unconscious though it might have been--to her own trials awoke
this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can
strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one
source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!
By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle
light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy
intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and
say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them
at a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they
stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they
went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near
them. Their evening walk was by a river's side. Here, every
night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded;
but feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences
Page 170
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
and trusts together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to
bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, and found mutual
consolation. It was a weak fancy perhaps, the childish fancy of a
young and lonely creature; but night after night, and still the
sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child followed
with a mild and softened heart.
She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that
Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the
effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its
present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for
all announcements connected with public amusements are well known
to be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut
up next day.
'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.
'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley. 'That'll inform you.'
And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it
was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the
wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been
disappointed in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be
continued for one week longer, and would re-open next day.
'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers
exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and
they want stimulating.'
Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself
behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished
effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open
for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But
the first day's operations were by no means of a successful
character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested
a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen
satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any
impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head. Thus,
notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the
entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with
great perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ
played and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were
kind enough to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition
in the like manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by
half the population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were
relieved by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was
any the richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at
all encouraging.
In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made
extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the
popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the
leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the
figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great
admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way,
who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the
degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of
the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great
eloquence and morality. The two carters constantly passed in and
out of the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting
aloud that the sight was better worth the money than anything they
had beheld in all their lives, and urging the bystanders, with
tears in their eyes, not to neglect such a brilliant gratification.
Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon
till night, and solemnly calling upon the crowd to take notice that
Page 171
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
the price of admission was only sixpence, and that the departure of
the whole collection, on a short tour among the Crowned Heads of
Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.
'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the
close of every such address. 'Remember that this is Jarley's
stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that
it is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters
and deceptions. Be in time, be in time, be in time!'
CHAPTER 33
As the course of this tale requires that we should become
acquainted, somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected
with the domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more
convenient place than the present is not likely to occur for that
purpose, the historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and
springing with him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater
rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar
travelled through that pleasant region in company, alights with him
upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.
The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the
residence of Mr Sampson Brass.
In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close
upon the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the
dim glass with his coat sleeve--much to its improvement, for it is
very dirty--in this parlour window in the days of its occupation
by Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured
by the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long
service as by no means to intercept the view of the little dark
room, but rather to afford a favourable medium through which to
observe it accurately. There was not much to look at. A rickety
table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long
carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a
couple of stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy
piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place,
whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to
squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository for
blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the
sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged
> to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common
books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted
hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with
the tightness of desperation to its tacks--these, with the yellow
wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and
cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of
Mr Sampson Brass.
But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the
plate, 'BRASS, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First
floor to let to a single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker.
The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to
the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest
and more particular concern.
Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in
these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper,
secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of
Page 172
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
cost increaser, Miss Brass--a kind of amazon at common law, of
whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.
Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts,
of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it
repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a
distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts
of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In
face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson--so
exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted
with Miss Brass's maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have
assumed her brother's clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him,
it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to
determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady
carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which,
if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been
mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability,
nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss
Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies. In
complexion Miss Brass was sallow--rather a dirty sallow, so to
speak--but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow
which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice
was exceedingly impressive--deep and rich in quality, and, once
heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in
colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to
the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened
behind by a peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no
doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss
Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was
invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of
the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened
to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.
Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and
vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with
uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations
upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively
through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it
commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great
intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where
practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross,
fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in
short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a
skin of parchment or mending a pen. It is difficult to understand
how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain
Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind,
or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by
fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her
fingers' ends those particular statutes which regulate what are
familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was
still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her
old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally
certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great
many people had come to the ground.
One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal
process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if
he were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it
was directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new
pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her
favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time,
until Miss Brass broke silence.
'Have you nearly done, Sammy?' said Miss Brass; for in her mild and
Page 173
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened
down.
'No,' returned her brother. 'It would have been all done though,
if you had helped at the right time.'
'Oh yes, indeed,' cried Miss Sally; 'you want my help, don't you? --
YOU, too, that are going to keep a clerk!'
'Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my
own wish, you provoking rascal!' said Mr Brass, putting his pen in
his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister. 'What do you
taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?'
It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling
a lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that
he was so habituated to having her near him in a man's capacity,
that he had gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though
she were really a man. And this feeling was so perfectly
reciprocal, that not only did Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a
rascal, or even put an adjective before the rascal, but Miss Brass
looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was as little moved
as any other lady would be by being called an angel.
'What do you taunt me, after three hours' talk last night, with
going to keep a clerk for?' repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with
the pen in his mouth, like some nobleman's or gentleman's crest.
Is it my fault?'
'All I know is,' said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted
in nothing so much as irritating her brother, 'that if every one of
your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or
not, you had better leave off business, strike yourself off the
roll, and get taken in execution, as soon as you can.'
'Have we got any other client like him?' said Brass. 'Have we got
another client like him now--will you answer me that?'
'Do you mean in the face!' said his sister.
'Do I mean in the face!' sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to
take up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly. 'Look
here--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--
Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp,
Esquire--all through. Whether should I take a clerk that he
recommends, and says, "this is the man for you," or lose all this,
eh?'
Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on
with her work.
'But I know what it is,' resumed Brass after a short silence.
'You're afraid you won't have as long a finger in the business as
you've been used to have. Do you think I don't see through that?'
'The business wouldn't go on very long, I expect, without me,'
returned his sister composedly. 'Don't you be a fool and provoke
me, Sammy, but mind what you're doing, and do it.'
Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister,
sulkily bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:
'If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he
wouldn't be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don't
talk nonsense.'
Page 174
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely
remarking, under his breath, that he didn't like that kind of
joking, and that Miss Sally would be 'a much better fellow' if she
forbore to aggravate him. To this compliment Miss Sally replied,
that she had a relish for the amusement, and had no intention to
forego its gratification. Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to
pursue the subject any further, they both plied their pens at a
great pace, and there the discussion ended.
While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as
by some person standing close against it. As Mr Brass and Miss
Sally looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly
lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.
'Hallo!' he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and
looking down into the room. 'is there anybody at home? Is there
any of the Devil's ware here? Is Brass at a premium, eh?'
'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy. 'Oh, very
good, Sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what
humour he has!'
'Is that my Sally?' croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass.
'Is it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword
and scales? Is it the Strong Arm of the Law? Is it the Virgin of
Bevis?'
'What an amazing flow of spirits!' cried Brass. 'Upon my word,
The Old Curiosity Shop Page 35
