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CHAPTER 35
Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with
much complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring
after the ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a
good and lawful note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of
England, increased his good-humour considerably. Indeed he so
overflowed with liberality and condescension, that, in the fulness
of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch
with him at that remote and indefinite period which is currently
denominated 'one of these days,' and paid him many handsome
compliments on the uncommon aptitude for business which his conduct
on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.
It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments
kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful
member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges
in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be
always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving
himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic
expressions. And this had passed into such a habit with him, that,
if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his
fingers' ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but
in his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and
repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but frowned above all
the smooth speeches--one of nature's beacons, warning off those
who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that
dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less
treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere.
While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and
inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and
that of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal
practice had been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings,
and to whet and sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little
disappointed that the single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at
such an easy rate, arguing that when he was seen to have set his
mind upon them, he should have been at the least charged double or
treble the usual terms, and that, in exact proportion as he pressed
forward, Mr Swiveller should have hung back. But neither the good
opinion of Mr Brass, nor the dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought
any impression upon that young gentleman, who, throwing the
responsibility of this and all other acts and deeds thereafter to
be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was quite resigned and
comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and philosophically
indifferent to the best.
'Good morning, Mr Richard,' said Brass, on the second day of Mr
Swiveller's clerkship. 'Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir,
yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She's a rare fellow at a
bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard. You'll find that a first-rate
stool, Sir, take my word for it.'
'It's rather a crazy one to look at,' said Dick.
'You'll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may
depend,' returned Mr Brass. 'It was bought in the open street just
opposite the hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of
two, it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the
sun, that's all.'
'I hope it hasn't got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,'
said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson
and the chaste Sally. 'One of the legs is longer than the others.'
'Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,' retorted Brass. 'Ha, ha,
ha! We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that's another advantage
of my sister's going to market for us. Miss Brass, Mr Richard is
the--'
'Will you keep quiet?' interrupted the fair subject of these
remarks, looking up from her papers. 'How am I to work if you keep
on chattering?'
'What an uncertain chap you are!' returned the lawyer. 'Sometimes
you're all for a chat. At another time you're all for work. A man
never knows what humour he'll find you in.'
'I'm in a working humour now,' said Sally, 'so don't disturb me, if
you please. And don't take him,' Miss Sally pointed with the
feather of her pen to Richard, 'off his business. He won't do more
than he can help, I dare say.'
Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply,
but was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only
muttered something about aggravation and a vagabond; not
associating the terms with any individual, but mentioning them as
connected with some abstract ideas which happened to occur to him.
They went on writing for a long time in silence after this--in
such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who required excitement) had
several times fallen asleep, and written divers strange words in an
unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally at length
broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the little
tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her
opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had 'done it.'
'Done what, ma'am?' said Richard.
'Do you know,' returned Miss Brass, 'that the lodger isn't up yet--
that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed
yesterday afternoon?'
'Well, ma'am,' said Dick, 'I suppose he may sleep his ten pound
out, in peace and quietness, if he likes.'
'Ah! I begin to think he'll never wake,' observed Miss Sally.
'It's a very remarkable circumstance,' said Brass, laying down his
pen; 'really, very remarkable. Mr Richard, you'll remember, if
this gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the
bed-post, or any unpleasant accident of that kind should happen--
you'll remember, Mr Richard, that this ten pound note was given to
you in part payment of two years' rent? You'll bear that in mind,
Mr Richard; you had better make a note of it, sir, in case you
should ever be called upon to give evidence.'
Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance
of profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.
'We can never be too cautious,' said Mr Brass. 'There is a deal of
wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness. Did the
gentleman happen to say, Sir--but never mind that at present, sir;
finish that little memorandum first.'
Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his
stool, and was walking up and down the office.
'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye
over the document. 'Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman
say anything else?'
'No.'
'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the
gentleman said nothing else?'
'Devil a word, Sir,' replied Dick.
'Think again, Sir,' said Brass; 'it's my duty, Sir, in the position
in which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal
profession--the first profession in this country, Sir, or in any
other country, or in any of the planets that shine above us at
night and are supposed to be inhabited--it's my duty, Sir, as an
honourable member of that profession, not to put to you a leading
question in a matter of this delicacy and importance. Did the
gentleman, Sir, who took the first floor of you yesterday
afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property--a box of
property--say anything more than is set down in this memorandum?'
'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.
Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally
again, and still said 'No.'
'Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried
Brass, relaxing into a smile. 'Did he say anything about his
property? --there!'
'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her
brother.
'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass, in a kind of comfortable,
cozy tone--'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask
you, to refresh your memory--did he say, for instance, that he was
a stranger in London--that it was not his humour or within his
ability to give any references--that he felt we had a right to
require them--and that, in case anything should happen to him, at
any time, he particularly desired that whatever property he had
upon the premises should be considered mine, as some slight
recompense for the trouble and annoyance I should sustain--and
were you, in short,' added Brass, still more comfortably and cozily
than before, 'were you induced to accept him on my behalf, as a
tenant, upon those conditions?'
'Certainly not,' replied Dick.
'Why then, Mr Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious
and reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your
calling, and will never make a lawyer.'
'Not if you live a thousand years,' added Miss Sally. Whereupon
the brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the
little tin box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.
Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller's dinner-time, which was
at three o'clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming. At the
first stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared. At the last
stroke of five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic,
became fragrant with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.
'Mr Richard,' said Brass, 'this man's not up yet. Nothing will
wake him, sir. What's to be done?'
'I should let him have his sleep out,' returned Dick.
'Sleep out!' cried Brass; 'why he has been asleep now, six-
and-twenty hours. We have been moving chests of drawers over his
head, we have knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have
made the servant-girl fall down stairs several times (she's a light
weight, and it don't hurt her much,) but nothing wakes him.'
'Perhaps a ladder,' suggested Dick, 'and getting in at the first-
floor window--'
'But then there's a door between; besides, the neighbours would be
up in arms,' said Brass.
'What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the
trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?' suggested Dick.
'That would be an excellent plan,' said Brass, 'if anybody would
be--' and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller--'would be kind,
and friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it. I dare say it
would not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.'
Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly
fall within Miss Sally's department. As he said nothing further,
and declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that
they should go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken
the sleeper by some less violent means, which, if they failed on
this last trial, must positively be succeeded by stronger measures.
Mr Swiveller, assenting, armed himself with his stool and the large
ruler, and repaired with his employer to the scene of action, where
Miss Brass was already ringing a hand-bell with all her might, and
yet without producing the smallest effect upon their mysterious
lodger.
'There are his boots, Mr Richard!' said Brass.
'Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,' quoth Richard
Swiveller. And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of
boots as one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as
if their owner's legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with
their broad soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place
by main force.
'I can't see anything but the curtain of the bed,' said Brass,
applying his eye to the keyhole of the door. 'Is he a strong man,
Mr Richard?'
Very,' answered Dick.
It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to
bounce out suddenly,' said Brass. 'Keep the stairs clear. I
should be more than a match for him, of course, but I'm the master
of the house, and the laws of hospitality must be respected. --
Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!'
While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole,
uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger's
attention, and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller
put his stool close against the wall by the side of the door, and
mounting on the top and standing bolt upright, so that if the
lodger did make a rush, he would most probably pass him in its
onward fury, began a violent battery with the ruler upon the upper
panels of the door. Captivated with his own ingenuity, and
confident in the strength of his position, which he had taken up
after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and
gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained
down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the bell was
drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs below,
ready to fly at a moment's notice, was obliged to hold her ears
lest she should be rendered deaf for life.
Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently
open. The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived
into her own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for
personal courage, ran into the next street, and finding that nobody
followed him, armed with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his
hands in his pockets, walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.
Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into
as flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not
unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the
door growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the
boots in his hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down
stairs on speculation. This idea, however, he abandoned. He was
turning into his room again, still growling vengefully, when his
eyes met those of the watchful Richard.
'Have YOU been making that horrible noise?' said the single
gentleman.
'I have been helping, sir,' returned Dick, keeping his eye upon
him, and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an
indication of what the single gentleman had to expect if he
attempted any violence.
'How dare you then,' said the lodger, 'Eh?'
To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the
lodger held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of
a gentleman to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch,
and whether the peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to
weigh as nothing in the balance.
'Is my peace nothing?' said the single gentleman.
'Is their peace nothing, sir?' returned Dick. 'I don't wish to
hold out any threats, sir--indeed the law does not allow of
threats, for to threaten is an indictable offence--but if ever you
do that again, take care you're not sat upon by the coroner and
buried in a cross road before you wake. We have been distracted
with fears that you were dead, Sir,' said Dick, gently sliding to
the ground, 'and the short and the long of it is, that we cannot
allow single gentlemen to come into this establishment and sleep
like double gentlemen without paying extra for it.'
'Indeed!' cried the lodger.
'Yes, Sir, indeed,' returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and
saying whatever came uppermost; 'an equal quantity of slumber was
never got out of one bed and bedstead, and if you're going to sleep
in that way, you must pay for a double-bedded room.' .
Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks,
the lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with
twinkling eyes. He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared
browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on. As it
was clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr
Swiveller was relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to
encourage him in it, smiled himself.
The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed
his nightcap very much on one side of his bald head. This gave him
a rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe
it, charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of
propitiation, he expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to
get up, and further that he would never do so any more.
'Come here, you impudent rascal!' was the lodger's answer as he
re-entered his room.
Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but
reserving the ruler in case of a surprise. He rather congratulated
himself on his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice
or explanation of any kind, double-locked the door.
'Can you drink anything?' was his next inquiry.
Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the
pangs of thirst, but that he was still open to 'a modest quencher,'
if the materials were at hand. Without another word spoken on
either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of
temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on
the table.
Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him
closely. Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an
egg; into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw
steak from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water.
Then, with the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he
procured a light and applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place
of its own below the temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the
little chambers; then he opened them; and then, by some wonderful
and unseen agency, the steak was done, the egg was boiled, the
coffee was accurately prepared, and his breakfast was ready.
'Hot water--' said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as
much coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him--
'extraordinary rum--sugar--and a travelling glass. Mix for
yourself. And make haste.'
Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on
the table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which
seemed to hold everything. The lodger took his breakfast like a
man who was used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of
them.
'The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?' said the lodger.
Dick nodded. The rum was amazing.
'The woman of the house--what's she?'
'A dragon,' said Dick.
The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things
in his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman,
evinced no surprise, but merely inquired 'Wife or Sister?'--
'Sister,' said Dick.--'So much the better,' said the single
gentleman, 'he can get rid of her when he likes.'
'I want to do as I like, young man,' he added after a short
silence; 'to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in
when I like, go out when I like--to be asked no questions and be
surrounded by no spies. In this last respect, servants are the
devil. There's only one here.'
'And a very little one,' said Dick.
'And a very little one,' repeated the lodger. 'Well, the place
will suit me, will it?'
'Yes,' said Dick.
'Sharks, I suppose?' said the lodger.
Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.
'Let them know my humour,' said the single gentleman, rising. 'If
they disturb me, they lose a good tenant. If they know me to be
that, they know enough. If they try to know more, it's a notice to
quit. It's better to understand these things at once. Good day.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Dick, halting in his passage to the door,
which the lodger prepared to open. 'When he who adores thee has
left but the name--'
'What do you mean?'
'--But the name,' said Dick--'has left but the name--in case of
letters or parcels--'
'I never have any,' returned the lodger.
'Or in the case anybody should call.'
'Nobody ever calls on me.'
'If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it
was my fault, Sir,' added Dick, still lingering.--'Oh blame
not the bard--'
'I'll blame nobody,' said the lodger, with such irascibility that
in a moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked
door between them.
Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed,
only routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller's abrupt exit. As
their utmost exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of
the interview, however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence,
which, though limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such
quiet pantomime, had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down
to the office to hear his account of the conversation.
This Mr Swiveller gave them--faithfully as regarded the wishes and
character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the
great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for
brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring,
with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of
every kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in
particular that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever
was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them
to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of
sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two
minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved
by his sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was
produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when
the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr Swiveller)
was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or chemist,
or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at some
future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of
Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.
There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to
enlarge upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which,
by reason of its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the
heels of the temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner,
awakened a slight degree of fever, and rendered necessary two or
three other modest quenchers at the public-house in the course of
the evening.
Content of CHAPTER 35 [Charles Dickens' novel: The Old Curiosity Shop]
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