Chương Chương 35 · 第35章

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.