Were Bella Wilfer’s bright and ready little wits at fault, or was the Golden Dustman passing through the furnace of proof and coming out dross? Ill news travels fast. We shall know full soon.
On that very night of her return from the Happy Return, something chanced which Bella closely followed with her eyes and ears. There was an apartment at the side of the Boffin mansion, known as Mr Boffin’s room. Far less grand than the rest of the house, it was far more comfortable, being pervaded by a certain air of homely snugness, which upholstering despotism had banished to that spot when it inexorably set its face against Mr Boffin’s appeals for mercy in behalf of any other chamber. Thus, although a room of modest situation—for its windows gave on Silas Wegg’s old corner—and of no pretensions to velvet, satin, or gilding, it had got itself established in a domestic position analogous to that of an easy dressing-gown or pair of slippers; and whenever the family wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant fireside evening, they enjoyed it, as an institution that must be, in Mr Boffin’s room.
Mr and Mrs Boffin were reported sitting in this room, when Bella got back. Entering it, she found the Secretary there too; in official attendance it would appear, for he was standing with some papers in his hand by a table with shaded candles on it, at which Mr Boffin was seated thrown back in his easy chair.
‘You are busy, sir,’ said Bella, hesitating at the door.
‘Not at all, my dear, not at all. You’re one of ourselves. We never make company of you. Come in, come in. Here’s the old lady in her usual place.’
Mrs Boffin adding her nod and smile of welcome to Mr Boffin’s words, Bella took her book to a chair in the fireside corner, by Mrs Boffin’s work-table. Mr Boffin’s station was on the opposite side.
‘Now, Rokesmith,’ said the Golden Dustman, so sharply rapping the table to bespeak his attention as Bella turned the leaves of her book, that she started; ‘where were we?’
‘You were saying, sir,’ returned the Secretary, with an air of some reluctance and a glance towards those others who were present, ‘that you considered the time had come for fixing my salary.’
‘Don’t be above calling it wages, man,’ said Mr Boffin, testily. ‘What the deuce! I never talked of any salary when I was in service.’
‘My wages,’ said the Secretary, correcting himself.
‘Rokesmith, you are not proud, I hope?’ observed Mr Boffin, eyeing him askance.
‘I hope not, sir.’
‘Because I never was, when I was poor,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Poverty and pride don’t go at all well together. Mind that. How can they go well together? Why it stands to reason. A man, being poor, has nothing to be proud of. It’s nonsense.’
With a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some surprise, the Secretary seemed to assent by forming the syllables of the word ‘nonsense’ on his lips.
‘Now, concerning these same wages,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Sit down.’
The Secretary sat down.
‘Why didn’t you sit down before?’ asked Mr Boffin, distrustfully. ‘I hope that wasn’t pride? But about these wages. Now, I’ve gone into the matter, and I say two hundred a year. What do you think of it? Do you think it’s enough?’
‘Thank you. It is a fair proposal.’
‘I don’t say, you know,’ Mr Boffin stipulated, ‘but what it may be more than enough. And I’ll tell you why, Rokesmith. A man of property, like me, is bound to consider the market-price. At first I didn’t enter into that as much as I might have done; but I’ve got acquainted with other men of property since, and I’ve got acquainted with the duties of property. I mustn’t go putting the market-price up, because money may happen not to be an object with me. A sheep is worth so much in the market, and I ought to give it and no more. A secretary is worth so much in the market, and I ought to give it and no more. However, I don’t mind stretching a point with you.’
‘Mr Boffin, you are very good,’ replied the Secretary, with an effort.
‘Then we put the figure,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘at two hundred a year. Then the figure’s disposed of. Now, there must be no misunderstanding regarding what I buy for two hundred a year. If I pay for a sheep, I buy it out and out. Similarly, if I pay for a secretary, I buyhimout and out.’
‘In other words, you purchase my whole time?’
‘Certainly I do. Look here,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘it ain’t that I want to occupy your whole time; you can take up a book for a minute or two when you’ve nothing better to do, though I think you’ll a’most always find something useful to do. But I want to keep you in attendance. It’s convenient to have you at all times ready on the premises. Therefore, betwixt your breakfast and your supper,—on the premises I expect to find you.’
The Secretary bowed.
‘In bygone days, when I was in service myself,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘I couldn’t go cutting about at my will and pleasure, and you won’t expect to go cutting about at your will and pleasure. You’ve rather got into a habit of that, lately; but perhaps it was for want of a right specification betwixt us. Now, let there be a right specification betwixt us, and let it be this. If you want leave, ask for it.’
Again the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and astonished, and showed a sense of humiliation.
‘I’ll have a bell,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘hung from this room to yours, and when I want you, I’ll touch it. I don’t call to mind that I have anything more to say at the present moment.’
The Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. Bella’s eyes followed him to the door, lighted on Mr Boffin complacently thrown back in his easy chair, and drooped over her book.
‘I have let that chap, that young man of mine,’ said Mr Boffin, taking a trot up and down the room, ‘get above his work. It won’t do. I must have him down a peg. A man of property owes a duty to other men of property, and must look sharp after his inferiors.’
Bella felt that Mrs Boffin was not comfortable, and that the eyes of that good creature sought to discover from her face what attention she had given to this discourse, and what impression it had made upon her. For which reason Bella’s eyes drooped more engrossedly over her book, and she turned the page with an air of profound absorption in it.
‘Noddy,’ said Mrs Boffin, after thoughtfully pausing in her work.
‘My dear,’ returned the Golden Dustman, stopping short in his trot.
‘Excuse my putting it to you, Noddy, but now really! Haven’t you been a little strict with Mr Rokesmith to-night? Haven’t you been a little—just a little little—not quite like your old self?’
‘Why, old woman, I hope so,’ returned Mr Boffin, cheerfully, if not boastfully.
‘Hope so, deary?’
‘Our old selves wouldn’t do here, old lady. Haven’t you found that out yet? Our old selves would be fit for nothing here but to be robbed and imposed upon. Our old selves weren’t people of fortune; our new selves are; it’s a great difference.’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly to draw a long breath and to look at the fire. ‘A great difference.’
‘And we must be up to the difference,’ pursued her husband; ‘we must be equal to the change; that’s what we must be. We’ve got to hold our own now, against everybody (for everybody’s hand is stretched out to be dipped into our pockets), and we have got to recollect that money makes money, as well as makes everything else.’
‘Mentioning recollecting,’ said Mrs Boffin, with her work abandoned, her eyes upon the fire, and her chin upon her hand, ‘do you recollect, Noddy, how you said to Mr Rokesmith when he first came to see us at the Bower, and you engaged him—how you said to him that if it had pleased Heaven to send John Harmon to his fortune safe, we could have been content with the one Mound which was our legacy, and should never have wanted the rest?’
‘Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn’t tried what it was to have the rest then. Our new shoes had come home, but we hadn’t put ’em on. We’re wearing ’em now, we’re wearing ’em, and must step out accordingly.’
Mrs Boffin took up her work again, and plied her needle in silence.
‘As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine,’ said Mr Boffin, dropping his voice and glancing towards the door with an apprehension of being overheard by some eavesdropper there, ‘it’s the same with him as with the footmen. I have found out that you must either scrunch them, or let them scrunch you. If you ain’t imperious with ’em, they won’t believe in your being any better than themselves, if as good, after the stories (lies mostly) that they have heard of your beginnings. There’s nothing betwixt stiffening yourself up, and throwing yourself away; take my word for that, old lady.’
Bella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him under her eyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion, covetousness, and conceit, overshadowing the once open face.
‘Hows’ever,’ said he, ‘this isn’t entertaining to Miss Bella. Is it, Bella?’
A deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pensively abstracted air, as if her mind were full of her book, and she had not heard a single word!
‘Hah! Better employed than to attend to it,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘That’s right, that’s right. Especially as you have no call to be told how to value yourself, my dear.’
Colouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, ‘I hope sir, you don’t think me vain?’
‘Not a bit, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘But I think it’s very creditable in you, at your age, to be so well up with the pace of the world, and to know what to go in for. You are right. Go in for money, my love. Money’s the article. You’ll make money of your good looks, and of the money Mrs Boffin and me will have the pleasure of settling upon you, and you’ll live and die rich. That’s the state to live and die in!’ said Mr Boffin, in an unctuous manner. ‘R—r—rich!’
There was an expression of distress in Mrs Boffin’s face, as, after watching her husband’s, she turned to their adopted girl, and said:
‘Don’t mind him, Bella, my dear.’
‘Eh?’ cried Mr Boffin. ‘What! Not mind him?’
‘I don’t mean that,’ said Mrs Boffin, with a worried look, ‘but I mean, don’t believe him to be anything but good and generous, Bella, because he is the best of men. No, I must say that much, Noddy. You are always the best of men.’
She made the declaration as if he were objecting to it: which assuredly he was not in any way.
‘And as to you, my dear Bella,’ said Mrs Boffin, still with that distressed expression, ‘he is so much attached to you, whatever he says, that your own father has not a truer interest in you and can hardly like you better than he does.’
‘Says too!’ cried Mr Boffin. ‘Whatever he says! Why, I say so, openly. Give me a kiss, my dear child, in saying Good Night, and let me confirm what my old lady tells you. I am very fond of you, my dear, and I am entirely of your mind, and you and I will take care that you shall be rich. These good looks of yours (which you have some right to be vain of; my dear, though you are not, you know) are worth money, and you shall make money of ’em. The money you will have, will be worth money, and you shall make money of that too. There’s a golden ball at your feet. Good night, my dear.’
Somehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance and this prospect as she might have been. Somehow, when she put her arms round Mrs Boffin’s neck and said Good Night, she derived a sense of unworthiness from the still anxious face of that good woman and her obvious wish to excuse her husband. ‘Why, what need to excuse him?’ thought Bella, sitting down in her own room. ‘What he said was very sensible, I am sure, and very true, I am sure. It is only what I often say to myself. Don’t I like it then? No, I don’t like it, and, though he is my liberal benefactor, I disparage him for it. Then pray,’ said Bella, sternly putting the question to herself in the looking-glass as usual, ‘what do you mean by this, you inconsistent little Beast?’
The looking-glass preserving a discreet ministerial silence when thus called upon for explanation, Bella went to bed with a weariness upon her spirit which was more than the weariness of want of sleep. And again in the morning, she looked for the cloud, and for the deepening of the cloud, upon the Golden Dustman’s face.
She had begun by this time to be his frequent companion in his morning strolls about the streets, and it was at this time that he made her a party to his engaging in a curious pursuit. Having been hard at work in one dull enclosure all his life, he had a child’s delight in looking at shops. It had been one of the first novelties and pleasures of his freedom, and was equally the delight of his wife. For many years their only walks in London had been taken on Sundays when the shops were shut; and when every day in the week became their holiday, they derived an enjoyment from the variety and fancy and beauty of the display in the windows, which seemed incapable of exhaustion. As if the principal streets were a great Theatre and the play were childishly new to them, Mr and Mrs Boffin, from the beginning of Bella’s intimacy in their house, had been constantly in the front row, charmed with all they saw and applauding vigorously. But now, Mr Boffin’s interest began to centre in book-shops; and more than that—for that of itself would not have been much—in one exceptional kind of book.
0446m
‘Look in here, my dear,’ Mr Boffin would say, checking Bella’s arm at a bookseller’s window; ‘you can read at sight, and your eyes are as sharp as they’re bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if you see any book about a Miser.’
If Bella saw such a book, Mr Boffin would instantly dart in and buy it. And still, as if they had not found it, they would seek out another book-shop, and Mr Boffin would say, ‘Now, look well all round, my dear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any Lives of odd characters who may have been Misers.’
Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the greatest attention, while Mr Boffin would examine her face. The moment she pointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric personages, Anecdotes of strange characters, Records of remarkable individuals, or anything to that purpose, Mr Boffin’s countenance would light up, and he would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, price, quality, were of no account. Any book that seemed to promise a chance of miserly biography, Mr Boffin purchased without a moment’s delay and carried home. Happening to be informed by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register was devoted to ‘Characters’, Mr Boffin at once bought a whole set of that ingenious compilation, and began to carry it home piecemeal, confiding a volume to Bella, and bearing three himself. The completion of this labour occupied them about a fortnight. When the task was done, Mr Boffin, with his appetite for Misers whetted instead of satiated, began to look out again.
It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, and an understanding was established between her and Mr Boffin that she was always to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after morning they roamed about the town together, pursuing this singular research. Miserly literature not being abundant, the proportion of failures to successes may have been as a hundred to one; still Mr Boffin, never wearied, remained as avaricious for misers as he had been at the first onset. It was curious that Bella never saw the books about the house, nor did she ever hear from Mr Boffin one word of reference to their contents. He seemed to save up his Misers as they had saved up their money. As they had been greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so he was greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond all doubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella very clearly noticed, that, as he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records with the ardour of Don Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began to spend his money with a more sparing hand. And often when he came out of a shop with some new account of one of those wretched lunatics, she would almost shrink from the sly dry chuckle with which he would take her arm again and trot away. It did not appear that Mrs Boffin knew of this taste. He made no allusion to it, except in the morning walks when he and Bella were always alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that he took her into his confidence by implication, and partly in remembrance of Mrs Boffin’s anxious face that night, held the same reserve.
While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs Lammle made the discovery that Bella had a fascinating influence over her. The Lammles, originally presented by the dear Veneerings, visited the Boffins on all grand occasions, and Mrs Lammle had not previously found this out; but now the knowledge came upon her all at once. It was a most extraordinary thing (she said to Mrs Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the power of beauty, but it wasn’t altogether that; she never had been able to resist a natural grace of manner, but it wasn’t altogether that; it was more than that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree to which she was captivated by this charming girl.
This charming girl having the words repeated to her by Mrs Boffin (who was proud of her being admired, and would have done anything to give her pleasure), naturally recognized in Mrs Lammle a woman of penetration and taste. Responding to the sentiments, by being very gracious to Mrs Lammle, she gave that lady the means of so improving her opportunity, as that the captivation became reciprocal, though always wearing an appearance of greater sobriety on Bella’s part than on the enthusiastic Sophronia’s. Howbeit, they were so much together that, for a time, the Boffin chariot held Mrs Lammle oftener than Mrs Boffin: a preference of which the latter worthy soul was not in the least jealous, placidly remarking, ‘Mrs Lammle is a younger companion for her than I am, and Lor! she’s more fashionable.’
But between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there was this one difference, among many others, that Bella was in no danger of being captivated by Alfred. She distrusted and disliked him. Indeed, her perception was so quick, and her observation so sharp, that after all she mistrusted his wife too, though with her giddy vanity and wilfulness she squeezed the mistrust away into a corner of her mind, and blocked it up there.
Mrs Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella’s making a good match. Mrs Lammle said, in a sportive way, she really must show her beautiful Bella what kind of wealthy creatures she and Alfred had on hand, who would as one man fall at her feet enslaved. Fitting occasion made, Mrs Lammle accordingly produced the most passable of those feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose gentlemen who were always lounging in and out of the City on questions of the Bourse and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three-quarters and seven-eighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to Bella as if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred horse, well-built drag, and remarkable pipe. But without the least effect, though even Mr Fledgeby’s attractions were cast into the scale.
‘I fear, Bella dear,’ said Mrs Lammle one day in the chariot, ‘that you will be very hard to please.’
‘I don’t expect to be pleased, dear,’ said Bella, with a languid turn of her eyes.
‘Truly, my love,’ returned Sophronia, shaking her head, and smiling her best smile, ‘it would not be very easy to find a man worthy of your attractions.’
‘The question is not a man, my dear,’ said Bella, coolly, ‘but an establishment.’
‘My love,’ returned Mrs Lammle, ‘your prudence amazes me—wheredidyou study life so well!—you are right. In such a case as yours, the object is a fitting establishment. You could not descend to an inadequate one from Mr Boffin’s house, and even if your beauty alone could not command it, it is to be assumed that Mr and Mrs Boffin will—’
‘Oh! they have already,’ Bella interposed.
‘No! Have they really?’
A little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken precipitately, and withal a little defiant of her own vexation, Bella determined not to retreat.
‘That is to say,’ she explained, ‘they have told me they mean to portion me as their adopted child, if you mean that. But don’t mention it.’
‘Mention it!’ replied Mrs Lammle, as if she were full of awakened feeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. ‘Men-tion it!’
‘I don’t mind telling you, Mrs Lammle—’ Bella began again.
‘My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella.’
With a little short, petulant ‘Oh!’ Bella complied. ‘Oh!—Sophronia then—I don’t mind telling you, Sophronia, that I am convinced I have no heart, as people call it; and that I think that sort of thing is nonsense.’
‘Brave girl!’ murmured Mrs Lammle.
‘And so,’ pursued Bella, ‘as to seeking to please myself, I don’t; except in the one respect I have mentioned. I am indifferent otherwise.’
‘But you can’t help pleasing, Bella,’ said Mrs Lammle, rallying her with an arch look and her best smile, ‘you can’t help making a proud and an admiring husband. You may not care to please yourself, and you may not care to please him, but you are not a free agent as to pleasing: you are forced to do that, in spite of yourself, my dear; so it may be a question whether you may not as well please yourself too, if you can.’
Now, the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon proving that she actually did please in spite of herself. She had a misgiving that she was doing wrong—though she had an indistinct foreshadowing that some harm might come of it thereafter, she little thought what consequences it would really bring about—but she went on with her confidence.
‘Don’t talk of pleasing in spite of one’s self, dear,’ said Bella. ‘I have had enough of that.’
‘Ay?’ cried Mrs Lammle. ‘Am I already corroborated, Bella?’
‘Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. Don’t ask me about it.’
This plainly meaning Do ask me about it, Mrs Lammle did as she was requested.
‘Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr has been inconveniently attracted to the charming skirts, and with difficulty shaken off?’
‘Provoking indeed,’ said Bella, ‘and no burr to boast of! But don’t ask me.’
‘Shall I guess?’
‘You would never guess. What would you say to our Secretary?’
‘My dear! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and down the back stairs, and is never seen!’
‘I don’t know about his creeping up and down the back stairs,’ said Bella, rather contemptuously, ‘further than knowing that he does no such thing; and as to his never being seen, I should be content never to have seen him, though he is quite as visible as you are. But I pleasedhim(for my sins) and he had the presumption to tell me so.’
‘The man never made a declaration to you, my dear Bella!’
‘Are you sure of that, Sophronia?’ said Bella. ‘I am not. In fact, I am sure of the contrary.’
‘The man must be mad,’ said Mrs Lammle, with a kind of resignation.
‘He appeared to be in his senses,’ returned Bella, tossing her head, ‘and he had plenty to say for himself. I told him my opinion of his declaration and his conduct, and dismissed him. Of course this has all been very inconvenient to me, and very disagreeable. It has remained a secret, however. That word reminds me to observe, Sophronia, that I have glided on into telling you the secret, and that I rely upon you never to mention it.’
‘Mention it!’ repeated Mrs Lammle with her former feeling. ‘Men-tion it!’
This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it necessary to bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. A Judas order of kiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella’s hand after giving it, ‘Upon your own showing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by the doting folly of a dustman, I need have no relenting towardsyou. If my husband, who sends me here, should form any schemes for makingyoua victim, I should certainly not cross him again.’ In those very same moments, Bella was thinking, ‘Why am I always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart?’
As usual, there was no answer in the looking-glass when she got home and referred these questions to it. Perhaps if she had consulted some better oracle, the result might have been more satisfactory; but she did not, and all things consequent marched the march before them.
On one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr Boffin, she felt very inquisitive, and that was the question whether the Secretary watched him too, and followed the sure and steady change in him, as she did? Her very limited intercourse with Mr Rokesmith rendered this hard to find out. Their communication now, at no time extended beyond the preservation of commonplace appearances before Mr and Mrs Boffin; and if Bella and the Secretary were ever left alone together by any chance, he immediately withdrew. She consulted his face when she could do so covertly, as she worked or read, and could make nothing of it. He looked subdued; but he had acquired a strong command of feature, and, whenever Mr Boffin spoke to him in Bella’s presence, or whatever revelation of himself Mr Boffin made, the Secretary’s face changed no more than a wall. A slightly knitted brow, that expressed nothing but an almost mechanical attention, and a compression of the mouth, that might have been a guard against a scornful smile—these she saw from morning to night, from day to day, from week to week, monotonous, unvarying, set, as in a piece of sculpture.
The worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly—and most provokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in her impetuous little manner—that her observation of Mr Boffin involved a continual observation of Mr Rokesmith. ‘Won’tthatextract a look from him?’—‘Can it be possiblethatmakes no impression on him?’ Such questions Bella would propose to herself, often as many times in a day as there were hours in it. Impossible to know. Always the same fixed face.
‘Can he be so base as to sell his very nature for two hundred a year?’ Bella would think. And then, ‘But why not? It’s a mere question of price with others besides him. I suppose I would sell mine, if I could get enough for it.’ And so she would come round again to the war with herself.
A kind of illegibility, though a different kind, stole over Mr Boffin’s face. Its old simplicity of expression got masked by a certain craftiness that assimilated even his good-humour to itself. His very smile was cunning, as if he had been studying smiles among the portraits of his misers. Saving an occasional burst of impatience, or coarse assertion of his mastery, his good-humour remained to him, but it had now a sordid alloy of distrust; and though his eyes should twinkle and all his face should laugh, he would sit holding himself in his own arms, as if he had an inclination to hoard himself up, and must always grudgingly stand on the defensive.
What with taking heed of these two faces, and what with feeling conscious that the stealthy occupation must set some mark on her own, Bella soon began to think that there was not a candid or a natural face among them all but Mrs Boffin’s. None the less because it was far less radiant than of yore, faithfully reflecting in its anxiety and regret every line of change in the Golden Dustman’s.
‘Rokesmith,’ said Mr Boffin one evening when they were all in his room again, and he and the Secretary had been going over some accounts, ‘I am spending too much money. Or leastways, you are spending too much for me.’
‘You are rich, sir.’
‘I am not,’ said Mr Boffin.
The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary that he lied. But it brought no change of expression into the set face.
‘I tell you I am not rich,’ repeated Mr Boffin, ‘and I won’t have it.’
‘You are not rich, sir?’ repeated the Secretary, in measured words.
‘Well,’ returned Mr Boffin, ‘if I am, that’s my business. I am not going to spend at this rate, to please you, or anybody. You wouldn’t like it, if it was your money.’
‘Even in that impossible case, sir, I—’
‘Hold your tongue!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘You oughtn’t to like it in any case. There! I didn’t mean to be rude, but you put me out so, and after all I’m master. I didn’t intend to tell you to hold your tongue. I beg your pardon. Don’t hold your tongue. Only, don’t contradict. Did you ever come across the life of Mr Elwes?’ referring to his favourite subject at last.
‘The miser?’
‘Ah, people called him a miser. People are always calling other people something. Did you ever read about him?’
‘I think so.’
‘He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought me twice over. Did you ever hear of Daniel Dancer?’
‘Another miser? Yes.’
‘He was a good ’un,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and he had a sister worthy of him. They never called themselves rich neither. If theyhadcalled themselves rich, most likely they wouldn’t have been so.’
‘They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, sir?’
‘No, I don’t know that they did,’ said Mr Boffin, curtly.
‘Then they are not the Misers I mean. Those abject wretches—’
‘Don’t call names, Rokesmith,’ said Mr Boffin.
‘—That exemplary brother and sister—lived and died in the foulest and filthiest degradation.’
‘They pleased themselves,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and I suppose they could have done no more if they had spent their money. But however, I ain’t going to fling mine away. Keep the expenses down. The fact is, you ain’t enough here, Rokesmith. It wants constant attention in the littlest things. Some of us will be dying in a workhouse next.’
‘As the persons you have cited,’ quietly remarked the Secretary, ‘thought they would, if I remember, sir.’
‘And very creditable in ’em too,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Very independent in ’em! But never mind them just now. Have you given notice to quit your lodgings?’
‘Under your direction, I have, sir.’
‘Then I tell you what,’ said Mr Boffin; ‘pay the quarter’s rent—pay the quarter’s rent, it’ll be the cheapest thing in the end—and come here at once, so that you may be always on the spot, day and night, and keep the expenses down. You’ll charge the quarter’s rent to me, and we must try and save it somewhere. You’ve got some lovely furniture; haven’t you?’
‘The furniture in my rooms is my own.’
‘Then we shan’t have to buy any for you. In case you was to think it,’ said Mr Boffin, with a look of peculiar shrewdness, ‘so honourably independent in you as to make it a relief to your mind, to make that furniture over to me in the light of a set-off against the quarter’s rent, why ease your mind, ease your mind. I don’t ask it, but I won’t stand in your way if you should consider it due to yourself. As to your room, choose any empty room at the top of the house.’
‘Any empty room will do for me,’ said the Secretary.
‘You can take your pick,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and it’ll be as good as eight or ten shillings a week added to your income. I won’t deduct for it; I look to you to make it up handsomely by keeping the expenses down. Now, if you’ll show a light, I’ll come to your office-room and dispose of a letter or two.’
On that clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin’s, Bella had seen such traces of a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being held, that she had not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were left alone. Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until her busy hand was stopped by Mrs Boffin’s hand being lightly laid upon it. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul’s lips, and felt a tear fall on it.
‘Oh, my loved husband!’ said Mrs Boffin. ‘This is hard to see and hear. But my dear Bella, believe me that in spite of all the change in him, he is the best of men.’
He came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand comfortingly between her own.
‘Eh?’ said he, mistrustfully looking in at the door. ‘What’s she telling you?’
‘She is only praising you, sir,’ said Bella.
‘Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for standing on my own defence against a crew of plunderers, who could suck me dry by driblets? Not blaming me for getting a little hoard together?’
He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon his shoulder, and shook her head as she laid it on her hands.
‘There, there, there!’ urged Mr Boffin, not unkindly. ‘Don’t take on, old lady.’
‘But I can’t bear to see you so, my dear.’
‘Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, we must scrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must hold our own. Recollect, money makes money. Don’t you be uneasy, Bella, my child; don’t you be doubtful. The more I save, the more you shall have.’
Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing with her affectionate face on his shoulder; for there was a cunning light in his eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a disagreeable illumination on the change in him, and make it morally uglier.
It had come to pass that Mr Silas Wegg now rarely attended the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, at his (the worm’s and minion’s) own house, but lay under general instructions to await him within a certain margin of hours at the Bower. Mr Wegg took this arrangement in great dudgeon, because the appointed hours were evening hours, and those he considered precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it was quite in character, he bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart who had trampled on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his literary man.
The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr Boffin next appeared in a cab with Rollin’s Ancient History, which valuable work being found to possess lethargic properties, broke down, at about the period when the whole of the army of Alexander the Macedonian (at that time about forty thousand strong) burst into tears simultaneously, on his being taken with a shivering fit after bathing. The Wars of the Jews, likewise languishing under Mr Wegg’s generalship, Mr Boffin arrived in another cab with Plutarch: whose Lives he found in the sequel extremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not expect him to believe them all. What to believe, in the course of his reading, was Mr Boffin’s chief literary difficulty indeed; for some time he was divided in his mind between half, all, or none; at length, when he decided, as a moderate man, to compound with half, the question still remained, which half? And that stumbling-block he never got over.
One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond the confines of geography—one evening the usual time passed by, and no patron appeared. After half an hour’s grace, Mr Wegg proceeded to the outer gate, and there executed a whistle, conveying to Mr Venus, if perchance within hearing, the tidings of his being at home and disengaged. Forth from the shelter of a neighbouring wall, Mr Venus then emerged.
‘Brother in arms,’ said Mr Wegg, in excellent spirits, ‘welcome!’
In return, Mr Venus gave him a rather dry good evening.
‘Walk in, brother,’ said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘and take your seat in my chimley corner; for what says the ballad?
“No malice to dread, sir,And no falsehood to fear,But truth to delight me, Mr Venus,And I forgot what to cheer.Li toddle de om dee.And something to guide,My ain fireside, sir,My ain fireside.”’
With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spirit than the words), Mr Wegg conducted his guest to his hearth.
‘And you come, brother,’ said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, ‘you come like I don’t know what—exactly like it—I shouldn’t know you from it—shedding a halo all around you.’
‘What kind of halo?’ asked Mr Venus.
‘’Ope sir,’ replied Silas. ‘That’syourhalo.’
Mr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather discontentedly at the fire.
‘We’ll devote the evening, brother,’ exclaimed Wegg, ‘to prosecute our friendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing wine-cup—which I allude to brewing rum and water—we’ll pledge one another. For what says the Poet?
“And you needn’t, Mr Venus, be your black bottle,For surely I’ll be mine,And we’ll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which you’re partial,For auld lang syne.”’
This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observation of some little querulousness on the part of Venus.
‘Why, as to the friendly move,’ observed the last-named gentleman, rubbing his knees peevishly, ‘one of my objections to it is, that itdon’tmove.’
‘Rome, brother,’ returned Wegg: ‘a city which (it may not be generally known) originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in Imperial marble: wasn’t built in a day.’
‘Did I say it was?’ asked Venus.
‘No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired.’
‘But I do say,’ proceeded Venus, ‘that I am taken from among my trophies of anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human warious for mere coal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up.’
‘No, sir!’ remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. ‘No, Sir!
“Charge, Chester, charge,On, Mr Venus, on!”
Never say die, sir! A man of your mark!’
‘It’s not so much saying it that I object to,’ returned Mr Venus, ‘as doing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can’t afford to waste my time on groping for nothing in cinders.’
‘But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,’ urged Wegg. ‘Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do they come to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, and feelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires the whole framework of society—I allude to the human skelinton—you to give in so soon!’
‘I don’t like it,’ returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head between his knees and stuck up his dusty hair. ‘And there’s no encouragement to go on.’
‘Not them Mounds without,’ said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand with an air of solemn reasoning, ‘encouragement? Not them Mounds now looking down upon us?’
‘They’re too big,’ grumbled Venus. ‘What’s a scratch here and a scrape there, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them. Besides; what have we found?’
‘Whathavewe found?’ cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce. ‘Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade, whatmaywe find? There you’ll grant me. Anything.’
‘I don’t like it,’ pettishly returned Venus as before. ‘I came into it without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn’t your own Mr Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn’t he well acquainted with the deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation of finding anything?’
At that moment wheels were heard.
‘Now, I should be loth,’ said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury, ‘to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this time of night. And yet it sounds like him.’
A ring at the yard bell.
‘It is him,’ said Mr Wegg, ‘and he is capable of it. I am sorry, because I could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment of respect for him.’
Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, ‘Halloa! Wegg! Halloa!’
‘Keep your seat, Mr Venus,’ said Wegg. ‘He may not stop.’ And then called out, ‘Halloa, sir! Halloa! I’m with you directly, sir! Half a minute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!’ And so with a show of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with a light, and there, through the window of a cab, descried Mr Boffin inside, blocked up with books.
‘Here! lend a hand, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin excitedly, ‘I can’t get out till the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in a cab-full of wollumes. Do you know him?’
‘Know the Animal Register, sir?’ returned the Impostor, who had caught the name imperfectly. ‘For a trifling wager, I think I could find any Animal in him, blindfold, Mr Boffin.’
‘And here’s Kirby’s Wonderful Museum,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and Caulfield’s Characters, and Wilson’s. Such Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I must have one or two of the best of ’em to-night. It’s amazing what places they used to put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that pile of wollumes, Wegg, or it’ll bulge out and burst into the mud. Is there anyone about, to help?’
‘There’s a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending the evening with me when I gave you up—much against my will—for the night.’
‘Call him out,’ cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; ‘get him to bear a hand. Don’t drop that one under your arm. It’s Dancer. Him and his sister made pies of a dead sheep they found when they were out a walking. Where’s your friend? Oh, here’s your friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg and myself with these books? But don’t take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark, nor yet Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I’ll carry them myself.’
Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, Mr Boffin directed the removal and arrangement of the books, appearing to be in some sort beside himself until they were all deposited on the floor, and the cab was dismissed.
‘There!’ said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. ‘There they are, like the four-and-twenty fiddlers—all of a row. Get on your spectacles, Wegg; I know where to find the best of ’em, and we’ll have a taste at once of what we have got before us. What’s your friend’s name?’
Mr Wegg presented his friend as Mr Venus.
‘Eh?’ cried Mr Boffin, catching at the name. ‘Of Clerkenwell?’
‘Of Clerkenwell, sir,’ said Mr Venus.
‘Why, I’ve heard of you,’ cried Mr Boffin, ‘I heard of you in the old man’s time. You knew him. Did you ever buy anything of him?’ With piercing eagerness.
‘No, sir,’ returned Venus.
‘But he showed you things; didn’t he?’
Mr Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative.
‘What did he show you?’ asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands behind him, and eagerly advancing his head. ‘Did he show you boxes, little cabinets, pocket-books, parcels, anything locked or sealed, anything tied up?’
Mr Venus shook his head.
‘Are you a judge of china?’
Mr Venus again shook his head.
‘Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to know of it,’ said Mr Boffin. And then, with his right hand at his lips, repeated thoughtfully, ‘a Teapot, a Teapot’, and glanced over the books on the floor, as if he knew there was something interesting connected with a teapot, somewhere among them.
Mr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and Mr Wegg, in fitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, over their rims, and tapped the side of his nose: as an admonition to Venus to keep himself generally wide awake.
‘A Teapot,’ repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the books; ‘a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, Wegg?’
‘I am at your service, sir,’ replied that gentleman, taking his usual seat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the table before it. ‘Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a seat beside me, sir, for the conveniency of snuffing the candles?’
Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, Silas pegged at him with his wooden leg, to call his particular attention to Mr Boffin standing musing before the fire, in the space between the two settles.
‘Hem! Ahem!’ coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer’s attention. ‘Would you wish to commence with an Animal, sir—from the Register?’
‘No,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘no, Wegg.’ With that, producing a little book from his breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to the literary gentlemen, and inquired, ‘What do you call that, Wegg?’
‘This, sir,’ replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to the title-page, ‘is Merryweather’s Lives and Anecdotes of Misers. Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles a little nearer, sir?’ This to have a special opportunity of bestowing a stare upon his comrade.
‘Which of ’em have you got in that lot?’ asked Mr Boffin. ‘Can you find out pretty easy?’
‘Well, sir,’ replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly fluttering the leaves of the book, ‘I should say they must be pretty well all here, sir; here’s a large assortment, sir; my eye catches John Overs, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr Jones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer—’
‘Give us Dancer, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin.
With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the place.
‘Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter, “His birth and estate. His garments and outward appearance. Miss Dancer and her feminine graces. The Miser’s Mansion. The finding of a treasure. The Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser’s Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser’s cur. Griffiths and his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a Fire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a Shirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill—”’
‘Eh? What’s that?’ demanded Mr Boffin.
‘“The Treasures,” sir,’ repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, ‘“of a Dunghill.” Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?’ This, to secure attention to his adding with his lips only, ‘Mounds!’
Mr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and said, seating himself and slyly rubbing his hands:
‘Give us Dancer.’
Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its various phases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer’s death on a sick regimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer’s keeping his rags together with a hayband, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down to the consolatory incident of his dying naked in a sack. After which he read on as follows:
‘“The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, and which at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes, was a most miserable, decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more than half a century.”’
(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had not been repaired for a long time.)
‘“But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very rich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole contents; and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into the miser’s secret hoards.”’
(Here Mr Wegg repeated ‘secret hoards’, and pegged his comrade again.)
‘“One of Mr Dancer’s richest escretoires was found to be a dungheap in the cowhouse; a sum but little short of two thousand five hundred pounds was contained in this rich piece of manure; and in an old jacket, carefully tied, and strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notes and gold were found five hundred pounds more.”’
(Here Mr Wegg’s wooden leg started forward under the table, and slowly elevated itself as he read on.)
‘“Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half-guineas; and at different times on searching the corners of the house they found various parcels of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices of the wall”’;
(Here Mr Venus looked at the wall.)
‘“Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the chairs”’;
(Here Mr Venus looked under himself on the settle.)
‘“Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; and notes amounting to six hundred pounds were found neatly doubled up in the inside of an old teapot. In the stable the Captain found jugs full of old dollars and shillings. The chimney was not left unsearched, and paid very well for the trouble; for in nineteen different holes, all filled with soot, were found various sums of money, amounting together to more than two hundred pounds.”’
On the way to this crisis Mr Wegg’s wooden leg had gradually elevated itself more and more, and he had nudged Mr Venus with his opposite elbow deeper and deeper, until at length the preservation of his balance became incompatible with the two actions, and he now dropped over sideways upon that gentleman, squeezing him against the settle’s edge. Nor did either of the two, for some few seconds, make any effort to recover himself; both remaining in a kind of pecuniary swoon.
But the sight of Mr Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging himself, with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. Counterfeiting a sneeze to cover their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic ‘Tish-ho!’ pulled himself and Mr Venus up in a masterly manner.
‘Let’s have some more,’ said Mr Boffin, hungrily.
‘John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasure to take John Elwes?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Let’s hear what John did.’
He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed away gold and silver in a pickle-pot in a clock-case, a canister-full of treasure in a hole under her stairs, and a quantity of money in an old rat-trap, revived the interest. To her succeeded another lady, claiming to be a pauper, whose wealth was found wrapped up in little scraps of paper and old rag. To her, another lady, apple-woman by trade, who had saved a fortune of ten thousand pounds and hidden it ‘here and there, in cracks and corners, behind bricks and under the flooring.’ To her, a French gentleman, who had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment of its drawing powers, ‘a leather valise, containing twenty thousand francs, gold coins, and a large quantity of precious stones,’ as discovered by a chimneysweep after his death. By these steps Mr Wegg arrived at a concluding instance of the human Magpie:
‘Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old couple of the name of Jardine: they had two sons: the father was a perfect miser, and at his death one thousand guineas were discovered secreted in his bed. The two sons grew up as parsimonious as their sire. When about twenty years of age, they commenced business at Cambridge as drapers, and they continued there until their death. The establishment of the Messrs Jardine was the most dirty of all the shops in Cambridge. Customers seldom went in to purchase, except perhaps out of curiosity. The brothers were most disreputable-looking beings; for, although surrounded with gay apparel as their staple in trade, they wore the most filthy rags themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, to save the expense of one, always slept on a bundle of packing-cloths under the counter. In their housekeeping they were penurious in the extreme. A joint of meat did not grace their board for twenty years. Yet when the first of the brothers died, the other, much to his surprise, found large sums of money which had been secreted even from him.’
‘There!’ cried Mr Boffin. ‘Even from him, you see! There was only two of ’em, and yet one of ’em hid from the other.’
Mr Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman, had been stooping to peer up the chimney, had his attention recalled by the last sentence, and took the liberty of repeating it.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Mr Boffin, turning suddenly.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Do you like what Wegg’s been a-reading?’
Mr Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting.
‘Then come again,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and hear some more. Come when you like; come the day after to-morrow, half an hour sooner. There’s plenty more; there’s no end to it.’
Mr Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted the invitation.
‘It’s wonderful what’s been hid, at one time and another,’ said Mr Boffin, ruminating; ‘truly wonderful.’
‘Meaning sir,’ observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw him out, and with another peg at his friend and brother, ‘in the way of money?’
‘Money,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Ah! And papers.’
Mr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr Venus, and again recovering himself, masked his emotions with a sneeze.
‘Tish-ho! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, sir?’
‘Hidden and forgot,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Why the bookseller that sold me the Wonderful Museum—where’s the Wonderful Museum?’ He was on his knees on the floor in a moment, groping eagerly among the books.
‘Can I assist you, sir?’ asked Wegg.
‘No, I have got it; here it is,’ said Mr Boffin, dusting it with the sleeve of his coat. ‘Wollume four. I know it was the fourth wollume, that the bookseller read it to me out of. Look for it, Wegg.’
Silas took the book and turned the leaves.
‘Remarkable petrefaction, sir?’
‘No, that’s not it,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘It can’t have been a petrefaction.’
‘Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking Rushlight, sir? With portrait?’
‘No, nor yet him,’ said Mr Boffin.
‘Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown-piece, sir?’
‘To hide it?’ asked Mr Boffin.
‘Why, no, sir,’ replied Wegg, consulting the text, ‘it appears to have been done by accident. Oh! This next must be it. “Singular discovery of a will, lost twenty-one years.”’
‘That’s it!’ cried Mr Boffin. ‘Read that.’
‘“A most extraordinary case,”’ read Silas Wegg aloud, ‘“was tried at the last Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It was briefly this. Robert Baldwin, in March 1782, made his will, in which he devised the lands now in question, to the children of his youngest son; soon after which his faculties failed him, and he became altogether childish and died, above eighty years old. The defendant, the eldest son, immediately afterwards gave out that his father had destroyed the will; and no will being found, he entered into possession of the lands in question, and so matters remained for twenty-one years, the whole family during all that time believing that the father had died without a will. But after twenty-one years the defendant’s wife died, and he very soon afterwards, at the age of seventy-eight, married a very young woman: which caused some anxiety to his two sons, whose poignant expressions of this feeling so exasperated their father, that he in his resentment executed a will to disinherit his eldest son, and in his fit of anger showed it to his second son, who instantly determined to get at it, and destroy it, in order to preserve the property to his brother. With this view, he broke open his father’s desk, where he found—not his father’s will which he sought after, but the will of his grandfather, which was then altogether forgotten in the family.”’
‘There!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘See what men put away and forget, or mean to destroy, and don’t!’ He then added in a slow tone, ‘As—ton—ish—ing!’ And as he rolled his eyes all round the room, Wegg and Venus likewise rolled their eyes all round the room. And then Wegg, singly, fixed his eyes on Mr Boffin looking at the fire again; as if he had a mind to spring upon him and demand his thoughts or his life.
‘However, time’s up for to-night,’ said Mr Boffin, waving his hand after a silence. ‘More, the day after to-morrow. Range the books upon the shelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr Venus will be so kind as help you.’
While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat, and struggled with some object there that was too large to be got out easily. What was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when this object at last emerging, proved to be a much-dilapidated dark lantern!
Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument, Mr Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of matches, deliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindled match, and cast the end into the fire. ‘I’m going, Wegg,’ he then announced, ‘to take a turn about the place and round the yard. I don’t want you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds—thousands—of such turns in our time together.’
‘But I couldn’t think, sir—not on any account, I couldn’t,’—Wegg was politely beginning, when Mr Boffin, who had risen and was going towards the door, stopped:
‘I have told you that I don’t want you, Wegg.’
Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred to his mind until he now brought it to bear on the circumstance. He had nothing for it but to let Mr Boffin go out and shut the door behind him. But, the instant he was on the other side of it, Wegg clutched Venus with both hands, and said in a choking whisper, as if he were being strangled:
‘Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn’t be lost sight of for a moment.’
‘Why mustn’t he?’ asked Venus, also strangling.
‘Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits when you come in to-night. I’ve found something.’
‘What have you found?’ asked Venus, clutching him with both hands, so that they stood interlocked like a couple of preposterous gladiators.
‘There’s no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look for it. We must have an eye upon him instantly.’
Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, and peeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of the Mounds made the dark yard darker. ‘If not a double swindler,’ whispered Wegg, ‘why a dark lantern? We could have seen what he was about, if he had carried a light one. Softly, this way.’
Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of crockery set in ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear him at his peculiar trot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. ‘He knows the place by heart,’ muttered Silas, ‘and don’t need to turn his lantern on, confound him!’ But he did turn it on, almost in that same instant, and flashed its light upon the first of the Mounds.
‘Is that the spot?’ asked Venus in a whisper.
‘He’s warm,’ said Silas in the same tone. ‘He’s precious warm. He’s close. I think he must be going to look for it. What’s that he’s got in his hand?’
‘A shovel,’ answered Venus. ‘And he knows how to use it, remember, fifty times as well as either of us.’
‘If he looks for it and misses it, partner,’ suggested Wegg, ‘what shall we do?’
‘First of all, wait till he does,’ said Venus.
Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the mound turned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on once more, and was seen standing at the foot of the second mound, slowly raising the lantern little by little until he held it up at arm’s length, as if he were examining the condition of the whole surface.
‘That can’t be the spot too?’ said Venus.
‘No,’ said Wegg, ‘he’s getting cold.’
‘It strikes me,’ whispered Venus, ‘that he wants to find out whether any one has been groping about there.’
‘Hush!’ returned Wegg, ‘he’s getting colder and colder.—Now he’s freezing!’
This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off again, and on again, and being visible at the foot of the third mound.