CHAPTER XIII.
The ball that went through Jericho’s heart, killed Doctor Dodo’s reputation. The Doctor was one of those stiff-necked men who will believe their own senses in opposition to their own interests. He was signally punished for his obstinacy; and, we trust, will stand pilloried in these pages as an instructive example of misfortune, bigoted to a faith in its own eyes, ears, and understanding. Why—with a wife and increasing family hanging at his coat pockets,—why would Doctor Dodo, in defiance of the world, insist upon enjoying his own convictions? How many men have been ruined by the extravagance; nevertheless, headlong simplicity will not take warning!
Doctor Dodo declared that he had been inveigled to the ground—the Battersea Waterloo—and therefore was under no professional pledge of silence. Again, the gun-shot wound enjoyed by Jericho—as Dodo sneeringly phrased it—was so extraordinary, so marvellous, seeing that the man was no worse for it—that, with trumpet-voice, the case must sound an alarm to the whole profession. If men were to live with holes in their hearts, there was an end of the delicate mystery of anatomy. Man became no jot more dignified than polypus.
“I tell you, Doctor Stubbs, a hole clean through the fellow’s heart,” cried Dodo to a brother physician, who, with finger and thumb dreamily fondling the tip of his nose, looked askance at the heated narrator. Dodo fired at the look of doubt, and bellowed, “I tell you clean—clean! If the ball had passed through a crumpet, it couldn’t have gone cleaner.”
“And the—the man walked from the ground?” said Stubbs, with wary look and voice.
“Never felt it,” said Dodo. “Walked away, Stubbs; strode off like an ostrich.”
“Humph!” said Stubbs; and the good fellow thought of Dodo’s large family with friendly concern. “Humph! And was there much hemorrhage?”
“None, none, Stubbs: no more than if you’d fired through a pancake,” exclaimed Dodo.
“You couldn’t”—Stubbs spoke very tenderly—“you couldn’t be mistaken, my dear Dodo? Itwasthe heart?”
The blood rushed to Dodo’s face, choking his speech. Giving a violent jerk at his neckcloth, then sternly composing himself, Doctor Dodo gave the following testimony solemnly, as though the honour of a life depended on it:—“My dear sir—Doctor Stubbs—I am not a man to joke, sir; I defy my worst enemy to say that. Well, sir, upon my professional reputation, Colonel Bones’s bullet went through the left ventricle of Jericho’s heart.”
“Dear me! Very odd—very odd! Of course, if you aver this——”
“Aver it! I saw the wound; the hole, Doctor Stubbs, the hole. I say it, on my professional reputation, standing before Jericho, I saw through him. As I am a gentleman, I saw the setting sun through his fourth and fifth ribs.”
“Very strange,” said Stubbs, in the kindest, most conciliating way. “What do you think of it?”
“Think! Why, when I saw the man walk away; when I know that he is now as well as ever; what must I think—averse as I am from all such notions—what must I think but that Jericho has sold himself to the devil? What do you smile at, Doctor Stubbs?” cried Dodo, angrily.
“I couldn’t have thought you believed in such bargains,” said Stubbs, gently. “Besides, whatever may have happened in the dark times, we mustn’t believe in such transactions now-a-days. Political economy forbids it.”
“I don’t see; I don’t see,” cried Dodo: “I say, sold himself to the devil; and why not?”
“Why, my dear Dodo, you see we must concede that supply is ruled by demand, and”—and Stubbs thought to pacify Dodo—“and between ourselves—if half we hear be true, I think the devil must have his hands full. And so, my good friend, take my advice; say nothing about the matter.”
“What!” cried Dodo, “close my eyes—shut my mouth? Not out of my grave, Doctor Stubbs; certainly not. I know you’re a prudent man, with a reverence for the world, and so forth. But for myself—as I say—not out of my grave. No, no; not out of my grave,” and with a smile and a wave of the hand that said—“Doctor Stubbs, you’re a pitiful fellow,” Dodo strode from his mean adviser.
Colonel Bones—it was at the Cutancome Club that the Doctors met—dropt in a few minutes after the departure of Dodo: five minutes after, came Commissioner Thrush. It was plain from the strange looks of the men that there was a dark secret between them. Bones lifted his eyebrows; Thrush upraised his. Bones drew his mouth into a small significant hole; Thrush puckered his lips to a point. Bones threw up his hands; Thrush, with shaking palms, responded to the gesture. And then Bones and Thrush seated themselves at the opposite sides of a table; and squaring their elbows upon the board, looked silently in one another’s faces.
“Humph?” cried Bones, after a pause. “Humph? Ever seen anything like it in Siam?”
“Who could have thought it!” cried Thrush. “Who could believe the devil such a fool—such an ass?”
“After all, Commissioner, it’s long been my opinion that the devil is a fool. We’ve flattered him too much; thought too highly of him. The devil’s a nincompoop. Humph?” said Bones.
“He must be; or could he ever have bought such a penn’orth as Jericho?” asked Thrush.
“Vulgar notion, Commissioner. The devil buys nobody: folks when they’ve a mind to it, give themselves away. The wonder is, some of ’em are taken even at a gift. Humph?”
“Wrong, Colonel, wrong; I’m certain of it, the devil’s a liberal, punctual dealer in the market, and when he buys outright, pays ready money for his goods. I wonder how much he’s given for Jericho? Who’d have thought that Doctor Faustus should come up again in our time! That hole in hisheart accounts for the money in his pocket. Colonel Bones,”—cried Thrush, with sudden solemnity.
“Commissioner Thrush,” said Bones, sonorously responding.
“We owe a duty to society. We must expose this fiend,” exclaimed Thrush, rapping the table.
“Strip him to the world,” coincided Bones, “that the world may see through him. Humph?”
“Tear the demon from his gilded temple,” cried Thrush, eloquent in his indignation, “and appal mankind with the hideousness of wicked wealth.”
“Beautiful! Humph?” and Bones rubbed his hands, pleased with promised sport.
“Nevertheless, Colonel, let us proceed regularly, respectably. I have turned the matter over; and I think our best line of action is this.—Is this,” and Thrush gathering himself to the table, brought his forefinger to his nose, to steady his opinion. “We will call upon the rector of the demon’s parish.”
“Humph?” said Bones, doubtingly. “Well, if you think so.”
“We will inform him of the existence of the fiend your bullet has discovered”—Thrush paused.
“Very good,” cried Bones, encouragingly. “Very proper—if you think so.”
“The rector will then lay the matter before the bishop of his diocese”—Thrush again paused—
“Excellent; quite according to discipline,” said Bones, “and what then? Humph? What then?”
“Why, then,” continued Thrush, with an awful expression of face, “why then, the bishop—I have no doubt of it, whatever—the bishop will, with his pastoral grasp, seize upon Jericho, and haul him into the ecclesiastical court.”
The fierce, grim, cannibal look of the Colonel was softened into compassion. “Poor devil!” said Bones.
“There is no help for it,” cried Thrush, with the air of a man determined upon making a sacrifice in no way distressing to himself. “No help for it. Perhaps, it is not agreeable to be mixed up with such a matter. It is certainly not pleasant to go downto posterity in company with a demon. Nevertheless, we owe a debt to society; therefore, we will first obtain the attestation of Doctor Dodo, and so assured, proceed to Doctor Cummin of St. Shekels. Man owes two solemn debts; one to society, and one to nature. It is only when he pays the second, that he covers the first.”
“Beautiful! Humph?” said Bones.
“My dear fellows,” said Stubbs, joining the two friends vowed to the destruction of the demon Jericho, “have you seen Dodo lately?”
“Saw him last night, didn’t we?” answered Thrush, with a wink, to Bones.
“I may speak to both of you confidentially,” observed Stubbs in trustful tone. “I believe we all have a regard for poor Dodo: an excellent fellow—will talk, that’s the worst. Has no stopper to his mouth; what rises from his heart will run out at his lips, that’s his misfortune, poor fellow! but—well, well,—we all have our faults. Now, I want to ask you”—and Stubbs, looking about him, lowered his voice—“I want to ask, have you observed anything odd about Dodo? Anything at all flighty?—you know what I mean.”
“Why, upon my word”—said Thrush, dragging out the syllables, and then pausing.
“He has a large family; I may say, a sweet family. An excellent wife, too. But, poor fellow! he has not had time to be rich, and I hope—yes, I do hope,” said Stubbs, emphatic, “that the brain’s all right.”
“What! Cracked?” cried Bones. “Does it ring as if cracked—humph?”
“This is in the closest confidence,” again urged Stubbs; “but I assure you that, for half-an-hour, Dodo would insist upon it that a man—it would be unjust, ungenerous, to mention his name, but a man of unbounded wealth and equal honour—had received a bullet through the left ventricle, you understand, of his heart; and that the man was still alive. And this,” Dodo said, “he had witnessed; had seen the sunset through the perforation. And still alive!”
Bones slowly rubbed his hands.
“Well?” said Thrush, coldly.
“Well!” cried Stubbs. “My dear sir, when a man makes such an avowal, we know that the brain—for the time, at least—is gone. And when, moreover, the man happens to be a physician, why then”—and the Doctor, in despair of utterance big enough to express the result, took a pinch of snuff.
At this moment Doctor Mizzlemist joined the party. “Seen Dodo lately?” said he, looking mysterious. “Very odd. I suppose he means it as a joke; but jokes are not exactly the things for physicians; indeed, not for any man who’d ride in his carriage. Jokes are the luxury of beggars; men of substance can’t afford ’em.”
“Very true, Doctor,” said Stubbs, nodding serious affirmation.
“Must be mad, I think,” said Mizzlemist. “Going all about the town, swearing that he saw a man shot through the heart, and the man walk from the ground. Why, his diploma isn’t worth so much ass’s-skin. Who’d employ such a physician? Now, this is Dodo’s dilemma—law, insanity, poverty; the prongs of the caudine fork—if I haven’t forgotten my classics,” and Mizzlemist extended his three fingers.
“What do you mean? And only for saying a man was shot,” stammered Thrush, “what do you mean?”
“In the first place”—and Mizzlemist smacked his lips—“there is libel, inasmuch as to assert that a man lives with a bullet-hole in his heart, in the opinion of every sound lawyer implies a diabolic compact.”
“Good,” cried Stubbs, much satisfied.
“Secondly, if the physician escape libel, he is open to a writde lunatico,” said Mizzlemist, his voice cheerfully rising.
“There can be no doubt of it,” averred Stubbs.
“Thirdly, if he get clear of libel, and, more extraordinary still, escape a lunatic jury, why, the physician’s practice is gone—dead as a fly in his own ointment.”
“Physicians don’t keep ointment,” said Stubbs, with dignity. “We prescribe—simply.”
“His practice is gone,” repeated Mizzlemist, “and then, if he’s not made his fortune, then”—and Mizzlemist rolled the verdict over his tongue,—“then there is poverty, emphatic poverty. And so, as friends of Dr. Dodo, give him a hint, do. Are you going westward, Stubbs? I see your wheels are at the door. Can you give me a trundle?”
“With pleasure,” and Stubbs and Mizzlemist straightway departed.
“You did not see the hole yourself, Colonel?” asked Thrush, with contemplative face.
“Why, no. I was the last person to look at it, you know. Humph?” cried Bones.
“I wish I had had a peep. Would have been more satisfactory—much more,” said Thrush, puzzled.
“I saw no blood; and I was near enough to see that. Humph?” and Bones nibbled his thumb-nail.
“After all,” and Thrush spoke like a man of amended judgment, “after all, it must be Dodo’s joke, or if not”—and Thrush pointed expressively at his own forehead, “poor fellow! A large family, too. At all events, we cannot be too prudent. And so, till we hear more, I think we will postpone our call upon Doctor Cummin.”
“I must say I wouldn’t trouble either him or the bishop without better grounds. For my part I think there must be a mistake. And then there’s libel, and lunacy, and—though I’ve nothing to lose—there’s poverty, and—upon my word”—and Bones seemed fixed in the opinion—“I think we had better hold our peace.”
“I think so too,” cried Thrush, very readily. “For I recollect it was a saying of the King of Siam’s, that the giant Whapperwo, who with his little finger could level stone walls, was at last knocked down by his own tongue.”
“Very strange,” said Bones, opening a letter—one of two brought by the servant. “Jericho, I suppose to show he bears no malice, asks me to dinner.”
“It is odd,” answered Thrush, reading the twin missive;“but here, too, he asks me. This looks like conscious innocence. Dodo must be jesting, or must be mad.”
“At all events, we’ll go—humph?—I say we’ll go”—Thrush bowed assent—“if only to look about us. Nevertheless, I must say that I am anxious for Dodo—anxious for his wife—anxious for his family. Humph?”
And Rumour blew upon the hole in Jericho’s heart—blew as through a brazen trumpet—making many modulations. We have heard her at the luxurious Cutancome. Let us listen to her at the Horse and Anchor, frequented by Bob Topps whose simplicity and good nature had made him a sudden favourite with the rugged charioteers who drank and baited at the hostelry. “What’s your fare, Bob?” a cabman wag would ask, playfully satirical on Robert’s innocence, “what’s your fare, now, from the first of April to Jerusalem?” Another, in the like vein would demand of Bob “how much he’d take to drive over Lady-day, and set down clear of the water-rate?” And Bob gave and took in the best of humour, and in a few days, with the help of ale—the liberal “footing” of a beginner—commanded, when he would, an attentive audience. And Bob told the story of the duel from the beginning, to pleased listeners. When, however, he came to the hole in the duellist’s heart, the duellist still alive, he met with boisterous unbelief.
“Upon my word and honour, gentlemen”—said Bob earnestly—“I picked the bullet up myself; and it was as flat—as flat as any shilling. It had gone clean through him.”
“And him as it hit,” asked one of the audience, “was still alive?”
“Alive! Why, I tell you, he wanted me to drive him home. But, no, no, says I. In course not: I wasn’t goin’ to pison my cab, and a new un, too, with brimstone,” said Bob sagaciously.
“Well, if that lie isn’t enough to take one’s wheel off,” said an old man, holding Bob’s ale-pot in his hand; and then winking at the donor, and taking a long, deep draught to right himself.
“A hole right through him, eh?” said another, a grave jester. “Why didn’t you thread him with your whip, like a herrin’ through the gills? There’s a song that talks o’ hollow hearts, but I ’spose the song don’t mean hearts with holes in ’em like grindstones.”
“You may say what you like,” cried Bob, “I know the man; I saw the light twinkling through him—and more than that, his name’s Jericho.”
“What! the rich man that they’re always talkin’ about in the paper? The man that’s buying everything? The man that’s goin’ to have gold scrapers at his door, and lion’s head knockers cut out o’ diamonds? You’re a good fellow, Bob, though you know no more of the fares of town than the Babies in the Wood,—still you’re a good fellow, and I wouldn’t see you hurt. So you’d better say nothin’ against such folks as Mr. Jericho. Why, what are you to such as him? He’d put you into the Court of Chancery for scandal, and none of your dearest friends—not even the wife o’ your bosom with the biggest telescope as ever was, would ever be able to see a bit of you agin. Do mind what you’re about,” and the philosopher and friend pulled at the ale.
“Don’t tell me,” cried Bob; “thatJericho—oh, there’s something precious wrong there! A man can’t live with a hole in his heart, and the devil know nothin’ about it.”
A pelting shower came on; there was a sudden demand for cabs, and all Bob’s audience were speedily on their several boxes. He alone sat in the tap-room, pensive and puzzled.
“My good lad,” said the landlord of the Horse and Anchor, addressing Bob with considerable kindness—“my good lad, I like you, but take my advice—don’t give your mind to lying. A lie may do very well for a time; but like a bad shilling, it’s found out at last—it is, upon my word and honour. Still, if you must lie—if you can’t help it—tell lies about them as is your equals; don’t lie agin them that has money enough to eat you. Without salt!” added, in the way of exclamation, the Horse and Anchor.
“Breeks, my dear, I’ve long been sure of it, though I never said anything about it.”—
(The hole in the heart, reader, is now discussed beneath the roof-tree of Breeks, Jericho’s tailor; Mrs. Breeks much outraged in her feelings that her husband will continue to make for that serpent.)
“I never spoke—I never do ’till I’m forced—but as true as I wear a wedding-ring, I always used to feel hot and cold shivers when you came from measuring that creature. And some day, some twelve o’clock at night, take my word for it, he’ll be carried off in a red-hot chariot, with your clothes upon him.”
“Should be sorry, Julia, to lose so good a customer. To be sure, Mr. Jericho is not the man he was”—said Breeks.
“Man! There’s no doubt of it, he’s sold himself to Belzebub, and given a stamped receipt in his own blood for the money. Else I should like to know how a man could live with a hole in his heart.”
“It’s nothin’ whatever,”—said Breeks—“easily enough.”
“Breeks, you’re getting quite a heathen, and for the sake of the dear children, I won’t live with you,” pouted Mrs. Breeks.
“See, Julia, what a hole your eyes once made in my heart,” cried the flattering tailor.
“Quite another sort of thing. Holes of that sort ar’n’t supposed to kill;” and the wife proudly smiled.
“No; they certainly do heal, and don’t leave so much as a scar behind. Time does fine-draw ’em wonderful. But don’t believe it, Julia; certainly Mr. Jericho isn’t the man he was: he’s thin to a wonder, and solemn to match. And once he was so lusty and so droll. To be sure, then he never paid, and so took any joke. Do you recollect once when I made him a whole suit, without a single pocket? ‘Why Breeks,’—says he—‘why, there’s never a pocket; not a single pocket.’ ‘I know that,’ says I. ‘I made the suit so a purpose.’ ‘Why so?’ says he. ‘Why,’ says I, ‘Mr. Jericho, whenever I ask you for money, you say you never by no means have so much as a shillin’.Now, when a man never has money, what’s the use of pockets? I wouldn’t any longer hurt your feelins to make ’em.’ Law! how he laughed: never laughs now,—but in return, what a jewel of a paymaster!”
“Paymaster! And how do you know where his money comes from? I shouldn’t wonder ifhismoney in partic’lar isn’t after all—as Mr. Jabez Spikenard says of all money—so much dust and ashes.”
“I can’t say,” answered Breeks; “all I know is, you very soon turn it into mutton and tatoes. And as for the hole that’s talked of—if Mr. Jericho’s heart had as many holes as a cullender, you’ll be good enough to wink at ’em.”
“What! be blind to wickedness! I never was in all my life, Breeks, not even afore I listened to Mr. Spikenard, and it isn’t likely I’m going to shut my eyes now. I’ll learn all about this hole of Satan’s make, depend upon it: I’ll give all the partic’lars to dear Mr. Spikenard, and won’t he make a discourse on it that’ll drag the hearts out of the very charity children! Iwill, Breeks,” averred the wife.
“I’m sorry to hear it, Julia: because, I did intend to give you a new cherry-coloured satin. You look well—’xtremely well in cherry-colour, Julia. Yes: I had made my mind up to a new gown.”
“And what’s to baulk a blessed intention, Breeks?” asked Julia.
“Why, I’d put aside the money from a bill of Mr. Jericho’s. And only to think, if when you was at chapel, the cherry-coloured satin should turn upon your very back to sackcloth and ashes!”
“Breeks, my love,” said the wife with sudden energy, “I’ll risk it.”
“Mr. Jericho”—said the tailor—“is shamefully abused. ’Cause they can’t find a hole in his coat, they pick one in his heart. See, too, what we owe him! Any other man, when he got rich, would have left the tailor of his struggling years; would have cut him off like an end o’ thread,—and gone to the west. Has Mr. Jericho done so?”
“He hasn’t, love,” said Mrs. Breeks, melting.
“Has money made any difference in him—’xcept this? Afore he never paid, and now he does?”
“It’s a sweet truth,” cried the wife, continuing to soften.
“And as for this talk about the hole—it’s a venomous falsehood. Besides, what is it to us?”
“What, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Breeks.
“He pays his way like a prince—I only wish all princes paid like him,”—cried the emphatic Breeks—“’twould be better for some tailors. And are we to see a hole in such a customer’s heart? Not if the sun and moon and all the stars was shining through him. But I don’t believe it. No: it’s a wicked scandal.”
“Backbiters, as Mr. Spikenard says, are like locusts; they love to feed upon the fat of the land. They’ve no doubt bit the hole; nobody else. Yes, my love; you’ve made me quite happy; quite restored my confidence in our customer. I shall be proud to wear a gown out of his money; it will show I don’t turn against him. And I think this time, love”—and Mrs. Breeks patted the face of her lord with kitten playfulness—“this time, not a cherry-colour; no, dearest; a crimson.”
In Primrose Place the hole in the heart, played upon by the rapid lips of Mrs. Topps, had a various effect. Bessy was struck with fear and wonder; Bessy’s mother thought there might be something in the story; and yet could not believe it: and Carraways laughed outright at the tale. “I assure you, father, Jenny seems quite shocked at the circumstance. Poor girl,” said Bessy, “she will have it, something’s going to happen.”
“No doubt,” laughed Carraways, “or how would the world go on? Come, tell us all about it, Jenny,” said the old gentleman, as Mrs. Topps, with a staid, grave face, crept from an inner room. “Mr. Jericho got a hole in his heart, eh?”
“Yes, sir; and everybody’s wondering about it—for he’s not dead, and not likely to be,” said Jenny.
“And what do you think of it, Jenny? Come, speak out,” said Carraways.
“Why, if you please, sir, it isn’t for such as me to think anything; still, I have heard of people selling themselves. I have heard that the—the—the”—
“The devil, eh, Jenny?” said Carraways.
“If you please, sir,” and Jenny curtsied. “That he walks about like a hungry lion to buy folks.”
“And you think he’s had a cheap penn’orth of Mr. Jericho, eh?”
“I didn’t say that, sir,” said Jenny; “still, everybody wonders how he’s got so rich. He says it’s a mine of metal. Folks say, a mine of brimstone. But this I know”—and Jenny encouraged, became voluble—“this I do know. A bullet went through Mr. Jericho’s heart; and the lead was as flat as a plate, for Bob picked it up, and after that Jericho walked away. He wanted to ride; but Bob—bless him!—knew better than that. Oh yes!”
“And this is Bob’s story, is it?” said Carraways, gravely. “Humph! I’m sorry to hear it. I’m afraid, Jenny, my good girl, I’m afraid Bob loves to drink.”
“La, sir! No more than a baby,” said Jenny.
“Just so,” said Carraways.
“Besides, there was a doctor that handled the bullet—a lucky thing that, for dear Bob—and moreover, that saw through the hole in Mr. Jericho’s breast—and more than that, that says he’ll have Mr. Jericho afore the bishops, and put him in the Fantastical Court. And the doctor, by what I hear”—said Mrs. Topps, with burning face—“drinks no more than Robert.”
“Well, Jenny, well,” said Carraways, with a smile. “I like you to defend your husband. It’s very natural; very proper. But the world, my good girl, can’t and won’t think as you do. I know a little, you’ll allow, of Bob; and though I can speak from no absolute evidence, nevertheless, I have a suspicion that he has a liking for drink. If this be so, try and reform him.”
“I will, sir,” said Jenny, and the tears came into her eyes.
“I may be wrong; but watch him, and if need be, persuade him against so dreadful a vice.”
“I will, sir, indeed I will,” cried Jenny, weeping outright.
“I don’t believe this story. Nobody will believe it. Everybody will take it as a drunkard’s tale; therefore, warn Bob; warn him from me. There’s a good girl.”
“I will, sir; thank’ee, sir,” and poor Jenny, with saddened heart, crept from Primrose Place, sorrowful for her weak and foolish husband. It was the first thin cloud that had crossed the honeymoon; and suddenly, the world had never looked so dark to Jenny.
The Hon. Cesar Candituft, on the night of the duel, went to bed in a state of grievous perplexity. There could be no doubt that the bullet had passed through Jericho. The man, it was horribly clear, held a supernatural tenure of existence. It was impossible to continue his friendship, for the mystery would be blown in all corners of the town. Impossible, too—or, at least, unsafe—to marry into such a family. Who was to know what infernal compact did, or did not, exist among them? That he, Cesar, should have a bosom friend, so rich, with a hole in his heart!
Mr. Candituft, wearied by dreams in no way complimentary to Jericho, sat late at breakfast. The servant brought in a small packet. It was a letter from Mr. Jericho with a most magnificent diamond ring. “Wear this diamond, my dear Cesar,” ran Jericho’s missive, “as the type of a friendship, bright, unflawed, and everlasting.” Candituft was a judge of diamonds. The stone was splendid; costly. As Cesar sat, gazing at the lustrous present, his heart melted in charitable emotions towards the donor; his brain sang thanksgiving. He rose, and approaching the window, in sweet luxurious idleness of feeling, tried the gem upon the glass. He wrote with diamond point:
“Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul,I owe thee much.”
“Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul,I owe thee much.”
“Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul,I owe thee much.”
“Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul,
I owe thee much.”
“Very good,” said Basil Pennibacker, looking over Cesar’s shoulder, “but you hav’n’t put down the amount.”
“Mr. Pennibacker,” exclaimed Candituft, “this is an honour that”—
“Don’t name it. I’ve dropt in like a housebreaker upon you; but the fact is, by what I hear, blue fire’s come into fashion again,” said Basil.
“What can you possibly mean, dear Mr. Pennibacker?” asked Cesar, sweetly unconscious.
“Mr. Candituft”—said Basil—“you must be kind enough to explain a matter to me. Understand, I have no objection whatever to the sale of any gentleman to the—I wish to be guarded in my words—to the iniquitous principle. If people will take themselves to Horns-and-Tail Market, why, that’s their affair. I may drop a buttermilk tear or so, as you would do, but I shouldn’t think of holding’em back. After all, sir, to speak plainly, it is said about town that my respected father-in-law, Mr. Solomon Jericho, has sold himself to the devil.” Candituft started. “Have you any knowledge of the interesting transaction?”
“I! Mr. Basil Pennibacker!” exclaimed Candituft, his thoughts wandering and wounded.
“Understand,” said Basil, very calmly: “pray, understand. I have no objection whatever to the sale on Mr. Jericho’s personal account; only the world may think that the sulphur runs through the whole family.”
“Surely, sir”—said Candituft—“surely you are in jest?”
“If my words were engrossed on parchment, with a fifty pound stamp to ’em, they couldn’t be more serious. Last night, Mr. Jericho fought a duel? Battersea fields? You were his second? So far, I find I’m right. Well, sir, it is said that Colonel Bones fired a ball through the heart—how the ball found it out, I can’t say—through the heart of Mr. Jericho.”
Candituft dropped his eyelids—smiled—and shook his head.
“Is this true?” asked Basil. “Doctor Dodo swears it’s true; but Dodo—some folks say—is a lunatic. Is it true that Jericho, with a hole through his heart, like a hole through atailor’s thimble, laughed at the thing as a good joke, and walked like a postman from the ground?”
“Mr. Pennibacker, in this world we light upon strange people”—
“What the monkey said”—cried Basil—“when he met his sweetheart in the Ark. Go on.”
“Do you not perceive, Mr. Basil—is it not very strange—that a man of your extraordinary acumen does not discover this bullet to be—a—a metaphor?”
“I don’t know,” said Basil. “To be sure I have known metaphors of the like metal. But what do you mean? Where’s the metaphor, when the world calls Mr. Jericho, the Man with a Hole in his Heart!”
“Ha! sir,” cried Candituft, “it is saddening to a man who tries hard to love his species—to be compelled to hear such things. Malice! Envy! The cant of wicked poverty—nothing more. Because a man is rich, he must have no emotions; because his pocket is crammed, his heart must have a hole in it.”
“Humph!” said Basil doubtfully.—“Well, I’m—yes, I’m satisfied.”
And the hero, Cesar Candituft, glanced at his diamond, and said to himself—“So am I.”