Mr. and Mrs. Jericho, arm-and-arm and in closest communion of soul,
for some half-hour longer hung about the ground. The young ladies
with Candituft and Hodmadod loitered where they would; too well
occupied to break, by word or motion, upon the privacy of man and
wife. Jericho listened very complacently to the magnificent designs
of his helpmate. She had made her mind up that he should fill the
world. She could never die happy if he did not fill it. Jogtrot
Hall, for one country sent to begin with, was indispensable to his
greatness. “I am assured, love, by Mizzlemist”—began Mrs. Jericho—
“Humph! Where is he? You said it was an engagement. To be sure. He
was to meet us here,” interrupted Jericho, tetchily.
“The engagement was provisional; it was, indeed, love; and he may
come yet. Well, Solomon, the Doctor tells me that the whole estate
may be had for thirty thousand pounds,” and Mrs. Jericho at the
moment looked as artless, as innocent, as though she had said thirty
thousand pence. There are people who make even a million a very small
matter, merely by the condescending way of speaking of it. Mrs.
Jericho had the art in perfection. “Only thirty thousand”—
“Only thirty thousand!” cried Jericho,—“Do you know where the money
comes from?”
“Why, where should it come from,” said the wife, with a sparkling
smile, and tapping Jericho’s cheek,—“where, but from where it grows?”
Jericho’s jaw fell. Had his wife discovered his secret? “And where,”
he asked grimly,—“where is that?”
“Why, my dear, in our mine, of course. Did you not say ’twas
inexhaustible? and, to be sure, I asked no further. Besides, I’ve a
great faith in nature; nature’s a pattern maid-of-all-work, and does
best when least meddled with. So you’ll buy the estate? You must:
your position in Parliament requires it. All statesmen love the
country.”
“Mr. Pitt lived at Wimbledon,” said Jericho, willing to be won.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Jericho. And in a very few minutes the member
for Toadsham consented to live at Marigolds; and to become the squire
and patron of the village. Yet as he promised, he winced; for he
thought of his wasting bank. Such was his life; urged by the devil
expense upon one hand, and plucked by the devil remorse on the other.
Never mind. He had a way to win back all. He would stop the waste;
and once again grow plump and fat: though he was never better; never
stronger. Still, people wondered to see him wither. Moreover, they
looked oddly at him; and he had heard them drop strange, mystic
words. Only twice more; only twice would he draw upon his bosom bank.
Mrs. Jericho, as she turned with her lord to meet her daughters,
in the prettiest manner twitched a slip of laurel from a shrub,
and waved it over Jericho’s head. “I have conquered”—said Mrs.
Jericho—“here is the lord for life of Jogtrot Hall.”
“Oh, mamma! you will change the horrid name, I hope?” said Monica.
“And take away those dreadful peacocks?” cried Agatha, “They make one
shiver.”
“Magna Charta House would be a good name,” said Hodmadod; “that
is, when I say Magna Charta, I mean Runnymede Cottage. Of course,
my dear sir, you’ll ask all Parliament, lords and commons, to the
house-warming?”
“Couldn’t we make it a fancy ball, and have ’em in historical
dresses?” cried Agatha, jumping up and down, tipsy with happiness.
Candituft, with a sudden, serious look, took Jericho aside. “It has
just struck me,” he said, “and I must out with it, though it is
abrupt.” He then took Jericho by the right hand, squeezed it, looked
tenderly in his face, and with a voice of emotion, like one compelled
to suggest a sharp surgical operation, asked—“How should you like to
be made a baronet?”
Jericho twitched his shoulders; drew himself up; and put his hand in
his bosom. “I have not the least ambition of the kind. But it might
please my wife. Title is a straw that tickles women; so, for the sake
of Mrs. Jericho, I might not resist.”
Candituft looked relieved. It was plain a leaden weight of doubt was
removed from his soul. He smiled, and again squeezed Jericho’s hand,
saying as he squeezed—“Good creature! Bless you!”
Mr. Jericho returned to the party; and again and again he was hailed
by all as the lord of the domain. “Hurrah!” cried the impulsive
Agatha, jumping up, and hitching a wreath of honeysuckle about the
head of Jericho, “hurrah for the king of Marigolds!” The next moment
Jericho stepped under an apple-tree; and the next, a shower of apples
fell bouncing about him.
“The devil!” cried Jericho, running; and the ladies screamed.
[Illustration: _Basil’s Practical Joke._]
“May it please your majesty,” said a voice from the apple-tree, and
immediately Basil Pennibacker’s earnest face stared down through
the boughs—“may it please your majesty, when a king is crowned, it is
always customary to let fall a shower of golden pippins.”
“Why, Basil, my love—you strange boy!—how came you in that tree?”
cried Mrs. Jericho.
“Wonderful escape, my anxious madam, but calm your fears. You’ll not
believe my story. Never mind; in this world truth can wait: she’s
used to it,” and in another moment Basil descended from the tree.
“Why, you were not here a few minutes ago, Basil,” said Monica: “how
did you get into the tree?”
“The fact is,” said Basil, “I went up in a balloon, had a quarrel,
and dropt my company. Quite in luck to fall among you, wasn’t I? Now
the hard truth is, I came here on business.”
“On some labour of love, no doubt,” said Candituft, winking with all
his might.
“My dear sir,” cried Basil, “I never see you that I don’t wish I was
a bulrush, to do nothing but bow. May I say one word, my revered
sir?” and Basil turned to Jericho, who coldly assented, walking
apart. “Now, sir, did you receive my letter?”
“I did,” said Jericho.
“And you did not answer it? Because, don’t let me blame the postman,”
said Basil.
“I did not answer it, young man,” cried Jericho with his best
emphasis. “Where nothing is to be said, I take it, silence is the
best reply. In a word, I will not advance a single farthing.”
“Not to assist your old friend Carraways?” cried Basil.
“He was never any friend of mine; a mere acquaintance,” said Jericho
impatiently.
“To be sure; friendship in ill-luck turns to mere acquaintance. The
wine of life—as I’ve heard it called—goes into vinegar; and folks
that hugged the bottle, shirk the cruet.”
“I have nothing more to say, young man,” said Jericho, turning from
Basil.
“Well, I’m not sorry for it,” answered Basil waspishly, “for the
sample I have had, doesn’t encourage me to go on.” Basil strove to
dash aside his anger, and returned gaily to the party. “And so you’ve
taken the Lodge, eh?”
“Yes, Basil,” cried Monica, “and we shall have such a rout to begin
with.”
“Then, of course you’ll want your jewels,” said Basil, wickedly. “The
butcher brought ’em back, I hope?”
“The butcher! What _do_ you mean?” cried Agatha. “Butcher!”
“There, girls—never mind him,” cried Mrs. Jericho.
“I sent ’em back by the butcher.” A mode of conveyance hitherto
disguised to the young ladies. “I met him coming to the house, and on
second thoughts I”—
“You foolish boy,” cried Mrs. Jericho, anxious to set aside the
subject; “come and tell me what really brought you here. Who could
have expected you!”
“Arn’t you delighted, dear boy,” said the appeased Monica, “that
we’re coming to live here?”
“Live here! why none of you will ever be able to sleep for the
ghosts,” cried Basil.
“Ghosts!” exclaimed the ladies.
“Yes: the ghosts of the feasts you’ve had at the cost of good old
Carraways. At twelve o’clock every night”—
“Now, don’t be foolish, Basil,” exclaimed Monica.
“I won’t hear you,” said Agatha, putting her fingers in her ears, and
tripping backwards.
“At twelve o’clock at night every saucepan will be haunted: every
mug, every tankard, every goblet, and every custard-cup will go
banging, clanging, ringing, tinkling, with the ghosts of the dinners
and the suppers you’ve had in this house. You won’t air your bed of
nights, that there sha’n’t be a red-hot ghost in the warming-pan.”
“Then, I fear, Basil, we may not count upon you as a visitor, unless
indeed you defy apparitions?” said Mrs. Jericho.
“No, my dear madam, I shall never rent a spare bed here, I assure
you. Moreover, pray don’t summon me to King Jericho’s banquet, for I
shall be sure to have other business. By the way, as you’ve entered
upon your dominion, permit me”—said Basil, taking off his hat and
approaching his father-in-law—“permit me, your majesty, to give you
seizin of it.”
“What does the boy mean?” cried Mrs. Jericho. “Seizin!”
“Quite right, my dear madam. Seizin’s the word. You’ve no notion
of the amount of law I know. In another fortnight I’m called, and
then—upon my life when I think of some people, they fire me with
ambition. They do. I’ll get upon the bench, if it’s only to hang ’em.”
“Not you, my dear sir,” said Candituft—“you don’t know your own
heart. We do.”
“I haven’t your charity; I wish I had: only a little—you’ve too
much. You waste it. ’Pon my life, you are so good, you’d pour
rose-water over a toad,” and Basil leered at the Man-Tamer. Then,
stooping, Basil picked up an apple, and holding it between his
finger and thumb, with ceremonious gravity addressed the ireful Man
of Money.—“Permit me, sir, in this little apple to give you seizin
of the land. And, sir, this little apple is wondrously appropriate
to the interesting occasion. It is golden, and smiling, and like
yourself.”
“Beautiful, Basil! and so true,” said Agatha.
“During your many visits, you were here when this apple was a
blossom. No doubt of it, gorgeous sir, that when this apple was a
pretty pink and white flower, you were here, rosy, and light, and
glad; and looking full of pleasant promise to jolly old Carraways.
Times are changed, sir; you’re very rich: the blossom’s grown into
fruit. A flower you were, and”—and Basil threw the apple up, catching
it—“and a golden pippin you are. Therefore, sir, take the apple as
seizin; ’tis so like you. Oh, very like! See, a golden promise”—Basil
bit the apple in half—“a sour and bitter inside; and to make the
thing complete—look, sir—a maggot at the heart.” And Basil dropt the
fruit with the sentence.
There was general consternation at the boldness, the wickedness (as
Candituft whispered) of the simile. Mrs. Jericho, with all the fears
of woman, moved between her husband and Basil. The young man bowed
to his mother, turned upon his heel, and went his way. There was a
dead pause. At length, Mr. Jericho solemnly proclaimed to his wife:
“Mrs. Jericho, I will no longer encourage that viper. Either you give
up your son, or give up me.” Mrs. Jericho made no answer; it was not
a genial moment for reply. She silently placed her arm in Jericho’s,
and led the way to the carriage. They would make a little circuit of
the country, ere they returned to town.
A very few words will account for the sudden appearance of Basil in
the apple-tree. Bob Topps, the old serving-man of Carraways—we may
say old, for he had grown from mere childhood to the maturity of
seven-and-twenty in the Squire’s house—had, within the past week,
married Jenny White, honoured, it may be remembered, in a former
page, by the praise of Sir Arthur Hodmadod. Mrs. Topps had removed
with her husband to London, where Bob had started as an independent
cabman, driving his own vehicle—certainly, the very neatest on the
stand; for the which neatness there was this reason: the cab had
been the property of Carraways: one of the chattels of the Hall,
knocked down, dispersed by the hammer—at times more terrible, more
crushing, more causeful of blood and tears than the hammer of
Thor—the hammer of the broker. Topps with his savings bought the
carriage. “It might fall into worse hands,” he said. “Now, he felt
almost a love for it, for the sake of them as had ridden in it.”
Again; he said “he shouldn’t like to go into any other service. A
cabman’s life was, after all, an independent thing. He could sit upon
his box, and—beholden to nobody—could see how the world wagged about
him.” True it is that Mrs. Topps had a first objection to the brass
badge, an objection that had more than its inherent force, for it
was made in the honeymoon. Still, as it was the honeymoon, she the
more readily smiled and, as Bob said, “listened to reason.” “I tell
you what, Jenny,” said Bob, “the noblest sight on earth is a man
talking reason, and his wife sitting at the fireside listening to
him.” Everybody wore a badge of some sort, ran the philosophy of Bob.
Brass or gold, the thing was the same, it was only the metal that
was different. Whereupon Mrs. Topps was thoroughly convinced, and we
verily believe was rather proud of her husband’s badge than otherwise.
A very natural incident had thrown Basil and Bob together. The night
before, Basil had supped some three miles from his chambers. Bob by
chance was hailed, and drove young Pennibacker to his student’s home.
“What have I to pay?” asked Basil. “Why, sir,” said the neophyte,
“I hope you won’t think eighteenpence too much.” “What!” cried
Basil, in thrilling surprise. “Well, then, sir, say sixteenpence,”
said the shrinking cabman. Basil, laying hold of the man’s collar
and crying—“A vehicular phenomenon! I must have a portrait of you,”
pulled him under a lamp; and thereupon took place what Basil called a
tremendous recognition. In few words, Bob told of his marriage, and
his prospects; and moreover, that he was going to Marigolds the next
day. He was going to drive his wife there—he had borrowed a cab, and
lent his own for the day; for he hoped he knew himself better than
to take what had been Squire Carraways’ to the village. Miss Bessy
wanted a few trifles that Jenny knew best about; and Jenny herself
had not brought all her things from Marigolds: indeed, she seemed as
if there would be no end to her moving; it seemed as if the things
grew she had left behind her. In few words, Basil made an appointment
with Bob for the journey. “I should like to see the Hall once more
myself,” said Basil, “and I should like to go quietly; so I tell
you what. I’ll take the cab for the day; and out of my abounding
generosity shall be happy to present Mrs. Topps with a lift.” “You’re
very kind, sir,” said Bob, delighted. “She can ride on the box close
aside me.” And Basil came, a visitor to the Hall. When he learned
that his family were there, in the idleness of his high spirits, he
mounted a tree in the hope of a joke; and, such as the joke was in
the apple-shower, he had it. Mrs. Topps very soon despatched her
errand at the Hall, where poor Mrs. Blanket duly wept over her as
“one she had nursed from a baby, and one who was going back, a wife,
to London.”
Basil, we must observe, did not, as he had appointed, arrive at
the village in the cab of Topps. In the morning he somehow thought
horseback would be a more fitting, a more expeditious mode of
transit. Mrs. Topps herself was very soon reconciled to the new
arrangement. She could not but reflect that she would then have
all the inside of the vehicle for a few of the things she had left
behind. As the Jerichos drove through the village, they looked
curiously at a London cab at a cottage-door, with baskets, and
shrubs, and flowers in pots standing about it; and with “that young
woman that wore the silver bee” kissing a score of children one
after the other, duly setting aside every child when finished. It
was, indeed, a very busy, a very exciting afternoon in Marigolds,
when Mrs. Topps returned, just for an hour or two, from London. She
brought an importance with her, that the people could not but feel,
though they could not explain. She had seen all the sights of London;
and she was stared at as though some of their glory hung still about
her. There was Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, the Queen’s Palace, the
Waxwork, and all the playhouses in some odd way mixed up with Jenny
Topps. (It would be hard for some of us to look at a man fresh from
the Chinese court, and not think of long almond eyes, white clay
faces, pigtails, and peacocks’ feathers.) Jenny had, from babyhood,
been a favourite with all the village. She was so good-natured, so
cheerful, and what was an especial virtue, in the words of a female
eulogist, “she never seemed to think nothing of her good looks.”
Clever Jenny! Twenty times had she been asked how she liked London,
and how she liked her husband? Whether she was as happy as when at
home—and whether—and here the querists hugely laughed—and whether she
would not like to come back again. To all these inquiries Jenny with
a sweet gravity—for they were grave questions to her—made due reply.
“She had no notion, though she had been there twice before, that
there had been such a place as London in this world; and she never
thought anybody could be so happy as she was, out of London.” And
then she dwelt upon a fear that did now and then possess her. It was,
that her husband would some day quite lose himself—it was so hard for
him in his business to learn the ways of town.
Basil, in a dull, dreamy mood, turned his horse towards London. He
had seen the Hall for the last time. Had taken, as he then believed,
a long farewell of its new possessors. In his indignation at the
selfishness of Jericho, he felt a new strength in himself. He felt
a spirit of independence. He would not owe the benefit of another
shilling to such a man, upon whom fortune seemed to have fallen like
a disease, withering and corrupting him. And there was a mystery
in the means of the man, so suddenly rich, that, he was sure of
it, would burst in some terrible catastrophe. Of course, Basil had
no suspicion of the supernatural source of Jericho’s wealth: the
young man’s imagination was insufficient to such a thought; again,
even in the days of Jericho, the foolish old faith in fairy-works,
and compacts with the devil, ensuring ready profit for future
perdition,—was dead and scorned. If men came by strange modes to
sudden, mysterious wealth, it could not be by conjuration; but by
dull, prosaic craft. The wizard’s circle was of no more avail; the
devil no longer rose in the infernal ring to barter wealth for
souls. Nothing was left but the mere hocus-pocus of unromantic
knavery. Hence, in the conviction of Basil, father-in-law Jericho had
juggled with the dark spirits of fraud to possess himself of sudden
substance. There could be no doubt of the horrid truth; and the
wasted, and wasting condition of the rich man, proclaimed the ravages
of his conscience; of the worm in his brain he could not kill. And
then Basil suddenly thought of Jericho’s ghastly look, as the apple
fell at his foot. And the next thought imparted to the young man a
vigour of mind, a hopefulness of heart, he had hitherto unknown. As
he rode on, the cloud cleared away. He had seemed to himself shut
in, narrowed, dwarfed, whilst depending upon the aid of another. And
now in his very contempt for the man—so strangely, so monstrously
rich—the future stretched brightly before him. He would stand up, and
fight the world in his own strength, and take no condescending help
from any man. Armed and assured by this blithe determination, Basil,
some ten miles still from home, and the evening closing in, spurred
his horse. It would not be too late even that very evening—at least
he would not suffer himself to think so—to call upon Bessy’s father.
Yes: he would at once put his new faith in practice; he would not
sleep without taking the first—and that the most important, most
anxious step,—in the bright, open path that he would hereafter
journey.
“Hey, hallo! Why, Basil—Mr. Pennibacker,” cried Doctor Mizzlemist,
leaning far out of the first-floor window of the Silver Lion, the
glad half-way house twixt Marigolds and London. “Hallo! Why so fast?
If you knew what was in the cellar, you’d draw bridle, I take it.”
“That he would; humph?” cried Colonel Bones; who had joined
Mizzlemist; both, it appeared upon evidence, then and there in the
Silver Lion, enjoying what the Doctor in his meekness was wont to
call his glass of wine and his nut.
“You haven’t seen anything of Mr. Jericho and the ladies?” asked
Mizzlemist. “They must have gone the other road; and so we’ve missed.
Very provoking; but we’re trying to comfort ourselves. Won’t you join
us?”
“So you had an appointment with my honoured father, eh, Doctor?”
asked Basil.
“Why, that is, rather an appointment. Not exactly a fixed thing,
but come in; you haven’t dined,” said Mizzlemist. After a minute’s
thought Basil turned about, and dismounted at the door. Instantly
he stood in the best room of the Silver Lion, with both his hands
pressed and shaken by Mizzlemist. “I suppose you’ve been to the Hall,
eh? Been to pick out your own corner, I take it? Noble fabric, my
dear young sir. Noble fabric! The very look of it is an honour to
the hospitality of the country! Wasn’t I saying as much, Colonel? A
palace for the king of good fellows?”
“What do I know of palaces?” cried Bones. “A beggar like me! I only
wish you’d let me keep quiet in my own corner cupboard. With my own
mutton chop and my pint of small ale,” and Bones poured out the wine,
looked at it with an unctuous tremor of the lip, and threw it off.
“But you’ve not dined,” cried Mizzlemist to Basil. “What will you
have? Country fare, you know.”
“Nothing. The fact is, I picked a bit with the gypsies; always dine
with the gypsies when I come into the country; always,” said Basil
with a laugh.
“With gypsies! Bless me—can’t be true—I mean, very odd company,
Mr. Pennibacker. Very,” and Mizzlemist rubbed his hands, looking
doubtfully askaunce at Basil.
“Most polite people on earth,” cried Basil. “And for poultry, I
assure you, quite by themselves. True, upon my life; I can eat
nobody’s ducks but the gypsies’. Ha, sir! Gypsy life is the real
life, sir. Nothing to do with parchment, Doctor.”
“Why, no, young gentleman,” said Mizzlemist with dignity, “save,
perhaps, when they go sheep-stealing.”
“No house-rent; no taxes; no rates; no infernal respectability,”
cried Basil, bent upon his humour.
“Ha! ha! very good. Beggars all. Humph?” cried Bones. “Capital state,
when people have no respectability. Ugh! it eats a beggar like me out
of house and home.”
“Well, I didn’t imagine that, Colonel,” said Basil. “I thought you
always put out your respectability to board on other people.”
“Capital! Very good! The fact is, my dear young sir—come, take a
glass of wine—people won’t let me alone. They will carry me about
with them; no doubt, to show their humility. I tell them I’m a
beggar: what then? they will have the pauper with them—they will.
Here’s the Doctor—would drag me out to-day, to come and look at old
Carraways’ Lodge”—and again Bones emptied his glass.
“Of course,” said Mizzlemist: “if your friends didn’t look after you,
Colonel, you’d never stir. You’d take no exercise. You’d sit in that
arm-chair of yours till the sexton came for you. And the fact is”—and
the Doctor archly smiled—“we’re not going to lose you in that way.
No: it’s our duty as fellow-creatures and Christians to take care
of you, and we will do it;” and Mizzlemist’s kindly emphasis almost
brought the tears into his eyes. “Poor lone creature! You never knew
what it was to have the tenderness of a wife. You haven’t a dear
soul, growing all the kinder and tenderer for age, haunting your
fireside; and so we must take care of you—and we _will_, old fellow.”
“All too good, much too good to a beggar,” cried Bones, with his
fore-finger scratching the nape of his neck.
“Come, sir, take a glass of wine,” and Mizzlemist urged Basil. Then
dropping back in his chair, he gazed at the young gentleman in all
the fulness of after-dinner admiration. “Ha, sir! it is something
delightful—nay, very delightful, indeed, only to look at you.”
“Indeed,” cried Basil, “glad to hear it. Easy way of getting a
living. Shilling a-head for grown fools, six-pence for children. Come
sir, down with your money.”
“In your connection with Mr. Jericho, you have a grand field before
you,” said the unoffended Mizzlemist.
“Humph! Can you tell me if the field’s in crop? And what it is?”
asked Basil.
“Whatever you like, sir. I am afraid, Mr. Pennibacker”—and Mizzlemist
became very serious—“I am afraid you do not sufficiently estimate the
position of Mr. Jericho. See what he has done already. Is he not in
Parliament? Is he not in the very highest society? Next Tuesday—yes,
absolutely next Tuesday—he dines with the Duke St. George, at Red
Dragon House; and with his inestimable lady and daughters will,
at once, be dipped in the Pactolean vortex—if I’ve not forgot
my Christchurch classics—in the Pactolean vortex of fashionable
existence.”
“Well, and what will Mr. Jericho pay? What, for self, wife and
daughters?” asked Basil, “what will be the price of admission to the
Red Dragon mahogany?”
“Price, Mr. Pennibacker!” cried Mizzlemist.
“Price. Why, you can’t tell; neither can Jericho himself. More than
that, I’ve my doubts, if even the Duke of St. George has made up his
mind to the exact sum to be borrowed of the Man of Money. It must
be for a loan, or do folks think money, like the measles, catching?
The Duke St. George, of Red Dragon House! Why, he’s a very river of
royal blood. From the heptarchy downwards, there’s been a prince or
a princess, or a royal bishop, or something of the sort, cut into the
stream—and he contains in himself the very best blood, laid on from
twenty crowned houses. And to think that he should shake hands with
Jericho—that he should invite such a piece of clay—why it must be for
the gilding.”
“My dear young gentleman,” said Mizzlemist, with a gravity almost
affectionate, “disabuse your mind of such vulgar cant. Be above it,
sir. Don’t think that money can do anything and everything—it can’t.
There must be inward worth. The gold candlestick—if I may be so bold
as to use a figure—the gold candlestick may be prized I grant; but
its magnificence is only subservient to its use; the gold is very
well: but after all, it is the light we look to.” And Mizzlemist
believed he had clenched the question.
“Yes,” said Basil; “so that the candlestick has gold enough, I take
it, it may burn anything—mutton fat’s as good as wax.”
“I say again, don’t think it. Mr. Jericho, independent of his wealth,
is a man of talent. I assure you”—now Mizzlemist was never more
serious—“I assure you, I forget them, but some of his admirable bits
of wit are now going about. I forget them, but I pledge myself, they
are allowed to be very brilliant.”
“All’s one for that,” and Basil emptied his glass.
“But as I was observing, Mr. Pennibacker, you have all the world
before you,” said Mizzlemist.
“I quite feel that, sir, in the new profession that within this
half-hour I have determined to adopt.”
“Why, sir, when you go to the bar”—began Mizzlemist.
“No, I’ve abandoned the thought. The bar’s too full. Bench can’t be
lengthened to hold a thousandth part of us: and mustn’t sit in each
other’s laps. So many, nine-tenths must die like spiders with nothing
to spin. I thought of the army. But that’s going, sir; going, soon
to be gone. Bless you, laurels are fast sinking from the camp to the
kitchen. In a very little while, sir, and the cook will rob Cæsar of
his wreath to flavour a custard.”
“Ha! ha! very good. Wait a little though,—humph?” cried Colonel Bones.
“I do not very fully grapple with your position,”—said Mizzlemist,
hesitating.
“Don’t try, then, sir,” said Basil, “’twill only strain your
intellect. Therefore, as I see all the usual avenues shut up—‘no
thoroughfare’ writ over ’em—I shall strike out a road for myself.
Meet a want, or make a want, that’s the motto, sir, for a new
business?”
“Well, there really is something in that,” said Mizzlemist.
“Now, I intend to meet a want—a very craving want,” said Basil. “And
with such benevolent determination, I purpose to start in life as a
Comic Undertaker.”
“Good, devilish good!” and Bones rubbed his hands; and Mizzlemist
stared.
“It will be my lasting reputation,” said Basil, “to meet the grand
desire of the age. For do you not perceive, sir, the great tendency
of our time is to sink the serious, and to save the droll? Folks who
have an eagle in their coat-of-arms begin to be ashamed of it, and
paint it out for the laughing goose. In a very little while and we
shall put a horse-collar round about the world, expressly for all the
world to grin through it.”
“You know best, Mr. Basil,” said Mizzlemist, “but surely ’twill be a
great stop to business.”
“Now, in pursuit of the comic,” said Basil, “I think we might very
successfully carry fun into the churchyard. A man of true humour,
sir, and such a man every morning when I rise I am in the habit of
considering—himself may put a capital joke into an epitaph, and get
a broad grin from a skeleton. I think I see my board and card—‘Basil
Pennibacker, the Original Comic Undertaker. Funerals acted in the
happiest vein of humour. Mutes of every drollery.’ I think that will
do, sir.”
“It will never be permitted, sir; never,” said the literal
Mizzlemist. “The legislature, sir, will not permit it. I like a joke,
sir; I think I may say I like a joke, but when the ashes of”—
“What! Eh? Why here comes Mr. Jericho, pelting along. Humph?” cried
Colonel Bones, who had run to the window.
“Then I’m off,” said Basil, and instantly he ran down to the door,
jumped in his saddle, and was speedily far away in a cloud of dust.
Mizzlemist approached the window. Jericho’s equipage came rattling
down the hill, Hodmadod and Candituft galloping a little in advance.
The carriage pulled up at the door of the Silver Lion. Mizzlemist had
descended, and approached Mr. Jericho. “I am very sorry, sir, that I
should have missed you,” said the Doctor. “I brought out the Colonel
for a ride, and thought we should all meet at the Lodge. I thought
you’d have stopt”—
“I don’t stop, Doctor Mizzlemist,” said Jericho coldly, whilst
Mizzlemist stept back in astonishment—“I don’t stop for anybody.
Who are you, sir—whom do you take me for?” bellowed Jericho, whilst
Mizzlemist stared, and his jaw fell in mute wonder. Here, Colonel
Bones, benevolently thought he might come to the rescue of his
friend. Whereupon bending his iron face into a very severe smile, he
began—
“I do assure you, Jericho, that”—
“Jericho!” exclaimed the Man of Money, with an oath that passed
upon the Colonel a very hot and very summary sentence, “Who asked
you to speak? A toad-eater! A bone-picking pauper! Drive on!” and
Jericho sank back like an exhausted savage; the coach and cavaliers
flew forward, and Mizzlemist confounded, groped his way back to the
Colonel, whom he found seated, foaming at the mouth, and violently
cutting the air about him with a knife he had taken from the
table, inarticulately spluttering—“Toad-eater! Majesty’s officer!
Bone-picker! Blood—blood—blood!”
After a time, Mizzlemist took the knife from the Colonel, and
entreated him to be calm. He was immediately obedient. He filled a
bumper, glanced at his friend, and in a soft but very decided voice,
as though making himself a solemn promise of some especial treat,
said—“I’ll have his blood, sir, his blood.”