第 81 页

two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of

fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into a corner. Her brother

Sampson under such circumstances would certainly have evinced some

confusion or anxiety, but she--all composure--pulled out the tin box,

and calmly took a pinch of snuff.

'Miss Brass,' said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, 'we

professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can say

what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway

servant, the other day?'

'Well,' returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her

features, 'what of that?'

'She is found, ma'am,' said the Notary, pulling out his

pocket-handkerchief with a flourish. 'She is found.'

'Who found her?' demanded Sarah hastily.

'We did, ma'am--we three. Only last night, or you would have heard

from us before.'

'And now I have heard from you,' said Miss Brass, folding her arms as

though she were about to deny something to the death, 'what have you

got to say? Something you have got into your heads about her, of

course. Prove it, will you--that's all. Prove it. You have found

her, you say. I can tell you (if you don't know it) that you have

found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was

ever born.--Have you got her here?' she added, looking sharply round.

'No, she is not here at present,' returned the Notary. 'But she is

quite safe.'

'Ha!' cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as

spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small

servant's nose; 'she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant

you.'

'I hope so,' replied the Notary. 'Did it occur to you for the first

time, when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your

kitchen door?'

Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side, looked

at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but

with a cunning aspect of immense expression.

'Two keys,' repeated the Notary; 'one of which gave her the

opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed

her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential

consultations--among others, that particular conference, to be

described to-day before a justice, which you will have an opportunity

of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr Brass held

together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young

man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I will only

say that it may be characterised by the epithets which you have applied

to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones besides.'

Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonderfully composed,

it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what

she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small

servant, was something very different from this.

'Come, come, Miss Brass,' said the Notary, 'you have great command of

feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your

imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must

be brought to justice. Now, you know the pains and penalties you are

liable to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to

make to you. You have the honour of being sister to one of the

greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady,

you are in every respect quite worthy of him. But connected with you

two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover

of the whole diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either.

For his sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history

of this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so, at our instance,

will place you in a safe and comfortable position--your present one is

not desirable--and cannot injure your brother; for against him and you

we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear) already. I will not

say to you that we suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the

truth, we do not entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity

to which we are reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the

very best policy. Time,' said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, 'in

a business like this, is exceedingly precious. Favour us with your

decision as speedily as possible, ma'am.'

With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by turns,

Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this

time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her

forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having disposed of this

likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said,--

'I am to accept or reject at once, am I?'

'Yes,' said Mr Witherden.

The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the

door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust

into the room.

'Excuse me,' said the gentleman hastily. 'Wait a bit!'

So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence

occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as

servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.

'Sarah,' said Brass, 'hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak.

Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three

such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think

you would hardly believe me. But though I am unfortunate--nay,

gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company

like this--still, I have my feelings like other men. I have heard of a

poet, who remarked that feelings were the common lot of all. If he

could have been a pig, gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he

would still have been immortal.'

'If you're not an idiot,' said Miss Brass harshly, 'hold your peace.'

'Sarah, my dear,' returned her brother, 'thank you. But I know what I

am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself

accordingly. Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of

your pocket--would you allow me to--,

As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from

him with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his usual

prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one

eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with

a pitiful smile.

'He shuns me,' said Sampson, 'even when I would, as I may say, heap

coals of fire upon his head. Well! Ah! But I am a falling house, and

the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a

gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me!

Gentlemen--regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see my

sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, and

being--may I venture to say?--naturally of a suspicious turn, followed

her. Since then, I have been listening.'

'If you're not mad,' interposed Miss Sally, 'stop there, and say no

more.'

'Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, 'I thank

you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr Witherden, sir, as we have the

honour to be members of the same profession--to say nothing of that

other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may

say, of the hospitality of my roof--I think you might have given me the

refusal of this offer in the first instance. I do indeed. Now, my

dear Sir,' cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt

him, 'suffer me to speak, I beg.'

Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.

'If you will do me the favour,' he said, holding up the green shade,

and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, 'to look at this, you

will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it. If you

look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the

cause of all these scratches. And if from them to my hat, how it came

into the state in which you see it. Gentlemen,' said Brass, striking

the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, 'to all these questions I

answer--Quilp!'

The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.

'I say,' pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he were

talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling malignity, in

violent contrast to his usual smoothness, 'that I answer to all these

questions,--Quilp--Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den, and

takes a delight in looking on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn,

and bruise, and maim myself--Quilp, who never once, no never once, in

all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a

dog--Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so

much as lately. He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter as

if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to

propose it. I can't trust him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing

humours, I believe he'd let it out, if it was murder, and never think

of himself so long as he could terrify me. Now,' said Brass, picking

up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually

crouching down, in the excess of his servility, 'what does all this

lead to?--what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?--could you guess

at all near the mark?'

Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had

propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:

'To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has

come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there's no standing up

against--and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its

way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms

and that, we're not always over and above glad to see it--I had better

turn upon this man than let this man turn upon me. It's clear to me

that I am done for. Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be

the person and have the advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively

speaking you're safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.'

With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story;

bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making

himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though

subject--he acknowledged--to human weaknesses. He concluded thus:

'Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being in

for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound. You

must do with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you

wish to have this in writing, we'll reduce it into manuscript

immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I am quite

confident you will be tender with me. You are men of honour, and have

feeling hearts. I yielded from necessity to Quilp, for though

necessity has no law, she has her lawyers. I yield to you from

necessity too; from policy besides; and because of feelings that have

been a pretty long time working within me. Punish Quilp, gentlemen.

Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him down. Tread him under foot. He has

done as much by me, for many and many a day.'

Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked

the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only

parasites and cowards can.

'And this,' said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had

hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot

with a bitter sneer, 'this is my brother, is it! This is my brother,

that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something

of the man in him!'

'Sarah, my dear,' returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; 'you

disturb our friends. Besides you--you're disappointed, Sarah, and, not

knowing what you say, expose yourself.'

'Yes, you pitiful dastard,' retorted the lovely damsel, 'I understand

you. You feared that I should be beforehand with you. But do you

think that I would have been enticed to say a word! I'd have scorned

it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty years.'

'He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to

have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any

spark of manliness he might have possessed. 'You think so, Sarah, you

think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good

fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with

Foxey--our revered father, gentlemen--"Always suspect everybody."

That's the maxim to go through life with! If you were not actually

about to purchase your own safety when I showed myself, I suspect you'd

have done it by this time. And therefore I've done it myself, and

spared you the trouble as well as the shame. The shame, gentlemen,'

added Brass, allowing himself to be slightly overcome, 'if there is

any, is mine. It's better that a female should be spared it.'

With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more particularly

to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with

humility, whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter

gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is always a prudent one,

or attended in practice with the desired results. This is, beyond

question, a bold and presumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished

characters, called men of the world, long-headed customers, knowing

dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands at business, and the like, have

made, and do daily make, this axiom their polar star and compass.

Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated. And in illustration it may