CHAPTER X.
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 thewhole 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 haveconquered”—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.
Basil’s Practical Joke.
Basil’s Practical Joke.
Basil’s Practical Joke.
“May it please your majesty,” said a voice from the apple-tree, and immediately Basil Pennibacker’s earnest face stared downthrough 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.” Basilstrove 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! Whatdoyou 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 theway, 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 onlythe 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 atthe 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 wasto 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 wewill, 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 theheptarchy 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.”