said

Mrs Boffin, shaking her head. ‘O you were! And if I had been inclined

to be jealous, I don’t know what I mightn’t have done to you. But as I

wasn’t—why, my beauty,’ with a hearty laugh and an embrace, ‘I made you

a special favourite of my own too. But the horses is coming round the

corner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to

make ’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 present

time to be such to you.” And then he began!’ cried Mrs Boffin, in an

ecstacy of admiration. ‘Lord bless you, then he began! And how he DID

begin; didn’t he!’

Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed.

‘But, bless you,’ pursued Mrs Boffin, ‘if you could have seen him of a

night, 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 take

himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had

pretended. 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, till

John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his

windpipes 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 vastly

enjoying himself.

‘And so, my good and pretty,’ pursued Mrs Boffin, ‘you was married, and

there was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; for

he 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. I

must wait a little longer.” Then, when baby was expected, he says, “She

is such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can’t afford to be rich

yet. 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 rich

yet. I must wait a little longer.” And so he goes on and on, till I says

outright, “Now, John, if you don’t fix a time for setting her up in her

own 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 thought

possible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; and

he 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 and

me agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is

in, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless us

all!’

The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs Boffin took a good long

hug 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 of

it?’

‘What more of it should there be, deary?’ returned Mrs Boffin, full of

glee.

‘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 hold

baby?’ Having deposited the Inexhaustible in his arms with those words,

Bella looked hard at Mr Boffin, who had moved to a table where he was

leaning his head upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietly

settling herself on her knees at his side, and drawing one arm over his

shoulder, said: ‘Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake of

a word when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (not

worse) than Hopkins, better (not worse) than Dancer, better (not worse)

than Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Please

something more!’ cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as she

struggled with him and forced him to turn his delighted face to hers.

‘Please I have found out something not yet mentioned. Please I don’t

believe you are a hard-hearted miser at all, and please I don’t believe

you ever for one single minute were!’

At this, Mrs Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating her

feet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself backwards

and forwards, like a demented member of some Mandarin’s family.

‘O, I understand you now, sir!’ cried Bella. ‘I want neither you nor any

one else to tell me the rest of the story. I can tell it to YOU, now, if

you 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, you

determined to show her how much misused and misprized riches could

do, and often had done, to spoil people; did you? Not caring what she

thought of you (and Goodness knows THAT was of no consequence!) you

showed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of wealth, saying in

your own mind, “This shallow creature would never work the truth out of

her own weak soul, if she had a hundred years to do it in; but a glaring

instance 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 of

the highest enjoyment.

‘Then you ought to have said it, sir,’ returned Bella, giving him two

pulls and one kiss, ‘for you must have thought and meant it. You saw

that good fortune was turning my stupid head and hardening my silly

heart—was making me grasping, calculating, insolent, insufferable—and

you took the pains to be the dearest and kindest fingerpost that ever

was set up anywhere, pointing out the road that I was taking and the end

it 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 speak

for yourself. Confess instantly!’

‘Well, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘the truth is, that when we did go in

for the little scheme that my old lady has pinted out, I did put it to

John, what did he think of going in for some such general scheme as YOU

have pinted out? But I didn’t in any way so word it, because I didn’t in

any 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 a

reg’lar brown bear all round?’

‘Confess this minute, sir,’ said Bella, ‘that you did it to correct and

amend 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 out

John, than John made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon a

thankless person by the name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the punishment of

which Wegg, by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhanded

game that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so many

of together (and, by-the-by, my dear, he wasn’t Blackberry Jones, but

Blewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name of Silas Wegg

aforesaid.’

Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr Boffin’s feet, gradually sank

down into a sitting posture on the ground, as she meditated more and

more thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face.

‘Still,’ said Bella, after this meditative pause, ‘there remain two

things that I cannot understand. Mrs Boffin never supposed any part of

the 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 its

making you very uneasy, indeed.’

‘Ecod, you see Mrs John has a sharp eye, John!’ cried Mr Boffin, shaking

his head with an admiring air. ‘You’re right, my dear. The old lady

nearly 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, to

tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I’m rather proud of

it. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me that she couldn’t abear

to see and hear me coming out as a reg’lar brown one. Couldn’t abear

to make-believe as I meant it! In consequence of which, we was

everlastingly in danger with her.’

Mrs Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain glistening in her

honest eyes revealed that she was by no means cured of that dangerous

propensity.

‘I assure you, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘that on the celebrated

day when I made what has since been agreed upon to be my grandest

demonstration—I allude to Mew says the cat, Quack quack says the

duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog—I assure you, my dear, that on that

celebrated day, them flinty and unbelieving words hit my old lady so hard

on my account, that I had to hold her, to prevent her running out after

you, and defending me by saying I was playing a part.’

Mrs Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened again, and

it then appeared, not only that in that burst of sarcastic eloquence

Mr Boffin was considered by his two fellow-conspirators to have outdone

himself, 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 and

possess 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 quack

says the duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog.” I couldn’t tell you how

it come into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of a

rasper that I own to you it astonished myself. I was awful nigh bursting

out a laughing though, when it made John stare!’

‘You said, my pretty,’ Mrs Boffin reminded Bella, ‘that there was one

other thing you couldn’t understand.’

‘O yes!’ cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; ‘but that I

never shall be able to understand as long as I live. It is, how John

could love me so when I so little deserved it, and how you, Mr and Mrs

Boffin, could be so forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains and

trouble, to make me a little better, and after all to help him to so

unworthy a wife. But I am very very grateful.’

It was John Harmon’s turn then—John Harmon now for good, and John

Rokesmith for nevermore—to plead with her (quite unnecessarily) in

behalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and over again, that it

had been prolonged by her own winning graces in her supposed station of

life. This led on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoyment

on all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed

staring, in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin’s breast, was

pronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the whole transaction,

and was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of

the speckled fist (with difficulty detached from an exceedingly short

waist), ‘I have already informed my venerable Ma that I know all about

it!’

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 went

through it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin’s bosom (still

staring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the

rear. And on Bella’s exquisite toilette table was an ivory casket, and

in 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 so

short a time.’

The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who was

shortly afterwards heard screaming among the rainbows; whereupon Bella

withdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of gemplemorums, and

the screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associated herself with that

young 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 in

with immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to see but Bella

in a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon the

hearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes

shading 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 in

the 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 Boffin

quenched that observation in this—delivered in the grisliest growling

of the regular brown bear. ‘A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew,

Quack quack, Bow-wow!’ And then trotted silently downstairs, with his

shoulders 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 their

rightful name and their London house, that the event befell on the

very day when the last waggon-load of the last Mound was driven out

at the gates of Boffin’s Bower. As it jolted away, Mr Wegg felt that

the last load was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed

the auspicious season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closely

sheared.

Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had kept

watch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had watched the

growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust

of which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there

be any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every

waif and stray into money, long before?

Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensibly

relieved by the close of the labour, to grumble to any great extent.

A foreman-representative of the dust contractors, purchasers of the

Mounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the

proceedings, asserting his employers’ rights to cart off by daylight,

nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of

Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep

himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat

and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and

untimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day’s work

in fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing,

when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an

approaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall to

work again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out of his soundest

sleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his post

eight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him not

to trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg

that indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and

that attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was

his rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered

to keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked

piteously 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 showed

disproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrast

with the rest of his plagued body, which might almost have been termed

chubby.

However, Wegg’s comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over,

and that he was immediately coming into his property. Of late, the

grindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own nose

rather 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 been

baulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by the

machinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to depute

Mr Venus to keep their dusty friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he

himself turned lank and lean at the Bower.

To Mr Venus’s museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Mounds

were down and gone. It being evening, he found that gentleman, as he

expected, 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 it

ill, 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, sniffing

again.

‘No, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus. ‘When I use it at all, I mostly use it in

cobblers’ punch.’

‘What do you call cobblers’ punch?’ demanded Wegg, in a worse humour

than 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 a

feeling 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 by

an everlasting dustman with his head tied up! WILL he, too! As if he

wouldn’t!’

‘Don’t let it put you out, Mr Wegg. You don’t seem in your usual

spirits.’

‘If you come to that, you don’t seem in your usual spirits,’ growled

Wegg. ‘You seem to be setting up for lively.’

This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give Mr Wegg

uncommon offence.

‘And you’ve been having your hair cut!’ said Wegg, missing the usual

dusty 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 culminating

discontent. ‘What are you going to do next?’

‘Well, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, ‘I suspect

you 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, that

it’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, when

mine 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, I

thank you.’

‘Ah!’ grumbled Wegg, ‘you should have been me. If you had been me, and

had been fretted out of your bed, and your sleep, and your meals, and

your mind, for a stretch of months together, you’d have been out of

condition and out of sorts.’

‘Certainly, it has trained you down, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, contemplating

his figure with an artist’s eye. ‘Trained you down very low, it has! So

weazen and yellow is the kivering upon your bones, that one might almost

fancy you had come to give a look-in upon the French gentleman in the

corner, instead of me.’

Mr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman’s

corner, seemed to notice something new there, which induced him to

glance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stare

at 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 intensely

disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to bear

a magnified view of him and made the inquiry:

‘To the old party?’

‘Mr Wegg!’ said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. ‘The lady in

question 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 trouble

you to say what you mean. There are strings that must not be played

upon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tuneful

manner. 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 is

the lady as formerly objected.’

‘When is it to come off?’ asked Silas.

‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, with another flush. ‘I cannot permit it to be

put 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 ill

temper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, ‘a

going to give her ’and where she has already given her ’art?’

‘Sir,’ returned Venus, ‘I again accept the altered phrase, and with

pleasure. The lady is a going to give her ’and where she has already

given 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 former

occasion, if not on former occasions—’

‘On former occasions,’ interrupted Wegg.

‘—What,’ pursued Venus, ‘what the nature of the lady’s objection was, I

may impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprung

up between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind

interference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted

with the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two

friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to

try if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear—the

pint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage,

I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower

animals, it might not relieve the lady’s mind of her feeling respecting

being 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 placid

mystery. ‘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 in

another. 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 me

round after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with his

head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended and

the Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten

to-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin’s nose

to the grindstone?’

Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr Venus for that excellent

purpose.

‘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 orders

from me—I say from me, because he knows I won’t be played with—to be

ready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in the

morning?’ said Wegg. ‘And as a matter of form, which will be agreeable

to your own feelings, before we go out (for I’ll walk with you part of

the way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let’s have a look

at the stock in trade.’

Mr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertook

to produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg on

Boffin’s doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of the

road between Clerkenwell and Boffin’s house (Mr Wegg expressly insisted

that there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman’s name) the

partners separated for the night.

It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning. The

streets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable, in the morning,

that Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, as

it were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well

afford that trifling expense.

Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conduct

the 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. This

won’t do for me. I don’t want menials. I want Boffin.’

They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful Wegg wore

his hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up a clock that

stood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike. In a few minutes

they 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 one

of a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here, Boffin was seated at a

library-table, and here Mr Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servant

to withdraw, drew up a chair and seated himself, in his hat, close

beside him. Here, also, Mr Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable

experience of having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of a

window, which was opened and shut for the purpose.

‘Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman’s

presence,’ said the owner of the hand which had done this, ‘or I will

throw you after it.’

Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the

Secretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, and

who 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’t

gone, 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 his

head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred

with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his

tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was

Sloppy’s.

‘Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!’ roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with

immeasureable relish. ‘He never thought as I could sleep standing, and

often done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used

to give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead

him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID!’

Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and

throwing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons.

‘Oh!’ said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: ‘one and one

is two not dismissed, is it? Bof—fin! Just let me ask a question. Who

set this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed

this fellow?’

‘I say!’ remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. ‘No fellows, or

I’ll throw you out of winder!’

Mr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: ‘I employed

him, 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 the

room cleared of these two scum.’

‘That’s not going to be done, Wegg,’ replied Mr Boffin, sitting

composedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat

composedly 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 my

peril, and not on any other terms.’

Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: ‘Mr Venus, will you be so good

as 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 small

observation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expresses

any 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 beating

time with the paper to the other’s politeness until this unexpected

conclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly.

‘Silas Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘know that I took the liberty of taking Mr

Boffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very early period of

our firm’s existence.’

‘Quite true,’ added Mr Boffin; ‘and I tested Venus by making him a

pretended proposal or two; and I found him on the whole a very honest

man, 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 few

hours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and full

amends.’

‘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, for

your way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself in

communication with you, and for the influence since so kindly brought

to bear upon a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr John Harmon.’ To

whom, 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 explains

itself, and you can now make out, sir, without further words from me.

But totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise on

what I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the close

of our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon to

repeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringing

under your notice. You are a precious old rascal!’

‘You are a fool,’ said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, ‘and I’d have

got rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any way of doing

it. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. You

leave the more for me. Because, you know,’ said Wegg, dividing his next

observation between Mr Boffin and Mr Harmon, ‘I am worth my price, and

I mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and it

tells 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 have

named my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me.’

‘I’ll leave you, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, laughing, ‘as far as I am

concerned.’

‘Bof—fin!’ replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, ‘I

understand YOUR new-born boldness. I see the brass underneath YOUR

silver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you’ve

nothing 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 Harmon

is in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair

of shoes. Now, I’ve heerd something lately about this being Mr

Harmon—I make out now, some hints that I’ve met on that subject in

the newspaper—and I drop you, Bof—fin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr

Harmon 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 will

proved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed him

already, and I’ll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property

to the Crown,’ said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was

compatible with extreme sternness.

‘Right you are!’ cried Wegg. ‘Then,’ screwing the weight of his body

upon 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 this

paper worth?’

‘Nothing,’ said John Harmon.

Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some

sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himself

gripped 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 of

a 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’d

give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you

scoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle.’

Sloppy held it up, for his edification.

‘That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the many

wills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. That will gives

everything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin,

excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a broken

heart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and

yours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottle

distressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were

both no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had

done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle,

therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay

while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking—often very

near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the

light; 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. After

the discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on the

subject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for such a hound as

you to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him the

necessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced and

established. The first thing you saw him do, and the second thing has

been done without your knowledge. Consequently, the paper now rattling

in your hand as I shake you—and I should like to shake the life out

of you—is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do you

understand?’

Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head wagged

backwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable manner, he did

understand.

‘Now, scoundrel,’ said John Harmon, taking another sailor-like turn on

his cravat and holding him in his corner at arms’ length, ‘I shall make

two more short speeches to you, because I hope they will torment you.

Your discovery was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody had

thought 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 observation

from my first appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made it

the chief occupation and delight of his life, to attend you like your

shadow. I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you to

persuade Mr Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded, to the last possible

moment, in order that your disappointment might be the heaviest possible

disappointment. 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 me

just now, to be the possessor of my father’s property.—So I am. But

through any act of my father’s, or by any right I have? No. Through the

munificence of Mr Boffin. The conditions that he made with me, before

parting with the secret of the Dutch bottle, were, that I should take

the fortune, and that he should take his Mound and no more. I owe

everything I possess, solely to the disinterestedness, uprightness,

tenderness, goodness (there are no words to satisfy me) of Mr and Mrs

Boffin. And when, knowing what I knew, I saw such a mud-worm as you

presume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder is,’

added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a very ugly turn

indeed 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 you

understand?’

Silas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and looked as

if he had a rather large fishbone in that region. Simultaneously with

this action on his part in his corner, a singular, and on the surface

an incomprehensible, movement was made by Mr Sloppy: who began backing

towards Mr Wegg along the wall, in the manner of a porter or heaver who

is about to lift a sack of flour or coals.

‘I am sorry, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, in his clemency, ‘that my old lady

and I can’t have a better opinion of you than the bad one we are forced

to entertain. But I shouldn’t like to leave you, after all said and

done, 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 outside

these windows.’

‘Mr Boffin,’ returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation: ‘when I first had

the honour of making your acquaintance, I had got together a collection

of ballads which was, I may say, above price.’

‘Then they can’t be paid for,’ said John Harmon, ‘and you had better not

try, my dear sir.’

‘Pardon me, Mr Boffin,’ resumed Wegg, with a malignant glance in the

last speaker’s direction, ‘I was putting the case to you, who, if my

senses did not deceive me, put the case to me. I had a very choice

collection of ballads, and there was a new stock of gingerbread in the

tin 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, with

his 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 errand

connection, in which I was much respected. But I would not wish to be

deemed 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 Dustman

muttered.

‘There was likewise,’ resumed Wegg, ‘a pair of trestles, for which alone

a Irish person, who was deemed a judge of trestles, offered five and

six—a sum I would not hear of, for I should have lost by it—and there

was a stool, a umbrella, a clothes-horse, and a tray. But I leave it to

you, 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 Uncle

Parker. 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 hard

indeed, without going high, to work it into money. But I leave it wholly

to you, sir.’

Mr Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface his

incomprehensible, movement.

‘Leading on has been mentioned,’ said Wegg with a melancholy air, ‘and

it’s not easy to say how far the tone of my mind may have been lowered

by unwholesome reading on the subject of Misers, when you was leading me

and others on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, that

I felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time. And how can a man put a

price upon his mind! There was likewise a hat just now. But I leave the

ole 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 him

up like the sack of flour or coals before mentioned. A countenance of

special discontent and amazement Mr Wegg exhibited in this position,

with his buttons almost as prominently on view as Sloppy’s own, and

with his wooden leg in a highly unaccommodating state. But, not for many

seconds was his countenance visible in the room; for, Sloppy lightly

trotted out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr Venus attending

to open the street door. Mr Sloppy’s instructions had been to deposit

his burden in the road; but, a scavenger’s cart happening to stand

unattended at the corner, with its little ladder planted against the

wheel, Mr S. found it impossible to resist the temptation of shooting Mr

Silas Wegg into the cart’s contents. A somewhat difficult feat, achieved

with 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 the

quiet evening when by the river-side he had risen, as it were, out of

the ashes of the Bargeman, none but he could have told. Not even he

could have told, for such misery can only be felt.

First, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge of what he

had done, of that haunting reproach that he might have done it so much

better, and of the dread of discovery. This was load enough to crush

him, and he laboured under it day and night. It was as heavy on him in

his scanty sleep, as in his red-eyed waking hours. It bore him down with

a dread unchanging monotony, in which there was not a moment’s variety.

The overweighted beast of burden, or the overweighted slave, can for

certain instants shift the physical load, and find some slight respite

even in enforcing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or such

a limb. Not even that poor mockery of relief could the wretched man

obtain, under the steady pressure of the infernal atmosphere into which

he had entered.

Time went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him; time went by, and

in 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 evidently

slackening in his zeal. By degrees, a glimmering of the cause of this

began to break on Bradley’s sight. Then came the chance meeting with Mr

Milvey at the railway station (where he often lingered in his leisure

hours, 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 the

light what he had brought about.

For, then he saw that through his desperate attempt to separate those

two for ever, he had been made the means of uniting them. That he had

dipped 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 to

crawl along his blasted course. He thought of Fate, or Providence, or

be the directing Power what it might, as having put a fraud upon

him—overreached him—and in his impotent mad rage bit, and tore, and

had 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 a

shade better. Bradley would far rather have been seized for his murder,

than he would have read that passage, knowing himself spared, and

knowing why.

But, not to be still further defrauded and overreached—which he would

be, if implicated by Riderhood, and punished by the law for his abject

failure, as though it had been a success—he kept close in his school

during the day, ventured out warily at night, and went no more to the

railway station. He examined the advertisements in the newspapers for

any sign that Riderhood acted on his hinted threat of so summoning him

to renew their acquaintance, but found none. Having paid him handsomely

for the support and accommodation he had had at the Lock House, and

knowing him to be a very ignorant man who could not write, he began to

doubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether they need ever meet

again.

All this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his raging sense of

having been made to fling himself across the chasm which divided those

two, and bridge it over for their coming together, never cooled down.

This horrible condition brought on other fits. He could not have said

how many, or when; but he saw in the faces of his pupils that they had

seen him in that state, and that they were possessed by a dread of his

relapsing.

One winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering the sills and

frames of the schoolroom windows, he stood at his black board, crayon in

hand, about to commence with a class; when, reading in the countenances

of those boys that there was something wrong, and that they seemed in

alarm for him, he turned his eyes to the door towards which they faced.

He then saw a slouching man of forbidding appearance standing in the

midst of the school, with a bundle under his arm; and saw that it was

Riderhood.

He sat down on a stool which one of his boys put for him, and he had a

passing knowledge that he was in danger of falling, and that his face

was becoming distorted. But, the fit went off for that time, and he

wiped his mouth, and stood up again.

‘Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave!’ said Riderhood, knuckling

his 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 young

folks wot’s right, and fur to know wot THEY know wot you do it. Beg your

pardon, learned governor! By your leave!—That there black board; wot’s

it for?’

‘It is for drawing on, or writing on.’

‘Is it though!’ said Riderhood. ‘Who’d have thought it, from the

looks on it! WOULD you be so kind as write your name upon it, learned

governor?’ (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 the

class, ‘but I do admire learning in others. I should dearly like to hear

these 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 shrill

chorus arose: ‘Bradley Headstone!’

‘No?’ cried Riderhood. ‘You don’t mean it? Headstone! Why, that’s in a

churchyard. 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, and

internally repeating: ‘Bradley. I see. Chris’en name, Bradley sim’lar to

Roger which is my own. Eh? Fam’ly name, Headstone, sim’lar to Riderhood

which is my own. Eh?’

Shrill chorus. ‘Yes!’

‘Might you be acquainted, learned governor,’ said Riderhood, ‘with a

person of about your own heighth and breadth, and wot ’ud pull down in

a scale about your own weight, answering to a name sounding summat like

Totherest?’

With a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, though his jaw

was heavily squared; with his eyes upon Riderhood; and with traces of

quickened breathing in his nostrils; the schoolmaster replied, in a

suppressed 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,’ said

Riderhood, with a laugh, ‘how could I suppose he’s here, when there’s

nobody here but you, and me, and these young lambs wot you’re a learning

on? But he is most excellent company, that man, and I want him to come

and 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 he

don’t come precious soon, I’ll look him up.’

‘He shall know it.’

‘Thankee. As I says a while ago,’ pursued Riderhood, changing his hoarse

tone and leering round upon the class again, ‘though not a learned

character my own self, I do admire learning in others, to be sure! Being

here and having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore I

go, ask a question of these here young lambs of yourn?’

‘If it is in the way of school,’ said Bradley, always sustaining his

dark 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, my

lambs? 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 the

lot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn’t have left out lakes, never having

clapped 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 they

sometimes ketches in rivers?’

Chorus at a loss. One shrill voice: ‘Weed!’

‘Good agin!’ cried Riderhood. ‘But it ain’t weed neither. You’ll never

guess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish, as they sometimes ketches in

rivers? Well! I’ll tell you. It’s suits o’ clothes.’

Bradley’s face changed.

‘Leastways, lambs,’ said Riderhood, observing him out of the corners

of his eyes, ‘that’s wot I my own self sometimes ketches in rivers. For

strike me blind, my lambs, if I didn’t ketch in a river the wery bundle

under my arm!’

The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregular

entrapment of this mode of examination. The master looked at the

examiner, as if he would have torn him to pieces.

‘I ask your pardon, learned governor,’ said Riderhood, smearing his

sleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a relish, ‘tain’t fair to the

lambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawed

this here bundle out of a river! It’s a Bargeman’s suit of clothes. You

see, 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, turned

his face to the black board and slowly wiped his name out.

‘A heap of thanks, Master,’ said Riderhood, ‘for bestowing so much of

your time, and of the lambses’ time, upon a man as hasn’t got no other

recommendation to you than being a honest man. Wishing to see at my Lock

up 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 master

to get through his weary work as he might, and leaving the whispering

pupils to observe the master’s face until he fell into the fit which had

been 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 that

it was not yet light when he began his journey. Before extinguishing the

candle by which he had dressed himself, he made a little parcel of his

decent silver watch and its decent guard, and wrote inside the paper:

‘Kindly take care of these for me.’ He then addressed the parcel to Miss

Peecher, and left it on the most protected corner of the little seat in

her little porch.

It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gate

and turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered his schoolroom

windows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was falling

white, while the wind blew black. The tardy day did not appear until he

had been on foot two hours, and had traversed a greater part of London

from east to west. Such breakfast as he had, he took at the comfortless

public-house where he had parted from Riderhood on the occasion of

their night-walk. He took it, standing at the littered bar, and looked

loweringly at a man who stood where Riderhood had stood that early

morning.

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 miles

short of the Lock, he slackened his pace then, but went steadily on. The

ground was now covered with snow, though thinly, and there were floating

lumps of ice in the more exposed parts of the river, and broken sheets

of ice under the shelter of the banks. He took heed of nothing but the

ice, the snow, and the distance, until he saw a light ahead, which he

knew gleamed from the Lock House window. It arrested his steps, and he

looked all around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, had

absolute possession of the dreary scene. In the distance before him, lay

the place where he had struck the worse than useless blows that mocked

him with Lizzie’s presence there as Eugene’s wife. In the distance

behind him, lay the place where the children with pointing arms had

seemed 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 him

up to ruin. To these limits had his world shrunk.

He mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with a strange

intensity, as if he were taking aim at it. When he approached it so

nearly as that it parted into rays, they seemed to fasten themselves

to him and draw him on. When he struck the door with his hand, his foot

followed so quickly on his hand, that he was in the room before he was

bidden 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 visitor

looked down with a surly nod. His outer clothing removed, the visitor

then took a seat on the opposite side of the fire.

‘Not a smoker, I think?’ said Riderhood, pushing a bottle to him across

the 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 is

to 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 the

hob, and put it by.

‘I’ll begin,’ he then repeated, ‘Bradley Headstone, Master, if you wish

it.’

‘Wish it? I wish to know what you want with me.’

‘And so you shall.’ Riderhood had looked hard at his hands and his

pockets, apparently as a precautionary measure lest he should have any

weapon about him. But, he now leaned forward, turning the collar of

his waistcoat with an inquisitive finger, and asked, ‘Why, where’s your

watch?’

‘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 have

it.’

‘That is what you want of me, is it?’

‘No,’ said Riderhood, still louder; ‘it’s on’y part of what I want of

you. 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 hand

down upon you with all its weight,’ heavily smiting the table with great

force, ‘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 for

you, and fur enough for you, without your telling. Look here, Bradley

Headstone, Master. You might have split the T’other governor to chips

and wedges, without my caring, except that I might have come upon you

for a glass or so now and then. Else why have to do with you at all? But

when you copied my clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, and

when you shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wot

I’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 but

in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a man dressed according as

described? Where else but in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a

man as had had words with him coming through in his boat? Look at the

Lock-keeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answering clothes

and with that same answering red neckhankercher, and see whether his

clothes 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 fingers

at him half a dozen times, ‘and I played it long ago; long afore you

tried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you hadn’t begun croaking

your lecters or what not in your school. I know to a figure how you

done it. Where you stole away, I could steal away arter you, and do it

knowinger than you. I know how you come away from London in your own

clothes, and where you changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see

you with my own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-place

among them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account for

your dressing yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise up

Bradley Headstone, Master, where you sat down Bargeman. I see you pitch

your Bargeman’s bundle into the river. I hooked your Bargeman’s bundle

out of the river. I’ve got your Bargeman’s clothes, tore this way and

that way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and spattered

all 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 care

a many curses for my own self. And as you laid your plots agin me and

was a sly devil agin me, I’ll be paid for it—I’ll be paid for it—I’ll

be paid for it—till I’ve drained you dry!’

Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a

while. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure of

voice 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 what

I have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than two

guineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing

for a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?’

‘I don’t know, nor I don’t care. Yours is a ’spectable calling. To

save your ’spectability, it’s worth your while to pawn every article of

clothes you’ve got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow

every penny you can get trusted with. When you’ve done that and handed

over, 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 from

here. Let the Lock take care of itself. I’ll take care of you, once I’ve

got you.’

Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up

his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned his

elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire

with a most intent abstraction.

‘Riderhood,’ he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long

silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. ‘Say

I part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have

my watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you a

certain portion of it.’

‘Say nothink of the sort,’ retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as he

smoked. ‘You’ve got away once, and I won’t run the chance agin. I’ve had

trouble enough to find you, and shouldn’t have found you, if I hadn’t

seen you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till you

was 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 resources

beyond 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 and

drew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go on to

say.

‘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 sell

herself up, slap, to get you out of trouble. Make her do it then.’

Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite knowing

how to take it, affected to be occupied with the encircling smoke from

his pipe; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing it off.

‘You spoke to the mistress, did you?’ inquired Bradley, with that

former composure of voice and feature that seemed inconsistent, and with

averted 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 by

my dropping in among the young ladies (I never did set up for a lady’s

man), and she took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothink

wrong. I tells her, “O no, nothink wrong. The master’s my wery good

friend.” 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 his

right 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 recommend

you to clean her out without loss of time. You can marry her, arter you

and me have come to a settlement. She’s nice-looking, and I know

you can’t be keeping company with no one else, having been so lately

disapinted in another quarter.’

Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once did he

change his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his wrist. Rigid before the

fire, 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 and

more haggard, its surface turning whiter and whiter as if it were being

overspread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his hair

degenerating.

Not until the late daylight made the window transparent, did this

decaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and sat in the window

looking out.

Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of the night

he had muttered twice or thrice that it was bitter cold; or that the

fire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it; but, as he could elicit from

his companion neither sound nor movement, he had afterwards held his

peace. He was making some disorderly preparations for coffee, when

Bradley came from the window and put on his outer coat and hat.

‘Hadn’t us better have a bit o’ breakfast afore we start?’ said

Riderhood. ‘It ain’t good to freeze a empty stomach, Master.’

Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of the Lock

House. Catching up from the table a piece of bread, and taking his

Bargeman’s bundle under his arm, Riderhood immediately followed him.

Bradley turned towards London. Riderhood caught him up, and walked at

his side.

The two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles.

Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. Instantly, Riderhood

turned likewise, and they went back side by side.

Bradley re-entered the Lock House. So did Riderhood. Bradley sat down in

the window. Riderhood warmed himself at the fire. After an hour or more,

Bradley abruptly got up again, and again went out, but this time turned

the other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up in a few

paces, 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 turned

back along with him. But, not this time, as before, did they go into the

Lock House, for Bradley came to a stand on the snow-covered turf by the

Lock, looking up the river and down the river. Navigation was impeded by

the 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 to

a settlement. I am a going along with you wherever you go.’

Without a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over the wooden

bridge on the lock gates. ‘Why, there’s even less sense in this move

than t’other,’ said Riderhood, following. ‘The Weir’s there, and you’ll

have 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. ‘Being

brought here,’ said Riderhood, gruffly, ‘I’ll turn it to some use by

changing my gates.’ With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swung-to

the 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,’ said

Riderhood, passing him, ‘or I’ll drain you all the dryer for it, when we

do settle.—Ah! Would you!’

Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be girdled with an

iron ring. They were on the brink of the Lock, about midway between the

two sets of gates.

‘Let go!’ said Riderhood, ‘or I’ll get my knife out and slash you

wherever I can cut you. Let go!’

Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing away from

it. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradley

got 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 drown

Me. Ain’t I told you that the man as has come through drowning can never

be drowned? I can’t be drowned.’

‘I can be!’ returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. ‘I am

resolved to be. I’ll hold you living, and I’ll hold you dead. Come

down!’

Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstone

upon him. When the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum behind

one of the rotting gates, Riderhood’s hold had relaxed, probably in

falling, and his eyes were staring upward. But, he was girdled still

with 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 all

matters 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 in

abeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John’s fictitious death was

to be considered in any way responsible, they used a very broad and free

construction; regarding, for instance, the dolls’ dressmaker as having

a claim on their protection, because of her association with Mrs Eugene

Wrayburn, and because of Mrs Eugene’s old association, in her turn, with

the dark side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as a

good and serviceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even

Mr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on a

false scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer,

that a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that

he had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow flip in

the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he ‘didn’t stand to

lose a farthing’ through Mr Harmon’s coming to life, but was quite as

well satisfied as if that gentleman had been barbarously murdered, and

he (Mr Inspector) had pocketed the government reward.

In all their arrangements of such nature, Mr and Mrs John Harmon derived

much assistance from their eminent solicitor, Mr Mortimer Lightwood; who

laid about him professionally with such unwonted despatch and intention,

that a piece of work was vigorously pursued as soon as cut out; whereby

Young Blight was acted on as by that transatlantic dram which is

poetically named An Eye-Opener, and found himself staring at real

clients instead of out of window. The accessibility of Riah proving

very useful as to a few hints towards the disentanglement of Eugene’s

affairs, Lightwood applied himself with infinite zest to attacking and

harassing Mr Fledgeby: who, discovering himself in danger of being blown

into the air by certain explosive transactions in which he had been

engaged, and having been sufficiently flayed under his beating, came

to a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow profited by

the conditions entered into, though he little thought it. Mr Riah

unaccountably melted; waited in person on him over the stable yard in

Duke Street, St James’s, no longer ravening but mild, to inform him

that payment of interest as heretofore, but henceforth at Mr Lightwood’s

offices, would appease his Jewish rancour; and departed with the secret

that Mr John Harmon had advanced the money and become the creditor.

Thus, was the sublime Snigsworth’s wrath averted, and thus did he snort

no larger amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column in the

print 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 of

Mendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had been sent for into the City,

on the very day of taking possession, and had been stunned with

astonishment, and brought-to, and led about the house by one ear, to

behold its various treasures, and had been enraptured and enchanted. Pa

had also been appointed Secretary, and had been enjoined to give instant

notice of resignation to Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, for ever and

ever. 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 of

the occasion, accompanied, rather than supported, by Miss Lavinia, who

altogether declined to recognize the maternal majesty. Mr George Sampson

meekly followed. He was received in the vehicle, by Mrs Wilfer, as if

admitted to the honour of assisting at a funeral in the family, and she

then issued the order, ‘Onward!’ to the Mendicant’s menial.

‘I wish to goodness, Ma,’ said Lavvy, throwing herself back among the

cushions, 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’s

own daughter or sister, as if one’s under-petticoat was a backboard, I

do NOT understand.’

‘Neither do I understand,’ retorted Mrs Wilfer, with deep scorn, ‘how

a young lady can mention the garment in the name of which you have

indulged. I blush for you.’

‘Thank you, Ma,’ said Lavvy, yawning, ‘but I can do it for myself, I am

obliged to you, when there’s any occasion.’

Here, Mr Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, which he never

under any circumstances succeeded in doing, said with an agreeable

smile: ‘After all, you know, ma’am, we know it’s there.’ And immediately

felt 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’t

understand your allusions, and that I think you might be more delicate

and less personal.’

‘Go it!’ cried Mr Sampson, becoming, on the shortest notice, a prey to

despair. ‘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 George

Sampson, do I wish to imagine. It is enough for me to know in my own

heart that I am not going to—’ having imprudently got into a sentence

without providing a way out of it, Miss Lavinia was constrained to

close with ‘going to it’. A weak conclusion which, however, derived some

appearance of strength from disdain.

‘Oh yes!’ cried Mr Sampson, with bitterness. ‘Thus it ever is. I

never—’

‘If you mean to say,’ Miss Lavvy cut him short, that you never brought

up a young gazelle, you may save yourself the trouble, because nobody

in this carriage supposes that you ever did. We know you better.’ (As if

this were a home-thrust.)

‘Lavinia,’ returned Mr Sampson, in a dismal vein, ‘I did not mean to

say so. What I did mean to say, was, that I never expected to retain my

favoured place in this family, after Fortune shed her beams upon it. Why

do you take me,’ said Mr Sampson, ‘to the glittering halls with which

I can never compete, and then taunt me with my moderate salary? Is it

generous? Is it kind?’

The stately lady, Mrs Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity of delivering a

few remarks from the throne, here took up the altercation.

‘Mr Sampson,’ she began, ‘I cannot permit you to misrepresent the

intentions of a child of mine.’

‘Let him alone, Ma,’ Miss Lavvy interposed with haughtiness. ‘It is

indifferent 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 Lavvy

interposed, ‘because I am quite as important as any of the others.’)

‘Peace!’ said Mrs Wilfer, solemnly. ‘I repeat, if Mr George Sampson

attributes, to my youngest daughter, grovelling motives, he attributes

them equally to the mother of my youngest daughter. That mother

repudiates 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 Mr

George Sampson,’ proceeded Mrs Wilfer, majestically waving her gloves,

‘appears to me to be seated in a first-class equipage. Mr George Sampson

appears to me to be on his way, by his own admission, to a residence

that may be termed Palatial. Mr George Sampson appears to me to be

invited to participate in the—shall I say the—Elevation which has

descended on the family with which he is ambitious, shall I say to

Mingle? 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 my

unworthiness. Lavinia is now highly connected. Can I hope that she will

still remain the same Lavinia as of old? And is it not pardonable if

I feel sensitive, when I see a disposition on her part to take me up

short?’

‘If you are not satisfied with your position, sir,’ observed Miss

Lavinia, with much politeness, ‘we can set you down at any turning you

may 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 young

lady, ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘I also,’ pursued Mr Sampson, ‘respect you, ma’am, to an extent which

must ever be below your merits, I am well aware, but still up to an

uncommon 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 to

madness,’ Mr Sampson slapped his forehead, ‘when he thinks of competing

with the rich and influential.’

‘When you have to compete with the rich and influential, it will

probably 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 ‘more

than human’, and was brought upon his knees at Miss Lavinia’s feet.

It was the crowning addition indispensable to the full enjoyment of both

mother and daughter, to bear Mr Sampson, a grateful captive, into the

glittering halls he had mentioned, and to parade him through the same,

at once a living witness of their glory, and a bright instance of their

condescension. Ascending the staircase, Miss Lavinia permitted him to

walk at her side, with the air of saying: ‘Notwithstanding all these

surroundings, I am yours as yet, George. How long it may last is another

question, 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 he

was unaccustomed: as, ‘Exotics, George,’ ‘An aviary, George,’ ‘An

ormolu clock, George,’ and the like. While, through the whole of the

decorations, Mrs Wilfer led the way with the bearing of a Savage Chief,

who would feel himself compromised by manifesting the slightest token of

surprise or admiration.

Indeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout the day, was a

pattern to all impressive women under similar circumstances. She renewed

the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Boffin, as if Mr and Mrs Boffin had said

of her what she had said of them, and as if Time alone could quite wear

her injury out. She regarded every servant who approached her, as her

sworn 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 half

suspecting poison in the viands, and as bearing up with native force of

character against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella was

as a carriage towards a young lady of good position, whom she had met in

society a few years ago. Even when, slightly thawing under the influence

of sparkling champagne, she related to her son-in-law some passages of

domestic interest concerning her papa, she infused into the narrative

such Arctic suggestions of her having been an unappreciated blessing to

mankind, since her papa’s days, and also of that gentleman’s having

been a frosty impersonation of a frosty race, as struck cold to the

very soles of the feet of the hearers. The Inexhaustible being produced,

staring, and evidently intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no

sooner beheld her, than it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. When

she took her leave at last, it would have been hard to say whether it

was with the air of going to the scaffold herself, or of leaving the

inmates of the house for immediate execution. Yet, John Harmon enjoyed

it all merrily, and told his wife, when he and she were alone, that her

natural 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 her

mother’s.

This visit was, as has been said, a grand event. Another event, not

grand but deemed in the house a special one, occurred at about the same

period; and this was, the first interview between Mr Sloppy and Miss

Wren.

The dolls’ dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible upon a

full-dressed doll some two sizes larger than that young person, Mr

Sloppy undertook to call for it, and did so.

‘Come in, sir,’ said Miss Wren, who was working at her bench. ‘And who

may you be?’

Mr Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons.

‘Oh indeed!’ cried Jenny. ‘Ah! I have been looking forward to knowing

you. I heard of your distinguishing yourself.’

‘Did you, Miss?’ grinned Sloppy. ‘I am sure I am glad to hear it, but I

don’t know how.’

‘Pitching somebody into a mud-cart,’ said Miss Wren.

‘Oh! That way!’ cried Sloppy. ‘Yes, Miss.’ And threw back his head and

laughed.

‘Bless us!’ exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. ‘Don’t open your mouth

as wide as that, young man, or it’ll catch so, and not shut again some

day.’

Mr Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open until his

laugh was out.

‘Why, you’re like the giant,’ said Miss Wren, ‘when he came home in the

land 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 of

Me?’

The honesty of Mr Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he

twisted a button, grinned, and faltered.

‘Out with it!’ said Miss Wren, with an arch look. ‘Don’t you think me

a queer little comicality?’ In shaking her head at him after asking the

question, she shook her hair down.

‘Oh!’ cried Sloppy, in a burst of admiration. ‘What a lot, and what a

colour!’

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. Or

with my first, for that matter.’ And she shook her head, and drew a

sigh. ‘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 the

better!’

‘You must have been taught a long time,’ said Sloppy, glancing at the

array of dolls in hand, ‘before you came to work so neatly, Miss, and

with 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 do

it. 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 paying

and a paying, ever so long!’

‘I have heard what your trade is,’ observed Miss Wren; ‘it’s

cabinet-making.’

Mr Sloppy nodded. ‘Now that the Mounds is done with, it is. I’ll tell

you 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 you

a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or I could make you a handy

little set of drawers, to keep your silks and threads and scraps in. Or

I could turn you a rare handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs to

him you call your father.’

‘It belongs to me,’ returned the little creature, with a quick flush of

her face and neck. ‘I am lame.’

Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind

his buttons, and his own hand had struck it. He said, perhaps, the best

thing in the way of amends that could be said. ‘I am very glad it’s

yours, 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 she

paused. ‘But you had better see me use it,’ she said, sharply. ‘This is

the 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, after

measuring the handle on his sleeve, and softly standing the stick aside

against the wall, ‘why, it would be a real pleasure to me. I’ve heerd

tell that you can sing most beautiful; and I should be better paid with

a song than with any money, for I always loved the likes of that, and

often giv’ Mrs Higden and Johnny a comic song myself, with “Spoken” in

it. Though that’s not your sort, I’ll wager.’

‘You are a very kind young man,’ returned the dressmaker; ‘a really kind

young man. I accept your offer.—I suppose He won’t mind,’ she added as

an 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 little

troubled. ‘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 or

other, I suppose, and he is coming some day or other, I suppose. I don’t

know any more about him, at present.’

This tickled Mr Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threw

back his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. At the sight of

him laughing in that absurd way, the dolls’ dressmaker laughed very

heartily 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 minute

you 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 Miss

Harmonses doll waiting for you. She’s folded up in silver paper, you

see, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new Bank notes. Take

care 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 John

Harmon, was a visit from Mr and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn. Sadly wan and worn

was the once gallant Eugene, and walked resting on his wife’s arm, and

leaning heavily upon a stick. But, he was daily growing stronger and

better, and it was declared by the medical attendants that he might not

be much disfigured by-and-by. It was a grand event, indeed, when Mr

and 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 daily

cruising about, to look at shops,) were likewise staying indefinitely.

To Mr Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs John Harmon impart what

she had known of the state of his wife’s affections, in his reckless

time. And to Mrs John Harmon, in confidence, did Mr Eugene Wrayburn

impart that, please God, she should see how his wife had changed him!

‘I make no protestations,’ said Eugene; ‘—who does, who means them!—I

have made a resolution.’

‘But would you believe, Bella,’ interposed his wife, coming to resume

her 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 he

could do, was to die?’

‘As I didn’t do it, Lizzie,’ said Eugene, ‘I’ll do that better thing you

suggested—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 a

ride. ‘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 I

want 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 admirer

of beauty, was so affable as to remark the other day (he paid us a visit

of two days up the river there, and much objected to the accommodation

of the hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which,

coming from M. R. F., may be considered equivalent to a melodramatic

blessing.’

‘You are getting well,’ said Mortimer, with a smile.

‘Really,’ said Eugene, ‘I mean it. When M. R. F. said that, and followed

it up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and I paid), in his

mouth, and saying, “My dear son, why do you drink this trash?” it was

tantamount in him—to a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied

with a gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. is not to be measured by

ordinary standards.’

‘True enough,’ said Lightwood.

‘That’s all,’ pursued Eugene, ‘that I shall ever hear from M. R. F. on

the subject, and he will continue to saunter through the world with

his hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly recognized at the

family altar, I have no further trouble on that score. Next, you really

have done wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing my money-perplexities, and

with 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 refer

to 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 ever

has been. It need be more, for you know what it always has been in my

hands. Nothing.’

‘Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income (I devoutly

wish that my grandfather had left it to the Ocean rather than to me!)

has been an effective Something, in the way of preventing me from

turning 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 of

that, for a few years to come. Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, of

taking myself and my wife to one of the colonies, and working at my

vocation 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 showed

himself greatly surprised.

‘You think this thumped head of mine is excited?’ Eugene went on, with a

high look; ‘not so, believe me. I can say to you of the healthful music

of 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 sneak

away with her, as if I were ashamed of her! Where would your friend’s

part in this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and on

immeasurably 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 for

her 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 hide

behind the bush and beat about it, but we DO! Now, my wife is something

nearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and I owe her a little

more than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever

was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, with

her and for her, here, in the open field. When I hide her, or strike

for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love next

best upon earth, tell me what I shall most righteously deserve to be

told:—that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot that

night 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 his

features that he looked, for the time, as though he had never been

mutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond,

and they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resuming

her place at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, she

said:

‘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 you

been 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 he

laughed and kissed her, ‘I rather think it WAS Society though!’

The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood’s thoughts as he went home to

the Temple that night, that he resolved to take a look at Society, which

he had not seen for a considerable period.

Chapter 17

THE VOICE OF SOCIETY

Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner card from Mr

and Mrs Veneering requesting the honour, and to signify that Mr Mortimer

Lightwood will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings have

been, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, and

whoever desires to take a hand had best be quick about it, for it is

written in the Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make a

resounding smash next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that great

mystery how people can contrive to live beyond their means, and having

over-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by the

pure electors of Pocket-Breaches, it shall come to pass next week that

Veneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the legal gentleman in

Britannia’s confidence will again accept the Pocket-Breaches Thousands,

and that the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs

Veneering’s diamonds (in which Mr Veneering, as a good husband, has from

time to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to Neptune and

others, how that, before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House

of Commons was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-seven

dearest and oldest friends he had in the world. It shall likewise come

to pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society will

discover that it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering,

and that when it went to Veneering’s to dinner it always had

misgivings—though very secretly at the time, it would seem, and in a

perfectly private and confidential manner.

The next week’s books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being not yet

opened, there is the usual rush to the Veneerings, of the people who go

to their house to dine with one another and not with them. There is Lady

Tippins. There are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs Podsnap. There is Twemlow.

There are Buffer, Boots, and Brewer. There is the Contractor, who

is Providence to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman,

travelling three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant genius

who turned the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundred

and seventy five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence.

To whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them with a

reassumption of his old languid air, founded on Eugene, and belonging to

the days when he told the story of the man from Somewhere.

That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her false

swain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan; but the deserter,

predetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. Podsnap always

talks Britain, and talks as if he were a sort of Private Watchman

employed, in the British interests, against the rest of the world. ‘We

know 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 enough

for us.’

However, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops into his old place

over against Lady Tippins, she can be fended off no longer. ‘Long

banished Robinson Crusoe,’ says the charmer, exchanging salutations,

‘how did you leave the Island?’

‘Thank you,’ says Lightwood. ‘It made no complaint of being in pain

anywhere.’

‘Say, how did you leave the savages?’ asks Lady Tippins.

‘They were becoming civilized when I left Juan Fernandez,’ says

Lightwood. ‘At least they were eating one another, which looked like

it.’

‘Tormentor!’ returns the dear young creature. ‘You know what I mean, and

you trifle with my impatience. Tell me something, immediately, about the

married 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 may

be, 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 general

attention. ‘Graced it! Take care of me if I faint, Veneering. He means

to tell us, that a horrid female waterman is graceful!’

‘Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing, Lady Tippins,’ replies

Lightwood. And keeps his word by eating his dinner with a show of the

utmost indifference.

‘You shall not escape me in this way, you morose backwoodsman,’ retorts

Lady Tippins. ‘You shall not evade the question, to screen your friend

Eugene, who has made this exhibition of himself. The knowledge shall be

brought home to you that such a ridiculous affair is condemned by the

voice of Society. My dear Mrs Veneering, do let us resolve ourselves

into 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, say

Aye,—contrary, No—the Ayes have it.’ But nobody takes the slightest

notice of his joke.

‘Now, I am Chairwoman of Committees!’ cries Lady Tippins.

(‘What spirits she has!’ exclaims Mrs Veneering; to whom likewise nobody

attends.)

‘And this,’ pursues the sprightly one, ‘is a Committee of the whole

House 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 fair

family, good appearance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man of

himself in marrying a female waterman, turned factory girl.’

‘Hardly so, I think,’ the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. ‘I take the

question to be, whether such a man as you describe, Lady Tippins, does

right 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 he

knows to be virtuous, and possessed of remarkable qualities; whom he has

long admired, and who is deeply attached to him.’

‘But, excuse me,’ says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirt-collar

about 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. Boots

shakes his head. Buffer shakes his head.

‘And now, Mr Lightwood, was she ever,’ pursues Podsnap, with his

indignation rising high into those hair-brushes of his, ‘a factory

girl?’

‘Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I believe.’

General sensation repeated. Brewer says, ‘Oh dear!’ Boots says, ‘Oh

dear!’ Buffer says, ‘Oh dear!’ All, in a rumbling tone of protest.

‘Then all I have to say is,’ returns Podsnap, putting the thing away

with his right arm, ‘that my gorge rises against such a marriage—that

it offends and disgusts me—that it makes me sick—and that I desire to

know no more about it.’

(‘Now I wonder,’ thinks Mortimer, amused, ‘whether YOU are the Voice of

Society!’)

‘Hear, hear, hear!’ cries Lady Tippins. ‘Your opinion of this

MESALLIANCE, honourable colleagues of the honourable member who has just

sat down?’

Mrs Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters there should be an

equality of station and fortune, and that a man accustomed to Society

should look out for a woman accustomed to Society and capable of bearing

her part in it with—an ease and elegance of carriage—that.’ Mrs

Podsnap stops there, delicately intimating that every such man should

look out for a fine woman as nearly resembling herself as he may hope to

discover.

(‘Now I wonder,’ thinks Mortimer, ‘whether you are the Voice!’)

Lady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hundred thousand

power. It appears to this potentate, that what the man in question

should have done, would have been, to buy the young woman a boat and a

small annuity, and set her up for herself. These things are a question

of beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young woman a boat. Very good. You

buy her, at the same time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity in

pounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and

so 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 many

pints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that porter are the fuel to that

young woman’s engine. She derives therefrom a certain amount of power to

row the boat; that power will produce so much money; you add that to the

small annuity; and thus you get at the young woman’s income. That (it

seems to the Contractor) is the way of looking at it.

The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps during the

last exposition, nobody likes to wake her. Fortunately, she comes

awake of herself, and puts the question to the Wandering Chairman. The

Wanderer can only speak of the case as if it were his own. If such a

young woman as the young woman described, had saved his own life, he

would have been very much obliged to her, wouldn’t have married her, and

would have got her a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where young

women answer very well.

What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy-five thousand

pounds, 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 whole

Committee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings for their opinion),

when, looking round the table through her eyeglass, she perceives Mr

Twemlow with his hand to his forehead.

Good gracious! My Twemlow forgotten! My dearest! My own! What is his

vote?

Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand from his

forehead and replies.

‘I am disposed to think,’ says he, ‘that this is a question of the

feelings 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’t

agree with you. If this gentleman’s feelings of gratitude, of respect,

of admiration, and affection, induced him (as I presume they did) to

marry this lady—’

‘This lady!’ echoes Podsnap.

‘Sir,’ returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a little, ‘YOU

repeat the word; I repeat the word. This lady. What else would you call

her, if the gentleman were present?’

This being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, he merely

waves it away with a speechless wave.

‘I say,’ resumes Twemlow, ‘if such feelings on the part of this

gentleman, induced this gentleman to marry this lady, I think he is the

greater gentleman for the action, and makes her the greater lady. I beg

to say, that when I use the word, gentleman, I use it in the sense in

which the degree may be attained by any man. The feelings of a gentleman

I hold sacred, and I confess I am not comfortable when they are made the

subject of sport or general discussion.’

‘I should like to know,’ sneers Podsnap, ‘whether your noble relation

would be of your opinion.’

‘Mr Podsnap,’ retorts Twemlow, ‘permit me. He might be, or he might not

be. I cannot say. But, I could not allow even him to dictate to me on a

point of great delicacy, on which I feel very strongly.’

Somehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon the company, and

Lady Tippins was never known to turn so very greedy or so very cross.

Mortimer Lightwood alone brightens. He has been asking himself, as to

every other member of the Committee in turn, ‘I wonder whether you are

the Voice!’ But he does not ask himself the question after Twemlow has

spoken, and he glances in Twemlow’s direction as if he were grateful.

When the company disperse—by which time Mr and Mrs Veneering have had

quite as much as they want of the honour, and the guests have had quite

as 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 of

readers and commentators would suppose that I was at great pains to

conceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: namely, that Mr

John Harmon was not slain, and that Mr John Rokesmith was he. Pleasing

myself with the idea that the supposition might in part arise out

of some ingenuity in the story, and thinking it worth while, in the

interests of art, to hint to an audience that an artist (of whatever

denomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he is about in his

vocation, if they will concede him a little patience, I was not alarmed

by the anticipation.

To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself out,

another purpose originating in that leading incident, and turning it to

a pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the most interesting

and the most difficult part of my design. Its difficulty was much

enhanced by the mode of publication; for, it would be very unreasonable

to expect that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from month

to month through nineteen months, will, until they have it before them

complete, perceive the relations of its finer threads to the whole

pattern 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 outweigh

its disadvantages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in the

Pickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since.

There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute as

improbable in fiction, what are the commonest experiences in fact.

Therefore, I note here, though it may not be at all necessary, that

there are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), far more

remarkable than that fancied in this book; and that the stores of the

Prerogative Office teem with instances of testators who have made,

changed, contradicted, hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, and left

uncancelled, each many more wills than were ever made by the elder Mr

Harmon of Harmony Jail.

In my social experiences since Mrs Betty Higden came upon the scene and

left it, I have found Circumlocutional champions disposed to be

warm with me on the subject of my view of the Poor Law. My friend Mr

Bounderby could never see any difference between leaving the Coketown

‘hands’ exactly as they were, and requiring them to be fed with turtle

soup and venison out of gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a parallel

nature have been freely offered for my acceptance, and I have been

called upon to admit that I would give Poor Law relief to anybody,

anywhere, anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a

suspicious tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; the

one, contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer death by

slow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies of some Relieving

Officers and some Union Houses; the other, admitting that there are such

Poor, 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 the

common sense and senses of common people, furnish too abundant evidence

against both defences. But, that my view of the Poor Law may not be

mistaken or misrepresented, I will state it. I believe there has been

in England, since the days of the STUARTS, no law so often infamously

administered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so

ill-supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease and

death from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the country,

the illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity—and known language

could say no more of their lawlessness.

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in

their manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast)

were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive

accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back

into my carriage—nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon

the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but

otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on

her wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone’s red

neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I

can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than

I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words

with which I have this day closed this book:—THE END.

September 2nd, 1865.