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article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a

great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and

leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather,

even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be

others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and

this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one

most in vogue.

CHAPTER 7

'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller, 'remember the once popular melody of Begone

dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of

friendship; and pass the rosy wine.'

Mr Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury

Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the

advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled to

procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the

staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a

snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller made use of the

expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his

desponding friend; and it may not be uninteresting or improper to

remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of

the figurative and poetical character of Mr Swiveller's mind, as the

rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water,

which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon

the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of

tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller's was a bachelor's establishment, may

be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single

chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged

times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as 'apartments'

for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up the hint, never

failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers,

conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving

their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at

pleasure.

In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece

of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which

occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy

suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr

Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and

nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the

existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts.

No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to

its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most

intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article

of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all

circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and

repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he

cherished it.

'Fred!' said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been

productive of no effect. 'Pass the rosy.'

Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and

fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly

roused.

'I'll give you, Fred,' said his friend, stirring the mixture, 'a little

sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the--'

'Pshaw!' interposed the other. 'You worry me to death with your

chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.'

'Why, Mr Trent,' returned Dick, 'there is a proverb which talks about

being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can't

be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can't be

merry. I'm one of the first sort. If the proverb's a good 'un, I

suppose it's better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I'd

rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t'other.'

'Bah!' muttered his friend, peevishly.

'With all my heart,' said Mr Swiveller. 'In the polite circles I

believe this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own

apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,' adding to this

retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be

rather 'cranky' in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the

rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in

which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an

imaginary company.

'Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family

of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular--Mr

Richard, gentlemen,' said Dick with great emphasis, 'who spends all his

money on his friends and is Bah!'d for his pains. Hear, hear!'

'Dick!' said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the

room twice or thrice, 'will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I

show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?'

'You've shown me so many,' returned Dick; 'and nothing has come of any

one of 'em but empty pockets--'

'You'll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is

over,' said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. 'You saw my

sister Nell?'

'What about her?' returned Dick.

'She has a pretty face, has she not?'

'Why, certainly,' replied Dick. 'I must say for her that there's not

any very strong family likeness between her and you.'

'Has she a pretty face,' repeated his friend impatiently.

'Yes,' said Dick, 'she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of

that?'

'I'll tell you,' returned his friend. 'It's very plain that the old man

and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I

have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?'

'A bat might see that, with the sun shining,' said Dick.

'It's equally plain that the money which the old flint--rot him--first

taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all

be hers, is it not?'

'I should said it was,' replied Dick; 'unless the way in which I put

the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was

powerful, Fred. 'Here is a jolly old grandfather'--that was strong, I

thought--very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?'

'It didn't strike him,' returned the other, 'so we needn't discuss it.

Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.'

'Fine girl of her age, but small,' observed Richard Swiveller

parenthetically.

'If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,' returned Trent, fretting

at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation.

'Now I'm coming to the point.'

'That's right,' said Dick.

'The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may,

at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand,

I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to

my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme

would take a week to tell) what's to prevent your marrying her?'

Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler

while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great

energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he

evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the

monosyllable:

'What!'

'I say, what's to prevent,' repeated the other with a steadiness of

manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured

by long experience, 'what's to prevent your marrying her?'

'And she "nearly fourteen"!' cried Dick.

'I don't mean marrying her now'--returned the brother angrily; 'say in

two year's time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a

long-liver?'

'He don't look like it,' said Dick shaking his head, 'but these old

people--there's no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mine down in

Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and

hasn't kept her word yet. They're so aggravating, so unprincipled, so

spiteful--unless there's apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can't

calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as often as

not.'

'Look at the worst side of the question then,' said Trent as steadily

as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. 'Suppose he lives.'

'To be sure,' said Dick. 'There's the rub.'

'I say,' resumed his friend, 'suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if

the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with

you. What do you think would come of that?'

'A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep 'em on,' said

Richard Swiveller after some reflection.

'I tell you,' returned the other with an increased earnestness, which,

whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion,

'that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound

up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of

disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of

obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do

it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he

chooses.'

'It seems improbable certainly,' said Dick, musing.

'It seems improbable because it is improbable,' his friend returned.

'If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you,

let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between

you and me--let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of

course--and he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will

wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is

concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That

you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks,

that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a

beautiful young wife.'

'I suppose there's no doubt about his being rich'--said Dick.

'Doubt! Did you hear what he let fall the other day when we were

there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?'

It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful

windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of

Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity,

interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to

look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other

inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition

stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these

impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had

long been accustomed to exercise over him--an ascendancy exerted in the

beginning sorely at the expense of his friend's vices, and was in nine

cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter when he was

indeed nothing but his thoughtless, light-headed tool.

The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which

Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to

their own development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation

was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of

stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to

marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could

be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by

a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying 'Come in.'

The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a

strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop

downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a

servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs

had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter

she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception

of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.

Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction,

and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it

was one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it was

very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten

her.

'Her. Who?' demanded Trent.

'Sophy Wackles,' said Dick.

'Who's she?'

'She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is,' said Mr

Swiveller, taking a long pull at 'the rosy' and looking gravely at his

friend. 'She's lovely, she's divine. You know her.'

'I remember,' said his companion carelessly. 'What of her?'

'Why, sir,' returned Dick, 'between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble

individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender

sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and

inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase,

is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell

you that.'

'Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say?' demanded his

friend; 'you don't mean to say that any love-making has been going on?'

'Love-making, yes. Promising, no,' said Dick. 'There can be no action

for breach, that's one comfort. I've never committed myself in writing,

Fred.'

'And what's in the letter, pray?'