31

In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, Miss Brass took a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her pocket. Then she arose from her stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and taking them under her arm, marched out of the office.

“I am going out,” said Miss Brass.

“Very good, ma’am,” returned Dick.

“If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that Mr. Brass isn’t in at present, will you?” said Miss Brass.

“I will, ma’am,” replied Dick.

“I shan’t be very long,” said Miss Brass, retiring.

“I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am,” rejoined Dick when she had shut the door.

Mr. Swiveller sat down in the client’s chair and pondered; then took a few turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.

“So I’m Brass’s clerk, am I?” said Dick. “Brass’s clerk, eh? And the clerk of Brass’s sister, clerk to a female Dragon. Very good, very good! What shall I be next? Quilp offers me this place, Fred urges me to take it! My aunt in the country writes an affectionate note to say that she has made a new will. No money; no credit; no support from Fred!”

Suddenly a coach stopped near the door. After the knock, the door was opened, and somebody with went up the stairs and into the room above. Mr. Swiveller was wondering who this might be, when there came knuckles at the office-door.

“Come in!” said Dick. “Come in!”

“Oh, please,” said a little voice, “will you come and show the lodgings? The rent is eighteen shillings a week.”

Dick leant over the table, and descried a small girl in a dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and feet.

“Why, who are you?” said Dick.

To which the only reply was, “Oh, please will you come and show the lodgings?”

The girl seemed as much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.

“Are you a cook?” asked muttered Dick, rising.

“Yes, I do cooking;” replied the child. “I’m housemaid too; I do all the work of the house.”

Richard Swiveller, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business, hurried out to meet the visitor.

He was a little surprised to see a good-looking gentleman upstairs.

“I believe, sir,” said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth, “that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming apartments, sir. Their advantages are extraordinary.”

“What’s the rent?” said the single gentleman.

“One pound per week,” replied Dick, improving on the terms.

“I’ll take them. Two years. I shall live here for two years. Here. Ten pounds down.”

The gentleman, took off the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then pulled off his boots.

Then, he pulled down the window-blinds, drew the curtains, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed. He seemed to snore immediately.

“This is the most remarkable and supernatural house!” said Mr. Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.

32

Mr. Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much complacency and satisfaction, and was particularly glad to learn about the ten-pound note, which increased his good-humour considerably.

“Good-morning, Mr. Richard,” said Brass, on the second day of Mr. Swiveller’s clerkship. “Sally found you a second-hand stool, sir, yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She’s great at a bargain, I can tell you, Mr. Richard. It’s a wonderful stool, sir, take my word for it.”

“Better not to look at it,” said Dick.

“So don’t look, just sit!” returned Mr. Brass. “It was bought in the open street just opposite the hospital, and it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that’s all.”

“I hope it hasn’t got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,” said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr. Sampson and Sally. “One of the legs is longer than the others.”

“Then we have some timber, sir,” retorted Brass. “Ha, ha, ha! We get some timber, indeed, and that’s another advantage of my sister’s going to market for us!”

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, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the office by taking a noisy pinch of snuff.

33

The single gentleman who lived upstairs took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the exhibition of Punch. If the sound of a Punch’s voice reached his ears, the single gentleman, though in bed and asleep, stood up and hurried to watch the show.

One day lodger summoned the puppet-men upstairs.

“Both of you,” he called from the window; for only a little fat man prepared to obey the summons. “I want to talk to you. Come both of you!”

“Come, Tommy,” said the little man.

The exhibitors hurried to the single gentleman’s apartment.

“Now, my men,” said the single gentleman; “you have done very well. What will you drink? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.”

“Shut the door, can’t you?” said Mr. Codlin (it was himself).

Mr. Short obeyed. The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and offered them to be seated. “You’re pretty well browned by the sun, both of you,” said the gentleman. “Have you been travelling?”

Mr. Short replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile. Mr. Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan.

“To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?” pursued the single gentleman.

“Yes, sir,” returned Short, “all over the West of England.”

“You have seen many people, have you?”

“Quite a lot, sir, quite a lot.”

“What about an old man with a girl? Have you met this couple recently? Let me fill your glasses again.”

“Much obliged to you sir” said Mr. Codlin, turning Short’s aside. “An old man with a girl? Yes, we met them one day, they were traveling, pretending to be beggars. We parted at the races.”

“You are the two men I want,” said the gentleman, “the two men I have been looking for, and searching after! Where are that old man and that child now?”

“Sir?” said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.

“The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you, where are they? They left you, you say, at the races, as I understand. They have been traced to that place, and there lost sight of. Have you no clue, can you suggest no clue, to their recovery?”

“Did I always say, Thomas,” cried Short, turning with a look of amazement to his friend, “that there was sure to be an inquiry after those two travellers?”

“You said!” returned Mr. Codlin. “Did I always say that blessed child was the most interesting I had ever seen? Did I always say I loved her? Pretty creature, I think, I hear her now. ‘Codlin’s my friend,’ she says, with a tear of gratitude in her little eye; ‘Codlin’s my friend,’ she says ‘not Short. Short’s very well,’ she says; ‘I’ve no quarrel with Short; he is kind, I dare say; but Codlin is my best friend,’ she says.”

Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr. Codlin rubbed the bridge of his nose with his coat-sleeve.

“Good Heaven!” said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the room, “what can you say about them? Where to find them?”

“Stay a minute,” replied Mr. Short rapidly. “If you want we can bring you the man who knows about them,”

“Then bring him here,” said the single gentleman. “Here’s a sovereign. If I can find these people through your means, it is but a prelude to twenty more. Return to me tomorrow. Now, give me your address, and leave me.”

34

Now let us return to little Nell. Once she was wanderings in the evening time. She raised her eyes to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, found new stars burst upon her view. She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining.

The child sat silently beneath a tree. Every evening her grandfather was absent, and she stayed alone; and she knew well where he went, from the constant drain upon her scanty purse.

She sat meditating sorrowfully, when the distant church-clock bell struck nine. Nell stood up and turned towards the town.

She had gained a little wooden bridge, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy light. Some people had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and were sitting or lying round it. She was too poor to have any fear of them, and she did not alter her course.

When she approached the spot and glanced towards the fire, noticed her grandfather in a company of Jem Groves and gamesters.

“Well, are you going?” said a man from the ground where he was lying, looking into her grandfather’s face. “You were in a hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You’re your own master, I hope?”

“You keep me poor,” said the old man, turning from one to the other. “You drive me mad.”

“What do you mean?” said a stout man rising a little. “Keep you poor! You’d keep us poor if you could, wouldn’t you? You, pitiful players! When you lose, you’re martyrs; but when you win, you’re kings!” cried the fellow, raising his voice.

“If I had some coins more!” cried the old man.

“You’d win, I’m sure, believe me,” said Jem Groves.

The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then said:

“But what to do? Where can I get money to win? Don’t be violent with me. Help me.”

“Listen, sir,” said the gamester. “If you haven’t means enough to try your luck, help yourself. Borrow it, I say, and, when you’re able, pay it back again.”

“Certainly,” said another swindler, “if this good lady who keeps the wax-works has money, and keeps it in a tin box when she goes to bed, and doesn’t lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing to borrow some coins. Of course, she will have them back when you win, no doubts, we’re not thieves.”

“You see,” said his friend, drawing himself closer to the old man; “you see, I feel you will win for sure. You’re our dearest friend, you know, and I will help you to become a little richer. I act as a friend. It’s foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the welfare of other people, but that’s my constitution.”

“Why, it’s better to lose other people’s money than one’s own, I hope?”

“Ah!” cried Jem rapturously, “the pleasures of winning! The delight of picking up the money and sweeping them into one’s pocket! But you’re not going, old gentleman?”

“I’ll do it,” said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly. “I’ll have it, every penny.”

“Why, that’s brave,” cried the gamester, jumping up and slapping him on the shoulder; “so much young blood! When is the match? Tonight?”

“I must have the money first,” said the old man; “and that I’ll have tomorrow.”

“Why not tonight?”

“It’s late now,” said the old man. “No, tomorrow night.”

“Then tomorrow be it, good luck! You’ll win tomorrow, old gentleman!”

“God be merciful to us!” cried the child within herself, “and help us in this trying hour! What shall I do to save him?”

The old man then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew.

Nell went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed. But who could sleep! Who could lie passively down?