第 43 页

never knows what humour he'll find you in.'

'I'm in a working humour now,' said Sally, 'so don't disturb me, if you

please. And don't take him,' Miss Sally pointed with the feather of

her pen to Richard, 'off his business. He won't do more than he can

help, I dare say.'

Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but

was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered

something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms

with any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some

abstract ideas which happened to occur to him. They went on writing

for a long time in silence after this--in such a dull silence that Mr

Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep,

and written divers strange words in an unknown character with his eyes

shut, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the

office by pulling out the little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of

snuff, and then expressing her opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had

'done it.'

'Done what, ma'am?' said Richard.

'Do you know,' returned Miss Brass, 'that the lodger isn't up yet--

that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed

yesterday afternoon?'

'Well, ma'am,' said Dick, 'I suppose he may sleep his ten pound out, in

peace and quietness, if he likes.'

'Ah! I begin to think he'll never wake,' observed Miss Sally.

'It's a very remarkable circumstance,' said Brass, laying down his pen;

'really, very remarkable. Mr Richard, you'll remember, if this

gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the bed-post, or any

unpleasant accident of that kind should happen--you'll remember, Mr

Richard, that this ten pound note was given to you in part payment of

two years' rent? You'll bear that in mind, Mr Richard; you had better

make a note of it, sir, in case you should ever be called upon to give

evidence.'

Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance of

profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.

'We can never be too cautious,' said Mr Brass. 'There is a deal of

wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness. Did the

gentleman happen to say, Sir--but never mind that at present, sir;

finish that little memorandum first.'

Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his

stool, and was walking up and down the office.

'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye over

the document. 'Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say

anything else?'

'No.'

'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the gentleman

said nothing else?'

'Devil a word, Sir,' replied Dick.

'Think again, Sir,' said Brass; 'it's my duty, Sir, in the position in

which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession--the

first profession in this country, Sir, or in any other country, or in

any of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be

inhabited--it's my duty, Sir, as an honourable member of that

profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this

delicacy and importance. Did the gentleman, Sir, who took the first

floor of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of

property--a box of property--say anything more than is set down in this

memorandum?'

'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.

Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally again,

and still said 'No.'

'Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried

Brass, relaxing into a smile. 'Did he say anything about his

property?--there!'

'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother.

'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass, in a kind of comfortable, cozy

tone--'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to

refresh your memory--did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger

in London--that it was not his humour or within his ability to give any

references--that he felt we had a right to require them--and that, in

case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly

desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be

considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and

annoyance I should sustain--and were you, in short,' added Brass, still

more comfortably and cozily than before, 'were you induced to accept

him on my behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?'

'Certainly not,' replied Dick.

'Why then, Mr Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and

reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your calling,

and will never make a lawyer.'

'Not if you live a thousand years,' added Miss Sally. Whereupon the

brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin

box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.

Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller's dinner-time, which was at

three o'clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming. At the first

stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared. At the last stroke of

five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic, became fragrant

with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.

'Mr Richard,' said Brass, 'this man's not up yet. Nothing will wake

him, sir. What's to be done?'

'I should let him have his sleep out,' returned Dick.

'Sleep out!' cried Brass; 'why he has been asleep now, six-and-twenty

hours. We have been moving chests of drawers over his head, we have

knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have made the servant-girl

fall down stairs several times (she's a light weight, and it don't hurt

her much,) but nothing wakes him.'

'Perhaps a ladder,' suggested Dick, 'and getting in at the first-floor

window--'

'But then there's a door between; besides, the neighbours would be up

in arms,' said Brass.

'What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the

trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?' suggested Dick.

'That would be an excellent plan,' said Brass, 'if anybody would be--'

and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller--'would be kind, and

friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it. I dare say it would

not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.'

Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly

fall within Miss Sally's department. As he said nothing further, and

declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that they should

go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken the sleeper by

some less violent means, which, if they failed on this last trial, must

positively be succeeded by stronger measures. Mr Swiveller, assenting,

armed himself with his stool and the large ruler, and repaired with his

employer to the scene of action, where Miss Brass was already ringing a

hand-bell with all her might, and yet without producing the smallest

effect upon their mysterious lodger.

'There are his boots, Mr Richard!' said Brass.

'Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,' quoth Richard

Swiveller. And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of boots as

one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as if their

owner's legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with their broad

soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place by main force.

'I can't see anything but the curtain of the bed,' said Brass, applying

his eye to the keyhole of the door. 'Is he a strong man, Mr Richard?'

'Very,' answered Dick.

'It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to bounce

out suddenly,' said Brass. 'Keep the stairs clear. I should be more

than a match for him, of course, but I'm the master of the house, and

the laws of hospitality must be respected.--Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!'

While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole,

uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger's attention,

and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller put his stool

close against the wall by the side of the door, and mounting on the top

and standing bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he

would most probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent

battery with the ruler upon the upper panels of the door. Captivated

with his own ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position,

which he had taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who

open the pit and gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr

Swiveller rained down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the

bell was drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs

below, ready to fly at a moment's notice, was obliged to hold her ears

lest she should be rendered deaf for life.

Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently open.

The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived into her

own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for personal courage,

ran into the next street, and finding that nobody followed him, armed

with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his hands in his pockets,

walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.

Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into as

flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not

unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the door

growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the boots in his

hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down stairs on

speculation. This idea, however, he abandoned. He was turning into

his room again, still growling vengefully, when his eyes met those of

the watchful Richard.

'Have YOU been making that horrible noise?' said the single gentleman.

'I have been helping, sir,' returned Dick, keeping his eye upon him,

and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an indication of what

the single gentleman had to expect if he attempted any violence.

'How dare you then,' said the lodger, 'Eh?'

To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the lodger

held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of a gentleman

to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and whether the

peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to weigh as nothing in the

balance.

'Is my peace nothing?' said the single gentleman.

'Is their peace nothing, sir?' returned Dick. 'I don't wish to hold

out any threats, sir--indeed the law does not allow of threats, for to

threaten is an indictable offence--but if ever you do that again, take

care you're not sat upon by the coroner and buried in a cross road

before you wake. We have been distracted with fears that you were

dead, Sir,' said Dick, gently sliding to the ground, 'and the short and

the long of it is, that we cannot allow single gentlemen to come into

this establishment and sleep like double gentlemen without paying extra

for it.'

'Indeed!' cried the lodger.

'Yes, Sir, indeed,' returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and saying

whatever came uppermost; 'an equal quantity of slumber was never got

out of one bed and bedstead, and if you're going to sleep in that way,

you must pay for a double-bedded room.'

Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks, the

lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with

twinkling eyes. He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared

browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on. As it was

clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr Swiveller was

relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to encourage him in it,

smiled himself.

The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed his

nightcap very much on one side of his bald head. This gave him a

rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe it,

charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of propitiation, he

expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to get up, and further

that he would never do so any more.

'Come here, you impudent rascal!' was the lodger's answer as he

re-entered his room.

Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but reserving

the ruler in case of a surprise. He rather congratulated himself on

his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice or explanation

of any kind, double-locked the door.

'Can you drink anything?' was his next inquiry.

Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the pangs

of thirst, but that he was still open to 'a modest quencher,' if the

materials were at hand. Without another word spoken on either side,

the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of

polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.

Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him

closely. Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an egg;

into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw steak

from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water. Then, with

the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he procured a light and

applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place of its own below the

temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the little chambers; then he

opened them; and then, by some wonderful and unseen agency, the steak

was done, the egg was boiled, the coffee was accurately prepared, and

his breakfast was ready.

'Hot water--' said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as much